The Taj Mahal: Tomb or Temple?

Sorry to disappoint all you die-hard romantics out there, but as per a new book "Taj Mahal: The True Story" by P.N.Oak, the Taj is not a romantic tribute, but a mislabeled temple (At any rate, I never could understand what is so romantic about a mausoleum, a tomb). Here's a summary of the reasoning:

NAME

1.The term Tajmahal itself never occurs in any mogul court paper or chronicle even in Aurangzeb's time. The attempt to explain it away as Taj-i-mahal is therefore, ridiculous.

2.The ending "Mahal"is never muslim because in none of the muslim countries around the world from Afghanistan to Algeria is there a building known as "Mahal".

3.The unusual explanation of the term Tajmahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal, who is buried in it, is illogical in at least two respects viz., firstly her name was never Mumtaj Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani and secondly one cannot omit the first three letters "Mum" from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name of the building.

4.Since the lady's name was Mumtaz (ending with 'Z') the name of the building derived from her should have been Taz Mahal, if at all, and not Taj (spelled with a 'J').

5.Several European visitors of Shahjahan's time allude to the building as Taj-e-Mahal is almost the correct tradition, age old Sanskrit name Tej-o-Mahalaya, signifying a Shiva temple. Contrarily Shahjahan and Aurangzeb scrupulously avoid using the Sanskrit term and call it just a holy grave.

6.The tomb should be understood to signify NOT A BUILDING but only the grave or centotaph inside it. This would help people to realize that all dead muslim courtiers and royalty including Humayun, Akbar, Mumtaz, Etmad-ud-Daula and Safdarjang have been buried in captured Hindu mansions and temples.

7.Moreover, if the Taj is believed to be a burial place, how can the term Mahal, i.e., mansion apply to it?

8.Since the term Taj Mahal does not occur in mogul courts it is absurd to search for any mogul explanation for it. Both its components namely, 'Taj' and' Mahal' are of Sanskrit origin.

TEMPLE TRADITION

9.The term Taj Mahal is a corrupt form of the sanskrit term TejoMahalay signifying a Shiva Temple. Agreshwar Mahadev i.e., The Lord of Agra was consecrated in it.

10.The tradition of removing the shoes before climbing the marble platform originates from pre Shahjahan times when the Taj was a Shiva Temple. Had the Taj originated as a tomb, shoes need not have to be removed because shoes are a necessity in a cemetery.

11.Visitors may notice that the base slab of the centotaph is the marble basement in plain white while its superstructure and the other three centotaphs on the two floors are covered with inlaid creeper designs. This indicates that the marble pedestal of the Shiva idol is still in place and Mumtaz's centotaphs are fake.

12.The pitchers carved inside the upper border of the marble lattice plus those mounted on it number 108-a number sacred in Hindu Temple tradition.

13.There are persons who are connected with the repair and the maintainance of the Taj who have seen the ancient sacred Shiva Linga and other idols sealed in the thick walls and in chambers in the secret, sealed red stone stories below the marble basement. The Archaeological Survey of India is keeping discretely, politely and diplomatically silent about it to the point of dereliction of its own duty to probe into hidden historical evidence.

14.In India there are 12 Jyotirlingas i.e., the outstanding Shiva Temples. The Tejomahalaya alias The Tajmahal appears to be one of them known as Nagnatheshwar since its parapet is girdled with Naga, i.e., Cobra figures. Ever since Shahjahan's capture of it the sacred temple has lost its Hindudom.

15.The famous Hindu treatise on architecture titled Vishwakarma Vastushastra mentions the 'Tej-Linga' amongst the Shivalingas i.e., the stone emblems of Lord Shiva, the Hindu deity. Such a Tej Linga was consecrated in the Taj Mahal, hence the term Taj Mahal alias Tejo Mahalaya.

16.Agra city, in which the Taj Mahal is located, is an ancient centre of Shiva worship. Its orthodox residents have through ages continued the tradition of worshipping at five Shiva shrines before taking the last meal every night especially during the month of Shravan. During the last few centuries the residents of Agra had to be content with worshipping at only four prominent Shiva temples viz., Balkeshwar, Prithvinath, Manakameshwar and Rajarajeshwar. They had lost track of the fifth Shiva deity which their forefathers worshipped. Apparently the fifth was Agreshwar Mahadev Nagnatheshwar i.e., The Lord Great God of Agra, The Deity of the King of Cobras, consecrated in the Tejomahalay alias Tajmahal.

17.The people who dominate the Agra region are Jats. Their name of Shiva is Tejaji. The Jat special issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India (June 28,1971) mentions that the Jats have the Teja Mandirs i.e., Teja Temples. This is because Teja-Linga is among the several names of the Shiva Lingas. From this it is apparent that the Taj-Mahal is Tejo-Mahalaya, The Great Abode of Tej.

DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

18. Shahjahan's own court chronicle, the Badshahnama, admits (page 403, vol 1) that a grand mansion of unique splendor, capped with a dome (Imaarat-a-Alishan wa Gumbaze) was taken from the Jaipur Maharaja Jaisigh for Mumtaz's burial, and the building was known as Raja Mansingh's palace.

19. The plaque put the archealogy department outside the Tajmahal describes the edifice as a mausoleum built by Shahjahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal , over 22 years from 1631 to 1653. That plaque is a specimen of historical bungling. Firstly, the plaque cites no authority for its claim. Secondly the lady's name was Mumtaz-ul-Zamani and not Mumtazmahal. Thirdly, the period of 22 years is taken from some mumbo jumbo noting by an unreliable French visitor Tavernier, to the exclusion of all muslim versions, which is an absurdity.

20. Prince Aurangzeb's letter to his father,emperor Shahjahan,is recorded in atleast three chronicles titled `Aadaab-e-Alamgiri', `Yadgarnama', and the `Muruqqa-i-Akbarabadi' (edited by Said Ahmed, Agra, 1931, page 43, footnote 2). In that letter Aurangzeb records in 1652 A.D itself that the several buildings in the fancied burial place of Mumtaz were seven storeyed and were so old that they were all leaking, while the dome had developed a crack on the northern side.Aurangzeb, therefore, ordered immediate repairs to the buildings at his own expense while recommending to the emperor that more elaborate repairs be carried out later. This is the proof that during Shahjahan's reign itself that the Taj complex was so old as to need immediate repairs.

21. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur retains in his secret personal `KapadDwara' collection two orders from Shahjahan dated Dec 18, 1633 (bearing modern nos. R.176 and 177) requestioning the Taj building complex. That was so blatant a usurpation that the then ruler of Jaipur was ashamed to make the document public.

22. The Rajasthan State archives at Bikaner preserve three other firmans (orders) addressed by Shahjahan to the Jaipur's ruler Jaisingh ordering the latter to supply marble (for Mumtaz's grave and koranic grafts) from his Makranna quarris, and stone cutters. Jaisingh was apparently so enraged at the blatant seizure of the Tajmahal that he refused to oblige Shahjahan by providing marble for grafting koranic engravings and fake centotaphs for further desecration of the Tajmahal. Jaisingh looked at Shahjahan's demand for marble and stone cutters, as an insult added to injury. Therefore, he refused to send any marble and instead detained the stone cutters in his protective custody.

23. The three firmans demanding marble were sent to Jaisingh within about two years of Mumtaz's death. Had Shahjahan really built the Tajmahal over a period of 22 years, the marble would have needed only after 15 or 20 years not immediately after Mumtaz's death.

24. Moreover, the three mention neither the Tajmahal, nor Mumtaz, nor the burial. The cost and the quantity of the stone also are not mentioned. This may indicate that an insignificant quantity of marble was needed just for some superficial tinkering and tampering with the Tajmahal. Even otherwise Shahjahan could never hope to build a fabulous Tajmahal by abject dependence for marble on a non cooperative Jaisingh.

EUROPEAN VISITOR'S ACCOUNTS

25. Tavernier, a French jeweller has recorded in his travel memoirs that Shahjahan purposely buried Mumtaz near the Taz-i-Makan (i.e.,`The Taj building') where foriegners used to come as they do even today so that the world may admire. He also adds that the cost of the scaffolding was more than that of the entire work. The work that Shahjahan commissioned in the Tejomahalaya Shiva temple was plundering at the costly fixtures inside it, uprooting the Shiva idols, planting the centotaphs in their place on two stories, inscribing the Koran along the arches and walling up six of the seven stories of the Taj. It was this plunder, desecrating and plunderring of the rooms which took 22 years.

26. Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra recorded in 1632 (within only a year of Mumtaz's death) that `the places of note in and around Agra, included Taj-e-Mahal's tomb, gardens and bazaars'.He, therefore, confirms that that the Tajmahal had been a noteworthy building even before Shahjahan.

27. De Laet, a Dutch official has listed Mansingh's palace about a mile from Agra fort, as an outstanding building of pre shahjahan's time. Shahjahan's court chronicle, the Badshahnama records, Mumtaz's burial in the same Mansingh's palace.

28. Bernier, a contemporary French visitor has noted that non muslims were barred entry into the basement (at the time when Shahjahan requisitioned Mansingh's palace) which contained a dazzling light. Obviously, he reffered to the silver doors, gold railing, the gem studded lattice and strings of pearl hanging over Shiva's idol. Shahjahan comandeered the building to grab all the wealth, making Mumtaz's death a convineant pretext.

29. Johan Albert Mandelslo, who describes life in agra in 1638 (only 7 years after mumtaz's death) in detail (in his `Voyages and Travels to West-Indies', published by John Starkey and John Basset, London), makes no mention of the Tajmahal being under constuction though it is commonly erringly asserted or assumed that the Taj was being built from 1631 to 1653.

SANSKIRT INSCRIPTION

30. A Sanskrit inscription too supports the conclusion that the Taj originated as a Shiva temple. Wrongly termed as the Bateshwar inscription (currently preserved on the top floor of the Lucknow museum), it refers to the raising of a "crystal white Shiva temple so alluring that Lord Shiva once enshrined in it decided never to return to Mount Kailash his usual abode". That inscription dated 1155 A.D. was removed from the Tajmahal garden at Shahjahan's orders. Historicians and Archeaologists have blundered in terming the insription the `Bateshwar inscription' when the record doesn't say that it was found by Bateshwar. It ought, in fact, to be called `The Tejomahalaya inscription' because it was originally installed in the Taj garden before it was uprooted and cast away at Shahjahan's command.

A clue to the tampering by Shahjahan is found on pages 216-217, vol. 4, of Archealogiical Survey of India Reports (published 1874) stating that a "great square black balistic pillar which, with the base and capital of another pillar....now in the grounds of Agra,...it is well known, once stood in the garden of Tajmahal".

MISSING ELEPHANTS

31. Far from the building of the Taj, Shahjahan disfigured it with black koranic lettering and heavily robbed it of its Sanskrit inscription, several idols and two huge stone elephants extending their trunks in a welcome arch over the gateway where visitors these days buy entry tickets. An Englishman, Thomas Twinning, records (pg.191 of his book "Travels in India A Hundred Years ago") that in November 1794 "I arrived at the high walls which enclose the Taj-e-Mahal and its circumjacent buildings. I here got out of the palanquine and.....mounted a short flight of steps leading to a beautiful portal which formed the centre of this side of the `COURT OF ELEPHANTS" as the great area was called."

KORANIC PATCHES

32. The Taj Mahal is scrawled over with 14 chapters of the Koran but nowhere is there even the slightest or the remotest allusion in that Islamic overwriting to Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj. Had Shahjahan been the builder he would have said so in so many words before beginning to quote Koran.

33. That Shahjahan, far from building the marble Taj, only disfigured it with black lettering is mentioned by the inscriber Amanat Khan Shirazi himself in an inscription on the building. A close scrutiny of the Koranic lettering reveals that they are grafts patched up with bits of variegated stone on an ancient Shiva temple.

CARBON 14 DATING

34. A wooden piece from the riverside doorway of the Taj subjected to the carbon 14 test by an American Laboratory, has revealed that the door to be 300 years older than Shahjahan,since the doors of the Taj, broken open by Muslim invaders repeatedly from the 11th century onwards, had to b replaced from time to time. The Taj edifice is much more older. It belongs to 1155 A.D, i.e., almost 500 years anterior to Shahjahan.

ARCHITECHTURAL EVIDENCE

35. Well known Western authorities on architechture like E.B.Havell, Mrs.Kenoyer and Sir W.W.Hunter have gone on record to say that the TajMahal is built in the Hindu temple style. Havell points out the ground plan of the ancient Hindu Chandi Seva Temple in Java is identical with that of the Taj.

36. A central dome with cupolas at its four corners is a universal feature of Hindu temples.

37. The four marble pillars at the plinth corners are of the Hindu style. They are used as lamp towers during night and watch towers during the day. Such towers serve to demarcate the holy precincts. Hindu wedding altars and the altar set up for God Satyanarayan worship have pillars raised at the four corners.

38. The octagonal shape of the Tajmahal has a special Hindu significance because Hindus alone have special names for the eight directions, and celestial guards assigned to them. The pinnacle points to the heaven while the foundation signifies to the nether world. Hindu forts, cities, palaces and temples genrally have an octagonal layout or some octagonal features so that together with the pinnacle and the foundation they cover all the ten directions in which the king or God holds sway, according to Hindu belief.

39. The Tajmahal has a trident pinncle over the dome. A full scale of the trident pinnacle is inlaid in the red stone courtyard to the east of the Taj. The central shaft of the trident depicts a "Kalash" (sacred pot) holding two bent mango leaves and a coconut. This is a sacred Hindu motif. Identical pinnacles have been seen over Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Himalayan region. Tridents are also depicted against a red lotus background at the apex of the stately marble arched entrances on all four sides of the Taj. People fondly but mistakenly believed all these centuries that the Taj pinnacle depicts a Islamic cresent and star was a lightning conductor installed by the British rulers in India. Contrarily, the pinnacle is a marvel of Hindu metallurgy since the pinnacle made of non rusting alloy, is also perhaps a lightning deflector. That the pinnacle of the replica is drawn in the eastern courtyard is significant because the east is of special importance to the Hindus, as the direction in which the sun rises. The pinnacle on the dome has the word `Allah' on it after capture. The pinnacle figure on the ground does not have the word Allah.

INCONSISTENCIES

40. The two buildings which face the marble Taj from the east and west are identical in design, size and shape and yet the eastern building is explained away by Islamic tradition, as a community hall while the western building is claimed to be a mosque. How could buildings meant for radically different purposes be identical? This indicates that the western building was put to use as a mosque after seizure of the Taj property by Shahjahan. Curiously enough the building being explained away as a mosque has no minaret. They form a pair af reception pavilions of the Tejomahalaya temple palace.

41. A few yards away from the same flank is the Nakkar Khana alias DrumHouse which is a intolerable incongruity for Islam. The proximity of the Drum House indicates that the western annex was not originally a mosque. Contrarily a drum house is a neccesity in a Hindu temple or palace because Hindu chores,in the morning and evening, begin to the sweet strains of music.

42. The embossed patterns on the marble exterior of the centotaph chamber wall are foilage of the conch shell design and the Hindu letter "OM". The octagonally laid marble lattices inside the centotaph chamber depict pink lotuses on their top railing. The Lotus, the conch and the OM are the sacred motifs associated with the Hindu deities and temples.

43. The spot occupied by Mumtaz's centotaph was formerly occupied by the Hindu Teja Linga a lithic representation of Lord Shiva. Around it are five perambulatory passages. Perambulation could be done around the marble lattice or through the spacious marble chambers surrounding the centotaph chamber, and in the open over the marble platform. It is also customary for the Hindus to have apertures along the perambulatory passage, overlooking the deity. Such apertures exist in the perambulatories in the Tajmahal.

44. The sanctom sanctorum in the Taj has silver doors and gold railings as Hindu temples have. It also had nets of pearl and gems stuffed in the marble lattices. It was the lure of this wealth which made Shahjahan commandeer the Taj from a helpless vassal Jaisingh, the then ruler of Jaipur.

45. Peter Mundy, a Englishman records (in 1632, within a year of Mumtaz's death) having seen a gem studded gold railing around her tomb. Had the Taj been under construction for 22 years, a costly gold railing would not have been noticed by Peter mundy within a year of Mumtaz's death. Such costl fixtures are installed in a building only after it is ready for use. This indicates that Mumtaz's centotaph was grafted in place of the Shivalinga in the centre of the gold railings. Subsequently the gold railings, silver doors, nets of pearls, gem fillings etc. were all carried away to Shahjahan's treasury. The seizure of the Taj thus constituted an act of highhanded Moghul robery causing a big row between Shahjahan and Jaisingh.

46. In the marble flooring around Mumtaz's centotaph may be seen tiny mosaic patches. Those patches indicate the spots where the support for the gold railings were embedded in the floor. They indicate a rectangular fencing.

47. Above Mumtaz's centotaph hangs a chain by which now hangs a lamp. Before capture by Shahjahan the chain could have been used to hold a water pitcher from which water used to drip on the Shivalinga, as is standard in Shiva temples.

48. It is this earlier Hindu tradition in the Tajmahal which gave the Islamic myth of Shahjahan's love tear dropping on Mumtaz's tomb on the full moon day of the winter eve.

TREASURY WELL

49. Between the so-called mosque and the drum house is a multistoried octagonal well with a flight of stairs reaching down to the water level. This is a traditional treasury well in Hindu temple palaces. Treasure chests used to be kept in the lower apartments while treasury personnel had their offices in the upper chambers. The circular stairs made it difficult for intruders to reach down to the treasury or to escape with it undetected or unpursued. In case the premises had to be surrendered to a besieging enemy the treasure could be pushed into the well to remain hidden from the conquerer and remain safe for salvaging if the place was reconquered. Such an elaborate multistoried well is superflous for a mere mausoleum. Such a grand, gigantic well is unneccesary for a tomb.

BURIAL DATE UNKNOWN

50. Had Shahjahan really built the Taj Mahal as a wonder mausoleum, history would have recorded a specific date on which she was ceremoniously buried in the Taj Mahal. No such date is ever mentioned. This important missing detail decisively exposes the falsity of the Tajmahal legend.

51. Even the year of Mumtaz's death is unknown. It is variously speculated to be 1629, 1630, 1631 or 1632. Had she deserved a fabulous burial, as is claimed, the date of her death had not been a matter of much speculation. In an harem teeming with 5000 women it was difficult to keep track of dates of death. Apparently the date of Mumtaz's death was so insignificant an event, as not to merit any special notice. Who would then build a Taj for her burial?

BASELESS LOVE STORIES

52. Stories of Shahjahan's exclusive infatuation for Mumtaz's are concoctions. They have no basis in history nor has any book ever written on their fancied love affairs. Those stories have been invented as an afterthought to make Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj look plausible.

COST

53. The cost of the Taj is nowhere recorded in Shahjahan's court papers because Shahjahan never built the Tajmahal. That is why wild estimates of the cost by gullible writers have ranged from 4 million to 91.7 million rupees.

PERIOD OF CONSTRUCTION

54. Likewise the period of construction has been guessed to be anywhere between 10 years and 22 years. There would have not been any scope for guesswork had the building construction been on record in the court papers.

ARCHITECTS

55. The designer of the Tajmahal is also variously mentioned as Essa Effendy, a Persian or Turk, or Ahmed Mehendis or a Frenchman, Austin deBordeaux, or Geronimo Veroneo, an Italian, or Shahjahan himself.

RECORDS DON'T EXIST

56. Twenty thousand labourers are supposed to have worked for 22 years during Shahjahan's reign in building the Tajmahal. Had this been true, there should have been available in Shahjahan's court papers design drawings, heaps of labour muster rolls, daily expenditure sheets, bills and receipts of material ordered, and commisioning orders. There is not even a scrap of paper of this kind.

57. It is, therefore, court flatterers,blundering historians, somnolent archeologists, fiction writers, senile poets, careless tourists officials and erring guides who are responsible for hustling the world into believing in Shahjahan's mythical authorship of the Taj.

58. Description of the gardens around the Taj of Shahjahan's time mention Ketaki, Jai, Jui, Champa, Maulashree, Harshringar and Bel. All these are plants whose flowers or leaves are used in the worship of Hindu deities. Bel leaves are exclusively used in Lord Shiva's worship. A graveyard is planted only with shady trees because the idea of using fruit and flower from plants in a cemetary is abhorrent to human conscience. The presence of Bel and other flower plants in the Taj garden is a strong indication of it having been a Shiva temple before seizure by Shahjahan.

59. Hindu temples are often built on river banks and sea beaches. The Taj is one such built on the bank of the Yamuna river an ideal location for a Shiva temple.

60. Prophet Mohammad has ordained that the burial spot of a muslim should be inconspicous and must not be marked by even a single tombstone. In flagrant violation of this, the Tajamhal has one grave in the basement and another in the first floor chamber both ascribed to Mumtaz. Those two centotaphs were infact erected by Shahjahan to bury the two tier Shivalingas that were consecrated in the Taj. It is customary for Hindus to install two Shivalingas one over the other in two stories as may be seen in the Mahankaleshwar temple in Ujjain and the Somnath temple raised by Ahilyabai in Somnath Pattan.

61. The Tajmahal has identical entrance arches on all four sides. This is a typical Hindu building style known as Chaturmukhi, i.e.,four faced.

THE HINDU DOME

62. The Tajmahal has a reverberating dome. Such a dome is an absurdity for a tomb which must ensure peace and silence. Contrarily reverberating domes are a neccesity in Hindu temples because they create an ecstatic dinmultiplying and magnifying the sound of bells, drums and pipes accompanying the worship of Hindu deities.

63. The Tajmahal dome bears a lotus cap. Original Islamic domes have a bald top as is exemplified by the Pakistan Embassy in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, and the domes in the Pakistan's newly built capital Islamabad.

64. The Tajmahal entrance faces south. Had the Taj been an Islamic building it should have faced the west.

TOMB IS THE GRAVE,NOT THE BUILDING

65. A widespread misunderstanding has resulted in mistaking the building for the grave.Invading Islam raised graves in captured buildings in every country it overran. Therefore, hereafter people must learn not to confound the building with the grave mounds which are grafts in conquered buildings. This is true of the Tajmahal too. One may therefore admit (for arguments sake) that Mumtaz lies buried inside the Taj. But that should not be construed to mean that the Taj was raised over Mumtaz's grave.

66. The Taj is a seven storied building. Prince Aurangzeb also mentions this in his letter to Shahjahan. The marble edifice comprises four stories including the lone, tall circular hall inside the top, and the lone chamber in the basement. In between are two floors each containing 12 to 15 palatial rooms. Below the marble plinth reaching down to the river at the rear are two more stories in red stone. They may be seen from the river bank. The seventh storey must be below the ground (river) level since every ancient Hindu building had a subterranian storey.

67. Immediately below the marble plinth on the river flank are 22 rooms in red stone with their ventilators all walled up by Shahjahan. Those rooms, made uninhabitable by Shahjahan, are kept locked by Archealogy Department of India. The lay visitor is kept in the dark about them. Those 22 rooms still bear ancient Hindu paint on their walls and ceilings. On their side is a nearly 33 feet long corridor. There are two door frames one at either ends of the corridor. But those doors are intriguingly sealed with brick and lime.

68. Apparently those doorways originally sealed by Shahjahan have been since unsealed and again walled up several times. In 1934 a resident of Delhi took a peep inside from an opening in the upper part of the doorway. To his dismay he saw huge hall inside. It contained many statues huddled around a central beheaded image of Lord Shiva. It could be that, in there, are Sanskrit inscriptions too. All the seven stories of the Tajmahal need to be unsealed and scoured to ascertain what evidence they may be hiding in the form of Hindu images, Sanskrit inscriptions, scriptures, coins and utensils.

69. Apart from Hindu images hidden in the sealed stories it is also learnt that Hindu images are also stored in the massive walls of the Taj. Between 1959 and 1962 when Mr. S.R. Rao was the Archealogical Superintendent in Agra, he happened to notice a deep and wide crack in the wall of the central octagonal chamber of the Taj. When a part of the wall was dismantled to study the crack out popped two or three marble images. The matter was hushed up and the images were reburied where they had been embedded at Shahjahan's behest. Confirmation of this has been obtained from several sources. It was only when I began my investigation into the antecedents of the Taj I came across the above information which had remained a forgotten secret. What better proof is needed of the Temple origin of the Tajmahal? Its walls and sealed chambers still hide in Hindu idols that were consecrated in it before Shahjahan's seizure of the Taj.

PRE-SHAHJAHAN REFERENCES TO THE TAJ

70. Apparently the Taj as a central palace seems to have an chequered history. The Taj was perhaps desecrated and looted by every Muslim invader from Mohammad Ghazni onwards but passing into Hindu hands off and on, the sanctity of the Taj as a Shiva temple continued to be revived after every muslim onslaught. Shahjahan was the last muslim to desecrate the Tajmahal alias Tejomahalay.

71. Vincent Smith records in his book titled `Akbar the Great Moghul' that `Babur's turbulent life came to an end in his garden palace in Agra in 1630'. That palace was none other than the Tajmahal.

72. Babur's daughter Gulbadan Begum in her chronicle titled `Humayun Nama' refers to the Taj as the Mystic House.

73. Babur himself refers to the Taj in his memoirs as the palace captured by Ibrahim Lodi containing a central octagonal chamber and having pillars on the four sides. All these historical references seem t allude to the Taj 100 years before Shahjahan.

74. The Tajmahal precincts extend to several hundred yards in all directions. Across the river are ruins of the annexes of the Taj, the bathing ghats and a jetty for the ferry boat. In the Victoria gardens outside covered with creepers is the long spur of the ancient outer wall ending in a octagonal red stone tower. Such extensive grounds all magnificently done up, are a superfluity for a grave.

75. Had the Taj been specially built to bury Mumtaz, it should not have been cluttered with other graves. But the Taj premises contain several graves atleast in its eastern and southern pavilions.

76. In the southern flank, on the other side of the Tajganj gate are buried in identical pavilions queens Sarhandi Begum, and Fatehpuri Begum and a maid Satunnisa Khanum. Such parity burial can be justified only if the queens had been demoted or the maid promoted. But since Shahjahan had commandeered (not built) the Taj, he reduced it generally to a muslim cemetary as was the habit of all his Islamic predeccssors, and buried a queen in a vacant pavillion and a maid in another idenitcal pavilion.

77. Shahjahan was married to several other women before and after Mumtaz. She, therefore, deserved no special consideration in having a wonder mausoleum built for her.

78. Mumtaz was a commoner by birth and so she did not qualify for a fairyland burial.

79. Mumtaz died in Burhanpur which is about 600 miles from Agra. Her grave there is intact. Therefore ,the centotaphs raised in stories of the Taj in her name seem to be fakes hiding in Hindu Shiva emblems.

80. Shahjahan seems to have simulated Mumtaz's burial in Agra to find a pretext to surround the temple palace with his fierce and fanatic troops and remove all the costly fixtures in his treasury. This finds confirmation in the vague noting in the Badshahnama which says that the Mumtaz's (exhumed) body was brought to Agra from Burhanpur and buried `next year'. An official accountwould not use a nebulous term unless it is to hide some thing.

81. A pertinent consideration is that a Shahjahan who did not build any palaces for Mumtaz while she was alive, would not build a fabulous mausoleum for a corpse which was no longer kicking or clicking.

82. Another factor is that Mumtaz died within two or three years of Shahjahan becoming an emperor. Could he amass so much superflous wealth in that short span as to squander it on a wonder mausoleum?

83. While Shahjahan's special attachment to Mumtaz is nowhere recorded in history his amorous affairs with many other ladies from maids to mannequins including his own daughter Jahanara, find special attention in accounts of Shahjahan's reign. Would Shahjahan shower his hard earned wealth on Mumtaz's corpse?

84. Shahjahan was a stingy, usurious monarch. He came to throne murdering all his rivals. It is unlikely that he could have been the doting spendthrift that he is made out to be.

85. A Shahjahan disconsolate on Mumtaz's death is suddenly credited with a resolve to build the Taj. This is a psychological incongruity. Grief is a disabling, incapacitating emotion.

86. An infatuated Shahjahan is supposed to have raised the Taj over the dead Mumtaz, but carnal, physical sexual love is again a incapacitating emotion. A womaniser is ipso facto incapable of any constructive activity. When carnal love becomes uncontrollable the person either murders somebody or commits suicide. He cannot raise a Tajmahal. A building like the Taj invariably originates in an ennobling emotion like devotion to God, to one's mother and mother country or power and glory.

87. Early in the year 1973, chance digging in the garden in front of the Taj revealed another set of fountains about six feet below the present fountains. This proved two things. Firstly, the subterranean fountains were there before Shahjahan laid the surface fountains. And secondly that those fountains are aligned to the Taj that edifice too is of pre Shahjahan origin. Apparently the garden and its fountains had sunk from annual monsoon flooding and lack of maintenance for centuries during the Islamic rule.

89. The stately rooms on the upper floor of the Tajmahal have been stripped of their marble mosaic by Shahjahan to obtain matching marble for raising fake tomb stones inside the Taj premises at several places. Contrasting with the rich finished marble ground floor rooms the striping of the marble mosaic covering the lower half of the walls and flooring of the upper storey have given those rooms a naked, robbed look. Since no visitors are allowed entry to the upper storey this despoilation by Shahjahan has remained a well guarded secret. There is no reason why Shahjahan's loot of the upper floor marble should continue to be hidden from the public 200 years after termination of Moghul rule.

90. Bernier, the French traveller has recorded that no non muslim was allowed entry into the secret nether chambers of the Taj because there are some dazzling fixtures there. Had those been installed by Shahjahan they should have been shown the public as a matter of pride. But since it was commandeered Hindu wealth which Shahjahan wanted to remove to his treasury, he didn't want the public to know about it.

91. The approach to Taj is dotted with hillocks raised with earth dugout from foundation trenches. The hillocks served as outer defences of the Taj building complex. Raising such hillocks from foundation earth, is a common Hindu device of hoary origin. Nearby Bharatpur provides a graphic parallel.

Peter Mundy has recorded that Shahjahan employed thousands of labourers to level some of those hillocks. This is a graphic proof of the Tajmahal existing before Shahjahan.

93. At the backside of the river bank is a Hindu crematorium, several palaces, Shiva temples and bathings of ancient origin. Had Shahjahan built the Tajmahal, he would have destroyed the Hindu features.

94. The story that Shahjahan wanted to build a Black marble Taj across the river, is another motivated myth. The ruins dotting the other side of the river are those of Hindu structures demolished during muslim invasions and not the plinth of another Tajmahal. Shahjahan who did not even build the white Tajmahal would hardly ever think of building a black marble Taj. He was so miserly that he forced labourers to work gratis even in the superficial tampering neccesary to make a Hindu temple serve as a Muslim tomb.

95. The marble that Shahjahan used for grafting Koranic lettering in the Taj is of a pale white shade while the rest of the Taj is built of a marble with rich yellow tint. This disparity is proof of the Koranic extracts being a superimposition.

96. Though imaginative attempts have been made by some historians to foist some fictitious name on history as the designer of the Taj others more imaginative have credited Shajahan himself with superb architechtural proficiency and artistic talent which could easily concieve and plan the Taj even in acute bereavment. Such people betray gross ignorance of history in as much as Shajahan was a cruel tyrant ,a great womaniser and a drug and drink addict.

97. Fanciful accounts about Shahjahan commisioning the Taj are all confused. Some asserted that Shahjahan ordered building drawing from all over the world and chose one from among them. Others assert that a man at hand was ordered to design a mausoleum and his design was approved. Had any of those versions been true Shahjahan's court papers should have had thousands of drawings concerning the Taj. But there is not even a single drawing.

98. The Tajmahal is surrounded by huge mansions which indicate that several battles have been waged around the Taj several times.

99. At the south east corner of the Taj is an ancient royal cattle house. Cows attached to the Tejomahalay temple used to reared there. A cowshed is an incongruity in an Islamic tomb.

100. Over the western flank of the Taj are several stately red stone annexes. These are superflous for a mausoleum.

101. The entire Taj complex comprises of 400 to 500 rooms. Residential accomodation on such a stupendous scale is unthinkable in a mausoleum.

102. The neighbouring Tajganj township's massive protective wall also encloses the Tajmahal temple palace complex. This is a clear indication that the Tejomahalay temple palace was part and parcel of the township. A street of that township leads straight into the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate is aligned in a perfect straight line to the octagonal red stone garden gate and the stately entrance arch of the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate besides being central to the Taj temple complex, is also put on a pedestal. The western gate by which the visitors enter the Taj complex is a camparatively minor gateway. It has become the entry gate for most visitors today because the railway station and the bus station are on that side.

103. The Tajmahal has pleasure pavillions which a tomb would never have.

104. A tiny mirror glass in a gallery of the Red Fort in Agra reflects the Taj mahal. Shahjahan is said to have spent his last eight years of life as a prisoner in that gallery peering at the reflected Tajmahal and sighing in the name of Mumtaz. This myth is a blend of many falsehoods.

Firstly,old Shajahan was held prisoner by his son Aurangzeb in the basement of the Fort and not in an open,fashionable upper storey. Secondly, the glass piece was fixed in the 1930's by Insha Allah Khan, a peon of the archaelogy dept. just to illustrate to the visitors how in ancient times the entire apartment used to scintillate with tiny mirror pieces reflecting the Tejomahalay temple a thousand fold. Thirdly, a old decrepit Shahjahan with pain in his joints and cataract in his eyes, would not spend his day craning his neck at an awkward angle to peer into a tiny glass piece with bedimmed eyesight when he could as well turn his face around and have full,direct view of the Tjamahal itself. But the general public is so gullible as to gulp all such prattle of wily, unscrupulous guides.

105. That the Tajmahal dome has hundreds of iron rings sticking out of its exterior is a feature rarely noticed. These are made to hold Hindu earthen oil lamps for temple illumination.

106. Those putting implicit faith in Shahjahan authorship of the Taj have been imagining Shahjahan-Mumtaz to be a soft hearted romantic pair like Romeo and Juliet. But contemporary accounts speak of Shahjahan as a hard hearted ruler who was constantly egged on to acts of tyranny and cruelty, by Mumtaz.

107. School and College history carry the myth that Shahjahan reign was a golden period in which there was peace and plenty and that Shahjahan commisioned many buildings and patronized literature. This is pure fabrication. Shahjahan did not commision even a single building as we have illustrated by a detailed analysis of the Tajmahal legend. Shahjahn had to engage in 48 military campaigns during a reign of nearly 30 years giving him hardly any time for building and casting a cloud on the the concept of peace and plenty.

108. The interior of the dome rising over Mumtaz's centotaph has a representation of Sun and cobras drawn in gold. Hindu warriors trace their origin to the Sun. For an Islamic mausoleum the Sun is redundant. Cobras are always associated with Lord Shiva.

FORGED DOCUMENTS

109. The muslim caretakers of the tomb in the Tajmahal used to possess a document which they styled as "Tarikh-i-Tajmahal". Historian H.G. Keene has branded it as `a document of doubtful authenticity'. Even that forged document is reported to have been smuggled out of Pakistan.

110. There is lot of sophistry and casuistry or atleast confused thinking associated with the Taj even in the minds of professional historians, archaelogists and architects. At the outset they assert that the Taj is entirely Muslim in design. But when it is pointed out that its lotus capped dome and the four corner pillars etc. are all entirely Hindu those worthies shift ground and argue that that was probably because the workmen were Hindu and were to introduce their own patterns. Both these arguments are wrong because Muslim accounts claim the designers to be Muslim,and the workers invariably carry out the employer's dictates.

The Taj is only a typical illustration of how all historic buildings and townships from Kashmir to Cape Comorin though of Hindu origin have been ascribed to this or that Muslim ruler or courtier.

VIDEO: Colbert Roasts President Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner

24 mts 10 secs

Click on the image above, and then click on play button once it becomes available.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin, I've been asked to make an announcement. Whoever parked 14 black bulletproof S.U.V.'s out front, could you please move them? They are blocking in 14 other black bulletproof S.U.V.'s and they need to get out.

Wow. Wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents' dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.

By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail. Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book.

Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

I'm a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow. I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.

In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible. I said it's a celebration. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

Okay, look, folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull before a comeback. I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." All right. The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is -- everything else in the world. It's the tenth round. He's bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he's yelling, "Cut me, Dick, cut me!," and every time he falls everyone says, "Stay down! Stay down!" Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie.

OK. Doesn't matter. The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car!

And I just like the guy. He's a good Joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am.

I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I'm sorry, I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American! I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.

As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished.

Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

Now, it's not all bad guys out there. Some are heroes: Christopher Buckley, Jeff Sacks, Ken Burns, Bob Schieffer. They've all been on my show. By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.

See who we've got here tonight. General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld.

Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys. I've seen Zinni and that crowd on Wolf Blitzer. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle. Come on.

Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

Justice Scalia is here. Welcome, sir. May I be the first to say, you look fantastic. How are you? [After each sentence, Colbert makes a hand gesture, an allusion to Scalia's recent use of an obscene Sicilian hand gesture in speaking to a reporter about Scalia's critics. Scalia is seen laughing hysterically.] Just talking some Sicilian with my paisan.

John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.

Mayor Nagin! Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar, I guess is what I'm describing, a seasonal cookie.

Joe Wilson is here, Joe Wilson right down here in front, the most famous husband since Desi Arnaz. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god. [looks horrified] Oh, what have I said? I -- Je- minetti (sp?). I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along his lovely wife Joe Wilson's wife. Patrick Fitzgerald is not here tonight? OK. Dodged a bullet.

And, of course, we can't forget the man of the hour, new press secretary, Tony Snow. Secret Service name, "Snow Job." Toughest job. What a hero. Took the second toughest job in government, next to, of course, the ambassador to Iraq.

Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Big shoes to fill. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else. McClellan, of course, eager to retire. Really felt like he needed to spend more time with Andrew Card's children. Mr. President, I wish you hadn't made the decision so quickly, sir.

I was vying for the job myself. I think I would have made a fabulous press secretary. I have nothing but contempt for these people. I know how to handle these clowns.

In fact, sir, I brought along an audition tape and with your indulgence, I'd like to at least give it a shot. So, ladies and gentlemen, my press conference.

BEGINNING OF "AUDITION TAPE"

Colbert shows a video of a mock press conference. It opens with an empty podium. Colbert's head rises from behind the podium until Colbert is standing at the podium. He addresses the assembled Washington press corps.

COLBERT: I have a brief statement: the press is destroying America. OK, let's see who we've got here today.

COLBERT (acknowledging various reporters): Stretch! (David Gregory nods)

Sir Nerdlington! (reporter nods)

Sloppy Joe! (reporter nods)

Terry Lemon Moran Pie! (Terry Moran nods)

Oh, Doubting Thomas, always a pleasure. (Helen Thomas smiles)

And Suzanne Mal -- hello!!

(Suzanne Malveaux stares at Colbert, looking unhappy. Colbert mimics putting a phone to his ear and mouths "call me.")

REPORTER: Will the Vice President be available soon to answer all questions himself?

COLBERT: I've already addressed that question. You (pointing to another reporter).

REPORTER: Walter Cronkite, the noted CBS anchor, . . .

COLBERT (interrupting): Ah, no, he's the former CBS anchor. Katie Couric is the new anchor of the CBS Evening News. Well, well, how do you guys feel about that?

You, tousle-haired guy in the back. Are you happy about Katie Couric taking over the CBS Evening News?

DAN RATHER: No, sir, Mr. Colbert. Are you? (Laughter)

COLBERT: Boom! Oh, look, we woke David Gregory up. Question?

DAVID GREGORY: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?

COLBERT: I don't know. I'll ask him.

(Colbert turns to Rove) Karl, pay attention please! (Rove is seen drawing a heart with "Karl + Stephen" written on it.)

GREGORY: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003 when you were asked specifically about Karl, and Elliott Abrams, and Scooter Libby, and you said "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me that they are not involved in this." Do you stand by that statement?

COLBERT: Nah, I was just kidding!

GREGORY: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything! You stood at that podium and said . . .

COLBERT (interrupting): Ah, that's where you're wrong. New podium! Just had it delivered today. Get your facts straight, David.

GREGORY: This is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell the people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk. You've got to . . .

(Colbert is seen looking at three buttons on the podium, labeled "EJECT," "GANNON" and "VOLUME." He selects the "VOLUME" button and turns it. We see Gregory's lips continue moving, but can't hear any sound coming out.)

COLBERT: If I can't hear you, I can't answer your question. I'm sorry! I have to move on. Terry.

TERRY MORAN: After the investigation began, after the criminal investigation was underway, you said . . .

(Colbert presses a button on the podium and fast-forwards through most of Moran's question.)

MORAN (continuing): All of a sudden, you have respect for the sanctity of a criminal investigation?

COLBERT (seen playing with rubber ball, which he is bouncing off attached paddle): No, I never had any respect for the sanctity of a criminal investigation. Activist judges! Yes, Helen.

HELEN THOMAS: You're going to be sorry. (Laughter)

COLBERT (looking vastly amused, mockingly): What are you going to do, Helen, ask me for a recipe?

THOMAS: Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands (Colbert's smile fades) of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime.

COLBERT (interrupting): OK, hold on Helen, look . . .

THOMAS (continuing): Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war?

COLBERT (again interrupting): Helen, I'm going to stop you right there. (Thomas keeps talking.) That's enough! No! Sorry, Helen, I'm moving on. (Colbert tries to turn her volume off, but the knob falls off his controls.)

(Various reporters start shouting questions at Colbert.)

COLBERT (agitated): Guys, guys, please don't let Helen do this to what was a lovely day.

(Reporters keep shouting at him.)

COLBERT (putting his fingers over his ears and shouting in a high-pitched voice): Bllrrtt! No, no, no, no, no. I'm not listening to you!

Look what you did, Helen! I hate you!

(Helen Thomas glowers at Colbert.)

COLBERT (frantic): I'm out of here!

(Colbert pulls back the curtain behind him, desperately trying to flee. He says, "There is a wall here!" The press corps laughs. Colbert has difficulty finding a door from which to exit the room, echoing Bush's experience in China. He finally finds the door and hurries through it.)

COLBERT: It reeks in there! Ridiculous! I've never been so insulted in my life! Stupid job.

(Colbert continues walking away. We hear sinister-sounding music playing. We see Helen Thomas walking behind Colbert.)

(Colbert looks behind him, sees Thomas, and starts running.)

(Colbert trips over a roller skate. He yells "Condi!" We see a close-up of Helen Thomas' face, looking determined and angry. Colbert, increasingly panicked, gets up and continues running, running into a parking garage. He reaches an emergency call box, and yells into it.)

COLBERT: Oh, thank God. Help me!

ATTENDANT: What seems to be the problem, sir?

COLBERT: She won't stop asking why we invaded Iraq!

ATTENDANT: Hey, why did we invade Iraq?

COLBERT: NO!!! (runs toward his car)

(We see Helen Thomas, still walking toward him.)

(Colbert reaches his car, and fumblingly attempts to open it with his key. He is in such a desperate hurry that he fumbles with the keys and drops them. When he picks them up, he looks back and Helen is even closer. In his frantic rush, Colbert just can't get the key into the lock.)

(Just as his anxiety is getting completely out of control he suddenly remembers that he has a keyless remote -- so he just pushes the button on the keychain and the car unlocks immediately with the usual double squeak noise. Colbert jumps in and locks the door, and continues to fumble trying to start the car. He finally succeeds, and looks up to see Helen standing in front of the car, notepad in hand.)

COLBERT: NO!!! NO!!!

(Colbert puts the car into reverse and drives off, tires squealing. Thomas smiles.)

(Colbert is shown taking the shuttle from Washington, D.C. to New York. A car and driver are waiting for him at Penn Station. The uniformed man standing alongside the car opens the door and lets Colbert in.)

COLBERT: What a terrible trip, Danny. Take me home.

(The driver locks the doors, turns around, and says, "Buckle up, hon." IT'S HELEN THOMAS!!!)

COLBERT (horrified face pressed against car window): NO!!!

END OF "AUDITION TAPE"

STEPHEN COLBERT: Helen Thomas, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Smith, members of the White House Correspondents Association, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, it's been a true honor. Thank you very much. Good night!

VIDEO: End of the World

VIDEO: Not In Your Front Yard

5 mts 04 secs

Sunset from Space

7pm GMT

Alcohoroscopes

BASED ON YOUR SUNSIGNS YOUR EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR AFTER YOU GET DRUNK !!

ARIES
Drinking style Impulsive Aries people like to party and sometime sdon't know when to call it a night. Their competitive streak makes them prone to closing-time shot contests. They're sloppy, fun drunks, and they get mighty flirty after a couple tipples. Getting Aries people drunk I sa good way to get what you want out of them, should other methods fail. Aries can become bellicose when blotto, but they will assume that whatever happened should be forgiven (if not forgotten) by sunrise. They can be counted on to do the same for you -- so long as you haven't gone and done anything really horrible to them last night, you sneaky Gemini.

TAURUS
Drinking style Taurus prefers to drink at a leisurely pace, aiming for a mellow glow rather than a full-on zonk. Since a truly intoxicated Taurus is a one-person stampede, the kind of bull-in-a-china-shop inebriate who spills red wine on white carpets and tells fart jokes to employers, the preference for wining and dining (or Bud and buddies) to body shots and barfing is quite fortunate for the rest of us. This is not to say thatthe Bull is by any means a teetotaler -- god, no. A squiffy Taurus will get, er, gregarious (full of loud mouth soup, some would say) and is extremely amusing to drag to a karaoke bar when intoxicated.

GEMINI
Drinking style Gemini s can drink without changing their behavior much-- they're so naturally chatty and short-attention-spanned that it's just hard to tell sometimes. They can amaze you by conversing with finesse and allusion, then doing something to belie an extremely advanced state of intoxication, like puking in your shoe. Gemini s possess the magic ability to flirt successfully (and uninfuriatingly, which is very tricky) with several people at once. They like to order different cocktails every round -- repetition is boring -- and may create a theme (like yellow drinks: beer, sauvignon blanc and limoncello) for their own amusement.

CANCER
Drinking style Cancer is a comfort drinker -- and an extra wine with dinner or an after-work beer or six can be extra comforting, can't it, Cancer darling? Like fellow water signs Scorpio and Pisces, Crabs must guard against lushery. Cancers are brilliant at ferreting out secret parties and insinuating themselves on VIP lists -- and, in true Hollywood style, Cancers are never really drunk; instead, they get "tired and emotional" (read: weepy when lubricated). But there s nothing better than swapping stories (and spit) over a few bottles of inky red wine with your favorite Cancer. Even your second-favorite Cancer will do. The sign also rules the flavor vanilla, and you'd be adored if you served up a vanilla vodka and soda.

LEO
Drinking style Leo likes to drink and dance -- they're often fabulous dancers, and usually pretty good drinkers as well, losing their commanding dignity and turning kittenish. Of course, they're quite aware they're darling -Leos will be Leos, after all. They generally know their limit, probably because they loathe losing self-control. When they get over-refreshed, expect flirting to ensue -- and perhaps not with the one what rung them. But Leo's not the type to break rules even when drunk, so just try to ignore it (try harder, Cancer) and expects a sheepish (and hung over) Lion to make it up to you the next day.

VIRGO
Drinking style Cerebral Virgos are compelled to impose order onto their bender. Their famously fussy quest for purity could lead to drinking less than other signs, sure --but it could also lead to drinking booze neat, to sucking down organic wine or just to brand loyalty. They rarely get fully shellacked -- but, oh, when they do! Virgo's controlled by the intellect, but there s an unbridled beast lurking within, and they let it loose when walloped. It's dead sexy (and surprisingly unsloppy). As one Virgo friend used to declare, "I'm going to drink myself into a low-level of intelligence tonight." A toast to the sub genius IQ!

LIBRA
Drinking style "I'm jusht a social drinker," slurs Libra, "it's jusht that I'm so damn social?" Libra loves nothing more than to party, mingle and relate to everyone. Whether dipped in favor of Good Libra (with Insta-Frienddevice set to "on") or heavier on the Evil Libra side (they are little instigators when bored), the Scales can really work a room. Charming as they are, Libras are notoriously lacking in self-control, however, which can get them into all sorts of trouble --including wearing their wobbly boots waaaay too early in the evening, flirting with every man/woman in the roomor even blacking out the night's events entirely. Oops!

SCORPIO
Drinking style Don't ever tell Scorpios they've had enough, for they ll smirk at you and quietly but intentionally keep tippling till they're hog-whimpering drunk, out of 100-proof spite. Scorpios like to drink, and screw you if you have a problem with that. Most of them seethe sauce as something to savor in itself, and not asa personality-altering tool -- though if depressed, self-loathing Scorps seek total obliteration. But generally, they're fascinating drinking pals, brilliant conversationalists and dizzying flirts. They also remember everything -- especially what you did when you were blitzed. Only drink with a Scorpio who likes you.

SAGITTARIUS
Drinking style In vino veritas -- and, for Sagittarius, in booze blurtiness: When buttered, they'll spill all your secrets and many of their own. Tactlessness aside, Sagittarius is just plain fun to drink with. This is a sign of serious partying (what else would you expect from the sign of Sinatra, Keith Richards, the Bush twins and Anna Nicole Smith?). They're the people who chat up everyone in the room, then persuade the entire crowd to travel somewhere else -- like a nightclub, or a playground, or Cancun. Good-natured hijinks are sure to ensue (including a high possibility of loopy groping; spontaneous Sag is a brilliant booty call).

CAPRICORN
Drinking style Capricorn is usually described as practical, steadfast, money-hungry and status-thirsty -- no wonder they get left off the astrological cocktail-party list. But this is the sign of David Bowie and Annie Lennox, not to mention Elvis. Capricorn is the true rock star: independent, powerful and seriously charismatic, not too eager to please. And if they make money being themselves, who re you to quibble? But just like most rock stars, they re either totally on or totally off, and they generally need a little social lubricant to loosen up and enjoy the after party, especially if they can hookup with a cute groupie.

AQUARIUS
Drinking style Aquarius and drinking don't go together that well(except for water, that is). They have an innate tendency toward know-it-allism, and if they get an idea while sizzled, they're more stubborn than a stain or a stone. If they're throwing a party or organizing an outing, however, they're too preoccupied with their duties to get combative -- and they make perfectly charming drunks in that case. Fortunately, they re usually capital drink-nursers. They also make the best designated drivers (if you can get them before they start raising their wrist):Aquarius is fascinated by drunk people and capable of holding interesting conversations with soused strangers while sober.

PISCES
Drinking style If you're a Pisces, you've probably already heard that you share a sign and an addictive personality --with Liz Taylor, Lisa Minnelli and Kurt Cobain. Not only do Pisces like to lose themselves in the dreamy, out-there feeling that only hooch can give, but they build up a mighty tolerance fast. Who needs an expensive date like that? On the other hand, they re fabulously enchanting partners, whether in conversation or in crime. With the right Pisces, you can start out sharing a pitcher of margaritas and windup in bed together for days. The phrase "addictive personality" can be read two ways, you know.

Creative Bus Designs

Signs Women Wear

VIDEO: A Cunning Stunt

Redneck lifestyle accessories

The Brick

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?" The young boy was apologetic. "Please, mister...please, I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do," He pleaded. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop..." With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. "It's my brother, "he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up."

Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. "Thank you and may God bless you," the grateful child told the stranger. Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy! push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: "Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!" God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It's our choice to listen or not.

Thought for the Day:
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
He sends you flowers every spring.
He sends you a sunrise every morning.
Face it, friend - He is crazy about you!

Ads I Love: Japp - Porsche

0 mts 41 secs

Click on the image above, and then click on play button once it becomes available.

Ever wanted to trash someone's Porsche? Try a Japp Energy Bar. This commercial is absolutely hilarious.

Lawyer vs Farmer

A lawyer went duck hunting in rural Texas. He shot a bird, but it fell into a farmer's field on the other side of a fence.

As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly farmer drove up on his tractor and asked him what he was doing.

The litigator responded, "I shot a duck and it fell in this field, and now I'm going to retrieve it."

The old farmer replied, "This is my property, and you are not coming over here."

The indignant lawyer said, "I am one of the best trial attorneys in the United States and, if you don't let me get that duck, I'll sue you and take everything you own.

The old farmer smiled and said," Apparently, you don't know how we settle disputes in Texas. We settle small disagreements like this with the "Three Kick Rule."

The lawyer asked, "What is the Three Kick Rule?"

The Farmer replied, "Well, because the dispute occurs on my land, first I kick you three times and then you kick me three times and so on back and forth until someone gives up."

The attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided that he could easily take the old codger. He agreed to abide by the local custom.

The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the attorney. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy steel toed work boot onto the lawyer's legs and dropped him to his knees. His second kick to the midriff then made the lawyer loose his early morning breakfast.

The lawyer was on all fours when the farmer's third kick to his rear end sent him face-first into a fresh cow pie.

The lawyer summoned every bit of his will and managed to get to his feet.

Wiping his face with the arm of his jacket, he said, "Okay, Now it's my turn."

[I love this part....]

The old farmer smiled and said, "Naaaaaah, I give up now. You can have the duck."

Ads I Love: Viagra - Protecting your valuables

0 mts 46 secs

Click on the image above, and then click on play button once it becomes available.

Location, Location, Location

A young woman who was several months pregnant boarded a bus. When she noticed a young man smiling at her she began feeling humiliated on account of her condition. She changed her seat and he seemed more amused. She moved again and then on her third move he burst out laughing..................She had him arrested.

Then the case came before the court, the young man was asked why he acted in such a manner. His reply was: When the lady boarded the bus I couldn't help noticing she was pregnant.

She sat under an advertisement, which read: 'Coming Soon: The Gold Dust Twins'.

I was even more amused when she sat under a shaving advertisement, which read: 'William's Stick Did The Trick'.

Then I could not control myself any longer when on the third move she sat under an advertisement, which read: 'Dunlop Rubber would have prevented this accident.'

The case was dismissed.........!!!!!!!

Amusing Signboards

Slack off, says Fortune magazine

From March 17, 2006 issue of Fortune:

In a world of too much work and too much multitasking, the best way to beat the competition may be to do less.

Remember the story of Archimedes lolling in his bathtub? To an observer, he'd have seemed to be wasting time. While ostensibly doing nothing, however, he discovered the principle of displacement, a cornerstone of physics. Would he have reached the same insight in a quick shower?

Unlikely. And while you might say that's ancient history, don't be too sure.

Consider that for most industries, the U.S. can't hope to be the low-cost producer in a global economy. With innovation now our main competitive strength, creativity is crucial for anyone who wants to move up.

But it's really, really hard, if not impossible, for the human brain to come up with fresh new ideas when its owner is overworked, overtired, and stressed out. And in today's wonderful world of nonstop work, 40% of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep on weeknights.

"The physiological effects of tiredness are well-known. You can turn a smart person into an idiot just by overworking him," notes Peter Capelli, a professor of management at Wharton.

Still, putting in more than 50 hours a week at the office has become routine --and that doesn't count time spent doing paperwork at home, answering e-mail at the airport, or talking on the phone in the car.

Sooner or later, companies' performance has to reflect that, Capelli says. "On the organizational level, what you get is, everyone is so focused on running flat-out to meet current goals that the whole company is unable to step back and think."

Indeed, "the notion that busyness is the essence of business can only do us long-term harm," writes consultant Tom DeMarco in a book called Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency.

DeMarco knows the word "slack" has some not-so-hot connotations --slacking off, slacker, slack-jawed... --but his definition is different: the degree of freedom required to effect change.

"Companies need to respect the time it takes to do strategic thinking," he says. "Task-oriented thinking is important too, of course. But bigger thinking is slow."

The late Peter Drucker agreed. He wrote in The Effective Executive (an eerily prescient 40 years ago), "All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done." Gulp.

Moreover, in Drucker's view, simply working longer and longer hours won't help. "To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive...needs to dispose of time in fairly large chunks," he wrote. "To have small dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours."

Hmm, small dribs and drabs of time...and, just think, the BlackBerry hadn't been invented yet.

The multitasking trap

It's not really news that so-called multitasking can actually make people less effective at their jobs. One detailed study five years ago by psychologists at the University of Michigan demonstrated that, because the human brain needs time to shift gears between tasks, the more switching back and forth you have to do --between, say, talking on the phone, reading e-mail, and thinking about your next meeting, all while scarfing down a sandwich at your desk --the less proficiently you will tackle any of it (except maybe the sandwich).

The "time cost" of refocusing your attention may be only a few seconds with each switch, but the researchers found that, over time, it reduced people's total efficiency by 20% to 40%.

Seeing connections, when you have time

What scientists have only recently begun to realize is that people may do their best thinking when they are not concentrating on work at all. If you've ever had a great idea pop into your head while you were washing your car, walking your dog, or even napping, you already know what a team of Dutch psychologists revealed last month in the journal Science: The unconscious mind is a terrific solver of complex problems when the conscious mind is busy elsewhere or, perhaps better yet, not overtaxed at all.

This brings us back to Archimedes, whose "Eureka!" moment in the bath --or, to cite another example, Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity while loafing around under an apple tree --was a classic example of a kind of creativity known as remote association, or associative thinking. As the name implies, it's a knack for seeing connections among things that appear on the surface to be unrelated to each other.

For example, consider this sample question from the standard test for this trait, as developed by a University of Southern California psychologist named Sarnoff Mednick: "What word is related to the following other three? Cookies, sixteen, heart."

If you answered "sweet," well done.

Great innovators score off the charts in associative thinking, but most of us are capable of it to some degree --if given enough slack, in Tom DeMarco's sense of the word.

So it could well be that, in the era of knowledge work, the most prosperous companies will turn out to be those that encourage people to build some slack into their days. (A first step, according to DeMarco, might be to cancel as many meetings as possible.)

The Google example

If you doubt it, consider Google. On February 23, the company unveiled a new product called Page Creator, which allows people who can't write HTML code to create their own web pages quickly and easily.

Within hours, this was such a smash hit that the company had to put a temporary limit on the number of Google (Research) users who can sign up for it.

Page Creator is the brainchild of an engineer named Justin Rosenstein whose relatives were constantly bugging him to build web pages for them. He came up with the elegant technology behind the product while noodling around at the office on a project unrelated to his regular job.

Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., is a famously laid-back place, replete with lap pools, massage rooms, pool tables, free haute cuisine, and loads of other stress-reducing amenities like onsite dry cleaners and hair stylists.

"We want to take as much hurry and worry out of people's lives as we can, because a relaxed state of mind unleashes creativity," says Stacy Sullivan, the company's HR director. "And everybody's on flextime here, so we don't reward face time or working super-long hours. We just measure results."

In the end, what else matters? Of course, not every workplace can match Google's. But plenty of companies might do a lot worse than to emulate the thinking behind it.

200 Dumb Quotes (and then some)

1. If you're gay or lesbian, it's a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex.
- Dr. Laura

2. It's a one-to-one dialogue. You open your mouth and you're talking to 6 million people.
- Derek Jameson

3. And there's the Victoria Memorial, built as a memorial to Victoria.
- David Dimbleby

4. His brother failed; lets see if he can succeed and maintain the family tradition.
- David Coleman

5. Direct mail - it falls out of every magazine you open these days.
- Derek Jameson

6. I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.
- David Dinkins

7. I'm making an announcement: Not one penny will I give to AIDS anything as long as [public sex is allowed in gay bathhouses]. Not cent one. It's a preventable disease. If you don't want to prevent it, I don't want to pay for it.
- Dr. Laura

8. Marble Arch was outside the Palace, but now Marble Arch is at Marble Arch.
- David Dimbleby

9. For those of you haven't read the book, it's being published tomorrow.
- David Frost

10. There's a lot of good older players around, but very few.
- David Carr

11. Sometimes when I'm swimming, I think that maybe someday I'll put my red Speedo up for auction. Or maybe I'll donate it to the Smithsonian. They can stuff it with two plums and a gherkin and put it on display.
- David Duchovny

12. If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either.
- Dick Cavett

13. A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
- Dan Quayle

14. I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.
- Dan Quayle

15. I want to be Robin to Bush's Batman.
- Dan Quayle

16. This election is about who's going to be the next President of the United States!
- Dan Quayle

17. A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
- Dan Quayle

18. In view of all the deadly computer viruses that have been spreading lately, Weekend Update would like to remind you: when you link up to another computer, you're linking up to every computer that that computer has ever linked up to.
- Dennis Miller

19. 'Its good to be back here in the great state of Chicago.
- Dan Quayle

20. I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.
- Dan Quayle

21. If Ross Perot runs, that's good for us. If he doesn't run, it's good for us.
- Dan Quayle

22. We're going to have the best- educated American people in the world.
- Dan Quayle

23. Half this game is ninety percent mental.
- Danny Ozark, Phillies manager

24. I'll tell you, it's Big Business. If there is one word to describe Atlantic City, it's Big Business.
- Donald Trump

25. If crime went down 100%, it would still be fifty times higher than it should be.
26. D. C. Councilman John Bowman

27. I went in and said, "If I see one more gratuitous shot of a woman's body, I'm quitting . . . " I think the show should be emotional story lines, morals, real- life heroes. And that's what we're doing . . .
- David Hasselhoff, star of Baywatch

28. The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. . . this century's history. . . . We all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.
- Dan Quayle

29. I've got my faults, but living in the past isn't one of them. There's no future in it.
- Detroit Tigers manager Sparky Anderson

30. There goes Juantorena down the back straight, opening his legs and showing his class.
- David Coleman (Montreal Olympics)

31. My shoes are size 2 and a 1/2, the same size as my feet.
- Elaine Page

32. Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be discontinued . . . Reason: it has been reported to our office that you expired on January 1, 1976.
- Excerpt from a letter, Illinois Department of Public Aid

33. Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.
- Epicurus

34. It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
- Emiliano Zapata

35. If you let that sort of thing go on, your bread and butter will be cut right out from under your feet.
- Ernest Bevin, British foreign minister

36. This country needs a spear chucker, and I think we've got him up on this podium.
- Eugene Dorff, mayor of Kenosha, Wisconsin, introducing candidate Jesse Jack

37. The drivers have one foot on the brake, one on the clutch, and one on the throttle.
- ESPN commentator Bob Varsha, covering a Grand Prix race

38. Richard Burton had a tremendous passion for the English language, especially the spoken and written word.
- Frank Bough

39. The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them unsafe.
- Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia

40. I want you guys to pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle.
- Florida State football coach, Bill Peterson

41. Alright you guys, line up alphabetically by your height.
- Florida State football coach, Bill Peterson

42. Not only is he ambidextrous, but he can throw with either hand.
- Football Coach, Duffy Daugherty

43. Men, I want you to think of one word and one word only: Super Bowl.
- Football Coach, Bill Peterson

44. There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.
- Frank Zappa

45. Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas.
- Former Australian cabinet minister, Keppel Enderbery

46. If a third or more of our population were killed in an attack (a conservative estimate by the standards of the Rand Corporation's "Study of Nonmilitary Defense") a stronger estate tax would have a tremendous revenue potential.
- from a 1963 Federal Reserve System planning document

47. At the Lincoln Park traps on Sunday. . . over 80 shooters took part in the program. Rotarians, be patriotic! Learn to shoot yourself.
- From Chicago Rotary Club journal

48. The Rolling Stones suffered a great loss with the death of Ian Stewart, the man who had for so many years played piano quietly and silently with them on stage.
- Andy Peebles

49. Eye witnesses were on the scene in minutes.
- Adam Boulton

50. You seem to be a man who likes to keep his feet on the ground - - you sail a lot.
- Alan Titchmarsh, BBC1

51. Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Kuwait.
- A. Whitney Brown

52. Everybody winds up kissing the wrong person good night.
- Andy Warhol

53. I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.
- Amie Beth Dickinson, Miss Alabama 1994, answering the question "If you could live forever, would you and why?"

54. It's like learning to play golf. Just when you think you've cracked it, they move the goalposts.
- Adrian Love, Southern Counties Radio

55. We are now living in the age in which we live.
- Ann Burdis

56. Most of the living legends I've been researching go back over centuries.
- Andrew Jones

57. Why do you think marriage is a bum deal, for you as a gay person?
- Ann Leslie

58. So if you haven't set off for the center yet, the best thing to do is to turn back and go home.
- Anne Nightingale

59. You are a first generation American but your father wasn't.
- Alan Tentob

60. Not only is life a bitch, it has puppies.
- Adrienne Gusoff

61. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay

62. Insurance is like marriage. You pay, pay, pay, and you never get anything back.
- Al Bundy

63. We all know the leopard can't change his stripes.
- Al Gore

64. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
- Al Gore

65. Genius is the talent of a person who is dead.
- Anonymous

66. Live every day as if it were your last and then some day you'll be right.
- Anonymous

67. What is life, except excuse for death, or death but an escape from life.
- Anonymous

68. Guide to understanding a net addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on Usenet. Busy day: managed to work in three hours of Usenet. Bad day: barely squeezed in three hours of Usenet.
- Anonymous

69. Wherever I have gone in this country, I have found Americans.
- Alf Landon, in a campaign speech while running against FDR

70. I've been planted here to be a vessel for acting, you know what I mean?
- Actor Leonardo DiCaprio

71. Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing- but none of them serious.
- Alan Minter

72. Did you write the words, or the lyrics?
- Bruce Forsyth

73. And he nipped them in the bud, right at the end.
- Bob Holness

74. And we journalists are taught to avoid clichés like the plague.
- Barry Norman

75. I wasn't always black . . . There was this freckle, and it got bigger and bigger.
- Bill Cosby

76. It wasn't hit terribly well.
- Bob Costas. after Knoblauch hit a ball in the ALCS playoffs

77. Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life.
- Brooke Shields

78. They've really got the bit between their legs now. . .
- Bobby Ham, Pulse Sport

79. Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly.
- Batman Costume warning label

80. Dial- up telephone modems are an abomination. They cram digital data packets through analog voice circuit switches- - the worst of both worlds. . . even telephone modems, dumb as they are, know what they are doing is wrong. Just listen to their hissing and screeching every time we force them to do it.
- Bob Metcalfe

81. The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. But not in that order.
- Brian Pickrell

82. Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries.
- Bill Cosby

83. When you become senile, you won't know it.
- Bill Cosby

84. A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.
- Bob Hope

85. When they asked Jack Benny to do something for the Actor's Orphanage - he shot both his parents and moved in.
- Bob Hope

86. We have only one person to blame, and that's each other.
- Barry Beck, New York Ranger, on who started a brawl

87. The doctors X- rayed my head and found nothing.
- Baseball great Dizzy Dean explaining how he felt after being hit on the hea

88. 640K ought to be enough for anybody.
- Bill Gates, 1981

89. I've been up and down so many times that I feel as if I'm in a revolving door.
- Cher

90. I'm a salty, greasy girl. I give every french fry a fair chance. Could you just lay some lard in my belly?
- Cameron Diaz

91. Once he'd gone past the point of no return, there was no going back.
- Commentator, BBC1

92. It's not so much a thankless task, it's more a job with no thanks.
- Colin Baker, ITV

93. Rotarians, be patriotic! Learn to shoot yourself.
- Chicago Rotary Club journal

94. We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.
- Colonel Gerald Wellman

95. I do not know the American gentleman, god forgive me for putting two such words together.
- Charles Dickens

96. He does not preach what he practices till he has practiced what he preaches.
- Confucius

97. For if he like a madman lived, At least he like a wise one died.
- Cervantes

98. Don't cut off your nose yourself.
- Casey Stengel

99. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a phony with a capital F.
- US Congressman, during a heated congressional debate

100. There's Adam Clymer, major- league asshole from the New York Times. Cheney's response, "Oh yeah, he is, big time. "
- George W. Bush / Dick Cheney

101. According to a survey 1 in 100 men wear the same hair each week.
- GWR FM

102. US planes have the capability to penetrate deep into Soviet soil.
- General Rogers

103. If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight.
- George Gobol.

104. Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
- George Carlin

105. I have opinions of my own - strong opinions- but I don't always agree with them.
- George Bush

106. I have such poor vision I can date anybody.
- Garry Shandling

107. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
- George Bernard Shaw

108. For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex. . . uh. . . setbacks.
- George Bush

109. I hope I stand for anti- bigotry, anti- Semitism, anti- racism. This is what drives me.
- George Bush

110. Now, like, I'm the president. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy to come in to the White House and start offering it up, you know?. . . I bet if they did, I hope I would say, 'Hey, get lost. We don't want any of that. ' (Talking about drug abuse to a group of students)
- George Bush

111. This is Pearl Harbor Day. 47 years ago to this very day, we were hit and hit hard at Pearl Harbor. " - Bush addressing the American Legion in Louisville, Kentucky, on Sept 7, '88, 3 months off target .
- George Bush

112. A letter from the Iowa Department of Human Services said, "Your medical assistance is cancelled beginning 9/24/84 because of your death. "
- Government

113. You're a parasite for sore eyes.
- Gregory Ratoff, actor/director

114. [I want to] make sure everybody who has a job wants a job.
- George Bush, during his 1st campaign for the presidency

115. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
116. General William Westmoreland

117. I want to gain 1500 or 2000 yards, whichever comes first.
- George Rogers, New Orleans Saints running back

118. These American horses know the fences like the back of their hands.
- Harvey Smith

119. Am I lightheaded because I'm not dead or because I'm still alive?
- Heidi Sandige

120. Give Bill a second term, and Al Gore and I will be turned loose to do what we really want to do.
- Hillary Clinton, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser

121. I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.
- Hillary Clinton, commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents

122. Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the Cambridge president is kissing the cox of the Oxford crew.
- Harry Carpenter, commenting on a boat race

123. I think that a toilet roll with Father Christmas printed on it is really scraping the bottom.
- Interviewee on Woman's Hour

124. It was completely quiet in the stadium - but noisy,
- John Humphreys

125. What's nice about my dating life is that I don't have to leave my house. All I have to do is read the paper: I'm marrying Richard Gere, dating Daniel Day Lewis, parading around with John F. Kennedy, Jr., and even Robert De Niro was in there for a day.
- Julia Roberts

126. I might have been through some changes, but changing the way I look wasn't one of the major ones. To be honest. I'm sick of the whole subject of my hair. I mean, are you just sitting there looking at my hair, or are you looking at me?
- Jon Bon Jovi

127. I'm an old- fashioned guy. . . I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.
- Johnny Depp

128. Until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.
- Jim Carrey

129. We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police.
- Jeff Marder

130. Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T- shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.
- Jerry Seinfeld

131. Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery. Don't eat pork. I'm sorry, what was that last one?? Don't eat pork. God has spoken. Is that the word of God or is that pigs trying to outsmart everybody?
- Jon Stewart

132. I must declare an interest in this, and say that I know absolutely nothing at all about guns.
- Jimmy Young

133. At the finish, it was all over.
- Jim Watt

134. A scout troop consists of twelve little kids dressed like schmucks following a big schmuck dressed like a kid.
- Jack Benny

135. For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.
- Johnny Carson

136. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
- Joe Louis

137. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
- J. Heller

138. Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
- Jeff Raskin

139. A dollar saved is a quarter earned.
- John Ciardi

140. When holding a press conference on Free Trade with U. S. president Bill Clinton, Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien was asked what he thought about all the drugs that were entering Canada from the U. S. He responded: "Well, it's more trade. " After a tense moment of silence and some muffled laughter Clinton leaned over and whispered something in Chretien's ear. Chretien immediately blurted "Oh drugs! I thought you said trucks!"
- Jean Chretien

141. When President Kennedy did a speech in Berlin, his ending line is "Ich bin ein Berliner. " To German speakers, what that really means is "I am a jelly donut!"
- John F. Kennedy

142. Upon his drafting into the Dallas Mavericks, Mr. Kidd was quoted as saying "We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees". Let's think about that, shall we?
- Jason Kidd (Dallas Mavericks)

143. I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
- John Wayne

144. My life is so full of surprises, nothing surprises me any more.
- Kim Wilde

145. I'd like to put on buckskins and a ponytail and go underwater with a reed, hiding from the Indians. To me, that's sexy!
- Kevin Costner

146. When Electrolux first marketed their vacuum cleaners in the U. S. , their slogan was, "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux!" Apparently, the Swedish- speaking people who created that slogan didn't know that in American slang, "suck" also means "to be bad".

147. A verbal contract is not worth the paper it's written on.
- Lee Iacocca

148. Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
- Linus Torvalds

149. For best results: wash in cold water separately, hang dry and iron with warm iron. For not so good results: drag behind car through puddles, blow- dry on roof rack.
- Laundry instructions on a shirt made by HEET (Korea)

150. I've always thought that under populated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted.
- Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank

151. The first black president will be a politician who is black.
- L. Douglas Wilder, governor of Virginia

152. So Carol, you're a housewife and mother. And have you got any children?
- Michael Barrymore

153. It was here that V. S. Naipaul found his voice as a writer.
- Melvyn Bragg

154. Red squirrels. . . you don't see many of them since they became extinct.
- Michael Aspel, Radio 2

155. There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.
- Robert Orben

156. Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field.
- Metro Radio

157. When you look at Prince Charles, don't you think that someone in the Royal family knew someone in the Royal family?
- Robin Williams

158. Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are.
- Matt Lauer from NBC's Today Show.

159. If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate.
- Marion Barry, Ex Mayor Of Washington D. C.

160. What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?
- Marion Barry, Ex Washington D. C. Mayor

161. I was driving through Kent and literally went through bright blue sunshine.
- Mike Smith

162. It's all happening too fast. I've got to put the brakes on or I'll smack into something.
- Mel Gibson

163. What do people mean when they say the computer went down on me?
- Marilyn Pittman

164. I'm a psychic amnesiac. I know in advance what I'll forget.
- Michael McShane

165. First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club and second, what can I say? I'm a night owl.
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

166. Bitch set me up.
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

167. I am clearly more popular than Reagan. I am in my third term. Where's Reagan? Gone after two! Defeated by George Bush and Michael Dukakis no less.
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

168. The laws in this city are clearly racist. All laws are racist. The law of gravity is racist.
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

169. I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol. Can you deny that to Africa?
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

170. People have criticized me because my security detail is larger than the president's. But you must ask yourself: are there more people who want to kill me than who want to kill the president? I can assure you there are.
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

171. The brave men who died in Vietnam, more than 100% of which were black, were the ultimate sacrifice.
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

172. I read a funny story about how the Republicans freed the slaves. The Republicans are the ones who created slavery by law in the 1600's. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was not a Republican.
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

173. What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?
- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC

174. During an either late January or early February edition of Larry King Live, he had Monica Lewinski on as a guest. They were discussing her weight loss through the Jenny Craig program. While her intentions were quite innocent, the following quote was quite funny. "I've learned not to put things in my mouth that are bad for me.
- Monica Lewinski

175. I wonder if we can speak through rose- tinted spectacles.
- Nick Ross

176. It's only when you get to the outskirts of the city that the slippery conditions really get a grip.
- Norman Rickard

177. This is exactly how the World Wide Web works: the HTML files are the pithy description on the paper tape, and your Web browser is Ronald Reagan.
- Neal Stephenson

178. In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

179. It's just gone 17 minutes past four. That's the time, by the way.
- Paul Jordan

180. This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing.
- Pat Glenn, Weightlifting Commentator

181. This is really a lovely horse, I once rode her mother.
- Pat Glenn, Weightlifting Commentator

182. This kind of thing has happened since Kingdom Come.
- Peter Lush

183. Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!
- Padres radio announcer

184. You shouldn't stay here too long, or you'll turn slitty-eyed,
- Prince Philip Windsor talking to some British students in China

185. Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.
- President Gerald Ford

186. And what is more, I agree with everything I have just said.
- Piet Koornhoff, South African ambassador to the US

187. After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the school department is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of David Steele to the post.
- Philip Streifer, superintendent of schools, Barrington Rhode Island

188. I know what I've told you I'm going to say, I'm going to say. And what else I say, well, I'll take some time to figure out, figure out all that.
- George Bush

189. There is today in the United States as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge.
- Ronald Reagan

190. A week is a long time in politics, and three weeks is twice as long.
- Rosie Barnes

191. If you put it on the table as a bargaining chip, it becomes a bargaining chip.
- Ronald Reagan

192. In Japan, I suppose, apples are small bananas compared to rice.
- Rhoda Sharp, Radio 5 Live

193. Jersey's Crime Prevention Team are out and about, so have you locked up your property?
- Roger Bara, Radio Jersey

194. One possible compromise is to permit gays, but restrict them to the rear echelon.
- Radio 4 News

195. The champion has retired after 8 undefeated victories.
- Richard Whitely

196. There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.
- Robert Orben

197. The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans are suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
- Rita Mae Brown

198. Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot- proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. " "I have all the answers, it's just that most of them aren't right.
- Rich Cook

199. When you look at Prince Charles, don't you think that someone in the Royal family knew someone in the Royal family?
- Robin Williams

200. We spend weeks and hours every day preparing the Budget.
- Ronald Reagan

201. If we can just get young people to do the same as their fathers did, that is, wear condoms.
- Richard Branson

202. Listen, Jerusalem wasn't built in a day.
- Robert Maxwell

203. Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
- Rita Mae Brown

204. I have all the answers, it's just that most of them aren't right.
- Rich Cook

205. As Henry VIII said to each of his three wives, " I won't keep you long. "
- Ronald Reagan

206. I was under medication when I made the decision to burn the tapes.
- Richard Nixon

207. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
- Redd Foxx

208. Man has made use of his intelligence, he invented stupidity.
- Remy De Gourmant

209. I wouldn't mind dying - it's the business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me.
- R. Geis

210. If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever to get a 'fix' of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude that Netnews is far more addictive than cocaine.
- Rob Stamofli

211. This is a great day for France!
- Richard Nixon, said while attending Charles De Gaulle's Funeral.

212. In a speech, when he was aiming to say "I have had great financial success" Ross Perot by mistake said "I have had great financial sex. "
- Ross Perot

213. Bruce Sutter has been around for awhile and he's pretty old. He's thirty- five years old. That will give you some idea of how old he is.
- Ron Fairley, Giants broadcaster

214. This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.
- Ron Ziegler, press secretary to President Richard Nixon

215. He's trying to take the decision out of the hands of twelve honest men and give it to 435 congressmen!
- Representative Charles Vanik of Ohio

216. He dribbles a lot and the opposition don't like it- you can see it all over their faces.
- Ron Atkinson

217. We would not be here but for those people who gave their lives and very often gave their futures.
- Simon Bates

218. He is in hospital suffering from a nervous breakdown, but no doubt he will soon be better and running around like a maniac.
- Simon Bates

219. Apparently there is no truth in the fact that Sylvester Stallone's wife is a lesbian.
- Steve Wright

220. My second hit was a flop.
- Shakin' Stevens

221. I've got 10 pairs of training shoes - one for every day of the week.
- Sam Fox

222. In our industry John Blake is the kind of guy you either love or hate. I like him.
- Simon Bates

223. Not only was Sue having a nervous breakdown, but she was having a tough time mentally too.
- Simon Bates

224. And don't forget, on Sunday, you can hear the two minute silence on Radio 1.
- Steve Wright

Gender of Computers

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. "House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa." "Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz." A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ("el computer"), because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

Shit happens! But there are many types

Sometimes when shit happens, you want to be able to articulate the experience more than just you've, taken a shit. Here are some shit definitions to help you explain the situation better to your friends and family...

Ghost Shit
You know you've shit. There's shit on the toilet paper, but no shit in the bowl.

Teflon Coated Shit
Comes out so slick, clean and easy that you don't feel it. No traces
of shit on the toilet paper, you have to look in the bowl to be sure
you did it!

Gooey Shit
This has the consistency of hot tar. You wipe your ass 12 times and it
still doesn't come clean. You end up putting toilet paper in your
underwear so you don't stain it. This shit leaves permanent skid marks
in the toilet.

Second Thought Shit
You're all done wiping your ass and you're about to stand up when you
realize it.....you've got some more.

Pop a Vein in Your Forehead Shit
This kind is the kind of shit that killed Elvis. It doesn't come until
you're all sweaty, trembling and purple from straining so hard.

Bali Belly Shit
You shit so much you lose 5 kilos.

Right Now Shit
You better be within 10 seconds of a toilet. Usually it has its head
out before you get your pants down.

King Kong Shit
This shit is so big that you know it won't go down the toilet unless
you break it into smaller chunks. A coat hanger works well. This kind
of shit usually happens at someone else's house.

Wet Cheeks Shit
This shit hits the water sideways and makes a BIG splash that gets your ass wet.

Wish Shit
You sit there all cramped up and fart a few times, but no shit!

Cement Block or Oh God Shit
You wish you'd gotten a spinal block before you shit.

Snake Shit
This shit is fairly soft and about as big around as your thumb and at
least three feet long.

Cork Shit (Also Known as Floater Shit)
Even after the third flush, it's still floating in there. My god! How
do I get rid of it? This shit usually happens at someone else's house.

Mexican Food Shit (also called Screamers)
You'll know it's alright to eat again when your asshole stops burning.

Beer Drunk Shit
This happens the day after the night before. Normally your shit
doesn't smell too bad, but this shit is BAD. Usually there's somebody
standing outside to use the bathroom. This kind of shit also usually
happens at someone else's house.

The Frightened Turtle
The kind of shit that just pokes its head out then quickly goes back in

The Bungee Shit
The kind of shit that just hangs off your ass before it falls into the water.

The Ring of Fire Shit
The kind of shit where you eat really spicy food and your asshole
feels like the inside of a cigarette lighter.

The Crippler
The kind of shit where you have to sit on the toilet so long your legs
go numb from the waist down.

The Big Bobber
The kind of shit that no matter how many times you flush it always
floats back to the surface.

The Shitty Shitty Bang Bang
The kind of shit that hits you when you're trapped in your car in a traffic jam.

The Incredible Hulk Shit
The king of shit that sits in the toilet overnight and mysteriously
expands to twice it's normal size.

The Jack the Ripper Shit
The kind of shit that yanks out the hair of your ass as it pushes its way out.

The Party Pooper
The giant shit you take at a party. And when you flush the toilet, you
watch in horror as the water starts to rise.

The Toxic Gas Shit
The kind of shit that makes you pass out and fall of the toilet before
you finish, and then you wake up in some strange South American town.

Dirty Bowl Shit
The kind of shit that comes out in a million pieces a second,
reminiscent of an avalanche - but with rocket propulsion, and
splatters all over the toilet bowl.

The Windy City Shit
When you sit down, and fart for so long and hard that you no longer
need to take a shit.

Oh Shit! Shit
You shit so much and wipe your ass so furiously you run out of toilet paper and you say OH SHIT!

The Never Ending Shit
It's the shit that keeps running out of your ass like pea, and just when you start wiping your ass your stomach gargles and splash, more shit runs out. This always happens after eating at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Ouch That Hurt Shit
The type of shit that leaves you feeling like you just hoped onto a bicycle without a seat. Sensation usually lasts hours.

Bird Flu Symptoms

VIDEO: Only in America: End Women's Right to Vote

3 mts 18 secs

Click on the image above, and then click on play button once it becomes available.

In this video scores of well-educated young women sign a petition to end women's suffrage. Don't blame them - English is their first language!

P.S. - Padua Academy is an all-girls Catholic high school in Wilmington, Delaware. The high school was founded in 1954 and is a four-time winner of the “Superstars in Education” Award from the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce.

Arabs and Jews

---------------------------------------------

An Arab was walking through the desert, desperate for water, when he saw an old Jewish man selling neckties. The Arab said, "I'm dying of thirst. Can I have some water?"

The Jewish man replied, "I don't have any water, but why don't you buy a tie? Here's one that will look nice with your robe."

The Arab said, "I don't want a tie. I need water."

"OK, don't buy a tie," the Jewish man said. "But to show you what a nice guy I am, I'll tell you that over that hill, about four miles away, is a restaurant. They have water."

The Arab walked over the hill. Two hours later, he came crawling back. The Jew asked, "Couldn't you find the restaurant?"

The Arab gasped, "I found it all right. Your brother wouldn't let me in without a tie."

VIDEO: A world without Romania

5 mts 08 secs

Click on the image above, and then click on play button once it becomes available.

This film makes some interesting claims. I am inclined to agree with the one about women.

It's all in the timing

A man checked into a hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally typed a wrong e-mail address, and without realizing his error, he sent the e-mail. Meanwhile....Somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband's funeral. The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting condolence messages from relatives and friends. After reading the 1st message, she fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room found his mother on the floor and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I've reached
Date: August 3, 2005
I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here; we are allowed to send e-mails to loved ones. I've just reached and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you TOMORROW!

Your loving Hubby

VIDEO: M&H Fart

0 mts 30 secs

Click on the image above, and then click on play button once it becomes available.

Silly humor. Not my typical style. But somehow I like this one.