Posted 9:14 PM by Gene

Remember spam -- you have TWO YEARS before BILL gets ya!

Posted 8:04 PM by Gene

SO -- Saudi women STILL can't drive cars, but it's okay if they bomb, though if they're lucky they'll meet 72 virgins.

The theological pretzel of Islam grows tighter and tighter.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Dippity-DO's ready for some HOCKEY!

But he didn't really need a helmet.

Isn't that the sport of CANADA, by the way?

Posted 3:33 PM by Gene

OH OH! SLEAZEBALL GUMBO will NOT TAKE OVER FROM JACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He's waiting for a more PROFITABLE deal.

Calling KEN FELATTA! Calling KEN FELATTA!

Posted 3:21 PM by Gene

The other day Buzz got EXCITED that his dear friend HOWARD is doing a TALK SHOW. Forget it. Howard is no dummy; he knows the only way CNN's biggies LARRY and LOLLIPOP LOU get their stream of guests is by laying off them. (His competitor IMUS the INSIDER knows this too, which explains his repeat customers among the Beltway liars.) So he'll bury his tough question -- ONE tough question -- under a mound of shtick; and his guests, if mortified by the ONE tough question, know in the end they get their PR, he gets his ratings. (Or so he thinks; the POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! seems to forget HOWARD bombed big time with a TV version of his radio show.) The vapid TV celebrity interview remains unchanged.

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

Another definition of MERDE:

[L]ess than half of Europeans believe that a war — any war — can ever be just.

Let's see you say that under the HAMMER AND SICKLE or a SWASTIKA.

Posted 12:20 PM by Gene

Car bomb, roadside blast kill 5 GIs

Do I hear the Dems doin' the TURKEY TROT today?

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

Pope Slams 'Detrimental' Media Portrayal of Sex

Maybe this is why he didn't say "It is as it was as it should be as it would be as it might be as it may be, etc., etc., etc."

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

PROF glowingly links to another CO-PRODUCTION that in the past THREE DAYS has posted
10,418 WORDS.

Such posting hasn't hurt its popularity, but how many people really want to slog through 10,000 words, half of them quotes from other sources, the rest of the well-it-is-or-it-isn't variety, to get at a nugget of wisdom they could grasp in TEN WORDS? I'm starting to resent the Fortune 500 bloggers, who now seem to believe that with their sheer MEGATONNAGE of VERBIAGE they can dominate blogging, and shut everyone else out.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Oh oh, PSYCHO stages a "comeback"!

If PARIS can do it, so can PSYCHO. Although I'll bet in a pinch she could scream better.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

Sorry, I don't think we'll be able to start a race riot this time, first because this isn't Rodney, and second, I don't think THIS Bush will cower in the Oval Office, and third, given the speed at which this evaporated from the water coolers, because fewer and fewer people are disposed to give a damn.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

The practical difference between RUPERTSUMNERMICKEYMOUSENIXONLITTLEJEFFREY controlling 35% or 39% or 45% of total viewers is small, except for all the wonderful deals it would have inspired -- and especially considering that the EXACT SAME KNEE-JERK LOCKSTEP MENTALITY controls 100% OF BIG ENTERTAINMENT.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

No, WALTER. Moby and Maggie should SHUT up. Just like YOU should shut up, WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

NEWSMAX! WE GOTTA DECIDE: ARE WE FOR OR AGAINST JEWS?!?!?

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

The next big thing for dweebs: Losing real money in fake currency trading.

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

PSYCHO's rant lost him an endorsement!

Sure it wasn't the warts in your HEAD?

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

The next big thing for politicians: plastic surgery.

Does that mean we won't be able to call politics "show business for ugly people" any more?

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

Dippity-DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 12:36 PM by Gene

I'll say it again, Madame DeFarge: you're not getting any younger -- and you're definitely not getting any richer.

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

Is it me, or is THE PROFESSOR trying to be the glibertarian Jonathan Alter of blogging?

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

The latest posted on Free Republic:

Rumor: OBL IN CUSTODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alexa: No data available.

Yep, cheap rumor mongering by no-name Web sites DOES cure cancer, GLENN.

Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

Company life insurance -- the REPUBLICAN way!

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

Bill the Entomologist is giving the League of Nations $1 billion to COMPUTERIZE the WORLD, which means he's donating most of it to the League's kleptocrats.

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

The widow of the late Dr. Fad Diet wants Honorary Mayor Mike to apologize for calling him a FATTIE.

Hey Mike? Can't you be too rich also?

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

Pet Owner Finds Cat 50 Miles From Home

Here kitty!

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

PSYCHO wants to oust THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ!!!!!!!!!!

And replace him with who? Robert Reich?

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

The DEMOCRAT persecution of PILLHEAD continues!

I -- am NOT -- a DRUGGIE!

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Forbes insists on displaying prototypes of some of the world's future tallest buildings, to wit:



The world's tallest high-tech nail file;



The world's tallest high-tech electric razor;



Four...three...two...one...LIFTOFF!



The world biggest teepee -- in London;



Earth to Bugs Bunny! Come in, Bugs Bunny! Over!

ARCHITECTURE -- MARCHES ON!

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

Just one problem, DR. Krauthammer -- as best as I know Republicans did NOT vote in the Iowa caucuses.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

PROF's co-production The Conspiracy writes about the LALATimes' article on the Rosenbergs -- two days after I do. And he forgot the other Times' more damning whitewash. But nothing is official on the Web until a Fortune 500 blogger gets it, and earns his 20 billion hits.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Congress joked today. The punchlines come later.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

A poll by the American Family Association (headed by the crackpot Donald Wildmon) got FREEPED, which would not be news -- except the RIGHT SIDE did the freeping.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Here's a rebuttal to the loony-leftists and their crocodile-tear-filled 500 pairs of boots in Chicago: half-a-million pairs of shoes in downtown Baghdad.

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

His -- er -- royal highness -- er...

GEN. STONEWALL JACKSON!

Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

Every time I've gone to the New York Daily News' site this picture's been, uh, sticking out at me. I am compelled to put the lady down because of her 20-octave (or whatever the former Mr. Mariah said it was) screeching, and her flop in the movies, and her slightly vapid face, and a horizontal belly button (as I noted before) that really must hide behind a curtain. But then I notice the artful -- uh, pose; and in looking up this picture in Yahoo! News I found the lady's been condemned by the sex-with-goats brigade in Malaysia for promoting "immoral values."

So I guess she isn't all that bad.

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

Hey PSYCHO! Go ahead! LOSE YOUR VOICE!

That primal scream's sort of difficult without it.

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

FINALLY -- SOMEBODY NOTICES (SORTA KINDA) THAT MOVIE-AD-BLURB COPYWRITERS SPECIALIZE IN CONFLICTS OF INTEREST -- AND THEY STINK!!!!!

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

The movie industry "concentrat[es]...solely on marketing and its core audience of shareholders, movie ad-blurb copywriters, and dumb blind teens."

--Me, July 30.

In the U.S., moviegoing has ceased to be a national habit for just about everyone but teenagers and film professionals.

--Some ad-blurb copywriter from the Village Voice with a first initial of J., in the LALATimes, TODAY.

Of course HE knows better than I do.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

SIT DOWN, Gen. FLIP-FLOP LOUDMOUTH APPEASER McCLELLAN.

When's your primal-scream moment coming?

P. S. Was that sign supposed to have a cleavage?

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

Further proof the god of Gerry failed -- he's been uninvited to the opening of the TWXsters' Taj Mahal on Columbus Circle.

Isn't it FRUSTRATING when people no longer capitalize your pronoun?

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! NO TO BABIES!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Roger Kimball is right, though he essays for The Wall Street Journals Conservative Edition's Let's-Throw-a-Bone-to-the-Cheapies-Who-Won't-Pay-$70-a-Year OpinionJournal; we should always remember the Hitler crew burned books and the Osama crew destroyed some ancient Buddahs in Afghanistan. But we shouldn't let those memories intimidate us from taking a strong stand against morally outrageous (and artistically deficient) "art" -- even to the point of Ambassador Mazel's low-grade vandalism.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEyew! Looks like the arms race in professional college sports has gone NUCLEAR!

VINCE! WHY NOT SELL THE @#$%&* NAMING RIGHTS AND PAY THE @#$%&* ATHLETES!

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

CIA WARNS OF IRAQ CIVIL WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You also warned the Senate and Norman Thomas's grandson we'd lose in Iraq -- and of course you played a bold and noble effort to warn us of September 11. SHUT UP, Langley, and go back to your classified crossword puzzles.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Look out, RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone else wants to LIVE FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:40 AM by Gene

DEMS MAY BE IN FOR BROKERED CONVENTION

And let me guess who the BROKER is.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

And just how mentally swift are news hacks? It took them TWO DAYS to figure out what Internet denizens knew -- that PSYCHO'S PRIMAL SCREAM hurt his campaign.

I did not want to comment on this because BUZZ T. brought it up first, but his dear friend ZON JR. thought it not altogether a bad idea that PSYCHO screamed; after all, at least he had some intensity. But the line between intensity and raging lunacy is perhaps a finer one than either PSYCHO or his inspiration the vile Sen. Harkin may have realized.

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

Another "respected" wonk factory says California's becoming a low-wage economy, which with all those illegals figures. But THEN you realize the "respected" wonk factory is the HARD LEFT Economic Policy Institute, and once again, you suspect news hacks of being as truthful and eager to accept a psychic bribe as JOHN HEILPERN, and of playing mind games with YOU.

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

A BLITHERING IDIOT PLAYS "TAPS":

I think I made a mistake when, in my understated way, I originally described The Producers as "the greatest show in history." It is the greatest show in history—as long as you know who are in it.

A BLITHERING IDIOT, PART DEUX:

On the night I attended, the send-up of the most famous line in 42nd Street, for example, was no longer greeted with its usual belly laugh. "You’re going out there a silly, hysterical queen," Carmen Ghia orders the faux stage-shy Roger DeBris, "and you’re coming back a great big passing-for-straight Broadway star!" A few of us were on the floor, but it passed the Japanese, among others, by.

A BLITHERING IDIOT, PART TROIS:

There are "good seats" on sale for much less than $100, of course. But they are believed to be in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Bridge. (Binoculars may be rented.) Now, though tourists will pay practically anything, it seems, to see the original stars in The Producers, the public ain’t dumb. That’s why the "Welcome back, Nathan and Matthew, once-in-a-lifetime (positively our final offer!)" $1,500 ticket for the New Year’s Eve performance of the show didn’t sell. People weren’t buying it—just as they won’t rush to see this once-golden show when it’s "starring" Fred Applegate.

WHO HELPED CREATE THOSE $1,500 TICKETS???????????

And finally, A BLITHERING IDIOT, PART QUATRE:

May Mr. Landesman live to be 120, but "the show is good, the audiences are bad" will no doubt be written on his tombstone.

Buddy, someone will "write" "THE GREATEST SHOW IN HISTORY" on YOURS.

(Link corrected 9/1/2008)

Posted 7:31 PM by Gene

The universal loathing of THE GREAT SATAN melts in the face of Nike and Mickey D's. And it seems there's a practical reason for it too:

...[G]lobal brands including Nike were favoured by consumers in developing countries because they represented a guarantee of quality in markets where basic standards were not always guaranteed. Coca-Cola, for example, was seen as being a brand that used clean water in preparing its soft drinks.

So much for Mecca-Cola.

P. S. If PROF picks this up I expect him to have a HEH® moment.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

I got more hits for trying to fiddle with the color of my font than I got for anything I said!

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

The forces of reaction strike -- OHIO. BOOOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

I seem to have run out of clever things to say for the moment, so if I just go

HEH®

will you cut me a break?

Posted 2:51 PM by Gene

Bush Says US In State Of War, Calls For Student Drug-Testing In Speech

We're in a state of war -- so let's test students for drugs!

Posted 1:48 PM by Gene

Dirty tricks in New Hampshire
Democratic presidential candidates are encountering a cast of characters who pop up to ask embarrassing questions.

Well somebody has to do it, if it won't be news hacks.

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

Pakistan Bars Its Nuclear Scientists From Traveling Abroad

AS IF.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

PROF boasts (or implies) that Dubya cribbed from his blog. Aren't 2 trillion hits a second enough for you?

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

There's money afoot in the news biz, and whatever happened (or did not happen) with WACKO and Viacon, it nearly happened with GE Bancorp Network. Which doesn't change the fact that news hacks usually don't need money to be bribed.

Posted 4:36 PM by Gene

Did anyone notice before the GOVERNOR went on his roll call he mentioned the sleazy Sen. Harkin, that bad guy from a Frank Capra movie? He was standing right behind him. I'm thinking maybe PSYCHO wanted to out-Harkin him, for I can see Tom doing exactly what the GOVERNOR did last night -- and I'll bet he's mighty proud of him.

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

You can educate, or you can run a professional sports program. You can't do both.

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

IF Governor's DAMN!'s Web schtick didn't work, what does that say for the Web? What does that say for BLOGS?

Posted 1:27 PM by Gene

Here's what I like about knee-jerks: their knees do the writing. Our religious professor Michael forgets the very "classy" Dick flipflopped on abortion, and of course Sen. Polyester's "SHADY" -- because he's a LAWYER. So was Abe Lincoln, I'm afraid.

Were we speaking to Larry Kudlow today?

Posted 1:17 PM by Gene

Bush to stress domestic matters in State of Union

Translation: He's written a laundry list. Again.

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

This guy gets BIG BUCKS to repeat what he sees on television. Ah, such is the hard life of PUNDITS.

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

Two questions:

1. Does America really want a President from Massachusetts? and

2. Do we really want Dubya for a second term?

Decisions, decisions.

Posted 12:55 PM by Gene

Dean Martin's estate is releasing some indifferent videos of his NBC variety show of the sixties, but whatever their quality the news inspires melancholy -- starting with this list of his guest stars:

On the first three DVDs alone you'll see Orson Welles* (yes, and singing and dancing, too), John Wayne*, James Stewart*, Frank Sinatra*, Peggy Lee*, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Bob Hope*, Bob Newhart, Rosemary Clooney*, Roy Rogers* and Dale Evans* (who are mercilessly ridiculed by Don Rickles), Petula Clark, Paul Lynde*, George Gobel* and Buddy Hackett*.

Each asterisk (mine) equals dead, and if not one of them could be replaced, think of a whole generation (or several generations) of them. This is one of the many reasons show-biz NEWS HACKS get my dander up. Today's genius trumps this? Highly unlikely.

We miss ya, Dino.

Posted 12:47 PM by Gene

Here's one publicity stunt that refuses to shut up. No doubt that "it is as it was as it will be" (or whatever the Pope "said") came from Mel and his gang. We're dealing with PR of the first magnitude; witness the even-easier-than-usual seduction of WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And when the NEWS HACKS get seduced, the PUBLIC gets the CLAP. That this is an almost-certain BO bomb does not mitigate the offense.

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

Judging from The PROFESSOR, the Fortune 500 blogs have merely replaced one kind of horserace coverage with another.

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

Well here's good news: on the heels of Medicare "reform," the Feds are giving the insurers a big increase in payments!

Is this going to be a yearly thing?

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

The SUPERPATRIOTIC Jonathan Alter said Governor DAMN! was "off his medication" last night, which I guess means the forces of right -- er, left have abandoned his candidacy, and Dippity-Do wins.

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

This is PUZZLING. Why did Mrs. Badburger leave all that money to a REACTIONARY outfit like the Salvation Army? Wouldn't it have been put to better use along with the $200 million at NPR? I mean, doesn't NPR preach the eternal truth also? Is a puzzlement.

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Shucks, I guess you can't flip when you flop.

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Dippity-DO!

I hereby demote PRESIDENT DAMN! to Governor.

And unless PSYCHO stages a comeback, this is a two-horse race, and will be decided long before the convention -- just the way news hacks always want it. Me, I'm sticking with Dippity-DO!

Posted 8:19 PM by Gene

Oh great, WACKO's lawyer is taking a break from his travails because he's too busy with other cases. But this vaudeville won't close shop, so in the meantime, we'll be entertained by Nation of Islam thugs, people employed as WACKO fans, and spoon-bending psychics.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Dean To News Media: Get A Life

Isn't that what you're trying to do, Tantrum?

Posted 4:22 PM by Gene

Mickey even had a contest for the best way for John Kerry to drop out a few weeks back - and now he's the front-runner!

Isn't that what bloggers are for?

Posted 4:19 PM by Gene

This fish won't fly. In the past the Amish have complained of unscrupulous show-biz types distorting and sexifying their inscrutable movement, and I find it hard to believe it won't happen again, not with a group so removed from modernity. Alas, having lived in Amish Country PA, I know the teenagers weren't beyond getting drunk and doing drugs. And with Viacon, anything's possible.

Posted 4:10 PM by Gene

Who stands more for the civil-rights movement: Mrs. King preaching civility and the commonality of man, or Julian Bond screaming "NAZIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"? I fear it's the latter; we can hope it's the former.

Posted 4:07 PM by Gene

If the no-talents are the reason to watch American Idol, maybe there's no good reason to watch TV -- PERIOD.

Posted 4:06 PM by Gene

One wonders why Mickey D's cut the ties with Kobe with all those first-row seats and Chevy Chase bragging rights at stake ("I WAS AT THE NBA FINALS AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!"). God knows they couldn't have done it for any GOOD reason (pffh-hh-hh).

Posted 12:48 PM by Gene

What are the chances of making money on a Google IPO?

Plenty -- if you're Google.

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

Fortunately, anger management doesn't work (so this article says), so we news hacks can be righteous all the time.

Posted 8:01 AM by Gene

It's just as well that this is behind Trib's wall, for judging from the teaser it's another article you can read without reading:

A new film about the Rosenbergs probes a horror that has yet to heal.

Earth to Ken, Earth to Ken: both the Rosenbergs were involved in espionage -- against US. But the nice thing about whining in print like this is that you confirm you're right, which, in the end, is the only thing news hacks can do. And I thought Kenneth Turan had marginally more sense than the average ad-blurb copywriter, whose quota is zero.

P. S. In the East Coast Times, which recently went into profitable denial over Walter Duranty, the story has a happy ending. Figures.

Posted 10:05 PM by Gene

''How can I convey to you the DISGUST which your name AWAKENS in me? How can you FACE YOURSELF knowing how much HISTORY, VALUE AND SAVINGS you have THROWN AWAY on YOUR MAD, IGNORANT ATTEMPT to merge with a WRETCHED DIAL-UP I.S.P.?''

Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwell!

''That we impute meaning and purpose to things that are totally adventitious or accidental; that there is no God; that there just is; that there's no life after death.''

Except, of course, there was a god -- the god of Gerry. That god failed. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

I think I see why BUZZ melodramatizes. Barely.

Posted 8:59 PM by Gene

Today -- and I wasn't sure I wanted to write about this -- I start my second year with this blog. Site Meter hasn't been too hopeful, and I'd beg for the mercy of the Profs but for my own timidity and the fear that (as I've said before) I'd get nothing in return but form e-mails. And I know -- I was just visiting a few sites mentioned in "My BlogChildren" -- that some of Prof's links are outdated, and the blogs infrequently updated, or abandoned. I haven't posted fifteen comments a day just for the sake of it. IF, to my three readers, you find anything I say enlightening, please pass the word along to the biggies. I have no intention of quitting, but I would like just a little recognition.

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

Lobbyists Pin Hopes on State of the Union

They don't have to worry: this administration's had Ka-CHING! written all over it from day one.

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

Analysis: Gephardt then and now

Then: FLIP

Now: FLOP

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

The Times gets in a -- holy -- lather about religion and the national parks. I'm a little nervous with those in the conservative movement who say with great unction that America is a CHRISTIAN nation -- I'm half-Jewish -- but I get far more upset with the knee-jerk liberals who say religion has no place in American life (except the PC fundamentalist Muslim kind) and are working with tantrum fury and beet-red faces to expunge it. Please idiots, chill out a little.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

An unshakable rule of modern retailing: a chain store's ability to keep sale items in stock and the friendliness of its employees are in inverse proportion to the volume and aggressiveness of its foreground Muzak®.

I'd love to pose a question to the CEOs of CVS, Mickey D's, etc., etc., the whole misbegotten lot: What's your least favorite kind of music -- music that would have you climbing the walls and screaming in pain? And after listening to the answers I'd ask, well, why do you inflict such music on us?

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

Skul daze skool dayz, gud ole GOALDN rool daaz....

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

I don't want to know, Uri Geller, if Wacko's innocent, I want to know if he can bend a spoon.

Posted 4:35 PM by Gene

Any article that dares to see into the future is by definition nonsense. That said, American culture can endure; we've made enough that's good. On the other hand, if we have to rely on our cultural "infrastructure," we're in trouble. Plato survived on parchment. The same may not be true for one-hit wonders.

Posted 3:58 PM by Gene

Dean, Ex-President Carter Meet on Eve of Caucus

I can see these two meeting now:

"Hello, Dr. Dean."

"Hello, Dr. Carter." (Nudge nudge.)

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

Source: Baghdad bomber may have used unsuspecting Iraqis

Like Saddam, like the Baghdad bomber.

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

I'm not even going to read this. It's about the Pope, a CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN, and Dubya. THIS is the TRIANGLE OF EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL.

I really do believe that when a columnist becomes predictable enough to read without reading, he should be fired, whatever his politics.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

Look who's leading in Iowa! Two men noted for their hair! And PRESIDENT DAMN! has slipped to third! I may have to demote him to GOVERNOR!

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

In January 1999, 'The Blair Witch Project' debuted at Sundance. The movie went on to become a cultural phenomenon and make $250 million worldwide. And the directors and stars were never seen again.

If only that would happen with every overhyped reel of future guitar picks plugged by BLUNDER.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

The movie producer Ray Stark has died; he will be remembered (despite a generally undistinguished output) for one of the last decent musicals, Funny Girl, and for helping palm off Columbia Pictures to Coca-Cola (who?), the first of two corporate suckers to waste their shareholders' fortunes on show-biz. RIP.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

PUBLICITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION: Some CLOWN decides to accept at FACE VALUE an executive's claim that his company got more out of the naming rights to a stadium than it put in. To me this is worse than what Jayson did. I'll say it again: Jayson fibbed for the fun of it. This CLOWN accepts a made-up assertion in the name of root-root-rooting for the home team. We can laugh off Jaysons, for their fun, despite the hand-wringing and woe-is-meing, is largely harmless; we can't laugh off these PR CLOWNS, because they broadcast flat-out half-truths (and frequently, LIES) in utter SERIOUSNESS.

Did you get your FREE TICKETS?

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

And speaking of megalomaniacs, how apt that the public-be-damned TWXSTERS will now operate out of a complex with the most expensive condos in America. Let them eat cable!

THIS is what IPOs are for, Buzz.

Posted 8:01 AM by Gene

Surprise, surprise, news hacks donate to political campaigns. You would think they wouldn't because 1.) it creates "the appearance of impropriety," which allows Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz to go off on his long-winded tangents, and 2.) if they really want to be political, they can do what they've always done -- slant the news.