Monday, August 05, 2013

RNC at war with NBC and CBS and other non-alphabet soup headlines

The Republican National Committee is not happy with the decisions by NBC and CNN to air projects about Hillary Rodham Clinton just as the 2016 election campaign starts to take shape.  NBC plans a mini-series with Diane Lane portraying the former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State while CNN has a documentary on Clinton in the works.

New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez was roundly booed when he came to bat in a game against the Chicago White Sox, in the wake of the announcement by MLB that he'd been suspended for 211 games for "just cause."  Maybe they chose 211 as their estimate of how many home runs he might have hit WITHOUT performance-enhancing drugs.

The first victim of alleged sexual harassment by San Diego Mayor Bob Filner met with investigators from the District Attorney's office.  She was accompanied by her own attorney, Gloria Allred.  Bear in mind that while ten women have made accusations about Filner's unwanted advances, since only one of them is a city employee; if criminal charges were to be brought against Mayor Filner, the other victims would probably not be allowed to testify at that trial.

On a related note, Filner started his two weeks of "intensive therapy" today. 

Intelligence information involving messages between high-ranking al Qaeda officials was behind the decision to shutter a number of U.S. embassies and other overseas facilities.  There were strong indications that a terror attack was in the offing.

In Canada two young boys were sleeping over at a friend's home located above a reptile store.  Authorities believe that a python that escaped from the store strangled the two boys.

The Washington Post was purchased today by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos as a personal acquisition.  The paper was not bought by Amazon.  Please note that Bezos bought the newspaper business from the Washington Post Company, which will remain in existence under a new name.

Among the four teenagers who were arrested in Utah on suspicion of making and throwing bombs was a beauty queen who was scheduled to compete in the Miss Utah pageant.

There is only speculation about what happened in an incident in Mississippi where a skydiving instructor doing a tandem jump was killed and his student/jumper critically injured.  All authorities know is that it looks like he cut away his main chute and deployed his reserve.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of runners who had paid to participate in adventure races through a company called HeroRush are out of luck.  The company folded on August 1st, will file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and says there will be no refunds.

A nurse who was at the finish line of this year's Boston Marathon had a chance to save another life.  She was on Plum Island when a young girl was brought in from the ocean, unconscious.  The nurse performed CPR and the girl is recovering.

Gloria Everett died this past February and now her family is going to sell her doll collection.  Not dozens of dolls, or hundreds, but well over 1,000 dolls, some dating back to the 1800s and worth considerable sums of money.

CBS rejected a "truce" offer from Time Warner Cable today.  The pressure to solve this problem will ratchet up considerably at the end of this month, when subscribers of the cable system will begin to miss watching SEC and AFC football games.

Figure skater Michelle Kwan has joined the team that will be covering the 2014 Winter Games at Sochi, Russia for Fox Sports.  Fox doesn't have the right to broadcast the Olympic Games (that belongs to NBC), but they will be doing in-depth coverage for their new cable channel, Fox Sports 1.

Filming on the next "Batman" movie won't begin until next year, there is no script and already there is massive speculation on who will portray the Caped Crusader.

Just how did Richard B. Cohen, who lives in a small town in New Hampshire pull this one off?  He is worth $11.2 billion and yet he's never been on any list of billionaires.  Maybe it is because his company, a wholesale grocer, hauls its billions and billions worth of goods to their client in unmarked trucks, and he shuns any kind of publicity.  Now his secret is out.

Chris Brown managed to avoid the press when it came time to turn himself in on that hit-and-run case, thanks to his attorney's planning.  Brown showed up one day early to surrender and was released on his own recognizance a short time later.

A bowler who would have bowled a 300 game with just one more strike was robbed by the equipment.  The sweeper bar came down and blocked his ball just before it was about to hit the "pocket".  He got a 're-do' but missed.

What message was the 'fan' trying to send to the boy-band One Direction when they threw a tampon a the band while they were performing?

Gary Lineker, a member of England's Football Hall of Fame (that's soccer over there) is now trying to say that Ronaldo is better than Pele ever was.  Seriously?