Posted 9:59 PM by Gene

I told my dinner companions the Republican Party is a weak vessel, with lots of movers and shakers who seem to care only about greed, but now, on the broad array of social issues, it is the only game in town.

It has come down to that, hasn't it.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

Little people, blameless people are about to lose their jobs because NEWSDAY's dishonest publishing execs inflated the numbers so that the EDITORS could convince themselves PEOPLE REALLY WANTED TO READ A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER.

How often will this calamity repeat itself?

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

Twenty-six Saudi "scholars" would like 9/11 redux, whatever their legalizing.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE....

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Also today at the Wawa on 2nd Street it was my misfortune to see the print version of the Noo Yawk Daily Nooz, whose front page disclosed an airhead had a publicity stunt, and of course I had to learn RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!'S BOYS took A PICTURE of it, and some of RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!'S OTHER BOYS agreed HER JOB LEFT SOMETHING TO BE DESIRED.

Oh well, I don't think it looks THAT bad, but then I'm hard-up for love.

Then again, maybe not.

Another day, another airhead.

(THANK YOU?????, FARK!)

P. S. Naturally this airhead was "parodied" by the notorious ASHLEE the night of her LIP-SYNC BREAKDOWN. One good airhead deserves another.

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

Also on my South Street soujourn today I picked up a copy of RadioShack's (DilbertSpell) latest circular. I can't imagine what that outfit's good for besides batteries and media blanks and what used to be called patch cords. Years ago, when people bought alligator-clip cables to attach to their TV speakers to record off the air (remember ALLIED/Radio Shack?), the catalog was a two-color wonder of shortwave radios and marine radios and police radios and CBs (!) and ham kits and electronics kits -- and my perennial favorites, reel-to-reel tape recorders. Today the outfit should be renamed Electronics for Dummies. All I see are things with cute colored plastic. There are fifty different varieties of cellphones, each capable of its own brand of privacy invasions. There are ugly phone-answerers and ugly accessories and ugly everything. And there's also an unnerving juxtaposition, especially so from a company based in Tex-AYSS: two karaoke cubes display lyrics on their screens side-by-side, the first being,

Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,

And the second being,

Of all the things I've believed in
I just wanna get it over with.

Just those two lyrics side-by-side demonstrate once again Thoreau's great line (which I've quoted before) that men are the tools of their tools, and furthermore that a life of enslavement to goods electronic may be a life not worth living.

P. S. Anyone recall when Radio Shack was HQed in Boston?

Posted 4:51 PM by Gene

In a retrochic store on South Street (i.e., a Goodwill with attitude) someone had posted a front page from Metro with side-by-side pictures of John Kerry and Dubya, the latter retouched with Hitler's moustache and hair and an SS armband in wite-out and pen. The last I saw of it was in the trashcan near 2nd and South where I deposited it.

On the way home I heard some woman complaining into her cell phone about breaking up, which proves the least important person in the universe is YOU.

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

"Being pro-choice includes, does not exclude, being pro-life. People who are pro-choice are pro-life."

And people who are backwards are forwards.

(Sorry for the BozellCorp.)

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Durbin to be Senate whip

MUUUUUUUUUUULE TRAAAAAAAAAAAIN!! YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! (WHAP!!!!!)

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

SHUCKS St. Warren, here we thought we raised rates enough in your SAINTLY insurance biz, so what happens? Another God comes along with a couple of hurricanes!

Isn't it TOUGH being a second-stringer to some other Divinity?

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

Cheer up, my friends; it may not be that easy for the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL GOP to create a Fourth Reich. We've got ourselves -- and GOOD Republicans, like Arlen O'Specter.

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

What's it all about --
SHERRY?????

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

Tiger Woods is growling mad that a Vancouver shipbuilder spilled the details on an eye-popping 155-foot yacht he bought from the company and named Privacy.

Perhaps he should have named it Publicity.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

More SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER accuracy:

Reader Dirk Deppey is the managing editor of the Comics Journal, published by Fantagraphics Books. Dirk writes:

I just wanted to let you know that what you posted [in "Diamonds and rant"] wasn't a self-portrait of Al Capp, but rather a self-portrait of New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks as he looks fondly upon Capp's legacy (hence the "Dylan" signature). You might want to post a correction.

I thought the guy was a little scrawny looking.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Arafat's condition critical but not irreversible: aide

TRANSLATION: Situation hopeless but not serious.

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

You six airmen, and your many comrades in arms now at rest in Arlington, did not die for nothing, regardless of what NEWS HACKS may think.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Clinton to Democrats: Don't whine, work on image

Yours truly to Clinton to Democrats: Whine! Pout! Scream! Yell! Get MAD! And while you're at it, demonstrate that you and Hollywood and academe and the LUXURY NEWS SUITES are forever inseparable!

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Meantime Ellen "Badwoman" Goodman says we must win values voters away from values. I say someone who pinches herself when she reads of more women dying of men's diseases should be pretty decent at that.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

D. C. tosses Zelig Selig's "bean ball" back.

What we need is...a good five-cent column by GEORGE "MY BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS" WILL -- excoriating the commies. "GOT IT?"

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

Democrats have grown so "powerless" and "despairing" Chris Dodd may run for governor of Connecticut!

DON'T, CHRIS! Mikey Moore needs you!

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

We gotta get somebody who appeals to the red states so we can get into the White House and DO WHAT WE WANNA DO!

P. S. These voices have "become ascendant" before. Remember the New Democrats?

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

So, people are showing less loyalty to BRAND NAMES, the backbone of the system that finances the MEDIA-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

True companies like P&G and the Japanese auto makers put out a better product; but why should we care just because an expensive marquee's attached -- especially when insulting ads ARE, and the insults to our intelligence they support.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

GULP, some sales -- ANALYST put a price target on GOOG of $160!!!!!

Suppose the buyers are finally blogging?

Thing is, G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER's working okay this afternoon. Go figure.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Big Voter Turnout Seen Among Young People

Wait, wasn't this story supposed to run BEFORE the election?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Thank God it's not; I don't have to fight SOCIALLY-CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS for the NEXT FOUR YEARS! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Alas, I fear a few screenings in the DR. EVIL MEMORIAL SCREENING ROOM may prove their KRYPTONITE.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

More outstanding news from the THEA-TAH: somebody's reviving Richard Rodgers's tuneless semi-hit Two by Two. Just one problem: the original starred DANNY KAYE.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

In July, for example, Kerry and John Edwards went to a fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall....

Yeah, remember that one...



WHOOPI?

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Remember what I said yesterday about news hacks gassing when they could use a single word? Well, Kinsley.com (aka Toenail.com) is the BULL'S EYE of the WEB, and it being a BULL'S EYE it would seem especially suitable for experiments like this; so --

WAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAH
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

Lawyers Organizing for Mass Suits Over Vioxx

E'RE-WAY IN-HAY E-THAY ONEY-MAY!!!!!

P. S.

Yesterday, The Lancet, a RESPECTED British medical journal, published an analysis of all the clinical trials of Vioxx completed by 2001, and concluded that Merck and the F.D.A. should have known enough about the drug's hazards to withdraw it years ago.

Isn't this the same egghead rag that tried throwing the election by running a bunch of numbers saying DUBYA!!!!! killed five million civilians or whatever in IRAQ?

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

STERNO'S GOING TO BLOW SEVERAL FUSES:

I do not dispute that these blogs and their authors are serving an increasingly meaningful role in the exchange of ideas and dissemination of opinion today. I read blogs, I think about blogs, I shake my head in wonderment at the bloggers' seeming indefatigability. But, more to the point, I shake my head in disappointment at how, in taking advantage of the Web's freedom to post a perspective, many of them fail even to aspire to the pursuit of perspicacity.

That is, they publish because they hear "something" from "someone" who is "reliable." Sorry, not good enough.

This isn't about DAVID VS. the Goliathan MMMMMMMMMMM-SSSSSSSSSSSS-MMMMMMMMMMMM. This is about ACCURACY. Sorry WONKETTE, sorry, WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!, sorry, MR. ARAFAT SERAIT MORT!!!!!!!!!!, sorry, NRO, sorry, FR, NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, we got millions in free publicity making asses of ourselves, DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

You suppose this would have been a KERRY RECOVERY?

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

ANOTHER newsroom where ARAFAT SERAIT MORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

A man as great as REV. AL can only be married to one person -- himself.

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

PRESIDENT BUSH ISN'T A CONSERVATIVE!!!!! HE'S A RADICAL!!!!! PINCH IS GOD!!!!! WE STILL RULE THE UNIVERSE!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm, this will happen when you speak with a SCOTTISH BROGUE, Mr. O'Specter.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

The Guardian's Clark County exercise in social engineeering will go down as one of the liberals' great triumphs over common sense.

Posted 9:13 PM by Gene

Hmmmmmmm: Ahhhhhhhhhhrlen O'Specter hints that William Rehnquist may not return to duty. Looks like voting for Dubya was a little more important than we thought.

Yes, Nine Fingers, I think we have a right to know.

Posted 8:45 PM by Gene

Every few years someone sounds a death knell over the Democratic Party, political analyst Norm Ornstein wearily noted, and it's just about then that the party of Jefferson and Madison resurrects itself yet again.

Yeah Norm, we're getting tired of these resurrections too.

Posted 8:44 PM by Gene

Hmmm, maybe advertising on the Web after the election wasn't such a good idea.

Posted 8:37 PM by Gene

A question I ask in all seriousness: did Ms. Boob help Dubya win the election? (Scroll to the bottom of this press release.)

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

More SUPERB news from a CULTURALLY RESURGENT COMMERCIAL THEA-TAH:

Pop Singer Meat Loaf May Be Headed to Broadway

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is selling another of its MAPS, just as it did in 2000. On election day a prominent news Web site (I wish I could remember which) had an adjustable map that proportioned the votes by population; the red and blue sides became about equal. Big a victory though Bush's was, he won by only about three percent, and much of Kerry's support came in the tiny microscopic slivers here -- the big cities. To forget this is to forget this nation has two political parties. Thus goes the path to self-delusion, an all-too-common failing among conservatives.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Belo is in denial. The company bloviates about diversity; but PRECISELY this kind of PC mindset may have led managers at the Dallas Morning News to fix circulation, given its no-doubt equally PC scribble. When will the next scandal come?

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

A suggestion: rather than waste precious time and money and paper and ink (and bandwidth) every time a newspaper columnist is upset with something he should simply go:

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

It would save a lot of trouble.

The Trib is a CONSERVATIVE paper?

P. S. It would save most bloggers a lot of trouble too. (Myself included.)

Posted 2:58 PM by Gene

STERNO WHINES:

: GLENN REYNOLDS SAID THE BIG-MEDIA SPIN IS THAT BLOGGERS ARE TO BLAME FOR LEAKING THE DATA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I SAY BLOGGERS SHOULD GET CREDIT FOR BEING OPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Neither the jackass WONKETTE nor the jackass WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!! will ever tell us where they got their info. This is the equivalent of the NEWS HACK'S ANONYMOUS SOURCES. Open? SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGING is just another closed room full of people talking to themselves, and trying to make BIG BUCKS.

Posted 2:15 PM by Gene

Is THE PAPER OF RE-CORD cooking its books?

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Another long (1,394-word), tiresome flack sheet that one can boil down to two grafs:

"Sex! Sex! It was in the air along with the nitrogen and the oxygen!" Wolfe writes. "The whole campus was humid with it! tumid with it! lubricated with it! gorged with it! tingling with it! in a state of around-the-clock arousal with it! Rutrutrut-rutrutrutrutrut — "

AND:

The early reviews for I Am Charlotte Simmons have not been good, and it was conspicuously absent from the list of finalists for the National Book Award.

But we still need 1,394 words to tell us why this catch-phrase deviser and mocker of LENNY B. is some sort of GENIUS.

Posted 12:38 PM by Gene

Should Democrats Get Religion?

They GOT religion -- Unitarianism.

Posted 12:30 PM by Gene

I should have known this was BULL when LITTLE'S OLD FRIENDS at that PILE OF JUNK "CONFIRMED" the news from Radio Monte Carlo, "la deuxième chaîne de télévision israélienne ainsi que la radio militaire Galei Tsahal," AL ARABIYA, and "le premier ministre du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg."

WHO GOT IT FROM PROCHE-ORIENT.

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

I guess all that canary sensed was coal dust.

I just did the same @#$%&* thing the MORONS WONKETTE AND WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!! DID!

I should have trusted my skepticism.

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

Okay, CNN, for once we don't blame you for running a press release: Now Marketwatch is running a bulletin from "A French military spokesman" denying it.

THEY PROBABLY GOT THE NEWS FROM PROCHE-ORIENT.

It can't be long in any event.

THANKS AGAIN G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE, for POSTDATING MY ENTRY!

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

Sorry to doubt you, Freeper -- FR's the canary in news's coal mine. But after the ME-ME-ME-shouting LITTLE...well, you can understand my skepticism.

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Nothing on CNN.com yet, but thankfully there's ANOTHER @#$%&* PRESS RELEASE FOR SONY linked on its @#$%&* HOME PAGE.

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

The FIFTH HORSEMAN has died, the one with the towel on his head, whose name was YASSER. May he meet up with millions of "virgins."

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

WELL!! I guess stopped clocks CAN be right.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

SAMMY GLICKMAN'S GONNA SUE YOU!!!!!!!!!!

He should sue John Kerry.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

Little!!!!! LITTLE!!!!!!!!! FREEP'S got a POST from a RELIABLE SOURCE -- FRENCH -- THAT ARAFAT SERAIT MORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember?????

HERE'S THE LINK, LITTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND JACQUEASS SAID A TEARFUL GOODBYE, LITTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sez G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's translation:

It should not be buried on the Esplanade of the Mosques/Mont of the Temple

With that I agree.

P. S. Alexa rating: 45,375, which is worse than the pile of junk that disclosed Arafat's MORT!!!!! a year ago. Plus this seems affiliated with Israeli news hacks, which is a polite way of saying it may as well be affiliated with DEBKAfile.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

STERNO SCREAMS AND HOLLERS AND POUTS AND WAILS because someone would attack HIS BELOVED BLOGS. (I'm expecting STERNO to someday morph into the AL GORE of BLOGGING.) So what precisely is wrong with this observation you cite (which I cite more fully)?

[T]he only readers of blogs ... are bloggers! They are a good group. Educated and engaged. But they're also like mice in a rotating cage: running in place, bumping into the same old people.

Despite all the anti-Bush screeds on Web logs, the frequent priming of wordy bonfires with Bush's National Guard duty records, the rush to judgment about missing explosives in Iraq ... it just didn't matter. All those opinions. All that Internet buzz. So little impact. Could it be not even bloggers trust what they read on blogs?

Blogs were quick to publish real or made-up exit polls at midafternoon, showing Kerry strength. That killed a 60-point rally in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

At least some traders read blogs, then, and act on what they read. Not so, it would appear, young voters. Advertisers including Nike and Audi think Weblogs are the medium to reach young consumers. So where was the youth and minority vote? Not reading political blogs, it appears. MSNBC says the percentage of young voters who cast ballots was the same as it was four years ago.

Sorry STERNO, BLOGS HAVEN'T CURED ONE CASE OF CANCER YET.

NOTE: That biz with the exit polls was spread from the IDIOT WONKETTE by THE IDIOT WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, who technically doesn't run a BLOG, he runs -- HISTORY.

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

GOD (aka PINCH) has His limits: He is closing a TV studio in Manhattan.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Republicans can govern for the people; or they can govern for big business and the megarich. With a shrunken impotent politically-correct minority there will be no holding back on their worst behaviors. The GOP must remember who delivered them this victory -- it was the little folk.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

What's the difference between a coma and anaesthesia?

When YASSIR ARAFAT'S in it!

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

DOOM AND GLOOM IN AD-LAND.

NEARLY TWO-THIRDS OF ALL THE REVERSE PIMPS IN THE AD BIZ SUPPORTED KERRY. This is PROOF that ADVERTISERS WANT TO WASTE OUR MONEY BY OFFENDING US. Sorry, enablers of cultural prostitution, THIS WAS A MORAL VOTE.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

THE MEANING OF SUPERFLUOUS:

Elton John Developing Rock-Star TV Comedy - Report

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

THE EDWARD R. MURROW OF COMEDY FURROWS HIS BROWS.

You didn't win either.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

Whiny Cwybaby Dickie, nursing a headache, wants AL GORE for president.

PFFH-HH-HH!!!!!

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

We're all distressed by the mortal woe that has struck Hollywoodians. Now let us ease their misfortune by holding on to our wallets.

The real terror: for the next four years Sharon Stone will have to keep her legs shut.

Posted 6:22 AM by Gene

Ommmmmmmmm, Mr. Boooosh, I run this country, and you can't do anything without my permission, ommmmmmmmmmmmmm.

We'll see about that, Mr. O'SPECTER.

Posted 3:19 PM by Gene

"[A]n election is honestly a pretty miserable thing to try to blog."

And you SUPERDUPERHYPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS did a PRETTY MISERABLE JOB of BLOGGING IT.

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

The next time you accuse a competitor of cooking its books better get your own out of the OVEN.

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

Time to sing that famous Statler Brothers tune:

"Whatever Happened to Lenny DiCaprio?"

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

IMBECILES!!!!! WHERE ARE YOUR MUCH-VAUNTED IMPROVEMENTS?????

Posted 2:51 PM by Gene

One more thing Dubya must do with his victory is appoint new cabinet members; ditch GENERAL and his WHINING, RUMMY and his myopic HUBRIS. How does CONDOLEEZZA sound at STATE?

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

The junior senator from Massachusetts does the graceful thing after a graceless run.

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

This morning THE LORD GOD PINCH and his trusty dog BILL, followed by hundreds of bedraggled upper-class vagrants desperately clutching laptops and ENGs, roamed the streets of America, screaming "WE WON! WE WON!! WE WON!!!" Unfortunately, though they might hope to savor the short-lived daydream of victory for several weeks -- it would scarcely last twelve hours -- they did not win. This was a victory for conservatism like Reagan's landslides and the 1994 election. The turnout belied the victor's weakness -- suggesting the millions voting for Dubya may have voted less for him than against something: against terrorism, against capitulation, against appeasement. That he won in the wake of a blazing repudiation of gay marriage suggests something else: a vote for morals, for personal self-restraint, for character. And we cannot dismiss that with one mighty voice the public issued a call to our superiors -- the superiors of show-biz, of the press, of academe -- to stop lording it over us, to stop running interference in our culture and our lives. This was a mighty victory for the people. What will the people do with it?

Posted 2:18 PM by Gene

On the day after a big election, a day that GOOG hits the absurd price of $200 a share, only to get absurder, I could not post for six hours. THAT IS IT. I'm hooking up to a Web hosting service tonight. NO MORE G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER!!!!!

Posted 6:41 PM by Gene

Un-"rigging" House races might help too.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

Heartening news:

In 2000 Bush crushed Kerry in Lancaster County 66%-32%.

Plus a gaggle of TYPOS. SHUT UP, NRO!!!!!

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

Back to one of my favorite subjects -- the death of the musical:



This guy -- what does he look like? WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! playing the piano? (although if you gave the guy a piece of music he'd do a story saying a politician was attempting to take over the world with an alien language.) No, it's supposed to be HOAGY CARMICHAEL, and he sings in ANOTHER DEAD-MAN'S REVUE. With so many DEAD MEN writing musicals you wonder why Broadway's producers don't cast in CEMETERIES.

And the guy's name -- to add to the comedy -- is BILLY PHILADELPHIA. This might prompt W. C. Fields to remark, "On the whole, I'd rather be away from Philadelphia."

P. S. Playbill.com incorrectly gives the Web site of the theater where this masterpiece is running as "www.ngplayhouse.com." (The link is correct.)

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Although one NEWS HACK CLICHE of the past week has been HEAVY VOTING. As with EXIT POLLS such accounts are all too reliant on the anecdotal approach. At my place of work turnout was light, and at my place of voting there was perhaps one other voter there, though voting may have been a little more concentrated before I went. One who had to make a deadline following me might have assumed voter apathy.

So perhaps the voting was heavy; but I wouldn't be surprised if, as with past "HEAVY VOTING" elections, turnout was about the same as before.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

By contrast the MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM-SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS-MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM has shown admirable restraint, and it's a tragedy they can't do it all the time.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

POWER LINE!!!!!

(a subsidiary of GE Bancorp Network News)

could teach the politicians a few things about FLIP-FLOPPING today.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

And what did I say three days ago?

And who wants to bet overzealous table pounders like WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other Web voices of truth will force NEWS HACKS into making premature calls?

Not ONE of the M-S-M BLOGGERS said ONE WORD about this -- possibly because if they SAID ANYTHING it would expose them for FRAUDS.

And I'll say this again, too: the one advantage to getting twenty hits a day is that no one can call you overrated.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

There are two ways to prevent elections from being future nervous breakdowns -- but they would require such change that they wouldn't happen in our lifetimes, if ever. They are:

1. HOME E-VOTING. The news hacks will do their Our Town routine and protest that the great thing about elections is that the bring the PEE-PUL together and encourage socializing and blah blah blah. What rot. People speak to a polling official, they go into the gloom of a voting booth, they scratch their heads, they stand around for five minutes, they scratch their heads, they vote -- reluctantly -- and they come out, and that's it. Home e-voting could encourage families and communities to think their votes through, rather than be put on the spot. To those who say this would encourage a kind of moral blackmail, I ask, what do we have now? They would further protest that current encryption schemes are unreliable. Well the cretins of Palm Beach County made hash of paper ballots. And if it's possible to blog without being hacked, if it's possible to shop on the Internet knowing your credit card is secure, why can't we electronically vote? It might also put an end to EXIT POLLING -- and while a requirement for e-voting might be to forbid the voters from speaking to pollsters (probably unconstitutional even if it weren't against human nature), a reliable e-voting system could be far more private than what we have now. One other thing -- the e-voting polls must all open and close at the same time, no difference for time zones.

2. A WEEK TO VOTE. Why the requirement that people vote on ONE DAY? Absentee ballots and other forms of advance voting have pretty much eliminated the need for a dedicated voting day. With a week to vote the mood swings we've seen today would be spread out, giving the MALICIOUS WONKETTES AND WALTER WINCHELLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! less chance to influence an election. And to be sure, with the Internet getting ever more efficient in spreading rumors and flat-out lies, the next time will only be more maddening and more dismaying. One other possibility: give, say, ten days for the election, but stagger the voting so that each voter would only have a set time frame to vote (say, three days.) This could reduce peer pressure.

Although I still like the idea from National Review, when it was still sane: choose public officials by LOT. We can scarcely do worse.

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

Blogging rose to the level of malice today. Whether it was the foul-mouthed Wonkette or the pea-brained WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, people were out to influence an election. In this I see no difference between these self-appointed clarions of democracy and the Three Stooges of the nightly news -- their lives begin with them, and end with them.

And count on the dweebs at NRO to be doing their part in spreading rumors -- as the last time. Indeed a close examination of the Iowa Business and Gaming School's 2000 chart shows a wild swing on the last day. These are people who almost seem to get their jollies spreading rumors for -- profit?

Which raises another question: could an election be rigged? Could it be rigged to profit speculators in the electronic gaming markets? If so this would mark the end of democracy as we know it -- which might not altogether be a bad thing, as democracy seems to work too often only for the rich and the well-connected.

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

The best thing about today...

: ... is that we will have no more TV interviews with slow-talking, dull-eyed undecided voters.

No STERNO, the best thing about today is that we will have LOTS more interviews with fast-talking, bright-eyed, world-changing, revolution-making, six- and seven-digit SUPERMEGABLOGGERS.

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

Thanks for the use of the hall.

Now SCRAM.

Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

I suspect newspaper editors should spend less time worrying why G. B. puts "F---" in his strip (his spelling) and spend more time worrying why he doesn't put LAUGHS in it.

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

WALTER WINCHELL SEZ: "VOTES FOUND ON MACHINES IN PHILLY BEFORE POLLS OPEN!!!!!!!!!!"

We KNEW we'd come through!!!!!!

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

An "editorial-page editor -- RESIGNS"?!?!?!?!?!?

By that standard we should have MASS RESIGNATIONS!!!!!

(This will be a busy day for ROMY, where I got these last two.)

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

"It's very easy to go from media darling to media whore to media washed-up-on-the-street-corner. That's a path that we've seen many, many times."

And that's a path we hope has been GREASED for your BOSS, who wouldn't speak to USAOKAY?!?!?

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

To repeat a golden oldie from yesterday:

If blogging is so great why do STERNO and Mr. Head Honcho at POWER LINE and so many other big wigs like to boast when they're on television?

And if M-S-M is so evil why do these self-same BLOGGERS like to boast that they're on and in every M-S-M outlet known to man?

Stop the dissembling, geniuses. You're not in blogging to tell THE TRUTH. You're in blogging for YOU.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

AOL Cutting More Than 700, Most in Virginia

Last one out turn out the lights!

Posted 6:34 AM by Gene

The con-SER-va-tive's favorite novelist can't make up his mind what his latest novel is about. But then it may not occur to this 73-year-old that making an Ivy League school represent our nation's sexual mores may be like making the Viacon Network Newsroom represent our national truth. Nor might it occur to him that it might be easy for a 73-year-old writer to make sex asexual.

Why do I think, for all the PR he's accrued, that except for a few catch phrases and essays Tom Wolfe will go down posterity's rat hole just like everything else in this age?

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

They can! They can't! The Republicans CAN challenge vote fraud in Ohio!

Get out THE R-CARD, Terry!

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

The main reason [for fewer "independent" voters] may be the increasing segmentation of the news media into two groups. One -- including Fox News, most talk-radio programs, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, and National Review -- slants much of its factual reporting (as well as editorial commentary) to the right. The other, much larger group -- including NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post (excepting its admirably thoughtful editorials), The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and even The Wall Street Journal (excepting its tiresomely tendentious editorials) --is a bit more balanced but still slants to the left....

Calling all billionaires: What this country needs is a good national newspaper that will play the facts straight. A good national news network, too.

You're forgetting, Stuart, billionaires own The Weekly Standard, FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News, CBS, MSNBC (technically speaking), THE PAPER OF RE-CORD, The Washington Post (including its admirably thoughtful editorials), and The Wall Street Journals (including the CONSERVATIVE EDITION'S tiresomely tendentious editorials.)

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, back to square one.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Must post this DELICIOUS NEWS in FULL:

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released its FAS-FAX report for the six-month period ending September 2004, this afternoon, revealing another decline in overall circulaton for daily newspapers and some steep drops among the largest dailies.

The Top 20 suffering the steepest declines in weekday circ, more than 3%, are the San Francisco Chronicle (-6.09%), The Buffalo News and the Los Angeles Times (both -5.55%), The Arizona Republic (-4.40%), The San Diego Union-Tribune (-3.74), the San Jose Mercury News (-3.28%), The Washington Post (-3.04%), The Plain Dealer in Cleveland (-3.01%), and The Sun in Baltimore (-2.43%).

In addition, the Chicago Sun-Times, Newsday, and The Dallas Morning News did not report circulation, as they are under censure by ABC.

Big gainers in weekday circ include: the New York Post (+5.18%), The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (+3.84%), USA Today, (+2.80%), The Tampa Tribune (+1.9%), and the Orlando Sentinel (+1.78).

On Sunday, the biggest losers in sales (in order of losses) were: the Los Angeles Times, The Buffalo News, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Arizona Republic.

The biggest gainers on Sundays were New York Post and The Tampa Tribune. In fact, they were the only two Top 20 papers that gained more than 1% on Sunday.

Earlier today the Newspaper Association of America reported that overall daily circulation for the industry, as reflected in the new FAS-FAX, was down .9%, and Sunday circulation declined 1.5%.

Remember: THE DO-NOT-CALL LAW DID IT!

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

I have confessed I am a Freeper; but I do not feel entirely at ease with a site that can feature the following posts in succession:

GOPNATION.COM - FINAL BUSH 290, Kerry [SIC] 248

Braveheart Stands Athwart a Brave New World-Great Q&A With Mel Gibson [Why wasn't this in ALL CAPS?]

One part wishful thinking, one part tub thumping -- so typical of the Freep these days.

Meantime, on the other side of hallucination, some would-be Ringling Bros. trainees on South Broad were getting people to HONK for DIP!!!!!, and all they did was make noise (and given that some people didn't honk I wonder what his following is). A bagman trombonist was playing, and for the first and possibly the last time in my life I was sympathetic to a street musician.

Posted 3:05 PM by Gene

Arafat Condemns Suicide Bombing From Hospital Bed

In English -- but NOT in French.

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

The least you can do, DIP!!, is give your fellow victors in the PRESS some of the SPOILS.

Oh, I forgot. They're already SPOILED.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

Vietnam is a pretty fair reason DIP!! will have no honeymoon.

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

I've got a GREAT idea: we'll call it HOWELLCAM. Someone should put a miniature camera on Howell's computer. The contortions on his face as he types would make for PRICELESS COMEDY! Just like his columns.

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

Another of the CULTURE IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!! philistines (and a favorite of Vir-GIN-ia) rather strongly implies people who criticize video games are a bunch of old fogies.

Okay Mr. VIDEO VIOLENCE IS GOOD FOR YOU, which is better: Shakespeare or the anonymous GET-A-LIFE GEEK HORDES designing your latest high-tech shoot-em-up? Alas, I think I know your answer.

(Typed at 5:35 p.m.: In retrospect, that was a DUMB thing to say. Shakespeare wrote video games too.)

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia denounced Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv....

IN ENGLISH?

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

Some awfully good journalism was committed during the seemingly endless presidential race that ends, if America has any luck, tomorrow.

Could you mention some examples? Oh, you don't remember them.

One little, two little, three little GREENFIELDS....

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Whatever the outcome, I look to the next four years with supreme trepidation. Either we get the same old same old, or we get a brand new version of the same old same old.

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

If blogging is so great why do STERNO and Mr. Head Honcho at POWER LINE and so many other big wigs like to boast when they're on television?

And if M-S-M is so evil why do these self-same BLOGGERS like to boast that they're on and in every M-S-M outlet known to man?

Stop the dissembling, geniuses. You're not in blogging to tell THE TRUTH. You're in blogging for YOU.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

WHAT'S GOOD FOR TIME WARNER: STERNO has found a fellow publicist (he must be WORLD-FAMOUS; I can't find him in Amazon.com) who's writing a book that praises "everything from Grand Theft Auto to '24,' from Finding Nemo to 'Dallas,' from 'Hill Street Blues' to 'The Sopranos,' from 'Oprah' to 'The Apprentice.'"

He needs YOUR help?

If the IDIOT Jeff Greenfield were starting now he'd write THIS.

P. S. I must stop citing STERNO. He gives me the willies.

P. P. S. WHEN'S B. S. THOMPSON WRITING ONE?

P. P. P. S. I did find him, but not under the name on his blog; he's a "magazine writer" (to quote an Amazon.com reviewer) with a cult following. This will be a best seller next year because this bozo's touching the NEWS HACKS' G-spot.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

Playing at home 10 days ago, Penn State managed just two safeties in a 6-4 loss to Iowa, and one of those was a gift. In the Ohio State game, the Buckeyes ran a total of six plays and netted just 12 yards in the first quarter, but led 14-0.

I think it's time for St. JoePa to retire gracefully, before he has to retire disgracefully.

Posted 6:23 AM by Gene

Arafat's Absence Raises Issue of How to Cope

A few more martyrdoms and I think we'll cope nicely.

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

The other day Saddam's cretinous mouthpiece Doc-TOR Jim McDermott was fined $600,000 in the wiretapping of his fellow congressman John Boehner. Consider this paragraph:

In a harshly worded decision received by attorneys this week, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan said McDermott's "willful and knowing misconduct rises to the level of malice in this case."

Malice. How much of what goes in politics rises to the level of malice? How much of what goes on in the luxury news suites, the Hollywood studios, in academe, in big business, rises to the level of malice?

Doc-TOR McDermott is just a small pile of sleaze atop a very scummy iceberg.

Posted 4:31 PM by Gene

Close Contests in GOP Bastions Stoke Democrats' Senate Hopes

RAH! RAH!! RAH!!!

The GOP is likely to retain its majority....

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And remember, it's the DO-NOT-CALL LAW'S FAULT!

Posted 4:04 PM by Gene

I know I'm supposed to laugh, but I'm depressed. Has SNL ever been good at doing anything but turning out loud comedians for bad hit movies?

And now it's added lip-synching to the repertory. Just like American Bandstand. Wonderful.

P. S. Next year this month the alleged comedy revue will have been on the air thirty years. The IDIOT Jeff Greenfield wrote a gushing rave for New York its very first month, and that's what kept it going. He deserves a huge chunk of the royalties -- and the blame.

I guess I'm depressed because I just got through listening to Hoagy Carmichael singing and playing "Stardust." He wrote that song 77 years ago (he was STILL ALIVE through SNL's FIRST SEVEN SEASONS!!!!!), and it's forever. Can't our age do anything but break wind violently and laugh at it?

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE COKEHEAD JOHN BELUSHI?

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

The most beautiful woman in all filmdom (so the HACKS insist on telling us) seems to have another high-powered heavily-publicized very controversial BOMB on her hands.

It must be disappointing, PAPER OF RE-CORD; we wanted so desperately to do some -- social engineering. But there's always Tuesday.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

And who wants to bet overzealous table pounders like WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other Web voices of truth will force NEWS HACKS into making premature calls?

Why is it every two weeks we must have a media-engineered nervous breakdown?

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

Any reader of this newspaper knows how The Times likes to invoke the wisdom of people identified as "experts" or "analysts," but until I counted their presence the other day I had no idea how crowded with expertise the paper was. On Tuesday alone, such seers and sages were rolled out 33 times. In a few cases they even added useful wisdom or perspective. In many others, though, their presence may have achieved the opposite of what the writers intended: they made readers wonder whether they were being conned.

Oddly enough the more the PUBLIC EDI-TOR writes stuff like this the more tenuous THE PAPER OF RE-CORD's grasp of reality.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

I wonder if the time will come when the day after the presidential election NEWS HACKS will be greeted at their luxury places of self-worship by angry mobs. It probably won't happen this time despite the biz' YEOMAN campaigning, but God knows what the biz and the NATION will be like in 2008. That would be the Fort Sumter of the Second Civil War.

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

And who wants to bet if the GOP keeps control of Congress they'll follow the British parliamentary example and appoint a SHADOW defense secretary and a SHADOW secretary of state?

These will be four LOVELY years.

Posted 1:17 PM by Gene

Who wants to bet if the STUPIDs vote DIP!! in with a sizable victory, and with a gale force blast of NEWS HACK hot air at his back, that he'll be emboldened to withdraw us from Iraq?

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

STERNO ACCUSES THE SECOND SHAKESPEARE OF MUSIC OF LIP-SYNCHING!!!!!

HOWARD put you up to it?

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Even as it announces the demise of CNNfn, the conspiracy that is CABLE TELEVISION decides to start ten new channels devoted to COLLEGE SPORTS, so it can JACK UP RATES, so it can...GET THE DRIFT?

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

DOO DO DOOO DOOOOOOOO DOO DOO DOOOOOO DO DO DOOOOOOOOOOOOT! FLASH!! BROADCASTING & CABLE CHARGES THE NEWS BIZ WITH HACK WORK!!!!!

Which I've been doing for, oh, at least 21 months.

Next time, TV news must examine how the 2004 coverage became warped, and then get back to reporting important, relevant campaign news. Next time.

RIGHT YOU ARE!!!!! Next time.

P. S. B&C blames Howard Dean's YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!! on "directional mikes." It wouldn't occur to them to blame his directional mouth.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

And the founder of TOENAIL.COM, the GROUCHO of PUNDITS, chimes in:

After a year or more of this election campaign, you may feel like you're drowning in the triviality of it all. Just hold out for two more days, and you'll be swept up in history.

Then you'll really be sorry.

We were sorry twelve years ago.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

A rousing endorsement for Dubya:

This column has expressed abundant skepticism about the grandiosity of George W. Bush's foreign policy. And about his passivity about spending (he has vetoed nothing), his enlargement of the welfare state (the prescription drug entitlement), his expansion of inappropriate federal responsibilities (concerning education from kindergarten through 12th-grade, through the No Child Left Behind Act) and HIS COMPLICITY IN VANDALIZING THE CONSTITUTION (he signed the McCain-Feingold bill, which rations political speech). Still, this column prefers Bush.

This blog has expressed abundant skepticism about GEORGE "MY BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS" WILL, but we'll leave it at that for now.

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

Officials cautioned yesterday that release of the tape to the Islamabad office of Arabic television channel Al Jazeera does not prove that bin Laden is in Pakistan.

Nonetheless, its appearance was an embarrassment to Pakistan....

Yeah, sure.

"The guard brought it to me along with other mail. It was in an envelope, I opened it, and IT WAS A BIG SCOOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

DOWN, boy. [Overemphasis added, but not needed.]

Posted 8:03 AM by Gene

[W]hat has caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community is the strangely conciliatory nature of Bin Laden's new message, said some government officials and outside experts.

These experts said Bin Laden appeared to be intensifying his campaign to "re-brand" himself in the minds of Muslims worldwide....

Aside from the use of an annoying buzzword (VARIETY or ADAGE, anyone?), these are the same experts who tell us al Qaeda has between 5,000 members and 2 million. SHUT UP.

Posted 8:01 AM by Gene

Decision 2004: Fear Fatigue vs. Sheer Fatigue

With you, GLIBERAL, it's MERE fatigue.