| The iPhone - Great at Home, Lousy Abroad
‘"Do you know why this industry keeps failing to understand what consumers want?", a mobile phone company executive asked me recently. "Because none of us in the business pays our own phone bills." The same could be said for many of the journalists who review the latest handsets – so I tried an experiment. I bought Apple's iPhone, for a hefty £269, and spent the last four weeks playing with it – and paying for it – at home, and abroad. Here are my thoughts: First, the upside. As a mobile internet device it is simply the best I've ever tried, especially when connected to a wi-fi network. This morning I googled chart hits from the 70s, watched a few on YouTube, then downloaded tracks from iTunes as I lay in bed compiling a CD for a forthcoming party. And it was all very fast.
Wednesday, January 2
MUSTO: You would think so except that Larry was wearing an I look stupid shirt. And after she sang “Do You I‘m Sexy?", the crowd, as it were, responded with the loudest notes since they were offered free “Fred Claus" tickets. But she does put the “narc" in narcissism. When she powders her nose, Paris really powders her nose. OLBERMANN: And, who knows if this report in “OK!" magazine is reliable but the scene we‘re asked to believe is Britney Spears visiting with her kids and the monitor appointed by the family court judge Commissioner Gordon and this paparazzo guy, is that really the best time to have a date? MUSTO: Yes, well, she‘s a multi-tasker, my Britney. Wherever she goes she brings the two kids, the monitor, and a photographer. This way, she figures somebody will tell her next time she tries to shave her head or sing live, plus chuck a cheese, this is really a good group, this is going to rate.
Carmen collected
She was forced to grow up quickly, under a cloud of disapproval and casual violence ("My mother was, shall we say, very hands-on," she says, drily). Her mother, a Hungarian, was ambitious that she achieve success, first with ballet (cut short by illness), then later as a swimmer (scuppered by a foot broken while skiing with a boyfriend). An ex-dancer herself, Carmen's mother was not pleased with the way her daughter was shaping up, and never lost an opportunity to demonstrate her displeasure. "I was a sad child," she recalls. "I just wanted her to love me." But life was hard. "We were so poor that my mother would often leave me in a foster home until she could raise enough money to rent rooms for us." Modelling helped them out of poverty. .
January 2008 - Posts
COLUMBIA, S.C.—I arrive at the 10:45 p.m. Obama rally to discover they've closed the doors. No one is to be let in. Not even campaign staff. Fire marshal's orders. Variations on this scene happen every few days. There's always some fire code invoked, Read More... .
Law keeps public in dark on police hiring practices
One recent example of this is Rudy Gonzales, whom Chief William McManus promoted to assistant chief in October 2006 under pressure to elevate a minority. Only through sources did word of a past internal investigation publicly emerge — after Gonzales had already been promoted. It turned out that Gonzales had once been accused of having a sexual relationship with a prostitute. But because records of the investigation have never been made public by the city, an embarrassing controversy broke out over his qualifications for promotion. Gonzales denied knowing she was a prostitute. He was never disciplined, and public disquiet was never resolved. The records of the investigation stayed secret because of the 1987 law. Another instance in which the secrecy of internal investigations fueled controversy over promotions is that of former Assistant Chief Jerry Pittman, who became the highest-ranking black officer despite another probe where internal records were never made public.
Alaska, Florida, South Dakota Take Actions On Women's Health-Related ...
Alaska: Rep. John Coghill (R) on Monday said he is co-sponsoring a measure (HB 301) that he hopes will ban so-called "partial birth" abortion, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports. A 1997 state ban was permanently enjoined by the Alaska Superior Court in 1998. Coghill said the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year to uphold a federal abortion ban (S 3) will allow Alaska to enact the law he has introduced (Milkowski, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 1/15). Coghill's proposed law reflects the language in the federal abortion ban (HB 301 and S.3 text, 1/17).South Dakota: Sen. Dennis Schmidt (R) on Tuesday introduced legislation (SB 88) that would require physicians to offer sonograms to women seeking abortions in the state, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports. The bill also would require abortion providers to produce annual reports for the Department of Health on how many females viewed the sonograms, how many did not and how many of each of those groups underwent abortions, Schmidt said.
British Tycoon Held In Zimbabwe
British property tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten has been arrested in Zimbabwe on currency and pornography charges, official media reported. Police raided the 64-year-old's home in northern Harare following a tip-off that he received rent for houses, apartments and shops he owns in Zimbabwe in hard currency, state radio reported. During the swoop on Thursday, police found pornographic material featuring Van Hoogstraten and a 22-year-old Zimbabwean woman. The alleged offences carry the penalty of a fine and forfeiture of money held in violation of the nation's currency laws. State radio said Van Hoogstraten was found with about 35,000 US dollars (£17,700), small amounts of other hard currencies and 20 billion Zimbabwe dollars in cash - worth about 5,000 US dollars (£2,525) at the dominant illegal black market exchange rate.
A Giants 'fan' tests passions in the den of the Patriots faithful
To anyone who believes two World Series championships and three Super Bowl victories in six years have mellowed Boston sports fans, about New York, about success, even about life, Jarrod Fonfield has some choice words. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he seethed. Fonfield, a 29-year-old construction worker and die-hard Patriots fan, happened to be taking a lunch break outside a Downtown Crossing convenience store yesterday. He wasn't speaking to anyone in general, but to a man passing by dressed in a New York Giants cap and a XXXL Eli Manning jersey. "I don't like New York, period," Fonfield muttered contemptuously. "Giants, Jets, Knicks, Yankees, I don't care. I don't approve of it." Neither did a lot of others. To test a theory that local sports fans are getting complacent in victory, entitled with all their success, a Globe reporter put on the full colors of next Sunday's Super Bowl opponent and wandered from the crooked streets of downtown to Copley Square and Commonwealth Avenue, from the bowels of the Green Line train stations to the silent stacks at the Boston Public Library.
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