I had found these Beijing olympic mascot emoticons a looong time ago and can't remember from where! I had uploaded them to a forum which has been ridiculously blocked by my ISP for almost a year! So I re-uploaded them to share with smiley and emoticon loving people like me ^.^

These are the only ones I have so if you have more of them please share them with me kindly. Thanks a lot in advance ^_^
.

The following wallpapers are measured 1280 x 1024 each

For more official wallpapers please visit the Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games here
.

At the 3DParse you can find some beautiful images and movie clips of 3D reconstructed Persepolis done by Mr. Meysam Keshavarz. He's really done a magnificent job and deserves a thumb up or two ;-)

Clerics say Female Flag-bearer at Olympics "Constitutes an Obstacle for the Appearance of Imam Mahdi and disgraces Islam"

Tehran, 8 August (AKI) - Iranian religious figures have criticised that Olympic female rower Homa Hosseini was chosen as the flag bearer of Iran, calling the move a 'heresy'.

"To make a woman march with the flag of the Islamic Republic in Beijing, is pure heresy and shows total disobedience of the laws mandated by our spiritual guides," said Seyyed Ahmad Elmalhoda, leader of Friday prayers in Iran's holy city of Mashhad.

Hosseini, 19, grew up in Iran's Kermanshah province in western Iran, she is one of three Iranian female competitors at the Olympic Games and Iran's first ever female rower. The other two female competitors are Najmeh Abtin (archery) and Sara Khoshjamal (Tae Kwon Do).

"To make this woman march means to openly declare war to our religious values. Whoever is responsible for this unforgivable act, he should know that this gesture constitutes an obstacle for the 'appearance' of Mahdi," said Elmalhoda.

He was referring to the mainly Shi'a Islam belief that Imam Mohammed al-Mahdi (aka Imam Zaman) will appear to fight a final apocalyptic battle over the forces of evil.

Followers believe he was born in the year 868 and has been in hiding ever since awaiting a decision from god to reappear.

sources: [1], [2], [3]

These photos are published by IRNA and their original size is 800 x ~600

started the Beijing Summer Olympics. The opening ceremony was magnificent and beautiful (I watched it on a satellite channel as it was heavily censored on our Islamic TV >:-(

The following images are collected from different news sites or forums but their credits go to Getty Images and AP.

I just read this story. Although it was occurred on 31 July, it was so horrifying and shaking that I decided to post it here too.

Man Decapitated ‘Beheaded’ Aboard Greyhound Bus - Canada
July 31, 2008

A man aboard a Canada Greyhound bus was decapitated after being repeatedly stabbed b y another passenger. Police said Thursday they didn’t know what prompted a passenger on a Greyhound bus heading to Winnipeg to viciously attack the man sitting next to him. Passengers said the man repeatedly stabbed his seat-mate before beheading him and carrying the victim’s head around the bus. Shocked passengers described the horrific attack as something incomprehensible (you can continue reading more here if you still have the heart to :(

Oh my dear God, where the hell this world is coming to???
.

I have a DSL 256K subscription and should really thank God that I was an old subscriber and managed to save my broadband connection as an ordinary Home user! You ask why, I tell you. Following a ridiculous sort of law established in 2006, it became all of a sudden totally forbidden for the home users to have internet speedier than 128K!!!! But wait a minute, you may also laugh your heads out more when you learn it's recently announced that a 56K internet connection is more than enough for Iranian users needs and this is out of mere generosity that they are also provided with a 128K connection!!!

OK, now you may say it's not that much bad after all but it is when you exclude some factors such as high prices and awful connection speed quality. I, as a 256K user, am experiencing a speed equal to that of a dial up! Only very early in the mornings and pretty late at nights, when the network traffic is not at its peak I can have an acceptable speed.

Also it seems that the recent non-stop power failures occurring day and night due to the electricity shortage is worsening the situation even more by burning out the ISP's delicate electronic devices.

Poof, just check my ping for yahoo.com today and see for yourself what quality services are delivered and you can do nothing about it but signing petitions to which no authority pays a single attention (like this one: High Speed Internet Connection Is One Of Requirmenet Of Iranian People ) :

Pinging yahoo.com [68.180.206.184] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=347ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=342ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=352ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=356ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=356ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=342ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=339ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=339ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=346ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=355ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=351ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=366ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=371ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=389ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=390ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=375ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=375ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=337ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=354ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=342ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=348ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=349ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=345ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=337ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=337ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=339ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=346ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=345ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 68.180.206.184:
Packets: Sent = 55, Received = 41, Lost = 14 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 336ms, Maximum = 390ms, Average = 348ms

I like clouds, I like rising (and setting) sun and I love rare-in-polluted-Tehran blue skies! So one early morning around 6.40, I captured all these using my mobile phone camera (a good old faithful and great companion Sony Ericsson K800i ;) Hope you'll enjoy viewing it as much i did ^_^