The mother of four (soon to be six), along with her live-in boytoy Brad Pitt, is currently residing in a palatial French mansion, and preparing to give birth to twins. Despite rumors that Ms. Jolie will not be giving birth until August, word is out that a team of nurses from L.A. have already hopped over the pond to France.

Her protective “instincts” are obviously on high alert, and Angie is definately ready to kick the ass of anyone who tries to tangle with her (seems to be an odd admittance, given her stature as a goodwill ambassador to the UN, don’t you think?).

She told the Daily Mail, “Brad and I are not against having a gun in the house, and we do have one. And yes, I’d be able to use it if I had to. I could handle myself.”

So basically, what she’s doing is telling the world not the f*ck with her.

Besides, Jolie has pretty much made a career out of being a hot action star — and action stars get a lot of practice when it comes to giant weapons of destruction. If I were a thief, I think I’d steer clear of that nice little French mansion and find another family that isn’t so educated in the art of shooting bullets.

Now, I have recently found out that I may have been dead wrong. Apparently, wine is worse for your brain than beer is. It affects one of the most important parts, the hippocampus, which is responsible for things like memory and spatial awareness. According to researchers, wine had the most drastic effect on the brain compared to all other types of alcoholic beverages.

The statistics are staggering and have caused me to think twice about drinking in general…

According to the Daily Mail in UK, the psychiatrists behind the study compared brain scans from diagnosed alcoholics with those from healthy adults. They found the hippocampus, which is located deep within the brain’s temporal lobes, was up to 10 per cent smaller in those who drank.

The study compared brain scans from diagnosed alcoholics with those from healthy adults. In non-alcoholics the hippocampus was 3.85ml. In beer drinkers it was 3.4ml, in spirit drinkers 2.9ml and for wine drinkers it was the smallest, just 2.8ml.

That may seem like a slight difference, but to me, the fact that a part of my brain may be up to one ml smaller purely because I drink alcohol is a bit scary. Not to mention the fact that I definitely prefer wine over beer, which puts me at the absolute bottom of the statistics.

Maybe now is the time to consider that much needed alcohol break for more reasons than just to avoid the calories…

There are traits that many women share, as well as traits that a lot of men have, it’s just a fact rooted in ratios; the only time a problem arises is when someone uses those ratios to make thoughtless, stupid remarks.

Like Tom Mitchelson, a journalist for the Daily Mail.

On a whim, Mitchelson decided to live as he “imagined a woman might” (imagined is the key word here), detailing a week’s worth of thoughts into a article so full of derogatory feminine oversimplifications that it’s a good thing I have no idea where he lives.

“I worried about cellulite, obsessed about finding the right partner and thought constantly about my biological clock” Mitchelson details, adding “Pints are out; spritzers (as in wine coolers. WINE COOLERS!!) are in.”

“Westerns are gone (except Brokeback Mountain), to be replaced by romances…I ring my mother every day, buy flowers, read my horoscope, pluck my eyebrows and browse the chick-lit section of the bookshop.”

Hmmm, I know MY day as a woman isn’t complete without fixating over having a baby and hoping my horoscope will tell me if I should give the flowers I just bought to the guy I’m “obsessing” over.

I mean, honestly.

Mitchelson goes even farther into stereotype land when he suddenly explains his week thinking as a woman isn’t complete without going on a diet and being concerned with fitting into his jeans has “suddenly…become very important”.

Nowhere in the article does Mitchelson go into the deeper issues of being a woman, and how could he? Eating some freeze-dried ice cream and riding a roller coaster doesn’t make me an astronaut for a day. It just makes me a person who once ate freeze-dried ice cream.

Tommy boy can talk to me after he’s used a tampon, walked home alone at 2 AM, listened to some stranger catcall him for three blocks, and have a boss call him ‘honey’.

…AND tried a wine cooler. That sh*t’s disgusting.

We all know insipid magazines like Cosmo and Redbook give men the impression the women are all about “Impressing Them in Bed!” and “Finding That Position That Makes Our Orgasms Last for 78 Minutes!!” and “Shoes!!!”

But have you ever wondered what guy mags like Stuff and FHM say about us? One women thinks they teach dudes to objectify us.

How groundbreaking.

Rosie Boycott, a former editor for Esquire magazine and freelance journalist for the Daily Mail says that men’s magazines are becoming more and more sexually explicit, and the women allowing themselves to be photographed are partially responsible.

“The Nuts website has a page called Assess My Breasts, in which readers are invited to rate the breasts and bottoms on display.” Boycott writes, “Every one of these has been sent in by a young woman.”

According to Boycott, the increasingly “cold and cruel” sex portrayed in men’s magazines is teaching males that women “are there to be used sexually for [their] pleasure and all women – secretly or not – are longing for rough sex and plenty of it.”

None of this could be possible, however, without the thousands of eager and willing girls who allow photographs of them splashed across the pages.

Arguing against the fact that men’s magazines exploit women is stupid, because they do, but saying that a lot of the blame rests in the hands of women is also a little skewed. Women (for the most part) aren’t the ones who are buying this stuff. They’re not the one’s proving that smut sells.

Are more girls than ever deciding that being outwardly and overtly sexual is cool? Yes. Is that trend a little disturbing? Yes. But we’re not making these decisions in a vacuum.

Instead of blaming one gender more than the other, how about we look at society as a whole, and figure out why everyone’s so obsessed with showing strangers not just their bodies, but their wallets, diary entries, and their little black book of bedfellows.

Though we’ve been led to believe otherwise by movies and dramatic episodes of Dawson’s Creek, let’s face it—sex can be awkward.

Instead of perfect lighting that makes you look hotter than Heidi Klum, you have your date’s lava lamp casting a faint glow on your cellulite. You don’t always fall effortlessly into bed, your bodies completely in sync. Sometimes you have to move your cat, half-eaten can of Pringles, and dog-eared copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You” out of the way first.

Passionate tearing off of clothing? Sure, sometimes.

But then there are those times where he’s fumbling with your bra clasp for so long that you don’t even help him because you’re curious to see how long it’ll take.

And then there’s another awkward, very critical part of sex—one that is more often than not, completely ignored in television and movies. The condom. And according to a new study, apparently the whole “disease and pregnancy-free” concept is so awkward for some, that, hell, they just ignore it all together!

According to the UK’s Daily Mail, Brits are so embarrassed to talk about condoms, that a third of them don’t use one at all—and it looks like STI cases have been rising in the UK. You make the connection.

I’m not trying to preach here, believe me. I don’t exactly whip out a dental dam over a candle-lit dinner and fling it in the middle of the table. And I may or may not hide my box of condoms under the new issue of US Weekly in my shopping cart. But when it comes down to it, if we think of ourselves as mature enough to HAVE sex, shouldn’t we be mature to acknowledge that fact that we’re having sex by at least briefly mentioning the use of a condom in the near future?

Sure, talking about it is a little embarrassing. But so is waking up with herpes.