Fodder: North Koreans torpedoed Gulf oil rig, causing spill, site claims; Thelma Lou mugged in Mayberry

By Press-Register staff

May 04, 2010, 4:00PM

(AP Photo/US Coast Guard)In this April 21, 2010 file image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. An end-of-days type of website has come up with a novel explanation for how the rig came to be on fire: It was torpedoed by the North Koreans.(Sometimes humorous, sometimes provocative, Fodder is a recurring online Press-Register feature that spotlights water cooler discussion topics of regional or national interest.  Read more Fodder here.)

It's one of those "the truth the mainstream press won't tell you" stories -- even, though, of course, the mainstream press would love a story this outrageous. That is, if it were credible.

The website Whatdoesitmean.com claims that the whole Gulf of Mexico oil spill was caused when the North Koreans torpedoed BP's Deepwater Horizon platform, causing the massive explosion that killed 11 people and ultimately toppled the rig.

That's right, it was the North Koreans all along.

What's the supposed logic behind this? You mean you have to ask?

First of all, the Deepwater Horizon was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea.

Secondly, attacking the Deepwater Horizon was meant to present President Obama with an "impossible dilemma" prior to a nuclear non-proliferation conference. That is, he would have to decide whether to nuke the spill site and stop the leak or let it keep flowing into the Gulf.

How did it all go down? Says Whatdoesitmean.com:

The North Korean "cargo vessel" Dai Hong Dan believed to be staffed by 17th Sniper Corps "suicide" troops left Cuba's Empresa Terminales Mambisas de La Habana (Port of Havana) on April 18th whereupon it "severely deviated" from its intended course for Venezuela's Puerto Cabello bringing it to within 209 kilometers (130 miles) of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform which was located 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of the US State of Louisiana where it launched an SSC Sang-o Class Mini Submarine (Yugo class) estimated to have an operational range of 321 kilometers (200 miles).

Whatdoesitmean.com says it has been authored by someone named Sorcha Faal, who some Internet researchers have believed is a member of a Russian disinformation service, trying to keep the fear alive in conspiracy-believing Americans. Others have said Faal is another moniker for a man named David Booth. Still others have said the site's nothing but an attempt to sell manuscripts and that when they bought one treatise they were enlisted to buy others. Most agree the Web site and its predictions have been false.

Well, the Fodder has been able to pin down this piece of truth with regard to the website's theory: The Deepwater Horizon was indeed built by Hyundai at a shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea.

'Thelma Lou' robbed in real-life Mayberry

View full sizeBetty Lou Lynn: Seen here in character as Thelma Lou in the TV series "The Andy Griffith Show." Now 83, Lynn, whose character was the girlfriend of Deputy Barney Fife, was robbed recently in Mount Airy, N.C.Perhaps more shocking than the Korean oil rig conspiracy is this news sad but true news: Betty Lou Lynn, 83, whose character Thelma Lou was the girlfriend of Deputy Barney Fife on the long-running series "The Andy Griffith Show" was robbed recently in North Carolina.

No, it was not in the fictional Mayberry, but in its real-life equivalent: Mount Airy, The Mount Airy News reports. It seems Lynn moved there a couple of years ago to get away from crime-infested Los Angeles.

A Carroll County, Va., man was arrested in the case and was being held in the Surry County Jail.

Your dose of Fodder links:

• It is indeed a harrowing tale that singer Julie Roberts, her mother, sister, and the family's 4 dogs had to be rescued from rising  floodwaters during the recent devastating storms that hit Middle Tennessee. But the Fodder also found it interesting to learn that whereas Roberts was saved, Naomi Judd's buffalo escaped when the fence washed away and Dierks Bentley's basement got flooded.

• In other Tennessee news, a son was arrested recently on accusations that he was stealing drugs -- from his mother's bra. That's apparently where she hid her Xanax so he wouldn't find it. Investigators say they in turn found the pilfered pills hidden in the man's socks.

• Speaking of bras, a legislator in Virginia has found himself in a flap over whether he was trying to doctor a piece of classic art by covering up an exposed breast. The legislator says it ain't so.

• In Escambia County, Fla., sheriff's deputies say that a pair arrested on charges they broke a window and robbed from a business expressed this as their motive: They were bored.