Military Felons, Friendly Fire, 2008 Politics, And More Aliens (Tuesday's Second Hour)

Hi everybody. We kick off the hour with a redux of all the freaky astronaut crap. Then we move into a Randi Kaye piece on how the military is knowingly letting in felons now. In fact last year alone they let in 1,000. Apparently they're having some trouble recruiting (can't imagine why) and now they've had to take a bunch of people of lower quality-like those who score poorly on their tests. One guy was even convicted of arson, yet was shipped off to Iraq before doing his time. Lord. Next we're going to hear that criminals are being offered a tour of duty instead of their sentence. The big problem here (besides criminals with guns running free in another country) is that upholding moral standards is kind of important to the military. Because when you don't do that you get situations where soldiers rape and murder 14 year old Iraqi girls, which was the case of Stephen Green. What's interesting is that once your in the service the military doesn't do routine background checks. Man, that's just like psych tests and the astronauts. We're not talking about FEMA here, you'd think the military would be on that. Anyway, this story just confirms to me that our military is pretty much broken. Thanks Bush!

Moving on now to a pretty heartbreaking piece from Barbara Starr. Shortly after the invasion, US pilots were patrolling the skys over southern Iraq when they spotted vehicles that they thought were carrying some sort of rockets. They had been told their were no coalition troops around, so they fired, assuming they were insurgents. Unfortunately the orange they saw were identifying tags and they had just shot at friendlies. One British soldier was killed. We actually get to hear the tape of the immediate aftermath and it's obvious the US soldiers are sickened by what they've just done. They were later cleared, as they should have been. These things happen in war unfortunately. If only both countries' governments were a little more upfront with the dead soldier's family.

On now to a Candy Crowley piece on the interesting candidates for the republican nomination. What's so interesting about them? Well, though they're all pretty repugnant to me, none of them give liberals that "oh my God if they win I'm moving to Canada" feeling. And you know what that means: conservatives are not happy. They of course like their candidates extreme and crazy and sometimes extremely crazy. I mean, Clinton and Giuliani even stand in pretty much the same spot on social issues. That's bound to explode a few wingnut heads. Some think that if McCain, Giuliani, or maybe even Romney get the nomination a third more conservative party will emerge. To that I say bring it on. Please. Split that republican vote. I dare you.

Transitioning now to...the aliens are back! Anderson even has his space music out again. In a Gary Tuchman piece we learn that something strange happened in the sky over North Carolina. A lot of people ended up calling 9-11 due to an explody thing. One guy even took a picture, though hilariously does not want his face show. Dude, you took a picture of the sky, you're not in the witness protection program. So we can chalk this up to North Carolinans being a little nutty, right? Wrong! Because the same thing happened two days later over Hawaii. I swear man, I'm about to make me one of those aluminum foil hats like they made in "Signs" so the aliens can't read my thoughts. So what's going on here? Are they coming to invade us, liberate us, perhaps? Eh, probably just a meteor they say. Bummer. I was looking forward to being liberated. Seriously, if I was an alien and I came to this planet once I don't know that I'd be coming back.

For discussion on this (because really, what the hell?) we're joined by skeptical guy Joe Nickell of Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. I gotta get me a subscription to that. So Joe spends a few minutes being skeptical with Anderson. There's not really much else I can say-the spoiler's in the magazine title. At the end Anderson asks Joe to, "if there's ever -- you come across something you can't figure out what it is, give us a call and let us know. " Joe says Anderson will be the second person he calls. Hey! Anderson is no second fidle. "Who's the first?" he asks. And I swear to God if he would have said "Greta" right here, just as a joke, he'd be my favorite person ever. Because Anderson's reaction would have been worth watching these two whole hours. But Joe is all sweet and says his wife. Pshaw. Whatever. Hey Anderson, you're right after the wife. That's pretty good. Alrightie then. That'll do it.

What do you think about the republican candidates? Are we being invaded!?