Posted 8:49 PM by Gene

But the ears have popped deafeningly open for this one. The nice thing about it is that it exposes conSERvatives as mendacious, hypocritical, etc., etc., etc., vices liberals and news hacks are ENTIRELY incapable of. That's news hackery; saying "I told you so" to yourself.

Which gets more column inches: Saddam and his al Qaeda links, or Strom's love child? I'd like to hear THE TIMES' PUBLIC EDITOR answer that one.

Posted 8:38 PM by Gene

Iraq's governing council unearths evidence of Saddam's involvement with al Qaeda, and the news hacks' fingers move more firmly into their ears.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

Another reason people should not have to pay for news.

You heard of CGI, moron?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

I'm happy that some of those anti-terrorist demonstrators got their message out, Buzz T. Newhouse; problem is, they got it out to The Weekly Standard, which RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! owns; and meantime, people who are probably closer in sympathy to most news hacks are running (as you admit, Buzz) a Web site to raise money for the "resistance." This won't make the message dispensing any easier.

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

As I rather predicted, HBO's Beltway high-school play closed a few performances early. The public can see through these phonies. The phonies can't.

(The network also admits another of its series is "obtuse." Thankfully the HBO audience is obtuse enough to shell out several hundred a year for obtuseness.)

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

I just discovered this: KnightRidder's Washington bureau has its own Web site, which makes hash of the notion that the big chains run LOCAL papers.

Posted 4:40 PM by Gene

H&R Block, one of the many companies pouring more money down the toi...SUPER BOWL so its senior executives can say, "I WAS AT THE SUPER BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!", is (natch) being investigated by the SEC for kickbacks. FREE ENTERPRISE AT WORK!

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

I promise this is the last time I mention AUDREY'S MONSTER, until I post my letter to Hershey's chairman: but a film like this didn't just flop at the theaters (and yes, I said FLOP, because this was supposed to be one of those Lucas Spielberg-style megahits; it may not make even $100 million now); it flopped with every @#$%&* consumer-products firm that financed it, that's stuck with untold millions of inventory tied in to it, and that now must swallow hard on the loss. And all this corporate waste happened with little more than OKs on memos, memos that probably had little more than a couple of production stills and perhaps a paragraph of synopsis; and because the CEOs (or somebody) said they HAD to be in this picture and RUSH RUSH RUSH to beat deadlines, that meant spending zillions blindly, with nothing more to work with than some innocuous studio art. When the people who go to movies saw the overwhelming MARKETING, then saw the used cat litter on screen, what were they supposed to think? One wonders if the losses on this corporate vanity will be big enough to trigger layoffs. (The problem was, it used to be just toy companies took the risk on licensing deals; now practically the whole Fortune 500 does.) If you could get an honest answer from the idiot CEOs who financed this if they had ANY idea what their blessed movie was like, they'd say "NO." This will be a classic b-school case study of how excessive marketing combined with willful ignorance created a show-biz BOMB.

P. S. From Ranesh Ponnuru on NRO's "The Corner":

There seem to be a lot of ads recently that are selling several products. Many of them involve the Cat in the Hat. The whole trend should be liquidated.

Case closed.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

One gets the sense that Minghella is attempting to create a movie designed not for audiences, but for Oscar consideration. Prestige actors with Academy track records? Check. Literary pedigree? Check. Epic canvas? Check. Tragic second and third acts, but an epilogue designed to maximize box office prospects? Check. Studio backing from Miramax? Check.

No doubt Minghella will achieve this goal--"Cold Mountain" is as close to a sure thing as there is for a Best Picture nomination. But it may leave you feeling a bit used.

You should know, Jonathan, movies aren't made for audiences anymore.

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

Tell your friends: Wednesday is "Airport Customer Appreciation Day," which means ruder ticket agents, longer security checks and more lost baggage, and maybe an extra bag of peanuts to quell the munchies. And how apt that somebody decorated the link on the front page of PRNewswire with a photo that shows the World Trade Center. That'll get people into the spirit.

Posted 11:17 AM by Gene

Sorry Neil, more CEOs man the luxury booths at the (fill in the blank with the name of a boring championship sports event) than man the phones. IT'S THE FREE-ENTERPRISE WAY.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

Another headline only Lollipop Lou Dobbs or Larry "Greed" Kudlow would love:

Funeral industry measures flu threat
So far, epidemic hasn't spread to death care stocks

Double shucks.

Oh -- and is that our new euphemism for undertakers: "DEATH CARE PROVIDERS"?

Posted 8:05 AM by Gene

And in other totalitarian news, it looks at if the transnational dictatorship of EU will have to wait until another day. Shucks.

Posted 8:02 AM by Gene

The "strongman" of Azerbaijan and for the oil companies has died, leaving the family business to his son. Just like in the old Soviet days, except that the son usually got only the spoils.

Posted 7:58 AM by Gene

The ENTOMOLOGISTS have IMPROVED MESS.com so now you have to look and scroll and look and scroll and look and scroll to find the stories! NICE GOING, BUGS!

Posted 7:55 AM by Gene

In the upside-down, left-is-r, er, some-other-direction world of The New York Times, what's bad is not that this sculpture of Rev. King doesn't look like him (it doesn't), it's that -- "THE SCULPTOR IS WHITE." BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Shouldn't we have waited for this "story" until his holiday?

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

King Richard says:

PR WORKS!

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Earth's magnetic field weakens 10 percent

Does this mean anything? Mostly, judging from the text, no -- unless you're a satellite or living in the South Atlantic. Yet this got posted on the front page of USA Okay's site. This and the endless bowel movements about PARIS go together.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

The CHICKEN League of Nations now intends to leave Afghanistan screaming.

And these are the idiots who lectured us about Iraq. If we turned those two countries over to the League we'd get two new Muslim Joe Stalins -- which would be fine at the Puzzle Palace on the East River.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

So much for Vice-President Inside's connections.

OR:

...[A] breakdown of fuel costs, contained in Army Corps documents recently provided to Democratic Congressional investigators and shared with The New York Times....

If CheneyCorp, er, HALLIBURTON fleeced the government, of course it should pay. But this isn't about greedy corporate America cheating us; this is about A DEMOCRAT FOR PRESIDENT.

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

Building the Millennium Dome, knighting Andrew Lloud Wubbish, knighting Elton, knighting Mick -- does all England do anymore is pat itself on the back to compensate for the loss of empire?

And how appropriate that Mick was knighted by Charlie, who also knows a few things about doing -- er, women.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Buying houses for college-age kids to use as personal dorm rooms sounds like another fad whose only outcome is to hasten bankruptcy. Why must getting a job (and that's the sole purpose of college anymore) cost so much?

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

Comparing Genomes Shows Split Between Chimps and People

I should hope; otherwise we'd all be eating bananas and gooing oo-AH-oo-AH.

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

Well, here's which CEOs will be in the luxury boxes this time: the CEOs of (BIG drum roll, please) -- the Clunker Brothers, TWX, PepsiCo, Monster.com, Walkoverya, er, Watchoverya, er, Wachovia, H&R Block, RadioShack (CLASSIC Dilbertspell), and many others, and they'll ALL say the following day, a Monday:

I WAS AT THE SUPER BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!!!!!!

And after the game maybe they can donate a few bucks to President DAMN!'s campaign.

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

No one seems to know who originated the phrase, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the whole world becomes blind and toothless." But Pakistan seems well on the way to the phenomenon.

"This is an Islamic way of doing justice," said the judge. I'll agree with the first part.

And no, I didn't find it on lgf. Let's see if and when he posts it.

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

President DAMN! had a thing for TAX BREAKS FOR BIG BUSINESS while he was governor!

Does that make him a SOUTH PARK -- forget it.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

Another of the news hacks' imperishable stories that could have been written in one sentence:

Tolkien's Women is one of those titles that always appears on hypothetical lists of World's Shortest Books....

Adolescent fantasy indeed.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

BMG, Sony nearing completion of music deal-sources

Five...FOUR....

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

Perhaps the news hacks who treat our involvement in Iraq as a psychotic fantasy with our folks as the bad guys might have shut up if they'd been in the same Humvee as Michael Weisskopf.

Alas, no; those bozos will still sit at the bar at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, sipping their Perriers, and daydreaming.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

The NBA:

The teams scored 55 points in the first two periods, the fewest two-team total since the shot clock was introduced in the 1954-55 season.

EXCITEMENT!!!!!

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Finally, in Lower Manhattan, the sight of a construction crane.

Let's roll!

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

As Prime Minister Cretin steps down, it appears we're letting our enemies in on the deal after all. Well, live and let live.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

The Yankees' fans are in an uproar that their ace left -- but wasn't it several days ago when GEORGE raised ticket prices 2000 PERCENT? It wasn't enough.

As one of the Nine Fingers in the Wind said the other day (but not as well), money follows the path of least resistance. So do professional athletes.

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

PILLHEAD had -- a PLAN!

He should have planned on not being a junkie.

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

Chinese premier promises more U.S. imports

Pffh-hh-hh-hh!

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

Meantime NASA still can't fix the Jalopy in flight. Scrap it and start over!

Posted 7:40 PM by Gene

Probation -- Don't Ya Know It!

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

A Pentagon audit of Halliburton, the oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney....

Pentagon auditors found that Vice President Dick Cheney's former company....

Bias? What bias?

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

More brilliant political oratory:

"The Democratic bird doesn't fly with one wing. It needs all its wings.''

And that's the problem, Sen. Morals: this turkey has so many wings it can't fly.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Cholly Rangel's endorsing Gen. (formerly President) McClellan -- because he loves HAHlem!

I guess that means he pulls the troops from Iraq too.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Well well well! PINCH, the SAME Pinch who believes (theoretically, anyway) that campaign spending should be cut to ZERO, intends (with like-minded friends) to "pounce on political ads" -- because newspapers are (get this) MORE BELIEVABLE.

Pffh-hh-hh-hh-hh ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

They'll send the Orbiting Jalopy back into space -- with debris sensors. That's a load off my mind.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

I want that goof Mitch McConnell to tell people with a straight face that fundraising's a problem now.

Posted 10:36 AM by Gene

The spin respins: now somebody claims a WACKO stooge was at THE HEARING!

This is getting to be worse than OJ.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! becomes CLUSTER BOMBS!

And THE CIA ran those demonstrations.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Harvard, a mutual fund that runs a university, may pay two of its fund managers $30 MILLION to $40 MILLION EACH! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

The Eliot Spitzer types should look into this.

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Battery -- Ya Know It!

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

It appears now that nobody knows what to do about Ground Zero, vastly heightening the likelihood that New Yorkers will be stuck with a white elephant and a mausoleum.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

U.S. allies threaten retaliation for Pentagon decision to ban war critics from contracts

This is where GENERAL comes in, sighhhhhhhhhhhh.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

Here's another story you can read without reading:

What surfers search for: the top 100

Let me guess: Britney, sex, Michael Jackson, sex, JLo, sex, plus a few screwy terms that may allow them to run videogames on their PCs faster. We forget the Web audience is predominantly young -- and stupid.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

Prof was mad enough to post at 5 in the morning because the news hacks are imposing a blackout on anti-terrorist demonstrations in Iraq. We should all get mad. But this kind of blackout confirms just who has the power. Yes Prof, your blogging army has the peashooters -- and the news hacks have the nukes.

P. S. I suspect one reason news hacks are imposing the blackout is that they think our side organized the protests. But what if our side didn't? And does it make these protests unworthy even if our side did? No, you have to be one of the good guys to get a battalion of ENGs into the field. Bloggers have the peashooters; news hacks have the nukes.

Posted 6:17 AM by Gene

"Soft money is not gone — it has just changed its address."

Will we send the fundraising junk mail there? Or will we come courting personally as usual?

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Speaking of show-biz:

Pregnant Gwyneth, Rocker Reported to Have Married

I'd call this a shotgun wedding, but in show-biz, they hate guns.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Nicole: 'No Marriage' to Kravitz

I'm still available.

Our favorite PR man also says WACKO's alleged victim's mother went "shrink shopping." Where's the white flag?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

LONDON (AP) Police arrested a man found in the grounds of Buckingham Palace Wednesday in what they said appeared to be a drunken prank.

This is unjust! He was only doing illegally what the royals do legally.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

In its latest floundering EisnerCorp Network decides it's going to be "the family channel."

Given MICKEYMOUSE NIXON'S definition of "family" I'd say it's going to be mighty dysfunctional.

Posted 2:29 PM by Gene

Nixon on Reagan: 'Strange, not pleasant to be around'

Hey Tricky, I'll bet you weren't the life of the party when you started talking to the portraits on the White House walls.

Posted 2:24 PM by Gene

Line of the Week, about Dubya-hating ciggie-smoking Graydon Carter and his Vanity Fair:

[W]e got so lost fumbling through the Tommy Hilfiger and Coach ads we completely forget what we were reading by the time we found the jump page. Maybe that's why Adweek named Carter Editor of the Year in a 4,600-word profile back in March.

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

Hmm, perhaps one of THE SUPERPOWERS OF BLOGGING has a point. Maybe there's no case against that Muslim chaplain; maybe there's no case against WACKO. Anyone who criticized the former on no more than prosecution press releases (and I must include my gullible self) should eat humble pie. On WACKO I'm a little more prejudiced; no one told him to engage in twenty years' worth of publicity stunts. But as the saying goes, innocent until proven guilty, even if in modern America (and especially on the Web) it no longer holds.

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

Hey ASWIA! Here's a new way to waste your money, lower your market share and cause enough turnover in customer service you can relocate it to India: CRAM MORE ADS ONTO MOVIE SCREENS!

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News just announced (through its friends the Freepers) that Bob Bartley has died.

I'm almost afraid to say this: was there cheering at the Wall Street Journals Liberal Edition?

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

ROY has started a Web site. It should answer the question: Is the Internet little more than a pinprick?

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

That flushing sound you hear is the TWXsters throwing tens of millions down the toilet on THE GREATEST ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT OF ALL TIME.

Do most people want to watch a six-hour tantrum about AIDS?

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

GEORGE WILL! THE NINE FINGERS IN THE WIND UPHELD THE MOST EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL LAW SINCE THE BIRTH OF THE REPUBLIC! THIS WILL RANK WITH SUCH IGNOMINIES AS DRED SCOTT AND PLESSY v. FERGUSON! THIS WILL....

Look at it this way, George. You get to KEEP more of your millions. You may need them for all the meds.

P. S. The Freepers are attempting mass suicide. They should remember that most of the soft money that supports their favorites goes to -- where? Robin Hood, to distribute to the rich? Does it turn into clouds that deliver the rain that waters the trees that grow money? IT GOES TO BROADCASTERS, who then use the money to finance (among other things) THE UNHOLY NEWS DIVISIONS AND THAT TRIUMVIRATE OF LIES, DAN, TOM AND PEE-TAH. They should remember THAT before they seek out psychiatrists.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

I think because of undying moments like John Cappelletti's Heisman Trophy acceptance speech we regard sports a lot higher than we should. Oh well, there used to be class acts in the biz.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

Nations protest U.S. ban on Iraq bids

NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAAAAAAAAAAAH-NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

HIGH PAYMENTS TO HALLIBURTON FOR FUEL IN IRAQ!!!!!

OR:

...[A] breakdown of fuel costs, contained in Army Corps documents recently provided to Democratic Congressional investigators and shared with The New York Times....

I wonder if they'd have admitted this before the PUBLIC EDITOR.

P. S. The C-WORD appears once.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Nancy Reagan doesn't like the idea of replacing FDR on the dime. (Of course this is BURIED in the NRO piece.) Good going, Nancy.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

Abercrombie and Fitch has decided to deep-six its porno rag permanently. I don't know if it was the pressure groups or the tanking sales, and I don't care -- for once big business does the right thing, however dubiously.

Or maybe they saw what happened to Penthouse.

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

The Army, for once not caving to news hacks, has decided it won't court-martial that officer who did what he shouldn't have done to extract a confession that stopped an enemy raid and saved our soldiers' lives. Now the hacks can spend all day fuming, pffh-hh-hh. (Not that they pay attention to the Washington Times, mind you.)

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

You liberals didn't want prohibition? But isn't that what you got?

Posted 6:19 AM by Gene

Cheney faces heat for ‘canned hunt’

Tally-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

For what it's worth -- not much -- a link of mine appears at number one in the breaking news column of Technorati. It isn't my first time in the breaking news column either. Am I that bad?

Posted 7:57 PM by Gene

A NEW GoogleBlogger innovation: if the "Posts" window has been open for several hours but you haven't placed an entry on it, the moment you do -- voila! You have to sign in again! And after you sign in again you find -- THE ENTRY YOU WANTED TO ENTER DIDN'T ENTER!

Yeah, you're worth fifty billion, GOOGLE -- fifty billion Soviet rubles.

Posted 7:55 PM by Gene

ANOTHER filmic masterpiece in the making:

The latest buzz around DreamWorks Pictures is that Jerry Seinfeld will write, produce and star in an animated film set in the world of bees.

The studio announced Tuesday that Seinfeld will begin work on a film titled "Bee Movie."

I'm getting tired of saying "nuf said." NUF SAID.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

Past ages could produce great art. Our age must explain it. Perhaps this explains why our age produces no great art (ad-blurb copywriters to the contrary).

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

Why am I thinking the criminal charges against the CRETINS are glorified revenge?

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

This will get the righteous going: Only 8 Iraqi scientists remain in U.S. custody. The war was still right.

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

I gather from the comments of three of the Oppressive Big Four of Blogging that David Brooks may be their next obsession. The man seems to have defined the word dweeb; he wants to say something but has an elaborate jokey style that permits him to say nothing. He shows up on the thumbsucker shows and C-SPAN a lot, which further defines him. Between Brooks and Tucker Carlson I'd say RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has unleashed two genuine menaces in PunditLand.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

As if to disprove the notion that you can't be in two places at once (in NRO anyway) Larry Kudlow (writing under the name Rich Lowry) says America must destroy jobs to save them.

What he meant was...never mind.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Unknown Harrison Ford With No Future

It does look that way, doesn't it.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

More evidence that TWX is letting its ISP rot; it's laying off 450 employees, most in software development, which may be a concession TWX ISP can only load so many bugs in its BLOATWARE.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

The Queen of Maudlin Sleaze is LARRY'S GUEST tonight, which means I'm absolutely right: she wouldn't appear if Larry asked tough questions.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

The former senator Paul Simon has died. He was a liberal, but not a cheap partisan; he was also (by all accounts) the proverbial gentleman and scholar; and if the bowties made him look like the equally proverbial effete snob, at least he was an effete snob with dignity. RIP.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean on Tuesday and called him the only candidate who could "take America back on behalf of the people of this country."

Back where? Back to the future? Back to McGovern? Or back from what? From the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Republicans who've proved they can be just like the Democrats of yore? Back to what or where or from whom, Al?

I love modern political oratory, don't you?

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

Secret Service Won't Lock Up Eminen [SIC]

I really do think WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ought to buy NewsMax!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It could add misspellings to his vast repertory.

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

To take a page from Jonathan "The Superpatriot" Alter:

Old CW: The WACKO overcoverage is terrible.

New CW: The griping about the WACKO overcoverage is terrible.

I'll bet the National Journal's subscribers are glad THEY contribute $20,000 a month to William Powers's salary so he can write CW anti-CW stuff like this.

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

We should return to the moon because a poll says so. Good idea.

"As long as it's economy class." Better!

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

Medicare Law's Costs and Benefits Are Elusive

WE'LL FIND OUT, won't we!

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

T ime W

A

rne

R

t o

uSE CA

bL

E

linestoadDDDdd

Ph

ONe T

o iNTErrrrrrrrrr

NET

SER

viCe

Go for it!

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pulls ANOTHER boner -- this time fighting his arch-nemesis THE NOSE.

WALTER!!!!! Take your hat and pull it ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE FLOOR.

(Alas, if I know THE WINCH he probably views his INNUMERABLE MISTAKES the same way other NEWS HACKS would -- WITH PRIDE.)

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

When the LEAGUE OF NATIONS "sees slower population growth" that's a warning bell of how WRONG the Malthusians can be. Wonder what St. Warren of Buffett plans to do about it? Encourage population growth?

Remember, St. Warren, Planet Earth was meant to hold only six million.

Posted 6:22 AM by Gene

Why that CHUCKLEHEAD didn't resign long before he was inevitably CONVICTED boggles the mind -- unless, of course, it was POLITICAL, which thoroughly tars the CHUCKLEHEAD as a dishonorable man.

Posted 6:18 AM by Gene

The RESISTANCE -- ah, what a fine word. Sort of reminds you of the French Resistance (only, of course, they fought those who killed Jews, and that was certainly a bad thing). Anyway, THE RESISTANCE scored one against -- well, if it's a resistance, what do you call our troops? THE OPPRESSORS? Yes, THE OPPRESSORS, if you're a no-IQ NEWS HACK.

Now we have to think up the equivalent of stirring patriotic music. How about "Deutschland uber Alles?" Did Democratic Kampuchea have an anthem?

Posted 7:31 PM by Gene

Who needs bribery with Congress?

Posted 6:35 PM by Gene

WHY SEARS AND KMART SHOULD MERGE

To prove misery loves companies.

Then again, things can't get that much worse.

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

The Hearsties turn Onion writers for the day with this self-parody about "whiteness."

I don't think a paper from the Bagman Capital of the World is in a position to lecture us about anything.

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

Buzz T. Newhouse GRIPES about non-news, so today on his superior blog, he wastes his readers' time with a transcript from SNL and another plug for his friend Howard, topped off with a last-minute blurb from yesterday for his TWXster buddies.

Buzz, your blog can be as predictable as the non-news biz.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

The Bowl Championship Series reminds us that it is not unlike a used car held together with parts collected at a salvage yard.

Yeah -- and guess who's behind the wheel? MICKEYMOUSE NIXON!

He thinks it's a Rolls.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Is Al Gore running for vice-president?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

In strictly provincial news from the Chicagoland:

Plan would ax top forest jobs

Woodman, spare that special-events director!

Line of the Day:

The alternative budget also would lay off Frank Damato, the intergovernmental affairs director who has been nicknamed "the Ed McMahon of County Government." Opposition commissioners question what Damato does for $81,000 a year, other than laugh at [County Board President John] Stroger's jokes.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's JOHNNY?

Multiply this by ten thousand -- and you get Republicans in Congress.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

MORE LEADING-EDGE BLOGGING:

QAEDA SHIFTS TO IRAQ? An interesting piece in Newsweek suggests that bin Laden has decided to pull some troops and resources out of Afghanistan and deploy them in Iraq. Newsweek, natch, spins this as bad news.

What did I say almost 30 HOURS before Andy S., who gets billions of hits because he's ALWAYS on top of everything? I'm seriously thinking of putting a tip jar on my site. Andy S. can.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

I know, I KNOW, when Debbie Reynolds was married to Coke spokesman Eddie Fisher she wouldn't attend Coke conventions because the elixir was bad for the teeth. For many of us Cocaholics it's a little late in the day for Mr. Daft's ministrations. Besides, things go better with Coke!

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

101 Dumbest Moments in Time Inc. History

Putting aside that we could probably multiply that number by 100,000, I can think of Reason Number One: the day Henry Luce and Briton Hadden decided to start a newsmagazine.

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

Bush Signs $400 Billion Medicare Overhaul

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

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

How dull are we Americans? Well, Prevention is "now the 11th-largest magazine in the USA, right behind People."

And Modern Maturity is the largest. This is a land of immortal aliterates.

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOH! Harvey Whiner says, "All the great executives have been driven from [EisnerCorp]."

Starting with Walt Disney.

Posted 11:17 AM by Gene

Speaking of Republicans, they seem intent on making a sow's ear out of a silk purse.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

Here's a conflict of interest only Republicans could love: drug company scientists and "consultants" work at the National Institutes of Health.

After they've finished fixing their studies Americans will be healthier than ever.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

When the Maya Lin Memorial debuted over two decades ago, the news hacks jumped over one another to ooh and aah it, as it pungently reminded them of their central role in STOPPING A WAR AND DITCHING A PREZ AND CONDEMNING THE BOAT PEOPLE AND THE KILLING FIELDS PEOPLE AND...you get the idea. Now some SCRIBBLER calls the Lin memorial A CLICHE, which proves once again, ANYTHING PRAISED UNANIMOUSLY BY NEWS HACKS WON'T LAST.

By the way, did Maya Lin ever do anything else? I didn't think so. She's the one-hit wonder of architecture.

Posted 6:51 PM by Gene

Now I know the professional pro-sports fans are nuts. These two were esconced "about an hour before the game" at Overpriced-Razor-Monopoly Stadium in Foxborough.

How's your fantasy league doing? Never mind, you live it.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

Reports: Zimbabwe to quit C'wealth

Goodbye and good riddance!

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

Here's a story that may as well be written in Icelandic. Some "act" nobody here ever heard of has overcome several other "acts" nobody here ever heard of to stay number one on the British pop charts. This is as consequential as sports playoffs; few will remember the teams or the acts next year, and in judging our times posterity will suffer a good case of amnesia.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

GoogleBlogger now says it was "a couple of hours," all due to "a bad build." It was AT LEAST SIX, you idiots. You can't add, you can't "build," and you can't run a network, either.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Here's another kettle of dead smelly fish. The professional college football teams are on the verge of playing fifteen-game seasons, and they practice all year. Why not just add three more in a playoff? Most of the pros aren't learning anything but NFL anyway.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

I suppose I should get excited that our IGGLES are in the playoffs, but my mind does too much free associating for me to get joy out of it anymore. I think of the game and I think of the huge shakedowns and the gaping holes in city budgets; I think of $100-million-a-year athletes who could leave on the slightest tantrum -- just like their teams; I think of incompetent CEOs with luxury boxes on the 50-yard line, propping their feet on super-expensive seats and smoking a super-expensive super-stinky ceegar, who then spend the whole rest of the week trashing their employees; I think of stupid fans who think the blowout they've just seen was a thrill for the ages, and scream and honk their horns with imbecilic abandon; I think of drunks and fights and mayhem; I think of RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and SUMNER and MICKEYMOUSE NIXON, the megatyrants who spent gazillions to gum up the game with their visual junk; I think of the RIOTS a Super Bore win could bring, with its unaccountable death and destruction. Perhaps I think too much; but maybe if professional sports mavens hadn't spent their entire time antagonizing their fans these last few decades I wouldn't have to think, the old pleasure I once had watching sports on television.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

And a big THANK YOU to GOOGLEBLOGGER for being DOWN EIGHT HOURS. WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO WHEN YOU MAKE ALL THOSE BILLIONS, GOOGLEBLOGGERIANS?

Maybe I could sue Google for causing me to add new entries to my Site Meter count.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Which reminds me, today is the sixty-second anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. How soon we forget.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

BLUNDER's story on America's lawsuit orgy is well-meaning, but in the end it can't erase its own responsibility for it; didn't BLUNDER, like so many other liberal rags, cheer at the profusion of ciggie suits? And where did a lot of the money go? To lawyers' fees and government pork. (The Econowiz was one of the few publications to see that coming.) More to the point, to change suing society requires changing society, and if 9/11 couldn't knock any sense into our heads, what will? We're too far down the road of PC and self-indulgence.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

In its latest broadside, BLUNDER confirms the notion that al Qaeda's being drawn in to Iraq -- and in typical Norman Thomas-grandson fashion (he's worked a synergistic story on lawsuits this week -- shucks!) says it's BAD NEWS, because "the Iraqi insurgency has been '100 percent successful so far'" (meaning it's gotten a lot of rooting from news hacks). How often have we gotten BAD NEWS (read GOOD NEWS) from BLUNDER? The only thing you can believe is the cover price, and who pays that?

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

SNOWSTORM WALLOPS NORTHEAST U.S.!!!!!

Yeah. Here in Philadelphia we were supposed to get three feet and instead got flurries. The Weather Service must stop using bunions as a forecasting tool.

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

Harsh Reality of 'Osbournes' No Laughing Matter

For a time it was; we remember seeing press release after press release after press release saying how KEE-YUTE Ozzy was. Only a scribbler would have figured he was being ECCENTRIC. Once again, news hacks have it both ways.