News Roundup for 4/8/09

Know the simple joy of seeing someone's life destroyed

-Headline of the day-
"FOX seeks to profit off recession, plans new reality show exhibiting company layoffs."

No, really.

FOX's entertainment division has ordered a one hour reality show, titled Someone's Gotta Go, that will be feature actual company layoffs. According to the report, the game show "will give company staffers access to internal information (budgets, HR files, and salaries) and the power to determine which of the company's staffers is fired."

"It's the anti-'Apprentice': Instead of contestants vying for a dream job, they're fighting to keep the lousy one they already have," says the Hollywood Reporter, assumedly reporting from Hollywood.

SGG will join a game show block that includes Organ Donor Survivor, Who Wants to Stop Being Waterboarded?, and The Amazinger Race: Slow Children Chased by Leopards.

Remember, one of the many words you can spell without using any of the letters in "FOX" is "class." (Think Progress)


-Not all that good at math-
Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute use an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to warn that "Obama and Gates Gut the Military." Because Barack Obama and his Defense Secretary Robert Gates hate America and want us to be weak in the face of our enemies. They don't actually say that, but you've got to assume that Obama and Gates have some reason.

Specifically, Donnellscmittly warns, "The termination of the F-22 Raptor program at just 187 aircraft inevitably will call U.S. air supremacy -- the salient feature, since World War II, of the American way of war -- into question."

Of course, the problem is that we don't actually use the F-22s we have. But that's no reason to waste an opportunity to have a nice little panic-attack.

"The budget cuts Mr. Gates is recommending are not a temporary measure to get us over a fiscal bump in the road. Rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop," they write. "But what is true for the wars we're in -- that numbers matter -- is also true for the wars that we aren't yet in, or that we simply wish to deter."

Yikes! Are Gates and Obama mad?

No. In fact, they aren't even cutting the military budget. According to financial journalist Jon Talton, "Gates and Obama plan to spend more in FY 2010 than President Bush did in his last budget." So "cut" isn't as accurate a word as "increase."

Still, the rule among conservatives is that they have to freak the fuck out over every damned thing Obama does. And if what he does isn't worthy of freaking out over, you claim he's doing the opposite and freak out over that. Besides, companies like Boeing -- who makes the F-22 -- are tight with the American Enterprise Institute. So an increase becomes a cut, since Boeing's going to be a big loser in all this.

I wonder what it would take to get Donnelly and Schmitt a gig on Someone's Gotta Go? They really suck at this pundit stuff. (Wall Street Journal)


-Bonus HotD-
"Walgreens Pulls Obama Chia Head."

The pharmacy chain has decided to stop selling a kit that allows you to grow weeds on a pretty bad replica of Barack Obama's head. While this article doesn't mention what the specific complaints were that got the product pulled, a story I saw on CNN cited charges of racism.

Personally, I don't get the attraction to these things anyway. The little llamas or sheep or whatever the hell Chia Pets are supposed to be are OK, but a big freakin' ugly head with weeds growing out of it? That's just stupid.

Sure, it looks funny in the store, but you take it home, you plant it and water it, you put it on your bookshelf, and days later this joke delivers a punchline -- and you already know what the punchline's going to be.

Then you've got a big freakin' ugly head with weeds growing out of it sitting on your bookshelf, leaving you to question your home decorating choices.

The joke's on you, pal. (SisterTalk)