Ah, kids these days. And their parents too. I remember when I was a kid trying to impress people by getting my room clean as quickly as possible or hitting a badminton birdie farther than my dad. Clearly, as an eleven-year-old I had nothing on the girl in this video. Woah. Not only does she dismantle the AR-15 (it's a gun, it's a weapon, it's a killing machine) in fifteen seconds, she puts it back together after that for a combined total time of 53 seconds. The kicker? Not so much that she's a tween or pre-tween herself, but that her father was the one who taught her how to do this, and he's the one who filmed the video.

Both father and daughter seem very pleased by the girl's abilities. My husband summed it up best when he asked me, after I was visibly shocked by the footage, when they took the girl into custody. Who the heck really keeps guns in their house when they have children? And who the heck teaches them how to use them? Better yet, who keeps an AR-15 in the house and teaches his eleven-year-old daughter how to use it?

Who's to say whether there is a mom around, whether she saw the video, and whether or not she knows or cares that her daughter has the technical skills of an assassin. Perhaps it was supposed to be funny, but the video is more terrifying than anything. Children and guns, of any kind, do NOT go together. Plain and simple, guns kill people. And, sadly, more often than not, they kill children.

Most people, adults or children in the know, do not like to think about their parents having sex, ever. Well, there is the fact that there's a very good chance the parents had sex in order to get said adult or child, but other than that we prefer to have our minds boggled rather than our imaginations ruined by thinking about our parents getting it on.

Not so with Matthew McConaughey. His mother, Kay McConaughey, is set to publish a sort of memoirs/tell all book about her life, and in it she gets pretty explicit about her relationship with Mateo's father, how the star was conceived and how her husband met his ultimate, if not untimely, demise. Says Kay, who married Matthew's dad three times and spent over sixteen years before conceiving, her hubby died during sex; she knew he was gone when he just wasn't responding.

More information than we will probably ever want to know. If there's one thing I want to think about LESS than my own parents having sex it's Matthew McConaughey's parents having sex and then one of them dying during it. The Sahara star did comment that if he has to go, he hopes it's a long way off, but that doing so while making whoopy would be the desired method of exit. And, I will say, for being 77, Kay McConaughey looks unbelievably amazing. Seriously. If we could all look like that when we're 77 people would never actually stop having sex.

Let this be a lesson to us all. If you're going to borrow library books from your local library, please be reminded that "borrow" is the operative word. You get a library card (generally for free) and thereby enter into an agreement wherein said library lends you books for a few weeks...and then you give them BACK. If you don't, you get hit with a meager fine. Last time I borrowed a book, the fine was about five cents a day. Seriously--it's been a LONG TIME since I've borrowed a book. In other words, there's really no incentive to not return the books that were lent to you for free by the very nice people who work at the library. Sometimes, however, when you take those things for granted, things get nasty.

Just ask Heidi Dalibor, who refused to return her copies of White Oleander and Angels and Demons. Nor did Ms. Dalibor remit the fines she owed to the library from which she borrowed the page-turners despite the notices she received in the mail. Furthermore,she declined to take note of the court citation issued to her when she didn't respond to the Grafton Library's calls and letters to her. The result? She was arrested. Cops showed up at her family's house, handcuffed her, and booked her for violating the "overdue library materials" ordinance! Seriously.

My words of advice? Return your library books, people. Or, at the very least, see what policies your town has regarding whether or not you return them.

Pic by jhoweaa.

So this is a weird one. When we travel we always bring along Parmalat for our toddler. It's much easier, obviously to transport and deal with on the road as it's vacuum-sealed and doesn't need to be refrigerated (until it's opened of course). Upon a recent trip to Central Park Zoo, a friend said someone had once told her that Parmalat isn't really milk.

The friend's acquaintance who made this claim was vegetarian (as is our family) and my friend was actually commenting on how people make such strange distinctions. The acquaintance refused to drink Parmalat because it wasn't "real milk." My understanding is that Parmalat is, indeed, real milk, it's just packaged differently, and perhaps treated a little differently to ensure it's safe to be packaged in a way that allows it to not need to be refrigerated (until opened).

So what is the deal? A recent trip to the Parmalat website upped my curiosity factor. They refer to the milk they distribute as "milk products." They also call it "ESL milk" which means Extended Shelf Life--not English as a Second Language. With regard to the whole vegetarian thing, while we don't necessarily eat meat, a good deal of us do drink milk--Parmalat included. Vegans don't do any animal products whatsoever, but quite a few vegetarians do.

So what's the deal? Is Parmalat really milk, or not? To me, if it looks like milk, smells like milk, and tastes like milk, and they call it milk, it's probably milk.

Pic by allanpatrick.

It doesn't take a lot of foresight to realize the list of acceptable words or phrases acceptable to print little girl underpants is very short. But apparently the people involved in the production of Disney High School Musical panties either lack the skill of looking ahead or just aren't very bright when it comes to double entrendre.

A British woman bought a pack of High School Musical underpants for her seven-year-old granddaughter was appalled to find the words "Dive In" on one of pairs.

"I was extremely shocked when I saw what was on them and I don't believe Disney or anyone else is so stupid not to realize the implications of the wording they chose." said Sue Ralph who said she would never have made the purchase if the phrase had been visible through the packaging.

A Disney spokesperson: 'The knickers in question were designed using our High School Musical 2 artwork, which uses the creative theme of a swimming pool, as this is a key part of the film's storyline. Unfortunately a genuine oversight was made and the text on this product was used outside the context of the swimming pool. This product will not be part of any forthcoming collections."

While it's good to hear that the number of High School Musical fans wearing "Dive In!" panties will be limited, I still think it's a bit far-fetched that THAT many people could be that clueless. Sounds like what the Disney product development team really needs is the addition of parents with common sense to help them out.

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The Olympics are all about healthy competition, but it isn't the cutthroat kind of competition found in the music industry. It's all about working hard, perserverance, good sportsmanship and trying your best. Or is it?!

Apparently in an effort to present the best, most attractive Western-looking face possible, nine-year-old Lin Miaoke was chosen to sing "Ode to the Motherland" during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. There was only one problem: Miaoke' wasn't actually singing the song. The angelic voice heard by a billion people actually belonged to seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, whose face was deemed not adorable enough to represent China in the ceremony.

A British ex-pat Chris Smith, who has been living in Beijing for nine years, told a reporter: "It's because China is obsessed with promoting a certain look, girls should be more Western-looking with high cheekbones. They don't like rounded faces. Olympic officials also chose only tall, slim, attractive women of a certain look to hand out medals."

The music direction of the show Chen Qigang explained it this way, "This is in the national interest. It is the image of our national music, national culture, especially during the entrance of our national flag. This is an extremely important, extremely serious matter. I think it is fair to both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi."

Having an attractive person serve as frontman for a more vocally talented, but less marketable singer is nothing new, just ask the surviving member of Milli Vanilli. It's too bad that people in power within the Chinese government that made this decision have not yet realized that imperfections are what makes kids so great.

There was no need to cobble together a super-kid, a child with a voice like that is guaranteed to awe and inspire the world.

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For thousands of years, henna has served as a temporary way to add intricate and beautiful designs to the human body in North Africa, Egypt, India, and parts of the Middle East.

Body art created with pure henna, (an ink, which is actually paste made from the from dried leaves of a henna plant) starts out a dark brown/black color and is applied with a brush or squeeze bottle. After the henna paste completely dries, it falls off, leaving behind a stain of the design which will lasts about two weeks. Skin allergies to pure henna are uncommon.

However, as interest in henna body art grows in Western cultures, so do short-cuts and "improvements" to this ancient art. Street vendors and temporary booths found at concerts and summer festivals offer long-lasting tattoos made with "black henna"-henna with the addition of the chemical para-phenylene diamine (PPD). While longer lasting designs sounds good in theory, PPD can cause contact dermatitis and those lovely swirly designs are not nearly as attractive when rendered in oozing, swollen red blisters!

And if the oddity of a raised rash in an ornate design isn't bad enough, just one reaction to PPD can mean the sufferer could have an allergic reaction to even the slightest contact with the chemical for life. PPD can be an additive in: printer ink, hair dyes, photographic products, and black clothing and can cross-react with chemicals found in some medications for diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.

So while the advertisement might say that henna tattoo is temporary, it's best to err on the side of caution and make sure you know what kind of henna is being applied to you or your child's body. The ramifications could be long lasting.