pathology_doc

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.

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.

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!

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."

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!