The next -gate scandals

Apple-gate: Controversy surrounds Apple’s new iPad, which, in a move to support the troops, comes with a pre-installed racy background of Christina Applegate . She is depicted making out with the Mac guy on the top of a bunk bed, with the PC guy tearfully peeking from under the covers on the bottom bed. [1]

Gates’ gate-gate: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is forced to resign for inappropriate use of Pentagon funds, specifically to finance a renovation of a house in the Hamptons, complete with a $5 million front gate modeled on the Arc de Triomphe.

Goldman-gate: Goldman Sachs is found to have deliberately sold bad assets to its clients, while taking short positions on the same assets.

The absurdity continued when it was made into a musical starring Golden Girls star Betty White, complete with a “Goldman-gate bridge” and including an acoustic modification on the classic fail sound effect from “The Price is Right”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzfuqbOEqnU&NR=1. It was later revealed that Goldman had shorted this musical as well. This led some to call the subsequent scandal Goldman-Golden-gate-bridge-gate. [2]



Potter-gate: Harry Potter is revealed in an unauthorized eighth book to have used magic-enhancing drugs and to have sexually experimented with Dobby, the house-elf. Dobby has denied this, and claims they were “just friends”, though both had been seen drinking “Pumpkin juice” on Potter’s Azkhaban ranch located in Santa Barbara County, CA.

Star-gate: Richard Dean Anderson, spokesperson and CEO of International Star Registry, is indicted on thousands of counts of fraud by people who were shocked to realize that astronomers didn’t actually use the ISR names, such as “Fred”,“Luis+Amy4Evr”, or “Turd Ferguson” to refer to the stars.

Pro Cre-gate: The pharmaceutical industry was slammed in trading on Thursday when Pro Cre, an anti-anxiety medication manufactured by Pfizer, instead caused people to engage in risky and regrettable sexual behavior, frequently leading to unplanned pregnancies. Court filings reveal that the principal ingredients in Pro Cre are grain alcohol and boredom.

[1] CNN reported that US troops during the Gulf War voted her the most attractive woman on TV. (http://www.maxim.com/girls/girls-of-maxim/44572/christina-applegate.html)

[2] Sad, but true.