Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

Another former miracle drug bites the dust.

Maybe if we stopped believing in MEDICAL SILVER BULLETS fewer people would get SHOT.

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

Hey PAPER OF RE-CORD PUBLIC EDI-TOR! Remember my suggestion about THE GLIBERAL? I make the same suggestion re JON "NON" PARELES: just run the same column over and over. Just as THE GLIBERAL reruns his prejudices, so "NON" PARELES reruns his pretensions, all rooted in the notion that today's POP music is superior to anything before it, and full of the name-dropping of a man busy covering up his tracks. GO FOR IT, EDI-TOR!

I got to this column in a link from THE CORNER, which also had this link:

Rebecca Bynum (wife of Hal ) offers the following depressing thought: "Here is a list of songs published in 1935: About a Quarter to Nine, Begin the Beguine, Bess, You Is My Woman Now, Broadway Rhythm, Cheek to Cheek, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, I Can't Get Started, I Got Plenty of Nuttin', I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, I'm in the Mood for Love, If I Should Lose You, It Ain't Necessarily So, Isn't It a Lovely Day, It's Easy to Remember, Just One of Those Things, The Lady in Red, Lovely to Look At, Lullaby of Broadway, Lulu's Back in Town, Maybe, Moon over miami [typical NRO Corner SIC], My Man's Gone Now, My Romance, Paris in the Spring, The Piccolino, Red Sails in the Sunset, Stairway to eh [second typical NRO Corner SIC] Stars, Summertime, These Foolish Things, Top Hat,White [third typical NRO Corner SIC] Tie and Tails, When I Grow too [fourth typical NRO Corner SIC] Old to Dream, Why Shouldn't I, A Woman is a Sometime Thing, and You Are My Lucky Star. "

Now, this is a test, can you name any song of any significance (other than crass airplay) of the last fifteen years? One???"

There are two problems with this: first, this is John Derbyshire, ANDY S.'s favorite writer (anything he says can and will be used against him); and two, this IS a CONSERVATIVE Web site, so now NEWS HACKS can reduce dislike of modern pop to a matter of POLITICS.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Hey ADAM! Haven't you heard the phrase ANY PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY -- especially when it's YOUR BOSS!!!!!!!!!!'S PUBLICITY?

Another reason I CANNOT TRUST the HACKS -- increasingly they turn to MEA CULPAS as a backdoor way of JUSTIFYING THEIR EMPLOYERS' IRRESPONSIBILITY.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

It's all well and good to compile a humorous list of words to be "banned," but ire is beside the point as NEWS HACKS can turn ANY word into an irritant -- and these folk don't even touch the words in THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Oop! Too late, Prez -- Japan's pledging $500 million. We'll have to up it to $35 billion. That'll keep the hacks quiet -- for an hour.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

It's nice that the murder rate is down nationally, but one wishes it weren't necessary to deploy thousands and thousands of cops to bring it down.

When does crime become a fad again?

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

And the chiefest of the Nine Fingers writes a report, which means in all likelihood another Finger will deliver the oath.

Oh, and lest we forget, the courts need more money so they can stop Congressmen from preventing our Constitution from being superceded by international law. "Very worrisome."

P. S. OKAY, Chief Nine Finger has a point: "judicial activism" can cut both ways. But how much faith can we ever have in judges with hermetically-sealed jobs thinking with hermetically-sealed minds in hermetically-sealed chambers and writing reams of hermetically-sealed legalese? And even if Chief Nine Finger is an "amateur historian," most judges are professional obfuscators.

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

I think Dubya should have pledged $3.5 billion, and then met personally with every newspaper editor in America, which would not have stopped them from loathing him -- OR the LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

Thankfully both this woman's sons survived. How many people avoided this story (like me, initially) thinking they were going to get the sort of SHAKESPEARE the NEWS HACK inflicts on his readers when he tries to be PROFOUND? As it is it's discomfort-making.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

I don't think you should have LINKED to THIS, BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM:

Right-leaning news operations, and even bloggers themselves, may soon taste the same deeply skeptical scrutiny and scorn they’ve long heaped on the mainstream media. And when they are judged by the same criteria with which they judge others, they will certainly come up short....

Developing hypersensitivity to hidden ideology can easily become a distorting ideology of its own, especially when inconvenient facts, such as journalism’s culture of rejecting overt political agendas, are brushed aside. "It is the tragic story of a ‘mental short circuit,’" Vaclav Havel wrote in a marvelous 1985 essay on a different topic. "Why bother with the never ending, genuinely hopeless search for truth when a truth can be had so readily, all at once, in the form of an ideology or doctrine? Suddenly it is all so simple. Think of all the difficult questions which are answered in advance!"

When you already "know" that the media are objectively anti-Bush, it’s not such a stretch to assert, as U.S. News & World Report columnist Michael Barone did in May, that "today’s press works to put the worst possible face on the war." Or to join Andrew Sullivan in nicknaming the BBC the "Baghdad Broadcasting Company."

The main problem with these characterizations is that they are wrong. The ideology of bias detection begets the shortcut of hyperbole, which then demands escalation when the conditions being described worsen. Many of the same people who roasted Dan Rather lapped up Judith Miller’s discredited New York Times reporting about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. People believe what they want to hear. What are bloggers and other media watchdogs willing to believe about the target of their wrath?

Press bias deserves the scorn it gets; the press has over a century's record of thumping self-righteousness. (I don't know what our intrepid blogger Mr. Welch means by "journalism’s culture of rejecting overt political agendas"; obviously he's never heard of Billy Hearst of Hank Luce or HHHWWWWALTER CRRRONKITE.) But as I've said before, SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS are now as MMMMMMMSSSSSSSMMMMMMM as DANNO, and because of that they're starting to think THEY CAN DO AS THEY PLEASE TOO.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

HOW THE STUPIDS RULE AMERICA: By celebrating the New Year's with GUNFIRE.

Posted 12:59 PM by Gene

NEW MATH AT NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

Jon Stewart Beats Out Clinton

FOURTH GRAF:

The paper [the Noo Yawk Daily Nooz] said Nielson [SIC] Bookscan, which covers about 70 percent of the book market, reports that Clinton's book has sold about 1.2 million copies, compared with Stewart's 997,000.

Did you ever learn GREATER-THAN and LESS-THAN SIGNS in SCHOOL, CARL LIMBURGER?????

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

ME ME ME ME ME! I can write cover stories too! I can bow EVEN LOWER than the best of them! I LUUUUUUUUUUUUV SHOW BIZ!!!!! Oh PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!

Remember the name -- Denise Hazlick!

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

When I saw this story about AMERICA'S MOST EXPENNNNNNNNSIVE HOUSE I thought, sighhhhhhhhhh, one of our SUPERIORS -- but no, it was a mere..."PHARMACEUTICAL DISTRIBUTOR."

Hey SLEAZEBALL TAUZIN, y'HEAR THAT! THERE'S STILL BIG MONEY IN BIG PHARMA!

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

NEW MATH AT EDITOR AND PUBLISHER: Somebody takes A POLL surmising that 51% of the people think going into Iraq was "a mistake" -- and E&P'S Einsteins call it "MOST."

Hey we can pull a gag like that too: many news hacks earn six digits -- and by including all the INTERNS and every last scribbler at rural weeklies and ALTERNATIVE RAGS we can say your salaries average $3,000 a year.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Someone MUST tell THE IDIOTS AT HONDA the more intrusive their POP-UPS become -- how often do you mistakenly close a window thanks to them? -- THE LESS LIKELY WE ARE TO BUY THEIR CARS.

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

OoooooooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooh, OMERTA tells us JUSTICE THOMAS accepted -- FREE GIFTS!!!!! OoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!!

This is why people pay no mind to such stories anymore: aside from the fact that EVERYBODY DOES IT (a notion hammered in by NEWS HACKS CONSTANTLY DOING SUCH STORIES), in this instance it's not the GIFTS at issue, IT'S THE JUDGE.

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

Hmmm, do you suppose THE COMMISH handed out those BIG FINES hoping they'd be overturned in the courts so that the IDIOT ADVERTISERS could continue to finance his league's AAAAAAAAATTITUUUUUUUUUDE?

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

Oh, the NEWS HACKS must be SIGHING tonight, if only WE could be like SPAIN...

...we'd be a third-rate country of trendy appeasing CHICKENS.

How do you say PINCH en Espanol?

One other question: which nation will be first to be run over by the European Caliphate?

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

SHUCKS, Madame Golddigger's out of the money.

Now it is safe to say that her fortunes have joined other things in sagging.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

Do you suppose seventy years hence people will tap their toes to NICK COLEMAN AND THE RASPBERRIES?

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

From out of the blue in a world of MODERN POP MUSIC'S LEGENDARY GENIUS comes the dismaying word that the big-band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw has died at 94. Shaw had the natural talent and street smarts to be at the top, and a man who at the least could turn "Begin the Beguine" from a Latin cliche into a surpassing dance classic (with a little help from Jerry Gray) was outstandingly that, but his matinee-idol looks guaranteed he'd be remembered too much for his love life, and his fame led him to be consumed with roaring doubts and a passion for "art" more than swing music could hold -- people will debate without end whether the harpsichord really belonged in jazz -- and he silenced his instrument fifty years before his death. We can say just as well as the music could do nothing but repeat itself, as did the Swing Era's survivors, and ultimately the pale ghost bands; but no one can take away his signal role in a generation that made great music without resorting to art. Now he, and his age, and their masterworks are gone, and we're left with TODAY'S SOUNDS OF IMMORTAL BRILLIANCE.

It is just as well too that this obit comes up against the Asian catastrophe, as this will give NEWS HACKS less chance to demonstrate their philistinism, and to condescend to music lovers who don't like THEIR favorites.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

Oh dear oh dear, the SEC is investigating one of ST. WARREN'S INSURANCE COMPANIES for -- SMOOTHING OUT EARNINGS.

Don't they realize SMOOTH is the PATHWAY to HEAVEN?

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

D.C. Lobbyists Spent $2 Billion This Year

What we need is the BUTTMAN -- er, CATO INSTITUTE comparing this to POTATO CHIPS and BARBIE DOLLS, or GEORGE "MY BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS" WILL calling this DEMOCRACY IN ACTION!

(Sorry for the NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

FREE EN-TER-PRISE STORY OF THE MONTH:

NASD FINES HIT RECORD $102M

It's all ELIOT "NESS" SPITZER'S FAULT!

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

I know this is another kee-yute story, but when will eBay get so rank that people will treat it as they do the leper?

This company has the worst reputation of any economic miracle. I'm waiting for con-SER-va-tives to claim it as their own. DOW 36,000! Isn't it time for a COLUMN?

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

Really, CONGRESSPOOPS should stop trying to "police" themselves. They should leave that to PROSECUTORS.

And with any luck, PROSECUTORS will have their HANDS FULL these next few years.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Michael Phelps, the "champion" swimmer, gets 18 months probation for drunk driving, and is "besieged" by eBay sellers.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Pardon me, but I think you deserve to be fired when you lose by 37 points at the CHAMPS SPORTS BOWL.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

THE BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM'S WAR with RAGING NICK has gone beyond politics, and perhaps the personal as well. How do we gain from the biggest food fight blogging has yet known? This is turning into one long spite match REGARDLESS of who's right. And this is why when SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS talk about their purity what little calls a BS DETECTOR goes off. One can't keep out the suspicion EVERYONE INVOLVED is doing this for THE PUBLICITY. Well, we all know THE BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM now, and we all know RAGING NICK. Problem is, we know a pretty fierce SKUNK SMELL too.

And all the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS are talking about it, which means they'll obsess for WEEKS -- and be every bit as tiresome as NEWS HACKS.

I must also admit easy stunts like this get me mad that after two years all I can manage is about two dozen page views a day, and I have to work for them. Oh well, it was once half-a-dozen.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

If too many will remember Jerry Orbach for his dour TV WORK (ugh!), this theater aficionado will remember him as a very bright star of musicals, one of which (ahem) I did in high school. NO, not The Fantasticks. Anyone remember Carnival!? With Anna Maria Alberghetti? We should.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

Four More Years
Should Colombian President Álvaro Uribe be allowed to run for a second term?

Oh well, it beats RONALD REAGAN GOING TO HELL, Dubya following.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

And STERNO has become TSUNAMI CENTRAL! DOOT DO DOOT DOOOOOOOT DO DOOT DOOOOOOOT DO DO DOOT!!!!!

I liked it better when he was flinging mashed potatoes at BRENT.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

I wish I knew why THE BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM want to pick a fight with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. By THEIR OWN ADMISSION, "[o]ver the years the Star Tribune has published many of the columns that Rocket Man and I have submitted to the paper as op-ed columns." By THIS definition, they're professionals. They can use their contacts to grease their skids. I have never been paid to write in my life, and this is what I'm up against. When the PROFESSOR linked to me I stopped criticizing him. If any paper printed me as many times as I suspect the Star Tribune has printed THE BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM I would NOT criticize it, out of sheer loyalty. There are a lot of us LITTLE GUYS who will NEVER get professionally published. The TWXSTERS have already knighted you. I DON'T CARE HOW BAD NICK COLEMAN IS, PLEASE SHUT UP FOR A WHILE ABOUT THE STAR TRIBUNE.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK:

A VINTAGE YEAR FOR GROWN-UP FARE!!!!!

Sorta like 1939, the YEAR YOU WERE BORN -- RIGHT SOB?

In fairness, nowhere does Claudia Pig -- er, PUIG use the word "vintage" in her puff piece. Happily she more than makes up for it by citing ten "best" films" and five "worst." ALL HAIL THE LORD GOD AL!!!!!

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

LITTLE-GUY HUGH keeps saying MMMMMMMSSSSSSSMMMMMMM are being WALLOPED.

HAS ST. WARREN BOUGHT INTO BLOGS?

And don't mention His purchase of Toenail.com. That's SUPER-LIBERAL CW on the WEB. And don't mention CRAIGSLIST. It may have taken want ads, but THE HACKS STILL CONTROL BILLIONS.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

That NEWS HACKS would give such prominence to who controls the MONTANA STATE HOUSE proves we're DESPERATE for GOOD NEWS, ANY GOOD NEWS FOR OUR SIDE.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

And let us not exaggerate the suffering of the FAMOUS; most of the victims did NOT lead charmed lives.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

WELL! Here's something to make NEWS HACKS go WHEW!

Experts: Tsunami Kills Few Animals

And let us keep in mind, even if the final death toll is double or triple the estimated 60,000-plus, India's population alone is 1,065,070,607. Asia will survive.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

ST. WARREN'S CHERUBIM come up with a question off the top of their heads -- should Dubya have been relaxing, or should he have made 500 trips during A TIME OF CRISIS?

There are enough meddlers overseas. What this CRISIS does not demand is FLYING PRESIDENTS.

And we can be sure if he did fly, these SAME cherubim would have issued a story headlined:

Is Bush Spreading Himself Too Thin in Asian Crisis?

We will always know where ST. WARREN'S blessings lie.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

"I'VE BEEN MISINTERPRETED!!!!!!!!!!"

No you weren't. We pay for a lot of your puzzle palace's graft, your bungling, your insolence, your scofflawing, your all but getting away with murder. You still hate us. MORON.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

News hacks successfully buried this story in their haste to run pictures of Indians crying. The human suffering has been awful (although a tiny fraction of the two world wars, which did not require earthquakes); but no one can doubt the afflicted nations will survive, and prosper -- just so long as they can keep the LEAGUE OF NATIONS from getting its GRAFTY PAWS into EVERYTHING.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

WHY I HATE NEWS HACKS, PART 45,206: News hacks love to say one thing when they mean another. This TOENAIL.COM scribble is one of the classics. Clearly Jake and his boys want us out of Iraq, to suffer a humiliating defeat that would bolster their egos; but they can't quite admit that (although any news organization that could say RONALD REAGAN IS GOING TO HELL and get rewarded by CITIGROUP, TOYOTA, AMEX, JCPENNEY, etc., etc., ETC. can say ANYTHING), so they engage in the kind of sideways shuffle and statistical legerdemain that only makes people mad because as they struggle to read it they become convinced NEWS HACKS ARE UP TO NO GOOD AGAIN. Jake, if you want us out of Iraq, SAY SO. And now that you'll be employed by ST. WARREN OF BUFFETT you have the veritable equivalent of a CIVIL-SERVICE JOB: you can't be fired EVEN FOR CAUSE.

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

SHUCKS:

Nathan Lane Quits London Producers Due to Back Injury

LAST LINE OF STORY:

For tickets to the London production, call (0)870 890 1109.

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

It is, of course, the MUSICAL GENIUS of OUR TIME -- from THE DARKNESSES, the FRANZ FERDINANDS, the KANYEWESTS, etc., etc., ETC -- that causes MICHAEL FEINSTEINS to all but burst into tears at the VANDALISM MGM did our culture when it dumped tons of "JUNK" into a landfill, junk that many people can't get enough of -- especially now, in THIS PLATINUM AGE OF POP.

To be sure, most of the newly-uncovered work will be second-rate, but second-rate music from yesteryear is still better than TODAY'S TWO-HUNDREDTH-RATE MASTERWORKS.

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

A new management fad: CEOs GOOGLING themselves.

I guess they've finally learned how to use computers.

Meanwhile, e-mail addresses such as bill@gates.com are commonly used by people with no connection to the Microsoft founder. And some sites show a photo of him getting pie in the face and update his net worth with each fluctuation of Microsoft stock.

Some of the information is true. Much isn't: www.billgatesisdead.com reports that Gates was assassinated in 1999.

Obviously USAOKAY!!!!! never heard his body was taken over by a space alien.

ERRRRRRRRRR....

(SORRY, BUGMEISTER BILL!)

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

Here's another one for the ZILLIONAIRE LAZYBONES in MOUNTAIN VIEW: rewrite the G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER TERMS OF SERVICE to SPECIFICALLY PROHIBIT POP-UPS -- and to FURTHER PROHIBIT DISTRIBUTION OF SPYWARE OR MALWARE ON PAIN OF PERMANENT BANISHMENT.

This won't happen. Look how long it took MOUNTAIN VIEW'S SNOOZERS to IMPROVE G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER'S PERFORMANCE.

Amazing what pushing the NEXT BLOG button will do.

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

Sorry, Corporate America, sometimes CUSTOMER ANGER DOES HURT THE BOTTOM LINE.

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS are human after all: A number of the BROTHERHOOD OF HIGH HITS have said, if only they'd had sensors -- they might have saved lives! But with the waves coming on at 500 MPH and striking up to A MILE INLAND many people were doomed as it was -- and a SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER ADMITS IT.

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

Speaking of which, is it me or are we seeing an awful lot of pictures of grieving relatives? One wonders if the news hacks outnumber the relief workers.

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

The Sri Lankan cricket team's problems are far worse than previously imagined, with four players now personally affected by the impact of devastating tsunamis on their homeland.

I think it's about more than the Sri Lankan cricket team.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

As this IDIOT HACK from THE PAPER OF RE-CORD BOSTON EDITION INSPIRED me I'm going to look up ALL THE @#$%&* ACTS HE LISTED. (Sorry, this is what a blogger should NOT be -- LONG.)

Franz Ferdinand (cute name. The archduke whose assassination started The Great War? Their fans don't know that. I suspect the band members don't know that.) has a VERY BUSY site. Much as I'd like to I can't copy their PREGNANT bio because it's in Macromedia Flash format, but here is the conversation that STARTED A BAND AND CHANGED THE WORLD:

"Do you want to play the bass then, Bob?"

"No, I'm an artist, not a musician."

"It's the same thing."

"OK, then."

Already they were steeped in self-delusion, which should serve them well as they scale the charts.

Kanye West -- pardon, kanYeWest -- is a [C]RAPPER who loves ugly gold jewelry. But let the infinite suck-up JANN WENNER speak for him:

With the multiplatinum success of his debut album, The College Dropout, Kanye West, 27, had one hell of a freshman year in the music biz. Well, not exactly a freshman year -- he's been scoring major hits since 2001 as a producer for Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Ludacris and others. "Kan the Louis Vuitton Don" -- as he likes to be called -- proved his utter domination by ruling the charts, the radio waves and MTV. He checked in with us on the day he received ten Grammy nominations, more than any other artist this year.

TRANSLATION: He stinks and has a following.

Los Lonely Boys are up-and-comers -- they're performing at halftime of the VITALIS BOWL on December 31! They also have four Grammy nominations, which undoubtedly means they've thanked their publicists in their latest acknowledgements.

(Pardon, I meant SUN BOWL. Isn't Vitalis the stuff Dickie V slathers on his scalp?)

The Streets are BRITISH [C]RAPPERS. Sorry Tony, I think it's too late for the empire.

Gretchen Wilson is a "country" act, meaning (as it does for all contemporary "country" stars) she sings rock with a southern accent. She does seem to have enjoyed some success -- she sold an alleged 3,000,000 copies of one album -- but:

Gretchen joins Christina Aguilera, Lauryn Hill, Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Alanis Morissette and six other talented women whose debut albums hit the three million mark within six months of their release dates.

This may not be a compliment. Also she boasts she appeared on 60 Minutes, which means her publicists know the streak may not last, and given the excellence of today's music they're wise to hedge their bets. But then she did milk the tone-deaf marketing managers at Target into having her sing for some Christmas commercials, so you could say she has a "business" sense.

Scissor Sisters -- well, let's let an always-willing-to-do-a-favor British flack speak for them:

No one had heard of the group before but a quick listen revealed an outfit who ... well, who sounded like early Elton John. Who had the nerve to cover Pink Floyd as if Pink Floyd had been disco queens. Who revelled at the prospect of taking their 'mama' out for a night on the town to swill cheap champagne.... the Scissor Sisters have won the praise of rock grandees including Elton John and Bono (who told them they are the best pop group in the world); sold 1.3 million copies of their album in the UK, as they jostle with Keane and Katie Melua to become the biggest-selling act of the year; written Kylie Minogue's new single; and played to a rapturous reception at all the major festivals this summer, followed by barn-storming sell-out shows at the Albert Hall and (for Halloween) Brixton. So perhaps they did take our advice.

Either way, that's pretty good going for a band that has only been together for two years and is more camp than a row of tents. This has hindered their progress in their native America, where they remain a cult group....

OH oh.

Coheed and Cambria is a "Progressive-emo" band, meaning (judging from this site) "it takes the foundation and pushes the limits. Occasionally they push to the point where they may lose the very fans they've just won over." WELL! They also like comic books and they're working on A GRAPHICAL NOVEL -- meaning they can write without writing! WOW!!!!! (In fairness their latest album was released through Sony Music -- no vanity press for THEIR music!)

The Dresden Dolls call their shtick "Brechtian Punk Cabaret." NUF SAID.

Madeleine Peyroux alone sounds relatively normal -- she sings what one HACK has called CLASSIC POP -- but even here there's a catch:

Jim Manion [whoever that is] enthuses that "Madeleine Peyroux's voice explores a zone all her own that lies between rootsy and classy. Rough edged expressions and subtle tonal slides mix it up with soulful torch singing, pregnant pauses and a true sense of swing."

Does this mean she mangles the tunes?

I will admit these acts have done something most of us will never do -- sell records. But since when do you need talent to sell records? BILLY MURRAY sold them. MITCH MILLER sold them. FABIAN sold them. VANILLA ICE sold them. More to the point, I'd scarcely heard of these ACTS until this IDIOT HACK mentioned them -- and just because you have a Web site doesn't mean people have heard of you. (Gretchen Wilson's Sony-produced site is 111,482 on Alexa.) We can at least understand MRS. SLUT'S success because she has some looks, and a brilliant regiment of agents. Where would she be without her mammoth GALL?

Fans of these show-biz giants could challenge me by citing my previous post on Dr. Kildare's bus-and-truck company. "Who are these jerks? I never heard of ANY of these!" True, it just might be the reverse of my situation with these FORMIDABLE acts. Then again, we have Alfred Drake on his cast album of Kismet, and we have Harold Lang recording Pal Joey -- both among the greatest of musical albums, both issued over FIFTY YEARS AGO, and NOT out of print, and they never will be. We who love these albums can say with certainty these two men had more talent then ten thousand kanYeWests. That kanYe's or the Scissors' or Gretchen's is the music of the moment, endorsed by NEWS HACKS, does not change this. We have the sad tale of Mencken's beloved novelist Joseph Hergesheimer to tell us what can happen to press-endorsed GENIUS.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

I never got around to Reggie White's death at the ungodly age of 43 because as with Asia's calamity there was little to say -- by all accounts he was a great athlete, and a great guy. Thing is, even the best of today's athletes live only in highlight reels, and those who played before the highlight reels live only in you hadda be there. Beethoven never wore a helmet or shoulder pads -- he probably wouldn't have looked very good in them -- but we still hear and honor his music (though not for much longer if NEWS HACKS and LEGENDARY DAVIS use their WILES). No knock on Reggie White, but any age destined to live only in highlight reels is destined to irrelevance.

Thankfully we DO have THE DARKNESS, FRANZ FERDINAND, KANYE WEST, LOS LONELY BOYS, MADELEINE PEYROUX, THE STREETS, GRETCHEN WILSON, THE SCISSOR SISTERS, COHEED & CAMBRIA, AND BOSTON'S DRESDEN DOLLS!!!!!

AND ALL THAT GREAT THEA-TAH!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

The great CHRIS DODD endorses PRESS FREEDOM!

What if there's a SKELETON in YOUR closet, Chris?

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

And in the THEA-TAH, MORE GENIUS!!!!!

I guess I'm one of those "glass half full" people, because what impresses me about 2004 is how much good theater there has been.

It didn't seem that way much of the time....

I love when people write like that, because you can break off after the second sentence and not have to read the rest. But this WAS, we must admit, a landmark year for the THEA-TAH -- with shows like...DRACULA, THE MUSICAL!!!!!

What did I say about definite articles and nouns?

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

MUSIC IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

CREATIVELY, IT WAS A FORMIDABLE YEAR!! RARELY HAVE THERE BEEN SO MANY TALENTED BREAKOUT ACTS, INCLUDING THE DARKNESS, FRANZ FERDINAND, KANYE WEST, LOS LONELY BOYS, MADELEINE PEYROUX, THE STREETS, GRETCHEN WILSON, THE SCISSOR SISTERS, COHEED & CAMBRIA, AND BOSTON'S DRESDEN DOLLS!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

If things were so formidable, STEVE (or should we say for-mee-DAHH-bluh), why were CD sales up by a staggering TWO PERCENT, and why was "the concert business...off by a whopping 30 percent"? HUH?????

Posted 8:00 PM by Gene

A SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER and BIG-NAME TALK SHOW HOST quotes one blogger --

...in the aggregate, the vast hordes of small blogs with a few dozen readers are more important than the small number of big blogs with hundreds of thousands of readers....

after quoting another:

What I want to know is, when can I buy shares in InstaPundit ?

I think we can guess who a SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER and BIG-NAME TALK SHOW HOST would be rooting for.

PLEASE Hugh, don't give me this HOOEY about the LITTLE GUY. MMMMMMMSSSSSSSMMMMMMM is all about BEING GOLIATH.

WHO WANTS TO BE A LITTLE GUY?

Posted 7:55 PM by Gene

Here's something to trouble people -- THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS "COORDINATING" THE RELIEF EFFORTS. How many more lives will be lost, how many billions squandered through its arrogance and ineptitude?

Posted 6:17 PM by Gene

This remarkable NOAA QuickTime animation tells more of why so many thousands died than could billions of words.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

As Playbill.com has no risible revivals or dead-man's revues to tout I should mention that our local Merriam Theater Bus and Truck Stop (the only thing missing is the Phillips 66, and that's only because they don't sell it in these parts -- but you can still get gas there) has a new fume maker: something called SCROOGE -- THE MUSICAL. (Beware any title that has a definite article and a common noun. TWILIGHT ZONE -- THE MOVIE!!!!!) This one stars the aged Dr. Kildare in the title role. I mean, what did he ever have besides boyish good looks and a tinny voice? But he's at a truck stop, the same one in where Bob Goulet emitted some profitable carbon monoxide exhuming South Pacific, and we gotta FILL 'ER UP. I've mentioned before this place housed Kiss Me, Kate in tryouts (today they'd call it Taming of the Shrew -- THE MUSICAL, which might prompt Cole Porter to get back on that horse and break some more bones), and to mention the names, which are unjustly forgotten among the STUPIDS -- Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Harold Lang, Lisa Kirk -- now THERE magic was more than an ad-blurb copywriter's adjective. Who who had anything better to do would shell out his ducats to spend three hours squirming in his seat watching terminally chirpy waiters making too much noise with too little charm resuscitating a thirty-five year old score (music and lyrics: Leslie Bricusse!), while Dr. Kildare impersonates acting? At least OLIVER! has excellent, stirring songs, and a touch of humanity. What I would give to troop about ten blocks from here to the Erlanger (now a car-rental lot) to see Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews trying out My Fair Lady! Who would choose this instead? And how can any NEWS HACK, faced with such GENIUS, say with a straight face we live in a PLATINUM AGE OF ENTERTAINMENT?

But they do, and they will, and meantime more buses and trucks will vroom into the Merriam Bus and Truck Stop, and the Academy of Music Bus and Truck Stop, and the Forrest Theater Bus and Truck Stop, and countless other bus-and-truck stops throughout the nation, and stink up the culture. Where's Rachel Carson when we NEED her?

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

George Carlin enters rehab center

You wonder why it took so long.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Again, CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES suffer from ITCHY FINGERS and EMPTY HEADS.

Say guys, wouldn't it have been better to just distribute a link to the Web site, as in:

GOLDENPALACE.COM!!!!!!!!!!

And next time guys, add some flashing letters and ARROWS.

Did we only get TWO ROLLS-ROYCES for CHRISTMAS, Tom?

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

The Chinese-language Web site of fast food giant McDonald's Corp. was broken into twice on Christmas by a hacker protesting against its listing of Taiwan as a separate country, the Beijing Youth Daily said Monday.

Mickey D's being one of THE WORLD'S MOST PC COMPANIES I'm sure that's been taken care of ALREADY.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

Count on the VAST INTERNATIONAL BLOGGING MACHINE and all the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS to TALKTALKTALK about something inexpressible -- in this case the great earthquake near Indonesia, and the tsunami that followed. I've a hunch when the island of Sumatra moves 100 feet that is somehow beyond mere words.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

IMMORTALITY:

Todd: I can tell you that throughout the project, especially with interim milestones, we had some periods when application compatibility was near zero. We took some radical steps and said, OK, this is definitely [breaking apps]. Now, how can we tweak that ... and preserve some form of application compatibility?

Paul: Did you end up having to do a lot of per-app ...

Todd: Shims?

Paul: Yeah.

Todd: There are a couple of things I hate to do. One is shortcuts and hacks. Every time someone would bring in an app shim, we would say, let's take a step back and look at this. Are you just shimming that application, or are you shimming a symptom? Let's look at a core fix, or a core change, or a Group Policy setting, or something other than an app-by-app fix.

Ryan: If you don't look at it Todd's way, the platform's scale just screws us. If you do that one shim for just one app, there are probably in the ballpark of ten other apps or more that you're missing. And you're not going to know what they are. It could be a custom application in France, or Singapore. We're not getting visibility into [all the apps out there], so you have to fix it the right way.

Some years back a PAPER OF RE-CORD writer did a New Republic piece in which all he did was quote the very garbled remarks of Nelson Rockefeller at a press conference -- and headed them "Lincoln." Why am I thinking, how can anything important emerge from vaporous Dilbertian shop talk like this?

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Digital books won't last much longer than BLOGS.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Not to make too much of this story -- Toys "R" Us is a dying company -- but is there a link between the increasing public AAAAAAAAAATTITUUUUUUUUUUDE of big business and the way it fires employees?

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

IDIOT HED OF THE MONTH:

JOHN KERRY'S FAVORITE TERRORISTS KIDNAP 10 TOURISTS!!!!!!!!!!

SHUT UP, DAVID HOROWITZ!!!!!

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

Hey THANKS, FATSO! Now Big Pharma really WILL clam up!

Of course it weren't too smart for SLEAZEBALL TAUZIN's new employers to say be on the lookout for "a scruffy guy in a baseball cap," because now he can DISGUISE HIMSELF. It may be TOUGH though to camouflage those POUNDS.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

HEY PAPER OF RE-CORD CLOWNS, do we really need THE HAMMER-ON-ANVIL IRONIC APPROACH in reviewing that mammoth anthology of New Yorker cartoons? PINCH will stop at NOTHING to lay into the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL of Red Country. And doesn't writing HEAVILY IRONICALLY about NEW YORKER CARTOONS TAINT a very good thing, the one thing that overrated rag has (until recently) done CONSISTENTLY WELL?

I'm further disappointed because Walter Kirn's a decent writer too. SHUT UP, PINCH!

Posted 3:00 PM by Gene

SAMMY GLICKMAN AND HIS CONSPIRACY believe a movie can be -- not created, or produced, but CALCULATED. Last year we got AUDREY'S MONSTER, a mammoth assemblage of product placements and tie-ins whose enormous success seems to have dried up the demand for Dr. Seuss trinkets. This year, it's The LEMON Man, who must be leaving a SOUR TASTE in SUMNER. (Who says it's an UNFORTUNATE EVENT? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!) To be sure, GE Bancorp's all-star gear meshing at the top of the list means there will be more movies made for the sole purpose of subtracting money from the always gullible MOVIEGOING S&M PHREAKS (certainly the BIZ doesn't make them to entertain, or to live -- whoever heard of doing a thing like THAT?????); but the reason this has been such a BAD YEAR for FILM is that the BATTERY may be RUNNING OUT on the CALCULATOR.

And how does it feel (sorry to mention his name again) to be LORD LLOUD WUBBISH, at what should be the APEX OF A LONG AND DISTINGUISHED CAREER, facing the HORDES SCREAMING OUT OF THE TORTURE CHAMBERS?

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: There'll be millions of annoyed customers while the techies try to merge home entertainment with the computer.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

Seems ol' tax-evading mistress-trading friend of Rudy's was quite an administrator TOO.

Guess this means RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!! finally heard about JUDITH REGAN.

I see Rudy's chances sinking, SINKING....

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

On July 11 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, NAACP chairman Julian Bond rose to address the 95th annual convention of the nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization.

Bond excoriated President Bush and the Republicans, accusing the party of appealing "to the dark underside of American culture" and relying on "the politics of racial division to win elections."

Since that evening in Philadelphia, a lot has changed in the world of the NAACP, and most of it for the worse.

You don't suppose it had anything to do with OPENING YOUR BIG FAT MOUTH, JUUUUUUUUUULIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

Argentina's Economic Rally Defies Forecasts

GEN. PINOCHET DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh wait, he ran CHILE. Argentina, Chile, who's to tell between nations with ACCENTS?

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

CHUCKIE wants to be KING. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

"A lot has happened since the (Queen’s) coronation in 1953. There will be a large number of differences. I don’t mind the word modernising," said the Duke of Norfolk, who as earl marshal will organise Charles’s coronation.

Yeah. Which means LORD ELTON and LORD McCARTNEY and LORD LLOUD WUBBISH as his MUSIC MAKERS -- and no mention of a fella named GOD.

All it needs is OPRAH as EXEC PRODUCER, but she's already queen -- of A HUNDRED UNIVERSES.

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

That @#$%&* "FATHER" of his @#$%&* COUNTRY seems not to have lacked for illicit GIRLFRIENDS to PROCREATE TROUBLE.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

The bad news: as I said before, fans masquerading as seats will see this year's OSCAR® nominees. The good news: because of this, the ad-blurb copywriters think they're GREAT.

Remember the name, someone called Strauss of the LALA Daily Nooz. This guy writes his waltzes with two left feet.