Predictions for 2006 - Part II [Art Bell Alert]

Art Bell continued with a second night of callers' predictions for 2006 during his annual New Year's Eve Prediction Show. The following is a small sampling of the forecasts Coast listeners made for the coming year:

Two former US presidents will die of natural causes; another will be diagnosed with dementia.

Israel will make a pre-emptive strike on Iran under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu; Israel will also launch an attack against the West Bank.

There will be planetary communications outages caused by 'disappearing' satellites.

A war will be fought on American soil; Conflict will erupt between America and Mexico over the building of a border wall.

Astronomers will find two huge celestial bodies (50- and 80-times larger than Earth) in elliptical orbits beyond Pluto.

I do not know the whole story behind Art Bell, but I am beginning to think he is a person who has difficulty dealing with the obvious radio talent he was given. Or it could be just a case of having to deal with too many looney-tunes characters. I have listened to Art for several years and, when he is on, he has definately grown much shorter-tempered with his callers.

My favorite remains the Arkansas guy who built the Jacobs-ladder time machine out of stolen City electrical parts. That one bounced me out of bed with laughter.

Muleteam1

If I remember correctly, Art bell first retired suddenly to deal with very personal family problems. His son was molested by a school offical (?) and that person had AIDS. Art had to ensure his son's safety. His son I believe either attemtpted or wanted to attempt to commit suicide.

Art informed listeners at the time at the end of a program that he was leaving. His family was more important than a radio career.

Replacements did not fare well for the Coast to Coast Program. Mike Siegal from Seattle was settled upon and for nearly a year he tried to keep the format afloat. It didn;t work. TRN brought Art back out of retirement to bring Coast to Coast back to life. Continuing back problems for Bell resulted in him retiring once again for health reasons. THe back problems resulted from a fallfrom atop a power pole while working as a lineman many years earlier. A new replacemnt was needed.

George Nory was more to style for the Coast to Coast format and a couple of years ago he settled in. Art moved to weekends and then finally pared that schedule back to once or twice a month.

Art Bell created night time radio, much as Rush created day time radio. Its infortainment and Bell on many an occassion has said he doesn't buy into much of what the guests spout, but hey, its entertaiment and we are all adults.

One of Bells favorite radio personalities is Phil Hendrie, who used to precede on station KFI. Bell would listen in to Hendrie's show while prepping for his. If you ever get a chance, listen to Hendrie's raost of Bell with the General Jamison segment (a refeerence to remore view Major Ed Dames)...

THe casual listener will think Coast to Coast purports all its guest to be spoutng absolute truths...No...But its a format that allows an in-depth look into a variety of "late-night" subjects. Take it for what it is..

On a personal note we first dialed into Art Bell one night on 395 in southern Oregon back in 1997. Going through the am dial we heard some host saying that they had a report of a Chupacabra (winged goat sucker kinda animal) around Paisely, Oregon. Lo and behold we look up and there was a sign for Paisley, Oregon. I told my wife to lock the car doors and turn up the radio...We had many miles to go and through the years, Art Bell and Coast to Coast has filled the long roads we travel plying our trade--going from county fair to county fair....

That in a nut shell is what I know about Art Bell and Coast to Coast and Bell's retirement.

Thanks for the information. Personally I agree that Art Bell rivals Rush Limbaugh but for a different audience. I have listened to Art and Coast to Coast since the early 1990s. I just cannot get into Phil Hendrie. I think his madeup voice reminds me of a coworker I once knew from Philly. He once told me, after a quick vacation through the West, that the Western U.S. has no culture. This pooor fellow was also about as dense as Phil Hendrie's madeup characters.

For Texas Panhandle nighttime radio listening, I have been using the CC Radio Plus. It works great but for Christmas I received the Twin Coil Ferrite antennae. This week we shall see if the antennae helps.

Muleteam1

Two former US presidents will die of natural causes; another will be diagnosed with dementia.

Ford, Bush Sr, and Clinton are all the former presidents still alive. Jerry is in bad shape. Bush Sr. hasn't been particularly slipping or anything that I've seen. Slick Willie dead? I hope not, unless it's while he's driving Hillary across a high bridge with low railings.

Israel will make a pre-emptive strike on Iran under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu; Israel will also launch an attack against the West Bank.

NFW will Netanyahu be elected. The Iranian gov't won't have a nuke in 2006 (although I know, some say it will), and should be more worried about its own support for terrorists operating in Iraq. Israel won't make a preemptive strike on Iran unless it uses its own nukes, and that would only be due to some national crisis, such as a nuclear attack on Israel, or a very successful conventional attack on Israel.

There will be planetary communications outages caused by 'disappearing' satellites.

There's some risk of satellite failure due to impact by what's known in technical jargon as space crap. For a massive disruption, there would have be the equivalent of a mountain of space crap, all busted up into good sized pellets.

Bird Flu will hit the US in November 2006.

Yeah, right on the picture window. I think the Bird Flu scare has beaked, er, I mean, peaked.

There will be some kind of space disaster with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Disaster? Loss of the orbiter wouldn't be a disaster, except perhaps for some NASA bureaucrats.

A war will be fought on American soil; Conflict will erupt between America and Mexico over the building of a border wall.

No chance of either a border fence (although it would be a good idea) or a war on US soil.

Astronomers will find two huge celestial bodies (50- and 80-times larger than Earth) in elliptical orbits beyond Pluto.

That would be cool, let's see what one astronomer sez about the possibility:

Far-out worlds, just waiting to be found
by Stuart Clark
New Scientist
23 July 2005
IN THE dark reaches of the solar system lurk swarms of hidden worlds. Too small and too distant to reflect sunlight, they have remained under the cover of darkness for billions of years. But now the outer solar system is giving up its secrets. And with them comes an astonishing claim: "It's quite possible that there is a halo of planets surrounding our solar system, just waiting to be found," says Eugene Chiang, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.

What makes Chiang's claim so surprising is the sheer number and size of these planets. Weighing more than Mars, they dwarf Sedna and Quaoar, the largest rocky bodies spotted circling the sun beyond Pluto.

It's not likely that something 50 or 80 times Earth's size is out there to be found, as there have been quite a few sky surveys, including by the Hubble. Such a huge unknown body would have to have a very low albedo.

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