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Parrot snapped smoking a fag

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Smoking parrot in London

This unidentified parrot was caught smoking in London.
It's not known how long he has been smoking for but we all hope he quits the bad habit soon
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Have you seen this parrot before?
that 's ali 's parrot
i mean this one,you can see efforts of addiction in 2nd pic

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Fearless man dives 35ft into 1ft of water

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Fearless diver jumps 35ft into 1ft of water

Even Britain's hotshot young Olympian Tom Daley would never attempt these crazy dives
But Darren Taylor – or Professor Splash as he is better known – is not after gold medals.
His goal is to break world records – for landing in the least amount of water from the greatest height

The 47-year-old has fearlessly dived 10.5m (35ft) to land in just 30cm (1ft) of water.
Now on September 12 he is planning a world record attempt from 12m (40ft) live on American TV.
'I started diving at age four. I began competing at a national level at age 12, and turned pro at age 25,' said Taylor, of Denver, Colorado.
'I always was a high diver but I became involved in shallow-diving rather suddenly when I saw the potential to get in the record books.'
However, his first shallow dive in 2001 was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
'Thirty-three feet was the height of that first jump,' said the father of one.
'I jumped “out” instead of “up” and I landed in the front of the pool on my face! It hurt, and it did scare me.'
Now Taylor feels he has perfected the art – instead of jumping head first, he spreads his body as far and as wide as he can to distribute his weight and avoid injury.
'I become rock hard. I feel no pain,' he said.
And his tip for anyone crazy enough to emulate him? 'For your life's sake, jump straight up and jump out and stay completely focused on your “flight plan” – or it could lead to your death

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Why we won’t be going to work in Britain 2033

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Manchester as it is today

Once, visions of a futuristic society saw us getting to work using hover-cars or jetpacks – but the latest wave of seers say that soon we won't be commuting at all.
Research out today says the internet will lead to more of us working from home – putting an end to crowded trains and roads, office blocks and even the traditional night out

Seven out of ten workers already have a better work-life balance, 44 per cent work more from home and 18 per cent say head offices are dying out, a study by Microsoft Windows Mobile found.
Timo Veikkola, from The Future Laboratory which helped with the research, said Britain was leading the way, with 22 per cent of firms allowing staff to work flexibly.

Manchester in the future

He added: 'There will be a great social impact, with people spending less time socialising in the evening and more time out during the day.'
Instead of office spaces, the study says, cities will offer wi-fi hubs, while blocks that do remain will house leisure facilities, exhibition spaces and roof gardens

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Forget Gustav – here comes Hanna

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Hurricane Hanna on its way

Tropical storm Hanna bore down on the US on Wednesday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean.
The near-hurricane was gathering strength as it blew towards Florida after leaving 21 people dead and causing devastating flooding in Haiti

The city of Gonaives was cut off, with the UN saying: 'The situation is as bad as it can be.'
Meanwhile, residents of Gustav-hit New Orleans were told they could return to the battered – but relatively unscathed – city from today

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Cottage is a perfect fit for tiny tenant

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Cottage is a perfect fit for this tiny tenant
A tiny tenant has been found to move into one of Britain's smallest and oldest council houses.
Fay Laflin is just 1.52m (5ft) but can touch the ceilings of her new listed home – a Dutch cottage built in 1621.
The historic building in Rayleigh, Essex, is just 6m (20ft) wide and the freelance stage manager is expected to show visitors round every Wednesday

A tiny tenant has been found to move into one of Britain's smallest and oldest council houses.
Fay Laflin is just 1.52m (5ft) but can touch the ceilings of her new listed home – a Dutch cottage built in 1621.
The historic building in Rayleigh, Essex, is just 6m (20ft) wide and the freelance stage manager is expected to show visitors round every Wednesday.

But the upside is the rent is just £75 a week.
Miss Laflin, 33, said: 'It's compact and bijou but it's just such a beautiful place to live, it's really quirky
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bijou
something small, delicate, and exquisitely wrought
quirky
informal terms; strikingly unconventional

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Former sprinter released from prison

SAN ANTONIO (AP)—Disgraced sprinter Marion Jones was released Friday from federal prison after completing most of her six-month sentence for lying about her steroid use.
Jones left a halfway house in San Antonio around 8 a.m., said LaTanya Robinson, a community corrections manager for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Jones, who has a house in Austin, will remain on probation.
Jones’ attorney did not immediately respond to a call or e-mail from The Associated Press requesting comment.
The sprinter admitted last October that she used a designer steroid known as “the clear” from September 2000 to July 2001. The drug was linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab that became the center of a steroids scandal that touched numerous professional athletes, including baseball star Barry Bonds.
Her admission of drug use in 2007 came after years of denials.

In 2004, she sued the founder of BALCO for defamation after he said she used steroids. The lawsuit was settled the following year, long before she told the truth in a federal courtroom.
Jones gave back the three gold medals and two bronze medals she won at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney before the International Olympic Committee officially wiped her name from the record books in December.
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sprinter
a short race at full speed

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Romeo turns batty for birthday

Friday, September 5, 2008
Romeo Beckham celebrated his sixth birthday in style by turning into his favourite superhero and hosting a party fit for Hollywoods next generation of celebrities.
The second Beckham son powered through LA to Universal Studio's in his black Batman costume accompanied by his Power Ranger sidekick- his little brother Cruz Beckham.

Supermum Victoria and her equally heroic sons Cruise and Romeo

But not one to be taken from the spotlight, super-mum Victoria was in an equally powerful costume sporting an orange square fitted dress.
The group were joined by a host of A-list Hollywood children and their parents

Heidi Klum and Gwen Stefani's rocker husband Gavin Rossdale brought their kids to the theme park party as well as Ginger Spice Geri and her redhead two-year-old daughter Bluebell.
David missed the big do as he in training in England with the team
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spotlight
a strong, focused light thrown upon a particular spot, as on a small area of a stage or in a television studio, for making some object, person, or group especially conspicuous

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HOT OR NOT? Elle MacPherson vs Meg Mathews

By JESSICA SATHERLEY - Thursday, September 4, 2008
Metro has carefully chosen the best and worst dressed celebs this week to find out who has hit the fashion jack-pot and who has missed.
HOT
Elle Macpherson wasn't nicknamed 'The Body' for nothing, which means that pretty much anything she wears makes her look like a goddess.

Elle McPherson shows us how to look fabulous in your forties

This Herve Leger dress is no exception and the 44-year-old mum of two looks nothing less than ravishing as she flows down the red carpet at London's GQ awards.
The Aussie supermodel and lingerie designer looks effortlessly chic, making us grind our teeth with envy as she out shone stars half her age.
The pricey bandage dress, favoured by copious 'A listers', hugs the figure in all the right places for a tiny waist and jaw dropping cleavage.
The bronzed beauty garnished the ensemble with a matching maroon leather jacket and peep toe black stilettos to accentuate her Amazonian legs.
NOT
The former Mrs Noel Gallagher, usually seen shopping at Gucci seems to have swapped her high fashion couture for tacky couture.

Meg Mathews shocked us on the red carpet with tacky animal print

Meg Mathews must have forgotten to look in the mirror before she stepped out at the RocknRolla premiere this week in red leopard print pants, an overkill plunging neckline and heels that only belong in a strip club

The 42-year-old shows us what to avoid when worrying about looking like mutton dressed as lamb.
It just goes to show how two women, both in their 40's, can look so remarkably different depending on their outfit.
The party girl might have looked cute in animal print 20-years-ago but it's time for a new fad for her fabulous forties
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couture
the occupation of a couturier; dressmaking and designing
tacky
sticky to the touch ; adhesive

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Bhutto's widower wins presidency

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has won a sweeping victory in Pakistan's presidential election.
The election was called after Pervez Musharraf resigned rather than risk being impeached.
Mr Zardari faces severe economic problems and a rampant Islamist insurgency that are threatening Pakistan's stability.
During the voting, a bomb killed at least 30 people near Peshawar city.
The president is elected by secret ballots in the national and four provincial assemblies.
Mr Zardari won 481 votes out of 702, far more than the 352 votes that would have guaranteed him victory, leaving his two rivals trailing far behind.
In Sindh province, Mr Zardari won all 65 votes. In North West Frontier Province (NWFP) he got 56 out of the 65 votes. In Balochistan province he won 59 of the 65 votes.
By contrast he only won 22 out of 65 seats in Punjab province, the heartland of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's PML-N party.
The two daughters of Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto hugged friends in delight in the gallery of the national assembly as the results became clear. Members of Mr Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) declared the result to be a "victory for democracy".

Controversy

Mr Zardari was thrust into the centre of political power by the killing of Ms Bhutto last December after which he became head of the PPP

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says that in recent months Mr Zardari has shown skill by forging a large coalition and using it to peacefully unseat President Musharraf.
Mr Zardari is one of Pakistan's most controversial politicians.
For years he has been hounded by allegations of massive corruption - although he has never been convicted.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took his PML-N party out of the governing coalition last week, accusing Mr Zardari of breaking key promises.
Many in Pakistan fear the country is facing a return to an old-style politics of confrontation at a time when urgent action is needed to improve the economy and deal with a raging Islamist insurgency.

Juggling demands

Mr Zardari is seen as pro-Western and supportive of Washington's self-declared war on terror. He will have to juggle the demands of the United States, Pakistan's powerful army, and strong anti-American sentiment in the country.

Nawaz Sharif's coalition with Mr Zardari did not last long

Our correspondent says Mr Musharraf tried to do that and failed. She adds that Pakistanis hope that Asif Zardari will have more success, but they see little in his past to encourage them.
The fortunes of the Bhutto-Zardari family have fluctuated dramatically.
Mr Zardari spent years in prison while Gen Musharraf ruled Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at an election rally in December. Her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was hanged during the military dictatorship of President Ziaul Haq.
A further reminder of the dangers of public life in Pakistan came on Wednesday when gunmen attacked the motorcade of the prime minister. Two bullets hit his car, although he was not in it at the time officials say.
The other candidates for the presidency were Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, a former judge who had the backing of Mr Sharif, and Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who was nominated by the PML-Q party that supported Mr Musharraf.
In the Islamabad parliament, members of the upper house, the Senate, were due to vote first, followed by the lower house.
Pakistan's four provincial assemblies of Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and the NWFP had a similar schedule.
However, voting in the NWFP capital, Peshawar, was delayed when a 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit the area and neighbouring Afghanistan, prompting deputies to flee the assembly building.

The provincial assemblies are given equal weighting with 65 votes each. In the three assemblies which do not have 65 deputies, the value of each deputy's vote is adjusted by a mathematical formula.

There is only one round of voting and whoever has most of the 702 votes wins

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Guide to Harry Potter series banned

Monday, September 8, 2008

Win for JK Rowling

An unofficial guide to the Harry Potter book series must be scrapped after the author of the wizard's adventures won a copyright court case.
The Harry Potter Lexicon – a 400-page reference book on the hugely successful series – was banned by a US judge after JK Rowling argued it infringed her copyright in what she called a landmark case for authors.
Judge Robert Patterson agreed with the 43-year-old writer, saying the encyclopedic companion 'appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide'

He said independent book publisher RDR Books 'had failed to establish an affirmative defence of fair use' – and should stop work on the as yet unpublished guide.
It was written by Steve Vander Ark based on his Harry Potter fan website.
Denying claims of plagiarism, he claimed the book was intended to help readers and celebrate Rowling's work.
Warner Brothers, which owns the property rights to the Potter books, and Rowling, were awarded damages of £430 for each of the seven novels about the boy wizard and £3,888 for two companion books she wrote – Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them and Quidditch Through The Ages.
'Since the Lexicon has not been published and thus plaintiffs have suffered no harm beyond the fact of the infringement, the court awards plaintiffs the minimum awards for each work,' judge Patterson said at a hearing in New York