It's the Jim and Denny show! Hey Hollyweird, have I gotta a concept for you. Sittin' down, babe? Beautiful.

The whole reality bit, people love it, right? Mark Burnett's doing Survivor #48 in Buffalo or something, Deal or No Deal is hot, it's everywhere. But they're all missing something, and I've got what the public wants.

They want football in their reality TV. Stay with me babe. Football's the game in the US of A. Nascar's got a lot going on, sure. Baseball, is all steroids all the time. The NBA, no one's cared since Jordan hit that title winner against the Jazz and retired again.

Boxing? Hell, all the heavyweight champs are freakin' Russkies these days. Golf is Tiger and a whole bunch of people you couldn't pick out of a lineup. Plus it's boring as hell.

So to stand out in reality TV, you need a football element. I've got just the guys for it. Jim Mora and Denny Green, just fired from their NFL coaching jobs. Ha ha, yeah, happy new year to them.

We'll call the show "The Coaching Life" and we'll put Jim and Denny in an RV like what John Madden has, and make them drive it to cities where the NFC playoffs are happening. First we'll start them off in Philly, and we'll make them work trash collection at the Linc when the Eagles play the Giants.

The fans will know who they are, so they can chat up the coaches when they come by to pick up the empties. We'll need the seven second delay going, because in Philadephia every other word is an obscenity at an Eagles game.

But here's the cool part. Some of the fans they "interact" with will actually be front office people from NFL teams, or maybe from college programs, so Denny and Jim will have to be keep from ripping someone's lungs out because the drunk jerk calling him 'Jim Moron' might be part of some college's recruiting effort.

Green won't last past the first quarter. He'll hear 'What do ya think about da Bears?' one too many times and Philly Metro will have to pry his fingers from some guy's throat.

Then the next week we'll send them to Chicago. We'll put Jim Mora's dad in the RV for the trip, and let him keep bringing up Michael Vick. While they're up front fighting over who got more screwed over by a radio program for mouthing off, Denny will be in the back of the RV with a shrink, explaining all the times his teams have crashed and burned in the playoffs.

So am I seeing a greenlight here babe, or what?

Technorati Tags: Fired, Jim Mora, Denny Green

Jaguars fire damn near everyone Jacksonville looked like a world-beater at times this year. They shut out the defending Super Bowl champion Steelers, ripped the Jets head off their shoulders and did terrible things down the hole, and smashed the Colts defense with 44 points.

Tony Dungy's family probably doesn't even think of him as a defensive minded coach any longer after that mugging. But the Colts are still playing football, even though it means their exit ramp defensive line gets to face Larry Johnson and the Chiefs. Mmm, smells like an upset in the microwave.

Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio did his best to spread the blame for an 8-8 record that probably could have been a couple of wins better this year. Jack did to his coaches what Anakin did to the kiddies in the Jedi Temple in Episode III and plunged the lightsaber into a quintet of faces...

Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio fired five assistants, two days after the team lost its third consecutive game and missed the playoffs for the sixth time in seven years.

Del Rio fired offensive coordinator Carl Smith, special teams coordinator Pete Rodriguez, quarterbacks coach Ken Anderson and wide receivers coach Steve Walters -- sending a clear message that he believed the Jaguars were better than their 8-8 record.

Del Rio also declined to renew the contract of special teams assistant Mark Michaels.

All of the firings came at positions where Jacksonville struggled this season.

When you see an NFL coach clear out locker rooms faster than a floating turd in the shower room, you know he's just had "the talk" from the owner. This year, you get to make the cuts. Next year, no playoffs, and the owner makes the cut instead.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Jaguars, Jack Del Rio, Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand

Lions replace two coaches and a bad hip, but keep Millen Making fun of Detroit is almost as easy as picking up a $20 in the gutter. With a chance at the first pick of the NFL draft in a few months, Jon Kitna threw the Kittens back to the second pick with a four touchdown day.

I'll give Jon mad props. When Tony Romo had a chance to run six yards into the end zone and didn't make it, you had to think Jon would have taken off and stuck his 97-year-old head through Terence Newman if it were the Lions in that position.

After the game, Lions coach Rod Marinelli said bye bye to the team's defensive coordinator and offensive line coach. He's also got to have his left hip replaced, which means he'll get to skip coaching the college Senior Bowl with the rest of the Lions.

Did you know that the coaches from among the worst NFL teams generally coach the Senior Bowl each year? This should mean the Lions and Raiders staffs will be on the sidelines for the game. I can imagine some great prospect or two deliberately having an off game so they might avoid being drafted by the employers of those losing coaching staffs.

It's less of a worry when it comes to Matt Millen making the choice for Detroit. He couldn't catch wet if he were dropped off the side of an ocean liner, never mind catching a good player with a high draft pick for the Lions.

Matt will be back to bedevil Lions fans again next year. Ha ha ha ha. He told the horrified media in Detroit that he'll never quit his GM job. The team is 24-72 since Matt took the position.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Detroit Lions, Matt Millen still has a job though

Job hunting for the stars I found a guest post complete with celebrity photograph inside my inbox today, along with a note encouraging me to get it uploaded quickly (or something bad would happen, to which I have to say, Lucas, you spelled "eviscerate" just fine, but you put an extra "R" in Fred). So here it is, and the photo's courtesy of Michael Tran.

2007 Means New Jobs, New Year for Top 10 Celebrities of 2006
Lucas Mast/SimplyHired

As the champagne hangover wears off from the New Year’s revelry, it appears that a number of the more recognizable celebrities from the past year are still looking for a boost in self-confidence. What better way to start the New Year off right than to land a new job? We at Simply Hired, the force behind MySpace Jobs and Simply Fired, and over 5 million jobs within our search engine at www.simplyhired.com have a few suggestions for some of the most notable and notorious people of 2006 (in fact, with over 5 million jobs in our database, we have more than a few). We have searched our extensive network of jobs far and wide in an attempt to help some of our friends (and a few of our foes) find gainful employment to kick-start 2007!

Anna Nicole Smith: You have to hand it to Anna Nicole. She has survived the death of her husband (ok, so he WAS like 100) and the tragic passing of her son earlier this year. In between she has hosted a successful cable show baring...er I mean bearing...her name, lost wait, gained weight and provided a lot of humor at her own expense. Suggested job: Marketing Manager at Playboy Enterprises (SimplyHired via PR.com)

Nicole Richie: Few people have their body weight under more scrutiny than Lionel’s daughter and on-again/off-again BFF of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie. When she was busted for a DUI in December, she clocked in weighing about 87 pounds. She needs to get back together with DJ AM and stop by Fatburger...and get the extra side of fries. Suggested job: Fry Cook at the MGM Mirage (SimplyHired via CareerMole.org)

Carmelo Anthony: The face of Nike and heir-apparent to the Jordan empire, Melo had a serious lapse in judgment and cold-cocked a player on the New York Nicks, earning a huge fine and a 15-game suspension. Maybe he is simply taking lessons from the Charles Barkley "I am not a role model" school of thought. Suggested job: Boxing instructor (SimplyHired via Boston Backpage)

Donald Rumsfeld: He started a war that he could not end. He provided dubious information to his superiors. He stepped down in disgrace, but at least he stepped down. Donald is a smart guy, he just might have not been the right man for the job. Suggested job: US Army War College Visiting Professor of Strategic Communication (SimplyHired via Careerbuilder.com)

Britney Spears: Her parenting skills were constantly questioned, her taste in men was constantly questioned, even her choice (or lack-thereof) in undergarments was questioned. Britney can’t seem to get a break, but ditching K-Fed was a good start to starting fresh. But trading K-Fed for Paris might be like going from the frying pan to the fire. Suggested job: Nanny in River Ridge, LA (SimplyHired via Yahoo! HotJobs)

Kevin "K-Fed" Federline: He married up, but could not keep Britney by his side. He has fathered almost as many kids as he has collectable sneakers, but recently he looks like a model citizen next to his ex-wife...except when he is in the wrestling ring. Maybe the split will make a responsible father out of Fresno’s finest. Suggested job: Director of Publicity, WWE (SimplyHired via FairfieldCountyJobs.com)

Lindsay Lohan: She drinks. She does interviews. She drinks some more. She enters AA. She drinks more. She stars in a movie or two and hits the nightspots like they are going out of business. All by age 21. But given our rabid fascination with LiLo, odds are she is not going away any time soon. Suggested job: Nightlife Ambassador at Club Space in Miami (SimplyHired via Monster)

Mel Gibson: See Mel drink. See Mel drive. See Mel hurl religious epithets. See Mel repent. See Mel clean up at the box office. For all of those who doubted that Mel could rise like the Phoenix, Mel reminds you that what does not kill you can only make you stronger. Suggested job: Professor of Jewish History, Yeshiva University (SimplyHired via Chronicle Careers)

Michael Richards: We loved him as Kramer. Most of us did not know what happened to him in recent years until we saw him exorcising the racial demons from his soul on stage at an LA comedy club. And when he went on Letterman to apologize, most people still thought he was joking. Suggested job: Multicultural Sales and Marketing Brand Manager, PepsiCo (SimplyHired via Careerboard.com)

Borat: America’s favorite foreigner racked up big bucks at the box office and laughed his way all the back to Kazakhstan (OK, at least London, where actor Sacha Baron Cohen lives). With his humor and lack of a social filter, Borat has barged into our homes like an out-of-control 18-wheeler. Suggested job: News Anchor, NY1 (SimplyHired via Jobs.com)

Technorati Tags: Fired, Hollywood, Please tell Esther at ICM that Lucas wrote this and not Fred kthxbye

Old guy sues over age discrimination There's nothing better than tales of mischievous human resources types, especially when they could face a $30 million dollar groin punch from someone they've screwed over in the workplace.

Tales of Morgan Stanley firing Ed Sullivan claim it was just another reorg, no harm, no foul. Ed has decided to make a "really big show" of his dismissal because he thinks HR backstabbing helped him out the door...

The lawsuit said the personnel executives substituted their “own made-up poison-pen critique of Sullivan in place of the legitimate evaluations of him in order to create a paper trail upon which he would be fired.�

The executives created false and defamatory statements about Sullivan’s job performance before strong-arming senior managers into incorporating them into his review, the lawsuit in Manhattan said.

Ed will have a tough time proving age discrimination, something that companies have been very good at getting away with for years. All I can hope for is the same treatment coming to the HR creeps in later years. Or even better, one of them begging Ed for a job someday.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Ed Sullivan, Morgan Stanley

Club Paris evicts its Hilton The face and name of a couple of Florida nightclubs will have to fall back on her acting career, oh yeah, and the family fortune, now that she has been dismissed from her role as, I don't know, goodwill ambassador to the UN from Florida's tourist and gang-populated club scene.

Paris Hilton finally ticked off a guy with a name I really like, after two years of her treating him like something left behind by one of her cloned Chihuahuas...

Fred Khalilian said he "fired" the hotel heiress because she has continuously failed to attend scheduled appearances at the location in downtown Orlando. The troubles started two years ago when Hilton showed up six hours late for the grand opening, Khalilian said.

"She's created a circus for herself," he said. "It's all about: How has she screwed up now?"

Khalilian does not want to change the name of the Orlando club, or one opened in Jacksonville last year, because he said the name is so well known. Instead of Club Paris representing Hilton, it will stand for the city, Khalilian said.

One of Paris' four thousand hangers-on said he and Paris had no clue about this. If that's a surprise for you, sit down and let me tell you something you might not know about Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

As for Club Guy Fred, I guess he won't always have Paris.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Paris Hilton, How will they ever replace her

MassMutual gets to pay their fired guy $50 million When you get fired from a job and you go for unemployment, there's a process where the bureaucrats try to find out if you got canned for gross misconduct. If you did, they don't have to pay you jack, because it's much better if you have to fall into poverty and dependence on more government aid so those bureaucrats and others like them can keep their jobs.

Never thought about it that way, huh?

No one else does either. The worst thing that can happen to the government would be a self-sufficient populace that doesn't need its nannying. They still have to make an effort to make their work look legitimate, which is why a gross misconduct firing puts you off the dole and onto the welfare roll.

The gross misconduct thing is the difference between cutting back your expenses until you get another gig while on the dole, or begging someone to crash on their couch.

If you're on the other end of the pay spectrum, up in CEO Land where it's all milk and honeys, you've got a contract and a hell of a lot more bling in play. Robert O'Connell had $50 million up for grabs, $50 million of MassMutual's money that an arbitrator said they had to count out to their ex-CEO.

MassMutual called BS on the arbitrator's ruling and took their chances with the court system. They thought they had a good case...

O'Connell was fired by MassMutual's board of directors in June 2005. Among other things, the board accused him of artificially inflating the value of a shadow retirement account to $30 million, buying a company-owned condominium at below-market prices and using policyholder assets for his personal use of company aircraft.

The arbitrator had said too bad for you, MassMutual...

The independent arbitration panel found that O'Connell did not violate a term in his contract that he could be terminated for cause if he engaged in "willful gross misconduct ... resulting in material harm to the company."

The judge said sucks to be you...

But in a 12-page ruling Superior Court Judge Allan van Gestel dismissed the company's suit and ruled "there is no evidence of any failings in the procedural aspects of the hearings" the panel held, or fraud on the panel's part.

Van Gestel also was careful to avoid taking sides on the facts in dispute, except to note that whatever O'Connell's actions, they were not extreme enough to sway the arbitrators. "Many may be appalled at the way America's corporate executives are compensated and at the lifestyles that they assume are their due," van Gestel wrote, but added that it wasn't his place to decide whether O'Connell's actions had a negative effect on the public.

So it's "hey Robert, you're an arrogant overprivileged goober but you didn't screw the shareholders, so here's the bag of money." Reminds me of a bumper sticker – Eat the Rich, The Poor are Tough and Stringy.

Technorati Tags: Fired, MassMutual, Robert O'Connell

Art Shell goes from coach to office intern Whoever coaches the number one pick in the upcoming NFL draft (cue Brady Quinn's incessant weeping) for the Raiders will have Art Shell looking over his shoulder, and probably offering to take his empty Gatorade cup for him as well.

The Raiders mercifully relieved their Hall of Fame lineman and two-time head coach of the unbearable horror of coaching a football team run by a gaunt revenant of greatness past, who clings to football reality by the most tenuous of grips.

Al Davis may have lost a step, but unlike the bird-brained Bidwell running the Arizona Cardinals who's paying Denny Green to sit around the house and get his weight back up to 320, Smiling Al will make Art earn the second year of his contract's payout, the wits at Deadspin say...

Not that there's anything funny about a guy losing his job, but what amused us about the sacking of Art Shell on Thursday was that Al Davis is going to make him stick around and do office work during the final year of his contract next season, when Shell is due to earn $2 million.

"While Art will no longer serve as head coach, he and Mr. Davis have discussed and will continue to discuss opportunities for Art to remain a valued member of the Raider organization," read a Raiders press release.

In other words, um Art, could you sweep up any broken glass or other loose debris you see around the Raiders organization?

What a treat for the Raiders front office personnel. They can watch Smiling Al toddle through the office acting out the role of King Lear while a sullen Art delivers interoffice mail and "accidentally" bumps Al's walker with the mail cart. Four times.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Art Shell, Oakland Raiders

Commies toss reporter for investigating their corruption A firing is better than a firing squad, and this guy in China probably had a better than average chance of getting the blindfold and cigarette treatment than the typical hack who does the investigative journalism thing.

Can you imagine if Dan Rather had been Chinese instead of American? The ChiComs would have got him long before he could report on fake but accurate documents about Hu Jintao's military service.

They did get Huang Liangtian though...

The editor of a popular Chinese magazine says he was fired after reporting on corruption, driving home the fact that new relaxed rules on foreign journalists do not apply to locals. Huang Liangtian had transformed Baixing (Popular Masses) into a widely read magazine with a fearless reputation for investigative reporting. Huang said: "I don't dare guess why the [Chinese communist] party sacked me, because I fear that they will accuse me of leaking state secrets."

Agents of the government shut down Huang's publication's website last November, also because of those stinging accounts of corruption in government.

Let's hope Huang didn't have a Yahoo email account. Yahoo has had a hand in getting three journalists busted for leaking state secrets by giving The Man details about those journalists' emails.

Any chance we could get Congress to kick out a couple of illegal immigrants, preferably the ones who drive without using the brakes, rear-end people, and wouldn't you know it don't have insurance, and get Huang out of China? We've got plenty of government corruption that no one writes about here, so it's not like he wouldn't have a job opportunity.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Huang Liangtian, China

Loving may be full of haters There are good things you can do as a police officer, like working hard and earning a promotion to chief like Harvey Rodriguez did in Loving, New Mexico.

There are dumb things you can do, like getting your license revoked for DWI and violating the department's code of ethics in doing so.

There are actions you can take, like moving on with your life, maybe becoming a friend of Bill W and taking steps to prevent another DWI from screwing up the rest of your life.

Or, like Harvey, you can decide two years later that you need your day in court...

A former Loving police chief has sued the village, claiming his rights were violated when village councilors fired him in 2005.

In the lawsuit, Rodriguez claims the councilors conspired to have him arrested on the DWI charge, which later was dismissed.

Rodriguez is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. He claims the actions of the defendants caused him mental anguish, emotional distress, and the loss of wages and the ability to gain work.

But wait! It could be a plot!

Rodriguez claims state police Officer Pete Estrada Jr., a relative of (Village Council member Arturo) Munoz, charged him with DWI despite the fact he passed a field sobriety test, the lawsuit states.

Rodriguez also says councilors fired him because he spoke out about an alleged cover-up of a DWI crash involving Munoz's son.

Former Loving police Officer Rachael Lassiter made similar claims in a lawsuit filed in November. Lassiter alleges her constitutional rights were violated when she was fired in 2004 after refusing to keep quiet about the crash involving Munoz's son.

A conspiracy has been unearthed? OR has it?

Technorati Tags: Fired, Loving, Cop, Conspiracy

Tucker Carlson gets a blogger fired A video store employee ran afoul of the formerly bow-tied pundit in DC, and a little poorly advised asshattery ended up getting him fired after Ex BowTie apparently complained to his bosses after this exchange allegedly took place...

Tucker: If you keep this shit up, I will fucking destroy you.
The Genius (Me): Whoah, perhaps you would like to take this outside where you can continue threatening me without disturbing the other customers.
Tucker: Looks out the window, then back at me I am not threatening you.
The Genius: You just said you would fucking destroy me.
Tucker: No, I didn’t.

The blogger known as Chuckles later claimed that exchange and this blog post witticism led to his firing from the aforementioned video store...

Tucker Carlson opened an account last night at my video store. I thought the name seemed familiar but I couldn't figure out why. It was after he left that I realized he was on the list of Gigantic Cobagz. I could tell you what he and his ridiculously wasped-out female companion (wife?) rented if you really want to know. I won't tell you where he lives, though. That would be wrong and stupid. I will also not be running around ordering 10,000 copies of America: The Book and having it sent to his place even if that would be more awesome than frozen urine treats for his home.

Wonkette blogged about this too, but their exchanges with Ex BowTie have been limited to accusations and denials of eating breakfast at McDonald's.

He's probably still traumatized from getting stomped by Jon Stewart and kicked off CNN...wait, that didn't happen, he actually resigned from CNN several months before The Daily Show Man came along and crushed him like a bug.

I'll go back to wondering why they still call it Wonkette when it's been a couple of Wonkdudes doing the posting ever since Ana Marie Cox jumped ship. Weird.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Tucker Carlson, Totally pwned by Jon Stewart

No Jive, Britney hasn't been fired Oops, they didn't do it to Ms. Spears. Even if her post Fed-Ex recording sessions weren't hitting anybody at Jive Records with thoughts of platinum status baby one more time...

She worked some nights until 4 a.m. laying down tracks for a new CD. She thinks it's the makings of a really great album. They don't.

Talk inside the company is that either it's redone, or they need to drop it - and her. When this recording session began, she'd just dumped Federline the Insect. It was not a good time in her life.

Not to mention the Jivers weren't happy with her freed from Fed antics. Drunk, passed out, and panty-less is no way to go through life, hon.

But it's all a rumor, and a false one at that. Drop Britney like she's toxic? Ain't happening sez Fox News if you can believe it...

Sources inside Jive Records tell me that despite stories last week about the pop tart being dropped by her label, nothing is further from the truth.

"Britney is safe. She's been recording since even before the blow up with Kevin Federline," says my source. “She’s working with a lot of different producers. Jive is not dropping her.�

I for one welcome our new Britney music overlord. And if she wants to add me as a friend, hey, I'm all about the support thing. That doesn't cost me money, right? I still have payments to make on the Futon Of Love.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Britney Spears, Jive Records

Chesterfield lost a tremendous asset today That's the awesome quote from an attorney for a fired high school art teacher. The attorney also said the vote that tossed Stephen Murmer out on his ass was "a bad day for the First Amendment."

Can you believe this? I'm not usually into the whole LOL thing, but this is pure OMFG we've got here, right?

What's that? A link would help? (scrolling up) Uh, yeah, it would, wouldn't it? Sorry about that...

An art teacher whose off-hours work as a so-called "butt-printing artist" became widely circulated among high school students has been fired.

Murmer, a teacher at Monacan High School, was suspended in December after objections were raised about his private abstract artwork, much of which includes smearing his posterior and genitals with paint and pressing them against canvas.

Want to guess how people found out about the butt-printer's hobby? If you guessed YouTube, you are totally right...

The unique approach to art became a topic when a clip showing Murmer, wearing a fake nose and glasses, a towel on his head and black thong, turned up on YouTube.com and became the talk of the high school.

Stephen can make as much as $900 for one of his pieces of art, and now he has plenty of time to work on expressing himself. I'd suggest he will put his nose to the grindstone, but that's not even close to the appropriate body part.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Artist, Stephen Murmer

Fishing from the pier I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay. Wastin' time. That's an Otis Redding lyric. Cool song from a time when songs and singers didn't need videos or podcasts or blogs to let people know they were cool.

I could fish from a pier, if I wanted to. I might catch something to eat. I'd probably catch an old World War 2 mine, with just enough time to wonder what was so heavy on my line before getting fired the really old fashioned way.

If you can believe a commenter on Valleywag claiming to know why Microsoft's once-rising star Martin Taylor got the pink slip express out of Seattle or Redmond or wherever they are, ol' Martin was fishing from the pier.

That's what you might call a euphemism...

The rumor mill in Redmond is that Taylor was spending a lot of time time fishing off the company pier, and that he had been doing that for years, but that isn't what got him fired.

What got him fired was that he was arranging for a woman-who-was-not-his wife to come with him on business trips, even though she had no reason to go on those trips. She was then filing expense reports for those trips.

Good to know that in Redmond you can ship shitty products and not get fired, but if you bill the company for flying your mistress/subordinate around the country your days are numbered.

From the brief times I've been inside the bowels of corporate America, I've only ever seen one thing get someone's butt tossed out the door at warp speed, and that's sexual harassment. You can have people who barely qualify for homo sapien status piloting the company into the path of an iceberg, sound a warning, and no one cares.

Offer to cast your bait into a nice looking pond, and you may as well fire up the greatest search engine in the world and start looking for a new pier.

Um, I'm right about what fishing off the pier means, right?

Technorati Tags: Fired, Microsoft, Valleywag, Martin Taylor

It's a cop double feature! Bad boys whatcha gonna do? Depends on where you are.

You could be in New Yawk State, covering up for your drunken cops...

Village trustees fired suspended Police Chief Donald G. Perryman Jr. after reviewing 67 pages of findings and recommendations from an administrative officer.

Officer Robert S. Hite’s presided over two days of testimony that brought forward evidence and eyewitness accounts of an Oct. 5, 2005, crash involving two Saranac Police officers, who totaled a police car just outside the village limits after spending the day in Plattsburgh.

The officers, Sgt. Bruce Nason and Casey Reardon, had been at a police training seminar that morning. Both admitted drinking alcohol between noon and 4 p.m. before driving back to the Saranac Lake police station.

Investigation of the crash was delayed under Perryman’s watch until the day after the crash; no breathalyzer or blood-alcohol testing was ever done.

Good thing they hurried up and got that done only a mere 14 months.

Or you could be in Maine, doing so much cruising for flings that the whole town, including your bosses, notice your shagadelic behavior...

A former major in the Sanford Police Department filed a lawsuit challenging the city's decision to fire him for allegedly having multiple extramarital affairs and lying about his actions.

Lyndon Abbott of Waterboro, a 22-year police veteran, was fired Dec. 14 for alleged conduct unbecoming an officer.

In a 22-page complaint filed Tuesday in York County Superior Court, Abbot claims that Town Manager Mark Green and others conspired to have him fired because they disapproved of his personal life and relationships. Abbott alleges that he was fired without just cause in violation of the Sanford town charter and the city's personnel policies.

Yep, Major Cockup is suing because extramarital penetration does not equate to a statutorial violation. Any bets on whether the Major christened some of the brides of the people who fired him?

Time to pay the bills. Want to score an Apple iPhone, or whatever they have to change the name to after Cisco gets done with them in court? Have my benevolent overlords got a contest for you. Check it out here.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Cops, Bad boys whatcha gonna do

Postal worker facing 5,000 years in prison At least the odd-acting postal worker in this story chose to take out his feelings on a bundle of mail instead of on a bunch of his co-workers...

He observed the postal worker near a dumpster at a gas station at Woodville Highway and Capital Circle Southeast about 5:30 p.m. on Monday, and was astounded by what he saw.

"There was something weird about how he was acting," Jones said, "so I looked into the dumpster and there was a pile of mail that he had dumped in there."

He described seeing "1,000 or better letters and pieces of mail in there." Jones called his wife, who informed the Postal Service about the incident.

I read in the article that a count of willful destruction of mail can net you five years at the federal graybar hotel. I wonder if a count is a per incident thing, or a per piece of mail thing. When does a 'count' count? On Sesame Street, yes, at some point during the episode...you are just too clever, really.

Imagine the jailhouse conversation. "Whaddya in for?" "Willful destruction of mail." "Yeah? When do ya get out?" "The year 7007, but with good behavior I could be out by 5280."

Technorati Tags: Fired, Postal, Worker, The check is in the mail

We can help you on the road to retirement Well I'm working on the road
Tryin' hard to get old
Padding out that 401k
Built up a little stash
Of some cold ready cash
It's much too far out of my way

Take it early, take it early
Don't let the rules the state has
Make you squirrelly

Hey you lost, ya didn't win
You ain't workin' here again
Be glad you're not in the pen
For being greedy

Many apologies to The Eagles. You guys know what parody is, right? Protected speech? Satire?

Um, is there a lawyer in the blogosphere?

Technorati Tags: Fired, North Carolina, DOT, 401k

Work sucks. I'm calling in dehydrated. Hollywood's favorite gossip rag Defamer took a brief break from hot topics like MTV's president getting fired (rationale per Defamer's source: "Sumner Redstone's going crazy.") to put out the call for t-shirt slogans.

There's a range of choices from the funny to the obscene to the really obscure, but the title of this blog post is also the slogan I like the most. I think it would be cool if you, oh loyal reader, meandered on over to Defamer to vote for the slogan "Work sucks. I'm calling in dehydrated."

Of course if your job really sucks, drink a glass of water or two, and slide down the Internet tubes to visit my Corporate Masters for some job search goodness. Every time you search, Lucas has to do a shot, so let's turn him into a Bukowski character, shall we?

Technorati Tags: Defamer, Work sucks I'm calling in dehydrated

NFL: John Fox goes CYA and Marty could be kicked John Fox managed to coach the Carolina Panthers right out of being everyone's favorite early season Super Bowl pick to an 8-8 record. In the NFC, that was good enough to get John's last team, the Giants, into the playoffs long enough for a cheesesteak and a Tastycake in Philly before the Eagles sent Eli Manning home with a big fat L.

Going from preseason fave to postseason no-show tends to make rich NFL owners very sad. Coaches have had a long-standing tradition of sacrificing underlings in order to hold on to their jobs. John 'not the comedian' Fox learned his CYA lessons well...

The Carolina Panthers fired offensive coordinator Dan Henning and two other assistants, two weeks after finishing a disappointing 8-8 season.

Offensive line coach Mike Maser and secondary coach Rod Perry were also let go.

"This is a very difficult decision because these coaches have played an integral role in the success we have experienced since coming to the Panthers," coach John Fox said. "They were part of a Super Bowl and two NFC championship games and those accomplishments would not have been possible without their contributions."

The next firing I expect to see should happen pretty soon in San Diego. When you've got the league MVP and one of the top defensive players of the year, Marty Schottenheimer is expected to win.

If Marlon McCree doesn't give an interception right back to the Patriots, Marty would be counting his blessings and getting ready for the Colts. Now he's got a GM who doesn't like him probably prodding the owner into dumping one of the most snakebit NFL coaches in history into the dustbin.

After that game, I wouldn't have been surprised to hear they found Marty in a Tijuana motel room, eyes glazed over and staring unfixedly at ESPN playing his career playoff lowlights over and over while he's stabbing a voodoo doll wearing Chargers #20 with shards of glass from an empty bottle of Thunderbird.

Fired, Carolina Panthers, Coaches, Marty will be next

Politics, politics, eight people fired None of them are gonna be rehired!

Before we get into the Johnson County 8, I have to ask this. What possible combination of recreational pharmaceuticals do you have to take before deciding naming your kid Phill with two L's is a good idea?

Phill Kline dumped a bunch of people from his offices once he became district attorney in Johnson County, Kansas. He didn't even bother to wait for his morning coffee before tossing out seven attorneys and a chief investigator back on January 8. Their attorney, of course, had some comments...

In a news conference last week, Colantuono said the employees were dismissed without warning or explanation, which he said was a violation of the state's policy covering public employees. He said the move threatened to cause a major disruption in the county's criminal justice system because the attorneys had to leave several cases hanging.

He said none of the employees had performance problems, and some weren't interviewed before being fired and haven't been allowed to reapply for their jobs.

Phill with two L's response to their requests for reinstatement apparently resembled an upraised middle finger...

On Friday, Kline told county officials he would not participate in the grievance hearings, saying a state statute and county policies gave him the ability to terminate employees for any reason.

Sounds like a teensy bit of politics were involved here. Sure it could be something else, but as I've heard recently, when you hear hoofbeats in the distance, it could be zebras but think of horses first.

Fired, Attorneys, We are not in Kansas anymore

She is perfect for handling taxpayer money I'm stuck in a political meme today, and that's probably a good thing because I don't know just how many people care that the Chiefs fired their QB coach. Herm Edwards brilliant reasoning here seems to be that since the Chiefs O-line couldn't block a pack of street mimes, he can't run a timing offense in KC so they'll just run LJ 50 times a game.

Yeah that worked just great against the Colts. Herm, try drafting a lineman or two this year so Trent Green doesn't get pounded into another dimension again. The Trentster no love the concussions.

About the work skipping drunk who fell into another sweet job in what I might call a Quick Toss Husband Carry play. Here's some background...

A former Providence TV personality who was recently fired from her New Bedford tourism job for skipping work and was twice convicted of drunken driving has been appointed to a board overseeing millions of taxpayers’ dollars at a controversial nonprofit agency.

Sheila Martines Pina - who is still facing two recent DUI charges, and whose personal history includes an incident when she was found locked inside the trunk of her own Mercedes in 1988 - was tapped last week to serve on the board of embattled Tourism Massachusetts, sources say.

How'd she get this gig? "Hey Alex, can I have Politically Connected Hubbies for $1000?"

The appointment of Martines Pina, 50, wife of former Bristol County District Attorney Ronald Pina, came a week after she was fired from her previous job as president of the Southeastern Massachusetts Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Martines Pina, who was arraigned last month on two drunken-driving charges in New Bedford District Court, lost her job because of frequent absences from work, SMCVB chairman Rob Gould told the Providence Journal and New Bedford Standard-Times.

Maybe Hubby should have helped her get into rehab instead of a new job. This is not going to turn out well.

Fired, Sheila Pina, Thanks Sugar Daddy

White Sox darn foul to ball girls It took a long time for this to become an issue, but almost four years after the Chicago White Sox told Amy Wilkes and the rest of the ball girls to go home so men could take their jobs, the incident has predictably ended up in court.

I'd think getting fired seven months before Ozzie Guillen took over from Jerry Manuel would be seen in hindsight as a fortunate event. Amy and company think otherwise, as in sexual discrimination, which is a bad thing...

But when she and other women who worked as ball girls were fired and replaced by men, Wilkes asked Sox general manager Ken Williams why the position was being eliminated. According to the suit, Williams told her "that recent well-publicized incidents involving unruly fans entering the field was the reason for her termination." Williams, the suit alleges, said there were security concerns "that unruly fans were more likely to enter the field when a female 'ball girl' was present."

However, Wilkes says her job "had nothing to do with security on the field or preventing fans from entering the field."

Amy's April 15, 2003, firing happened the same day a nutjob named Eric Dybas hopped on the field during a Sox-Royals game. Maybe getting fouled out of the game was a good thing for Amy. I think she's going to catch a nice settlement, and she can spend that on season tickets and tell Ozzie Guillen there was no freakin' way he deserved the 1990 Gold Glove at shortstop when he had 17 errors for the year while Cal Ripken Jr only had three. THREE!

Fired, White Sox, Ball Girl

Diagnosis: Fired! Can you trust a guy named Lacy to run a hospital? Not in Las Vegas you can't. A horde of cops stopped by University Medical Center to pick up all the documents they could grab with a search warrant.

Lacy Thomas, the hospital's CEO, happened to be out of the office telling the county commission that UMC racked up a lot more losses than he told them in November...

The raid came the same day hospital chief executive officer Lacy Thomas went before the Clark County Commission to report that auditing firm Ernst & Young found losses for the year ending June 30 hit $34.3 million, about $15.5 million more than previously reported.

$15.5 million. That's a big difference, and they canned his ass pronto. Every so often I'll find some change in the Futon Of Love. Once I found a five dollar bill in a dirty puddle behind a McDonald's, and yes I rescued it, gave it a bath, and spent it on a Big Mac meal the next day.

Lacy didn't just lose $15.5 million in the seat cushions. It looks like he had plenty of help moving that cash out of the hospital, like they suggested on the TV...

In 2005, University Medical Center honcho Lacy Thomas took a trip to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, supposedly to talk business with Superior Consulting, also known as ACS, a company from his old hometown of Chicago. Metro police suspect the company picked up the tab for Thomas' weeklong fact finding trip. When Thomas returned from the beach, he told UMC staff members he intended to award a professional services contract to Superior Consulting so they could help UMC collect its outstanding debts.

Thomas did not mention that he is a personal friend of the top executive at Superior Consulting. The company ended up earning more than $1 million from UMC, even though it collected less money than the hospital had collected without its help.

I wasn't even a little surprised to see Lacy and his crew hailed from Chicago, where graft, corruption, and greed are behind only loaded hot dogs and deep dish pizza as a tradition. The TV hairdos talked about Lacy's Windy City past too...

For the past two months, police have been gathering documents and interviewing former UMC managers. The picture they've stitched together is not pretty. In all, their suspicions focus on seven Chicago-based companies; some owned by former fraternity brothers of Lacy Thomas, and who received contracts when Thomas ran the finances at a Chicago hospital.

Witnesses told Metro that Thomas personally awarded the contracts, that he bypassed normal procedures, that he found creative ways to inflate the dollar value of those deals, and that he kept most of this information from ever landing on the desks of county officials.

I bet this guy is already out of the country, someplace a lot warmer than Chicago, but not so hot as the Las Vegas heat he's got after him.

Fired, Lacy Thomas, Las Vegas

Dubya and company clear out attorneys Why, there's no reason to think politics is involved when it comes to the government pushing prosecutors out of their jobs.

It's simply a coincidence that Carol Lam, who put the thieving Duke Cunningham behind bars, is out of a job. There's no reason to think that just because he was a Republican that the Republican White House and Republican Justice Department would indulge in such petty paybacks.

Don't even try to suggest those august bodies are using a Patriot Act provision to exact vengeance on political foes...

Previously, a federal judge would appoint an interim United States attorney to serve until the Senate confirmed the president’s nominee. Now the attorney general can nominate someone to serve without confirmation for the remainder of Mr. Bush’s term. Ms. Feinstein, Mr. Pryor and Mr. Leahy have introduced legislation to restore the role of naming interim prosecutors to the judiciary.

Justice Department officials said that there was no intention to use the law to skirt the confirmation process now that the Senate is in Democratic hands, and that the administration would submit nominees for Senate confirmation.

Oh sure, this stuff just happens inside the Capital Beltway. Alberto Gonzales wakes up in the night clutching his teddy bear and thinks, hey, I've got to take these people off the job right now, now, now.

This is the point where someone goes "but they're firing Bush appointed attorneys, so it's not political." No, it became political. How thrilled do people think The Gipper was when Sandra Day O'Connor proved to be less than reliable when it came to conservative views?

Supreme Court justices can't be removed from the bench. But prosecutors who don't toe the party line don't have lifetime appointments.

Carol Lam committed the sin of putting a Republican player in California behind bars, and continuing to dog another shady Republican, Jerry Lewis, ha ha what a name. Check this out...

The focus moved to Mr. Lewis — who has denied any wrongdoing — after the disclosure that one of his staff aides became a lobbyist and arranged windfall contracts worth hundreds of millions.

Stymied by the previous Republican Congress, Ms. Lam was negotiating with the new Democratic leadership to obtain extensive earmarks documentation for her investigation when the administration forced her resignation.

Push the wardogs in DC hard enough and they'll yap off about any one of a number of sins allegedly made by Carol or other attorneys. Yeah, and it was just the harmonic convergence that sent Rumsfeld packing the day after the elections, too.

Fired, Carol Lam, Kevin Ryan, Coincidence

Fired! at the movies Another day in the palatial studio apartment from which I survey the Internet sees a message arrive from Lucas. Tied to a brick, of course, he is a lifetime marketing guy who's focused on getting people's attention.

It's time to give my readers a heads up on some sweet contest action. Here's the pitch, so take a swing and have some fun with it.

+++++++++

BEEN FIRED LATELY? NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO ATTEND A GLITTERY NEW YORK CITY PREMIERE TO CELEBRATE THE THEATRICAL RELEASE OF ANNABELLE GURWITCH'S ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARY FILM "FIRED!"

Simplyfired.com and Simplyhired.com are launching a two-part contest offering FREE MOVIE TICKETS this week and next to those of you with the FUNNIEST, ABSURDEST fired stories.

It's easy: the contest starts today. Just click on the "tell your story" section where you will register and post your own personal story about getting fired. The funnier, the better--your chances of winning improve with each deliciously ludicrous detail. On Monday, January 22, we will announce and notify the five grand-prize winners who, along with a guest, will get to attend the glittery, New York City premiere of FIRED! on Wednesday, January 24th. (Details will be provided to winners).

The FIRED! movie contest will continue until Wednesday, January 31st, when we will announce the 10 runners-up who will win FREE MOVIE PASSES FOR TWO to the regular theatrical engagement of FIRED! which opens Friday, February 2nd at Village East Cinema (2nd Avenue & 11th Street). Signed posters (by Annabelle Gurwitch) will go to all winners, as well as the next 10 funniest entries.

Enter now! Get fired up and turn your "Fired" stories into an enjoyable night at the movies (something that perhaps your former boss very rarely gets to have)....

CLICK HERE: www.firedthemovie.com to know watch the trailer and know more about the movie!

FIRED! stars Tim Allen - Andy Borowitz - David Cross - Andy Dick - Tate Donovan - Illeana Douglas - Jeff Garlin - Judy Gold - Stephen Adly Guirgis - Annabelle Gurwitch - Richard Kind - Anne Meara - Bob Odenkirk - Robert Reich - Jeffrey Ross - Harry Shearer - Sarah Silverman - Ben Stein - Fisher Stevens - Paul F. Thompkins - and Fred Willard

Fired The Movie, Annabelle Gurwitch

Time counts down magazine workers I hope the People at Time who Illustrated Sports spent some quality time with the network printer and a decent résumé template before receiving their complimentary copies of pink slips from the See Eee Ohh...

In a memo to employees, Ann Moore, the chief executive of Time Inc., said the layoffs were 'part of a restructuring necessary to sustain our progress.'

Progress being they've got 11,000 people working today instead of 11,300. Meanwhile I'm kicked back on the Futon Of Love, a company roster of one, making bank to write about them. Doesn't seem real fair, but that's the breaks in life.

Lots of breaking, actually, sez the Gawker glitterati. Ann No Moore Jobs made a lot of people break themselves, and the Newspaper Guild has maxed out its Unhappy Card...

Two years ago, Ann Moore, Time Inc.'s Chief Executive, was hailing its employees as its "most valuable resource." Thursday, after completing a year in which it notched a profit of about 18%, Time Inc. announced plans to slash almost 300 jobs company-wide, more than 100 of them Guild-represented.

In a world where Time Inc. continues to have layoffs, justifying them as "business decisions" and playing to Wall Street, we have become casualties in a war of profits. When is the top going to start sharing the pain?

You're a valuable resource until your salary is in the way of someone's management bonus. Then it's you who's hot off the firing presses. Buy up a lot of ramen and learn the bus routes, start up a blog and go fishing for story ideas.

And always remember the best job search engine this side of the Helix Nebula is always ready to help you seek out brave new jobs, and to boldly go where no reporter has gone before.

Fired, Time, People, Sports Illustrated

Heroic slacker fired for narcissism It's so rare to find someone in this crazy mixed up world willing to rise above societal expectations and strike a blow to The Man right in his rod and bobbers.

Emmalee Bauer, don't listen to those freakshow escapees who are hating on you for being a pathological goofoff. It's that kind of motivation that will carry you through life.

Your complete refusal to accede to the whims of a tyrannical supervisor who wanted to force you to "do your work" shows exactly the kind of qualities most workers are too afraid to indulge in during the typical workday, where instead of 'sales coordinating' you devoted yourself to, well, yourself...

In the journal, portions of which were introduced during a recent hearing regarding Bauer's request for unemployment, Bauer describes her efforts to avoid work.

"This typing thing seems to be doing the trick," she wrote. "It just looks like I am hard at work on something very important."

Bauer also wrote: "I am only here for the money and, lately, for the printer access. I haven't really accomplished anything in a long while ... and I am still getting paid more than I ever have at a job before, with less to do than I have ever had before. It's actually quite nice when I think of it that way. I can shop online, play games and read message boards and still get paid for it."

Emmalee thinks her journal could be published someday. I assume she means by a real book publisher, like what Stephen King and J.K. Rowling have. Emmalee, if you strike it rich, remember those of us who gave you props when The Man had you down.

Fired, Emmalee Bauer, Goofoff

Sallie belongs to the Citi Citigroup chief C-level guy Charles Prince made some chessboard moves to save himself from being checkmated by Wall Street.

He had to move his queen, chief financial officer Sallie Krawcheck, to a more defensible position. Maybe Prince Charlie is playing the Queen's Indian Defense. If it fails, he's going to get the Legendary Thugee Treatment from Wall Street.

Don't worry too much about the Prince. One thing these nobles learn is how to cover their asses, so it's of no surprise whatsoever that someone felt the coil of strangulation wire drop around an unprotected job's throat. Can you say "strategic sacrifice"?..

Krawcheck, 42, will replace Todd Thomson, 45, as head of global wealth management. Citigroup said Thomson is leaving the company to pursue other interests.

Krawcheck and Thomson had switched jobs in 2004, in a move Citigroup said at the time was meant to broaden the experience of the up-and-coming executives.

Yeah, in Sallie Krawfish's experience, it's good not to be the one with the Y chromosome when the effluent hits the spinning air circulation device. Todd's going to get plenty of broad experience searching for jobs.

Since Todd's got some free time, he might want to pick up a guidebook to cheap trips. Backpacking to Portland has got to be more fun than sneaking back into the Citigroup parking lot and letting the air out of Prince Charles' tires.

Fired, Citigroup, Sallie Krawcheck, Todd Thomson

Jobs go limp at Viagra maker If this post were going out by email instead of RSS, it would get junked by everyone's spam filters.

Pfizer is cleaning out its corporate arteries in Lipitor fashion. Not just a few jobs, either. They're going to spew 10,000 workers into the global market.

Working in sales for Pfizer? Not anymore...

The 10,000 layoffs amount to about 10 percent of the company's global work force and include the elimination of 2,200 jobs from the U.S. sales force, which Pfizer announced late last year. The company said Monday it would cut 20 percent of its European sales force but didn't say how many jobs that will be.

Pfizer will close three research sites in Michigan and two manufacturing plants in New York and Nebraska. It may also sell another manufacturing site in Germany and close research sites in Japan and France.

Follow this logic. To make money, Pfizer has to research and develop new drugs. They have to sell them to the people who may need them. With that in mind, Pfizer will shut down research centers and get rid of salespeople.

Somebody over there is on drugs. It must be an executive because I don't see any of them mentioned in the report losing their jobs.

Fired, Pfizer, Viagra, Tasteless puns

Gap won't be filled with Pressler Annoying baby boomers in khakis won't have Paul Pressler to look up to any more. He resigned from Gap as it is in the middle of a big sales slump.

It doesn't sound like the resignation was all his idea, no more than Caesar decided willingly to quit running Rome after March 15th. Oh yes, the long knives were sharpened in darkness for Paul...

For the last two weeks, Robert Fisher, the son of Gap's founders and the board's chairman, conducted a series of secret conference calls with fellow directors.

The topic: Whether to fire Gap's embattled chief executive, Paul Pressler.

I think the decision arising from the thoughtful and well-measured discussion that took place probably was my favorite five-letter F word.

Even better, the guy they tossed out in favor of Paul is doing very well, and is laughing his ass off at the idea of coming back to run Gap...

Several private equity groups have approached Millard Drexler, the former Gap chief executive who was ousted to make way for Pressler, about running the company after a sale, said a person knowledgeable about the matter.

But this person said that Drexler, whose runaway success at J. Crew has haunted Gap's board, told the investment firms that he had no interest in returning to Gap.

I feel for the poor person who had to make that call to Millard. "We're sorry sir, won't you come back and save us from drowning?"

He probably offered Gap a tall glass of water. Schadenfreude tastes pretty good, I'm sure.

Fired, Gap, Paul Pressler, Khakis

T-Wolves bounce coach out of the pack Dwane Casey was consistently inconsistent in his year and a half as coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's not like his players gave him a lot of help on the floor...

Ultimately it's the players who have to perform better, McHale said. The ups and downs have been too drastic this season for the former Boston Celtics great who epitomized hard work.

"I've seen us play and beat some of the best teams in the league and I've seen us play and lose to some of the worst teams in the league,'' McHale said. "I just don't know.''

"The coach can only do so much,'' swingman Ricky Davis said. "A lot of it had to do with our not being together.''

I know what you're thinking. "Haven't I heard of Dwane Casey before this?" Yes you have, Kevin Garnett, he's the guy in the suit who used to be on the sidelines wondering who the hell was going to show up and play well on a given night.

The rest of us who follow college basketball remember him as the guy who got banned from coaching in college for sending FedEx envelopes full of cash to a college recruit. Wikipedia says he never got found guilty of that, which means I must be misremembering a whole bunch of stories about him doing it.

Fired, Dwane Casey, Minnesota, Timberwolves

Groping, ogling, firing A supervisor at a body shop in Campbell, CA must have mistaken the purpose of the business he works for to mean buffing the bodies of co-workers on the job...

Six former employees are suing White Oaks Auto Body in Campbell, alleging that a supervisor fired them after they accused him of groping, ogling and making degrading comments about female workers.

When the women, along with four male co-workers, complained to the supervisor about the harassment, the lawsuit alleges the supervisor fired them.

The workers went to the shop owner, who helpfully suggested they confront the supervisor. As you can see, that didn't work out real well.

With luck, the lawsuit will have the offending supervisor receive a hot wax treatment of his own. In the form of an enema.

Fired, Groping, Not that kind of body shop

So much for advanced alien technology I fired him before he started yammering about Linux.

Fired, Dilbert, Linux

Swedish banker thief bork bork bork I know that there are some places in America where they say life goes at a slower pace. Maybe it's the freaking cold temperatures in Scandinavia, but news travels at a glacial pace in Sweden.

It's January, right? It took from October to now for this little news tidbit to surface from the land of blond people and herring...

A Gothenburg bank manager and father of two was fired from his job when it emerged that he had taken 6.6 million kronor from his customers' accounts.

The man, also spent four years as chairman of the local Shareholders' Association, has said that the money was used to fund his gambling addiction.

See, it's not his fault. He was hooked on betting. He wasn't responsible for defrauding customers out of nearly a million of Washington's portraits...

The man explained his spiralling problems in a letter to his friends.

"I have gradually ended up in a sort of blind alley. The way I saw it, the only way to free myself from my substantial debts was to keep playing, with higher stakes, in order to win and leave back the money I had borrowed," he wrote.

As Rocky said to Bullwinkle many times, that trick never works. A desire to rehabilitate might, though.

Fired, Banker, Sweden, I bet you need help

Order in the court or you're fired, judge Bailiff: Oy yea, oy yea. All rise for the Honorable Robert Spitzer...oh bugger, he's not here again. Clerk?

Clerk: Yes, Bailiff?

Bailiff: Where is the Judge?

Clerk: He's been buried under his work.

Bailiff: I'm sure he's busy, but there are cases waiting to be heard here today.

Clerk: Ha, you haven't heard?

Bailiff: Heard what, Clerk?

Clerk: It's not just that Judge Spitzer is buried in a metaphorical sense under his work. It could be literal.

Bailiff: Literal?

Clerk: Literally.

Bailiff: Really?

Clerk: Same thing, Bailiff, yes.

Bailiff: We should check on him. (Bailiff and Clerk exit courtroom to hallway outside Judge Spitzer's door.)

(Bailiff knocks on door) Your Honor? Court is in session sir.

Clerk: Not really.

Bailiff: Well, yes, ok, it's not in session until the judge arrives. But it is time for court to be in session. (to door) Judge Spitzer? Sir?

Spitzer (moaning, behind door): Oh my aching sacroiliac. Ohhh.

Clerk: We must get in there! Quickly!

Bailiff: Stand back! (Clerk steps away. Bailiff takes three steps back, then charges to the door and stops, where he turns the knob and peeks in.) Your Honor...oh hell! The horror, the horror!

Clerk: What? What is it? (Looks behind door, turns away, revulsed.) I've never seen anything like that. I'm going to be....urggh...(rushes to trash can, vomits violently.)

Spitzer: Alas, poor Judge! I knew him, Bailiff. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

Clerk: Of the most cluttered office I've ever seen.

(Enter three Jurists.)

Jurist #1: Judge Spitzer! Present yourself man!

Jurist #2: We have heard of the vexatious chaos of thine chambers.

Bailiff (aside to Clerk): What does vexatious mean?

Clerk: Usually it means someone who abuses the legal system.

Bailiff: Oh. I thought it had to do with something under his robes.

Jurist #3: Robert! We are here to decide if you are fit to be one of us!

Bailiff (sotto voce): Does he mean incredibly old?

Clerk (sotto voce): Shhh, we'll get fired too.

(Suddenly, ALL are bathed in a golden light, and Reg, a lawyer, descends from the ceiling.)

Reg: Hold, ye vexatious jurists!

Bailiff: Are you sure that vexatious means...

Clerk (interrupting): Yes! It's nothing bad. I mean, it's bad. It's just, you know, not bad.

Jurist #2: Shut up you two.

Reg: I am Reg, and I represent Spitzer. Begone you white-haired hags. He is innocent of what you claim.

Jurist #3: We claim he is sloppy, and unfit to serve. We claim he has left cases unprocessed for as long as a year, stacked upon his tables and windowsills.

Spitzer: Ohh! This is madness! Tell them Reg! Tell them!

Reg: He is obsessive compulsive. His desire to be thorough is so overwhelming, it has made him sloppy.

(All pause for a beat)

Jurist #3: That's your defense?

Jurist #1: He's sloppy because he wants to be neat?

Jurist #2: He's a perfectionist who is so far down from organized he has to look up just to see the gutter of neatness?

Bailiff (to Jurist #2): He's vexatious.

Clerk: Good one.

Jurist #2: I said be quiet.

Fired, Judge, Robert Spitzer

Reply All is not your friend Oh snap...

The e-mail, which Watson described as "at best politically incorrect and at worst very offensive" in a public apology on Jan. 16, contains nine embedded images of topless women under the heading "This is National Women's Breast Awareness Day." The only other text reads, "Beats ... Martin Luther King Day, doesn't it?"

The e-mail landed in the in boxes of 18 members of the New Elementary School Building Committee and to an individual with an Elmira College e-mail address on Jan. 14. Watson, who received the e-mail from a friend, maintains he doesn't know how the e-mail was forwarded.

If you don't feel like clicking the link, yeah, he's out of a job.

Fired, Email, Politically Incorrect

From sub skipper to Subway sandwich artist The crew of the Japanese tanker Mogamigawa got a surprise when passing through the Straits of Hormuz a few weeks ago. After determining that the loud knocking sound on the hull was not people bearing religious tracts or misdirected pizzas, they found the Newport News bouncing off the ship.

Not this Newport News. This one, the Los Angeles-class attack submarine.

I wonder if the cadets at Annapolis have to take a quiz about where to put a multi-million dollar nuclear submarine when at sea. "Stuck up against a tanker" is probably a wrong answer, if the fate of the sub's captain (that's his picture) is any indication...

Cmdr. Matthew A. Weingart was relieved of command by Rear Adm. Douglas J. McAneny, commander of Combined Task Force 54, “due to lack of confidence in his ability to command,� according to a statement from Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

Capt. Norman A. Moore has assumed temporary command of the ship.

Charges against another Newport News officer were dismissed, but two petty officers received administrative punishment at the admiral’s mast proceeding.

That must really suck, to have to go to a job interview where some asshat HR droid asks why you left your last job, and you have to say, "I hit a huge tanker with my sub, but it wasn't my fault, it was the Venturi effect that caused it to happen." Like they'll believe you.

Hey Matt, I said extra banana peppers on that sandwich, come on man.

Fired, USS Newport News, You hit a what

K-Fed knows restaurant jobs Nationwide has another riches-to-rags story set for a Super Bowl ad. Following in the big footsteps of Fabio and MC Hammer, Britney's Fed-Ex Kevin Federline will be this year's object of mockery.

He goes from bling-studded rapper to fast food flipper in the ad, which is meant to be funny. The NRA isn't laughing, and I don't mean the ones toting handcannons...

The commercial shows Federline, also known as K-Fed now also known as Fed-ex since splitting with Britney Spears, going from starring in a rap video to working in a fast-food restaurant according to the National Restaurant Association (NRA).

The NRA, in a letter to Jerry Jurgensen, the CEO of Nationwide, said the ad "would give the impression that working in a restaurant is demeaning and unpleasant."

The letter went on to say that the ad would be an insult to the 12.8 million workers in the restaurant industry and Nationwide's marketing campaign "should not require denigrating another industry."

I've worked in a few restaurants in my time. No one should have the impression that working in one is unpleasant.

That should be crystal clear. It is unpleasant. Heat and sweat in the kitchens, rude customers who just can't be pleased, old folks who think a couple of shiny quarters make for a good tip, cleaning up grease, getting shafted on tip-outs, why would anyone think it's some kind of warmup for a musical review where the wait staff and the bar backs all comes out and break into song?

The NRA suit who complained to Nationwide, and basically got told to lighten the heck up (mad props to Nationwide for that) it's a joke, has probably never worked a day in fast food, never mind any other restaurant. Probably the kind of moron who demands to see the invoice for the conch to see if it's fresh before he order a bowl of chowder.

Commercials, Nationwide, Super Bowl

Ranting at Big Apple babysitters Tricia Romano dreams the impossible dream in her Village Voice rant...

These nightlife sitters want promoters to be licensed; they want to arrest kids who are using fake IDs.; they want the cabaret law (prohibiting dancing without a license) to remain intact; they want you to submit to mandatory video surveillance the entire time you are at a club; they want to ban bottle service (a dreamy idea, but they're doing it for the wrong reasons); they want clubs to be only in certain neighborhoods, though of course they always seem to change their minds and push the clubs out; and they want you to be quiet. But mostly, it seems they just don't want any nightlife to exist at all.

Note to cops, politicians, and everyone else who hates nightlife and thinks they're doing us a favor: You're fired.

I empathize. But you just don't have the power, outside of the voting booth. For all the clubs where it's fun to play, there's always a few places that never do the right thing. Those are the ones that get all the headlines.

It sounds like the Powers That Be want the city that never sleeps to take a nap already, it's 3 am, some of us have to freakin' go to work in a few hours, SHADDUP WILL YA!

Fired, Village Voice, NYC, Party all night long

Wal-Mart says its fired gal has a cheating heart Julie Roehm got the heave-ho from WallyWorld after they hired her to be their head of marketing. Partying with potential ad firms had the buttoned-up types in Bentonville hot under the collar, but when they thought Julie was a little too steamy with her subordinate, smoke came out of their ears.

She's denied doing anything wrong, and has resorted to the great American tradition of filing a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for unpaid compensation. Wal-Mart has fired back by suggesting they know just what Julie did last summer and who she did it with...

"Julie Roehm didn't tell the truth about the inappropriate relationship with one of her subordinates," Wal-Mart spokesperson Mona Williams said from London. "Despite these denials, Wal-Mart now has irrefutable and admissible evidence of the relationship" between Roehm and Womack. "I would not tell you this if we didn't know it was true." A romantic relationship between employees violates Wal-Mart policy.

Roehm fired back from on board an airplane. "I guarantee there is nothing because it didn't happen. I know what they have, and it's not evidence of an affair," she said. "It's irrefutable evidence that we're really good friends. He's like a brother to me." Roehm said the evidence in question is personal e-mail exchanged outside of the Wal-Mart system.

I get the feeling that The Smoking Gun is going to come up with this evidence any day now. Won't everyone be surprised if pictures are involved?

Fired, Wal-Mart, Julie Roehm

Somebody is so fired at Turner Broadcasting I'm ready to give good odds that there's going to be an opening in marketing at Turner or Time Warner or whoever they are real soon.

Check out what this astounding lack of judgment led to in the Lobstah and Chowdah state...

The day-long scare began when a suspicious package was found on a steel beam under a bridge in the morning. Police stopped traffic on a major interstate highway north of Boston, cordoned off the area, deployed a bomb squad and blew it up.

By afternoon, at least eight other similar suspicious packages were discovered, each triggering a security alert involving emergency crews, federal agents, bomb squads, police and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Boston PD blew up these packages, which turned out to be magnetic lights, part of a marketing campaign for Adult Swim's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." Care to bet if Turner is going to get a bill for this that will cost a lot more than some marketing droid's salary?...

It forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close the Charles River that feeds from the Atlantic Ocean into the city and caused authorities to shut down major bridges linking Boston with neighboring Cambridge along with several roads.

"This has taken a significant toll on our resources," Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis told reporters.

Resources equals money, and someone in Atlanta is going to have to send a big check to Boston, I think. Somewhere in the bowels of the Turner Broadcasting empire, that unfortunate marketing person is probably strapped to a table while masked entities do stuff to him or her not normally thought of outside of a Lovecraft story. Could be a storyline for "Without A Trace" coming up.

Fired, Turner Broadcasting, Adult Swim, Aqua Teen Hunger Force