Attack Of The Killer Spinach (Monday's Second Hour)

We open this hour on spinach. Yep, spinach. This whole E Coli thing is still quite the problem. Ted Rowlands gives us an update piece where he basically tells us they still don't know the cause of the outbreak. Not much of an update there. Do we really even need all this? Just don't eat spinach! There. Done. We don't have to freak out about it. Or maybe we do. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us live and Anderson speculates as to whether or not this was a deliberate attack. Oh, way to ratchet up the terrorism fears there, Anderson. Great, now you've got people thinking Al Qaeda wants to take their freedom and mess with their salads. Seriously, really not helpful there, dude. Bad Anderson. No soup for you! Sanjay tells us there's no evidence to support this was deliberate. Thank you, Sanjay. I knew I could depend on you to be responsible about this. Sanjay says all spinach should be thrown out...and then he goes on to tell us how to try to cook the E Coli out. Sanjay! What are you doing?! Now a bunch of idiots who think they don't need to abide by the FDA are going to be cooking their spinach, which may not actually help to kill the bacteria. I don't know what's gotten into Sanjay and Anderson during this segment, but they both need a time out in the bad reporter corner.

Next up, whoa, we've got riots breaking out in Hungary. The people are ticked because state radio played an audio tape of a Hungary minister admitting to lying about the state of the country's economy for the past two years. Wow, a high government official continuously lying about a really important issue. I can't imagine what that's like. Oh wait. I'm sure we'll be taking our outrage to the streets any day now. You know, after Dancing With The Stars is over. Oh, and then there's baseball playoffs and then...well, we'll get around to being outraged about the state of the country at some point. It's just there's other stuff to focus on, you know?

Erica pops in now to give us the business news and guess what? Gas prices are falling. "It's like and early Christmas present, Anderson," she says. "Or a pre-election present perhaps," Anderson counters. Touche, Anderson. After the break we get a rerun of the John Robert's piece, except at first they run the wrong thing and they have to stop it and have Anderson explain what happened. Ooops. Somebody's getting in trouuuuble.

On now to an interview with Time editor Richard Stengel and their cover story on Ahmadinejad. Anderson asks how good the intelligence is and Richard replies,"not so good." He says it's possible Iran is much further from a nuclear program than what many believe now. I hope the press keeps questioning on this because they were total cheerleaders during the lead up to Iraq.

We transition now to a piece from Ben Wiedeman on the fallout from the 34 day Israel/Labanon war. Many in Israel are angry, including one of the kidnapped soldier's father, because they believe it was a poorly planned campaign with a shortage of supplies--even water. Water? Geez. Now many see Hezbollah as heroes. Back in the studio Anderson has an interview with the western bureau chief of a Lebanon newspaper and he believes Hezbollah is weakened. Next up the Israeli ambassador to the UN comes on to basically agree with everything just said, except he really lays it on thick. Anderson notes that the soldiers are still held captive and the ambassador says that expectations were too high and nobody believed a military solution would bring the soldiers back anyway. Um, what?! But that's what you kept saying through the whole damn thing! I never believed it, but I think some Israelis did, which might be why they're so ticked now. Anyway, I really wish Anderson would have made him clarify.

Up next we have a piece by Peter Viles on the Black Dahlia murder. Basically it's this old really gruesome murder of a young woman named Elizabeth Short. After the piece Anderson has an interview with a retired LAPD officer who thinks his dad did it. Creepy. I really have no idea what the point was of all this. How this is news escapes me. But don't think I don't know that CNN's parent company has a relationship with the studio putting out the new movie based on this murder. Ah, synergy. Anyway, the night ends with some blog comments. They haven't done that in a while. That's all folks.

Screencap by bcfraggle.