THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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Saturday, December 27, 2003
Charming: the Wright Brothers of holy cockroachdom wanted to experiment on a runway in Riyadh. Fortunately the Saudis (!!!!!!!!!!!) stopped them. Does this mean 500 more preachments next Friday from the imams declaring death to infidels?
I suppose we should be happy that Japan's primary export these days seems to be cartoons of people with adolescent faces, pale skin, big hair, microscopic pug noses, ittle bitty lips and beady eyes, but I fear they might do to our sanity what the nation's TVs and stereos did to our consumer-electronics industry.
The line that "cultural exports are now worth three and a half times the value of all the televisions this nation exported in 2002" is surely misleading as the Sonys and Matsushitas do a lot of their manufacturing overseas, as Japan long ago got too expensive; and besides, they sell a lot more than TVs.
The line that "cultural exports are now worth three and a half times the value of all the televisions this nation exported in 2002" is surely misleading as the Sonys and Matsushitas do a lot of their manufacturing overseas, as Japan long ago got too expensive; and besides, they sell a lot more than TVs.
I've not posted on the dreadful earthquake in Iran because natural disasters do not lend themselves to more than platitudes or a kind of fake, transient sympathy. But I came across before-and-after pictures in one of the New York tabloids (this wasn't one of them) of that magnificent mud fortress from the 9th century, like a huge sand castle -- almost totally ruined. Those two pictures conveyed the loss in a way pictures of crying women can't.
Surprise, surprise. Congresspoops are exempt from their own anti-spam legislation.
(WHY MUST THAT REPORTER HAVE A MIDDLE INITIAL OF "8."?!?!?)
(WHY MUST THAT REPORTER HAVE A MIDDLE INITIAL OF "8."?!?!?)
Amazing: the Times concedes Honorary Mayor Mike's righteous smoking ban MAY be hurting sales at some businesses. Thinking like that not too long ago would have gotten you carted to Siberia.
Corporate America wastes tens of millions of dollars sponsoring professional college football bowl games. And how do I know it's money wasted? Here's the tragic tale of Osram, the German lighting manufacturer, which once sponsored a bowl game in San Anton':
[Osram] Sylvania [its US unit] couldn't get enough people, especially decision-making executives, to fly to San Antonio for the game and related events. "One of the problems was the date," Colotti said. "It was always between Christmas and New Year's. That presented a marketing challenge (to get commitments from the executives to fly to San Antonio). That's a family time."
Translation: this is a minor league bowl game, and there's no way we're spending a whole week to waste our time to schmooze with nothings in a no-account game. I mean, you can't go back to HQ and yell at the underlings, "I WAS AT THE OSRAM SYLVANIA BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!"
Considering that many bowl games have already had two or three sponsors in their checkered histories -- remember the Hey, Culligan Bowl? The Carquest Bowl? The IBM OS/2 Bowl? The Poulin Weedeater Bowl? -- I'd say NO to any bowl sponsorship. But common sense has grown as extinct at most firms as American jobs.
[Osram] Sylvania [its US unit] couldn't get enough people, especially decision-making executives, to fly to San Antonio for the game and related events. "One of the problems was the date," Colotti said. "It was always between Christmas and New Year's. That presented a marketing challenge (to get commitments from the executives to fly to San Antonio). That's a family time."
Translation: this is a minor league bowl game, and there's no way we're spending a whole week to waste our time to schmooze with nothings in a no-account game. I mean, you can't go back to HQ and yell at the underlings, "I WAS AT THE OSRAM SYLVANIA BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!"
Considering that many bowl games have already had two or three sponsors in their checkered histories -- remember the Hey, Culligan Bowl? The Carquest Bowl? The IBM OS/2 Bowl? The Poulin Weedeater Bowl? -- I'd say NO to any bowl sponsorship. But common sense has grown as extinct at most firms as American jobs.
Friday, December 26, 2003
PRESIDENT DAMN! says Osama should not be PREJUDGED!
Pray for his innocence, PRESIDENT DAMN! -- especially when you hit the SOLID SOUTH!
Pray for his innocence, PRESIDENT DAMN! -- especially when you hit the SOLID SOUTH!
ANDY S. has given his Von Hoffman Award to a fellow Newscorpion, which is problematical for two reasons: 1) Seeing how WRONG Simon Jenkins was, shouldn't RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! fire him? Or does he get a pass because he's a fellow Newscorpion? and 2), Doesn't it behoove Andy S. to seek Mr. Jenkins's dismissal for his sheer incompetence?
I think we know the answers to those questions.
I think we know the answers to those questions.
Well, on this, the last BEEEEEEEEEEEEE-O weekend of 2003, I'M ABOUT TO PREDICT WHICH OVERBLOWN BORES WILL BE NOMINATED FOR -- THE BEST-PICTURE OSCAR®. The envelope, please:
1. C.G.I. Tolkien's imitation-Ring-Cycle adolescent fantasy;
2. RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s financially glubglubbing nautical adventure;
3. The better Gone with the Wind with sex, gore, no blacks, and rave reviews from idiots like David "I WAS A SLAVE TO PORN" Denby;
4. Clint's little artsy-craftsy; and
5. The horsey story without Liz and Mick.
I will announce THE WINNER OF THE COVETED ACADEMY AWARD® on the day of the NOMINATIONS. Good luck to bad films!
1. C.G.I. Tolkien's imitation-Ring-Cycle adolescent fantasy;
2. RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s financially glubglubbing nautical adventure;
3. The better Gone with the Wind with sex, gore, no blacks, and rave reviews from idiots like David "I WAS A SLAVE TO PORN" Denby;
4. Clint's little artsy-craftsy; and
5. The horsey story without Liz and Mick.
I will announce THE WINNER OF THE COVETED ACADEMY AWARD® on the day of the NOMINATIONS. Good luck to bad films!
QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! becomes SUICIDES, and thanks be that "[f]igures before 1990 were unavailable, military officials said," which means we can run this story in for a TOUCHDOWN!
Corrections
Posted Friday, Dec. 26, 2003, at 9:29 AM PT
The Dec. 23 "Today's Papers," Eric Umansky called former Centcom commander Anthony Zinni by the wrong first name, George.
In the Dec. 23 edition of "Explainer," Eric Umansky wrongly stated that Jerry Rawlings' military title was first lieutenant. Rawlings was, rather, a flight lieutenant.
In the Dec. 22 "Art" article, Daniel Kunitz originally stated that James Whistler died on July 22, 1903. In fact, Whistler died on July 17; his funeral was held July 22. Kunitz also mistakenly said James Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 "always has hung" in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. In fact, the painting has always hung in Paris, although not always in the Musée D'Orsay.
Looks as if Kinsley.com has as many BUGS as any MS program! Good work, ENTOMOLOGISTS!
Posted Friday, Dec. 26, 2003, at 9:29 AM PT
The Dec. 23 "Today's Papers," Eric Umansky called former Centcom commander Anthony Zinni by the wrong first name, George.
In the Dec. 23 edition of "Explainer," Eric Umansky wrongly stated that Jerry Rawlings' military title was first lieutenant. Rawlings was, rather, a flight lieutenant.
In the Dec. 22 "Art" article, Daniel Kunitz originally stated that James Whistler died on July 22, 1903. In fact, Whistler died on July 17; his funeral was held July 22. Kunitz also mistakenly said James Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 "always has hung" in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. In fact, the painting has always hung in Paris, although not always in the Musée D'Orsay.
Looks as if Kinsley.com has as many BUGS as any MS program! Good work, ENTOMOLOGISTS!
Please read the following entry while listening to suitably pompous music, like an Elgar Pomp and Circumstance march: Viacon Network News got its Wacko scoop, and the industry is already eructing about ETHICS. Hey MORONS, if you knew what you were doing you wouldn't have to talk about ETHICS. But precisely because you DON'T know what you're doing, and make in the six and seven digits not knowing, will allow you to talk ETHICS until hell freezes over. Besides, BEING THE GOOD ORGANIZATION MEN YOU ARE, MOST OF YOU WOULD PROBABLY DO THE SAME SLEAZY THING.
Or as THE ZON might say, if he'd lived in the nineteenth century: "ETHICS BE DAMNED!!!!! I'm working for my shareholders!!!!!!!!!!!" You hypocrites would definitely appreicate that.
Or as THE ZON might say, if he'd lived in the nineteenth century: "ETHICS BE DAMNED!!!!! I'm working for my shareholders!!!!!!!!!!!" You hypocrites would definitely appreicate that.
He's always been quick with the one-liners, befitting a man whose showbiz pals included the late Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Milton Berle. "Humor has sustained me," Modell says.
Especially when the PUBLIC was the punchline. RIGHT, Art?
And a BAH HUMBUG to you.
Especially when the PUBLIC was the punchline. RIGHT, Art?
And a BAH HUMBUG to you.
STOP THE PRESSES! The Times' second-string theater ad-blurbist says the score of THE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME "consists of serviceable novelty numbers written in generic style"! He even knocks the great FRINGE show he singlehandedly made a hit as imitation Kurt Weill!!!!! BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!!
AND: have YOU ever heard of -- "Michael John LaChiusa, Andrew Lippa, Ricky Ian Gordon, Robert Reale, Zena Goldrich, Adam Guettel, Jason Robert Brown, David Yazbek, Polly Pen, Robert Lindsay Nassif, Tim Acito and Laurence O'Keefe"? You should have -- THEY'VE ALL WRITTEN BRILLIANT MUSICALS!!!!!
No wonder we're stuck with Mamma Mia.
AND: have YOU ever heard of -- "Michael John LaChiusa, Andrew Lippa, Ricky Ian Gordon, Robert Reale, Zena Goldrich, Adam Guettel, Jason Robert Brown, David Yazbek, Polly Pen, Robert Lindsay Nassif, Tim Acito and Laurence O'Keefe"? You should have -- THEY'VE ALL WRITTEN BRILLIANT MUSICALS!!!!!
No wonder we're stuck with Mamma Mia.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
And here's one from Lycos, complete with caption:
Sgt. Jaime Misplay of Golden Shores, Ariz., right, and Sgt. Paul R Messier of Swansea, Mass., right, decorate Christmas tree at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday Dec. 22, 2003. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Sgt. Jaime Misplay of Golden Shores, Ariz., right, and Sgt. Paul R Messier of Swansea, Mass., right, decorate Christmas tree at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday Dec. 22, 2003. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
...and the tree at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican.
I'll find some more to amuse myself.
I'll find some more to amuse myself.
...and one Clark Granger walks among a bunch of baby Christmas trees at his Maine farm (he is said to be "raising genetically-improved trees that grow denser, faster, and require less pruning"):
Well, I did find a couple on Yahoo! News. Here's the National Christmas Tree outside the White House:
Obviously the holy cockroaches are celebrating it too. Wanna bet this is an inside job?
For all the Web's alleged riches I could not find a suitable photo to celebrate the day, so,
and I'll try to keep my posting light, to save wear and tear on my sanity.
(I DID IT!)
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
and I'll try to keep my posting light, to save wear and tear on my sanity.
(I DID IT!)
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Here's why I rail against the ad-blurb copywriters: David Sterritt, the seventy-something for the Homeopathic or Whatever Monitor, says "2003 was a good [year] overall," and to prove it he MUST cart out a top-10 list -- and nine of the ten are arthouse flicks, and not counting RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S glub-glub period nautical adventure they've probably done no more business COMBINED than a bad CGI flick in its third week. As I said, the news hacks have helped wrap a straitjacket around the movies with their ossified thinking.
The Sultan of SWAT "MIGHT ACCEPT NOMINATION AT YANKEE STADIUM!!!!!!!!!!" [Emphasis added.]
Better hope it doesn't rain.
Better hope it doesn't rain.
Four pages on this:
One theory that has been making the rounds for years now holds that shy people "are born with essentially more sensitive brains and nervous systems and they find normal social existence to be more stressful than they are comfortable with," says Cole. "They are just kind of high-strung."
I know. Puh-leeze.
One theory that has been making the rounds for years now holds that shy people "are born with essentially more sensitive brains and nervous systems and they find normal social existence to be more stressful than they are comfortable with," says Cole. "They are just kind of high-strung."
I know. Puh-leeze.
Two-month-old Palestinian Christian baby girl Maryam Qasis is propped up against an altar as her mother takes her photograph with the doll that represents the infant Jesus, in St. Catherine's Church in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The biblical town, where according to tradition Jesus was born, faces yet another gloomy Christmas in the face of more than three years of Palestinian-Israeli violent conflict.
(Getty Images)
(from Newsday.com)
It's official: Gov. DUHHHHH'S TV show is history. Is THE MESS next?
As yet another immortal masterpiece makes it way to screens everywhere and myriad perfessers waste time, tuition and taxes pondering why it was shot in Romania, I think of James Thurber and his flamboyant producer in "The Man who Hated Moonbaum":
"Not trying to do anything to me, he says!" screamed the little man. "Wasn't his fault! It's never anybody's fault! They give me ten thousand dollars' worth of Sam Browne belts for Scotch Highlanders and it's nobody's fault!"
Let us swallow hard: the several Oscar®-striving period pieces on the screen this season have fizzled at the BEEEEEEEEE-O. It was one thing to play these period pieces with Errol Flynns and Clark Gables, and they fit in a time that still believed in the old chivalries. Plus, and I hate to say it again, JACK and his penchant for Grand Guignol also ruin them. Hate to say this again, too: it isn't that people don't want adult pictures; it's that JACK's CONSPIRACY must make what it deems adult pictures ITS way, and largely to conform to the prejudices of the ad-blurb copywriters, which have now helped to strait-jacket the movies for two generations. And when these imbeciles are through the public can make out the Sam Browne belts. By January it'll be back to the dogs of winter, and the CGI machines for the stupid kids will soon follow, and whatever extremely marginal hope for better movies will disappear again.
"Not trying to do anything to me, he says!" screamed the little man. "Wasn't his fault! It's never anybody's fault! They give me ten thousand dollars' worth of Sam Browne belts for Scotch Highlanders and it's nobody's fault!"
Let us swallow hard: the several Oscar®-striving period pieces on the screen this season have fizzled at the BEEEEEEEEE-O. It was one thing to play these period pieces with Errol Flynns and Clark Gables, and they fit in a time that still believed in the old chivalries. Plus, and I hate to say it again, JACK and his penchant for Grand Guignol also ruin them. Hate to say this again, too: it isn't that people don't want adult pictures; it's that JACK's CONSPIRACY must make what it deems adult pictures ITS way, and largely to conform to the prejudices of the ad-blurb copywriters, which have now helped to strait-jacket the movies for two generations. And when these imbeciles are through the public can make out the Sam Browne belts. By January it'll be back to the dogs of winter, and the CGI machines for the stupid kids will soon follow, and whatever extremely marginal hope for better movies will disappear again.
Those who ascribe to Dean a genuinely radical and even left-wing program are deluding themselves and others.
On the WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE?!?!?
On the WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE?!?!?
Thanks to ArtsJournal.com I encountered this sage advice for government funding of the arts from The New Criterion:
[P]ublic cultural support cannot be about the provision of entertainment, either upscale or for the masses; it cannot be about the accomplishment of immediate and partisan social and political goals; it cannot be about the stretching of the limits of permissible personal behavior; it cannot validate the so-called “cutting edge” of art or thought.
… [P]ublic support must concentrate on nothing less than the transmission of the civilization of the past, via the present, to the future. Public support thus must concern itself with civilizing works of art, literature, and thought, their preservation, study, communication, and regeneration. [Emphasis added.]
There you have it: no chcocolate-coated feminists, no bullwhips up behinds, no Christ figures in urine, no elephant dung, no video walls, no geetars, no lectures, no tantrums, just "the finest art." Is this too much to ask for?
[P]ublic cultural support cannot be about the provision of entertainment, either upscale or for the masses; it cannot be about the accomplishment of immediate and partisan social and political goals; it cannot be about the stretching of the limits of permissible personal behavior; it cannot validate the so-called “cutting edge” of art or thought.
… [P]ublic support must concentrate on nothing less than the transmission of the civilization of the past, via the present, to the future. Public support thus must concern itself with civilizing works of art, literature, and thought, their preservation, study, communication, and regeneration. [Emphasis added.]
There you have it: no chcocolate-coated feminists, no bullwhips up behinds, no Christ figures in urine, no elephant dung, no video walls, no geetars, no lectures, no tantrums, just "the finest art." Is this too much to ask for?
Another one-hit wonder of literature. Recently FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News's flack Roger said he'd talked some time ago to a bigwig in the record biz who put his hand to his forehead (so I imagine), rolled his eyes heavenward (so I further imagine), and said with a barely-disguised tone of disgust, "One-hit wonders." So in publishing. And look what's happened to the record biz.
Last night WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! screamed that our FEDS, in conjunction with the Russians, had found A BIG PILE OF URANIUM IN BULGARIA AND THE WASHINGTON POST WAS REPORTING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today it ran the story -- only it was on page A10, and that uranium was from an old nuclear reactor, and it's the third time we and the Russians have done it. I will not ask for WALTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to pull his hat over his head, but I should know better than to believe his exaggerations, including those of omission.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Corporate America is intent on proving that with outsourcing, the golden rule must always be, "I Rule, Therefore I'm Golden."
Here's an interesting paragraph:
The U.S. sales director for one of India's top computer services providers said his company has won business from customers such as Walt Disney Co., Time Warner Inc.'s CNN and the Fox division of News Corp. -- none of which want public disclosure.
Wonder why Viacom isn't in there.
I like the name of one of the companies that's helping to export the jobs to Inja: Tata Consultancy Services. As in kiss your employment goodbye. (I suspect some high-paid CONSULTANT will recommend a name change.)
Here's an interesting paragraph:
The U.S. sales director for one of India's top computer services providers said his company has won business from customers such as Walt Disney Co., Time Warner Inc.'s CNN and the Fox division of News Corp. -- none of which want public disclosure.
Wonder why Viacom isn't in there.
I like the name of one of the companies that's helping to export the jobs to Inja: Tata Consultancy Services. As in kiss your employment goodbye. (I suspect some high-paid CONSULTANT will recommend a name change.)
More obtuseness from the Times: the procreating urge among teenagers seems to be calming down, and while only a fool would guess why (many fools in this piece), it's a CONSERVATIVE thing, and therefore we would never credit CONSERVATIVE forces like the abstinence movement because they're RED COUNTRY, from whence emanates EEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL. It's going to take more than gee-whiz aw-shucks I'm-just-an-ordinary-writer mea culpas from the "PUBLIC EDITOR" to disinfect the Times' longstenching moral reek.
The fatuousness of ad-blurb copywriters knows no bounds:
This is a movie that sends you out shuddering, chuckling nervously, wanting to tell the people in line for the next show, "It's the feel-bad movie of the year!"
No, Bug, I don't want feel-bad movies, but what I do want -- movies that will entertain, movies that will make me think, movies that don't beat me over the head with Grand Guignol and all of JACK's other contemptible tricks -- you and your fellow blurbists DON'T WANT. You want good trash and good bad trash, because St. Pauline of Kael worshipped them. In short, you want TRASH.
This is a movie that sends you out shuddering, chuckling nervously, wanting to tell the people in line for the next show, "It's the feel-bad movie of the year!"
No, Bug, I don't want feel-bad movies, but what I do want -- movies that will entertain, movies that will make me think, movies that don't beat me over the head with Grand Guignol and all of JACK's other contemptible tricks -- you and your fellow blurbists DON'T WANT. You want good trash and good bad trash, because St. Pauline of Kael worshipped them. In short, you want TRASH.
According to a study in the Arabic daily, Al-Watan, one in five children in Saudi Arabia is systematically abused.
So that's where they get that ol'-time religion.
So that's where they get that ol'-time religion.
Oops! It's still illegal to toke in Canada, meaning it may not be the world's most advanced society.
Shucks, Richard ADVERTISEMENT Corliss, maybe your masterworks weren't so great; they got snubbed for the BEST CGI OSCAR®!
Now that's an insult.
Now that's an insult.
PILLHEAD SAYS IT'S A "DEMOCRAT VENDETTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
This is one thing I LOOOOOVE about political hacks: they'll invent 5000 new ways to mangle the language. With the HARD-CORE REPUBLICANS it's misusing "Democrat" as an adjective because they think it REEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY gets on people's nerves. They're right; it gets on my nerves.
This is one thing I LOOOOOVE about political hacks: they'll invent 5000 new ways to mangle the language. With the HARD-CORE REPUBLICANS it's misusing "Democrat" as an adjective because they think it REEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY gets on people's nerves. They're right; it gets on my nerves.
And speaking of NEWS HACKS and backscratching and THE FIFTH and extraordinary luck:
GOT IT, George "The Zillionaire Crybaby" Will.
P. S. WHAT ABOUT PAUL KRUGMAN AND ENRON?
"MY BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS. GOT IT?"
GOT IT, George "The Zillionaire Crybaby" Will.
P. S. WHAT ABOUT PAUL KRUGMAN AND ENRON?
More false statistics from the educrats, who alternate between naive hope and perfect denial, all the time never actually teaching.
Sorry to repeat myself, but just as stories around Thanksgiving about retail sales going gangbusters can write themselves, so can stories about the inevitable disappointments. Can't we hold off on the sales pitches, and wait until January to spout the alleged numbers?
Here's a press release about a kid who wrote a fantasy book and got a lucky break when a VERY BIG NEWS HACK AND NOVELIST (he who helped Demi Moore develop bionic breasts) visited the neighborhood and his son said WOW THIS BOOK IS GREAT and now it's sold a zillion copies and first editions go for $10,000,000 on eBay. I guess I'm angry because I've not sold my book, and never will; I'm also angry because so much in the book biz depends on the lucky break, not on merit; and despite such wonders book sales are down for a reason, and they won't recover through hopeless gimmicks like more slut-lit or mommy-lit or Oprah-lit or navel-staring highbrow lit or $500 cookbook-lit or C.G.I. Tolkien Dungeons and Dragons fantasy-lit, and with every new such gimmick, the prospects for books of enduring excellence -- the Huck Finns and Great Gatsbys -- and for our culture not to die on remainder shelves and in flea markets, grow that much dimmer.
There is no excusing our earlier toadying to Iraq, except in 1984 (at risk of using a pun) we were between Iraq and a hard place, Iran, which had just freed our diplomatic hostages three years earlier. To his great credit, Dubya has dumped this kind of international realism, but we shouldn't delude ourselves that we won't have to do it again, among other equally evil forces.
Holiday wishes test hopefuls' creativity
The politically correct A-HOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMA....
The politically correct A-HOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMAHOMMA....
The best laid plans of mice....
...[O]peratives of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, possibly trained and licensed to fly passenger jets, may now be pilots for some foreign airlines, ideally positioning them to carry out suicide attacks, U.S. officials told NBC News on Monday.
Reinforced cockpit doors intended to thwart hijackers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks would now protect any terrorist pilot at the controls, the officials said on condition of anonymity....
In a nice double qualifier, some "officials" "indicate" that the holy cockroaches "may"...you get the idea. We flail at orange through January.
...[O]peratives of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, possibly trained and licensed to fly passenger jets, may now be pilots for some foreign airlines, ideally positioning them to carry out suicide attacks, U.S. officials told NBC News on Monday.
Reinforced cockpit doors intended to thwart hijackers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks would now protect any terrorist pilot at the controls, the officials said on condition of anonymity....
In a nice double qualifier, some "officials" "indicate" that the holy cockroaches "may"...you get the idea. We flail at orange through January.
Monday, December 22, 2003
THIS IS A TEST: Brazil's loony-leftist president Lulu -- Lula has signed a "sweeping" gun control bill. Let's see if this can bring down that nation's huge homicide rate.
Why am I doubtful? (And no, I don't like the NRA.)
Why am I doubtful? (And no, I don't like the NRA.)
Shoes thrown at Egypt's minister in Jerusalem mosque
Is that another Palestinian tradition -- like candy?
Is that another Palestinian tradition -- like candy?
In their latest cliche for the zeitgeist, news hacks now say video games are on "the verge" (and it's always the verge) of GREATNESS. First, regardless of what the hacks say, videogames will always be a calling for the young and nerdy, guaranteeing their arrested development. Second, the ART FORM can only express itself with shoot-em-ups and blow-'em-ups, hardly distinguishable from the movie MASTERPIECES of our time. Finally, because videogames are software, they are far more prone than other ART FORMS to disintegration and neglect. If this is our age's ticket to posterity I'd like to see some throwaway culture.
PILLHEAD COPS A PLEA BARGAIN?!?!?
Yeah, to stick it to his ex-maid. What a delicious way on putting it over on the LOWER CLASSES.
Yeah, to stick it to his ex-maid. What a delicious way on putting it over on the LOWER CLASSES.
Why should the League of Nations be on the lookout for terrorists when they're among the terrorists' best friends?
Then again, look what happened to the Saudis.
Then again, look what happened to the Saudis.
Frontier Repays Post - Sept. 11 Loan
You and who else?
When it's Congress, and it's business, and it's loans, it's grants.
You and who else?
When it's Congress, and it's business, and it's loans, it's grants.
There used to be a time when at least a few corporate executives didn't have the BOOOOO! HISSSSSS!! in them and wouldn't hog all the wealth to themselves. Judging from the miscreants who rule the business roost nowadays I'd say this will probably be the last such fine example.
After adding a few conciliatory ice cubes toward the cold peace with Israel, Egypt's foreign minister gets assaulted by the Palis as a "collaborator," which I guess means anyone who wants peace.
PROF pulls his knighthood routine on a blog. This is why I resent the domination of blogging by six people; it makes it more difficult for bloggers of any merit to break through; we all await the magic sword from Tennessee to tap us on the shoulder, on a whim, and grant us wisdom, and a spike in our Site Meter stats. Prof and Co. are on their way to being the BIGMEDIA of blogging -- and they, just like BIGMEDIA, are starting to sound alike.
It's official: China is about to constitutionally become a Communist-led free-market dictatorship. Break out the bubbly, Jim Glassman! Dick Armey! BUTTMEN! WAL-MART!!
Sunday, December 21, 2003
A columnist for TechCentralStation says Rudy will face Sen. Rodham in '06, which will be like a presidential race without the White House -- but with the hundreds of zillions financing hundreds of millions of negative ads. Wonderful.
Here goes NewsMax again:
O'REILLY'S BOOK HITS #1 ON NY TIMES LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what? Michael Moore's made #1 too. And as I've said before, the book biz isn't about quality, it's about marketing, which is why its sales have declined. Besides, most people don't want to read big fat mouths in print, the fringe hardcores excepted.
P. S. From now on NewsMax, would you mind putting your heds in ALL CAPS? It's your intention, and it would save me the trouble of having to ring up Word to change them.
O'REILLY'S BOOK HITS #1 ON NY TIMES LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what? Michael Moore's made #1 too. And as I've said before, the book biz isn't about quality, it's about marketing, which is why its sales have declined. Besides, most people don't want to read big fat mouths in print, the fringe hardcores excepted.
P. S. From now on NewsMax, would you mind putting your heds in ALL CAPS? It's your intention, and it would save me the trouble of having to ring up Word to change them.
MORE EXTREMELY CLEVER NEWSHACKERY: "Some Israeli Reservists Refuse to Serve!!!!!!!!!", yells the headline. Now you'd think some means A LOT, but as Curley's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooge says, it's only thirteen, and as he further sheepishly admits (halfway down), "The 13 signatories represent a tiny fraction of the unit." Of ONE unit. Nonetheless, the good deed has been done, and there is PROFOUND DISSENSION in Israel's armed forces.
Somebody definitely had someone like Curley's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooges in mind when he said, "The enemy of our enemy is our friend." With friends like these who needs enemy's enemies?
Somebody definitely had someone like Curley's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooges in mind when he said, "The enemy of our enemy is our friend." With friends like these who needs enemy's enemies?
HEY! Thanks to Google, I JUST FOUND THE AIN'T IT COOL NEWS OF BAD MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
"Unfortunately for Sony, Michael's arrest came in the same week his new album was launched." [Editor's note: It's unfortunate because THIS ALBUM IS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!] (Overemphasis mine.)
There aren't enough D-U-M-DUM sites for teens on the Web.
And of course it has 20 pop-up ads.
"Unfortunately for Sony, Michael's arrest came in the same week his new album was launched." [Editor's note: It's unfortunate because THIS ALBUM IS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!] (Overemphasis mine.)
There aren't enough D-U-M-DUM sites for teens on the Web.
And of course it has 20 pop-up ads.
The news hacks are already a-tingle and a-glow over the BEEEEEEEE-OH for C.G.I. Tolkien's heavily computerized faux-Ring-Cycle adolescent-male fantasy, but look at BoxOfficeMojo.com's numbers and you realize it did (or rather, it should do, these numbers being largely made up) as much business as everything else combined, which alone tells me movies are a joke.
How far are we from the point people will pay no heed to terror alerts -- and that's when we get hit?
Honest Gov, your system is as useful as JACK's ALPHABET SOUP. There are only two ratings, and your red is like NC-17 (and only to be used after the fact). Isn't there a better way?
Coming on the same day as this story one may have reason to doubt you.
Honest Gov, your system is as useful as JACK's ALPHABET SOUP. There are only two ratings, and your red is like NC-17 (and only to be used after the fact). Isn't there a better way?
Coming on the same day as this story one may have reason to doubt you.
You Can Stand on Principle and Still Stub a Toe
I've got a better hed, public editor: "You Can Stand on Principle Without a Foot to Stand On." Thus it is with news hacks, at especially the noble Times.
I've got a better hed, public editor: "You Can Stand on Principle Without a Foot to Stand On." Thus it is with news hacks, at especially the noble Times.
Looks like Osama -- er, Pakistan lent some help to Iran's nuke program.
Answer us, Paks -- why do you want to nuke Israel?
Answer us, Paks -- why do you want to nuke Israel?
Last night, after Petrified Tree Jr. got busted for dope, the members of Free Republic confidently assumed there'd be a news embargo. Fortunately that's not entirely true, but on past behavior we do have reason to be suspicious.
Buzz! BUZZ! WAKE UP!! Time has chosen its PERSON OF THE YEAR -- the U.S. SOLDIER!!!!!
There. Now you can go back to sleep.
There. Now you can go back to sleep.