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!