Collideoscope

Posted by: Denelle

(and 10 points for the first person who can identify the band that sang that song)

Believe it or not, I started to put together this blog around 10 am this morning. However, I obviously got side tracked along the way. I'd like to say it was because I was really busy doing really important legal stuff at work. But it wasn't. I'm simply easily distracted and the internet can prove very distracting.

Is Breaking News Always a Good Thing?

Reuters has retracted photos published over the weekend that exaggerated the results of an Israeli missile strike on Beirut. After several bloggers commented that the pictures looked as if they had been altered the news agency launched an investigation and reached the same conclusion. The freelance photographer who took the pictures maintains that he did not intentionally alter them.

All of this comes on the heels of blogger speculation earlier last week that Lebanese/Arab photographers were staging photos to make the Israeli aggression appear worse than it really is. Those claims surround pictures of dead children (taken by the same photographer) in the village of Qana in southern Lebanon.

Which leads me to ask, if credible new agencies don't have the time to check out a story's source or to verify the validity of photos or video before releasing that information to the public, is the demand for immediate news coverage getting out of hand? I'd rather wait 10 hours for correct information than to have a story 30 minutes after the even that is full of fallacy. But maybe that's just me.

A First Time For Everything

It suddenly dawned on me this morning that we've yet to discuss the controversy currently swirling around the Tour de France and its winner (or maybe not) - Floyd Landis.

I'll be the first to admit that I was a bit surprised to hear that an American cyclist (and one that I'd never heard of) had won this year's race. But I'm no great fan of cycling and so I just sort of shrugged and forgot about it. But almost immediately the doping allegations started being thrown at Landis and sure enough his blood tests came back positive. Landis maintained that he was innocent and that his body simply produced higher levels of testosterone than most men. So a second sample was tested, all the while Landis was maintaining his innocence.

Well, the second set of results came in on Saturday and they too tested positive for a synthetic (meaning it ain't your body producing it Floyd) testosterone. Landis has since been dumped by his cycling team and all but officially stripped of the Tour de France yellow jersey. Yet, he still maintains he has done nothing wrong.

And I really want to believe him. After all, at this point what does he have to gain by lying? His career is over, his reputation is in shreds, nobody really believes that he didn't do drugs, so why keep lying about it? He'd probably come out better if he said that yes, he'd used a performance enhancer. But I live in America, land of the "I did not inhale" defense, where our national pastime is baseball and their motto is "I've never used steroids no matter what my drug tests, trainer, fellow teammates, unnaturally large arms, and unbelievably high batting records say," a land where athletes will testify under oath before a senate committee that they've never used drugs and then get busted for it just months later (and yes I'm looking at you Rafael Palmeiro).

So, I'm sorry Floyd but I have to assume (until you can prove otherwise) that you did in fact use some form of drugs to help you win and that you got caught and your first instinct was to deny it and now you don't know how to dig yourself out of that hole. My suggestion . . . start with a very sincere and humble apology and a confession of what you did. Then you'll just be a cheat instead of a cheat and a liar.

And Finally

Because what day is complete without a little entertainment news, I bring to you the latest in the drama of the McCartney/Mills divorce. British tabloids are reporting that over the weekend when Mills arrived to pick up their daughter from McCartney's London residence she was met at the door and told she wasn't welcome in the house and she would have to meet Paul in St. Regent's park to pick up the little girl. When Mills returned to the house after picking up her daughter she found that the locks on the gate had been changed and so she promptly called a locksmith to change them back (mind you, she doesn't live there) but McCartney's security people stopped the locksmith and sent Mills on her way. On Friday, the NYPost reported that McCartney had fired seven people from his New York office because they were closely connected to Mills and he is attempting to sever all ties with her. He has even gone so far as to pull out of a performance for her pet charity Adopt-a-Minefield.

Poor Paul.

I guarantee he never expected this when he married Heather. After all, he'd been so happy for so long with Linda. He probably never realized that the world was full of such crazy and greedy women. I can guarantee that next time he'll listen to his children before he pops the question again (and I guarantee there will be a prenup). In the meantime, hang on, this has all the markings of an ugly and long divorce battle.