Hollywood Good

Nokia hopes, N8 able to provide competitive against their competitors and be able to lift back to Nokia which is like drowning in the middle of the smart phone market competition, although until now Nokia still leads the


Nokia announced that sales N8 until September. Nokia N8 is the first Nokia smart phones based on Symbian ^ 3 with various features, such as 12 megapixel camera, 3.5-inch screen capable of performing the touchscreen, and a powerful 680MHz processor.

In addition, the material used aluminum casing, making lightweight N8. Meanwhile, an HDMI port and also provided support for the format DivX / XviD for video player features.

Previously, as reported by GSMArena, quoted by CBN, Nokia announced that Nokia N8 will be officially released to the market on August 24 this year, however, these devices, according to Nokia needs a few touches, so the release postponed to late September.

Braai Day is a celebration of our great country and its unique national pastime. We spend more time braaing than we do most other pastimes and we do it because we love it. The day aims to unite all South Africans on 24 September by encouraging them to partake in a fun and tangible activity shared by all demographic groups, religious denominations and body types

OK so this is really icky but it is interesting to see how some cultures don't have the same reverence for the dead body that some of us do. I suppose ultimately it is a green way of doing things the ultimate in recycling!

Birds are encouraged to eat it, or nature may let it decompose. So the function of the sky burial is simply the disposal of the remains.  The preparation of  the body for this ritual is fairly simple and yet, rather gruesome: the flesh is stripped from the body with the bones being  broken up with sledgehammers and then fed to vultures.


While Communist China outlawed this practice in the 1960s, it was legalized again in the 1980s and is still being practiced today.

Delegates applaud president's tough line

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema suffered a major defeat yesterday as President Jacob Zuma stamped his authority on the ruling party and read the riot act to his detractors.

Zuma set the tone at the start of the ANC national general council meeting by going on the offensive. He slammed the youth league for its campaign for leadership changes in 2012 and its demand for the nationalisation of mines.

He also attacked Cosatu for demanding radical changes to the composition of the tripartite alliance, as well for as its role in the recent violent public-sector strike.

Malema had come to the NGC, in Durban, with the objective of launching a campaign to have ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe replaced by Deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula in 2012. The league is also known to be campaigning against Zuma standing for a second term as party leader.

But Zuma and Mantashe told delegates that the succession campaign could destroy the ruling party.

"Mobilising and lobbying for succession so early also gives a wrong impression that the ANC comprises groups of people who are preoccupied with fighting for influential positions to advance personal interests instead of advancing the programme of the organisation," Zuma said.

In his organisational report delivered later in the day, Mantashe was more scathing.

"An emerging perception is that daggers are always drawn and there is no political life other than vying for positions in the ANC .

"The way we handle each other publicly promotes this negative image and the ANC can ill afford to be in a state of lobbying from one conference to the next. The [ANC] pays heavily whenever there are public fights and bleeds profusely out of self-inflicted wounds."

Malema, who arrived at the conference hall late, when Zuma was already speaking, sat quietly as the president tore into the youth league and urged the NGC to take action against its leaders.

"It is clear that the time has come for the [ANC] to act. We must take a decision that those who engage in such activities are, in fact, undermining the organisation and its work, and, at worst, undermining the unity of the organisation. Action must be taken against them," Zuma said.

Malema's other objective ahead of the NGC was to convince delegates to expunge his disciplinary record relating to charges the ANC leadership brought against him earlier this year.

But if the massive applause of Zuma's insistence that the youth league was subordinate to ANC decisions is anything to go by, he has a mountain to climb.

"The ANC constitution clearly describes this relationship of the ANC with its own leagues . The ANC is not in alliance with its own leagues, nor are the leagues alliance partners of the ANC. They are structures of the organisation," he said.

A dejected youth league delegation held a caucus meeting during the lunch break at which its leaders argued that, despite Zuma's tirade and the obvious support he received from delegates, they should forge ahead with their mandate of lobbying for the adoption of nationalisation of mines as ANC policy.

Malema refused to comment on Zuma's remarks, saying the political report was still to be discussed by the NGC.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said it accepted the ANC's criticism and would discuss the matter when the two organisations met later this year.

It was time for Father John's Saturday night bath and young

Sister Magdalene Edwards had prepared the bath water and

towels just the way the old nun had instructed. Sister

Magdalene Edwards was also instructed not to look at Fr.

John's nakedness if she could help it, do whatever he told

her to do, and pray.

The next morning the old nun asked Sister Magdalene how the

Saturday night bath had done. "Oh, sister," said the young

nun dreamily. "I've been saved." "Saved? And how did that

fine thing come about?" asked the old nun. "Well, when Fr.

John was soaking in the tub, he asked me to wash him, and

while I was washing him he guided my hand down between his

legs where he said the Lord keeps the Key to Heaven."

"Did he now," said the old nun evenly. Sister Magdalene

continued, "And Fr. John said that if the Key to Heaven fit

my lock, the portals of Heaven would be opened to me and I

would be assured of salvation and eternal peace. And then

Father John guided his Key to Heaven into my lock."

"Is that a fact," said the old nun even more evenly. "At

first it hurt terribly, but Fr. John said the pathway to

salvation was often painful and that the glory of God would

soon swell my heart with ecstasy. And it did, it felt so

good being saved."

"That wicked old Devil," said the old nun. "He told me it

was Gabriel's Horn, and I've been blowing it for 40 years!"

I was testing children in my Glasgow Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting into heaven.

I asked them, “If I sold my house and my car, had a big jumble sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?”

“NO!” the children answered.

“If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the garden and kept everything tidy, would that get me into heaven?”

Again, the answer was ‘No!’

By now I was starting to smile.

“Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave sweeties to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into heaven?”

Again, they all answered ‘No!’

I was just bursting with pride for them.

I continued, “Then how can I get into heaven?”

A six year old boy shouted,

“Yuv goat tae be fookin’ deid”

Kinda brings a wee tear tae yir e’eye......

'Where do you get your energy from?," I ask Nadine Gordimer, Nobel laureate and lifelong fighter for freedom. This is probably a naff, ageist question, and I wonder how the 86-year-old, who has a reputation for intellectual rigour bordering on fierceness, will react. Happily, she is not insulted.

"Who knows where you get it from?" she says. "You must muster your resources and do what you have to do."

What she feels she has to do at the moment is oppose government's draconian proposals to muzzle the media. The proposed Protection of Information Bill and media tribunal are seen by critics as the greatest threat to press freedom since the apartheid era.

If passed, the measures would allow the government to ban the publication of material deemed detrimental to "the survival and security of the state". The catch-all phrase "national interest" would allow it to close down discussion of any topic which threatened to embarrass those in power. It is these proposals which have led Gordimer to don her campaign armour once more and go into battle against a government she believes may be about to reverse the democratic gains of the past two ­decades.

With fellow writer André Brink, she has drawn up a petition which has so far gathered eminent names such as award-winning novelist JM Coetzee, academic and writer Njabulo Ndebele and actor and playwright John Kani. The petition was formally presented to President Jacob Zuma two weeks ago and Gordimer hopes writers will be able to join the Bar Council and media organisations to build a concerted opposition to the proposals.

Does she find it ironic that, almost 20 years after helping to overturn apartheid, she now finds herself having to fight the government which replaced that hated system? "It is more than an irony," she says.

"People died in the freedom struggle and to think that having gained freedom at such a cost, it is now indeed threatened again. All writers are threatened by censorship and censorship is the reality lurking behind the words 'media tribunal'. We are protesting against the institution of a media tribunal, which of course means 'word police', not merely on our own behalf. Writing presupposes an interaction with readers.

"If the work and the freedom of the writer are in jeopardy, the freedom of every reader in South Africa is too. Our protest is an action undertaken by South Africans for all South Africans, committing ourselves to a demand for our free country: freedom of thought expressed, freedom of dialogue, freedom from fear of the truth about ourselves."

I ask whether she ever thought she would have to return to the fray in defence of basic democratic rights. "No, I never thought I would have to fight them [government] again," she says. "But this takes us back to some of the aspects of apartheid. It threatens the basis of democratic freedom. Freedom of expression, along with the vote, is the basis of democracy. That is the crux of it."

So, does it make her despair that a government, a new way of ordering life in South Africa, could go back to some of the bad old ways, fearful of openness and protective of privilege? "No, I don't despair. Life is so uncertain. All you can do is pursue your convictions of what is right. Your convictions don't change. I think now what I thought 20 years ago."

Gordimer accepts that the people who will be most affected if the government pursues its proposals are journalists. But she says creative writers, too, will suffer an insidious attack on their freedom: because they often rely on material unearthed by journalists, but also because their intellectual space becomes fenced in, their imagination chained.

"We, too, are threatened by the denial of freedom of the word, which is our form of expression of the lives of the people of South Africa. Journalists give us the facts, but in poetry and plays and novels there is a level of deep complexity and that would be confined within the forces of government. Our aim is to explore life."

In an essay titled "A Writer's Freedom", published at the height of apartheid in 1976 and reproduced in her recent book Telling Times, she explained why freedom -- from fashion and conformity as well as from government interference -- is vital.

"Any government, any society -- any vision of a future society -- that has respect for its writers must set them as free as possible to write in their own various ways, in their own choices of form and language and according to their own discovery of truth."

At the end of that essay, she quotes Ivan Turgenev: "Without freedom in the widest sense of the word ... a true artist is unthinkable; without that air, it is impossible to breathe."

Under apartheid, several of Gordimer's books were banned -- A World of Strangers (1958) for 12 years, The Late Bourgeois World (1966) for 10, and several other novels for shorter periods. But she refused to be cowed and remained in South Africa while many of her contemporaries left. "Exile," she once said, "is a terrible thing, even in comfort."

She played a prominent role in opposing censorship and helped found the Congress of South African Writers, but has always rejected the label of "political writer", fearing being seen as a propagandist or conformist. "You serve your cause best by telling that bit of truth that you have discovered, as you know it," she said in 2003.

Propagandists believe they have a monopoly on truth; writers recognise their own fallibility -- not "the truth", but the "truth as you know it". It is perhaps not the direct assault of the proposed new clampdown on writers' freedoms that she fears most, but its encouragement of a climate in which writers are denied what in her 1976 essay she calls a "private view".

In a world in which the government decides what can be published, what material threatens the national interest, writers have to take sides; they are forced to become political and can no longer be themselves.

Writing becomes a weapon, rather than an intellectual adventure.

Gordimer emphasises that her petition has attracted support from writers reflecting all parts of the population -- white, black, Indian, English and Afrikaans-speaking.

She is aware of the danger of the government painting her as a wealthy white writer out of touch with the new political realities in South Africa. She experienced that sort of pigeonholing in 2001, when her novel July's People, published in 1981 and imagining a civil war in South Africa, was labelled "racist" and banned by one provincial education department.

"Our protest has nothing to do with race or colour," she tells me.

When I ask whether these measures are being considered as a way of covering up corruption by government officials, Gordimer says she has to choose her words carefully.

"I must be careful of what I say. There is a great deal of corruption in high places and it is surely clear that these prospective laws would mean a protection for people who fear to be exposed."

One irony that does strike her is the use of the term "security of the state", a piece of Orwellian double-think if ever there was one.

"The government says that the basis on which these Bills would be introduced is protection of information that would endanger the security of the state," she says.

"We have no intention of endangering the security of the state. The muzzling of freedom of expression is in itself a threat to the security of the state and as writers and as citizens our intention is to demonstrate that." -- © Guardian News & Media 2010
Original Link http://www.mg.co.za/gordimer-gets-back-in-the-fray

Tax time questions

A woman walks into an accountant's office and tells him that she needs to file her taxes..

The accountant says, "Before we begin, I'll need to ask you a few questions."

He gets her name, address, Identity number, etc. and then asks,"What's your occupation?"

"I'm a prostitute," she says.

The accountant is somewhat taken aback and says, " Let's try to rephrase that."

The woman says, "OK, I'm a high-end call girl".

"No, that still won't work. Try again."

They both think for a minute; then the woman says, "I'm an elite chicken farmer."

The accountant asks, "What does chicken farming have to do with being a prostitute?"

"Well, I raised a thousand cocks last year."
"Chicken Farmer it is."

Endhiran Movie which is releasing in Hindi with name Robot will be a mega Movie hit no doubt about that.SouthIndian superstar Rajinikanth with Bollywood babe Aishwarya Rai acted in the film.The film shows a mixture of glamour and action.Have a watch on Endhiran Movie Photos and you will understand the truth.

Royal Show in Pietermaritzburg South Africa

The story is about Frank Judge #3 who was an inexperienced food critic, who was visiting from America.

Frank: "Recently, I was honoured to be selected as a judge at a Curry Cook-off. The original person called in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the judge's table asking for directions to the Beer Garden when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (Natal Indians) that the curry wouldn't be all that spicy and, besides, they told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted".

Here are the scorecard notes from the event:

CURRY # 1 - SEELAN'S MANIAC MONSTER TOMATO CURRY.

Judge # 1 -- A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.

Judge # 2-- Nice smooth tomato flavour. Very mild.

Judge # 3-- (Frank) -- Holy sh!t, what the hell is this stuff? You could remove dried paint from your driveway. Took me two beers to put the flames out. I hope that's the worst one. These people are crazy.

CHILLI #2 - PHOENIXBBQ CHICKEN CURRY.

Judge # 1-- Smoky, with a hint of chicken. Slight chilli tang.

Judge # 2 -- Exciting BBQ flavour, needs more peppers to be taken seriously.

Judge # 3-- Keep this out of the reach of children. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich manoeuvre! They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.

CURRY # 3 - SHAMILA'S FAMOUS "BURN DOWN THE GARAGE" CURRY.

Judge # 1-- Excellent firehouse curry. Great kick.

Judge # 2-- A bit salty, good use of chilli peppers.

Judge # 3-- Call 911. I've located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drain Cleaner. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I'm getting pissed from all the beer.

CHILLI # 4 - BABOO'S BLACK MAGIC BEAN CURRY...

Judge # 1-- Black bean curry with almost no spice. Disappointing.

Judge # 2-- Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish or other mild foods, not much of a curry.

Judge # 3-- I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Shareen, the beer maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. That 200kg woman is starting to look HOT...just like this nuclear waste I'm eating! Is chilli an aphrodisiac?

CHILLI # 5 LALL'S LEGAL LIP REMOVER...

Judge # 1-- Meaty, strong curry. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.

Judge # 2-- Average beef curry, could use more tomato. Must admit the chilli peppers make a strong statement.

Judge # 3 -- My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chilli had given me brain damage. Shareen saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I'm burning my lips off. It really pi$$es me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw them.

CHILLI # 6 - VERISHNEE'S VEGETARIAN VARIETY...

Judge # 1-- Thin yet bold vegetarian variety curry. Good balance of spices and peppers.

Judge # 2-- The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. Superb.

Judge # 3-- My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulphuric flames. I am definitely going to sh!t myself if I fart and I'm worried it will eat through the chair. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Shareen. Can't feel my lips anymore. I need to wipe my ass with a snow cone ice-cream.

CHILLI # 7 - SELINA'S "MOTHER-IN-LAW'S-TONGUE" CURRY...

Judge # 1-- A mediocre curry with too much reliance on canned peppers.

Judge # 2-- Ho hum, tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chilli peppers at the last moment. (I should take note at this stage that I am worried about Judge # 3. He appears to be in a bit of distress as he is cursing uncontrollably).

Judge # 3-- You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn't feel a thing. I've lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with curry which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt. At least, during the autopsy, they'll know what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing- it's too painful. Screw it; I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air I'll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.

CHILLI # 8 - NAIDOO'S TOENAIL CURLING CURRY...

Judge # 1-- The perfect ending. This is a nice blend

curry. Not too bold but spicy enough to declare its existence.

Judge # 2-- This final entry is a good, balanced

curry. Neither mild nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when

Judge #3 farted, passed out, fell over and pulled the curry pot down on

top of himself.

Not sure if he's going to make it. Poor man, wonder

how he'd have reacted to really hot curry?

Judge # 3 - No Report.