Weather outside may get frightful

Centralia 'still burns'

Here we go again. Another story from major media on the quaint little town of Centralia, population almost no one. Population once was Over a thousand.. a mine fire changed that, and destroyed a road or two in the process.

The fire started 50 years ago this weekend, a Memorial Day somewhere in time. 

And this year, another news article portrays the town as “macabre.”  It is not macabre. It is a tragic story, of course. However, the typical yearly media portrayal that occurs, or the occasional blip on the radar that it gets in AP news alerts due to constant court cases, always gets me irritated. No one ever really wanted the attention that they got, even today. No one really appreciates that their little home town is now home to explorers and travelers from around the world—people who seem shocked that zombies aren’t walking around the street and fires aren’t smoldering. Instead, now and then, smoke rises. 

Nonetheless, it’s a story. News media come and go. And they did in the 1980s, when NIGHTLINE broadcasted live (complete with a smoke machine for the effect.) And they come and go yet again. 50 years of this.. interesting.

There has been a ton of criticism for the hosting style of John B. Wells on Coast to Coast AM. But I like him. Tonight he is taking the show into a strange direction: Palmistry. Yes it’s a real thing. And Vernon Mahabal will explain all about it. Worth the listen should you be awake at 1am on the East Coast.

Had enough..? I have.

The week was long. The weekend will be long, too. And hot. And in some places, fears of tropical season are already arriving.

Here are the dreary highlights of the latter portion of Friday:

Surprise, you’re a girl!!! Man admitted to the hospital for kidney stones finds out he is actually a woman!

North Korea used staged traffic accidents to kill..

There are plans being made right now of how to deal with a post-Euro collapse.. Work is “ongoing” to restrict European immigration if the Euro implodes..


After all these years.. A man has confessed to the murder of Etan Patz.. Mental illnesshas already been claimed as defense.. 33 years later .. but is the confession enough?

 
A grieving dog refuses to leave a dead dog’s side..

THE BUTLER DID IT!

A SCANDAL IN ROME HEATS UP.. Vatican police have arrested Pope Benedict XVI’s butler for allegedly leaking confidential documents and letters detailing claims of corruption.. 

Already the scandal has been dubbed Vatileaks .. Some documents involve the awarding of contracts in dubious ways.. some involve management of the Vatican bank.. The Pope said to be shocked. Maybe he is just afraid we’d be shocked too? 

Revealed in the documents: Power struggles, corruption The Vatican had condemned the book as ‘criminal’ and the printing of the documents were a violation of the Pope’s privacy .. 

The Pope’s privacy.. the hallowed holy halls aren’t private enough? .. No, we need to thicken that frock even more..

I've read the news today oh boy

40 tons of wreckage from Japanese tsunami washes up on Alaska island..

Up to 100,000 dead fish wash ashore in Maryland..

LAPD REQUESTS TAPE THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD.. COULD PROVIDE FRESH EVIDENCE IN MANSON FAMILY MURDERS

Arrest made in Etan Patz case — unsolved since 1979

New York senate bill poised to end anonymous internet posting..

Fear: The next 6 or 7 quake that hits near Fukushima reactor 4 could cause ‘global security issue’

How the blurry line between news and advertising messes with our minds..

Google removes 1.2 million search links a month!

Long hot Memorial Day weekend coming..

Heaven can be a place on earth for a former president.. Bill Clinton snapped surrounded by porn stars

Yet another occurrence of a young man drowning in the a few feet of water..

EXORCIST to be remade into TV miniseries..

The woman who is credited as the 'author' of global warming has a new dream mission: Bar code everyone the moment they're born

The woman who is credited as the 'author' of global warming has a new dream mission: Bar code everyone the moment they're born

Developing

Investigators in New York have a man in custody who has implicated himself in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, Commissioner Ray Kelly of the New York Police Department said Thursday.

The little man was happily watching the Celtics game and just mere minutes later sleeping. I guess kids are funny like that.

The hunt for planet X

An astronomer insists it is out there .. And says facts and observations back him up. What say you, all?

The hunt for planet X

Put this one in the "I don't want this as a gift for Christmas" category.. A vial of Ronald Reagan's "blood" went on sale.. A lot of people are outraged

This story is more than creepy.

Owning Ronald Reagan’s blood, for some, may be like having Christ’s himself. But .. alas..this is real life. And real blood, supposedly from Reagan. 

I’m not buying any of it. Including the blood..

Put this one in the "I don't want this as a gift for Christmas" category.. A vial of Ronald Reagan's "blood" went on sale.. A lot of people are outraged

I bet some more airline workers may end up losing jobs

Indeed.. now there are going to be holograms to greet you at airports and guide you as opposed to real people.

Help me Obi Wan.. and all that stuff. Technology continues to outdo itself, doesn’t it?

The state of the union: Man passed out on a sidewalk, robbed of everything

Was it the liquor that caused the behavior.. or maybe the lack of …something… in our collective heart and soul?

The state of the union: Man passed out on a sidewalk, robbed of everything

Creeped out yet? CBS in D.C. reporting: "With the use of domestic drones increasing, concern has not just come up over privacy issues, but also over the potential use of lethal force by the unmanned aircraft."

Creeped out yet? CBS in D.C. reporting: "With the use of domestic drones increasing, concern has not just come up over privacy issues, but also over the potential use of lethal force by the unmanned aircraft."

Ruh roh

Shareholders sue Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, number of banks alleging information was concealed ahead of IPO.

Mark Zuckerberg has sold 30.2 million shares and director Peter Thiel has sold 16.8 million shares of the social-networking company, according to securities filings published late Tuesday.

Zuckerberg sold 30.2 million shares at a price of $37.58 for gross proceeds of $1.13 billion; Thiel sold 16.8 million shares for gross proceeds of $633 million

Mark Zuckerberg has sold 30.2 million shares and director Peter Thiel has sold 16.8 million shares of the social-networking company, according to securities filings published late Tuesday.

Wow: Stock watcher argues that Facebook could bring entire global economy

Wow: Stock watcher argues that Facebook could bring entire global economy

Nuclear annihilation is just on my mind tonight..

Early this evening I wrote about the new CHERNOBYL DIARIES causing controversy. Moments ago I wrote about the Fukushima nightmare…

And I just ran across this little snippet of a quote from Michio Kaku on Chernobyl—his words in my opinion are much scarier than any horror flick

You know the Chernobyl core is still melting into the earth? It’s still melting into the earth.

It’s a never ending nightmare.

Eventually they’re going to have to put concrete under the melted core to prevent it from hitting groundwater and creating perhaps a steam explosion

That is pretty frightening to contemplate… don’t you think?

The Fukushima files..

I take news from Fukushima with a grain of salt. Maybe instead I should take news about the nuclear disaster constantly in progress with a capsule of iodine instead, but I’m not quite there yet.

But where I am is constantly freaked by the news coming from there—news that the mainstream media really, arguably, is not reporting. Japan still grapples with the devastation of a post-quake land.. post tsunami.. Always on edge due to continuous jolts from fault lines. The ring of fire is on fire, and has been since March 2011.

The latest from Fukushima, however, gave me a chill to my core. I ponder over the words from Mitsuhei Murata, former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland..  he said another accident in Reactor No. 4 could cause a “final catastrophe of the world”.. 

Also today, another story floated around the world like earthquake debris: A former Fukushima worker believes that the ‘entire country’ of Japan could be evacuated if No. 4 fuel pool collapses.

Hear that? The entire country.
Oh I’m sorry, you’re busy watching the CHERNOBYL DIARIES trailer.. Get back to that, then… 

Words of Murata and this Daiichi worker got immediate attention after translation. Whether anything was lost in translation? I don’t know.. whether it was hyperbole? I don’t know.. Was Murata trying to just get attention of the world on Fukushima? Attention that slipped away steadily since radiation starting pouring out of the reactor and spread across the world.

Oh, and yes, if you’re on a beautiful beach somewhere along the left coast, get ready: The shores will soon be plagued by debris from Japan. It’s already hitting Hawaii and Alaska. 

It is a small world after all.

So raise a glass to luck. And hopefully Murata is wrong and our luck will not run out…

This whole Facebook IPO fiasco is just getting more and more strange.. now regulators are set to review Morgan Stanley allegations

Allegations state that Morgan Stanley shared negative news with big investors right before Facebook went public… this news today after only days since Facebook was unveiled on the market—and the stock declined ferociously ever since.

Another story about the Facebook financial drama from CNBC, which reports that the stock selloff Monday nearly turned into a run..

But think of it this way: Facebook is virtual. It’s selling virtual reality. And in reality it’s selling you. So really, what market investor really wants to invest in you anyway?

This whole Facebook IPO fiasco is just getting more and more strange.. now regulators are set to review Morgan Stanley allegations