LOST, Shootouts at the OK Corral, and... well thats it

Dear BBC News,

I have often regarded you as a superior news source due to the fact that you're, well... British. Its not that I think the British are better or smarter than we Americans... quite the contrary, with the exception of maybe John Oliver, Ricky Gervais, and David Bowie (I'm only counting the living, I'm also a fan of Churchill, Lennon, Darwin, Tolkien and Alexander Flemming).

No, I'd hate to live on your rainy island full of rude people, but its precisely your 'get to the point', 'stiff upper lip' attitude that makes for reporters who the trim the bullshit out of news. You're also about 9 hours ahead of lazy California, so for reporting on the rest of the world, you're on top of it while I'm still asleep. But you ruined it for me today, and here's why...

Shoot Second in Gunfight, Study Finds... well of course that's listed on your homepage under 'Other Top Stories', who wouldn't want to read that? You'd never see that in the New York Times. Naturally I'm curious why I should wait to be shot at before returning fire. CLICK!

Oh, the actual title of the article is "People Are Quicker When Reacting Than When Initiating"... talk about a sexy title that really grabs you. Nevertheless, I read on... "Inspired by Hollywood, researchers have delved into the science of gunfights."

Timeout. Who are these researchers and how did they get IRB approval? I must know more... perhaps I can join their study for my summer internship (suck it malaria!)

"Pairs of participants were put in a button-pressing competition with each other. Each was secretly given instructions of how long to wait before pushing a row of buttons." This is getting lame...

And the clincher, "Dr Welchman explained that it took around 200 milliseconds to respond to what an opponent was doing, so, in a gunfight, the 21 millisecond reactionary advantage would be unlikely to save you."

So to recap, we went from "wait to get shot at before you fire back", to "people react fast when other people are pushing buttons", to "well, you should probably shoot that bastard first".

Thanks BBC. I'm not sure if you're aware of the tenets of AP Journalist style writing, but you're supposed to put the most important information at the beginning of the article and fill in the lesser details as you go along. You're going to have blood on your hands if you keep this up.

Speaking of shootouts...

LOST!

Yep, the beginning of the end is here. Season Six. I've been addicted since the first episode, so despite all the curiosity, frustration and rage it has cost me over the better half of a decade, I'm seeing it through 'til the end. People are obsessed with this show and thus we have innumerable amounts of fan websites, blogs, blah, blah, blah. People love talking about their theories, and I can't really comment on them because I haven't really read any of them.

I take an 'I'll wait in anxiety-induced agony' approach to LOST (it seems inappropriate to not capitalize all the letters... greating marketing folks they've got). I haven't really bothered to read lots of theories about what the hell is going on with that show because (a) JJ Abrams and his cronies haven't actually told that guy on the message board anything, (b) JJ Abrams did a really solid job of recreating Star Trek, and (c) I was raised Irish-Catholic, so by nature I don't question things I don't understand, I just wait until next week when more of God's truth is revealed.

The only theory I've developed is very simple, mostly because I don't have the time or willpower to go back through the last five seasons to see what events in the show do or do not support it (also I'm pretty sure theres lots of other people with this same theory).

1. The island is Eden
2. Jacob & 'the other guy in black' (aka New John Locke, aka Smoke Monster... Smoky John) are the angels that God placed at the east entrance of Eden after he kicked Adam & Eve out (Genesis 3:24)
3. Smoky John has fallen from grace because he's not down with how destructive and stupid we humans are (anyone seen Dogma?)
4. Smoke Monster killed Mr. Echo, and he was a badass religious guy. Smoke Monster must have felt threatened.
   
5. Jacob has risen again as Sayid to wage war on Smoky John. Season six should be action packed.
   

The fact that the season premiere of LOST was perhaps the most cathartic two hours of my life in the past couple months means I'm a pretty sad state of affiars. Maybe it was just the Maker's Mark...