A Croatian politician has been swept to power after promising voters he would rip them off at every opportunity.

Bare-faced Josko Risa was voted in as mayor in Prolozac with a landslide victory using the slogan: “All for me – nothing for you.”

“I just told them the truth. This town will be like my family business. If I get a little something, so do they,” he explained.

Locals who backed Risa said they would be happy to have him as mayor, despite his bizarre campaign pledge.

Ivan Vjisnic, 57, said: “We know what we’re letting ourselves in for.

“We’re going to get ripped off no matter who takes over. At least he’s being honest and up front about it. And he has said that if things get better for him then they will get better for us.”

[Story From Ananova]

“A lot of people have asked me about this, so I thought I’d put the information here, linked under my home page:

Yes, I am the inventor of the sideways “smiley face” (sometimes called an “emoticon”) that is commonly used in E-mail, chat, and newsgroup posts.  Or at least I’m one of the inventors.

By the early 1980’s, the Computer Science community at Carnegie Mellon was making heavy use of online bulletin boards or “bboards”.  These were a precursor of today’s newsgroups, and they were an important social mechanism in the department – a place where faculty, staff, and students could discuss the weighty matters of the day on an equal footing.  Many of the posts were serious: talk announcements, requests for information, and things like “I’ve just found a ring in the fifth-floor men’s room.  Who does it belong to?”  Other posts discussed topics of general interest, ranging from politics to abortion to campus parking to keyboard layout (in increasing order of passion).  Even in those days, extended “flame wars” were common.

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