CNN drops to last in the ratings

News giant CNN is having some issues with competiting networks. In fact, they're losing to them all in the ratings race, including their own sister network HLN. Execs can't be too thrilled about this one.

CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising.

The official monthly numbers will be finalized at 4 p.m. Monday and will include results from Friday. CNN executives conceded that will not change the competitive standing for the month. CNN will still be last in prime time.

That means CNN’s programs were behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but even its own sister network HLN (formerly Headline News.) Three of its four shows between 7 and 11 p.m. finished fourth and last among the cable news networks. That was the first time CNN had finished that poorly with its prime-time shows.

Maybe Anderson Cooper could start hosting "Who's the daddy?" episodes like Maury Povich or start yelling a berating guests on his show? Hey, it works for Bill O'Reilly!

You know your church might be in trouble when it's convicted of fraud

Signs your religon might have some issues...

(1) It was founded by a science fiction writer.
(2) It's most famous member is considered crazy and jumps on Oprah's couch.
(3) It's convicted of fraud.

It would be safe to say that Sciencetology has some issues...

PARIS (AP) - A Paris court convicted the Church of Scientology of fraud and fined it more than euro600,000 ($900,000) on Tuesday, but stopped short of banning the group's activities.
The group's French branch said it would appeal the verdict.

The court convicted the Church of Scientology's French office, its library and six of its leaders of organized fraud. Investigators said the group pressured members into paying large sums of money for questionable financial gain and used "commercial harassment" against recruits.

The group was fined euro400,000 ($600,000) and the library euro200,000. Four of the leaders were given suspended sentences of between 10 months and two years. The other two were given fines of euro1,000 and euro2,000.

Prosecutors had urged that the group be disbanded in France and fined euro2 million. A law that was briefly on the books this year prevented the court from going so far as to disband the French branch of Scientology in Tuesday's verdict—though it could have taken the lesser step of shutting down its operations.

On the other hand, you can earn eternal salvation by paying off that fine if you choose to join the church. Woo hoo!

Oops, plane overshoots airport by 150 miles

Well, this is embarrassing for the airline and the pilots...

WASHINGTON — Were the pilots distracted? Catching up on their sleep? Federal investigators struggled to determine what the crew of a Northwest Airlines jetliner were doing at 37,000 feet as they sped 150 miles past their Minneapolis destination and military jets scrambled to chase them. Unfortunately, the cockpit voice recorder may not tell the tale.

A report released late Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were apologetic after Wednesday night's amazing odyssey. They said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. But aviation safety experts and other pilots were frankly skeptical they could have become so consumed with shop talk that they forgot to land an airplane carrying 140 passengers.

The most likely possibility, they said, is that the pilots simply fell asleep somewhere along their route from San Diego.

"It certainly is a plausible explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

Simply fell asleep? Since when is a pilot falling asleep at the controls just a simple mistake? With 140 people in your care, you'd think the pilots would be a bit more receptive to the outside conditions of their aircraft - namely where the heck they are. I think something else happened that caused them to overshoot their intended airport.

1. They though they were smuggling 140 American immigrants into Canada. It happens, espicially in this economy.

2. The pilots were watching Season 3 of "Friends on DVD."

3. The pilot slammed on the brakes, but it kept on skidding.

This makes me even more apprehensive about flying? I might be better off getting in a hot air balloon.

Smart meters to save the world and piss off customers

Lookey here! The next step of evolution in the way we get out electric bill. It's suppose to improve efficiency and we're actually suppose to be able to see how much we're using in real-time.

However, when they installed all these meters, power bills immediately went up. Ooops.

Fast Company loves smart electric meters. They're the first, essential step in the smart electric grid, which promises to fight global warming, improve efficiency, and bring consumer control into our electricity system.

Pacific Gas & Electric loves SmartMeters too. They've installed 3.7 million, with a goal of 10 million by 2012--the largest program in the nation.

Who doesn't love smart meters? Thousands of PG&E customers in Bakersfield, California. They blame the newly installed meters for doubling and tripling their power bills over the summer, compared to the previous year. The SF Chronicle reported that "Angry homeowners repeatedly booed PG&E representatives during a public hearing on the meters earlier this month."

PG&E says it's a case of mistaken identity. The true culprits were July heat waves and recent rate increases. Every meter they've inspected so far has been working properly. 

Well so much for going green if you lose green in the process. 

Swine flu numbers inflated?

Apparently the reports coming out about the number of causes of swine flu may make things seem worse than they actually are...

With most cases diagnosed solely on symptoms and risk factors, the H1N1 flu epidemic may seem worse than it is. For example, on Sept. 22, this alarming headline came from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.: "H1N1 Flu Infects Over 250 Georgetown Students."

H1N1 flu can be deadly and an outbreak of 250 students would be an especially troubling cluster. However, the number of sick students came not from lab-confirmed tests but from "estimates" made by counting "students who went to the Student Health Center with flu symptoms, students who called the H1N1 hotline or the Health Center's doctor-on-call, and students who went to the hospital's emergency room."

Without lab testing, it's impossible to know how many of the students actually had H1N1 flu. But the statistical trend indicates it was likely much fewer than 250.

Oh no! What does this mean? Well people that think they have swine flu but done have it may elect to skip the vaccine because they think they're fine. However, since they didn't contract H1N1, they're still susceptible to it.

That's not good news by the way. More people could become infected largely due to misinformation. Somebody get me a breathing mask ASAP.

New York Times to cut 100 jobs

Another sign that newspapers are quickly falling off the face of the earth: the New York Times is cutting more newsroom jobs. Apparently the janitor and bagel guy will be left.

The New York Times plans to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs — about 8 percent of the total — by year’s end, offering buyouts to union and non-union employees, and resorting to layoffs if it cannot get enough people to leave voluntarily, the paper announced on Monday.

The program mirrors one carried out in the spring of 2008, when the paper erased 100 positions in its newsroom, though other jobs were created, so the net reduction was smaller. That round of cuts included some layoffs of journalists — about 15 to 20, though The Times would not disclose the actual figure — which was the first time in memory that had happened.

Not a good sign for up-and-coming journalists who see the holy grail of newspapers shed off more jobs as the sagging economy continues to hit bottom lines.

Hospital mistake exposes hundreds of patients to dangerous radiation levels

Ways to get people not to come back to your hospital: expose them to dangerous levels of radiation. Yay American Healthcare!

According to hospital officials, the error responsible for subjecting patients to eight times the recommended dose of radiation occurred in February of last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that, at the time, the hospital

believed using a new protocol for a specialized type of scan used to diagnose strokes would provide them with more useful data. However, this called for the machine to be re-programmed so they could  override the pre-programmed instructions that came with the scanner when it was installed.

As a result of the hospital's fiddling, patients receiving CT brain perfusion scans were subjected to extremely high doses of radiation, which in some cases, resulted in radiation poisoning. The mistake was only noticed when one stroke patient reported that he had begun to lose his hair following a scan. Upon discovering their mistake, the hospital contacted 206 patients who had received overdoses and found that 40 percent of them had experienced either patchy hair loss or reddening of the skin as a result.

I won't fiddle around with the settings on my microwave much less a CT scanner. When effects of a potential screw up could be (and were) felt by hundreds of people, maybe you should look at things a little closer? Just a thought.

So do they get a lifetime free food card to the hospital cafeteria or something?