Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

And in firefighting news:

Chief Olympic organizer Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki threw a party at her hillside villa Saturday after Athens' lavish opening ceremony went off without a hitch.

The party, however, was a disaster.

Fireworks set off at the mansion caused a fire in the nearby wooded area, burning out of control for nearly an hour, police said. Sixty firefighters were called to the scene near Filothei, about two miles north of the city, and eventually put out the blaze.

No one was hurt.

The rich, they are different from you and me. Even if they are Greek.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Proof the ORGY hardly means anything: we failed to qualify for the baseball tournament. So what?

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

When in doubt, blame the JUDGES.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

I suppose a story like this is good for a prurient chortle, but it is amazing that a culture can make anything-goes sex jokes and be hypercritically puritanical at the same time.

And if this alleged satire is anywhere close to the truth, the joke isn't even FUNNY.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Charley's Force Took Experts by Surprise

It always does.

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

And guess what almost came back? THE DREADED B WORD.

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

The GREEKS black out AGAIN at the ORGY!

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Meantime AN OFFICIAL ORGY SPONSOR says:

The most beloved emblems of the modern Olympics have a decidedly dark past.

The torch relay, which culminates in Friday's ceremonial lighting of the flame at the Olympic stadium, was a creation of Adolf Hitler, who tried to turn the 1936 Berlin Games into a celebration of the Third Reich.

And it was Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine that popularized the five interlocking rings as the symbol of the games.

Today, both are universally recognized icons of the Olympics. But historians say neither had much, if anything, to do with the games born centuries ago in Ancient Olympia.

"The torch relay is so ingrained in the modern choreography that most people today assume it was a revival of a pagan tradition _ unaware that it was actually concocted for Hitler's Games in Berlin," author Tony Perrottet writes in a new book, "The Naked Olympics."

"Ironically, considering its repellent origins, the torch race has come to symbolize international brotherhood today, and remains a centerpiece of our own pomp-filled Olympic opening ceremonies."

NOW they tell us!

P. S. Slavery Brandage must have been proud.

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

Fortunately losing his match will spare this boxer further embarrassment for having been found guilty of manslaughter on his five-month-old daughter.

I don't think we could do a Sappy Featurette on this one.

Posted 11:17 AM by Gene

WHEN he started to do voiceover work to augment his income, Chris Earle, an actor and playwright and former member of the Canadian touring company of Second City, began to understand something about acting.

"I was always struck by the strange claustrophobia of those recording sessions," he said last week by phone from his home in Toronto. "When you're in the studio, you can't hear what they're saying in the engineer's booth, while they can hear everything you say. There's the moment when the talk-back button goes on and you hear chuckling and laughter and you don't know why. To me, it's the perfect expression of a performer's life: `I'm here to do a performance and I'm not sure it's what you want.' "

Mr. Earle, 41, thought there might be a play in what he had experienced, and there was: "Radio :30," about a slick radio announcer who does commercials for a living and knows how to ooze out of almost any unpleasant situation....

Hey PAPER OF RECORD-annointed genius! I want to know who you've done voiceovers for!

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

BOSNIA WAR HERO O'GRADY: KERRY COMMITTED TREASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who?

O'Grady, in an appearance with other military veterans coordinated by President Bush's re-election campaign....

PINCH!!!!!!!!!! LENNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH....

He had been chased by police for miles through North Patchogue early Friday. His car had slid over an embankment into a pond. It was sinking fast and filling with water.

But all Yaysn Abdul-Mattin wanted to do, police said, was suck on his crack pipe.

"We kept calling out 'Get out of the car! You're going to drown!'" Suffolk Police Officer Armand Reyes said. "But the only thing we heard was the sound of his lighter going click, click, click."

When the water rose chin-high, Abdul-Mattin dropped the pipe....

Yaysn! MEET RICKY WILLIAMS!

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

Since "Castro's aging communist revolution lacks much in the way of money or outside support," the only hope is for him to live to be 120.

I wouldn't bet against it.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

Talk about being careful what you wish for: clearly a VAT would have great GOP appeal; it would considerably reduce taxes on their CONSTITUENTS (er, the RICH) and sock it to DEMOCRATS (er, the poor and middle-class). Before they jump into the deep end maybe even the Pubbies ought to consider whether we want to pay a sales tax on everything.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

Well THIS is good news:

Victims of Hurricane Charley Can Use Discounted Service to Recover Data From Damaged Computers

Posted 7:58 AM by Gene

I presume the excuse for this is they get paid too little.

Posted 7:49 AM by Gene

A Web site founder spends 1,710 words dissecting the one-note wonder Frank Wildhorn (WILD horn, man!) when it comes down to this: he's a no-talent with luck.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

A PREDICTION: In 2008, faced with a twelve-hour delay and international competition, BANCORP will put the entire Orgy -- ONLINE.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

I'm telling you, Playbill.com has INTERESTING NEWS. Here's a juicy morsel: a BOB DYLAN MUSICAL -- upcoming. BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

The synergistic-for-not-very-much-longer Kinsley.com all but concedes the BANCORP'S WET-SECURITY-BLANKET COVERAGE will STINK UP THE GYMS AGAIN.

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

Wanna bet our HEROIC gov'nor faces JAIL?

Posted 12:16 PM by Gene

Are the people who run G000,000,000,000GLE idiots or what?

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

More peace and brotherhood and good sportsmanship and blahblahblah from the ORGY.

Yep, it's ALL about MICKEY D'S, POSTURING and DRUGS.

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Aside from being born earlier, the Beatles had another big advantage over Springsteen. There were four of them. This meant they could break up when they ran out of ideas. But how does one guy break up?

I think we're seeing it now.

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

I'm not surprised DIPPITY-DO!!!!! was a loony nuclear-freeznik, but why can't this info come from someone other than NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Of course NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! would be nothing without its truthful headlines. A FREEPER can see that.

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

A five-percent profit on $1 billion in revenues.

Hey LEGENDARY! LEGENDARY WELCH! This was YOUR idea. WHAT SORT OF RETURN IS THAT?

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Two of USAOKAY!!!!!'s exceptionally-well-paid publicists say MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER -- AND ADULTS ARE COMING BACK TO FIND OUT! But then you skip to the bottom of the story -- NEWS HACKS THINK THEY'RE SO CLEVER WHEN THEY DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS -- to learn:

Moreover, [Steve] Gilula [a RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!! exec] and other distributors fret that the adult summer market — underserved for years — may be growing too fast.

"The strategy will not only be counterprogramming against blockbusters, but against each other going for mostly the same audience," Gilula says. "This is going to be a crowded market." [Emphasis added.]

TRANSLATION: Few adults see movies -- for good reason -- and the market is easily tapped out.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Movie studios use deceptive advertising to sell offensive product.

Has anyone noticed the Alphabet Soup has disappeared from many movie posters and a good deal of Web advertising? SAMMY! SAMMY GLICKMAN!!!!!

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Wait a second! We all know how you yap over media bias; but who told YOU to schedule Rudy for Monday?

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Whoopee!! Dueling Reagans.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

TRIB and Mayor Daley are engaged in a knock-down drag-out brawl. In a sense it's a battle of equals: what the one has in incompetence the other matches in greed.

May the worse party win! If that's possible.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

This is why I am so incredibly jaundiced about the GE Bancorp Orgy: it's about manufacturing heroes; it's about inventing virtues (athleticism as heroism, for one; you'd think L'Affaire Kobe would teach us something); it's about bathos; it's about showing off; it's about huge corporations wasting money on hubris and their CEOs' immortality; it's about Babbittry; it's about avarice; it's about fear. For seventeen intolerable days the news hacks of the world will get out every last hackeneyed trope and frayed adjective to convince us something "historic" is happening, that something "unforgettable" is in the air, when only the expert or the most hopeless of the Orgy's addicts can tell any difference between the best of this show's derring-do and the last, and when the seventeen intolerable days are over hardly anyone save the CEOs and the hacks will remember anything, and all that will remain are the debts, and the losses, and the headaches.

And THEN comes the SECOND INFOMERCIAL. Oiiiiiiiiiiii!

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

With Games, Greece Goes for Broke

No no no no NO!

With Games, Greece Goes Broke

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

Zzzzzzzzzzo lllonggh ahs eet eeees nawt aimmt at uss veee zzee nothingh wrrrongggh with a llllllleetle Joo-baitingh now ann zzzenn.

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

How do you report on a fatal accident in a building owned by your paper's proprietor (in this case, Mortimer Zuck) -- especially one where the proprietor may be culpable? I'll bet it's buried in the print edition.

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

This just in from OsamaChannel.com:

Server Error in '/english' Application.

But NEVER in ARABIC.

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

And of course I frequently turn to PRNewswire, which is always good for a laugh:

SEATTLE, Aug. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- This summer, in support of the 2004 Athens Games, RealNetworks(R) (Nasdaq: RNWK) is partnering with NBC Olympics to bring the excitement of the games home to millions of U.S. consumers by offering free access to the award-winning Rhapsody(TM) Internet jukebox service and music playlists from more than 250 U.S. athletes. Between August 11th and the close of competition on August 29th, U.S.-based fans canget Rhapsody, the online music source for NBC's coverage of the 2004 AthensGames, via http://www.nbcolympics.com/music and http://www.rhapsody.com, with no credit card required to try the service.

RealNetworks is also working with NBC Olympics to enable fans and music lovers who visit http://www.nbcolympics.com to discover the music that motivated these athletes as they trained for the 2004 Athens Games.

I CAN IMAGINE.

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

As you may have noticed (all two of you), I'm starting to link to Playbill.com, an excellent news-packed site and a chronicle of our intellectual heartland's ever-increasing show-biz GENIUS. Here's a dispatch from today:

Eve Ensler, best known for her much-performed The Vagina Monologues, will make her Broadway debut this fall in The Good Body.

The new play, written and performed by Ensler, will begin previews Oct. 22 at the Booth Theatre with an official opening set for Nov. 15. The limited 12-week engagement will run through Jan. 16, 2005. Peter Askin directs.

In The Good Body, Ensler, according to production notes, "turns her unique eye to the rest of the female form. Whether undergoing Botox injections or living beneath burkhas, women of all cultures and backgrounds feel compelled to change the way they look in order to fit in, to be accepted, to be 'good.' Merging these cross-cultural explorations with her own personal journey to come to terms with her 'less-than-flat, post-40s stomach.'" Ensler's new work was presented at San Francisco's ACT earlier this summer.

This may be the first play to get raves from those PAPER OF RECORD fools Ben Brantley and THE GLIBERAL! Which raises the question: Which one is the REAL theater reviewer?

And here's a TANTRUM starting Saturday:

The Passion of George W. Bush follows "our hero from youth to adulthood, from drunkard to president, and watch as he tirelessly searches for how to be a 'good man,'" librettists John Herin and Adam B. Mathias told Playbill On-Line about their stagework. "It's a musical about honesty, humility, vigilance and the cost of virtue."

With characters from the current administration, the tale of one man spreading "his father's gospel across the land" was borne out of reaction to the depressing news of "war in Iraq, a lousy economy, terrorist threats," said the duo. "We decided we could either sit around and gripe about the state of the nation, or we could find some way to enter the political debate, add our opinion, and, at the same time, make people laugh."

TRANSLATION: You could sit around and gripe, or you can get the fatuous second-stringer Bruce "URINETOWN" Weber to praise your sitting around and griping! (Don't forget to call it FRINGE!)

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Someone at The Corner is excited that a possibly unclean fellow is in Der Homeland Security. What gets me excited is his title: "Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate."

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Iraq takes another step in its comeback, despite the most fervent hopes of news hacks.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Oops, ol' Petrified burns up in Nashville because the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL DUBYA is exploiting...are you still mad, Petrified?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000GLE's IPO Resembles BLOGGER, Part TROIS.

Obviously they READ Playboy at the SEC. Pffh-hh-hh!

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

In the run-up to the SALE OF THE CENTURY (and GE Bancorp's Orgy) Kinsley.com runs more alleged SATIRE.

"Satire" takes up as much time as a 2,000-word blog entry, and is just as enervating. No, we are not alive after all this "SATIRE."

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

He did say "sensitive," and he does speak FRENCH. He CAN'T blame DUBYA for THIS one.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

What is going on here? Why am I only getting hits late at night and early in the morning? Yesterday I didn't get a hit for thirteen hours during the day. The same is happening today. Is anybody out there?!?!?

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

A HERO!

Just one problem: by many accounts he was a lousy governor.

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

OUR RECORDING ACT OF THE YEAR:

Early Wednesday morning (August 11), a recording studio in Burbank, California where the Black Eyed Peas were recording songs for their next album caught fire. The group had lit candles to set the mood while recording, but left to take a break.

According to published reports, the blaze started around 3 a.m. and caused $550,000 in damages to Glenwood Place Studios. "There were candles in the recording studio that caused a fire while taking a break," said Burbank Fire Marshal Dave Starr."

But not to despair:

The Black Eyed Peas are expected to be back in the studio recording as early as this week.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

We expect ETHICS in SHOW-BIZ NEWS?!?!?

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

If it's any consolation, John, I know what a zero rating is like.

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

What a smack in the face of sports patriotism!

But many top competitors have spurned the opening ceremony. Joining the interminable parade of athletes could blunt their edge on the eve of the greatest challenge of their lives.

Selfish!

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Here's a fight with no heroes: the leading maker of $10 boxes of sugary cereals for kids and a PC government agency in a PC nation that doesn't want kids eating "chemicals." SIGHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

It takes a certain kind of masochist to want to snap celebrities' pictures.

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOooooooooh, the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Republicans are playing the RACE CARD (albeit only on the HOME PAGE HED -- nice going, Lenny!)

I can see the wings flapping on ST. WARREN's assistant ANGELS.

Posted 6:32 AM by Gene

Great: a new kind of stupid sequel for teens.

Count on USAOKAY!, The Marketing-Driven Paper™, to want to celebrate it.

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

AOL to sell low-cost PCs to minorities and seniors

KING RICHARD challenges BILL as the CHAMPION BUGMEISTER.

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

So the Dems won't throw another tantrum -- THIS time.

And we can count this as DEFINITIVE from the Dems' house organ, much as with the NRA and NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:19 AM by Gene

So long as CEOs want to get their luxury boxes and browbeat their subordinates, they'll be involved in dubious propositions like sports marketing.

Posted 8:59 PM by Gene

A Big G operative likens our b-ball team to "the Hindenburg." Please, save the melodrama for the featurettes. We should remember that America has more of the best athletes in more sports than the rest of the world combined. (To be sure, this is not an unalloyed virtue, as the professional college teams and the likes of THE DOPE readily show; but that's another story.) The Orgies are largely a showcase of quirky niche sports, and any sport with a following comes up against scheduling conflicts here and overseas that prevent the superstars from showing up; besides, pro sport trumps the Orgies with one word: MONEY. Not even The HOLY ELEVEN can change that.

Posted 8:44 PM by Gene

WELL!! GE BANCORP kept THIS a state secret: the ORGY started TODAY -- and wouldn't you know it, this Reuters dispatch is dominated by a four-letter word that begins with a d and which makes you SWIFTER, HIGHER, STRONGER, or however the GE BANCORP subsid puts it.

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

: Glenn Reynolds once accused me of getting obsessed on the FCC vs. Howard Stern and the First Amendment. I disagree but fine, he saw that as a friendly intervention.

In that same spirit, I'd say that Glenn is going overboard -- pun a fringe benefit -- on the Kerry swift boat/Cambodia hooha.

It would not occur to you, STERNO, that maybe BOTH OF YOU are obsessing -- nor would it occur to you that maybe your OBSESSING is a subconscious strategy to get you ZILLIONS OF HITS, as if you need them. I just wish a blogger's hits didn't depend on the depth of his MONOMANIA.

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

One of these things is not like the other:

Iran seeking 'peaceful' nuclear program [hed]

At the same time, Iran successfully test fired a new version of its ballistic Shahab-3 missile, which already was capable of reaching U.S. forces in the Middle East and since has been upgraded in response to Israeli missile development. The Shahab-3 can carry a nuclear warhead. [second graf]

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

And speaking of Mr. Michael Kinsley, the intrepid NEW YORK SUN gooses the sale!

Before you know it we'll hear $250 million and we'll be off into the news-hack land of fantasy.

Posted 7:17 PM by Gene

For what it is worth I deleted a portion of a post from yesterday regarding ESPNCorp's WHINERFILMS unit because I found my reference to a reporter for THE PAPER OF RECORD was neither accurate nor fair: I had accused her of sticking up for MICKEYMOUSE NIXON, which was wrong. Show-biz reporting ranks with campaigning as the worst thing news hacks do; but at least here there was a modicum of reason -- unlike when MICKEYMOUSE bought CAPCITIES, an event comparable in the press's shrunken collective mind to a mass religious healing.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Kinsley.com discovers a rock music ad-blurb copywriter who teaches middle school.

PLEASE BUGMEISTER, SELL THE DAMN THING!

P. S. In honor of our many damn -- er, SPONSORS like CITIGROUP who stuck with us through thick and thin and especially very thin when we tore RONALD REAGAN to SHREDS:

B*tch

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

CBS Unilaterally Declares: The Summer Is Over! And We Win!!

Aug. 12 Deemed By #1 Network to Be the Official End to the Summer Because the Olympics Begin On Friday

By my calendar summer doesn't end for another six weeks; but if we go by YOUR calendar and lop six weeks off summer that makes SUMNER about 100 years old, which means he IS immortal!

Was that your point?

(Of course that also makes the Spike Jones's decrepit former announcer about a century old, but we never had any doubt HE was immortal.)

Posted 4:42 PM by Gene

Now we know Dubya's EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL: Israeli Jews support him!

Dems! Think we could organize an EMBARGO on the APARTHEID STATE OF ZIONISM?????

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

I like this: the BUGMEISTERS issue another service pack for XP, so what do they do now? They ask people not to install the service pack!

Hey CRMBuyer.com! Who designed your Web page? BUGMEISTER BILL?

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

Or DIPPITY-DO!!!!! and Te-RAY-za?

(CAVEAT: More news from WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

Etiquette goes with CELL PHONES?

That's like an Islamist going with an Orthodox Jew.

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

Our "good" "friends" the Saudis come through again! WHOOPEE!!

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

Is this going to be on the final?

: The Olympics coverage is taking me back to the hell of sixth grade. Oh, how I hated Greek myths!

Does this explain why you spent all those years as a TWXSTER creating AMERICAN MYTHS, STERNO?

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

ELVIS is putting out a new TAPE!!!!!

Hey Porter, HEY Porter....

(Whoops! THAT's Johnny Cash.)

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Does a Pali get his 72 Helen Thomases for killing fellow Palis?

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

"I AM NOT A FIREBRAND LIBERAL!!!!!!!!!!"

No, you're just a firebrand FLACK.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

I have an idea, MADAME PRESIDENT CHICKEN: have the men bop you on the forehead with their BEAKS.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

ERRRRRRRRRR....

As Donald J. Trump's publicly traded casino company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, goes into a bankruptcy reorganization, Mr. Trump has to invest $55 million of his money in the enterprise to maintain a large ownership stake.

But does he have it?

In an interview yesterday, as in many interviews before, Mr. Trump pegged his net worth at $4 billion to $5 billion, a figure that suggests he could easily chip $55 million into the reorganization of the casino that bears his name.

"It's cash I have on hand," Mr. Trump said. "I'm very, very liquid."

In fact, it is nearly impossible to independently determine how wealthy Mr. Trump is, since most of his assets are privately held real estate investments that lack the kind of unforgiving financial disclosure required of his publicly traded casino holdings. But a cursory examination of Mr. Trump's finances suggests that his claims of being a billionaire may be greatly exaggerated.

WHAT'D I SAY?

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

OH oh, a writer for EM -- a "professor of free enterprise" (whatever that is) -- says the way to reduce hospital errors is -- LAWSUITS?!?!?!?!?

I thought lawyers and John Edwards were the root of all evil.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

It is a quintessential Olympic moment, hundreds of athletes marching into the stadium, drenching the field in the banners and colors of their nations. But when the 2004 Summer Games in Athens begin with this traditional opening ceremony, take a closer look.

That sprinter wearing a British uniform? He was born and raised outside Sacramento and had never been to Britain until last month.

The familiar-looking woman with Slovenia? She competed in the six previous Summer Games, winning numerous medals, as a Jamaican.

And what about the Greek baseball team? All but two of the players grew up in the United States or Canada.

The Athens Games will include dozens of men and women who have taken advantage of a little-known rule, swapping nations to compete under a different flag.

Some have fled poverty, looking for a new home with better coaches and facilities. Others have returned to the land where a parent or grandparent was born, where they face less competition to make the national Olympic team.

Sports officials call the number of athletes crossing borders a growing problem. Even more worrisome are cases in which athletes appear to be motivated by profit.

Sorry Matt, I'll say it again: at the GE Bancorp Obscure Sports and Sappy Featurettes Orgy, brought to you by Coca-Cola®, John Hancock®, Kodak®, Panasonic®, MICKEY D'S®, Samsung®, Atos Origin®, Sports Illustrated®, Swatch®, Visa® and Xerox®, "innocence" vanished a long time ago.

And that is why I don't care who competes, or who wins, nor will I be watching much of the Orgy if any, ruffles and flourishes and patriotic duty and 1200 hours notwithstanding.

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

This time Jerry Falwell wins over a Teletubbie.

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

A senile former announcer for Spike Jones was arrested for disorderly conduct, something of which he has been guilty his whole life.

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

Since 1980, when Ronald Reagan received the first presidential endorsement by the National Rifle Association, no Republican candidate has lost an election with the endorsement – and no Republican has won without it.

In the run-up to November 2004, however, the powerful gun lobby continues to hang-fire on putting its formal seal of approval on George W. Bush.

We'll take that as definitive from NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

For the purposes of these Olympic Games, I am a big hoser from British Columbia, so take off, eh.

You joining in the booing?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Brian Lamb is giving up Booknotes. I haven't watched it in a while, wanting to reclaim some personal time myself; but he brought a little civility back to television, and he leaves behind the legacy of Book TV, which has created a little more.

(I know, I should talk after that last post; but certain singers and their plagiarized [!] wonders are created solely to spur the sale of pain relievers.)

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

We should not be surprised Ms. Twenty-Octave has conceivably plagiarized portions of her POS repertoire -- but who can believe thar's GOLD in them thar horse-droppings?

OR:

Mariah has quite possibly met her match in Seth Swirsky, who says, "I don't consider her a bona fide songwriter." [We consider her a bona-fide pestilence, but that's another story. --ED] Unlike the writers in these other cases, he has the resources and the resumé to keep fighting for his rights.

"I'm trying to defend one of my children," he says.

Okay, not POS -- bastards.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Exciting times in the thea-TAH:

A Babe Off-Broadway: Mickey Rooney Performs Let's Put On a Show! at NYC's Irish Rep Aug. 10-Sept. 12

Julie Andrews Returns to The Boy Friend as Director of 2005 Goodspeed Production; National Tour Planned

The Mick started in show-biz in the twenties; The Boy Friend opened in '54. What's next -- a revival of The Black Crook -- with the original cast?

Posted 3:32 PM by Gene

I'll love you, Georgie -- until the real thing comes along.

ALTERNATE CAPTION:

I must confess, Georgie, I have a greater love in my life -- ME.

Posted 2:18 PM by Gene

GOD RAISES RATES! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

I don't care what anyone says, ESPNCorp's virtual dissolution of WHINERFILMS is the final admission its involvement in "ADULT" (read stick-the-middle-finger-in-the-eye) MOVIES has irreparably damaged the company's reputation in "FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT."

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

And in more news of HOLLYWOOD BRILLIANCE, MEATHEAD is replacing some hack as director of a remake?!? (they call it an "update") of The Graduate because the actresses had "ISSUES" with the LIGHTING.

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

I don't know why we profess to be shocked at violent crime anymore. Society has made a bargain to accept death in exchange for some vague Thoreauvian notion of freedom of conscience, and punishment for the most horrendous butchery is just a formality.

One other thing -- marijuana isn't that funny.

Posted 1:12 PM by Gene

Otto Preminger wanted an Ellington tune. David Raksin wrote "Laura." Today they'd license something from the BEATLES.

Posted 12:30 PM by Gene

More evidence of news hack excellence: a story so heavily loaded with qualifiers and guesswork as to be useless. I'm tired of hearing al Qaeda has between 600 and 100,000 members, and that it could be possibly might be maybe doing this or that when NOBODY OUTSIDE THAT EVIL BROTHERHOOD HAS THE FOGGIEST IDEA -- AND THEY DON'T HOLD PRESS CONFERENCES.

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

Hey GLIBERAL! I got a NEW HERO for YOU! Now you can trash Republicans and "family values" in one, uh, ARTS column!

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

You mean P. R. Mike CAN'T START A REVOLUTION?

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

THE TEST OF BLOGGING: How can we comment on Porter Goss heading the CIA when we know little about him or it? Let's see what the ALMIGHTY, ALL-SEEING PROFESSOR says:

Nothing yet! Can't talk now!

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

THE DONALD'S house of cards (and other gambl -- gaming activities) is filing for bankruptcy.

Does anyone know what Big Hair really owns?

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

Jews for Jesus to hit streets of D.C.

Oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

Will MONSIGNOR LAPIN be there?

Posted 8:25 PM by Gene

When is a flip-flop not a flip-flop?

When the flipper says he'd have flopped anyway.

Posted 8:18 PM by Gene

Goody -- the record biz is cultivating a THOUSAND Britneys.

Between this and LEGENDARY C. DAVIS music doesn't stand a chance.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

I'm Vietnammed out.

Aren't we all after DIPPITY-DO!!!!!

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000GLE's IPO Resembles BLOGGER, Part Deux.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

This gorilla could make monkeys out of us.

I could not resist the photo.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

The Feds have found an alternative to shaking people upside down by their ankles -- airport security.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Another bold defender of media bigness:

[T]he recent review of research in this area shows that the amount of local content actually can increase.

For example, newspapers in Florida and Arkansas that were bought by the Gannett Company expanded their coverage of local events, though often in the form of disaster and crime stories.

This is like saying that IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS! expanded to 90 minutes to do more local stories. Translation: CRIME SELLS.

But not content to rest on her laurels, our proud defender of bigness FORGES AHEAD:

In addition, conglomerates have created niche markets that provide information of interest to particular demographic groups, write the authors. The Black Entertainment Television station, the People en Espanol magazine and the television show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” all are owned by media giants, including Viacom, Time Warner AOL and NBC.

WOW! I didn't know big media was immune to the seductions of POLITICALLY CORRECT PRESSURE GROUPS!

Unfortunately, there will be more such blatherskite, for media consolidation, like sex and violence, has become A SELF-PERPETUATING SOCIAL-SCIENCE STUDY IN ITSELF.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

That poor hamster suffered more than it knew -- it inspired "SATIRE."

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

Another link to the Hollywood Atlantis, lost: Fay Wray, King Kong's love interest, has died. Who would have thought that seventy years hence people would still screen that one film, and talk about it? Let's see a (c)rapper last a tenth that long.

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

PROF WILL GO NUTS!!!!! TODAY:

You don't have to be big to do good journalism. And this is becoming more obvious as a new medium has appeared on the scene. Independent writers with weblogs (blogs) or websites are sometimes telling stories long before big media know what's what. Bloggers find tidbits of information on the Web and link to it. As other bloggers read, they note other bits. Readers post comments to the blogs, and sometimes those comments lead to more news. New software called ''news aggregators'' can bring news from important blogs directly to a reader's computer....

Will the next Watergate will be reported by the people?

And STERNO's ego will balloon to twenty times its inflated normal. Repeat after me: BLOGGERS COULD BRING DOWN A PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And look what happened to the news biz. This can only mean one thing: BLOGGERS ARE NEXT.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

Prozac is not a substitute for empire either.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

As many as [emphasis added] 14 million copies of Britney Spears' debut album, "...Baby One More Time," have been put into circulation in the United States. In July, the Recording Industry Association of America certified the 1999 Jive set 14 times platinum, reflecting shipments to U.S. retailers. Reaching this level puts "...Baby," which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 upon its release, in the same league as such classic albums as Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" (Epic), Metallica's "Metallica" (Elektra), Garth Brooks' "Ropin' the Wind" (Capitol Nashville) and Simon & Garfunkel's "Greatest Hits" (Columbia). It also brings Spears' debut even with the self-titled debut album by fellow Jive pop act the Backstreet Boys, which was certified 14 times platinum in April 2001.

Two words: BAD TASTE.

P. S. Are we news hacks statistically fudging again?

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

Is it too much to hope the big-name bloggers are becoming figures of fun? They evidence the same hilarious faults as the news hacks they're always knocking: superficiality and monomania. The former they can blame on the medium -- an unscrolled monitor reveals 400 or 500 words, about half a newspaper column, and unless you were born in an auto plant you can't curl up in bed with a monitor -- but as to the latter they could (and should) lay much of the blame on themselves, and given their resemblances to news hacks I would not turn my face blue waiting for that.

And further like news hacks, the big-namers are immortal. Who will preserve their immortality if they shuffle off this mortal coil? Will they get together a collection? Will they pray for the Wayback Machine their souls to save? Will anyone remember their slightest digital utterance after they meet their makers?

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

BLAH:

Mustering up enthusiasm is a bit tough, co-anchor Matt Lauer says. ''It's hard to get excited about a lot of things these days,'' he says. ''It's hard to get excited about the Super Bowl and the World Series when you have to talk about how it's going to take people three hours to get into the stadium because they're going to be patted down. We just have lost so much innocence, and innocence used to be what made the Olympics...."

Sorry to dampen your Olympic flame, Matt, but I think they lost their innocence a long time before you were born.

MORE BLAH:

[Al] Roker isn't overly worried about terrorism at the Games or his own personal safety: ''Call it a hunch, but I don't think (terrorists) are interested in me -- unless they want to say hello to their parents.''

I think that's what they'd be doing.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

An EXCELLENT professor and his sidekick STERNO have a solution to the news biz' woes: LET NEWS HACKS BE NEWS HACKS AND BLOGGERS CAN TAKE CARE OF THE DIVERSITY!

Isn't that what we have NOW?

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

The PAPER OF RECORD turns another cultural lemon into lemonade.

Can't someone tell these "CULTISTS" and their enablers we're SICK of Country Time?

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

In another brilliant hammer-of-Thor review, Leon Wieseltier covertly asks the question, is America having a nervous breakdown? He offers a possible answer: "Rush Limbaugh did not elect a president and neither will Michael Moore." Still, lacking a solid and excellent culture as we do, and nature abhorring a vacuum and news hacks filling it with their own obsessive-compulsive navel staring, it may seem so; but the public has too much sense, a trait altogether missing in its betters.

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

Six people died over clothes and an Xbox.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Web hoax fools news services

Isn't that what a hoax is supposed to do? Isn't that what SO MANY HOAXES do?

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

OH oh, Iraq has made enemies all over the world: it's -- REINSTATING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

The IGNOMINY!

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

"South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway. We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important. It's terribly important this year, but can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That's the real question."

No one will ever convince THE GREAT STONE FACE OF ANNOYING TV ADS that RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON wasn't A GREAT PRESIDENT.

OR:

NIXON WAS DEPOSED IN A MEDIA COUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It couldn't have happened without a little help from HIMSELF.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

NY TIMES BLEW COVER OF KEY COUNTERTERROR AGENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wouldn't trust CARL LIMBURGER and the NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! staff either.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Whatever happened to Singapore? It used to be the con-SER-va-tives' favorite country -- the one that jailed people for twenty years for planting gum on the sidewalk, the one with the FREER-THAN-FREE-ENTERPRISE economy. The only bad thing was that GEN. PINOCHET didn't run it. Maybe it's time for them to talk it up again.

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

Senator Frist's Political Rise Slows in Pace

TRANSLATION: The Pubbies replaced one compromising fumbler with another.

Posted 7:59 AM by Gene

Once Indifferent, Saudis Allied With U.S. in Fighting Al Qaeda

It only took, oh, about three years.

Posted 7:52 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the RAG OF RECORD:

AL QAEDA'S GOING TO ATTACK US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is co-authored by Norman Thomas's grandson, he who had senators jumping off the Capitol dome when too many CIA agents listened to the Beeb. Let's just give this one a heavily qualified maybe.

Posted 7:48 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the RAG OF RECORD:

• Review and Rebuttal: David Ansen v. Spike Lee

Without reading (I won't) I can imagine:

DAVID: Spike, you're one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and definitely the greatest [emphasis in his voice] AFRICAN-AMERICAN in show business history.

SPIKE: Hey you're not too bad looking yourself.

Posted 7:46 AM by Gene

What gives with Mr. Mark?

What Would Kerry Do?

He talks a good game, but Kerry won't find it easy to convince voters he'd be a better commander in the war on terror

Shall we elect him as you boys want and find out?

Posted 7:43 AM by Gene

Red Adair:

"Retire? I don't know what that word means. As long as a man is able to work and he's productive out there and he feels good -- keep at it. I've got too many of my friends that retired and went home and got on a rocking chair, and about a year and a half later, I'm always going to the cemetery."

This used to be the American spirit; he embodied it.