Category: In the News

It may not be the Howard Beale “Mad as Hell” meltdown scene from the movie Network, but I’ll take it for now: here’s MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski refusing to cover the Paris Hilton non-story despite the prodding of her co-anchors and producer. Really, people, of all the things with which we should concern ourselves, that trampy monster of entitlement should be among the last of them…

I had a cynical moment where I thought that this was mere grandstanding in order to cover Paris Hilton by not covering her, but as someone who occasionally tunes in to MSNBC, I think that such subterfuge requires more brain cells than all of their producers currently have. I’m going to assume that Ms. Brzezinski’s refusal is genuine and salute her with a filet mignon on a flaming sword.

For those of you who are wondering what the hell I’m talking about with this “Howard Beale” and Network, here’s a synopsis of the movie, and here’s the scene to which I refer:

The Howard Beale meltdown scene from Network has been borrowed a number of times. The most recent homage paid to it of which I’m aware is from the opening episode of the late and largely unlamented Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:

Studio 60 was 20% good moments, 80% Aaron Sorkin practicing self-love with a television budget and audience. Life’s too short — if I must endure some egomaniac celebrating his own genius in a showy manner, that egomaniac had better be me.

In Metroblogging NYC, Dana Bushman has a blog entry about flying on Continental Airlines from Amsterdam to Newark, a tale of delays, bad service and bathrooms leaking bilge into the cabin:

On Wednesday June 13th at around 2:00 pm my boyfriend and I boarded Continental flight 71 from Amsterdam to Newark along with approximately 250 other passengers. Despite that fact that the flight was only scheduled to be 8 hours, it wasn’t until 32 hours later that we arrived in New Jersey. What happened in between is a tale of massive mismanagement, awful customer service and downright inhumane, unsafe and unsanitary conditions. This was a massive clusterfuck on Continental’s part–a screw up of Jet-Blue proportions; maybe even worse.

Luckily for Dana, she’d cashed in her points and was flying first class, away from the leakage. The economy passengers weren’t so lucky:

“To be blatantly honest, I was more nervous than I had ever been on a flight,” said [passenger] Collin Brock. “I’ve never felt so offended in all my life. I felt like i had been physically abused and neglected. I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours,” said Brock.

Consumerist has a video of a news report covering the Continental story. In the report, a stewardess had to improvise a little mask due to the smell from the leaking sewage.

If you’re not in the general vicinity of Ontario and Quebec, you’re probably not aware of the gasoline shortage here. The shortage is caused by these factors acting in combination:

• A fire at Imperial Oil’s refinery in Nanticoke has reduced its production capacity to half. It’s not expected to get back to full capacity for at least another two weeks.
• Fuel could be brought in by rail, but there had been a strike of Canadian National Railway workers for the past couple of weeks, cutting off that option until it ended recently.
• The St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Atlantic to over a dozen inland ports, will remain frozen for at least another month. If it weren’t frozen, fuel could be brought in via ship.

Naturally, the price of gasoline has jumped considerably. It’s quite a change from the ultra-low price of 69.5 cents (US$0.59) a litre (that’s about US$2.24/gallon) for a few hours one Friday evening a few weeks ago to about a buck (US$0.85) a litre (about US$3.22/gallon).

A number of oil companies have had to close down their filling stations:

• Imperial Oil, a.k.a. Esso, has close 100 out of 400 stations in Ontario
• Canadian Tire stations, who are supplied by Imperial Oil, have also had closings
• Petro-Canada has closed 25 out of 205 in the Toronto area
• Shell has closed 30 out of 600 stations across Ontario

Given the current gasoline situation and the weather forecast for tomorrow (Thursday — 10 cm of snow followed by freezing rain), save yourself some money — and headaches — and skip driving.

Links

• No end yet to gasoline shortages (Toronto Star)
• Motorists need to stay calm during gas shortage: Ontario premier (Canada.com)
• Petro-Canada closes 25 gas stations in Ontario because of gas shortage (International Herald Tribune)

[via Reddit]

You’d think that after all the huffing and puffing they’d been doing about the “War on Christmas” that Fox News would actually do as they said…