Mac video hard drive and camera advice needed

My newspaper has agreed to switch to a Mac and Final Cut Express video editing setup and I need to make some recommendations to them as to what to get, since they are willing to buy two MacBook Pro laptops, a video camera and a couple copies of Final Cut Express. Help needed:
1/ What configuration of a MacBook Pro is suggested? The regular hard drive that comes with the computer and an added SATA hard drive for the Final Cut Express scratch disk and file storage? How big should the drives be?
2/ A Mac and Final Cut Express compatible AVCHD video camera with an external microphone shoe, costing about $1000 to 1,2000. Any model suggestions?
Thanks,
Douglas
[email protected]

Goodness, Studio X, what an aggressive response from someone who knows nothing of the background to my request for advice. I am no expert as perhaps you may be, but from that school of mid-size and smaller daily newspapers whose staff has had to teach themselves video with a lot of self-learning, little funding, trial by error and forums such as this.
For what it's worth, I trained under our former multimedia editor for a couple years and have since published perhaps 50 video features and audio slideshows to our paper's website, using a tottering system of Premium Elements 4.0, lousy PCs and inadequate cameras. But we've made do while arguing repeatedly for more investment - which is why I finally just used my personal MacBook Pro and Final Cut Express to file a half-dozen deadline video features recently for the paper from a PGA-tour event in our area.
After them being pleased with the speed and results of that, the beancounters are now willing to make a small investment in a better video set-up, which will be for two MacBook Pros with 500 GB external Firewire drives for video storage and scratch disks, Final Cut and a Canon Vixia HF s21. Now, I have a question for you: Do you always come six guns blazing into forums like this and shoot at people who are just trying to up their game a bit with advice from the otherwise other helpful people here? It is to those folks that I now return my attention and my thanks for their aid.
Douglas

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Gordiewell
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