News Regurgitator! / Quick News & Views

Quick news bites to keep you up to date with what people
are talking about - also some of what isn't being
reported on by our 'legacy media.'

WHAT NEXT?
SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2013
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Pat Robertson's advice to a woman who's husband was cheating: “Stop talking about the cheating. He cheated on you. Well, he’s a man. O.K. Does he provide a home for you to live in? Does he provide food for you to eat? Is he handsome?”

A San Francisco restaurant called Bacon Bacon has been force to close... the smell of bacon was too much for the neighbors.

a 10-year old boy in Washington State has been convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, juvenile firearm possession and witness tampering in a foiled plot to rape and kill a classmate. And 11-year old accomplice was charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, possession of a dangerous weapon in the form of a knife at school and tampering with a witness. Who knew kids were so industrious these days...

The Justice Department is accusing Apple led a price fixing scheme related to ebook sales. The other 5 publishing houses involved settled but Amazon wants a trial.

Edward Furlong continues his long sad slide, he was arrested Friday for violating a protective order filed by an ex-girlfriend, this was after a domestic violence incident in January. The Terminator 2: Judgment Day" actor, found hiding on a property near his ex's, is being held on $100,000 bond. What a shame, poor kid.

A treat from 1970, Jack Benny's 20th Anniversary Special on NBC (he moved over from CBS in 1950):

THE POT WASHER HAS A DOORBELL
WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2013
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I love this story about the Bouzaglos, owners of Amy's Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro in Scottsdale, AZ, an eatery Chef Ramsay that committed career suicide on 'Kitchen Nightmares' last Friday. They had a subsequent public meltdown on Facebook (you can watch the episode at that link, watch how not to run a business!)

Suicide is the #1 cause of death by gunshot in America, 19,000 every year.

To compete with Spotify Google will be launching a streaming music service soon.

Wealthy Manhattan families are hiring handicapped guides so they can cut in line at Disney World. Classy!

Will Smith and his wife are allowing their 15 year old son Jaden Smith to be emancipated, and no longer under their parental control.

THE OBVIOUS IS STARING YOU IN THE FACE
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2013
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Want to know why the economy is upside down? In 20 year's time US corporate profits have quadrupled while their taxes have dropped by 50% - while worker's payroll tax has doubled.

45% of teens are texting while driving, probably because they have so much experience behind the wheel they don't need to focus on the road - or the pedestrian - ahead.

Public Policy Polling found that 41% of Republicans believe the alleged Benghazi cover up is the biggest scandal in American history. That allows us to pinpoint what percentage of Republicans are completely brainwashed by their media. Good to know.

February, 2011: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged from a meeting with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sharply critical of proposed Republican cuts to the State Department budget, warning they “will be detrimental to America’s national security."'

Lowering the blood alcohol concentration from .08 to .05? Terrible idea, .08 isn't that intoxicated at all for many but then I know people who can hold their liquor. If lawmakers pass this, citizens should report them every time one of them gets into a car after a fundraiser. I guess they figure they'll never be held accountable for their actions, they never are, so what if sober people go to jail for driving while impaired. That said, there are individuals (I'm told) that can't handle any amount of alcohol. Here's the rational being given - that if a 180 pound man drinks 3 beers in an hour he'll blow just over .05. 3 beers in an hour is a lot, no one is sober after that, so it sounds perfectly reasonable. I don't want someone like that behind the wheel. But the last time they tightened the law the experts claimed 2 beers in an hour would blow just under .08. Which is it? I'm calling bullshit.

This is a first look at ABC's S.H.I.E.L.D., so far I'm not impressed.

THAT BITCH SYLVIA BROWNE
MONDAY, MAY 13, 2013
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For a year or two, I got bored listening to college radio and turned on afternoon TV shows to keep me company while I worked. 'Montel', 'Maury', 'Judge Judy, that kind of thing'. The television was behind me so I wasn't really watching, except when Maury got the tests back or revealed his undercover backstage stings on cheating husbands. Otherwise it was just background noise; but those times when 'psychic' Sylvia Browne appeared on 'The Montel Williams Show' I would find myself staring at the set in disbelief. She was so transparently phony I couldn't believe any credible person would lower himself to play along, but Montel did so with tremendous enthusiasm. (In all fairness he did produce some important hours on controversial subjects that other talk shows were ignoring, not that I can remember any, but still).

Sylvia Browne's bona fides largely (totally) stemmed from having assisted law enforcement agencies around the country in finding numerous missing children... but the evidence behind those claims turned out to be vaporous. The magazine 'Brill's Content' looked into her dubious assertions and discovered, in the 115 cases they examined, Browne was not right even once and was flat-out wrong 25 times. “In twenty-one [cases], the details were too vague to be verified. Of the remaining fourteen, law-enforcement officials or family members involved in the investigations say that Browne had played no useful role.”

Her main schtick on 'Montel' was answering audience members' questions about what the future held for them personally. She did so in the most optimistic way possible... yes, you'll get that new job or raise. Yes, you'll meet a man with dark hair in September. Yes, you'll have a baby next year, a boy (the studio audience would always squeal over these revelations).

She would also be asked by the host about any premonitions she had concerning stories in the news. When she wasn't stating the obvious, her prognostications were ludicrously off-base. During the Sago Mining disaster Browne was confident that the miners were still alive... they were actually dead. She predicted society would "say goodbye" to the common cold in 2009 or 2010, "a small cubicle will become available in doctor's offices sometime in 2009 and it will be heated to a very precise temperature. There may be a special vapor placed into the cubicle. Patients will stand in the cubicle for approximately five minutes and the rhinitis germ will be destroyed." I didn't read about that in the news, not even in The Onion.

In 2006 she really went out on a limb, “Aliens will begin to show themselves in the year 2010, they will not harm us, they simply want to see what we are doing to this planet. They will teach us how to use anti-gravity devices again, such as they did for the pyramids." Why couldn't she have been right that time?

Predicting that Obama would not be re-elected, then taking it back when the election was weeks away, is all in good fun but, at least once or twice every time she was on with Montel, Sylvia Browne would be confronted with the emotionally raw parents of a missing young person and tell them, without the least doubt or hesitation, that their child was dead in a ditch somewhere.

In 2004, on 'The Montel Williams Show', she matter-of-factly told the distraught mother of Amanda Berry, one of the kidnapped Cleveland three, that her daughter was "not alive, honey," delivering the news like she was in a greasy diner ordering a cup of coffee. Amanda Berry's mother went to her grave a little over year later "devastated", convinced her child had passed. In 2003, Browne told the parents of missing teen Shawn Hornbeck their son's remains would be found near, "two jagged boulders"; he turned up alive 4 years later. This ghoulish fortuneteller 'earned' her living this way, both on TV and in $800 private sessions.

She said all this with a thick veneer of sanctimonious self-righteousness. No wonder, if her marks had known that she was convicted in 1992 of investment fraud and grand theft they might not have taken her so seriously.

It's a decade too late but Sylvia Browne is finally being hoisted on her own petard in the social media public square where, if history is any guide, she'll be burned at the stake for the witch she is. For the moment she's pointing her broomstick towards the lights and cameras as is her wont, instead releasing a statement with that always-in-style, catch-all mea culpa that only God is right all the time. Given that God was her stated source, she offered no explanation as to why He, and by extension she, wasn't always correct. That's the back-pedaling of a carnival faker... when cornered, blame it on the guy who isn't speaking to anyone.

TEMPERANCE
SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2013
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"Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness." - Stephen Fry

Don't forget to Tweet your mom a happy Mother's Day today.

Several years ago I read that phone companies were dropping the number to call to get the precise time. With most of our electronic devices linked to satellites, displaying the correct time, there was no need for it anymore. I was surprised to discover it still exists in some areas but I don't think it's a free call. The problem with that phone number back in the day was that most people didn't know it or how to find it. So they would ring up the television and radio stations to set their watches, after all those businesses were dependent on precise timing. I don't have a point to make, just sayin'.

By the end of 2011 more than 31 percent of the total unemployed had been jobless for a year or longer.

A pilot for Beverly Hills Cop, with the main character being Axel Foley's son, was made but passed on by CBS despite Eddie Murphy returning to his role as a recurring character and the involvement of Shaun Ryan, producer of The Shield. The network did pick up a show starring Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

A third of air travelers admit they don't turn off their devices when the plane takes off.

Chrysler is recalling almost 470,000 Jeep SUVs.

A look at Melissa Manchester's 1970's album 'Bright Eyes'

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