pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. There will be no wedding bells for Bert and Ernie, according to those in charge. "Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation." Muppetsexual, perhaps? Seriously, though, why would you do it? It'd be like Snoopy finally shooting down the Red Baron or Charlie Brown's team winning the baseball game - once it's done, where do you go from there? Besides, anyone with half a brain knows that the canon pairings are Ernie/Rubber Ducky and Bert/pigeons...

2. With friends like these, who needs enemies? UNRELEASED music and personal belongings were stolen from singer Amy Winehouse's home in the days after her death. The star's father, Mitch Winehouse, believes one of her acquaintances took copies of unreleased tracks, lyric books and letters. And he has vowed to root out the culprits when he returns from a family holiday taken to come to terms with his loss, The Sun reports. Filthy little grubs.

3. Whether or not they are actual one-hit wonders, some bands will always be remembered for one song. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes not. THE lead singer of 80s glam rockers Warrant was found dead at a Los Angeles hotel late today, TMZ reported. The body of 47-year-old Jani Lane - who wrote the band's hit Cherry Pie and also had a solo career - was discovered at the Comfort Inn hotel in Woodland Hills.

But did he die with a smile on his face ten miles wide? It's disturbing to think that this could actually be the case.
pathology_doc: Fireflash AAM (antifuckwit missile ready to fire)
As a result of this obscene piece of journalistic fuckwittery, my occasional news summary posts will no longer carry this synonymous title.

I won't go back and change all the others - I don't believe in erasing history - but the reason for the change demands explanation.

Words cannot describe what a loathsome and appallingly stupid thing this was for those self-styled "journalists" to do. Occasionally - very occasionally, when momentous events affecting national security or government probity are afoot - it might be permissible for a news service (any news service) to hack the communications of a Government minister and/or the private citizens with whom they may be dealing.

To hack the mobile phone of a missing thirteen year old girl, with the results described in the article, was not a defensible act, would not today be a defensible act, can never be a defensible act - except by the relevant experts in Law Enforcement, who might thereby detect, analyse and trace to its source a demand sent for ransom or some sort of clue which might help them locate the victim (and thereby the offender). It is not, was not, and should never be something for the news media to do.

It would appear that Mr Murdoch and the Prime Minister have each chosen one of their high-level staff rather poorly. Were I either Mr Murdoch or the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the relevant employee would be out the door at once and could forego any hope of a good reference.

ETA 8th July: OMFG.

FInal edition indeed. The owners have announced that they are shutting the paper down in order to atone for its crimes.

This being the case, I may yet keep the "News of the World" title for my posts. Indeed there is no reason not to do so now that the disgraceful rag which I would not wish to name... will no longer be around to be named.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. The KFC Double Down burger, bacon and cheese between two chicken patties and hold the buns. Yes, you heard. Apparently takes "an hour of strenuous exercise to burn off", and described as one of the manliest burgers ever. Of course, if you spend all day at a job involving manual labour and you have one of these for lunch, you can probably kiss those calories goodbye by the time you finish work...

2. For those who have severe ethical problems with vegetarianism, you can have a Hungry Jack's (that's Aussie-speak for Burger King) Whopper which is rather supercharged. In fact, not only is it turned up to eleven, it's turned up by eleven. That's right, you can order up to twelve patties.

This one apparently takes 17 hours of walking to burn off all the calories, but that's no worry so long as you're into rogaining, in which case you're already seven hours into burning off the next one by the time you finish the event.

3. If you can't handle this monster, there's still Hungry Jack's Quad Stack, to wit:

TV commercials are promoting the Hungry Jack's Quad Stack Burger, which contains four beef patties, four slices of cheese, two rashers of bacon, barbecue sauce and two sugared buns.

It contains 71g of fat, 34.7g of saturated fat, 1930 milligrams of sodium and 74.8g protein.

The burger, which sells for $5.95, has no salad and the calorie content equates to more than half a woman's recommended daily energy intake and almost one-third of a man's.


Which, if you're doing long hours at the office and you finish the day as hungry as hell, is probably all the calories you're going to get. Or have time to eat. I could have used a quad stack before starting my weekly six-to-midnight surgical prosection frenzies back in 2007, though I'll cheerfully admit the sodium's a bit of a worry - you can probably put the salt-shaker away for the rest of the week after having one of these.

4. On the other hand, at least the Muslims will be safe... as long as they don't eat too much salad.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Former Happy Mondays dancer Bez has been sent to jail for attempting to strangle his ex-fiancée Monica Ward. Bez, real name Mark Berry, has been given a four-week sentence at Manchester Magistrates Court yesterday, after refusing to perform unpaid work as a sentence, reports the Daily Mail.

If I ruled the world, such a man would go to the gallows... as would the brain-numbingly stupid magistrates who thought that unpaid community work or a month in prison constituted sufficient punishment. Twenty to life with hard labour at the minimum, please.

2. A Californian man who says he ordered French onion soup and bit into a condom instead of melted cheese has settled his lawsuit against the Claim Jumper restaurant chain. Hey, chef: condom ≠ consommé.

3. Police and wildlife experts have launched a search for two baby alligators that escaped from a zoo in southern France. Fortunately, 'These are young alligators with jaws hardly any bigger than a poodle's, so no one will get eaten.'

So they say now. Come back in a few months and we may not be so blasé

4. Looking for a fast-food fix? Can't decide between pizza and burgers? Burger King is here to save you: Burger King is set to launch the Pizza Burger - a two-in-one dish that contains more than 2,500 calories and is four times the size of the chain's Whoppers. The meal will delight fast-food fans when it is exclusively introduced at Burger King's Whopper Bar in Times Square, New York, next month.

Sounds a lot like a variant on the calzone. That being said, I'd buy one.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. An Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in Iran has pleaded to be allowed to hug her children, in a letter attributed to her released by human rights activists in London. Muslim immigrants to the West, please note - either leave shit like this at the door or turn around and go back where you came from. We don't want it here. If this is your culture, fuck your culture. That having been said, those Muslims coming in who do leave their homeland's cultural baggage at the door shouldn't have to deal with shit like this:

2. A US church plans to publicly burn copies of the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The announcement, from Florida's Dove World Outreach Centre, has prompted threats from Islamic groups and warnings the move will trigger a rise in hate crimes. Dove World Outreach Centre? More like a pack of vultures to me. No better IMNSHO than the stone-age savages who passed the death sentence on that Iranian woman.

3. Say you're a Brazilian soccer player who's just murdered his porn-star girlfriend and you're looking for a way to hide the body. Why not turn to Man's best friend? Among the macabre details divulged by police: they believe Bruno was in a home near Belo Horizonte home with Samudio last month at the time of her murder, and that her body was later cut into pieces, some of which were fed to Rottweiler dogs kept at the house in a bid to cover the murder. A wise man once said "Murder will out" - and here it has. This strengthens all the prejudices I've ever had about testosterone-overloaded men who keep testosterone-overloaded dogs.

4. Headline: WORLD'S OLDEST MAN LIVES IN JA... wait:

A home visit by Tokyo officials to a local resident to congratulate him on his 111th birthday instead led to a police search that uncovered his three-decade-old skeleton.

New headline: ZOMBIE EMBARKS ON THIRTY-YEAR WELFARE-FRAUD RAMPAGE.

5. What a waste: A British teen girl who fell seven floors from the window of a Spanish hotel on a schoolies week celebration has died of her injuries. Grace Ford, 17, plunged 30m when trying to climb out of the window of a male friend's room in an apartment where visitors were not allowed, UK newspaper the Telegraph reported. Apparently they thought the window was a conduit that led to another part of the building. Please note that "drug-induced coma" almost certainly means "sedated in intensive care" in this context, but she must have been pretty hammered in the first place to make a stupid mistake like this. The saddest part of all is that she died of complications - she seems to have survived the fall itself. Nevertheless, it's why I disapprove strongly of end-of-year debauches by school leavers, something which has become pretty much institutionalised here in Australia in the event known as "schoolies week".
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. A melee broke out at a funeral wake south of Brisbane, forcing police to use a taser gun and capsicum spray to control the the brawl. Eight men and one woman were arrested and charged with a total of 23 offences. That's almost three criminal offences per person. I've heard of family problems bubbling to the surface when someone dies, but this is ridiculous!

2. Disendorsed Labor MP Belinda Neal has announced she will not stand as an independent candidate at the federal election. Good news. She has a history of disgraceful public behaviour, including accusations that she used her political weight to pressure complainants into withdrawing statutory declarations and telling a pregnant Opposition MP that her foetus was a "demon baby". She will not be missed.

3. Miranda Kerr has reportedly told close friends she is expecting a baby after her marriage to Orlando Bloom. DID YOU HEAR THAT? JUST MARRYING ORLANDO BLOOM IS ENOUGH TO GET YOU PREGNANT!!! Fic writers, go nuts!
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Australia should consider an automatic electoral enrolment system and educate young people about the voting process, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says. Over 70 per cent of the missing 1.4 million voters are young people, she told reporters in Adelaide on Monday.

The missing 1.4 million she refers to are those who are eligible to enrol but have not yet done so. I'm of two minds. It does seem stupid for the rolls to close on 8pm on the day the writs are issued - a week would be a more reasonable time, given that nominations for seats don't close for another fortnight. On the other hand, anyone who hasn't smelled an election in the wind in the last few weeks would seem either to be living in a cave or not to be firing on all eight cylinders, and in the latter case it's arguable that they probably shouldn't be voting.

Remembering to enrol to vote as soon as you're eligible (and to make sure that you're enrolled in the correct electorate and at the correct address) would seem to me to be a pretty good test of having sufficient brainpower in the first place to cast that vote in an informed manner. I'm all for altering the legislation to give people a little more time, but putting people on the rolls automatically seems to contain too much danger of putting people on them who don't actually exist or leaving people off them who do. At least we Aussies register purely as voters, rather than under a political affiliation, so nobody's tempted to knock voters off the roll in order to deplete one side or another of support (lest they shoot themselves in the foot).

2. More than half of Australian parents with children using online social networking services like Facebook and Twitter say the services are distracting them from their studies according to the latest Cyber-safety Research Report commissioned by Telstra.

There is some truth in this, but basically all it boils down to is an extension of "passing notes/talking in class" to the home environment, with the exception that there's no teacher there to bring the distracted ones back to their task. In my day, the academic race was won by those who could devote sufficient concentration to their studies to avoid such time-wasting frippery until the task they were actually there for was complete. Nobody's forcing them to Tweet or refresh Facebook fifty times a minute, and I can think of many occasions when being able to ask a colleague or teacher for pointers to homework help in real time would have been invaluable.

3. The Australian Greens have confirmed they have reached agreement with Labor over preferences for the August 21 federal election. Details of the deal will be announced later on Monday, just a day after Greens leader Bob Brown admitted he was 'at odds' with his own party over preference negotiations.

Then he should resign in protest and stand as an independent. The Greens practically always preference Labor, to the point where I feel they should just grow a pair and form a formal coalition.

Under the deal, the Greens will direct preferences to Labor in lower house contests in return for receiving Labor in the upper house race, paving the way for the minor party to hold the balance of power in the Senate in its own right from July 1, 2011.

Overseas observers, make no mistake - the Greens are NOT your typical centre-left "let's make sure we don't piss all over the environment" party. They're technologically ignorant hairshirt fanatics, with no understanding of what their policies would do to Australia if implemented without restraint.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren has died at his home in New York, his spokesman said, adding that he had been suffering from cancer. Two punk music managers go round the outside, round the outside...

2. A 20-year-old man has died, and two others have been seriously injured, after falling two storeys from a Gold Coast nightclub. Police say the men fell through the window of a Surfers Paradise nightclub on Orchid Avenue just before one o'clock this morning (AEST). Just how do you do that without being stupid or a drunken daredevil? Cause of death, machismo?

3. Not death, but certainly the end: Australian band Powderfinger will call it quits after more than 20 years together following a national tour later this year. The Brisbane band has announced its biggest tour to date in September and October to farewell fans.

4. Not musical, but to do with dead stuff after a fashion (and I do mean fashion!!): The latest beauty treatment craze sweeping the world is a fish pedicure.

In the procedure, a person plunges their feet into a tank of water filled with tiny carp called Doctor fish or Garra Rufa, who have a fondness for dead skin. The toothless fish nibble away any dead skin on the foot, leaving them silky smooth.

As the fish do not have any teeth, the procedure is painless, but does tickle.


It tickles, eh? Interrogators at Gitmo should take note - after all, giving your captive a pedicure is hardly torture, is it?

"You have two choices - talk... or gradually be lowered, feet first, into this vat of hungry, swarming fish."
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Two-thirds of Australians don't want the country's population to reach 36 million by 2050, as forecast by Treasury, an opinion poll shows.

Of course we don't - especially when the government is at the beck and call of people who put "environment" ahead of infrastructure development to a degree that approaches delusion. The strange thing is, it's often those same people who rant on about "sustainability" and yet cry "racist!" whenever anyone talks about slashing immigration.

2. One of Europe's biggest discount airlines, Ryanair, will charge passengers to use on-board toilets. The Irish airline is planning to make its toilets coin-operated, forcing passengers to fork out STG1 ($A1.65) or E1 ($A1.44) every time they want to spend a penny in the sky.

I commented on this some time ago. It remains today as stupid and unreasonable a plan as it did then. It's also dishonest, because it artificially deflates the price of the ticket and gives the traveller an unrepresentative picture of what their trip will really cost when comparing prices.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with charging extra for carrying bags over a set limit. There's nothing more aggravating than the travellers in front of you who check in several large suitcases and large taped-up boxes crammed with duty-free goods, and they should pay through the nose. But the airline which charges everyone to carry the baseline 20kg suitcase and 7kg/head of carry-on baggage is nothing short of mercenary. Security requirements, if nothing else, dictate that some baggage will - until further notice - always have to go in the cargo hold.

3. Gotta watch the wildlife here. An Australian man has reportedly killed a wombat with an axe after the animal attacked him and pulled him to the ground in a 20-minute ordeal. Even the herbivores are dangerous.

4. A Californian restaurant has developed the super sized OMG Burger for people with a big appetite. The burger features a 1.8kg beef patty, 12 slices of cheese and some mayo, all packed onto a 30cm brioche. It's served with two kilos of french fries for those brave enough to buy it. Priced at US$35 (A$37) from The Catch restaurant in Anaheim, California, the burger is said to feed eight to ten people.

Newly diagnosed diabetics, coeliacs and familial hypercholesterolaemics, take note. Your final gastronomic indulgence before a lifetime of due care awaits. I expect its successor, the OMGWTFBBQ burger, to be announced shortly.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. He's hot, he's sexy and he's got every teenage girl on the planet desperate for him to... er... bite them. But Rob Pattinson's got one small problem that might see all their hopes dashed.

The New Moon star is featured in a saucy photoshoot with a nude model in the March issue of Details magazine. And speaking of his discomfort working with a naked beauty, he revealed: "I really hate vaginas. I'm allergic to vaginas. But I can't say I had no idea, because it was a 12-hour shoot, so you kind of get the picture that these women are going to stay naked after, like, five or six hours... Thank God I was hung over."

Looking at it not-quite-seriously, perhaps this is why Edward Cullen waits so long to deflower the far more eager Bella Swan. And why Harry Potter slashwriters who like their Harry/Cedric served hot might be on to something. On the other hand...

Pattinson, who is rumoured to be dating Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart, also spoke of the only emotional connection in his life - with his pet dog.

Anyone interested in a remake of Old Yeller?

2. When you join the Army, you expect to be toughened-up, trained to your limit, run through a fitness course that makes The Biggest Loser look like a children's party with skipping games, and then lay it all on the line for your country day after day. Reason enough to be allowed to let off steam over more than a few drinks? Not according to the top brass:

Australia's army chief Lt-General Ken Gillespie has warned soldiers they could be dismissed if they continue to indulge their heavy drinking culture.

Australia's Army Chief has declared war on the abuse of alcohol, demanding soldiers be punished for going overboard in their drinking habits. 'It's not even about being fed up, its caring about my institution and seeing the harm that's being done,' he said.

Lt-General Gillespie has also written an angry email to commanders, saying he is ashamed of the alcohol abuse, which is undermining the force's reputation.


The issue is NOT how much they drink - the issue is whether they're holding their liquor and performing in the field. Those should be the terms of reference, but that's not what this article seems to be saying. And if they're holding their liquor when they're in the public eye, and not doing anything non-consensual when they're out of it, my solution to Lt-General Gillespie is that he should consider butting out. It may be that he's right, and there are critical issues of ill-discipline stemming from it that are the reason for his displeasure, but it saddens me to see the senior Army officer appearing to sound like the most wowserish of Modern Major Generals a la the BEF in 1914 - or worse, like our Prime Minister, who in the name of saving youths from alcoholism overtaxed and demonised the one form of spirits which provided them with a legislatively mandated quantification of how much they were drinking.

I will admit that Australian soldiers had a terrible reputation for alcoholism and civil disobedience in both world wars, but they more than made up for it with their performance on the battlefield. To put it simply, and with the qualification I've already mentioned above - if they're doing no harm to anyone off the battlefield, leave them be - it probably means they'll do more harm to the enemy on it, which to be very blunt is what we pay them to do.

3. Valentine's Day has just come and gone, which means that for lonely hearts, unsatiated creepy stalkers and hapless dweebs, the worst part of the year is over. "Love Stinks", they might all have cried, but there's one happily married man who took the saying literally - and carved out a huge heart for his wife made entirely of shit:

Nothing says 'I love you' like a heart nearly a kilometre wide made out of manure.

A southern Minnesota man created the Valentine's Day gift for his wife of 37 years in their farm field about 19km southwest of Albert Lea. Bruce Andersland told the Alberta Lea Tribune that he made the gift with his tractor and manure spreader.

His wife, Beth, says it's the biggest and most original Valentine she has ever received. She says some people might think it's gross, but she says it's cute and 'Why not do something fun with what you got?'


Us country people are not nearly so squeamish about such things as city folk. Still, I'm glad I settled on flowers and a nice 'dining out' breakfast for my wife on Sunday.

4. Australian "environmentalists" whine that dams are a blight on the earth and risky to build because Climate Change is going to bring less rain and then what use will they be? But when this sort of thing happens again and again, one begins to suspect that the time has come to flick the greenies and vested-interest politicians out of the way and call in the civil engineers and hydrogeologists.

And speaking of Climate Change, the "science which was settled" according to Prime Minister Rudd is looking decidedly unsettled right now. And a good thing, too - there'd have been no need for 'skeptics' and 'deniers' if this level of uncertainty had been public knowledge from the start.

It's also a very, very good example of the need to preserve your raw data adequately. And, if doubts being raised about the accuracy and consistency of those raw data are anything to go by, to ensure it's being gathered properly. There's nothing like an unfalsifiable hypothesis to get people smelling a very, very necrotic rat.

Perhaps now we can have the public argument we should have had before Al Gore waltzed off with his Nobel in 2007: Exactly what is happening? To what degree do Humanity's inputs and efforts make a difference? And if they do, what should those efforts be? Because I somehow doubt that trading pieces of paper around the world is going to make much of a difference. I think what we're looking at is the combined effort of several Panama Canals, and if there's a bill to be paid for that then so be it... but let it be collected as a fixed levy over a reasonable time, and let it be paid to the engineers, geologists, hydrologists, resource providers and workers who make the effort, and to NOBODY ELSE!
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Scientists have found that a chemical in pork products and eggs can help the growing brain to develop. A new study suggests that the micronutrient, called choline, is critical to helping babies in the womb develop parts of their brains linked to memory and recall.

Valid only for mice so far, but watch this space.

2. Alfie Buckle could have died, three months before he was due to be born, after complications with the placenta. His parents Emma, 28, and Gregg, 36, were completely unaware of the problem with their first-born - having been told he was completely healthy at a 20-week scan. However, doctors spotted the problem just in time after Mrs Buckle was mistakenly called in for another scan, just six weeks later.

This is the sort of fuck-up we'd like to see more of.

3. A milkshake that promises to boost the memory of Alzheimer's patients could be available within two years. Tests have proved that, taken once a day with breakfast, the strawberry flavoured drink can significantly improve memory for those in the early stages of the disease.

My milkshake brings all the brains to the yard?

4. Men who have sex at least twice a week can almost halve their risk of heart disease, according to new research. It shows men who indulge in regular lovemaking are up to 45 per cent less likely to develop life-threatening heart conditions than men who have sex once a month or less.

"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die" - the probability of the latter depending on exactly how we chose to be merry. And if we ate bacon and eggs and drank the dementia milkshake, we should all live to cross intellectual swords with our hordes of supergenius great-grandchildren!
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. A Brazilian bricklayer reportedly killed in a car crash shocked his mourning family by showing up alive at his funeral. Relatives of Ademir Jorge Goncalves, 59, had identified him as the victim of a Sunday night car crash in Parana state in southern Brazil, police said. Goncalves, who had been drinking with friends and didn't even know he was supposed to be dead until the funeral had begun, turned up just in time to reassure everyone that reports of his death really were exaggerated.

2. A Hong Kong woman's taste for fitness has been prolonged beyond the grave, thanks to her extremely strange husband. A man who wore women's clothing to use his dead wife's gym membership has appeared in a Hong Kong court. Lau Siu-wah, 51, was charged after he allegedly used his wife's identification card to exercise in the female-only section of the gym at the city's Sheraton hotel, The Standard daily reported. His wife died in 2007, which begs the question of how her membership had remained current. Was he using it all this time, only to be caught after two years? Given that Lau... appeared in court this week in women's clothes and wearing red nail polish, I have to suspect that he was. Poor man. Needs help, I think.

3. Oregon police have charged a man with drunk driving after he called police to report his marijuana as stolen.Calvin Hoover, 21, told dispatchers early Tuesday someone had broken into his truck and stolen cash, a jacket and a small amount of marijuana while he was at a tavern.Now in most places, this would be about the stupidest thing you could do. Oregon, however, has legalised medical marijuana (if you have a reason and a permit) so this doesn't appear so stupid... at first.

However: He called police again to complain they had not arrived, but the dispatcher had trouble understanding Hoover because he was driving and stopping occasionally to vomit, the Statesman Journal reported.

At this stage, you could have a marijuana permit signed by God Himself and it still wouldn't save you from a DUI charge. And that's what they arrested him for. There is, perhaps fortunately, no permit which excuses the other - human - sort of dope.

4. Fans hoping to glimpse U2's free Berlin Wall concert have been outraged to find a barrier has been installed to block the view for those without tickets. Both Berliners and tourists alike saw the irony in building a wall around a concert dedicated to the wall that has already come down. I can understand the tickets - there are only so many people who can fit into the immediate venue, and you need to sort out ahead of time who they are going to be. But given that it's free, how the everliving fuck can you justify walling it off so that those without cannot glance within? When Pink Floyd staged their Berlin Wall concert, which was certainly not free, what they did for those without tickets stands in marked contrast. Just what the hell are U2 playing at?
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Men who behave in a beastly fashion towards women are accused by feminists of being "cavemen", "dinosaurs", "neanderthals" and similar epithets signifying obsolescence at least and "why can't you be extinct?" at worst. Are the feminists justified? It appears so! A Sydney court has refused bail to the man known as the Bondi caveman, who is accused of raping a woman last night. Peter James Millhouse has lived in a makeshift camp on the cliffs overlooking Bondi Beach for almost 10 years. Caveman indeed.

2. From the malicious to the forgetful: An air safety investigation has been launched after a Qantas jet made its approach to land at the nation's busiest airport without deploying its landing gear. The pilots apparently noticed their oversight less than 300 metres above the ground. The airline has stood down the two pilots pending the safety investigation. You would hope so.

3. Sticking with the aviation theme, have you ever been in that crazy situation where your bags never come off the carousel, yet the poor harassed checkout staff swear before every god that ever was that they really did get on and off your flight? You could both be right. PHOENIX – Two people suspected of stealing up to 1,000 pieces of luggage from baggage claim carousels at Phoenix's airport have been arrested by police who found heaps of the stolen bags strewn throughout their home. There were so many suitcases that Phoenix police could only give a rough estimate of their number Tuesday as they pulled them out one by one and gathered them in the yard of Keith Wilson King and Stacy Lynne Legg-King's suburban residence. "A piece of luggage here, a piece of luggage there, I would imagine gets stolen out of airports all the time," Phoenix police Detective James Holmes said Tuesday. "This is a livelihood. There's a lot of luggage and there's a lot of victims." Your bags will be ready for collection at carousel number 666.

4. Old-time mariners spoke of and feared the Kraken, a giant squid-like creature big enough to destroy their ships, and the tentacular menace of Cthulhu is familiar to many of us. But their reign looks set to be challenged. Giant jellyfish have capsized a 10-tonne fishing boat after its crew tried to haul in a net full of the stinging creatures off the eastern coast of Japan. Dozens of Nomura's jellyfish sunk the Diasan Shinsho-maru boat and sent its three-man crew into the sea, The Mainichi Daily News reported. The organisms can weigh up to 440lbs and grow up to 6ft in diameter. The three men forced into the sea, near Chosi, were rescued by another trawler. 'The arrival is inevitable,' Professor Shinichi Ue told the Yomiuri newspaper. 'A huge jellyfish typhoon will hit the country.'

It is worth noting that Professor Ue works at Hiroshima University. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Half-naked, they say. You know which half, don't you? A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks. The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for travelling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said. "It's a miracle he wasn't badly hurt," the spokesman said on Monday. "This sort of thing can end up killing you."

Instead, dangling by his trousers, the man got pulled along for about 200 metres, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train.


Gravel rash - OWCH! Don't try this at home, kids.

2. Cut off the head, two new ones grow back. What next? Cut off both new heads: The hardline Indonesian terrorist group founded by slain militant Noordin Mohammed Top has been left in complete turmoil by the killing of its new leader, analysts say. Militant brothers Saifuddin Jaelani and Mohamed Syahrir were killed in a shootout with officers from Indonesia's elite Detachment 88 anti-terror squad during the raid on a boarding house on Jakarta's outskirts last week. Well done, Detachment 88 - keep up the good work.

3. Michael Jackson has released his last single - but to what degree is it actually his? With a familiar high-pitched voice counting off one-two-three-four, a new Michael Jackson single debuted online Monday, prompting a hasty response from the singer's estate after Paul Anka revealed he was the song's co-writer. "This Is It" is featured on the soundtrack to the upcoming documentary featuring the late superstar, but its genesis was actually in 1983 when it was written for a duets album Anka was recording. Jackson gets a sort of Funny Aneurysm Moment (TVTROPES LINK) with this song (and the intended tour of the same name), similar to Queen's "The Show Must Go On" - released not long before Freddie Mercury died of AIDS - and INXS's album and title-track single "Elegantly Wasted" - released just before frontman Michael Hutchence hanged himself; the irony was worse in the latter case because two previous albums from the band had been entitled Swing and Kick.

"This is it," Jackson sings to open the song. "Here I stand. I'm the light of the world. I feel grand." Messianic complex, much?

4. Gradually, reality is starting to seep in: Almost one in two Australians believe nuclear power should be considered as an alternative to fossil fuels, a new Nielsen poll published in Fairfax newspapers suggests. Forty-nine per cent of respondents to the poll said nuclear power should be considered for Australia's future energy needs, while 43 per cent were completely opposed, Fairfax newspapers said. Not in the hallowed halls of power, though, because... [t]he federal government however, is opposed to introducing nuclear power. In the lead-up to the 2007 election, then-opposition leader Kevin Rudd said: 'If you elect a Labor government, there will be no nuclear reactors in Australia, full stop'. Yes, Mr Rudd, because doing something about climate change is so important...

5. Phone sex: According to a recent online survey of Chicago residents, three out of 10 people said they'd give up sex for a year rather than sacrifice their mobile phone, officials said. Decisions, decisions. I wonder how long they would offer to give it up in order to keep their laptops. Cue image of millions of late-teens screaming in angst because they've connected with the girl/guy of their dreams online and can't hop in the sack until they're thirty.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Worthless Rugby thugs continue their sickening blight: Sydney Roosters player Stanley Waqa will face court today, accused of domestic violence. Police say the 21-year-old took a swing at a woman with a knife and cut her finger at a unit in Randwick, in Sydney's east. The front rower has been charged with wreckless wounding.

He has been stood down by the Roosters.


Yay to the club for standing him down. "Swift action" is promised once the legal niceties are dealt with, but hopefully that means immediate sacking and banning from the code for life without discussion or deliberation. Of course that's not to say some grubby foreign club won't take him, the way it took another misogynistic filthbag (the one who shoved a glass in his girlfriend's face).

If follow-up news concerning "negotiations about whether he still has a future with his club" or "the woman involved declining to press charges" airs, I will be enraged and disappointed but entirely unsurprised. Perhaps less of this would happen if the penalties imposed on these knuckle-dragging cretins actually meant something. Like...

2. A Saudi man who boasted about his sex life on television has been sentenced to five years in jail. Mazen Abdul Jawad was convicted by a criminal court on Sharia law-based charges relating to immoral behaviour. Three friends who appeared on the show with him were given two-year terms. While it's nice to see that Saudi law does actually make males suffer for their indiscretions, one wonders why they didn't throw in a couple of hundred lashes, like they do for women who are raped in the company of unrelated men. Shows that Sharia law has a long way to go, especially with regard to its double standards, its disconnection from reality and its total lack of any trace of compassion. Keep it where it started, please; we don't want it here.

3. On the other hand, here's someone who I'd quite happily offer up for a whipping: A Jetstar flight attendant is being investigated over allegations he contacted an underage female passenger on Facebook. According to the ABC, the flight attendant sent several messages to the 15 year old on the social networking site, after a flight from the Sunshine Coast to Melbourne. She denies passing him her name, which means he looked her up on the passenger manifest and tracked her down online. Scummy bastard; he's got no excuse. Watch someone blame Facebook for this.

4. Wedding photographer blues: A wedding photographer has been ordered to reimburse a couple after a judge described photos of their big day as 'woefully inadequate'. Marc and Sylvia Day paid Gareth Bowers, from Fresh Images, some 1,450 pounds ($2,589) to take pictures of their marriage. But they were so unimpressed with the 400 snaps he took, only 22 of them were approved. The article's worth reading, if only to experience the full horror of the man's incompetence. Methinks the couple probably wanted to flog him (preferably with a camera strap), and I have to admit that if they did, I would sympathise with them! I am so glad my wedding did not turn out like this.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Two child-killing wastes of oxygen have been jailed: A homeopath has been sentenced to at least six years in jail and his wife will serve at least four years for the manslaughter of their eczema-stricken daughter. Thomas Sam, 42, and his wife Manju, 37, were convicted in June of the manslaughter of their nine-month-old baby Gloria by failing to seek proper medical treatment. Now if only the sentences were about ten times longer, and involved gruel, rats, and cold stone floors. Such an end would be fitting for two people who colluded to let a child die in agony over months.


2. : Australia's biggest mining magnate has launched a scathing attack on the federal government's foreign investment rules, branding them racist. Racist? I call prudent. China is a military dictatorship, and the checks which are made and must be made would hopefully include determining who ultimately holds control over that investment. The last thing we need is for one of our mining companies to end up with a plurality (or worse, majority) of shareholders being sockpuppets for a sovereign state (any sovereign state) other than us - especially when that sovereign state doesn't have to answer rigorously to an electorate on a regular basis.

This is a national security issue. We must not gamble our sovereignty for a fistful of dollars.

3. "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" has, sadly, gone to her diamond-filled sky: The woman who inspired The Beatles' legendary song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds has died aged 46 from an autoimmune disease. Lucy O'Donnell was at school with John Lennon's son, Julian, when she was three and it was his picture of her in 1966 that inspired the classic song.

4. Emission trading hits a rocky patch in Parliament: It's been revealed over two-thirds of Liberal backbenchers disagree with Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's plan to negotiate with the government on the ETS. Just 12 of the 59 Liberal Party backbenchers in the House of Representatives and the Senate told The Australian newspaper they supported Mr Turnbull's decision to negotiate over amendments to the ETS. Bureaucracy, money shuffling and stock market speculation will not stop a single molecule of carbon dioxide being emitted, especially while the Government is still happy to sell the coal that becomes CO2 to nations which are intending to build the equivalent of Australia's entire carbon dioxide output every couple of months. Therefore it is a useless and futile scheme with many risks and no benefits, and therefore it must be stopped.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Here is a woman who named her cat in what can only be described as a fit of clairvoyance. Unfortunately, like Sybill Trelawney from Harry Potter, she had no way of knowing that she'd done this nor when it would come in handy. A woman's pet cat has been found alive, buried beneath debris 26 days after an Ohio fire. Sandy LaPierre says she assumed 1-year-old Smoka had died from the August 10 fire in Franklin, about 48km north of Cincinnati. The blaze broke out in a building housing a flower shop and LaPierre's second-floor apartment. Owner and cat are doing well.

2. Cats, it seems, are tough little bastards. An Auckland cat survived a 20km ride under a car after being run over, with only a broken leg to show for the ordeal. Gail Tomlinson thought she might have hit a cat in Manukau, but seeing no evidence, she continued on her 20-minute journey to work at Auckland Airport, at speeds of up to 90km/h. When she arrived, she heard a 'meowing' and found Albie the cat tucked in the chassis of her car, behind the number plate. After a bit of surgery, Albie too is doing well. Amazing, but of course we know the cat came back the very next day...

3. Continuing the feline theme: Usain Bolt may be the fastest man alive, but he's like a snail on valium compared to the world's fastest kitty-cat. A cheetah called Sarah has set a new speed record for all land mammals. The big cat covered 100 metres in an amazing 6.13 seconds in Cincinnati, America. That's 16.3 metres/second average over the course, or just under 59kph, with a top speed of up to twice that. Should you find yourself trapped in an enclosure with Usain and Sarah the cheetah, you should note that Usain doesn't have to run faster than Sarah; he only has to run faster than YOU. Unfortunately for you, by definition, he can.

4. Political correctness is killing Great Britain, as it is much of the Western World. However, I must admit that this little bit of PC does make the prospect of dining in Albion a little less fraught with horror, especially if the restaurant takes the name of the proprietor. I mean, can you just imagine: "Come feast on Uncle Albert's Spotted Dick" ??

Yes. Quite. Would you like whipped cream with that?
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Parents win right to name their child "Jihad". Or at least "Djehad", which phonetically probably amounts to much the same thing. German law forbids names which are "Harmful", but they supposedly got around this one by saying it also implies "the requirement to spread Islam peacefully throughout the world" or some such thing.

Fair enough, but just try moving to Saudi Arabia or certain areas of Pakistan or Afghanistan and calling your kid "Richard Lionheart Crusader" and see what happens!

2. This sounds about as tasteful as throwing a pool party for survivors of Hurricane Katrina, but: Residents in El Salvador have hurled fireballs at one another as part of an annual religious celebration. During the annual event, people take turns in the town of Nai Yappa to throw fiery, gasoline soaked rags at each other in honour of a huge volcanic eruption in 1922 that destroyed the old town. Apparently it was all done by a local saint, who was throwing the igneous fireballs at the Devil. Shame about the collateral damage, though, but I suppose if it keeps Satan in his place it's a price worth paying...

3. A Perth man has been charged with stealing a sea container full of premium Belgian beer worth $35,000. West Australian police allege two men stole a sea container containing more than 13-hundred cartons of Hoegaarden beer from a storage yard in Welshpool on August 20.... Police are looking for a cirrhotic liver on legs, last seen putting out a record number of empties for the recycling.

4. An artist is creating an intimate statue of Angelina Jolie breast-feeding two of her children. Gee golly whizz. Is that what Angelina's breasts are for? I suppose it does flip the bird to those who go off their nut when they see women breastfeeding, but next to the artist's previous projects...

Edwards has become notorious for his unusual sculptures, with other controversial statues including one of a dead, naked Paris Hilton and one of Britney Spears giving birth on a bear skin rug

...it's almost boring.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi met with Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi amid mounting Western outrage over the hero's welcome he received upon his return. This is what happens when you show compassion to a man dying of cancer. They know Libya's reputation - what the hell did they think would happen? I only hope the rumour that they swapped him for a good outcome on trade deals isn't true - Lloyd George and Churchill would be rolling in their graves.

2. Lithuania has opened its first "erotic museum". Approximately 300 exhibits are featured, detailing how the erotic form has been shown throughout time and the owner says he was inspired by ones he saw elsewhere. Ultimately, he says, "I suppose, they will understand that erotica is nice".

I wonder what the Men's toilets are like at the end of a long day. *shudders*

3. While we're on the topic - the headline is bizarre: Hooker wins gold in men's pole vault. Unfortunately for the perverts, it's really quite innocent. Go, Steve.

4. One more bizarre headline: "Crash survivors call for organ donors." It's not all that way-out until you realise that the survivors in question are the ones from this famous crash, which puts a whole new spin on things. The survivors will call for donors to make 'a pact with life, like we did up there in the mountains 37 years ago.' Somehow, I don't think an awareness campaign featuring the most famous cannibals on Earth calling for organ donation is all that good an idea.
pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
1. The premier of the State of New South Wales, here in Oz, is on record as having uttered the words: "If you think you're in love, you're in love. If you think you're [caught] in traffic, you're in traffic" when confronted with the commuter nightmare many of his constituents face.

Now one might think that one could while away one's gridlocked hours in traffic by imagining oneself in love, but a whole lot of frogs in Victoria, to the south of NSW, are not finding this to be the case. A Melbourne University study has found that the mating calls of male frogs in city ponds are being drowned out by traffic noise, and this is hindering these amphibian Romeos' chances of attracting and breeding with female frogs. All I can say is this.

2. You're a boy, you're eight years old, and you're looking to kill some time. You've tried billycarts, you've tried rollerblades, you've even tried motocross; and still you're looking for something new to capture your imagination. Why not try wing-walking? Of course it helps if you have a grandfather who's an expert and a mother who (through being said grandfather's daughter) trusts him implicitly, but you're bound to have one hell of a time... and you might even set a record.

Please excuse me while I channel my inner eight-year old. Wow; that's cool. *Wants.*

3. Have you ever been setting up a portrait shot with your camera on a timer and tripod, and some glory-seeking idiot steps in and ruins the shot? A pair of visitors to Canada had that experience, but little did they realise at the time that the intruder in their photo would go on to be world famous. You can have him crash your photo here.

When you're cute, you can get away with anything. Anything.

4. We've all heard of the Octo-mum, the lady who had IVF octuplets. You know, to go with the six she already had. One woman in Tunisia was looking strong to break that record, and snare herself an even dozen. Alas, it was all a hoax. For which the woman should, I suspect, be thankful...

5. If you love something, set it free; if it comes back to you, it's yours. I'm not sure whether my wife would forgive me if I lost my wedding ring so soon into the marriage, but perhaps this man's determination was what impressed his Other Half.

A New Zealand man who promised his wife he would find his wedding ring after it fell into the capital's murky harbour has been successful, 16 months later.

Ecologist Aleki Taumoepeau was checking Wellington harbour for invasive plant species in March last year when the ring fell into three metres of water.


He's lucky he wasn't working on the Mariana Trench!

Profile

pathology_doc: Ginny Weasley (film) clutching Riddle's diary: Ginny/Horcrux OTP (Default)
pathology_doc

October 2019

S M T W T F S
  12 345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 11th, 2025 08:09 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios