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Wow. I alluded to a change in my work hours in this week's "tbr", but I am just feeling the effects of them now. To say I am exhausted would be an understatement. That said, I am not too tired to roll out this fresh edition of "News Watch".
This week, we have a new #1 heading into the final week of the Noory Story Showdown. Can this new #1 maintain the top spot and go on to victory or will we see a comeback from the former leader to reclaim victory at the end ? We'll see. Also this week, in light of the demise of Jackson Schmackson, we bring you 2 new segments to "News Watch". First, it's "That's Entertainment !", where I comment of some entertainment story of the week and run down the box office numbers. Then there is "My Fandom : Year 2", which will be a Jackson Schmackson-esque chronicle of the remainder of this year's Boston Red Sox season. So if you like entertainment and sports, we've added them to "News Watch" in our uniquely twisted way.
So what are we waiting for ? Get busy ...
Hot 5 Stories of the Week
As the old saying goes, "only in Peru". The lovely Miss World is apparently all in a tither (or is it a lather ?) over news that her plastic surgeon is making all sorts of claims about his work on her. Much like the day when I heard wrestling was fake, I feel the same way about Miss World's breasts now. How sad.
"He said he had built me, that he gave me buttock implants and fixed my ears and this is false -- I'm not the creation of a surgeon, he just did my bust and my nose," the 20-year-old said. "So I'm considering suing." Just what NASA needs, more bureaucracy. Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! I've been saying it week after week after week here in News Watch. NASA is awash in government suits who can seemingly do anything but a quality job. The braintrust, and I use that term loosely, has decided that they need to create another division of NASA that seems to aim to do what I always thought NASA was doing all along. Yes, a new division of NASA that will analyze how things are going and what they should do next.
Um, what have they been doing then ?
Best headline ever. I'm not quite sure what drove this stoner on his rampage, unless he really needed some snacks. I don't have much to say about this, just a request that you read the description of his attack and enjoy :
The man walked into the department and handed a threatening note to the dispatcher at a her window around 5 p.m., police said.
As she read the note, he threw a glass bong at the bulletproof glass, police said. The bong shattered, but the window did not.
4>Students offered online PE courses(AP via CNN.com)
I don't hate fat people. I hate lazy people. I don't think schools should be encouraging laziness. I could rant and rave here for at least five or six paragraphs about how awful the schooling system in America is today, but I'll just save that for my third or so book.
But this new "online gym class" system is a symptom of the systemic problem that can best be summed up in the classic axiom, "the inmates are running the asylum." One lazy kid cries because he doesn't want to
run some laps and, next thing you know, we have an online gym class. Look for no homework and candy for lunch coming to your local, tax funded, schoolhouse.
What a loser. The town of Wilkes-Barre, which is downtrodden, poor, and kinda sad, has been down in the dumps for a while. Once a bustling little burough, they're now just a shell of their former selves. The mayor realized this. He went about telling everyone he had something big up his sleeve. The hyped reached a crescendo and the unveiled a new slogan for the town. He'll be unemployed after the next election.
Political and business leaders applauded the mayor's pluck, and "I believe ..." posters popped up on a few windows.
But workaday Wilkes-Barre rolled its eyes.
Some had been expecting a major new employer promising hundreds of jobs, retailers to fill the empty storefronts downtown, maybe even riverboat gambling along the Susquehanna River.
It's been said somewhere that in the future we'll essentially all be working for the government. UConn seems to be ahead of the curve as they are taking advantage of the new security craze and actually handing out Master's Degrees in Homeland Security. Egads. At least, now, we will have some accountability when things go awry again. Who am I kidding, that's not gonna happen.
What is gonna happen is that some hot shot will get a degree in Homeland Security and get lots of money from places that are paranoid about security. Sounds kinda like the way the mafia works.
"Business and industry are looking for a curriculum that prepares them for the same kinds of things government employees are being trained for," said Krista Rodin, dean of UConn's College of Continuing Studies.
That's Entertainment !
The debut of an all new section here in News Watch, birthed from the spent loins of one Jackson Schmackson. It is a weekly romp through the streets of Hollyweird and all it's various sundry subsidiaries.
We begin with what has to be the most talked about entertainment story of the Summer, the Tom Cruise / Katie Holmes tryst. Will they really get married ? Is Katie going to convert to scientology ? Wait, I thought Tom Cruise was gay ? (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
In all honesty, I'm more annoyed because Katie Holmes is an extremely gorgeous woman and I deserve her more than Tom Cruise. There, I said it. Sadly, however, I spied a picture of her feet in one of those "entertainment magazines" and I've decided that Mr. Cruise can have her and her repugnant hoofers.
Somehow, Tom Cruise keeps making news, whether he is leaping about on the sofa of Oprah or dueling with Matt Lauer on the NBC's Today Show. Cruise sounded like a disgruntled Coast to Coast guest with this pithy barb : "Matt, Matt, you don't even - you're glib," Cruise responded. "You don't even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, OK. That's what I've done." I smell a Friday Night 1st Hour for Cruise and The Noor any week now.
Top movie at the box office this weekend, Batman Begins for a 2nd week in a row. It has some legs. 2nd was Bewitched, which some critics are saying is pretty good. Mr. and Mrs. Smith settles in at number 3, it's coasting down the list and will surely be gone from the top 5 next week. Number 4 is Herbie, Fully Loaded. Ugh. Thank Crap this movie is doing so lousy, as I really dislike Lindsay Lohan. Number 5 is Land of the Dead, made almost as much as Herbie, which is pretty good, considering Lindsay Lohan is a media whore and I barely saw much about Land of the Dead. Speaking of the film, check out Khyron's review of the "Land of the Dead", which he was gracious enough to send along to binnallofamerica.com.
October of 2003, I got swept up into this local craze that was the Boston Red Sox run in the playoffs that culminated in a Game 7 loss to the hated New York Yankees. Fast forward to approximately May of 2004 and the endless belligerence of my friend, Pud, to watch some Red Sox and promising that there was a players I'd really like named "Pokey", and I was swept up again. Somehow, someway, despite a lifetime of never caring about baseball one iota, I fell headlong into this sport and, as is often the case in my various pursuits, I became insatiable in my quest for more.
As I'm sure you know, the year went on and the Red Sox went on to a historic World Series win and a whole boatload of hoopla followed. Throughout this, I was awash in data and stories and games trying to tie down the loose ends of various acronyms and statistics and player names. I short, I educated myself to the game, much as I have educated myself to the various other insane pursuits of my life, whether they be the world of conspiracy theory and Ufology or professional wrestling or web design.
So he we are almost a full year to when I first began following baseball and I'd say I have more than a cursory knowledge of the sport and enough to marvel at startling discoveries that would seem mundane to those folks how can seemingly cite off random baseball statistics like Rain Man.
Henceforth, this weekly segment will be dedicated to my journey following the Red Sox and the sport of baseball in general. There won't be box scores or summaries of games, merely observations as things come along. Stick around and you just might learn something or else maybe I will. Who knows.
To bring you up to speed on the season so far as we are almost at the half way mark, the Red Sox are in first place by two and a half games after chasing Baltimore for the majority of the past 3 months or so. The hated New York Yankees have seemingly imploded and are about 7 games behind Boston. Everyone says not to count them out, so who knows what will happen.
The Noory Story Showdown
This Week's Point Getters : It's come down to this. One week left in the Noory Story Showdown I. And, how ironic, that it will consist of only 3 guest hosts, of all people, who may decide the fate of the many who have partaken in this game. All's fair in love and Noor and the stories read by the guest hosts count, my friends, so this is your last week to score. I considered not counting them, but I didn't think that was fair to do at the last minute. Finish up strong.
Streamlinkers : mirage scores with "Supreme Court rules Cities May Seize Homes". sinimat scores with "tests confirm second mad cow case in US"
theUSofE.com : Baemark was on a tear all last week, with the finish line in sight, he rattled off the following, "Lions free kidnapped girl", "No signal from Solar Windcraft", "U2 Crashed", "They can take your home", "man can move artificial limb with mind", "the summer fire season begins", and "new case of mad cow in US born cow", netting a stunning 7 points. Degataga scores with "crucified nun dies in exorcism". Oscar scores with "missing boy found alive in Utah mountains". dark matter scores with "China Buys up US companies".
Notes : This is the last week to score, with 3 fresh episodes and possibly 2 more over the weekend. Contact me if I missed your story post.
Current Standings as of 6.27.5 : Baemark (24), Oscar (22), mirage (16), Degataga (15), Templar (9), Dennis (6), Jerikai (4), FAZER (3), dark matter (3), Valkryie (2), SomeAverageJoe (2), SimpleComplexities (2), TxStarGazer (2), Raven (2), shanesq1 (1), jerseyred (1), Dustminer (1), afeent1 (1), crimsonadam (1), sideshow (1), outuvbody (1), al138 (1), sinimat (1)
Supreme Court Sells Out
If you're like me, you have been disgusted by yet another repugnant move by the "high court". I'm beginning to wonder the connotations of the term "high", as I see their insane decisions unfolding.
Let's start with the one that has everyone all annoyed. The one where they say it is okay for the government to take your property if it benefits their economy, even if it is not for public use. (Or some such nonsense, I may have gotten the legal mumbo jumbo a tad askew). What the crap are they trying to do ? Looks to me like the makings of a whole slew of Waco-esque nutters having shootouts with buldozers. Something tells me the governments will give lousy pay outs for these houses they steal and then make a fortune selling them to Starbucks. This, according to the Supreme Court, is okay.
Then, today, they are all about getting to the bottom of this 10 Comandments issue. Apparently, they can't seem to come to any definitive agreement, as displayed by this sub-headline over at MSNBC.com : "Supreme Court: Courthouse exhibits crossed line, but outdoor tablet OK" Wha ? Seriously, can anyone make any common sense out of this ? Talk about splitting hairs. You'd think a body of unelected and employed for life officials would have some backbone and take a definitive stance on something. They sure had no problem keeping Terri Schaivo's feeding tube out.
Looks like the Justices have bills to pay, because they actually came to another decision today regarding "file sharing" companies and whether or not they can be sued. The answer, Virginia, is "Yes, yes they can." Obviously, no one considered how to go about suing some dude in the Caymen Islands who is doing this. I guess the U.S. owns the internet now. Another big win for those losers in the music industry who first failed to get on board and make some money off of the internet and then realized they were late to the well and cried about it. Those weasily cretins at the cable internet companies had a victory today as they were not forced to share their wires with their competitors, ala the phone companies. Expect higher internet costs shortly.
According to MSNBC (who is becoming my de facto Supreme Court news source) the SC also "Refused to hear appeals from two journalists who have refused to testify about the leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity." Thusly, enforcing more gestapo like tactics from the federal government. Now, the two journalists who refuse to say who gave them the name of a CIA agent will go to jail for 18 months. Being a quasi-journalist myself, I normally would side with the folks who are going to jail. But, lest we forget, they are mainstream journalists, so maybe a year and half in the clink will smarten them up to the way things really work in our twisted world.
The Supreme Court stuck it's nose in a bunch of other affairs like saying cops can't be sued for how they enforce restraining orders (let the tazering begin). They even set the stage for more awful decisions by saying they would "consider whether federal employees can sue in federal court for alleged constitutional violations" Gee, thanks. And, finally, they promised to "clarify when evidence collected during improper police searches can be used against a suspect." No word on when they plan on getting around to botching that one.
As the Constitution withers, if you were holding out hope for the Supreme Court to get involved and somehow save us, looks like we are out of luck. They're going along with the agenda as much as anyone.
That does it. I hope to have a little more fleshed out version of the two new sections next week, when the new hours are not kicking my posterior so hardcore. Also next week, like I need to mention it, we will crown the First Ever Noory Story Showdown Champion ! Be there.
Also be @ binnallofamerica.com, where we have Khyron's awesome review of "Land of the Dead". Lesley takes a hard look at 911 in this week's fantastic "Grey Matters", posted on Tuesday. Noory's on vacation and Hot Newz lays down what's going on behind the scenes @ C2C HQ. Khyron seems to be back in the swing of things and Ghost Files may emerge when we least expect it or on Wednesday. binnall report on Friday and the binnall of America : Audio exclusive interview with Monsignor Balducci. Ultra rare and only at binnallofamerica.com.
I'm off to get some sleep. Have a great week and I'll see you next week when I take a break from lighting firecrackers to crown The Noory Story Showdown Champion. Till then, be safe, be prepared, and be real.