Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Cult

Vatican says no to iPhone confessions

iphone
© Flickr.com/BasBoerman/cc-by-nc
The holy rite of confession cannot occur without a direct dialogue between the penitent and the priest, which cannot be replaced with any electronic means.

This comes in a statement from the Vatican in response to the release of a new Confession application for the Apple iPhone.

Representatives of the Catholic Church in the UK and the US have approved the new feature, which allows people to keep track of their sinful deeds in preparation for confession.

The head of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, pointed out that such digital aids, which might be useful for some, cannot possibly substitute for the act of admitting your sins to a priest.

Dollar

Russian Scrooge McDuck found in Novosibirsk

coins
© Flickr.com/Jonathan Taglione/cc-by-nc
Retired military officer Yuri Babin from Russia's city of Novosibirsk has saved up some 5 mln kopeck coins since 1998. The collection weighs at least 7,5 tons and is enough to decorate the walls of Yuri's house and dive into coins as Disney's Uncle Scrooge loved to do.

The collection is worth 50,000 rubles ( around 1,500 dollars).

Video

Reel Wisdom: Lessons from 40 Films in 7 Minutes

I made this video because I love films and I think there is great wisdom inherent in the film medium. This video represents some of the best film wisdom I could find, edited together as a single, coherent piece of advice.

In creating this video, I wanted to focus on a few key themes, while featuring as many films as I could. As a result, Reel Wisdom features a broad array of films, from action/adventure and sci-fi films, to dramas and traditional/CG animated films in order to show how all genres of film have something important to say.

Obviously I couldn't make a video with all the film wisdom I could find because it would be really long and rather incoherent. Sorry if your favorites didn't make it. But send me a message and maybe I'll include them in Reel Wisdom: Part 2...


Pharoah

Mr. Fish on Aljazeera

Here's a screen shot from Aljazeera.net showing a cartoon of mine being waved about in the streets of Cairo. Just goes to show that I am a terrible judge of my own crap. The Egyptian Che graphic was done in about 30 minutes with little expectation that it would even get posted anywhere, let alone find physical representation at the flash point of its inspiration, while it took me 5 hours to draw Mark Twain with a Nigga tattoo scrawled across his naked chest, me muttering the whole time: this is pure genius - absolutely kickass brilliant - t-shirts, skateboards, stickers, this thing is going to be EVERYWHERE! (Pause to allow for the sound of a small turd hitting the ground.)
Image

Smiley

Firefox has encountered a problem with windows!

Fox licking a window.

fox
© Youtube
fox
© Youtube

Smiley

Doing Nothing Website Becomes the Latest Internet Sensation

Do Nothing Website
© Times of MaltaThe idea of the new website is to use technology to give back what it has taken away: calm.

A website that invites users to log on and do nothing has become a web phenomenon.

The website, has received more than two million visitors since launching 10 days ago, according to its creators, entrepreneur Alex Tew and developer Ben Dowling.

Users arriving at the site are presented with a sunset view and the sound of ocean waves, together with a countdown that resets to two minutes if the mouse or keyboard are touched.

Not everyone is up to the challenge, though, explains Tew. "Only 38 per cent of visitors are managing to take a step back and do two full minutes of nothing, which I think highlights the point of the site."

Mr Tew, 26, previously found internet fame in 2005 after making $1m with his Million Dollar Homepage, set up to fund his university education. He now hopes his new site will provide an antidote to information overload. "I read somewhere that our brains are being re-wired by the internet, because we get a little dopamine kick every time we check our e-mail or Twitter or Facebook and there's a new update. So we're all developing a bit of ADD, which can't be good."

According to Mr Tew, the site has received more than 250,000 "likes" on Facebook.

Wolf

Heavy metal saves Norwegian boy from wolves

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© RIA Novosti. Oleg LastochkinHeavy metal saves Norwegian boy from wolves
A 13-year-old Norwegian boy avoided being attacked by wolves by playing a heavy metal song on his mobile phone, the Zvuki.ru music web portal reported on Thursday.

The incident took place in the central Norwegian municipality of Rakkestad. Four wolves, who appeared before the boy when he was returning home from school, were scared away by the noise coming from the boy's mobile phone, the Russian website said.

Cheeseburger

Finland: 'Terrorists' kidnap Ronald McDonald in Helsinki

A group calling itself the Food Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for "kidnapping" a statue of the McDonald's food chain mascot Ronald McDonald and has threatened to "execute" the figure if their demands are not met.

The group posted a video on YouTube where balaclava-clad "terrorists", holding the clown statue with a bag over its head, demanded that the world's largest food chain answer questions about its corporate responsibility and food production.

"We love burgers, fries and McDonald's, but we can no longer watch in silence as the food we love is being destroyed and brought to shame because of greed and indifference," one of the "terrorists" said, speaking in Finnish.

Roses

Relatives say Cuban woman marks 126th birthday

Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez
© AP Photo/Javier GaleanoJuana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez eats cake during her birthday party at her home in the neighborhood of Santa Rosa in Ceiba Hueca, Cuba, Wednesday Feb. 2, 2011. Cuba's Prensa Latina agency says civil registry documents confirm Bautista was born on Feb. 2, 1885, making her 126-years-old.

Ceiba Hueca, Cuba - Relatives and friends of a Cuban woman have celebrated what they say is her 126th birthday, though that claim to longevity is not recognized internationally. Cuba's Prensa Latina agency says Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez has a civil registry document that states she was born on Feb. 2, 1885, in the town of Ceiba Hueca, where she still lives.

Her 125th birthday celebration last year was covered extensively in the island's state-run media, but she isn't recognized by the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which verifies information for Guinness World Records.

Cheeseburger

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