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Another weekend gone, just like that. I've taken to writing "News Watch" in the late afternoons on Monday, so forgive me if they are arriving to late in the evening for my beloved readership.
This week, we kick off week 1 of The Noory Story Showdown II. Also, we look at Hulk Hogan's reality show in "That's Entertainment !" A Red Sox update as only I can write it is in "My Fandom : Year 2". The usual Hot 5 Stories of the Week, Future News Now, and an editorial on the London Bombing. Like an old school paperboy, I'm making my rounds, so watch out for the rubber band and unfurl your News Watch.
Hot 5 Stories of the Week
What a great story. Reminds me of the old Family Guy episode where Peter Griffin secedes from America and forms his own nation, "Petoria". It turns out there are folks like this and they take it, somewhat, seriously.
I was expecting a fluff piece here, but it turned out to be a pretty well researched ditty that I recommend to anyone reading this to check out. The best part, too lengthy to be excerpted here, was about a guy who formed his own nation on an old barge, tried to go to war with England, and even held some guy captive for a few weeks in their makeshift jail.
So now Green, a conceptual artist by trade, is preparing to start again by claiming a pair of small islands in the Indian Ocean.
Though he's cagey about exactly where they are. 2> Astronauts arrive early at launch site (AP via CNN.com)
I'll take this brief break from my weekly disgusted rants aimed at NASA to hope and pray for the fine brave folks who do the real tough stuff, the astronauts. I can only hope NASA has it's crap together this time around. I give kudos to the folks going up into space this week. I know I wouldn't put my life in NASA's hands.
Last week, because of the hurricane, NASA considered postponing Discovery's launch in order to move the spacecraft off its pad and back into the hangar. But the storm was projected to remain well to the west of Cape Canaveral, and managers decided to keep the shuttle put.
3>Community stunned as HS coach charged with spanking players (badjocks.com via NY Newsday)
It's been said that 9 out of 10 NBA stars were spanked after missing shots, so I can't blame this guy. Oh wait, I think he was the one who said it. No, not really, but he should try it for a defense.
It never ceases to amaze me the kind of vermin they pay to be around children these days. I vote that if this guy is convicted they cut his hands off. Anyone with me ? Old school crazy justice, the way it should be.
Authorities allege that on Monday, Sanders, who is an assistant executive director of the Staten Island Jewish Community Center, pulled down a 15-year-old boy's pants and slapped the boy in the behind with a wooden paddle. 4>Charges of fake research hit new high (AP via msnbc.com)
Ah, the perfect story for the Philip Plaits and Seth Shostaks of the world. See this is mainstream science for you. Fake research on the rise. Don't get me wrong, there's boatloads of fake research going on in esoterica everyday. What irks me is the "holier than thou" attitudes of guys like Plait and Shostak who act like mainstream science is on the up-and-up. No way, Jack.
At least the news is catching up to what most of us figured out about mainstream science long ago, that they make crap up as bad as the looniest dude you can drag onto Coast. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Plait.
Chris Pascal, director of the federal Office of Research Integrity, said its 28 staffers and $7 million annual budget haven't kept pace with the allegations. The result: Only 23 cases were closed last year. Of those, eight individuals were found guilty of research misconduct. In the past 15 years, the office has confirmed about 185 cases of scientific misconduct. 5>Brothers discover gigantic moth, release creature back into wild (latenightthoughts.blogspot.com via tricityherald.com)
Immediately upon capturing the moth, the brothers had to fend off a mad Loren Coleman who demanded they free Mothman. Not really, but I can dream. It turns out the moth was a huge beastie that would probably have eaten a cat. You gotta love the last part of the quote below, which says that the brothers found the moth hovering around a light at a nearby Burker King. That's advertising you just can't buy.
After they nabbed it and put it in a cooler in their car, they measured its wingspan at nearly 7 inches wide. Its body: 3 inches long and nearly an inch thick.
The brothers found the supersized moth Wednesday evening fluttering near a light at the Burger King on Queensgate in West Richland.
Future News Now
The Iranian War is coming. Can you hear the drumbeats ? What scares me about this story is the implications of taking the Iraq guerrilla war that is going on now and expanding it to a ridiculous degree.
Hear me now. If we go into Iran and they lay down on our way in, we are in for a heap of trouble for the next decade or so.
Supporters of the movement include members of parliament and Revolutionary Guards officers, but Samedi insists it is not a government organization and is not supported by the Iranian regime.
That's Entertainment !
As a lifelong wrestling fan, I cringed when I heard the news that Hulk "The Hulkster" Hogan had his own reality show coming this Summer. So, with baited breath and a weary eye, I watched the premiere episode of "Hogan Knows Best". HKB is all about Hogan's attempts to corrale his two teenaged kids, one of them being his far too sexy 16 year old daughter. For those of you out of the loop, the Hulkster has been pimping his daughter for the better part of a year, trying to make her the next Britney Spears, so this show has two goals in mind : one, revive Hogan's career and recast him as "doting dad" and two, launch Brooke Hogan's career.
So, of course, "Hogan Knows Best" was added to my Tivo as soon as it appeared on the schedule and I was fortunate enough to have caught it before penning this week's News Watch. And ... it's pretty bad. I wouldn't go so far as to say "awful", but it's bad in a campy way where you can tell they really want to be like the Osbournes and it just ain't happening. In the first episode, Brooke wants to go on a date with a 22 year old dude. Uh oh, the Hulkster doesn't like that.
His first response to hearing that a 22 year old guy wants to date his daughter : "That's almost illegal." Ah, Hulkster, you slay me. So, after much consideration, Hulk decides to let her go out on the date, but not until after he secretly installs a GPS tracker to keep an eye on her.
I'd be remiss in not mentioning Hogan's weightlifting buddy, former "Nasty Boy" Brian Knobbs, who looks to be about 400 pounds and sports a spikey blond mullett that has to be seen to be believed. He appears all too briefly and mostly just to overeact to things in a goofy way.
You can imagine where it goes from there. It turns out Hogan's son, Nick, confides in his parents that his 22 year old dude is quite the party animal. This is, of course, after they've left on the date. Hogan flakes and tracks her on the GPS and hilarity tries to ensue. It mostly doesn't. The whole show is just kinda surreal because the kids keep referring to him as "dad" and he is an enormous, orange wrestling icon. I suppose that is what VH1 was going for in the first place. Speaking of which, we've all heard about MTV, but do you kids remember when VH1 used to show videos ?! Sheesh.
Hogan, for his part, is pretty one dimensional and bland. So is his wife. And, for that matter, so are his kids. recommendnt one viewing only to anyone mildly interested after reading this review and that's only to try and catch a glimpse of Hogan's 400 pound, mulletted buddy.
Top movie at the box office this weekend, Fantastic Four, which insiders are saying may have saved the Summer, with a gate that surpassed expectations by 16 million. In second place, War of the Worlds, raking in 33 million. Batman Begins comes in 3rd, showing some staying power. Dark Water, a horror flick adapted from the Japanese original, debuted in 4th place with measlyly 10 million, though the reviews are good for it. Showing me to be a fool, Mr. and Mrs. Smith came in at 5th place, two weeks after I predicted it would fall out of the top five. Kudos to you, Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie.
They tell me it always get like this around this time of year, but I was shocked to see a boatload of drama emerging from the Red Sox camp this week. Here in Boston, the sports talk radio stations and newspapers are insatiable, to the point of pushing the Patriots amazing winning ways to the back pages in favor of talking about Red Sox rumours during the off season. So when a week like this comes along, you're up to your armpits in conjecture and debate from folks who do nothing but that.
The whole mess began when Keith Foulke, the Red Sox closer who was once awesome, blowing yet another save after a big one last week. Shortly thereafter, he went on the Disabled List and has since had surgery one of his knees. (I can't be bothered to research these sort of things, folks.)
That left a big debate over who would be the closer for the Sox now that Foulke is out of the picture for the better part of 6 weeks. At some point along the way it came out that Red Sox ace, Curt Schilling, he of bloody sock fame, was going to step in as the closer when he returns from his injury rehab. Schilling and the Sox brass rationalized that it would be a good use of Schilling who hasn't been able to get back into shape to start a full game since going down with an ankle injury around April or so.
This, of course, led to confusion amongst the fan base which was furtheexacerbateded by published quotes from beloved centerfielder Johnny Damn, he of long hair and beard fame. Damon, who is playing amazingly well this year, bemoaned this move of Schilling to closer. All hell subsequently broke loose as debate frothed at the mouth of anyone who was vaguely familiar with the details of this potential move.
For my part, I'm torn. I'd rather see Schilling come back as a starter, but it sounds like that would take months at this point. He's already almost ready to come back to the team to be a reliever, so it is pretty much a done deal. I think the team was doing well enough that they could have waiting for him to come back at full strength in a starting role for a big barnstorming in late August. But, the Sox are really lacking in the bullpen, so this should shore it up quite a bit, but if the experiment fails then it may prove overall disastrous.
Meanwhile, everyone is mad at Terry Francona because for some reason two pitchers from the Sox, Matt Clement and Mike Timlin, did not make the All Star Team. Francona is the manager of this year's American League team so it was somehow expected that he would have a lot of swing. But it turns out the league sticks there nose into the business a lot and there is some awful rule that says every team must have a representative. What is this, Little League ?
After the All Star Game, which features 5 Sox players, the team takes on the hated Yankees in a 4 game series at Fenway Park. If you do not live in the Boston area, you can only imagine what this is like. Pretty much wall-to-wall hype and hyperbole. You know I love that. I'll have my thoughts on how the series shakes out in next week's News Watch.
The Noory Story Showdown
This Week's Point Getters : The first week in and we had 5 episodes with a host of news bites read by the lovable George Noory. Let's see where things shake out for the first week.
Streamlinkers : Shredder scores with "Russian Astrologer Sues NASA Over Comet". Japanese American scores with "Explosion in London". Anotherlight scores with "Deep Impact - Touchdown"
theUSofE.com : Baemark scored 3 points with : "Bird Flu could go global", "National Guard Paid to Spy ?", and "Aspirin : Sexist ?" Oscar scored 4 with "G8 Agree for Climate Action", "tropical storm Dennis nears hurricane strength", "Russian sues NASA over Comet", and "Judge orders NYT reporter jailed". dark matter scored with "Bush rejects Kyoto Style G8 deal". Jerikai scored with "London Shuts Down Subways after Blasts, Evacuates Stations." And, finally, Somnus scored with "Deep Impact is a smashing success".
Notes : If I missed your story, let me know. You can join in the competition at any time, but I suggest any and all Streamlink Members and USofE members to join in and play along whether it is for competition or for fun.
Current Standings as of 7.11.5 : Oscar (4), Baemark (3), dark matter (1), jerikai (1), somnus (1), Shredder (1), anotherlight (1), and Japanese American (1).
The WINNER is the person with the most Noory Story points (cumulative) in the January 2nd, 2006 Edition of News Watch.
The 1st PRIZE is a $40 dollar shopping spree @ the official binnallofamerica.com store.
The 2nd & 3rd place PRIZES are binnallofamerica.com T-Shirts and a mystery surprise item.
Any questions / comments can be sent to tbinnall@hotmail.com This contest is REAL. No wagering, please.
As I said in the opening to this week's "binnall report", I lived in London for the first half of the year 2000. I had a great time, almost too much fun. I drank till I could not stand, had first row seats for the London Philharmonic on my birthday, and saw Kathleen Turner topless in one of the very first performances of the stage play for The Graduate. It was a real experience.
I also took the subway every day. My tube stop : Edgware Road. Beloved, Edgware Road. So great I once wrote a song about it, though the lyrics are just about entirely lost to the sad fog of time.
My first reaction to the news of the London Bombing was a lot like my reaction to the Madrid Bombing. First, confusion. Trying to understand the time difference drive me batty. It's like noon here, but it is almost dusk there ? Huh ? The bombing happened at like 3 in the morning our time, which is rush hour there ... I'm confused.
Then, a mad dash to get some damned details from the very start of when the story unfolded. Try this sometime when world news breaks, it's practically impossible as new details get piled upon old ones so that to hear the story as it broke is an exercise in insanity. Because of my new work schedule, I wasn't really digging into the story until about 3 PM, a full 12 hours after the initial bombing and far too long to get the skinny on things as news had been spun left and right.
However, I did manage to delve into the London Bombings and the details hit me like a ton of bricks. The bastards had struck Edgware Road. No, not the 'ware. This was personal now.
Out of the woodwork, before the clouds of smoke had settled, were the "infowarriors", my new pet name for Conspiracy Theorists (I'm hoping it will catch on.) I'll remove my cap in honor to Alex Jones's great coverage of the bombings, albeit with his unique slant. And while I fancy myself a "would-be infowarrior", I am by no means a wild eyed conspiratorialist. I appreciate facts and figures, but I am also open minded enough to see when a coincidence is more than a coincidence.
So when it comes to the London Bombing, we are left with a few things to look at that stick out like sore thumbs already. I'm not sure if it is just the way it went down or if the "infowarriors" are getting that good, but this story seems to be unraveling at a breakneck pace. The chief oddity to be pondered over is this story that came out 2 days after the attack : "London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack" (http://www.infowars.com/articles/London_attack/same_time.htm) Yes, you read that right. For those of you even remotely familiar with the 911 conspiracy, you'll recognize the similarity of drills taking place that mimicked the exact real life event as it took place. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes it is a penis too. This story of drills taking place at the same time as terror events has popped up now for both 911 and the London Bombings. That, my friends, is a penis.
This story, coupled with the 911 drills, opens up a can of worms for thought that I cannot contain in one editorial. I'll leave that to the "infowarrior" pundits who can discuss this element of the story ad nauseum.
Then we look at the numerology of this event. I know, I know, I'm not the "Numbers Lady", but there may be something to it. I am not going to bog you down with a bunch of numerical mumbo jumbo, I'm sure you can find that stuff anywhere that deals in the realm of conspiracy and this War on Terror. While I do not live and die by the numbers, I would suggest that there is probably a message in the madness of the myriad of coincidence between the London Bombings, the Madrid Bombings, and 911.
Then there is all the stuff you saw with 911, the rhetoric from the leaders of government. The shady trading that went on prior to the attacks. The mysterious "prior warning" that Benjamin Netanyahu may have gotten.
For me, what it all boils down to is this, 911 was the start of a story and the Madrid and London Bombings seem to be the 2nd acts. If you are like me, you are not looking forward to where this story heads. Whomever is behind it, it seems like things get more ratcheted up every time another one of these "events", staged or otherwise, happens. The culmination of which may be a nuke, as so many Coast guests warn about, or it could be a whole host of other insane stuff they throw at us to bug everyone out and make us all terrified.
Rather than debating the source of the attacks, one really should start taking a stern look at the aftermath, which will, no doubt, bring about "Patriot Act"-esque laws to England, if not the UK. The staging is being set to bring them up to par with the US as far as control over the populace goes. It is in times like this that one must remember the old quote from Benjamin Franklin, "Any nation that gives up freedom for security deserves neither".
End Notes
That wraps up another edition of "News Watch. Hope you all had a pleasant weekend. At least Monday is behind us.
Plugs : Lesley looks at Richard C. Hoagland's blog in this week's "Grey Matters". I've had the pleasure of reading it already and it is a great installment this week and very funny. Meanwhile, Khyron is going on a mysterious vacation, so he will opt out of "Ghost Files" this week. I'll come up with some madness to satiate your desires on Wednesday. Thursday, a yet to be determined Hot Newz. Friday, you know it, the binnall report. Saturday, we are working on a proverbial "pilot" for a new BoA : Audio feature and it will debut on Saturday in the normal spot. Sunday, check out "smoker dave" of smokerdave.com. We're running excerpts of his extreme conservatism on Sundays now at BoA.
And, with that, I say goodbye for now. Wipe that tear from your eye, little one, I will be back on Friday and am available all week long @ binnallofamerica.com. Until I return to rant about The Noor, be safe, be prepared, and be real.