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CNN Charged with Leaking Vital InformationOctober 15, 2001 |
New York, NY SANWAT SITIEU/AP Osama bin Laden's headquarters, before the missile attack merica’s Cable News Network, CNN, owned by the AOL-Time-Warner Corporation, has been charged with leaking vital information threatening national security after a broadcast of intricate military strike operations allegedly interfered with U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and the Al Qaeda terrorist networks.
On Oct. 10th, the Attorney General charges, a regular broadcast of news covering American retaliation on Afghanistan was interrupted by a news bulletin handed to news anchor Andrea Thompson.
“This just in: ‘Duck, bin Laden! Look out! Behind you! Get down!” Thompson stated frantically, jumping up and down and gesturing downwards.
The report, the Department of Defense states, was intercepted instantaneously by Osama bin Laden and his Al Qa...
merica’s Cable News Network, CNN, owned by the AOL-Time-Warner Corporation, has been charged with leaking vital information threatening national security after a broadcast of intricate military strike operations allegedly interfered with U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and the Al Qaeda terrorist networks. On Oct. 10th, the Attorney General charges, a regular broadcast of news covering American retaliation on Afghanistan was interrupted by a news bulletin handed to news anchor Andrea Thompson. “This just in: ‘Duck, bin Laden! Look out! Behind you! Get down!” Thompson stated frantically, jumping up and down and gesturing downwards. The report, the Department of Defense states, was intercepted instantaneously by Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network through an illegal cable hook-up obtained for an extra $50 to the cable guy. At that moment, bin Laden and his associates ducked and missles flew harmlessly over their heads, destroying innocent civilian sites and leaving the Al Qaeda network unharmed. “This grievous, I even charge treasonous behavior will not be tolerated,” Attorney General John Ashcroft raged. “I support the freedom of the press as much as the next guy.” Ashcroft then gestured to Sen. Orrin Hatch, conveniently standing by. “But in this case, CNN endangered an operation that could’ve saved the lives of many Americans, civilian and military. Why couldn’t you keep your big mouth shut?” This is not the first time the Cable News Network has been accused of interfering with national security interests. In 1989, charges were leveled against CNN for a report that allegedly allowed Manuel Noriega to escape a U.S. military operation. “Don’t go in there, Noriega!” then-correspondent Bobbie Battista screamed from her anchor desk, as Noriega reportedly was about to enter an airport where U.S. Navy S.E.A.L.s awaited him. “No! Not that door, stupid! The back door, get out the back! Jesus, look out! They’re all around you!” Noriega did not escape capture, and despite arguments from detractors of CNN, the happy victory allowed CNN to get by with only a stern warning. Officials now say if Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network commit more atrocities in the U.S., CNN will face numerous backlashes, including possible charges of treason and the caning of Larry King. The commune news is out of order, you’re out of order, this whole damn court is out of order. And so’s the vending machine. Ramon Nootles is positively yummy on crackers.
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 February 28, 2005
Getting Nothing but Static on Channel OneEvery once in a while I receive a reader question that really knocks me off the toilet. The latest came from Shane Bugelskow of Jersey City, New Jersey, wrapped around a rock and thrown through my bathroom window. Shane wonders, among other things, why there's no Channel One on his television. I promptly wrote him back and told him the truth: that it was because he has a small penis.
More discerning readers of my column, wherever you are, will likely want a more in-depth answer. None of you, unless you're insane or living overseas (or more likely, both), have a Channel One on your television, and you can't all have small penises. Some of you have no penises at all. My sincerest apologies to those unfortunate readers.
The answer to this question actually has a long and varied history. The original TV sets had no Channel One completely on accident due to a mishap at the first Zenith TV set factory, when an uptight quality-control engineer became paranoid that he'd get fired for signing off on a television that had a channel "L". Despite the reassurances from others in the factory who hadn't been huffing hair perm solution, the engineer couldn't be convinced that it was definitely a "1" and the further scrutiny also made him suspicious about the zero, which he began to worry might be a dial position for the letter "o". Since he had already nixed two of the television set's fifteen channels within the last ten minutes, the rest of the factory workers...
º Last Column: You Spin Me Right Round º more columns
Every once in a while I receive a reader question that really knocks me off the toilet. The latest came from Shane Bugelskow of Jersey City, New Jersey, wrapped around a rock and thrown through my bathroom window. Shane wonders, among other things, why there's no Channel One on his television. I promptly wrote him back and told him the truth: that it was because he has a small penis.
More discerning readers of my column, wherever you are, will likely want a more in-depth answer. None of you, unless you're insane or living overseas (or more likely, both), have a Channel One on your television, and you can't all have small penises. Some of you have no penises at all. My sincerest apologies to those unfortunate readers.
The answer to this question actually has a long and varied history. The original TV sets had no Channel One completely on accident due to a mishap at the first Zenith TV set factory, when an uptight quality-control engineer became paranoid that he'd get fired for signing off on a television that had a channel "L". Despite the reassurances from others in the factory who hadn't been huffing hair perm solution, the engineer couldn't be convinced that it was definitely a "1" and the further scrutiny also made him suspicious about the zero, which he began to worry might be a dial position for the letter "o". Since he had already nixed two of the television set's fifteen channels within the last ten minutes, the rest of the factory workers decided to drop the issue before they started producing expensive fish tanks that didn't get any channels.
The U.S. public back in the 50's was so mesmerized and confused by the first television sets that the lack of channels zero and one didn't strike them as odd at all. People in the 50's were accustomed to being told what to think, and if they had asked about the channels they would've bought any old ludicrous explanation about swamp gas and weather balloons anyway, so there was really no point in asking even if the thought had been coughed up in someone's primitive 1950's brain.
Other television set manufacturers like RCA and Philco were quick to follow Zenith's lead by starting with Channel Two, since the public was highly superstitious back in those days, and likely would have interpreted the addition of previously-forbidden television channels as serious bad voodoo. Unfortunately this decision spelled disaster for the RBC television network, which had outbid ABC, NBC and CBS for the coveted "first-channel" slot in the realm of broadcast bandwidth. RBC dutifully soldiered on and broadcast a full slate of shows for a year and a half after their launch, but eventually folded since only a small handful of people with broken television sets could tune in their network at all. RBC still beat ABC in television ratings, but advertisers never learned this fact since the results were only broadcast on RBC.
After the failure of RBC, the Channel One bandwidth was bought up by the U.S. government, which told an extremely gullible U.S. public that it would be used for ham radios. Americans rushed to stores to buy ham radios, and for six months in 1953 you couldn't get anybody to go bowling because they were all at home, trying to figure out how to turn on their ham radios. Three people succeeded, and were never heard from again.
In actuality, the U.S. government created their own network called USN to air on Channel One, mainly to give governmental higher-ups something else to watch while all the civilian slobs were watching I Love Lucy and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. The network originally aired a stultifying blend of training and hygiene videos, culled from the government's massive collection of archived film strips. But eventually, poor ratings (even for a top-secret network) drove USN honchos to migrate toward racier fare, taking advantage of their security clearance by showing secret footage of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nuclear tests, and grainy, flip-book footage of the Lincoln assassination. Channel One soon garnered a reputation as cutting-edge TV, decades before the advent of cable.
The Zapruder footage of President Kennedy's assassination made its network debut on USN in 1963, playing on a constant round-the-clock rotation that television wouldn't see again until Michael Jackson's video for "Thriller." Even after the footage hit the rest of the public networks, USN still had the upper hand thanks to their multi-angle coverage and exclusive first-person footage. The network wouldn't have another hit this big until they scored with their helmet-cam footage of the Watergate break-in in 1972.
With the advent of digital tuners being built into television sets in the 1980's, the U.S. government faced a new challenge. Rumors about Channel One had spread by word of mouth on college campuses and among lazy slack-ass pigs during the 70's, and the chances that nobody would ever bother to hit the one button on their new TV sets were fairly slim. The government briefly considered launching a Gestapo-style raid on all digital television sets nationwide, but this was considered impractical since television sets are really heavy and most soldiers and pretty lazy when it comes right down to it. Instead, the USN higher-ups developed an ingenious encryption technique that made the network's broadcasts look just like television static to average slobs, but added 3D visuals for government officials who were granted a special pair of glasses with one white lens and one black lens for USN viewing.
To further throw the slackers off their scent, the government also launched an "educational" program to bring "Channel One" to the nation's classrooms, a program that mostly entailed grade-school children sitting through commercials for Fritos on sputnik-era television sets that had to be wheeled in on a cart from the A/V room.
But the subterfuge was successful, and to this day, high-ranking government buttwipes wile away their non-productive hours watching real alien autopsies and how-to videos on crop circle formation, while the rest of us have to make due with American Idol and that great show where you turn off the TV and just stare at your reflection in the tube since it's more entertaining than anything being broadcast that night.
So that's why you don't have a Channel One, commune readers. Any other missing channels can be blamed on either your cable provider or your penis size. Good day. º Last Column: You Spin Me Right Roundº more columns
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|  December 23, 2002
Good-Bye"There was a time I remember when my old boss, a kind of megalomaniacal fruitcake with a bad head for business, approached me and asked me to go on a quest with him that could result in both of our deaths. This memory is pretty easy to conjure since it was about last week.
'Sampson,' the boss said, 'there is but one man on this staff I can trust to go along with me and, if necessary, make that ultimate sacrifice. And that man is you.'
I confess, some part of ol' Sampson L. Hartwig thought him out of his whack mind, as my hip-hop friends might suggest. But the more I dwelt on it, the more I took it as both a compliment and as an accurate assessment. The boss may be missing a few nuts and bolts, but as my dad used to say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, unless it's a digital.
What it comes down to for me, folks, is that Sampson L. Hartwig is an older fella in addition to being completely reliable. I've lived a long, happy life, and rightfully maybe it should be even longer, but it's a sad thought for a young person to go before they've had a chance to experience as much of the world as I have.
When I started writing down these sometimes-rambling musings of mine, I wasn't sure what the point of it all was. I later realized it was some attempt at immortality, I guess. Making my words stand up somewhere separate from me like carved in a stone statue. Or making them the most immortal of all things—stories. Passed down from...
º Last Column: Sports º more columns
"There was a time I remember when my old boss, a kind of megalomaniacal fruitcake with a bad head for business, approached me and asked me to go on a quest with him that could result in both of our deaths. This memory is pretty easy to conjure since it was about last week. 'Sampson,' the boss said, 'there is but one man on this staff I can trust to go along with me and, if necessary, make that ultimate sacrifice. And that man is you.' I confess, some part of ol' Sampson L. Hartwig thought him out of his whack mind, as my hip-hop friends might suggest. But the more I dwelt on it, the more I took it as both a compliment and as an accurate assessment. The boss may be missing a few nuts and bolts, but as my dad used to say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, unless it's a digital. What it comes down to for me, folks, is that Sampson L. Hartwig is an older fella in addition to being completely reliable. I've lived a long, happy life, and rightfully maybe it should be even longer, but it's a sad thought for a young person to go before they've had a chance to experience as much of the world as I have. When I started writing down these sometimes-rambling musings of mine, I wasn't sure what the point of it all was. I later realized it was some attempt at immortality, I guess. Making my words stand up somewhere separate from me like carved in a stone statue. Or making them the most immortal of all things—stories. Passed down from one to the next over a nice cold drink in a cozy setting. That's the only way to live once you're in the ground, folks. So the way I see it, yeah, let's go on this crazy adventure. The worst that can happen is they put me in the ground. There's still some part of me wandering around over those drinks in cozy settings, and in places like this column. And if it all works out for the better, maybe you'll hear from me again—and boy, will I have a humdinger of a story to tell you then. In the meantime, I'm taking a loaded shotgun with me, and a taser. No one said I can't stack the deck a little in my favor. If my brother Goose comes nosin' around asking for me, tell him I went on a suicidal adventure—he'll be positively emerald with jealousy." º Last Column: Sportsº more columns
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Milestones1992: Ramon Nootles is married in Las Vegas. It is not the last wedding for Nootles, nor his last in Las Vegas, nor his last making heavy use of alcohol and strippers.Now HiringHooker. Must pretend to be girlfriend while bosses are visiting. Live with handsome bachelor, no sex involved, go on crazy shopping expeditions with high potential for comedy. Should be capable of winning people over with down-to-earth personality. If successful, will go on to become full-time beard for obviously gay attractive man. Top Ways to Leave Your Lover| 1. | Join Al-Qaeda | | 2. | Quit Al-Qaeda | | 3. | Mail self to Shanghai (unless from Shanghai) | | 4. | Singing Dump-o-Gram | | 5. | Blaze of Glory/Blaze of Lies | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 4/28/2003 Leave it to Hollywood, just when you think nothing good is coming out, all of a sudden nothing good really doesn't come out. Hopefully you can find a beach ball or some dirty playing cards or something to keep you busy while you're in the theater because trust me, you won't be there for the movies. Let's take a look under the hood.
In Theaters
Anger Management
Is there any specific reason they give Adam Sandler a different name for every movie he's in? It must have something to do with keeping the writers happy, like they'd feel too constrained if they had to just give up the ghost and call his "character" Adam Sandler every time. It certainly doesn't help Sandler's fans, who are constantly...
Leave it to Hollywood, just when you think nothing good is coming out, all of a sudden nothing good really doesn't come out. Hopefully you can find a beach ball or some dirty playing cards or something to keep you busy while you're in the theater because trust me, you won't be there for the movies. Let's take a look under the hood.
In Theaters
Anger Management
Is there any specific reason they give Adam Sandler a different name for every movie he's in? It must have something to do with keeping the writers happy, like they'd feel too constrained if they had to just give up the ghost and call his "character" Adam Sandler every time. It certainly doesn't help Sandler's fans, who are constantly turning to each other during his movies and having conversations like:
"Wait a minute, why do they keep calling Adam Sandler 'Barry'?"
"I don't know dude, watch and find out."
This latest flick is more of the same, though Sandler may have finally met his match in always-acting-the-same virtuoso Jack Nicholson. Strangely enough, Nicholson's character in the film isn't named Jack either, so I guess he's still harboring the same delusions after all these years.
Thankfully Jack at least provides us visual clues so we know we're not watching Sophie's Choice, because in this movie he wears a different hat. I think more actors should try this; George Clooney could really expand his range if he'd put on a sombrero every once in a while.
As for the film itself, it's your standard "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy leaves giant dildo formed out of cheetos on girl's doorstep at night" picture, spiced up by a little rhyming dialogue. You could do worse, especially if you think Jamie Kennedy is funny.
Bulletproof Monkey
Looks like that voodoo priestess I paid to keep Sean William Scott out of any more movies has failed me yet again. Here he plays the annoying little monkey of the title, who steals Chow Yun-Fat's Asian accent, making it tough for him to find work in any half-assed knockoffs of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The resulting film is sort of like a cross between Kangaroo Jack and having your girlfriend leave you for Bob Denver. It's better than Iron Monkey, the Beastie Boys' Brass Monkey and Pauley Shore's Ass Monkey, but that's kind of like saying getting kicked in the face is better than getting kicked in the taint.
Holes
Though they have probably the worst name ever for a teenage girl group (despite stiff competition from B*Witched and Gynotopia), Holes have always charmed with their angst-free songs about being young and spoiled. Was that enough to justify a feature-length film? Of course not, but nobody really believed the caning of the Spice Girls in Singapore was really going to be the deterrent that kept some soulless hack trying to pull this crap again. The supporting cast of John "Must've Had Sex with Some Kind of Goddess to Produce Angelina Jolie" Voight and Segourney "No Matter How You Spell My Name It Still Doesn't Look Right" Weaver keep the proceedings mildly respectable while Holes travels around the world trying to discover why some people are ugly. If this movie were a beverage, it would be a can full of air, but it's not like the target audience has ever heard of thinking.
House of 1000 Islands
Rob Zombie's obviously a big fan of salad dressing, and it shows in this reverent homage to many of the masters of the medium. Throughout the film you'll see people eating salads with blue cheese, Italian vinaigrette, honey mustard, all the big names. There's kind of a tacked-on horror angle to the picture where the guy running the restaurant is really making the dressing out of kidnapped cheerleaders and surplus members of boy bands, but I wouldn't get too wrapped up in that side of the film. If you like watching people eat salad, you'll like this movie.
Identity
Look, unless David Lynch in involved, I just don't accept "the Hamburgler did it" as the resolution to any film. Sorry. I was willing to let the film try again to get it right, but it just ended instead, so piss on this movie. Yeah, sure, I'll stare at John Cusack for two hours, because I'm in a good mood and I already bought a soda. I'll even buy Ray Liotta in a role where he doesn't have a coke problem, sure. But the whole strangers in a room/lights go out/a woman screams/lights go up and--somebody fucked the cat!--angle is just tired. Been done too many times, and it was done better the last time I played Clue. They should have blamed it all on the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Nobody ever sees that one coming.
And that's all we've go to report as of right now. Word on the street is that there are several more crappy movies in production as… we… speak… so we'll have the latest on those as soon as they crap themselves into the theater. If you're like me, you hope to develop a drinking problem before then, to ease the pain. Best of luck to both of us. Bottoms up America!    |