Chalcedony

THE DEMOCRATS; THE CONVENTION IN BOSTON -- THE ILLINOIS CANDIDATE; Day After, Keynote Speaker Finds Admirers Everywhere

FIVE PEOPLE on a flight from Kerry to Jersey received mobile phone text instructions from a quick-thinking air traffic controller when he guided them in to a safe landing at Cork.

Perhaps it would have been naive to assume that Sony's Fat Princess could have surfaced without stirring controversy, but as the media's picked up on a few dissenters in the blogosphere, we now have a little issue on our hands.

So it was something of a shock when late this week the swastika suddenly hit the top of Google's Hot Trends page, which tracks the 100 terms that U.S. Google users are searching for most furiously. It hovered there for several hours, then disappeared from the list.

Both the movie and music industries should be jealous of gaming's 2007 growth. The motion picture industry saw modest growth in 2007, reporting a total box office take of $9.66 billion, a modest increase over 2006's $9.49 billion. Things aren't going as smoothly for the music industry. The RIAA has not yet released its 2007 report, but we did learn from the IFPI today that global music sales fell about 10 percent for the year.

Historically, the assassination is seen as a turning point. Serious tensions followed the assassination, with fears that the country would erupt in violence. Nelson Mandela addressed the nation appealing for calm, in a speech regarded as 'presidential' even though he was not yet president of the country

"But sir, how can it not be allowed when it's the same knife they give you on the plane!

Here are some of the finest one, two or ten-liners that you are sure to bring success at the bar.

Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. ‘I have no bitterness,’she says. ‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce. ‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’

He was not the first to raise the issue. Many news reports have focused on stories of teachers putting children first, almost certainly representing the vast majority, such as that of another teacher, Tan Qianqiu, whose body was found shielding four of his pupils, all of them alive.

The Office of Film and Literature Classification has handed an RC to Bethesda's Fallout 3, making it illegal to sell the game in Australia.

Using his trusty BB gun to help him return to Earth, a 48-year-old gas station owner flew a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons more than 200 miles across the Oregon desert Saturday, landing in a field in Idaho.