Saturday, February 26, 2005
COMING SOON TO A TV NEAR YOU!
Paying off journalists to push his programs turned out to be messy. Producing fake news broadcasts turned out to be illegal. And we all know what happened when they hired a male prostitute to play White House reporter and lob Dubya softball questions. And even though most people believe they have their own t.v. network, apparently they aren't happy sharing with Rupert. So, coming soon to cable and satellite networks everywhere.....RUMSFELD TELEVISION!
THAT'S RIGHT, the Dept. of Defense is starting it's own cable network! THE PENTAGON CHANNEL, already available on several cable outlets, including Time/Warner, will soon become available to all 11 million Dish Network subscribers. The network will broadcast a "broad range of military news, lifestyle, and issues oriented programing, along with live coverage of news conferences and speeches given my military and DoD muckety mucks. Still, Arianna Huffington thinks they might have trouble filling all that air time, so she has some programming suggestions:
-- "The Real World: Fallujah." What happens when a group of former Abu Ghraib guards, forced to share a bombed-out, camera-filled apartment in Fallujah with a collection of their former prisoners, stop being polite?
-- "Pimp My Humvee." Xzibit, Mad Mike, Big Dane and the "Pimp My Ride" crew lend a helping hand to American soldiers forced to scrounge through junk yards in an effort to outfit their vehicles with the armor the military has failed to provide--hooking our troops up with protective plates, as well as slammin' paint jobs, state-of-the-art sound systems, and spinning tire rims able to detect the roadside explosives responsible for so many U.S. casualties. The Humvees go from wimp to pimp while the soldiers go from sitting ducks to Mac Daddies.
-- "Desperate Military Housewives." There may be a lot of dark secrets on Wisteria Lane--but not half as many as there are in the homes of America's military families. "DMH" peels the curtain back on the home-front havoc being caused by President Bush's stop-loss policies and the extended tours of duty that result. Don't miss the very special episode where the president promises to "support our troops," then proposes a budget that slashes veterans' benefits and leaves one in five military families needing food stamps or Women, Infants and Children program aid to get by. Is it drama? Is it comedy? We produce. You decide.
-- "Iron Chef, Iraq." It's military cooking on an unlimited budget! Watch as the master chefs at Halliburton show what kind of battlefield-mess-hall-magic they can create with a noncompetitive, no-bid, cost-plus contract that allows them to overbill the Pentagon $186 million for meals that were never served. Who needs fast food when you can feed the troops phantom food? Sponsored by (who else?): "Halliburton, proud to serve our troops . . . and even prouder of the money we rake in by not serving them!"
-- "Survivor: Pentagon." Forget Africa, the South Pacific and the Australian Outback. This classic reality show really gets interesting when Donald Rumsfeld is cast adrift in the halls of the Pentagon with a tribe made up of people he has clashed with and helped push out the door, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White, former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, former Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, and former head of the Iraqi Occupation, Jay Garner. Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. Out on your ass.
Arianna Huffington is one of my favorite columnists! She is smart, well informed, and has a great, caustic wit!
THAT'S RIGHT, the Dept. of Defense is starting it's own cable network! THE PENTAGON CHANNEL, already available on several cable outlets, including Time/Warner, will soon become available to all 11 million Dish Network subscribers. The network will broadcast a "broad range of military news, lifestyle, and issues oriented programing, along with live coverage of news conferences and speeches given my military and DoD muckety mucks. Still, Arianna Huffington thinks they might have trouble filling all that air time, so she has some programming suggestions:
-- "The Real World: Fallujah." What happens when a group of former Abu Ghraib guards, forced to share a bombed-out, camera-filled apartment in Fallujah with a collection of their former prisoners, stop being polite?
-- "Pimp My Humvee." Xzibit, Mad Mike, Big Dane and the "Pimp My Ride" crew lend a helping hand to American soldiers forced to scrounge through junk yards in an effort to outfit their vehicles with the armor the military has failed to provide--hooking our troops up with protective plates, as well as slammin' paint jobs, state-of-the-art sound systems, and spinning tire rims able to detect the roadside explosives responsible for so many U.S. casualties. The Humvees go from wimp to pimp while the soldiers go from sitting ducks to Mac Daddies.
-- "Desperate Military Housewives." There may be a lot of dark secrets on Wisteria Lane--but not half as many as there are in the homes of America's military families. "DMH" peels the curtain back on the home-front havoc being caused by President Bush's stop-loss policies and the extended tours of duty that result. Don't miss the very special episode where the president promises to "support our troops," then proposes a budget that slashes veterans' benefits and leaves one in five military families needing food stamps or Women, Infants and Children program aid to get by. Is it drama? Is it comedy? We produce. You decide.
-- "Iron Chef, Iraq." It's military cooking on an unlimited budget! Watch as the master chefs at Halliburton show what kind of battlefield-mess-hall-magic they can create with a noncompetitive, no-bid, cost-plus contract that allows them to overbill the Pentagon $186 million for meals that were never served. Who needs fast food when you can feed the troops phantom food? Sponsored by (who else?): "Halliburton, proud to serve our troops . . . and even prouder of the money we rake in by not serving them!"
-- "Survivor: Pentagon." Forget Africa, the South Pacific and the Australian Outback. This classic reality show really gets interesting when Donald Rumsfeld is cast adrift in the halls of the Pentagon with a tribe made up of people he has clashed with and helped push out the door, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White, former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, former Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, and former head of the Iraqi Occupation, Jay Garner. Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. Out on your ass.
Arianna Huffington is one of my favorite columnists! She is smart, well informed, and has a great, caustic wit!
