TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES BE DAMNED

Warren Ellis tells me there’s a new game show on Fox where people answer potentially life-wrecking questions for a million in cash and prizes. While strapped to a lie detector.

Which I find hideous, yet funny, and strangely appropriate in the post-9/11 era. Interrogation as light entertainment. Fuck it. Why not?

I’m sure Alberto Gonzales will be a fan. Maybe he could guest host one week. Or maybe we could kill two birds with one stone and have the Gitmo detainees as contestants. Have a special waterboarding round. We could have the whole War On Terror wrapped up by Season 3.

Okay, that’d never work. It’d probably bum people out. Much better to watch middle-class American civilians voluntarily humiliate themselves and ruin their lives for money. That’s what people really want to see. And frankly, I’ve seen worse ideas for reality shows. The Swan comes to mind. Or Dateline To Catch A Predator. And American Idol, of course (which has become so pointless now that the producers are rigging it by letting failed professionals be contestants).

Whatever. For a show like this, both the contestants and the viewers get what they deserve. I just hope Mark Wahlberg (not that one, the other one) asks the question that got the original Columbian version canceled. Because we’ve all hired a hitman to kill our spouse at one time or another.

Well, some of us have. My pediatrician’s wife did.

I’m not making that up.

Hit me,

This is dF

TWITTERDUMP 01.25.08: THAT’S NEWS TO ME

Missives from the Twitters:

defrog Immigrants are stealing combat jobs from American soldiers. Wait, what? http://tinyurl.com/2fb7qm

defrog Bisexuality: not just a trendy nightclub thing. http://tinyurl.com/22xbv5

defrog Wow, Bush really DID lie about Iraq. Lucky for him Heath Ledger died. http://tinyurl.com/2uq47e

defrog Wow, MPAA really DID lie about piracy. Luckily, etc etc http://ap.google.com/articl...

defrog Photographing America is the white man's burden. http://www.nytimes.com/2008...  

defrog Just what we needed: a better cockroach. http://en.rian.ru/science/2...

defrog Food prices going up. Impact on Whopper Freakout ads: ka-ching! http://tinyurl.com/2kmeg9

defrog Operating two laptops at once. Somehow not getting twice as much work done. My loafing productivity has tripled though.

defrog Seeing if whiskey is suitable treatment for neck burns ..................................... no.

PRODUCTION NOTE: Please do not send hate mail about the Heath Ledger remark. The point I was making was this:

When you have two stories competing for national attention – one about a drug-related celebrity death, and the other about a study offering definitive quantitative proof that the sitting president and his administration lied 935 times to get us into a war we now can’t get of and has killed tens of thousands of people so far – you know which one the American news media is going to obsess over for 48-72 hours straight at the expense of almost every other piece of news.

Which can only be good news for the Bush Posse.

Though, to be fair, the idea that Bush wasn’t being totally square about Iraq isn’t exactly news. Not to those of us who paid attention the first time.

I know. I’m being difficult. Anyway, just so you know I don’t think Heath Ledger’s death is funny. Unlike, oh, John “I May Be A Douchebag, But I’m A Well-Paid Doucebag” Gibson.

You’re not funny,

This is dF