THE BIG RETORT

Recently a homeless man who wandered the streets of Utah pushing a shopping trolley was tracked down by a private detective. He had some money coming to him from an inheritance and didn’t know it. It was hoped the windfall would turn his life around. However good fortune did not always shine on Max Melitzer. TheBigRetort exclusive… it began with a rollover. Penniless Max Melitzer may have inherited a fortune that many hope will allow him to turn his life around, however his has not always been a rags-to-riches fairy story: but a tragedy. July 1990... It was a Tuesday afternoon... A highway in Wyoming five miles east of Rock Springs. The driver drifted off the road and overcorrected the vehicle, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol. Unfortunately all four passengers were not wearing seat belts and were ejected from the car as it did a rollover. Cindy Lee Jones, 36, died on the way to the hospital, and Glen Chrietzderg, 36, also of Ogden, died later at the University of...

 The 2012 Olympic torch has been unveiled by that creative London design team Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby. But was the inspiration for the 'flame' really an upside-down building? TheBigRetort remarkable expose... It may come as a shock to the eventual Olympic torchbearer, but as he or she pounds through the streets of London, a rather tall building may cast a shadow over the 2012 event… the Shard . Shock! Horror! Oh no! What can they mean? We mean that the flame of the original idea may have kindled out of the minds of Barber and Osgerby as they stared out of their back window - and upside down - in Brockley. Libellous speculation we grant, but we are neighbours and have also hung out of our back window - and seen it upside down. (Admittedly though this was after a heavy party.) Whatever... we feel certain that this dynamic and innovative duo is going to light up the whole of London - from 2012, and beyond.

Pakistani leaders have protested that the country's sovereignty has been violated by the US following a series of drone strikes that have left 17 militants killed in the country's northwest tribal region. All of Monday's strikes were in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border. The attacks display to militants and the Pakistani government that President Barak Obama will not hold back when it comes to tracking down the enemy in a capture or kill policy that is more about the killing. 'Wanted dead, that's the policy at the Whitehouse now,' a Washington insider informed TheBigRetort.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Khan, is due to appear in a New York court for his arraignment, and has insisted he is innocent of the charges Defence team member claims evidence undermines procecution. William W Taylor, on behalf of Mr Straus-Kahn, has written that there is evidence to "gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case". Mr Strauss-Kahn faces charges of sexual assault and attempting to rape a hotel maid last month. It will be his first appearance in court since he was released on bail set at $6m (£3.65m).

An international team at the CERN institute in Switzerland has managed to create 300 atoms of "anti-hydrogen" and stop them from collapsing into oblivion for a grand total of almost 17 minutes. Five thousand times longer than they had previously achieved. The research, published in the journal Nature Physics, represents a landmark in one of the most potentially profound areas of science. However, it also awakens  the spectre of an antimatter weapon so destructive that it may herald the end of every living creature on the planet. Be that as it may… TheBigRetort Is an antimatter weapon a giant leap closer for humanity? Antimatter was created in the laboratory for the first time last November. Long the preserve of science fiction writers, in Dan Brown’s bestseller Angels & Demons a tiny device with the destructive power of a nuclear warhead hinges on a plot to blow up the Vatican, it has often been dismissed as alarmist by the scientific community.  That was until ...

German diners may be both relieved and concerned that the recent E.coli outbreak may have been narrowed down to a single suspect - sprouts.  TheBigRetort asks, were the warning bells ringing a decade prior to the recent outbreak? If German sprouts do turn out to be the culprit responsible for 22 deaths (and climbing) German health watchdogs, may find it prudent to further examine a scientific paper that presaged such an event - over a decade ago. The paper, which was published in January 1998 and was researched by a number of Japanese scientists, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases amongst them. The group, using cultivation, immunofluorescence microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, demonstrated the presence of viable enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 not only on the outer surfaces but also in the inner tissues and stomata of cotyledons of radish sprouts grown from seeds experimentally and contaminated with the bacterium. HgCl2 treatment of the outer ...

Have we been subjected to the S-factor? With reports in the Daily Mail that Cheryl Cole has been invited back on board X-Factor USA one wonders if the whole thingy was a complete set-up - masterminded by non other than that Svengali of the Tabs Lord Cowall of Hollywood. One can but wonder how the sheeple out there fall for Simon Cowell's shenanigins. But my how that angst-ridden look that Cheryl Cole seems to have perfected this week really hacks us off. Is this the same woman who subjected wannabe hopefuls in Britain to her ‘professional’ judgement on that dreadful show that deserves no further mention?  We mean... the X Factor. (Break that one down like this, X-F-Actor, and add the seven missing  letters accordingly to the "F".) There is nothing worse than a young woman, now a multimillionaire, beautiful yes, and spoon-fed success too, collapsing at the first signs of personal failure. Don’t have her back Simon! TheBigRetort : Failure is good. Success sucks....

My how the sands of time 'flies' for dictators. It was after all only two years ago that Muammar Gaddafi, marking the 40th anniversary of the revolution which brought him to power, three weeks later addressed the 64th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York.  TheBigRetort ... Since the world body was founded in 1945, the Libyan dictator opined, it had ‘failed’ to prevent or intervene in dozens of wars around the world. "It should not be called the Security Council, it should be called the "terror council," he said. He claimed that sixty-five ‘aggressive wars’ had taken place without any collective action by the United Nations to prevent them... Now, with the writing on the walls of his Bedouin tent, and intervention in his own internecine war growing daily, he must rue those words. Failure this time around the UN terror council tells him, is not an option.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is he? It has been claimed that Dominique Strauss-Kahn (note the hyphenated surname) is the well-to-do son of Gilbert and Jacqueline Strauss-Kahn...? Be that as it may, TheBigRetort can reveal in a recent genealogical trawl of birth records... no such named individuals can be found. It is almost as Mr Strauss-Kahn is sans verifiable famille.  No reports appear in a Google press search with regards to this nobodies' boy prior to 1991. Could there be a glitch in the Google time machinery? Is it because his real name is actually Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt? TheBigRetort can reveal that he may be neither a Strauss-Kahn nor a Casonova, just simply a "Kahn" - or some other? - in which case the American authorities should be equally interested. An inconsistency in the defendant's  pedigree may prove embarrassing to his defence team, and to the French electorate. Watch this space....  

A transcript of a message left on the mobile phone of Bob Crow reveals for the first time that the Union leader has been hacked... by the  News of the World . Forwarded to us by the Metropolitan Police, it reads: CROW: " Nobby here. Leave a message." [Beep.] THE BIG RETORT: " Hello, Mr Crow. Is it true that you are England's number one striker?"

Will there, one wonders, be any quarry stone left unturned with the public‘s right to know - in a dwindling band of countries abbreviated to the first letter - the surname of a person suspected of a crime? ‘Landlord, Dutchman, presumed innocent - until such time as a jury has fully deliberated - we hereby sentence you…err, with just one sentence.’ If there were ever any ethical rules in journalism then the Joanna Yeates murder suspects’ show trial suggests they may need a little spit and polish. The recent grotesque phenomenon of national newspapers falling over themselves to name names does not have its beginnings in the McCarthy era, no sir. It is a new brand of ‘netfluenced’ journalism, the kind where the guilt or innocence of a suspect - or even the near bystander for that matter - are now so often deliberated on internet crime forums that democracies the world over no longer have control over what was once fondly termed a fair trial by peers. And national newspapers are tri...

When TheBigRetor t conducted an investigation into the increased use of statins in its office diet, it came up with a forgetful medical profession, and one possibly - how shall we put this? - in denial. Having heard that the use of statins may bring possible side effects in some users we asked a number of doctors if the drug was all it was cracked out to be.  Here, for the first time, is our explosive retort. And it is not for the faint hearted. Me: Doctor, I keep forgetting things. I wonder... could it have anything to do with... these statins you've had me on? Doctor: (smirking): I've never heard that before. What utter nonsense! Me: Really? Doctor: (laughing) Complete! Me: (Pause) How about these bloody aches and pains I've been getting!! Doctor: No need to be so aggressive. Me: Sorry, it's the Statins. Doctor: (smirking): Never heard such a silly suggestion since I started medicine last week. Statins making you aggressive - won't wa...

VINCENT TABAK The new suspect arrested following the murder of Joanna Yeates wrote of starting a new life in England. Thirty-two year-old Vincent Tabak was born to the son of Gerald and Sonja Tabak in 1978 in Veghel in the neighborhood of Eindhoven. In 1996 he studied at the faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He graduated in 2003 from the group Design Systems obtaining the degree of Master of Science. He worked as a people flow analyst for Buro Happold, a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy in Bath. The five-year thesis he completed in 2008 was dedicated to his friends, his extended family (via his sisters), girlfriend, and his father who died following an 'ongoing struggle with illness'. His son wrote in acknowledgement of his passing: ‘I miss you and regret that you are not able to see the end result of my PhD.’ After completing his PhD, in 2008, Vincent started what he termed his 'new life in England'.

Carrying on from my last posting into the abduction and murder of Joanna Yeates , isn't it about time? TheBigRetort ... The murder of Joanna Yeates in what was the spring of her life is we are told quite complex. Due to this complexity, and the mysteries growing out of it, time as dragged on and still no one person (or persons) has (or have?) been brought to book. Only one person has been arrested, vilified by press and public alike, and subsequently not yet moved on towards a charge of any offence, and still police have yet to come up with, well... not a truncheon. But, drawing back on the crimes 'complexity', what is one single fact in this whole sorry, awful, and desperate matter? "Jo" is alleged to have sent a text message to a friend she hardly met at 8.20pm on that fateful 17 th December. A night she did not want to spend alone. The recipient claims that he did not receive it until 9.20pm of that date, at which point he responded that he was 'busy...

Eerily, at the Tesco checkout Jo is illuminated in the screen of a man who is also shopping nearby. A reflection of guilt? Was the man in the woolly hat next to Jo ever traced and eliminated from the investigation? He brushes past Jo, after previously taking a glance in her direction. If he has been traced and eliminated then these are the questions that I would have asked: Isn't it likely that the person who killed Jo was i. known to her. ii. liked cider. iii. liked vegetarian pizza iv. was meeting her nearby, after pre -arrangement. v. had a flat or vehicle in the vicinity (in which she was killed). vi. was acquainted with the quarry. vii. staged her abduction, after the murder, and 'dressed' her flat after dumping her body. viii. lived in an area where a phone signal could not be obtained, or was distorted . ix. was an old (secret) flame. Or.... x. secretely desired her over time at a 'close' distance .

Somewhere in the cosmos a tiny blue planet receives an alien signal. A researcher writes "Wow!" Nearly forty years lapse. It quickly passes into legend and UFO lore. TheBigRetort investigates a mix of signals. (Picture. The View at Hilly Fields. Copyright (c) TheBigRetort.) In August 1977, a researcher with SETI - Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence - claims to have noted an unusual signal that is said (by some) to have emanated from a far-flung civilisation somewhere in the cosmos. The "Wow Signal" has entered the global lexicon but it was never authenticated and there is still to this day much debate about its alien credentials. Be that as it may... TheBigRetort notes an infinite number of details that have expunged the down-to-earth facts in the telling and retelling of this interstellar tale, which makes it all really - rather - curiously... human. 'Curious' in that the computer printout contains a handwritten date; 'rather' in that it ma...

A science paper predicts that a nearby red-star system known as Gliese 581 is the likely candidate for an extrasolar habitable world. Two years on, the alien world is indeed discovered. TheBigRetort The recent discovery of another pale-blue spot in space, which is currently circling a 'nearby' star system known as Gliese 581, has created a bit of a stir on planet Earth. But the real value is in how it was actually 'encountered'. In fact as far back as two years ago physicists Rhett Zollinger and John Armstrong addressed the ‘possible’ existence of an undetected lower mass planet inside the Gliese 581 star’s Habitable Zone; due to what the two termed ‘the dynamical stability evolution of the system‘. The pair compared studies of the three known planets in the Gliese 581 system. Of these two of the three known planets 'C 'and 'D’ were located at the edges of what is euphemistically called the Goldilocks Zone. That's the zone where water is like...