Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

I suppose some conservatives will say low-income citizens are low-income for a reason (wink wink). But an affirmative action based on socio-economic status makes sense. It helps people in need, and avoids racial discrimination. Whether everybody should attend college is another matter, but intelligence shouldn't be punished by poverty, nor stupidity rewarded by affluence.

Posted 8:01 PM by Gene

Peter Arnett gets his REVENGE.

Now he can shed the fiction of being "objective."

Posted 7:15 PM by Gene

And now that the superpatriotic FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! News has let Geraldo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! give a few tips to Saddam (or not, depending on whether or not you believe Geraldo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), America Online asks, "Whose Side are They On?"

Wait a sec, AOL! Didn't your company (or rather, one of its acquisitions) hire Peter in the first place?

Posted 6:30 PM by Gene

The people who run Major League Baseball are pure scum. First George Steinbrenner gets in a food fight to prevent Yankee fans from seeing his team on cable. Now Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post conjectures that Peter Angelos, the sleazeball who owns the Baltimore Orioles, is intentionally putting a bad team on the field for financial gain.

"Well," as Bud "Zelig" Selig, Bill Gates without the brains, would say, "that's baseball!"

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

If this story is to be believed (and God knows how many have second-guessed the campaign), if we had bombed the living daylights out of them, the press would be ten times as vociferous as it is now. If there is timidity, it was forced on us by Vietnam and news hacks. In affairs military we just cannot escape that awful duo.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

Stock of Philip Morris Parent at New Low

Note the headline. It'll always be Philip Morris. And unless the company gets out of the tobacco biz 100 percent including liabilities (extremely unlikely given the liabilities), it would still be Philip Morris.

PR only goes so far.

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

I'd be angry too if the Commies had made me a man.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

All the people who say we'll win this war seem to be conservative. I'd feel better if a liberal said it too. Alas, liberals are fighting Vietnam.

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

I don't know why Viacom is in such a huff about "trust": MTV pioneered the music video as a sales pitch, and product placements are just a logical extension. From here, onto CDs. And why not? In the very early days of the recording business singles (acoustical cylinders and discs, which played only one song) had opening announcements of the title, performer and record label. Why not include ads on CDs if it'll lower the purchase price? They'll probably be more interesting than the music.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

It's the third item, and yes, it's Howie, but FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! News already has credibility problems (with news hacks because it's conservative, with me because it's RUPERT), and this sort of thing is beyond the pale. Nominally conservative news organizations should hew to higher standards so they don't merely echo the failings of the traditionally liberal press. Instead, they're gung ho -- as with RUPERT and his 175 newspaper sycophants.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Perfect Dilbertry: I don't think full-scale protest rallies at GM or Altria MOtive Foods would stop them from financing The Osama Channel. This is further confirmation of a point I'll make till I'm blue in the face: Corporate America will sponsor anything and everything, and can only be stopped if it offends a PC group, or if disaster strikes.

They wouldn't even stop advertising if THIS accusation got more exposure.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Saddam is willing to put his civilians at risk. Why? Because he knows news hacks and protestors will play up a story like this for WEEKS.

It's only time before The Osama Channel and its putative "competitors" call this a "massacre." When will the Times chime in with "My Lai"?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Gasp! THE WAR MAY LAST FOR MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wall Street says so.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Speaking of GE Network News, Andy Lack, who's now running Sony Music (which is firing 1,000), says CD sales may decline by 15 percent. This would be great news -- fewer Hitlerian rappers, fewer screechers like Celine, fewer disseminators of JUNK -- but as I said before, the cuts will no doubt come where they'll hurt the culture most -- in classical and jazz (which can't be more eviscerated than they are now) and reissues. The idiot Ty Burr notwithstanding, we need our cultural past for a better cultural future, and Sony's about to throw it away.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Last night there were flashes of lightning on Free Republic as the members complained that Peter Arnett was in his Gulf War Saddam Defense mode. I paid little attention to it, thinking, oh well, tomorrow some poor clerks will look like Vincent Van Gogh, and some useless e-mails will wind up in cul-de-sacs, and that'll be the end of it. Today, Peter Arnett lost his job. Part of it may have been that he worked not for GE or Microsoft (his nominal employers) but for the National Geographic Society, hardly an outfit to court controversy, even with topless Africans. Then again, he probably got sacked because soooo many news hacks, from the BBC to Evan "My Grandfather Was a Socialist Candidate for President" Thomas to Robert "Beat Me" Fisk, have taken Saddam's line hook line and sinker, and many are angry about it. They're angry because to defend Saddam means defending tyranny, mass murder, torture, rape, death. In the heart of the calculus lies Vietnam. The people who got us out of there ended up defending tyranny and mass murder too. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....

Posted 7:31 PM by Gene

How Wal-Mart's favorite nation organizes antiwar protests.

Posted 4:37 PM by Gene

ØØØØh well, that's what happens when you play with zeroes. I even had the first line of my new fight song ready: "ØØØØØØØØØØØØ-klahoma! Where the clods come streakin' down the court...." Better luck next time.

Posted 3:01 PM by Gene

Two Iraqi generals!

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

GO SØØNERS!!!!!

Posted 2:41 PM by Gene

Now we have all the bad guys in one country!

Hope you see some virgins soon -- and hope they all look like Helen Thomas.

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

I just learned (via FR, I admit) that Evan Thomas, co-author of "THE BLAME GAME BEGINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", is a grandson of the socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas.

@#$%^&*(*&^%$#@!!!!!!!!!! And a @#$%^&*(*&^%$#@ to you, Eric Alterman!

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

TY BURR SAYS MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!! About two months back I noted how Sumner used the bottom-fifth-of-the-bell-curve brains at Ain't It Cool News to plug a new sci-fi movie just after Columbia disintegrated. You know, the one with the space shuttle in the trailer? It didn't work. Neither did Bill the Entomologist's plastering ads for that Stephen King trashbash all over Slate.com. Sorry idiots, our tolerance for your business is extremely limited.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

The only difference between Mafia bosses fighting and entertainment bosses fighting is that the Mafia bosses use guns and the entertainment bosses use lawsuits.

Otherwise, it's still organized crime.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Rummy says we haven't found any banned weapons yet.

This could give the neurotics another opening: If we haven't found WMDs, doesn't this mean our war was unjustified? The whole point of the war was that Saddam was an evil man with WMDs. To which the answer is, no, because we just haven't found them, and even so, Saddam was going to make them.

Posted 10:54 AM by Gene

The powerful chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Henry Waxman, tells Newsweak....

Our covert Vice-President Inside is one of the reasons we can't trust the oil biz. But the oily, legalistic Henry the Wax is one of the reasons we can't trust Congresspoops. And Newsweak (which probably got this most of this news from Henry the Wax) is one of the reasons we can't trust news hacks.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

There'll always be an England, and there'll always be Communists.

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

The Malaysian prime minister has demanded that League of Nations boss Kofi Annan resign for his failure to stop the war.

Actually, he's already been punished. He won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

A hack named Omaar (as in the Tentmaker) yells, "I'M NOT AN IRAQI MINISTRY STOOGE!" and goes on to prove it.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

I know I've said this before, but after the ad-blurb copywriters called The Producers the greatest musical of all time they promised us a whole bunch of masterpieces, many based on movies. Just last week one of them opened -- an adaptation of the trashy John Travolta vehicle Urban Cowboy. Guess what? It went to that big country bar in the sky after only four performances. Back to the publicist's office.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Newsweak screams, "THE BLAME GAME BEGINS!!!!!" (sighhhhhhhhh), but even it admits (citing a Brookings wonk) "the risks of urban warfare" may be "exaggerated." (Sighhhhhhhhh.)

Further risible editorializing: Senators were "ashen-faced" after a meeting with CIA types because "the street" was mad. "They were absolutely depressed," says a convenient staffer. "Much of what the agency briefed," says Newsweak, "would not have been news to any close watcher of the BBC or almost any foreign news broadcast [emphasis mine]."

Pffh-hh-hh-hh-hh-hh-hh-hh ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

That's probably where the CIA got its news.

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

We control 40 percent of Iraq and 100 percent of its air space, we're within 60 miles of Baghdad, and Gen. Franks says we fully control its coast. We're losing?

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

A story like this (it's about the Q-word, but from the "street" angle) is great because it allows news hacks to maintain we're losing the war when in fact we're losing it only with a badly educated and superstitious people whom we couldn't influence if Allah came down from the skies. But to spin is always good.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

It's official: Eric Alterman is the lapdog of big newspapers.

Good doggy! Nice doggy! The-press-isn't-liberal doggy! Want a Milk-Bone? Arf! Arf!

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Iraq "gets" 4,000 Arabs -- and we get an Iraqi general. I'd say this is no contest.

Posted 8:28 PM by Gene

WHAT?!? A pro-war rally -- in FRISCO?!?!? Unbelievable!!!!!

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

All they have to do is aim it at Berkeley.

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

Tell 'em to charge it to Saddam.

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

Walter Duranty should have his Pulitzer revoked. Walter Duranty will not have his Pulitzer revoked.

One reason Walter Duranty will not have his Pulitzer revoked: The Pulitzers are administered by Columbia University.

Posted 4:26 PM by Gene

In more business-fraud news (isn't it all?), another exec is about to plead guilty in the HealthSouth scandal (I confess I haven't followed it; these things are so de rigueur), and Delta Air Lines's chief just got a 120% raise.

Ho-hum.

Posted 4:09 PM by Gene

Well who would ever have guessed we'd see this?

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

I have FAR more faith in smart bombs hitting their targets than dumb-fat-happy-rich news hacks gleaning the truth through surveys.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Military Mirrors Working-Class America

And the news hacks, perfessers, Hollywood fornicators, unwashed S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S., etc., etc., mirror -- who knows.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

"MADONNA VIDEO ENDS WITH IMAGE OF PRESIDENT BUSH WITH GRENADE IN HIS LAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

SHUT UP, WALTER WINCHELL!!

SHUT UP TOO, AOL!!!!!

(Looks like we're back to every fifth post about King Richard again.)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Watch FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! News and you love the war. Watch GE Network News and you sorta kind like it, but....

Is news bias just a matter of reporters?

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

Only the Saudis would get mad that our missiles would wind up in their sand. I guess they're worried over the health of zillions of grains of silica. Well if you don't need them, Saudis, we have beaches.

Another smile for The Osama Channel!

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Even Howell recognizes bad PR when he sees it.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Hans Blix, self-appointed scapegoat, quits.

Hans who?

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

One of those perfessers who caused Columbia to have a stroke over Iraq is now in trouble (extremely slight trouble) because he wished a holocaust on U. S. soldiers.

It amazes me how the "higher-education" industry continues to bilk its customers and the taxpayers with impunity. Here's another symptom. And to me there's no difference between bigoted professors and the zeroes at 000000000000klahoma! They both spawn in the same cesspool.

Posted 8:05 AM by Gene

It's NewsMax, and it's FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, but I'm not surprised that missile that struck in Kuwait was made by the Chinese.

Thanks again, Slick, Cleaning Lady and Uncle Bernie!

Posted 7:51 AM by Gene

Really! Really! Vee vant ze U. S.zzzzzz to ween. Becoz if ze U. S. luusays zen eet make uss luuk bahd. Alzhough really we're rooting for ze side with ze morrre oilllll....ZE U.S. WEEEEEL WEEN!!!!!

Posted 7:47 AM by Gene

Since they can't fight fair, they'll fight dirty.

It's a GREAT day at The Osama Channel.

Posted 7:28 PM by Gene

The university with America's most prominent J-school just had a stroke over Iraq.

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

The head on NRO's home page reads, "Does oil doom democracy in Iraq?"

Judging from who runs the oil industry I say yes.

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

The wrong side protests for the right reason.

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

News hacks in Iraq "haven't showered in two weeks."

They're just adding a natural smell to their artifical one.

Posted 7:16 PM by Gene

The conservatives who declared victory over The Mess may have cheered too soon: They're replacing Phil Donahue with HHHWal-ter Crrrron-khite Jr.

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

Just what the news biz needs -- more news 'dos.

Dippity-DO!

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

Consultants have no business running news rooms -- and neither do antiwar protestors.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

You've come to the right place.

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

One of The Three Stooges is about to run the AP!

Helloooooo --

Helloooooooooo --

HELLOOOOOOOOO --

HELLO!!!!!

(I DO NOT apologize. This guy ran USA Okay, which often reads like a boink on the head.)

Posted 6:39 PM by Gene

Goody! I guess this means my AOL service will get even BETTER!

They call it "security," by the way. I call it another ham-handed layoff from Corporate America.

This is the same AOL, natch, that's pulled some nifty accounting deals. By the company's own practice, those responsible should be given a choice of the means for their execution.

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

Salon.com may be proof of near-death experience!

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

Three "stupid" men "sitting around drinking" closed a Big Apple bridge for two-and-a-half hours.

Heaven forbid if they'd been playing cards.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

When MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE rule the media and baseball, guess who loses.

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

At this point it scarcely matters whether it was a Turkish plane hijacked to Greece or a Greek plane hijacked to Turkey.

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

Half-a-million "protesting" in Damascus and they wouldn't support Uncle Saddam? That stretches credulity.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

Either Saddam's up to his old tricks in Kuwait, or the holy cockroaches are. How can anyone doubt their intentions?

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

We control 40 percent of Iraq. Now that number's surely open to debate, as so much of the nation is desert. Still 40 percent in ten days is a pretty good figure. Plus we have 100 percent of the skies.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

News hacks get around the Q word by using the U word.

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

Libraries have been implicated in terrorist acts, and lots of dirty old men (and boys) get their jollies at public terminals. Is it really an affront to the First Amendment to censor porn in libraries?

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

Andy S. returns from his happy-and-gay sojourn to post remarks of uncommon eloquence -- the words of a peace protestor who has changed his mind, quoting an Iraqi:

Life is hell. We have no hope. But everything will be ok once the war is over....No matter how bad it is we will not all die. We have hoped for some other way but nothing has worked. 12 years ago it went almost all the way but failed. We cannot wait anymore. We want the war and we want it now.

For people like these, we must fight this war -- and we will WIN.

Posted 8:09 PM by Gene

With McDonald's having no luck running burger joints, it seems to stretch things to believe it can run anything else well.

Posted 7:49 PM by Gene

Does everyone in Washington work for Whorevis? The superhawk Richard Perle has resigned as a high-mucky-muck White House adviser because he represents Global Crossing, now about to be sold to Chinese interests. Some superhawk. Honest to God, all these Beltway ultrawonks can think of is money. And the friendlier friends of China continue to work their way into every White House briefing. With Slick it was Uncle Bernie Schwartz, and with Dubya it's Mr. Big Brain.

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

On the eve of College Basketball for Dummies, guess which coach has resigned.

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

I'm a little despondent that one of our formerly local retailers, the jeweler Caldwell's, is closing its once-flagship store in the city. (Consolation prize: it's keeping its commercial division here.) But I shouldn't be surprised. The jewelry biz has been in the doldrums for years; witness the closing of Service Merchandise and a clientele increasingly limited to middle-aged women with bad taste. And as I've said before, business was the right hook to the Je$$es' left cross in destroying our cities, with whole blocks of vacant storefronts the result. To get to my new job I travel an elevated train line through part of our ghetto, once the home of such antediluvians as "Iris's Millinery Shop" and a oculist named Fellman, now block after block of cheap furniture stores and pawn shops; the only national retailers are liberal (Viacom's Blockbuster) or vultures (Walgreen's). Businessmen just will not locate in cities. The future for the Caldwell block's a mixed bag: yes, as the hopeful local says, there are new stores there, but two are relocations (although the Borders does attract good traffic and the site it left near Rittenhouse Square is next to construction that could house a big upscale outfit), and the Woolworth's will never again be occupied. I think those ghetto storefronts are going to stay the same for a long time. Retailers can cite taxes and crime and lack of good help until hell freezes over, but I will say again and again, the real reason they won't open in cities is n...you know the word. They do.

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

Talk about setting teeth chattering....

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Yes, war news and stupid can co-exist.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Why haven't their been more suspensions of news hacks for protesting?

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Why would antiwar types target their friends?

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Have any great musicians come from piano contests?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

More Arabs take courses in chemistry.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Now the Nasdaq has barred The Osama Channel, which presumably means even fewer electronic intercepts for its spies.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Thank you, Sen. Kyl (or your staffer), for reminding us of European perfidy in the Civil War. Fact is, the British didn't become unshakable friends until WWII.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Can we spin that head to mean the war, Tribune West?

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

The Butcher Broadcasting Corporation admits it may be a teensy-eensy bit biased in Saddam's favor.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

McCARTHYISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meantime, in other CENSORSHIP news....

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

News hacks will take the increase in our troops as a sign of FAILURE. I take it as a sign we need more troops to secure Iraq.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

The day after Tribune Company tells us about that wonderful Marine's mother protesting the war, why, if Col.'s successors don't report about forced conscripts and executions. I guess our side is slightly better than theirs.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

The League, as everyone knows, luuuuuuuuhves children. So does Saddam.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Amazing when our ambassador walked the whole League didn't wave to him and sing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye."

Posted 8:32 PM by Gene

The only thing stopping the movies from doing a trillion a year is -- you guessed it -- THE WEB. It's this kind of thinking-in-the-box hackery that inspired me to let my Business Week subscription lapse.

Posted 8:19 PM by Gene

With the unredeemable hack Ty "My Name Sounds Like a Beanie Baby" Burr proclaiming MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!, wanna bet he starts a newsroom fight with Renee Graham, who proclaims the idea of a movie musical renaissance is bull? And who will predict that the future star of Ebert and Roeper, a man who learned his trade sucking up to Steve and Gerry at Time Warner, a man obviously expert at putting his name above the names above the title and salivating at million-dollar TV paydays, will prevail?

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

It's not just the Oscars'® ratings that got clobbered. The NPCAA Ad Festival (also known as College Basketball for Dummies) is taking a licking too. You can blame that on the war, but I still say every institution that's hitched its wagon to the TV star, from Miss America to the World Series, has seen the star work loose from the reins and fall away, the wagon following -- because so many people can't stand the TV biz, and because so many people can't stand the advertisers.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

Well whoop-de-doo! Sony Music's firing 400! That probably means lots of little folks get hurt, no more decent reissues and more $200 million contracts.

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

Hey bozos! How much liberating did you do in the twentieth century?

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

I could think of some Club Meds for a few CEOs. And I don't mean Bermuda.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Jessica Reif Cohen, the media-stock sales -- analyst, says Comcast has shrunk the numbers of its newly-acquired AT&T cable subscribers buying dishes.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! I'll believe that PR when I see it.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Oh goody! Another cheer goes up from The Osama Channel in CATARRH.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

In contrast to Trib Company heroines, the U. S. too often shows a better side.

What would Un...cle HHWWal...ter think of this?!?!?

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

So obviously the only way to fight terrorists is to GIVE UP.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

SuperPundit gets 3,000 e-mails, six million hits, and he won't be blogging all day because he's moderating a debate! WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

I've got a better idea: let's make every Iraqi soldier a member of the Procrastinator's Club.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Is Sears deconstructing?

Hmmm, looks like GE Bancorp's going to buy the credit-card business. Doesn't it already have one? Y'know, that charges 22% interest?

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

The former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has died. At times he showed true courage, as a godfather of the welfare-reform movement, and in his scathing criticisms of the League of Nations -- er, the UN. But once he got that cosy permanent job in the senior doofuses' chamber he became the worst of all political creatures: the thinking man's party hack. Prof. Moynihan's career should serve as a guidepost and a warning. It is not enough to be a self-publicizing iconoclast.

How appropriate too that Sen. Rodham announced it. She owes something to the ex-Senator's dissembling.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Why we WILL win this war: we "destroyed" a force of the fearsome Iraqi Republican Guard.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

IF WE'D SENT IN MORE TROOPS YOU NEWS HACKS WOULD HAVE SCREAMED THAT WE'RE SENDING IN TOO MANY TROOPS!!!!!

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

The one-way signs (and the news-hack traffic cops) are out on that "street" again. I wouldn't worry about the Syrians. Their leading products are despots and sand.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Obviously Reuters employs Eric "What? Me Biased?" Alterman as a consultant.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

What did CNN expect when it brought The Voice of Dilbert on the air?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

My big fat Greek idiots: You guys gave us Never on Sunday. Since you support Saddam we'll return the favor: Never on any day.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Don't tell me those mealy-mouthed wishy-washy soccer women are going to determine the course of this war?!?!?

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

What did the Chinese know and when did they know it?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

It wasn't too long ago when the pioneering rock groupie John "Rock Around the Clock" Rockwell knocked Rosemary Clooney as squarer than Perry Como. Long transformed into a highbrow (that's why Howell demoted him) he now says he's seen a contemporary opera "masterpiece." That means two-note melodies, the same chord a thousand times, and unremitting navel staring.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

When you stop acting as the press ministry (and a possible intelligence agency) for Al Qaeda, maybe then we'll discuss your "freedom of the press."

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

More good news for International S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

In other fifth-column news, brought to you by the Tribune Company ("A whole column in itself!®"), the mother of a marine is a heroine for protesting the war.

Col. McCormick must be turning in his grave.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

We killed fourteen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, maybe, which means after The Osama Channel's done it'll be a thousand, and after that womyn's studies professor's done, it'll be 8,600.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Oh, no! The market was down! AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHH!!!!!

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

Oh, no! Andy S. has turned -- guarded! AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHH!!!!!

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

This is absolutely the LAST I say about the Oscars® (I mean it -- honest!), but everything here makes sense: people want to see Michael Moore make an ass of himself -- AND THEY DON'T WANT TO SEE THE ADS.

Meanwhile, an earthquake strikes every subordinate at Washington Mutual, JCPenney, P&G, AmEx, McDonald's, etc., etc., as every one of their CEOs screams, "I HAD THE GREATEST TIME AT THE OSCARS® AND YOU DIDN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

In honor of Barry Switzer: The NPCAA, brought to you by proud Corporate Champions like Coca-Cola, admits this week's Sweet Sixteen are graduating too few players.

Ka-CHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or as a school's fight song and state song goes, "You're doin' fine ØklahØØØØØØ-ma! ØklahØØØØØØ-ma, ØØØØØØØØØØØØ-kay!"

Of course that fight song sounds pretty silly with all zeroes. But then zeroes on the court equal millions on the books.

Posted 7:13 PM by Gene

As a master manipulator of news (gotta admit it) Rummy knows whereof he speaks.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

For once, Slate isn't ironic.

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

The League of Nations wants to vote on an Iraq resolution because Kofi Annan believes "Saddam's regime is no longer functioning, and that it may soon cease to exist entirely."

Couldn't we say the same of the League of Nations?

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

The next time there's a big quake in the Frisco area, wouldn't it be nice if it broke away from California and floated off in the sea?

In a way, it already has.

Posted 6:29 PM by Gene

News hacks have assumed the defensive about their Iraq coverage since the beginning because we remember Vietnam, we remember the Conscience with the Moustache telling LBJ to withdraw, we remember the hacks brandishing their Pulitzers, we remember the crowing and preening, we remember the Boat People, we remember the Killing Fields, we remember that as the self-congratulation reached its peak a seven-year-old heroin addict appeared in the Washington Post. We remember.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

The good ones or the bad ones?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

But there is this happier news.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

A startling admission from Howell (he must FIRE SOMEBODY!):

One week after the United States entered Afghanistan and encountered a surprising level of resistance, the word "quagmire" began to appear in news reports. But within a month, most of the military objectives had been achieved.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

TV viewers are obsessing over Iraq the way they obsessed over the 2000 election, and are learning virtually nothing -- again.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Again, sociologists come to the rescue of common sense.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

When the greedsters at the NYSE say The Osama Channel isn't responsible....

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Some people will always be furious with our reconstruction of Japan, but Gen. MacArthur's work was one of the phenomenal successes of world history. We were the only people with the moral, legal, and political authority to do it. In no small measure as a result, Japan is one of our closest allies in the Iraq War. We can do that again too.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

This won't be half the war it could be unless the Iraqis do a little of the liberating themselves.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Saddam wants a quagmire. So do his friends.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

The Saudis, as usual, want to knock us down to their Lilliputian size.

NO SALE.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

I guess we shouldn't have worried so much about the Russians. They also made exploding TVs.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Here we go again. Is this fact or is this wishful thinking?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

When news hacks act like barometers, we can count less on hard facts and more on opinions. I can't recall a time when news hacks have done more speculating -- unless it was Afghanistan, or Princess Di's death, or the OJ verdict, or...Gulf War I, or....

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Iraq suffers a setback.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

I guess the war is going well again; stocks went up. Jeez.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Will Chicago and Chuck Mangione ever die?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Ty Burr, the Will Rogers of movie-ad-blurb copywriters -- he never met a movie he didn't like -- gives a new twist on the phrase MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Why must ArtsJournal.com link to these execrable hacks?

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

Why must this "street" always be one-way?

Posted 9:17 PM by Gene

I think I like this photo. (Taken in Dearborn, Michigan, by the way.)

Posted 8:52 PM by Gene

For the last time (until next year), these companies didn't waste millions on the Oscars® because they were introducing new campaigns, they were there because the CEOs were there. Not even buying $800,000 in advertising for $1.3 million can deter the most determined social-climbing hobnobbing brownnosing high-mucky-muck CEO Dilbert. I'll be blunter: At this level advertising is Enroning in a different key. If I owned stock in one of these companies I'd be mad.

Posted 8:06 PM by Gene

Nicer: A former Beirut hostage and CNN producer plans to travel to Baghdad to protest the war.

Good luck! You'll need it.

Posted 8:01 PM by Gene

Nice: The antiwar protestors' good guys have apparently gotten the go to use chemical weapons. Sweet.

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

We're virtually in Baghdad. Now comes the hard part.

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

Two Disney Radio babblers babbled (to FR's delight) that after we "took care of Saddam" Tariq "Jews Do Not Exist" Aziz was frantically on his cell phone to Ba'ath Party members, the CIA triangulated his calls, and ka-BOOM!!!!! No more Tariq Aziz.

Well look who's here at this press conference! Tariq Aziz! Thought they had you dead to rights, Tariq!

In fairness, several of the Freepers likened these talk-show idiots to the Mouth from Outer Space, Art Bell. THIS is why people don't trust talk radio. This is also why Free Republic has a smell.

Posted 6:48 PM by Gene

CEOs can delude themselves into thinking that by sponsoring college stadiums they're engaged in something purer than pro sports. Sorry, egomaniacs. It's the same Chevy Chase Syndrome, the same corporate money wasting, the same corruption.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

Andy S. could have been one of FDR's ghostwriters on December 8. And then he writes something like this:

Okay, so I did watch the Oscars for a few minutes - in the Billy Madison commercial breaks. And I did catch a very cute young man....

Andy, think twice before you write like that. You're alive today because of medical science. My older brother wasn't as lucky.

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

Teachers should keep their mouths shut on politics for the same reasons show-biz types should.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Congratulations, movie clods! You're making SOOOOOOOOOO many movies SOOOOOOOOOOO many people like the Oscars® just scored the lowest ratings in their history!!

One instant excuse is war-news churn. Maybe, but they were starting from lower numbers, and there was plenty of advance hype about antiwar sloganeering, plus four of the five nominees were arthouse pictures (and the winner came from Disney's arthouse division), AND, let's remember, MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

How soon we forget: Gulf War I went pretty well at first. Then came the Scuds on Israel and it "bogged down." Then after several weeks we were on our way to victory. It would have been total victory except that Papa, John "My Favorite Martian" Scowcroft and Larry "Whataburger" Eagleburger snatched Saddam from its jaws. Victory here will be decisive too. Just wait.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

The loonies of Wall Street are as trustworthy in predicting the war as news hacks, or pundits, and should be taken as seriously.

Posted 7:07 AM by Gene

I finally figured out the MO of Corporate America. It's not in existence to sell products or services. It's in business to provide dividends and stock increases to shareholders. So long as the two are mutually exclusive, they're under no obligation to do right. Hence the existence of ASWIA.

Posted 6:56 AM by Gene

News hacks are starting to talk about "doubts." (So much for the Post's pro-war editorials.) A day's setbacks and we must surrender. With so many of them in ardent opposition we can not take even the most mild criticism as neutral. Many on the other side want us to lose. Period. They may not say so, but it's certainly their endgame.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

The talk at MoveOn.org may be morale-boosting bull. Then again, with Peetah, we have no reason to doubt it.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Thanks, all you blithering incompetent news hacks, for speculating. (Thanks especially to those with "CIA connections.") I am not again running anything on anything unless I can be sure about it.

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

I can think of a lot of past sensations that are unreadable, unwatchable, and unlistenable today. (It goes without saying that Frank Rich will always be unreadable.)

Does anyone here remember the number-two best seller of 1924 -- The Plastic Age? A raging satire of collegiate life, "critically-acclaimed." Scarcely years after it was published its author, Percy Marks (who was forced to quit from Brown University because of it) wrote to a fan saying his book was unreadable. I read it. It's unreadable.

P. S. The film version the following year starred the adorable It Girl, Clara Bow -- the most popular female film star of her age. Just thirty-three years later Oscar Hammerstein 2nd wrote this lyric for Flower Drum Song:

Tonight on TV's Late Late Show,
You can look at Clara Bow!

to which the chorus yells, "WHO?!?!?"

One other note: in Clara Bow's heyday he wrote a lyric for one of Sigmund Romberg's operettas, The Desert Song, called "It."

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

Michael Moore got booed at the Oscars®? Shame!

Or was that the canned-laughter-and-applause machine?

By the way, I see the rapist won. There's a limit to election campaigns, Harvey. Unfortunately there's no limit to arrest warrants, Roman.

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

Is the rest of the world having a nervous breakdown?

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

Watching the NPCAA Advertising Festival, I just caught Courage in a bulletin saying, "When news breaks out, we'll break down." (At least it sounded like.)

This is what happens when you deliver news by catch-phrase.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Come HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME, America!

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

Steve Lopez, a million-dollar columnist (okay, $300,000), makes a few phone calls, puts his feet up on a desk, and eructates, "In the weeks, months and years to come, the impact of the war could reverberate around the world, spinning endless cycles of violence in God's name. Nothing stands in the way but conscience."

I got an idea, Steve: Give up your newspaper job and live the life of an ascetic, fighting for peace. Oh. There's no money in asceticism.

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

Now here's something: Such hordes of Iraqi soldiers are surrendering it's impeded our march on Baghdad! Interesting.

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

I guess I'm starting to obsess over the jerks, like Andy S., and that doesn't help my credibility (assuming a blogger who gets two hits a day has any), but somebody has to wipe the smiles off their faces.

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

The Saddamites have evidently taken prisoners, possibly executing several. This, like yesterday's crime spree, would be of no consequence -- an inevitability of war -- except that the Howells want NO casualties, and the tantrum throwers want NO casualties, and Hollywood and academe want NO casualties, and a considerable chunk of the Democratic Party wants NO casualties. In that respect we fight with one hand tied behind our back. Not happy news, but this won't impede our progress.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

Who'da thunk it! The heroic Saddamites for whom peace demonstrators have gotten arrested are using civilians as human shields. (So CNN says.)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

For months and months after Newt took over the Congress in '95, news hacks' stories were filled with quotes from -- Democrats because they had no sources on the other side (read, among those reactionary bigots).

Why do I get a similar feeling reading Subtract Seymour Jr.'s story, and so many other stories about the brave antiwar movement?

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Howell, that headline of yours: you wouldn't be satisfied unless our forces retreated waving white flags, so shut up. At any rate, that business about the four soldiers is from a SkyNews story (you rely on RUPERT?!?) that was essentially retracted. A double shut-up.

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

One wonders how many rank-and-file employees at ASWIA companies will squirm over tonight's Oscars®, at the likely drumbeat of PC and anger over Adolf W. Bush. The poor customer-service clerks will need replacement ears come tomorrow afternoon. But ultimately the only opinion that counts is the man's in the Kodak Theater, the CEO, and he's the man who'll say, "I had a TREMENDOUS time at the Oscars® AND YOU DIDN'T BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T THERE!"

Do ordinary employees at these companies ever get exercised over their bosses' Chevy Chase Syndrome?

Posted 7:59 AM by Gene

A commander of the "elite" Republican Guard has surrendered. They ran in Gulf War I. They may not run now, but their circle's getting smaller and smaller.

Posted 7:51 AM by Gene

At some point people will be so disgusted with the demagoguery of news hacks they'll just quit reading the news. Who knows how many millions have already abandoned newspapers and the network news? But not even mass abandonments of the press will change any hack's opinion. Why? "We'd rather be right." News hacks have such egos, such certainty of their correctness (and their political correctness) that they can never be wrong. Hence the difficulty of getting them to issue even the mildest corrections. And as I said yesterday, you can't argue with a news hack over bias, because he has twenty different ways of ducking the argument. Even if the hacks lost ninety percent of their audience, they'd still plug on as before, and they'd still be right.

Posted 7:47 AM by Gene

Still going strong.

Posted 9:31 PM by Gene

Now we know why International S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S. luuuuuuuuves Saddam! He has a "Stalinist security structure"!

Posted 9:04 PM by Gene

100 MILES FROM BAGHDAD!! GET 'EM!!

Posted 8:28 PM by Gene

Oop! ZON goes through a time-out without airing three more minutes of commericals? I think I know why. They went over the forty-minute limit. Forty minutes an hour. I'm sending a Valentine to the NPCAA tomorrow.

The roots of evil: MPAA...RIAA...NPCAA...but not AAA.

Posted 7:08 PM by Gene

And I'm starting to get angry with the professional Democrats now. I can understand that they still might not like what Dubya did -- but some of them won't even support our TROOPS! Sorry, you pros can't say "The Republicans made us do it." Love of country should come naturally to every American regardless of party and creed. Instead, you're hair-splittingly legalistic. JERKS.

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

I see some holy cockroaches may have hit at one of our bases in Kuwait. This can't have been completely unexpected given recent terrorist murders. It sounds bad, but apparently only a few soldiers (six) were gravely hurt, and this is a pinprick to the operations (not to be insensitive to the wounded), and the general tenor of the war is still good. But we must redouble our vigilance.

Now speculation that this was an Iraqi special ops production. Again we must expect these things. So long as the whole action's going okay we shouldn't panic.

The one thing that worries me about the story is the psychological angle. No matter how well things are going -- and they are going well -- news hacks will harp and harp on this, not only for its news value. They will play up the worst angles without noting that the forces lost sixteen soldiers in two helicopter accidents, and that only two of our soldiers have died thus far in combat. News hacks will give the jerks every reason to celebrate if they don't show perspective here.

Now it is coming out that this may be an attempted homicide by a soldier. Well, Timothy McVeigh was a Gulf War vet.

An American black Muslim, it now appears, and arrested. Geez. Time for another CAIR package, Ibrahim?

Had I not been watching the NPCAA (the P means Professional) Advertising Festival I probably wouldn't have heard this till tomorrow, and turned away. This story is now of virtually no importance in the larger scheme of the war, except as a sensational crime for news hacks to promote, and we wasted all this time and all this worry over nothing.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

150 miles into Iraq, and counting.

Posted 4:13 PM by Gene

The more I think of the antiwar protestors, the angrier I get. Deconstructed in the cold, clear light of day, their argument makes no sense at best, and it's anti-Semitic, pro-Saddam, and inhumane at worst. But they keep it up because they know they have news hacks, Hollywood, academe, and much of the Democratic Party in their vice grip. If they keep it up long enough, with the first sign of bad news, they win. The real test of this war is whether our government can sufficiently ignore these jerks and triumph. To paraphrase an old song, they did it before (in Gulf War I) and they can do it again.

Posted 3:57 PM by Gene

The Mess (or is that NBC News on Cable?) has reported that some crackpot Iraqi soldier may have carried anthrax spores and definitely had instructions to use them.

I guess we're still in the wrong here.

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! The LALA Times KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! says opinion on the Iraq war KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! in Hollywood KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! is not so KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! uniform KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! after all! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

Am I the only one to notice The Mess is now referring to itself on its Web sites as NBC News on Cable?

I suspect this may be the next big thing: for each network-news division to put out a 24-hour feed that also goes out on the Web. FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of course has its cable news network, and ABC just started an online video service. You have this "asset"; you may as well monetize it.

Posted 1:11 PM by Gene

Reuters (snicker snicker) says Iraq TV (tee hee hee) is saying Saddam (chuckle chuckle) is pleased with the war's progress (pffh-hh-hh-hh-hh) and it has the no pictures to prove it! (HARDY HAR HAR!!!!!)

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

I think Howell created that special section to cover anti-war rallies.

Posted 10:54 AM by Gene

How the perfesser of womyn's studies determines how many civilians have died in Iraq: He takes a story like this from a "credible" source (and People's Daily is obviously that); he then takes the number of civilians injured and multiplies that by .9 for likely dead (you figure those smart bombs must have done a lot of collateral damage), he multiplies that figure by three (non-Western news sources are better), and out of 207 injured he gets 558.9 dead (rounded up to the nearest 5,000 equals 5,000), and there you have the perfidy of George W. Bush.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Speaking of Howell, here's a "duh" headline The Tantrum has enlisted to prove his point. It only proves news hacks can be stupid when they're not lying.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

Accusing the news hack of bias is an argument the layman just cannot win (the link is an A-1 example): He shoots back with Foggy Bottom diplomatic verbiage about objectivity. Accuse him again and he shoots back with Reuters-style twaddle that "your terrorist is someone else's freedom fighter." Accuse him yet again and he shoots back with First Amendment blather though his sidekicks and his employers usually aren't its best defenders. The layman walks away disgusted, and the news hack breaks out a knowing smirk -- HE has the power.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

More smooth going to Baghdad.

Posted 10:01 PM by Gene

It was not enough for France to be mendacious before the war; now it must be irrelevant after the war.

Talk about cutting off your Gallic nose to spite your face.

Posted 9:51 PM by Gene

Quelle surprise! The holy cockroaches may have planted the ricin in Paris.

Posted 6:59 PM by Gene

Sorry Robert! Your side's losing.

Posted 6:41 PM by Gene

The folks at Altria MOtive lost a big one in court: $10.1 billion because they marketed "light" cigarettes as "safer."

I don't know if they're safer, but when I encounter them in a restaurant they sure are stinkier.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

Saddam has been absconding with the food money for years and now the relief organizations are worried?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

The diverse, peaceful, non-violent, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly anti-war protestors in Frisco had something up their backpacks: Molotov cocktails.

SKOAL!

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Send up the white flag: Bob Garfield, the CW commercial reviewer at AdAge, says the press trots out the same old quotemakers over and over and over. And he interviewed two of the worst: Norm Ornstein and Bob Thompson. I don't want to hear these names again. Which means we will.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

That perfesser of womyn's studies in New Hampshire who said we killed 100,000 in Afghanistan is at it again. Only I didn't think International S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S. had so much money. This is almost as slick as Willie.

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

Mostly leftists (I presume; this is Reuters) throw an electronic tantrum.

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

Things bloggers do to make themselves unreadable:

1. Post copy and backgrounds of almost identical colors (i.e., light-green copy on a moderate-green background);

2. Use no breaks, so the reader must wade through endless paragraphs;

3. Use narrow columns so you have to scroll all the way down the page to complete the blogger's thought;

4. Use double-spaced lines that take up the width of the browser window, so the reader has to scroll and scroll and scroll;

5. Clutter up their pages with boxes, insets, photos, emoticons, etc. etc.

6. Link to other sites (usually blogs) with lots of photos, thereby requiring a long wait, and if the reader scrolls too soon the page goes herky-jerky and all over the place;

7. Use invisible scroll bars, so you have to guess how to scroll down the page.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the first that come to mind.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

At least somebody likes us.

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

The ruins of Elizabeth Taylor oppose the war in Iraq.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Let's put International S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S. on the case.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Forbes.com runs a "survey" of war blogs which, more than its previous surveys, suggests spin the bottle or pin the tail on the donkey. Perhaps the five sites some editor chose are more "representative" than "best"; still, it is very disheartening to know that the attention a weblog needs depends almost solely on luck, and these five are very lucky. I can't vouch for their "quality" except to say they all manage to sound alike despite differing opinions, and they're all wordy. I'll say this again, too: How many people have limitless time for bloggers?

P. S. Back in 1925, when it was just starting out, The New Yorker ran a joke:

Johnny: What is an optimist, pop?

Pop: A man who thinks he can make it in par.

It's hardly a joke; what's more, someone transposed the lines, foreshadowing Jeopardy but without the nerds. Every year until his death the magazine's neurotic, obsessive founding editor Harold Ross ran the transposed joke in the anniversary issue, perhaps as a reminder of how bad The New Yorker was in the early days (and by many accounts it was bad indeed).

I go out of my way with this anecdote because The Number One War Blogger wrote this. He may yet be right; but if events go on as presently, I may occasionally post this as a prime example of the blogger's infinite wisdom -- and I will always give due credit to Forbes.com for unearthing it.

What is a pessimist, pop?

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Take heart, Canadiens fans: when your country's teams visit us, we'll return the favor.

Am I the only person who notices a resemblance between the half-mouthed quarter-witted PM "Mr." Chretien and William Talman, Raymond Burr's DA nemesis on Perry Mason? The DA always lost because Perry was a good guy. "Mr." Chretien lost it from the beginning.

But then Canada is a hopelessly PC US stuck in a seventies time warp.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Hoping against hope, praying with all their secular might, ad-blurb copywriters still know in their hearts of hearts MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

Everything goes smoothly in Iraq. A Marine was KIA, and there was that bad helicopter crash (an accident, it appears), but other than that our caissons are rolling along. Plus, we may have nailed Saddam. (That news ran all of yesterday but now it's acquired the air of fact.)

Obviously the Iraqi military was so depleted by Gulf War I and Saddam's dreams of being a terrorist powerhouse there was little left in the tank. We still have Baghdad to conquer, but given pictures of rows and rows of Iraqi troops surrendering things would seem unlikely to change.

Posted 9:18 PM by Gene

Here's Mr. Broken Record again: Some clowns at a media consulting firm (which probably does lots of business with the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertsiers) did a survey about ads during war coverage. No surprise; people said ads were okay. What makes me type is this platitude from one of the consultants:

The mix of programming [advertisers] select needs to be very sensitive to what consumers are saying will be relevant and meaningful to them.

I've said it once, and I'll say it a thousand times: Advertising is placed solely by computers, solely on statistics. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. The only time advertisers will NOT sponsor is after PC pressure groups complain, or following a disaster. Advertising is the number-one reason people can't stand corporate America, and corporate America knows nothing but to advertise. THIS WILL NEVER CHANGE.

P. S. Here's how the company that did this survey describes itself:

MediaVest is one of the industry's leading independent media services companies. The company provides world-premiere brands with innovative media leadership and execution across a full spectrum of media vehicles to ensure our clients' marketing messages are impactful, delivered strategically and efficiently and generate business results. The success of MediaVest’s focus on objective-driven marketing solutions is evidenced by our long-term client partnerships and strong growth of the company.

A classic Dilbert Mission Statement, translatable as follows: We rob corporate America to finance junk television and worthless reports.

Posted 8:23 PM by Gene

Michael "Airhead" Jordan, the man who destroyed Westinghouse and made Twilight ZON Co-Master of the Universe, is being asked to run the failing computer consulting firm EDS.

Lotsa luck, Airhead!

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

CNN says Dubya's going to Camp David this weekend. That's confidence.

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

A very touching story (and I wish I'd known of it earlier, despite the source): the Iraqis are coming out of their Saddam-built reinforced-concrete cocoon. They know what we're there for, even if many dolts don't.

We must not let the Iraqis down again.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

I completely ignored this: even before the war we already controlled the skies north of the 36th parallel (the Northern No-Fly Zone) and south of the 33rd parallel (the Southern No-Fly Zone). That's about two-thirds of Iraq. Up above, at least, Saddam doesn't stand a chance. Judging from TV he's virtually given up with triple-A so I'd say he thinks the same thing.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

A parade of several hundred International S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S. marched down Walnut Street this afternoon, trying to tie up traffic perhaps not knowing Center City can do it well enough, thank you. It rained dogs (I own a cat) and I imagine it was the first shower many of them had in weeks. They chanted something unintelligible although the evil word "Bush" broke out every now and then. A photographer led the way but no ENGs, odd in America's most competitive market for dumbed-down local news. Police guided their path, and someone handed out leaflets (a form of germ warfare), and they left. But for commanding the media and academe by the throat their time ended long ago.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

The man on the right is Saddam Hussein. The man on the left may be a double played by Groucho Marx.

Posted 12:16 PM by Gene

A delicious story: Miller Brewing, once owned by Altria MOtive, now owned by some South African brewer, and whose market share has been in an inexorable decline for many years, has decided to way-up the sex in its ads. (The agency is Ogilvy and Mather, which hides these ads on its site, maybe because some of its clients -- what are you worried about? They only shrink from PC and disasters.) Says a suitably anonymous "executive": "It's tough to be clever when no one pays attention to you....We have to fight dirty to keep what's ours." Here's the fun part: many of the ads in this campaign will debut during the NCAA tournament -- which is sure to get jostled about by the war (the Viacom Network has already agreed to assign some games to the Disney Sports Cable Channel in case). Who wants to think beer with war so heavy in the air? A brilliant marketing ploy worthy of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers.

Wanna bet these guys try to bring back Opie and Anthony?

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

If we turn war news over to the government, we get propaganda. If we turn it over to news hacks, we get propaganda. We can't win either way.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

Saddam has no strategy if he's setting fire to oil wells.

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

The last time we used the Patriots the brass said they worked. It turned out they didn't work. Hope they're not exaggerating again.

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

The Catholic Church, which did such a wonderful job protecting Jews during the Holocaust (and more recently the virginity of teenage boys), has lashed out against the war. So has nearly every other church. Had that kind of mindset found a place earlier in history today we'd be saluting swastikas or the hammer-and-sickle.

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

The big-name bloggers seem to spend all day typing, and they expect me to spend all day reading. Finding good new information on the Web is already a needle-in-the-haystack operation, only the haystack's the size of the Milky Way, and these bloggers add to the chore of searching with their endless verbiage. (Some of the worst offenders, I've a hunch, are the much-vaunted war bloggers, as they're already deathless wonks.) Just because USA Okay is bad doesn't mean its guiding principle isn't good: a blogger's presentation should be short, swift, and pungent. Anything else and you have The New York Times.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

The broadcast news types should cede the war coverage to the Web. There's so much of hurry-up-and-wait to this conflict it doesn't make sense to go with a 24-hour feed. All we get are talking heads and Baghdad in the dark through green sunglasses. We had enough of that in Gulf War I, and it was exciting then only because it was the first cable war. We now have other ways of getting our news.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Monica's found her life's calling: as emcee of a reality special on FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

Disney flagship and world-renowned criminal-justice expert Roger "Thumbs" Ebert pouts that no movie-ad-blurb copywriter's won a Pulitzer since 1975 (he).

It's easy to see why. They work above the title.

Note the kind of hacks he wants to see win: the blurb staff at the Times, a Paulette at the Trib -- exactly the kind of scribbler that makes you think "effete snob" when you're not thinking "sycophant."

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

It was worth trying, anyway.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

If we are to protect the rights of celebrities to pontificate on a world stage on subjects of which they know between nada and nil, if actresses are to continue proving through their choice of evening clothes that their profession was once a cousin of prostitution, if movie-ad-blurb copywriters are to continue to have a platform for their best and most impassioned adjectives of toadying, if corporate America's most pompous CEOs are to have a good round of humiliating subordinates, for the sake of wasting money as only corporate America can, for all that's just and right, "SHELVE THE OSCARS®"!!!!!

Some of the pontificators may be listening.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

And in more Mafia- (and Bill Carter-) related news, Twilight ZON gets to torment The Brow a little while longer.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Shower with Ivory in the morning, launch a terrorist attack in the afternoon.

Better not do that, says Dubya. (The latter, that is. Can't stop these former P&G clients from using Ivory.)

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

I don't see why Saddam had to fire missiles at Kuwait, unless it was for old time's sake.

Posted 10:15 PM by Gene

And now the questions are: 1) When will it end? 2) Will we get Saddam? 3) How much air space and how many column inches will the hacks give over to A.N.S.W.E.R., its affiliates and subsidiaries? 4) Will the protestors, the Germans and the French ever apologize?

I think the answers are 1) Soon, we all hope; 2) Yes, we all hope; 3) Lots, and 4), No.

Posted 7:53 PM by Gene

Someone should explain to Justice Scalia that one reason we don't like judges is that they sit on their high chairs all day, in wood-panelled courtrooms like glorified cedar chests, dispensing torrents of densest gobbledygook justifying political decisions, and the moment someone asks them a pertient question they scream back to the hermetic safety of their chambers. Walling yourself off like this to accept a free-speech award (even if only to TV) isn't a good idea, Antonin.

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

Apple Computer's honoring Al Gore's invention of the 'Net by appointing him to its board.

I think we can count on this as a permanent joke.

Posted 6:30 PM by Gene

Regardless of the news from Iraq, I suppose the European press will be spending the whole rest of the week chortling in banner headlines about this spying on the EU. A FRENCH newspaper says (in so many words) WE did it. I don't know about the morality of spying on our putative friends, but given the way some of them have acted lately we could say it was self-defense.

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

A man with eighty-five palaces (or however many it is) is bound to keep them heated with Swiss bank accounts.

You could call it money to burn.

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

Blogger's been working well for the last four or five days. I knew it was too good to last.

They must be "fixing their software" again.

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

Too often good things happen to bad people. Mickey Mouse Michael held his latest shareholders' meeting in Denver in a big snowstorm with 100 people in attendance. The louse was probably singing "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow" as he left Colorado, not a moment too soon.

Posted 4:18 PM by Gene

Ordinarily I pay little attention to these internecine squabbles of political factions, for they are as interesting to me as reading bloggers chewing over a hundred different policy options on Iraq, and just as inducive to sleep, but I will pay attention here (and I fear I give away too much just by typing this): In the latest issue of a leading opinion magazine (in an article posted on its Web site; no link for obvious reasons) a well known conservative writer says one of the leaders of the hate-America antiwar ultraconservative movement (I was scarcely aware of such a movement until I remembered Pat Buchanan) is a professor at my beloved alma mater who's bitter because he was denied a comfy post at a prestigious university and who responded to an unflattering professional assessment of his teaching by exploding on LewRockwell.com. Usnewsitis, an edifice complex and a reactionary professor! Sounds like three strikes to me!

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

Well so long as it looks better than Clinton Funny Money.

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

Someone's put up a fan page for HANS BLIX?!?!?!?!?

"Everybody loves somebody sometime...."

P. S. There's a fan club for Saddam Hussein. But that's satirical. I think.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

Tariq Aziz is alive, well, and living to defend himself in a war-crimes tribunal.

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

Just as people too often slander those they disagree with politically as Nazis, so we tend to denigrate old folks we disagree with politically as senile. It's not fair, and it's not right.

Nonetheless there's no denying, whatever his age, HWWalter Crrronkite is an ass.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

Before Mickey Mouse Michael gets excited about another Best-Picture Oscar® (whoops! Not his company), he should look into this story. That default favorite Chicago with its memorable score (hardy har har) will win because there's nothing to counter it, but to think Singin' in the Rain got two nominations and zero awards? The sense of injustice is palpable. Dan Ackman's put together a pretty good list of movies the Academy® snubbed, but in fairness, it used to be the Best-Picture winners weren't too shabby either. (Fortunately he doesn't detract from his point with Peter Biskind's odious movies-were-better-than-ever-in-the-seventies thesis.)

At any rate, we'll be too busy with war to notice this coronation.

Quick! Which movie won the first Best-Picture Oscar®? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

The more Tiny Tom bangs and screams and cries he wants his bottle, the more the Dems should be concerned about 2004.

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

Oop, now it's really getting serious: No Baba Wawa before the Oscars®.

What if they held an awards ceremony and nobody watched?

I repeat: The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers does it again!

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

Just as Rupert muddies the waters by endorsing war in Iraq, so Cheap Channel fouls the air by sponsoring pro-war rallies. I figure if one can be "patriotic for peace," one can also be patriotic and against Cheap Channel.

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

What is the man Laura Landro called "The Second Coming of Christ" up to?

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

Don't worry, Bill. You'll be discharged from the hospital immediately. Just make sure you stay on the medications.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

How appropriate: "odd shapes and sizes" to go along with odd delivery times.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

The notion that bloggers have discerned "seven camps that opinion leaders have fallen into regarding the war" confirms that many of the most prominent are ultrawonks so focused on policy minutiae as to suffer cataracts. This kind of superthinking is the intellectual equivalent of the parlor games played by news hacks over the Oscars® or the memory overload sports fans suffer rummaging through their what-ifs. It's unnecessary and a big time waster, and it's respected in the news biz.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Reaching out to "Middle America" isn't so much fun when they roll up the red carpet.

The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers does it again!

Somehow I have trouble believing this story in light of the above. Then again, it's highly unlikely the ASWIA members would object.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

How the news biz works on the Web: The Mess (MSNBC) "reports" the loudmouthed Iraqi Minister Tariq "You're from Israel So I Won't Speak to You" Aziz has been "shot." Freepers post it as gospel. Then further word comes that he's escaped. One member says the Mess is "backpeddling" (sic). Now apparently the Mess says he's "missing."

Do not rely for all your news on reporters with one-word names.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

Our troops enter the DMZ surrounding Kuwait. One could say the war started months ago. One could say it started in 1990. This latest action is as good a benchmark as any.

Posted 8:29 PM by Gene

What a sad story. UAL was a double-barreled victim of the holy cockroaches on 9/11, but it's also the victim of a business that cannot make money consistently, and probably never will.

Posted 7:50 PM by Gene

On my first post here (have I been flailing away at this for sixty days?) I mentioned I've written a never-to-be-published satire -- of my college youth (I didn't mention). Yesterday I got the alumni magazine (from a nominally-church-related small college in a mid-Atlantic state), and boy if the old alma mater's still satirical. Too humble when I attended, the college now not only has a very swelled head (an advanced case of usnewsitis, brought on by over-arching presidents) but an edifice complex; it's replaced a perfectly fine cafeteria with a vastly-expanded multi-building student center with 22 restaurants (partly to justify naming one of the buildings for a whoopdedoo newspaper mogul), and it's spending $12 million rebuilding the science complex because otherwise it would look like (to quote a turn of phrase from me) "a bad day in Legoland."

The graduates are just as trying. In its next-to-most-recent rag the school boasted of four recent alums at ESPN. While one (an Emmy winner!!!!!!!!!!) seemed perfectly normal and decent (even posed within the R.U.R. plant at Bristol), two others looked like the kind of cranially-underdeveloped male who spends his whole life playing fantasy baseball, and the fourth looked like a stand-in for John Belushi on the set of Animal House. I suspect I wasn't the only one who noticed.

We know how college has evolved into Club Med for the young (not my line), so it has to have been a very long time since someone at my old alma mater actually learned something. I managed, despite the painful lack of a mentor or a truly close friend. Midst the flashing lights and the creature comforts I'm not sure how others can.

Posted 6:55 PM by Gene

This business of death-penalty moratoriums seems to be gathering speed. I won't argue that the penalty itself isn't quixotically administered, and perhaps many death-row inmates deserve no worse than life without parole, but one suspects there's the same kind of smirk behind these efforts as with the anti-war protests, an underhanded liberal malice, a desire to do something bad solely to confirm your power. Je$$e's ubiquitous presence (not to mention possible Nobel laureate and prison inmate George Ryan's) underlines it.

I believe the death penalty should be limited to multiple murders, political assassinations, and treason. That said, these moratoriums are part of a larger movement to wiggle around the people's support of the death penalty and their duly-elected representatives, and it's still government by egghead, and for those reasons alone, it's dishonest.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

P&G bought control of Wella, the German hair-care company.

I don't know, given this ASWIA member's past support of Hezbollah TV it would have been better off buying L'Oreal.

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

Ted volunteers to report on the Iraq war for CNN, and he's turned down -- as UNQUALIFIED?!?!?

SHAME on AOL!

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

Roger does his country proud.

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

Well, I guess it beats being on the OTHER side.

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

Kayla, even animals wear fur.

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

South Korea's ex-president is under investigation for buying the Nobel Appeasement Prize -- and nobody's listening!

Back to usual with "foreign" news coverage.

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

In Africa, I'm afraid, they call this "redistribution of wealth."

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Two junior wimps join a loony leftist minister out Tony's door. Or as Howell would say, THIS GOVERNMENT HAS NO CREDIBILITY!!!!! Sorta like "The Ballad of Kiesling the Quisling."

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

You may know the card game. But do you know the 'selling-to-kids game'?

I don't, but I think I know the Americans-Go-Unaccountably-Nuts-Over-Japanese-Anime-Characters-With-Adolescent-Faces-Big-Hair-Beady-Eyes-Pug-Noses-and-Microscopic-Lips Game.

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

Peter Arnett to Dodge Bombs in Baghdad -- AGAIN!

I don't know, Petey. From what I hear that may be like dodging raindrops.

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

It appears Roman's Harveyesque "smearing" was self-induced. And in more dubious news from The Scoop, Billy Joel's drinking again (ooooooooooooh-wah a-ooooooooooooh-wah a-oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh-WAH!) By the way, am I the only person to whom Russell Crowe suggests Richard Burton -- minus the looks and the larger-than-life persona?

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

Doot doo doo doo doot doo dooooo doo doo doot! FLASH! WORLD PEACE COUNCIL RUNS ANTI-WAR PROTESTS!! PRESS GOES INTO DE NILE!!! Doot doo doo doo doot doo dooooo doo doo doot!

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

Could there be any doubt, with that puffy, bureaucratic, uninteresting, dead face, that Hans Blix would "join Neville Chamberlain in history’s procession of great buffoons"?

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Since when is knocking The Osama Channel off the air a bad thing? (It's a very bad thing if you're the boss of Lewis "Iron-Poor Tired Blood" Lapham. Lewis! Take Geritol and FEEL STRONGER FAST!)

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

Another big stupid: amateur drag racing. When I lived in Lancaster, Pa. two high-school or college-age girls were killed sleeping on what they thought was an unopened stretch of new highway. They were killed by drag racers. These crooks have even less intelligence than motorcyclists, who think sporting a Harley logo gives them class. (Of course, they think tattoos are classy too.)

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

The next big Legendary Welching: Firing domestic workers and replacing them with Indians -- as in the Subcontinent. They already do most of Corporate America's customer service, in India. Hey, that's even better than incorporating in Bermuda, the immortal act of management genius committed by Dennis "Little Welch the Crooked Jimmy Durante Impersonator" Kozlowski.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

A hack named Vinegar begs for a movie job. His prone position assures he'll get it. (Sometimes relying on ArtsJournal.com for these links is like a bad cup of coffee in the morning, or turning on your ISP connection and seeing a rotten headline. Could we choose better, folks?)

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Let's come right down to it: An industry like theater that puts out nothing but revivals deserves eviscerated orchestras.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

Good job, morons! You've defaced an international landmark (with red paint), cost someone hundreds of thousands to clean up your mess, and have inspired psychos to do things on tops of buildings -- all so you could throw your tantrum against Dubya. (Obviously the news hacks approved; an AOL typist chuckles it's a "wartime paint job," and another for an unidentified news service calls it "daring." Let's see somebody do an unauthorized paint job on your car. Or better yet, let's see someone do the same thing at CNN Center. It might improve the looks of that Lego fortress.)

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

I don't know who wrote his speech, but Dubya said what he had to say. I know his foes, though, will harp as always on his pronunciation of "nucular."

Posted 7:12 PM by Gene

This article on Chicago's Graffiti Blasters project should remind us once and for all that graffiti isn't about art. It's about gangs. It's about anarchists. It's about crime.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Graydon concedes war in Iraq may be more important.

By the way, do movies nowadays give people "a respite"?

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

ING, the company that plasters all those cute orange ads over the Web, that promises spectacular yields of about two percent, that opened a financial cafe in my town (!), has announced a $14 billion writedown from insurance operations. Figures.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

A typically modern tragedy in which there are no heroes: Yesterday a young American "peace activist" died as she attempted to stop an Israeli bulldozer from knocking down a house in the Gaza Strip. Soon afterward pictures appeared of her burning a child's representation of an American flag. Through all this Freepers danced on her grave though she hadn't been buried yet. How typical of our debased age. No heroes.

Posted 12:21 PM by Gene

Morons like this who think they're being immortal with their "iconoclasm" should ponder what's happened to Mencken's rep. Let's just say it went down when it came out that he regarded Hitler as an inconvenience rather than a pestilence, that his nastiness was a mere personal blemish, that in the end he was on the right side of history. Who wants to read Mencken anymore? And I was once a fan of his. At least he could write on occasion; he didn't merely string together adjectives and hates.