Week In Review: Got An Elephant Problem? Go Daddy Will Solve It

Yesterday I dug up some news about American CEOs and how a study said that a record number of CEOs are optimistic about the world’s economy, while another CEO had a pretty bleak outlook. Not taking part in either survey was Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons, who was on vacation in Africa. Bob’s facing a lot of scrutiny today, and you can read all about that on the next page, but he’s the lead example of a new theme for this week’s Review. That theme is choices.
You see, for every hero there’s a villain, and for every adorable puppy there’s a mangy cat that won’t stop sleeping on top of my Jeep. Seriously, why do my neighbors keep feeding these little monsters? They won’t stop hanging around my house and driving my dog nuts. But I digress. My lazy point is that the collection of popular stories that I’ve put together this week are all capable of eliciting two sets of emotions, so I’m hoping that we can look at them all from each side and then have an intelligent discussion about our feelings. Or we can call each other losers. Who cares? It’s Friday!

Bob Parsons is a Marine (once and always) and Vietnam war veteran, but lately he’s best known as the CEO of the web hosting giant Go Daddy. He is also drawing considerable heat and scorn for a video he recently posted of his hunting trip in Africa. In the video (excerpts seen above), Parsons and some other hunters kill an elephant at night with rifles, claiming that the giant animal and some companions had been trampling farmers’ fields in Zimbabwe and destroying their crops. Parsons calls the beast a “problem elephant” while many activist groups are calling him a monster.
In fact, PETA has already labeled Parsons the “Scummiest CEO of the Year” but the Go Daddy chief maintains that his critics are ignorant to the damage that the elephants cause to the people of Zimbabwe. Parsons maintains that these elephants are responsible for starvation through depleted crops, and that hunters like himself are brought in to help the villagers survive. Meanwhile, his critics are vehement that problem elephants can be handled through non-violent and deadly tactics such as simply pouring chili powder around the fields.
But where there’s a debate, there’s a company looking to take advantage and make a quick buck. Go Daddy’s rival, Namecheap.com, is offering service transfer to Go Daddy customers starting as low as $4.99 with $1 from each transfer being donated to Save the Elephants. What says you, Uproxx – Hero or villain?
(Via New York Times)

It’s time for Uproxx Week In Review’s Video Trivia Challenge: I Swear I’m Not Crying Edition. In the video above, a U.S. soldier has returned home from Afghanistan to surprise his brother, who is crashed on the couch. We’ve all been there – long night of whatever, feeling the need to get a few extra Z’s and your homeboy starts flicking your head and it’s like, “C’mon bro, I’m trying to… oh snap.” That snap? Our heart strings.
But wait! Just when you think your returning-from-Afghanistan tear wells have been tapped, you are so wrong, friends. In the video below – and yes you have to choose which video is more heartwarming – an American woman is returning from service in Afghanistan and she’s greeted by her best friend, a golden retriever. Excuse me for a moment, I left something in this Kleenex box…

Oh, the winner? Us.
(Via Buzzfeed)

That video above is a few months old, but it’s a performance from the American Music Awards featuring a collaboration between the New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys. The two iconic boy bands are heading out on tour together soon, but the news this week is the release of their new joint song, “Don’t Turn Out the Lights”, that the two groups have been babbling about for quite some time. As of yesterday, the new song was on various YouTube postings, but it’s being yanked quickly. Try it here or here or here. Then yell at me for trying so hard to make you relive the 80s and 90s.

Montana state representative Alan Hale is hellbent on preserving the natural way of life in his great state, because he is looking out for the best interests of small businesses and the taxpayers. That way of life? Drunk driving. Hale owns a bar in his hometown of Basin, and he claims that bars like his are very important meeting places for citizens. As he speaks in that video above, I imagine him imagining this country’s first revolutionaries conspiring in a New England tavern as they have grown tired of England’s taxes and heavy hand. Except in Hale’s imagination they’re ordering Hairy Buffalo shots and arguing over which Pat Benetar song to play. Everyone knows it’s “We Belong” guys.
(Via AOL News)
Earlier this week the world stopped what it was doing and gazed at the University of Southern California in horror as photos surfaced of a male and female, both students at USC… get ready for it… having sex on top of a building. I know, my monocle fell out and shattered in my dish of caviar, too, but we have to stay strong and move on, people!
At least The Daily Mail gets it…

MailOnline can reveal the young lothario IS a USC student from a wealthy Californian family.
He is a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity and is also a keen sports player.
The scandal has electrified the university’s student body but is likely to horrify the student’s middle-class family.
The disgraced fraternity member’s wealthy parents live in a highly respectable beach community in southern California.

There you have it. This student is disgraced (he’s not). He is ashamed of his antics (he’s really not) and he’s in hiding (I guarantee he just high-fived 6 people as you read this) and his middle-class-yet-wealthy family is in shambles (it’s not, his dad just hugged him).
(Via The Daily Mail)

Meet 14-year old Kory Shore. He’s just your average teenage boy, growing up in the land of the free, and wondering on YouTube via song… Dude, what the F is up with America? He just wants to take his dreams from here to there, and he doesn’t want you ripping the future from his hands. He just wants to spread his wings and soar the skies again. Also, he wants to use a lot of rhetoric and walk around while the Founding Fathers are trying to conduct business. Thanks to Kory, John Hancock just took up half the page.
(Via Gawker)

Jim Kosek is the famous face behind the AccuWeather forecasts for Manhattan, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of witnessing one of his classic reports before, well then today is your lucky day. As Matt from Warming Glow pointed out, Jim has previously given us the Snowpocalypse freakout, but I’m a huge fan of his take on the missing Bronx Zoo cobra. In fact, I don’t need weather reports anymore. I just need my meteorologist imitating animals. What’s that? A category 5 hurricane is squatting over my house right now? Haha, now do a chicken!

Last week we enjoyed arguably the best parody of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” with the Bad Lip Reading version. And as if the geniuses behind that video heard my prayers – but hopefully not the one about Mila Kunis meeting my parents, because that was personal – they are back with another installment. This time BLR took on the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow”, which I assume is a melodious retelling of the Civil War. Now it’s a song about poop. Man, I love the Internet.
(Via Urlesque)
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  • As of 2008, the annual rate of elephant poaching in Africa was 8%. In comparison, when the international ivory ban was enforced 20 years ago, the rate was at 7.4%. Even worse, that poaching rate from two decades ago was based on a population of 1 million elephants. The population today in 2008 was just above 470,000. (Science Daily)
  • By the year 2040, at least 20% of the world’s 7 to 15 million species could be extinct. Every 20 minutes, 3,500 more humans are born, but at least one plant or animal species is driven to extinction at a rate of 27,000 per year. Bet you wish you hadn’t burned those ants as a kid now, huh? (African Conservancy)

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