FOOTNOTED

Why not the King?

After President Chavez criticized former Spanish President Aznar, the current Spanish President Rodriguez Zapatero, a socialist with very different views from those of the conservative Aznar, defended his countryman by saying that President Aznar was chosen by the Spanish people.

This response, however, was not good enough for Chavez who kept interrupting. Until finally, a voice of reason rose from the crowd…

“Why don’t you shut up?,” the King of Spain, Juan Carlos, told President Chavez.

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Some of these are funny, others sad and tragic, but most of them are CRAZY.
2spare.com lists the Top 25 Craziest Deaths (in the last 100 years) and Famous Last Words.

Here’s a taste:

Frank Hayes, jockey, suffered a heart attack during a horse race. The horse, Sweet Kiss, went on to finish first, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race. (1953)

Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.
Voltaire (attributed), when asked by a priest to renounce Satan.

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A scene of the new Batman movie starring Christian Bale that called for the actor to jump into the waters off Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour was canceled after testing found “all sort of things, salmonella and tuberculosis” in the water, the Guardian reports.

The waters are so dirty that since colonial times, when residents of Hong Kong used to bathe in the harbour, the only people who take dips in it are a few political activists.

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For those who wondered why drinking at New York City hotspots is so expensive, the truth is finally out: It’s the ice.

Three friends went for cocktails at the Bowery Hotel and when they asked why they were being charged extra for their drinks, they were told they were charged for the ice. They paid $2 extra for every drink with ice.

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The Good - The Greens: While Forbes credits city residents, for using cleaner transportation options and working and living in close quarters, for New York State ranking at No. 9 on their Greenest States list, Major Bloomberg is devising a new plan to have companies pay a greenhouse-gas tax.

The Bad - Strip and Strand: Two Staten Island cops thought they should teach a 14-year old boy a lesson after they found tossing eggs on Halloween. They made him strip to his underwear and left him in a desolated area.

The Ugly - Suicide Tourism: More than one in 10 of the suicides in Manhattan are out-of-towners who choose places like the Empire State Building, Times Square and the George Washington Bridge to take their lives.

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The guys at the Daily Intelligencer ruffled some hipster feathers last week when they referred to a group that was evicted from its building in Ridgewood, Queens as “hipsters.”

Apparently the word “hipster” has acquired a bad connotation that suggests that the so-called hipster just seats around doing nothing for a living.

So, the DI tried to make amends by having a “hipster” define “hipster.”

“It’s always been my opinion that most of the time an individual you overhear complaining about hipster this or hipster that is in fact him/herself a hipster, or else really wishes he/she was one,” Todd P told the DI.

In all fairness he did go on explaining further. If you call this an explanation.

But don’t fret, my friends, I went straight to the source, Dictionary.com, and got you the real definition of “hipster.”

hip·ster1 /ˈhɪpstər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hip-ster] Pronunciation Key

–noun Slang.

1.	a person who is hip.

2.

hepcat.

3.	a person, esp. during the 1950s, characterized by a particularly strong sense of alienation from most established social activities and relationships

[Origin: 1935–40, Americanism; hip⁴ + -ster]

So there you have it.

A “hipster” is a person who’s “hip.” Who would have thought it?

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The Worldmapper website lets you see the world according to specific indicators.

Below is the map of the world if it was drawn by population totals.

Check out Australia, Canada and Russia (I think we might have lost Mongolia and Greenland).

Another interesting map shows the world distorted for the number of preventable deaths.

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If you don’t want your child to access porn online, forget about firewalls. Give them Facebook!

Time contributor and Hitwise global search general manager Bill Tanser writes that porn has been losing 18- 25 year old fans in the last two years.

Most popular sites for 18-25:

• Social Networking Sites
• Search Engines
• E-mail
• Porn

After college though, they’re on their own: porn ranks second (after search engines) for those over 25.

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Last month Forbes released a list of the most environmentally friendly states.

Vermont came in on top and West Virginia at the bottom.

New York came in at a respectable, but definiteley improvable, No. 9.

Forbes determined the ranking by comparing carbon dioxide emissions per capita, policies to promote energy efficiency and high air quality, buildings (on a per capita basis) that have received the U.S. Green Building Council’s benchmark certification and others.

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