Lindsay Lohan Goes to Rehab...

Lindsay Lohan has been sentenced to 90 days 14 days in jail! No, she was sentenced to 90 days, but overcrowding in the US penal system means that perpetrators of "less" serious (non-violent) crimes tend to do a fraction of the sentence imposed upon them.

Yes, that's right folks, 90 days became 14 days and the remainder to supposedly be served in a rehab center. Now, for some rehab is probably not all that different from jail. Nevertheless, the girl was sentenced to 90 days and it would have been reasonable to expect that she would have seen a few more days behind bars than the mere 14 that she ended up doing. This is particularly so considering that she was given ample opportunities to mend her ways. Ultimately, she was sentenced to prison time for violations of her strict probation conditions.

In the end, Lohan did less time than Michelle Rodriguez (of Lost fame) and Paris Hilton.

I wonder if anyone is running a book as to how long it will be before she is in trouble again?

Beer Goggles

It has finally been proven that what most of us men already knew is a scientific fact, beer goggles are real! A team from the University of Bristol has proven in a controlled study that alcohol intake increases the regularity of our thoughts on sex and improves the appearance of those around you.

The team conducted a controlled experiment on 84 heterosexual volunteers. The experiment involved half of the group getting a little bit drunk and then the whole group being asked to rate the attractiveness of others in a series of photographs. The results of the study are reported in the New Scientist magazine.

The results indicate that those that were slightly drunk rated the attractiveness of those in the photos that they were shown as being more attractive than the group that was sober. An interesting aside was that the slightly drunk volunteers also found members of the same sex to be more attractive.

This would seem to end the argument as to whether the "beer goggle" theory is true or not, it seems that it has now been scientifically proven. I reckon that this will now become the scientific reason and excuse for those many indiscretions of one's youth.

Happy drinking to you my loyal readers!

Qantas -- Safe or Not?

The story goes that the national press is always harder on the national flag carrier than it is on other airlines. Yet, in the case of Qantas (photo) then perhaps this increased glare of the spotlight is warranted considering the consistent failures logged over the last month or so. For an airline that has prided itself on its safety record while allowing its service standards to slip. I must admit that I have not flown Qantas in years, and the reason for this was that their service was less than expected.

However, on with the safety issues. Qantas is taking a bit of a hammering of late as the list of failures grows ever-longer. The most recent of these "events" includes a Perth bound 737-300 making an unscheduled toilet stop in Adelaide on its way from Sydney. It seems that the ground staff had forgotten to empty out the bowels of the plane and consequently mid-flight things went all to crap. I guess this is both in the literal and figurative senses of the word.

After the delay the flight continued on its merry way.

The second "event" was the delay to the QF2 flight out of London. which was delayed some 15 hours because of a broken rudder. I guess though this was not a mid air which is probably a relief for the passengers that were taking this flight.

These two "events" follow a string of other incidents including a mid-air explosion that forced a plane to divert to Manila in the Philippines, a hydraulic leak that forced a plane to divert to Brisbane, and the loss of a panel from a plane in flight that was not discovered until the plane landed at its destination.

The best is yet to come as a drunken Qantas flight attendant fell against a fire alarm in a hotel in New Zealand that caused a full-scale evacuation of the hotel in the wee hours of the morning. The flight attendant has since resigned. Another flight attendant from the same flight refused to take a breath test before boarding the plane and was stood down from the flight. This served to delay the flight for several hours as a new crew was flown in to cover for their drunk and embarrassed colleagues.

I guess people will have to draw their own conclusions on this expanding list of events.