Posted 8:27 PM by Gene

Calvin Klein, a godfather of Studio 54, eating disorders in models and sleaze in advertising, is seeking treatment for drug abuse. Again.

No further comment, because then I'd turn libelous.

Posted 7:01 PM by Gene

Double when the Beeb declares in mournful tones that the ELITE Republican Guard is finished.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

When a Saudi government mouthpiece runs this story, Saddam's history.

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

PICTURE OF THE WEEK:



A US Army vehicle from the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, smashes a mosaic of Saddam Hussein outside the Iraqi Republican Guard Medina Division headquarters south of Baghdad. (AP Photo)

Posted 4:26 PM by Gene

Screwy subhead of the week, on CBS.MarketWatch.com:

There's no guarantee of a surge if SARS replaces Saddam as the foe.

This to a story by Marshall "WE WIN! WE WIN!" Loeb.

Posted 4:09 PM by Gene

NOTICE: From now on I may excerpt from articles I post, though I'd rather not; most of my links are widely posted elsewhere, no doubt, and it takes time to cut and paste things, and excerpts add length to a blog (see last post). But I find many of my older posts have expired (usually disappearing into paid archives), and without links my comments may be hard to decipher. Not that the two people who accidentally find me on any given day may care, but it seems to be SOP with blogs.

Posted 4:00 PM by Gene

Things bloggers do to make themselves unreadable (continued):

8. Post monthly archives. If a blogger posts a lot, this means you have to wait and wait and wait for the archive to download, and then you have to scroll and scroll and scroll to read everything. (Biggest offender: littlegreenfootballs, an otherwise solid blog.)

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

Iraqi TV may have almost as big a library as AOL.

But not as valuable.

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

This picture was taken just today outside our army HQ in Germany.

I guess we can call it instant nostalgia. (And many other things.)

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

If only they'd had time, the Iraqis could have plastered "BABY MILK FACTORY" all over the building in English.

And Peter Arnett would have believed it again.

Heck, they could have plastered "SCHOOL FOR GIRLS" all over the building in English. What cares Peter?

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

North Korea will "ignore" the League of Nations re its nuclear program.

That's okay. The rest of the world has done it for decades.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

Finally, FINALLY, the British are moving to deport the infamous holy cockroach Abu Hamza.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Another reason to support Saddam Hussein!

Of course, we could call this a massacre....

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

QUAGMIRE!!!!!

Hardy har har.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

Here's a name to remember: Gen. Jay Garner. He'll be the MacArthur of Iraq.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

An assistant to Iraq's information minister cries over the soldiers we've killed.

Wait a second! I thought your soldiers were still all alive!

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

This sort of news will have hard-core conservatives going BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM, but for all its touchy-feely warm-'n'-fuzzy jes-folks manners Wal-Mart couldn't have become a totalitarian republic without cutting moral corners, and this is just one more version.

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

While I'm all for it, I'd say the chances of removing gambling from professional college sports are about the same as the chances of removing the "gaming" industry from the revered halls of Congress (pffh-hh-hh).

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

OoooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooh! The CIA's intelligence on Baghdad is weak!

These same people watched the BBC to get their word from "the street." Shut up, Langley.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

I recall how Ho-WAHD Co-SELL got riled over color commentators who turned sports into nuclear physics. As he said (and I paraphrase), the only thing that matters is "the team with more points wins." Well, if the news hacks haven't quagmired and uprisinged and sandstormed and unilateralled all over the place, and trotted out ten thousand retired generals who've saluted their navels for years, and given us maps and charts and graphics and green sunglasses, and millions of bits of information of no use, and if the whole point isn't the same: the team that captures the flag wins. All the rest is bull.

Posted 8:03 AM by Gene

When do we arrest the logorrheic Iraqi information minister?

Wanna bet he clams up during his war-crimes trial?

Posted 8:00 AM by Gene

Another surrender by the ELITE Republican Guard! HAH!

Posted 7:56 AM by Gene

WE'RE THERE!

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

Among the ethical quandaries of our time: We invaded Iraq. Could we invade Cuba?

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

Very fitting: Another Eisner lieutenant resigns -- to run Herbalife. (I needn't mention Meg "Pronounced Mug" Whitman.) Bob Iger says it's a testimony to Disney's "bench depth." I say it's testimony to Mickey Mouse Michael wanting to run the whole company by himself.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

He just informed me too that one of the idiots at StaliMedia called Michael Kelly a Nazi.

This is why the pro-Saddam forces are beneath contempt, but we must face it: after the war, they'll still be teaching, they'll still be acting, they'll still be scribbling, they'll still be protesting.

P. S. Yes, it occurs to me, this might be amateur Web psyops (itself a definition of, GET A LIFE!); and I should have had qualms posting it. Either way, it stinks.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Okay, okay, I surrender Professor, you gave me this idea, I'll post it too:



Like I said.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

I'm of two minds about the knock-down drag-out fight over Georgia's flag. I understand why people get upset; it's so PC, it's so let's-cave-in, it's so typically liberal. On the other hand, the Confederates endorsed slavery and engaged in treason. Some Southerners refuse to admit the most obvious fact, too: their side lost.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

I don't think this was a kiddie chemistry set.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

You mean we're not supposed to put tail between legs and hide?

WHAT WILL THE STREET THINK?!? (chuckle chuckle)

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Translation: Norm's trying to make AOL Time Warner magazines more aggressively bad.

Not that he needs to do much.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Rummy! RUMMY! RETARGET!!!!!

Just kidding.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

I saw the light, yeahhhhhh, I saw the light!

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

This is Reuters's (Your Terrorists May Be Their Freedom Fighters!™) way of saying, we don't trust the public to sort through the information itself. Sure clue: It cites centrist perfesser Todd Gitlin.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Oooooooooooh! Dubya's quarantining for SARS! Oooooooooooooooh!

I think it's because it can be spread by Wal-Mart.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

You heard it here first! The airport named for Saddam is now Baghdad International!!!!!

Take THAT, Prof. InstaPundit!

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Ooooooooooops! Looks like Altria MOtive Foods, proud sponsor of The Osama Channel, is in the ciggie biz after all!

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Good news for The Osama Channel, good news for Robin Williams, good news for International S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S., good news for the Dixie Chicks, good news for Michael Moore, good news for Prof. Holocaust! SADDAM LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

Dreadful. Michael Kelly was killed in a Humvee accident in Iraq. He was among the most intelligent and energetic of columnists, and he single-handedly revived The Atlantic Monthly. Now we have even less succor with our daily news.

We'll win this one in your memory too.

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

THE LALA TIMES CONDEMNS GRAFFITI?!?!?

As Jack Benny would say, "Wwwwwwwwwell!"

Posted 7:01 AM by Gene

VEE HAD NOZING TO DOO WEE DAHT!!!!! -- and wee're sorrrrry.

Posted 6:33 AM by Gene

It's time to unearth Tom Lehrer's song about "old Meh-HEE-co" again.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

If the folks at Egyptian TV believe The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is true, then they should have every reason to report we've massacred thousands.

Go for it! And let's see what it gets your country in foreign aid.

Posted 6:18 AM by Gene

Peter Arnett's on Belgian TV, telling the citizens of that Quisling-like nation how Saddam will win the war.

Likely story.

Posted 6:15 AM by Gene

2,500 of the ELITE Republican Guard have surrendered to the Marines! HAH!

Posted 6:14 AM by Gene

We'll run the post-war oil industry -- and if we don't, we'll scream and cry and yell and tell mommy.

If they couldn't get the WMDs out of Iraq, they can't run the oil industry either.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

I went to a boxing match and a basketball game broke out.

Sort of.

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

Iraq is the world's problem. The U.S. is fixing it. Nobody else will.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

The British royal family used to be YOUR BOSSES, Jacques!

Curtsey when you say that!

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Pearl Jam never did taste too good.

"Duh, we support the troops but, duh, uh, we don't support their uh, commander-in-, uh, the commander-in-, uhhhhhh, the uhhhhhh, the guy who gives the orders, so uh, I guess, duh, I guess we don't support the troops, duhhhhhhhh."

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

An AYATOLLAH supports US?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

An IRAQI ayatollah.

You're DEAD MEAT, Saddam. (Assuming you haven't been at room temperature for a while already.)

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE?!?!?

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Back when there was an MGM (the current version is the old United Artists) Louis B. Mayer actively courted Germans and fascists until it no longer paid to do so. Now Robin Williams does the same thing with Saddamites, only it's "hip." Suddenly, however, show-biz sees gold in them thar Pvt. Lynchs. Why should we trust Hollywood's politics at any time?

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

The Playmates are surgically- (and digitally-) improved and the articles have anorexia. Who needs Playboy?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

But will they welcome RUPERT?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Doot doo doot do do doo doo do do doot! FLASH! SADDAM'S MUSIC VIDEOS WERE TAPED BEFORE THE WAR! Doot doo doot do do doo doo do do doot!

I guess the people who said I told you so can now say I told you so again.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Little resistance at Saddam (soon to be Baghdad) International!

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

Count on news hacks to try to snatch PC victory from the jaws of "defeat."

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

Norman Schwarzkopf says racial quotas are good.

Norman Schwarzkopf said war in Iraq was BAD.

Hey Norm, just because you were a war hero and appeared on TV doesn't mean you know anything.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Teddy Roosevelt might not have fought this way, but Teddy wasn't fighting with The Osama Channel looking over his shoulder. Men might have prevented more wars with a little such common sense. No imperial visions after all.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

Now that a BBC reporter's found one of Saddam's torture dungeons, does that mean he'll be fired?

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

Iraqi Troops on Verge of Collapse

Meantime, where's Saddam?

Posted 7:40 PM by Gene

Well, er, um, uh, eh....

How do you say "jerks" in German?

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

A warning: After the war, the naysayers, the cretins, the millions endorsing Saddam, will offer not one word of apology. Why? They will say the war was unjustly waged for a just cause, or they will once again find justification for force only through the League of Nations and its fraudulent platitudes, or they will speak of national pride in standing up to the big fat American bully, or they will rationalize that they reenergized the "peace" movement, a waste energy quickly spent. On Saddam the silence will be deafening. Not one will speak of coddling a dictator in the name of a some non-existent higher cause, not one will speak praise for national liberation, not one will apologize for endorsing mass murders and depradations by proxy, not one will apologize to the Iraqis themselves, or for their quarter-century of enslavement. The appeacers will only honor themselves with an indefinite moment of silence. They must be pushed and challenged at every turn, and shamed for their treachery, even though they be shameless.

Posted 7:02 PM by Gene

20 MILES!!!!!!!!!!

They shor are fast, Rummy!

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Just the thing -- "psychic insulation" in war.

Now if only we could psychically insulate ourselves from our enemies -- like France, Germany, Turkey, Canada....

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Pvt. Lynch, we can't get you back a moment too soon.

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

Come HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME, America!!!!!

Go home, George.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Vivendi, the French megalomania, may pay $2.7 billion to the IRS and it won't hurt?

What planet do they live on? France?

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Wait a sec, I thought they hated us!

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

I hate stories like this -- they serve no purpose but to upset people -- but I post it because the likely perps of this crime and similar others would give as the reason they did it, "Duh, Idunno."

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

"Rush" Hayworth's called on Prof. Holocaust to resign.

I'm sure the perfesser's quaking in his Hush Puppies.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Really, we ought to try the Saddamites, but let's throw a bone to his many supporters overseas and have the tribunals in the Hague. We'll have plenty of time for recrimination.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

WALTER WINCHELL SENSATIONALIZES, EXAGGERATES, PULLS $3M A YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Actually, it's 800 grand, but if he can do it, so can I.)

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

A fly in the ointment: I'm sure this name bandied about to run Iraq's postwar oil industry is as good a choice as any, but couldn't we choose someone from a company without a record of human-rights violations? Or is this Vice-President Inside's idea?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Well, er, um, uh, eh....

Remember them on our s-list.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Nothing like a good golf game on the way to Baghdad!

Just watch out for that sandtrap.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

30 MILES TO BAGHDAD!!

HERE WE COME, SADDAMITES!!

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

Okay, you don't like Dubya, Maggie, but what have you Canadians given us? SCTV, the Mackenzie Brothers, "EH?", and what else? Ty Burr and the rock groupies otherwise, culture hasn't been in the bloom of health anywhere for awhile. Certainly not in a nation whose sports are hockey and beating up on the U. S.

Sinclair Lewis had a great line: "I love this country -- and I don't like it!" When did you remove the last self-critical bones in your being, Canadians? Is all you can do harp on us?

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

Ty Burr's ARTISTS OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!

Who needs the man who did "The Naked Maya," right Ty?

Posted 7:12 AM by Gene

Market hunts Hussein

The last time I looked, Wall Street wasn't a bloodhound. It was just a dog.

Posted 7:01 AM by Gene

So typical of Rupert: This story notes that "only a third of the French felt that they were on the same side as the Americans and British," so what does Rupert do? He screams, "ONE IN THREE FRENCH WANTS SADDAM TO WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

SHUT UP, Rupert.

FOLLOW UP (posted 4/5): EARTH TO GENE, EARTH TO GENE -- Rupert was right, for once. Read before commenting, you ignoramus. (I have not taken this down as a sign of my own fallibility, although I think this is only the second or third outright boner I've pulled since I started blogging. My only excuse is that I was about to leave for work. That's no excuse -- the Professor blogs during classes. I won't do this again.)

Posted 6:58 AM by Gene

Why not? Australians and Brits are the best Rupert yes-men.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

As College Basketball for Dummies reaches its climax, how apt that North Carolina's coach resigns. The Tarheels' boosters and other greedmeisters know if they don't do something fast, their "program" (code word for scam) is headed to "oblivion" (i.e., relative obscurity and no Dickie V) -- just like UNLV's after Tark the Jark.

You can do it up with flowers and lace, but still, this has been a bad year for the collegiate professionals.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

Now it's "paint primer."

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

Surprise, our pro-Saddam movement has foundation help -- mostly hippies and lefties, to be sure, but enough to salute the Iraqi flag profitably.

Posted 6:40 AM by Gene

The honest thing would be to nationalize the airlines, rather than give them government infusions of cash. That seems to be the way we're headed anyway.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

The rest of the world views the war through the glasses of pink-tinted news hacks.

It will be a long time before we can look at the rest of the world through pink-tinted glasses.

A special thanks to Marco of USA Okay for noting Todd Gitlin is a leftist. I presume Maggie is the same. News hacks can live without an audience.

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

This will happen when a billion people live in constant heat and humidity.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

Is it possible to believe any longer that a few missing tiles doomed Columbia?

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

A good question, Bob Beckel: Why do so many Democrats oppose the war? Perhaps Dubya-hatred explains it, but didn't love of country once trump such things? WHY DO SO MANY DEMOCRATS OPPOSE THE WAR?

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

For the fool Europeans, this, if done properly, could be the equivalent of spitting into a gale.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

How many times must people say it: the antiwar protestors de facto support Saddam. That, and the wonders occasioned by the last great antiwar movement, are why the forces of right are in the pits.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

The Frisco Chronicle ran THIS?!?!?

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

No one can ever tell true believers they're wrong.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

Hey dolts, there's always MECCA COLA!!!!!

I cannot believe how many people support Saddam! I'll ask again: has the rest of the world had a nervous breakdown? Or just a breakdown?

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Common sense comes to baseball, but it took Honorary Mayor Mike and New York's state attorney general to bring it. Wanna bet at one point George and the Cablevision Dolans said, "We're bigger than the law"?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

People who think Dick Gephardt's a weathervane obviously haven't seen Joe "Conscience" Lieberman campaign.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Please, Saddam, if you're still alive, surrender, before they come and get us!

By the way, LALA Times, since when has it been "Saudia Arabia"?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

One of the things I love about Blogger is the way it goes, Ta-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! As in, Ta-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! You just lost your connection -- and your latest post.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Hey, if GM's going to build junky cars maybe it ought to just give them away!

You giving a special discount to al-Jazeera viewers, Big G?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Well, if he can't make an address they can always summon his ghost. But I won't join those who say he's dead because we've been unpleasantly surprised before.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Those aghast at the notion of government trying to legislate morality may ponder this bill. Couldn't these things be handled as simple assaults?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Of course it's in Iraq's interest to spread rumors that we want to negotiate an end to the war -- anything to keep Saddam and his henchmen in power.

NO SALE.

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.