TV News LIES

If you've not noticed in this enchanting election cycle -- now heading into its eternal, unending, 19th year -- reality as we once knew it has dived into a hole somewhere, hiding out, on hiatus, with a shakily-lettered sign hung out that reads, "Go Away!"

While grim political candidates and their even-grimmer supporters are taking major psychotic breaks from reality, facts, and the truth, I'm content taking much smaller time-outs from this bat-guano-crazed world.

A California teen with dreams of reaching the highest rank in the Boy Scouting division has been denied the honor because he’s gay, his mom says. Ryan Andresen, 17, says his scoutmaster knew about his sexuality all along, but the crushing news didn’t come until after he had completed the requirements for becoming an Eagle Scout.

“It was by far the biggest goal of my life,” Andresen told Yahoo News. “It’s totally devastating.”
Rainer Del Valle, the scoutmaster for Troop 212 in Moraga, Calif., let Andresen believe he’d get the rank, the teen says.

Metropolitan Police detectives agreed to nine separate requests from FBI agents to provide information on Babar Ahmad at a time when the case against the long-imprisoned terror suspect was collapsing because of a lack of evidence, The Independent can reveal.

Court documents unearthed in the United States reveal how senior detectives involved in the initial investigation of Mr Ahmad regularly carried out searches and enquiries on behalf of the FBI and even sent American agents two encrypted floppy disks that were found at the south Londoner’s home.

The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years and giving President Barack Obama a potential boost with the election a month away.

The rate dropped from 8.1 percent because the number of people who were employed according to a government survey soared by 873,000 - the biggest monthly jump since 2003. It was an encouraging sign for an economy that's been struggling to create enough jobs. So was the fact that more people decided to look for work in September.

Since when do bees make honey in various shades of blue and green?

Beekeepers in northeastern France were posing that most reasonable question lately, until they suspected their bees were eating the sugary waste from M&Ms -- those brightly colored, candy-shelled chocolates.

A biogas plant in Alsace is thought to be the culprit.  It deals with waste from a Mars chocolate factory.  Combine a harsh winter with a rainy summer, and the bees have had less time than usual for foraging, forcing beekeepers to set out sugar syrup for the bees.

The ethics of medicine are guided by the Hippocratic Oath which commits medical professionals to the principle of health care based on, Primum non nocere -- First do no harm. Health professionals are speaking out on behalf of the public health of their patients as hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking is introduced into their communities.

Fifty years ago this month Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring a book that warned of the devastating impacts of pesticides and pollutants on human health. That seminal book led to the formation of the EPA and catalyzed a ban on DDT.

Stem cells made from skin have become "grandparents" after generations of life were created in experiments by scientists in Japan.

The cells were used to create eggs, which were fertilised to produce baby mice. These later had their own babies. If the technique could be adapted for people, it could help infertile couples have children and even allow women to overcome the menopause.

The U.S. government may have used a densely-populated swath of low-income housing projects in St. Louis as its radioactive chemical testing ground through the 1950s and 1960s, according to a new study.

The research, undertaken by sociology professor Lisa Martino-Taylor, claims that the government sprayed African American sections of St. Louis with radioactive particles as part of its biological weapons program.