Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

STERNO didn't see THIS STORY? THIS STORY on NICK DORKEN, the SECOND GREATEST MEDIA FIGURE OF ALL TIME -- whose SITES can now draw -- ADS??????????

Porno sites could draw ads too, if they TRIED. It's a wonder NICK DORKEN HASN'T.

Tom Hespos, President, Underscore Marketing, has seen many clients run successful campaigns on blogs, but hopes brands don't shift budgets to blogs simply because it's trendy. "I'd hate to see blog advertising become a line item on a flowchart--like paid search--simply because it's the 'latest and greatest' or because media planners see the word 'blog' in dozens of trade media stories...."

Yep, ol' NICK is PERFECTLY POSITIONED to BE TRENDY.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Well, SOME good news to report:

• NBC: Low turnout in insurgent city

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!

Problem is, it's in one of those precincts where SADDAM scored 99.99 PERCENT.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

Race for Dem Leader Entering Final Stage

May the best ASS...er, DONKEY...er, WHATISIT WIN!!!!!

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

And speaking of NEUHARTIANS:

Some take pride in the darnedest things, ranging from being home of the "largest ball of twine" (Kansas) to having the world's largest baseball bat (Kentucky). Then there's the whole "red" vs. "blue" thing.

USA TODAY tries to put the controversy to rest by ranking states by something that actually matters: stock price performance. By using the Bloomberg News regional stock indexes, USA TODAY ranked states by the performance of companies that are either based there or have significant operations in that state.

RIGHT. End a controversy by starting another.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

I've posted FOUR TIMES in the last half-hour. WHY HAVEN'T I GOTTEN ANY HITS?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Expert: Potential Jackson Jurors May Seek 'Five Minutes' Of Fame

MJ? OJ!!!!!

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK: The latest excuse from the AD BIZ for those LUXURY SUITES at the SUPER BORE is that people WANT TO WATCH THE ADS, therefore they REMEMBER the ADS, therefore, it's (NEW BUZZTERM TO FINANCE CRAPPY TELEVISION ALERT) "EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING." (FIGURES this would come from THE SENIOR CLUNKER BROTHER.) But one mark of the TRUE NEUHARTHISM is putting the BAD NEWS at the END, AS IN:

Of course, not every Super Bowl ad turns the tide for a brand. When Procter & Gamble Co. bought into the game for the first time ever last year, the brand it chose, Charmin, was the only one of its top 20 brands to see volume decline in the first quarter....

Even winning the Super Bowl ad contest is no guarantee of success. Last year’s best-remembered spot, surprisingly, was a 15-second version of an ad for Energizer Holdings’ Schick Quattro that had been running for months, according to Bruzzone Research. Trouble is, 40% of respondents remembered it as an ad for Gillette, vs. 39% who thought it was for Schick.

But NOTHING beats yelling, for MONTHS on end, "I WAS IN A LUXURY BOX AT THE SUPER BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!!!!!!"

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

NEWS HACKS ON THE MARCH:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A U.S. consumer group Monday accused Pfizer Inc. of burying a study suggesting its painkiller Celebrex boosts the risk of heart attack and stroke, the group's latest salvo in a bid to ban all drugs in the class.

The accusation comes a week after the group, Public Citizen....

Public Citizen is A CONSUMER GROUP?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

ONWARD and UPWARD in AMERICAN JERNALISM:

Why most newspapers don't bother hiring an ombudsman
American Journalism Review
The reason cited most frequently is money, says Jennifer Dorroh. When Purdue University's Neil Nemeth surveyed public editors in 1999, he found they earned average salaries between $75,000 and $100,000. "Given the choice, most news outlets would rather use that money to hire more reporters -- or not spend it at all," writes Dorroh.

No wonder; that's a LOT of money for a professional apologist.

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

VALENTINO, SWANSON TO RETURN TO THE SCREEN IN APRIL

It is safe to say that however bad this film was in ITS day it's probably better than anything playing NOW.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

BLOG POST of the DAY -- from THE CORNER!!!!!

AAACCCKKK: CHANGE THE NUMBER ON YOUR DIAL [K. J. Lopez]
Cable news is officially off limits for the next few weeks once it's a decent hour in California today: "Pop icon Michael Jackson is just hours away from the start of his trial..."
Posted at 05:13 AM

There's such a thing as A DECENT HOUR when THAT's on?

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

Mark Steyn, who else:

AND so the "looming Iraqi election fiasco" joins "the brutal Afghan winter" and "the brutal Iraqi summer" and "the seething Arab street" and all the other junk in the overflowing trash can of post-9/11 Western media fictions.

Not to worry; there'll be other fict -- FIASCOES.

Posted 6:12 AM by Gene

The next goal of one-company-state con-SER-va-tives must be to reunite the Baby Bells and call the thing AT&T, which would be a pile of assets with rotten service -- their ultimate dream.

Posted 4:28 PM by Gene

Why PRNewswire is PRICELESS:

SMIC Reaches Settlement with TSMC

Posted 4:17 PM by Gene

In his valedictory a show-biz writer for THE PAPER OF RE-CORD and husband of a top Sony executive drops names, MANY names, and in so doing gives full proof of why not one word of show-biz flackery from the PRESS can be trusted.

What's your next job, Bernie? Consulting for the MISSUS?

Posted 2:53 PM by Gene

Do you have a movie or TV show or record you can't stop watching or listening to because it's so flat-out BAD? I have one: the cast album of TOMFOOLERY, the Gilligan's Island of revues. You've surely never heard of this album as it was last issued on LP in the UK nearly twenty years ago, and I only have it because DORSAL, er DORSET AUDIO (i.e., Barnes and Noble) created a homemade cassette right off the LP (literally), which I've unaccountably played hundreds of times. Then again this appears to be a favorite of college and community groups on infintessimal budgets, and pictures of these productions alone communicate how flat out BAD it is. Indeed this piece of junk has a special place in show-biz hell because it was one of the early successes of LORD SCHLOCKINTOSH, EMPEROR OF BAD THEATER. He decided it would be a great idea to anthologize Tom Lehrer on stage. And it would have been -- in 1965. The problem is age has not been kind to Prof. Lehrer's creations, as even THE GLIBERAL noted when he reviewed the New York production still in possession of his few small faculties. Consider this line from "Who's Next?":

We'll try to stay serene and calm --
When ALABAMA gets the bomb.

It was funny precisely because a megalomaniac like George Wallace would try to get the bomb to prevent integration in the South. But by 1980 the Confederacy was already turning into Mallopia with glutinous entrepreneurs and smiley faces, and so:

We'll try to stay serene and calm
When RONALD REAGAN gets the bomb.

Agree or disagree with its politics, it's not funny, and it's bitter. One imagines a highly conventional liberal like Prof. Lehrer scrunching his whole face, his whole BEING in mortal pain when writing that line. But the problem with topical humor is that it's topical. And that's not even the worst example; the future LORD had the BRILLIANT idea of putting "Wernher von Braun" into the show even though that notorious scientist had died three years before; one gets the sneaky suspicion that the future LORD and the Prof. had prolonged discussions about rewriting the song in the PAST TENSE. As is it sounds dangerously close to a TRIBUTE.

But then one may wonder about the ditties that didn't make it in. There is a terminal cuteness to them: was it worth three minutes snickering over the love life of Alma Mahler Werfel? Or Hubert Humphrey as vice-president? (That number is worthy of The CAPITOL STEPS and explains why Prof. Lehrer all but stopped writing songs in the mid-sixties.) Even the songs without topical references seem obvious. Really, do we have to be told that we grow old and die? And who cares about mathematicians? The future LORD surely realized what a BIND he was in with "The Old Dope Peddler," which must have struck even the Harvard students of the fifties as forced in its irony, but thanks to great advances in society he felt obliged to turn into a flat-out DIRGE. Happily he corrected the problem by introducing the Prof.'s VD song -- just before the AIDS crisis exploded. Great going, LORD!

And then there's "The Vatican Rag." On That Was the Year That Was the (probably inebriated) audience can't stop laughing. Here they can't START, despite the obvious presence of liquid refreshments (you can hear a glass smashing at one point), perhaps because Lehrer's nightmare had come true, as the Folk Song Army (unaccountably missing here) marched its way into the Catholic church, and as Lenny's MASS bludgeoned ears with its trendiness; but the nightmare wouldn't reach its true climax until the years following, with hackwork like Nunsense and Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? and jolly tap-dancing nuns -- no small thanks to Tom Lehrer.

Of course great songs demand a great production, and in this the future LORD SCHLOCKINTOSH did not leave TOMFOOLERY wanting. The cast of four sounds like a gaggle of League of Nations translators at a piano bar. It is especially amusing to hear someone sing "I Wanna Go Back to Dixie" with a Briton's idea of a Southern accent, which sounds unmistakably Cockney. (The guy got his training doing The Rocky Horror Show -- appropos indeed.) Perhaps recognizing how senescent the material is our troupers aren't content merely to sing it, no; they SHOUT it, and BANG it, over small-group arrangements that aim a big broad dirty thumb at your nose. ("So Long Mom"? How about "Taps" in the COUNTERPOINT?)

I'm sorry to have spent so much time on this, and I regret writing in this fashion, but once I laughed at Tom Lehrer, laughed hard. His recordings are still worth hearing because he had a sly Grouchovian way of singing, and he was equally sly at the piano. "The Hunting Song" must have a place so long as fools own guns. But TOMFOOLERY stands as Lehrer's last will and testament, and sadly, as his burial ground.

(New sentence in sixth graf, review link and spelling correction -- trouper for "trooper" -- added 3/6/2011)

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Sen. Kerry says:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Caveat: it IS NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Predictable: LALA's RENDELLTORIUM has heat problems. Now comes word that OUR VERY OWN RENDELLTORIUM in the MUSICAL QUONSET HUT ON BROAD has INSUFFICIENT REVERB. Guess how much it will cost to fix it -- somewhere around A FORTUNE.

I say, BRING IN THE PHONE COMPANY! It NAMED it.

This on TOP of the word somebody shafted THE BUILDERS of THE IGGLES' TAJ MAHAL to the TUNE of up to $54 MILLION. Only no one will ever figure out who did the shafting because it may prove -- EMBARRASSING. Do I hear the BOTTOMS falling out of our POCKETS?

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

One of the great medical cures of all time, ABORTION, may be finally catching up to the CHINESE.

Let's send HILLARY in to fix it!

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

This should warm the cockles of our hearts:

Dubai bought a $1 billion stake in DaimlerChrysler AG, becoming its third-largest shareholder as the carmaker seeks to reverse three years of declining revenue.

I've got an idea, Saudis: why not buy up EVERY LAST AUTO MAKER! Then when you wanted to get BACK at US INFIDELS not only could you withhold the oil -- you could withhold the cars! In time every nation could look like CUBA!

Oh, I forgot. You've got HUGGABLE SQUEEZABLE IMAMS to finance. It's still worth a try!

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Did 'Idol' Go Too Far? - Yes
"American Idol" has turned into an orgy of public ridicule masquerading as a talent show. No-talent shows can be fun, but beneath the laughs, they're nasty.

Did 'Idol' go too far? - NO
So "American Idol" has hit a new low? Compared to what? "The Surreal Life?" "The Apprentice?" "Desperate Housewives?" The half-time show at the Super Bowl?

Could it be they're BOTH right?

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

What's REALLY important to the newsbots at YAHOO!:

• 'Baby Spice' looks to make it as solo artist (home-page hed)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Big Turnout in Baghdad Points to Success in Iraq Voting

All together now NEWS HACKS, one, two, three:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And true, Fareed, elections are NOT democracy -- ST. WARREN's been around long enough to KNOW -- but in Iraq they're a darned sight better than what WAS, for SOME people.

We may YET make fun of your cover THIS week, Mr. Mark.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

Viacom and Lee have a strong incentive to upgrade BET, whose target audience is coveted by Madison Avenue. African-Americans watch more TV by far than any other group and are enthusiastic consumers. BET's audience also skews heavily toward the hip-hop generation, full of influential tastemakers. No wonder Comcast and Murdoch want in. "It's a giant segment of the population that's clearly underserved," says Jessica Reif-Cohen, Merrill Lynch's media analyst. Adds Peter Gardiner, chief media officer for Deutsch: "People like us root for BET...."

This is the sort of automatic typing any reasonably well-informed news consumer could belch in his sleep. Why do people need to pay $30 a year to tell them what they can already parody in their heads?

Promise we can make fun of your cover NEXT week, Mr. Mark?

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Lately -- I suppose to prove He is human -- THE LORD GOD PINCH has run some, well, QUIRKY stories in His rag. Several weeks ago He plugged an electronics Web site that sells things that I'd guess The LORD has been requesting to soothe His off hours when He isn't the source of all wisdom, things from Japanese electronics firms that they don't sell here, perhaps for a reason: things like $2,349 headphones "made with Japan's finest Hokkaido cherry tree (Asada) and high quality leather from Great Britain's royal leather goods manufacturing company - Connolly Luxury Goods Limited" (and not the most expensive they sell -- these are); $950 tube car stereos; $4,599 phonograph cartridges; and $11,799 speaker cables. Today He's run a story about an alleged new fad: big-rig tractors as SUVs. He also used the word "glitz" in a squib in His paper (not on His Web site) about Davos. I think I liked it better when His was the paper of record, and not THE PAPER OF RE-CORD.

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

Saudi Oil Minister Says $50 Oil No Threat to Growth

Obviously we're planning to build a few more mosques where a few more IMAMS can preach of LOVE AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

Another 1,322 WORDS to tell us, possibly for the 13,220TH TIME, that JOHNNY WAS A PRIVATE MAN, and possibly for the 132,200TH TIME that HE KNEW LOTS OF PEOPLE WITH FAMOUS NAMES.

Honest, this sort of thing makes us yearn for another SCREED about IRAQ, or maybe another AD from JIM "FUDD" ULMER.

JOHNNY'S DEAD. May we finally let him REST IN PEACE?

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

Oh and little, I wouldn't take too much credit about ripping down those Adopt-a-Road signs; they're probably headed to eBay RIGHT NOW.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

Complaints about U2's bungled pre-sale for its 2005 world tour continued to pour in Friday, with ticket brokers and scalpers offering tickets to the shows --including the Chicago dates -- for more than 20 times face value.

The band Friday apologized to fans who paid $40 to U2's official Web site, U2.com, for pre-sale privileges beginning Tuesday only to be left without coveted $49.50 general-admission floor tickets nearest the stage, or no tickets at all. Dozens of prime U2 tickets ended up in the hands of third-party profiteers. By Friday, tickets to U2 shows around the country, including the ones May 7 and May 9 at the United Center with top-end prices of $95 to $165, were being sold on eBay for more than $1,000 each.

Bungle? THIS IS A TRIUMPH OF FREE EN-TER-PRISE!!!!!

On U2.com, the band blamed "new technology" for sabotaging its first Internet pre-sale, saying the system failed because "everyone tries to do the same thing at once."

And a triumph for GEEKS!!!!!

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

As NEWS HACKS continue to raise a self-righteous stink over the PUNDITS who took BRIBES from overeager Dubya factotums we see the HACKS getting the WRONG LESSON. The problem, of course, is that these were EEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL CONSERVATIVES and REPUBLICANS. The problem wasn't that they were NEWS HACKS. And the problem definitely wasn't that they got MONEY; we know WE'RE worth a lot MORE. Besides, you have to wonder how much of a problem these emoluments are when our NEWS HACKS increasingly resemble BRITISH NEWS HACKS, of whom it is often and tiresomely (though truthfully) said THEY DON'T HAVE TO BE BRIBED.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Wunderkind used to mean prodigies like Mozart. Then it came to mean geniuses like HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM. Now it means twenty-something Johnny-One-Notes for whom USAOKAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! organizes promotional campaigns (see the home-page tease).

NEWS HACKS CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Why can't they write in another language -- like Esperanto?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

LOONIEST OF LOONEY-LEFT PERFESSERS -- or possibly the kind of man who HELPED MENTOR THE STAFF AT THE WALL STREET JOURNALS LIBERAL EDITION?

Sorry Glenn, when it comes to the JOURNALS I'm afraid TWO can play THAT game. No thank you, James Taranto.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Another sign NEWS HACKS have no sense:

LEGENDARY investor Warren Buffett had nothing but praise Friday for Procter & Gamble Co.'s $57 billion deal to buy Gillette, which helped him make about $645 million -- in one day.

What if He had owned P&G INSTEAD?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Another sign BIGBIZ has NO SENSE: P&G will NOT withdraw the name GILLETTE STADIUM, nor ask for a refund on ALL THE MONEY WASTED THEREON.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

See, when government attacks BIGBIZ with regulations BIGBIZ always says IT'S SOMEBODY ELSE'S FAULT. Yeah. IT'S SOMEBODY ELSE'S FAULT THAT MICKEY D'S GOES AFTER FOUR-YEAR OLDS.

AND I DON'T LIKE TOM HARKIN EITHER.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

WOWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Disney management is so distraught over damaging revelations in a book on CEO Michael Eisner that the public relations head offered to resign, The Post has learned.

The leader of the WHORVIS COMMUNICATIONS OF BIG BIZ -- RESIGNING? PERHAPS ESPNCORP isn't as INSUPERABLE as we THOUGHT.

Once more, DICK "GUNS CAUSED COLUMBINE" CORLISS: YOU STILL THINK MICKEYMOUSE NIXON IS GREAT?

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

This says it all:

The likelihood that blogs will vanquish mainstream media recalls the prediction Michael Crichton made in his 1993 essay "Mediasaurus." Crichton wrote that the New York Times and one commercial TV network would vanish within a decade and would be replaced by artificial-intelligence agents, skimming information and the news from news databases and composing front pages or broadcasts tailored to the interests and needs of individuals. Like Shamberg's guerrilla revolution, Crichton's infotopia failed to arrive as promised. In 2002, Crichton good-naturedly claimed that his vision will still come true; it's just running a little late.

Is HUBRIS in the air?

Posted 12:37 PM by Gene

Why is it whenever I read stories like this the old Soviet national anthem rings in my head? With Pee-TAH conducting?

P. S. I guess this means the Bentonville folks aren't con-SER-va-tive anymore. (With all that China dealing weren't they commies in the first place?)

Posted 12:34 PM by Gene

Stories we stopped reading after ONE WORD:

The topic of Terrell Owens, his leg injury and whether he'll play in the Super Bowl has been debated not only by a plethora of journalists, but also doctors and medical ETHICISTS.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

A BIG VICTORY FOR GEEKS! (And we know it's a big victory for geeks because it appears in SLASHDOT!) "MGM" (United Artists with another name) will have to pay millions to consumers because ITS WIDESCREEN DVD MOVIES WEREN'T WIDESCREEN!!!!!

LETTERBOX DEVOTEES, REJOICE!!!!!

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

FOR decades, voting in Iraq meant taking part in a national exercise of state-enforced adulation, as 99 per cent of the electorate would dutifully turn out to tick the box beside the name Saddam Hussein.

Yesterday the contrast could not have been starker, as the campaign for Sunday’s elections picked up pace and voters were presented with a dizzying selection of dozens of candidates and parties.

So WHY do so many NEWS HACKS try to convince us THE FORMER WAS BETTER?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

The scribblers will be crying and hugging for solace in their luxury news suites today (provided the hugging does not violate sexual harassment codes): the head of the pro-abor, er, pro-ch, er, ONE OF THE GREATEST HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS IN HISTORY has RESIGNED, perhaps taking a BRAVE AND NOBLE CAUSE with her.

Fortunately, there will be other courageous leaders -- and THERE'LL ALWAYS BE US.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

Another big stupid one-company-state merger down the pike: MICKEY D'S and COKE. They do so much business with each other NOW they're virtually one company ANYWAY.

Better still, a THREE-WAY MERGER: Mickey D's AND Coke AND HEINZ!!!!! The late Dick "The Mafioso" Armey would be pleased.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

"Who cares what the Academy voters think?"

You do, moron -- you spent 1,341 WORDS CARING.

[P]oliticizing The Passion or attempting to turn those associated with it into conservative heroes is likely to make future religious films less, not more, likely.

But this is precisely what fools like R. EMMETT DID, and that's precisely what THE GREATEST MASTERPIECE OF ALL TIME was -- a CON-SER-VA-TIVE MOVIE.

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

NEWS HACKS spend ZILLIONS OF COLUMN INCHES engaged in WILLFUL IGNORANCE of their OWN, promoting SUPERAIRHEADS like TARA among other THINGS, and THIS is THE INEVITABLE RESULT:

I assure you that Uwe Boll's "Alone in the Dark," opening in theaters across the nation today, is no better than whatever you might pick up while wearing a blindfold at Blockbuster, even if you happen to reach into a trash can.

Of course by SAMMY GLICKMAN's STANDARDS that's A GOOD MOVIE.

(Caveat: This is JACK of THE NOO YAWK DAILY NOOZ, who recently got in a LATHER because he was "SNUBBED" at an AWARDS SHOW.)

Posted 6:33 AM by Gene

HOW ABOUT THEM FLYERS!
HOW ABOUT THEM BRUINS!

If you live in a SUPER BORE TOWN, think of life without the NHL, and then ponder if YOU PAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO SPORTS.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Elections won't work in China because the masses aren't wealthy or well-educated enough to understand the issues, Chinese officials often argue. Elections are at odds with 5,000 years of Chinese history and, anyway, the country already has a democracy with socialist characteristics, they say.

So why in IRAQ and not THERE?

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

But shucks, the day we'll have ONE BIGMEDIA COMPANY has been moved back -- by a few months.

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

Another merger on the way to a one-company state.

And we know what P&G will do: price gouge even more and spend the layoff savings on JUNK TELEVISION.

HALLELUJAH ST. WARREN!!!!!

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Remember that eBay ad with a huge crowd of people showing off their vintage clocks? No? Or if you saw it, what did it say to you? Ask Debbie Levitt, president of the eBay merchant consulting service AsWas, and she complains: "It's painting eBay as a sea of obsessive-compulsive people."

Isn't that what it is?

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

And also in the luxury news suites the SCRIBBLERS are FUMING because a BLACK FEMALE SECRETARY OF STATE DARES TO BE "BOLD."

No, the bigots are typists now. Thank you, Marian Anderson, for helping get them out of the LAWS.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

She's being honored for being AFRICAN-AMERICAN.

She should be honored for being one of the greatest musicians America ever knew.

Who would want to make a bet that in America's luxury news suites a cry is going up -- WHO?!?!?!?!?

Keep telling us about IMMORTAL AIRHEADS like TARA and PARIS and then you'll REALLY BE STUPID.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

It's hard to me not to think of Jim Lileks as a SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER, and worthy of all the scorn attendant thereto, but then someone like this has the guts to call THE SECOND GREATEST TV SHOW OF ALL TIME BAD, and he ends his latest edition with this:

Ol’ Buncombe Bob [Reynolds] was quite the character....If there’d been TV during the early days of WW2, the morning talk shows would have had him on all the time. “As President Roosevelt seeks to deepen US involvement in the European crisis, many members of his own party are speaking out against what they see as a dangerous escalation. We welcome, once again, Senator Bob Reynolds.”

A voice of conscience! Speaking his mind. A maverick, you might say, and that obviously makes him a truth teller. (coff) (Sorry, it's these cigars.)

It hardly gets much better.

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

TODAY SUGARY CEREALS AND JUNK FOOD TO KIDS, TOMORROW -- ANYTHING!!!!!

The way the EIGHTYSOMETHINGS in BAGGY PANTS and SHORT SKIRTS at THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS pitch to us, that's a good idea.

Posted 2:26 PM by Gene

THE AP -- er, SEN. FATSO GLUBGLUB DEMANDS WE PULL OUT OF IRAQ -- YESTERDAY!!!!!

Here's a deal: we'll withdraw from Iraq if you voluntarily agree to go to jail. Here's another deal: AP, we'll withdraw from Iraq if you go out of business. Fair enough?

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

The Bush administration has more than doubled its spending on outside contracts with public relations firms during the past four years, according to an analysis of federal procurement data by congressional Democrats.

And how much free PR did you get from YOUR friends?

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

How much good do we do ooohing and aaahing prodigies? Many of them end up nervous wrecks. It is all well and good to praise the prolificity of a 13-year-old, and we can hope he's written good music, but production minus inspiration is mere factory work. We should also remember Red Skelton (creator of G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER's mascot, FREDDIE THE FREELOADER) was allegedly a prolific composer too.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

As predicted Dow Jones is turning Marketwatch into a fully-automated headline service.

Several years from now (assuming NEWS HACKS have any GUTS left) we'll see the headlines: DOW JONES SELLS MARKETWATCH, DOW JONES TAKES BIG WRITEOFF ON MARKETWATCH, ANOTHER DOW JONES SHAREHOLDER BOONDOGGLE.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

We will spare Phyllis a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK award as we've already given out TWO of them, but she's clearly playing hanky-panky with her readers by accentuating ZONNNNNNNNNNNNN's positive (WE'RE GOING TO BE GOING GANGBUSTERS SELLING ADS!!!!!, which should make many subscribers happy) and eli-MI-nating the negative (the company's losses went up). Yes, I can see why NEWS HACKS are SUCH NICE PEOPLE.

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

"World leaders" believe by TALKTALKTALKING at Auschwitz they can prevent more genocides like the Holocaust, like Cambodia's, like Rwanda's, like Bosnia's.

LIKE HELL.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

If T.O. plays against his doctor's orders, and he breaks something else, DOES HE GET TO SUE THE DOCS?

GO FOR IT!!!!!

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

The LOONEY LEFT LIAR DAVID "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!" BROCK nearly SOILED HIS DIAPERS at CHUCK KRAUTHAMMER'S APPEARANCE OF AN APPEARANCE OF A CONFLICT OF INTEREST. To be sure, Chuck was in his ETERNAL PUNDIT MODE when he ORATED this:

"It was a revolutionary speech. ... To speak, essentially, about the abolition of tyranny, which has been a constant in human history for thousands of years, can only be spoken of as radical."

To be sure also, Chuck has it in him to be a pompous ass, as he has been commenting on POPULAR CULTYURE, especially with his FAVORITE picture, PATRIOTIC GORE. But the looney left's MO now is to throw a tantrum, any KIND of tantrum, as SEN. OSSIFIED KLEAGLE and company did, and there is no such thing to them anymore as DIGNITY. Because WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! looks so much the worse here, however, does not mean CHUCK looks THAT MUCH BETTER.

Posted 3:45 PM by Gene

The platinum-selling label behind artists Ashanti and Ja Rule was part of a deadly criminal enterprise that protected its multistate crack and heroin operation with calculated street assassinations, federal authorities charged Wednesday.

Label head Irv “Gotti” Lorenzo and his brother Christopher surrendered to the FBI on money-laundering charges Wednesday as federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment seeking to confiscate Irv Gotti’s real-estate and business holdings.

I'd say all concerned have made A BRILLIANT CAREER MOVE.

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

THIS AD APPEARED IN NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!????????

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

"We like 30 percent advertising-revenue growth," Forman said, referring to nytimes.com's performance last year. "And charging for the site just across the board would certainly have a negative impact on that."

So why do you want to charge?

Posted 1:12 PM by Gene

Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca said authorities were speaking with the driver of the vehicle and believe it was intentionally parked on the tracks.

"It didn't appear that the vehicle had stalled," Baca said. "It appears that it was deliberately placed there."

Was this a psycho or will we have to deal with FOREIGN NAMES again?

UPDATE: A PSYCHO.

I would say the man will get his death wish but with such as the NINE FINGERS IN THE WIND, who knows?

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

JOKE OF THE DAY: An AH-TISTE for the IMAGINEERING GOODTHINGS PEOPLE BEMOANS THE STATE OF THE AHT!!!!!

"THE WHOLE CULTURE IS IN THE CRAPHOUSE!! IT’S NOT JUST TRUE IN THE MOVIES, IT’S ALSO TRUE IN THE THEATRE!!! BROADWAY, AND NOW LONDON IS THE SAME, SPECIAL EFFECTS ARE IN GREAT DEMAND!!!! IT’S NOT A GOOD TIME CULTURALLY!!!!!"

And where did you make YOUR last picture, MR. HUFFMAN?

P. S. You're lucky THE NOSE didn't whisper back, "You have gorgeous breasts too."

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Dancin'! Dancin'! All the news hacks are DANCIN'! DANCIN'!

Cha-cha or fox trot?

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

"I wish I weren’t governor, I’d take you out."

With both pea-shooters blazing?

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

ArtsJournal.com links to two stories that strangely connect to each other: it seems the GENIUS AWARDS dry most of the winners' minimal creative juices up, and STEPHEN "THE GREATEST WORK OF AMERICAN POP CULTURE IN THE PAST QUARTER CENNNNNNNNNN-TU-RYYYYYYYYYY" HOLDEN is "fatigued" because there are so many awards shows -- and so much GENIUS to award!

The solution is simple: give an award to the GENIUS AWARDS and the SHOW-BIZ AWARDS just for SHUTTING UP.

Posted 7:04 AM by Gene

SEN. O'SPECTER's found AN EVEN LOWER ROAD!

You take the high road, and Arlen'll take the LOW ROAD -- and he'll be in CHINA by mornin'!

Posted 6:56 AM by Gene

Hillary in the middle on values issues

But we KNOW she'll zigzag so much she'll bring back the phrase "woman driver."

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS may chuckle how the Dems are making ASSES of themselves, but 57 MILLION were willing to vote the ASSES' candidate into the White House, which means craven stupidity has MANY backers.

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

We can't give you a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD -- we already did that with A VERY WORTHY SCRIBBLER -- but we can certainly give you a NEUHARTHISM OF THE REST OF THE WEEK AWARD for helping your good friends at ANHEUSER BUSCH!

As JOHNNY's sidekick used to say, THIS BUD®'S FOR YOU!

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

They're waiting for next year. God how those eightysomethings want to dance naked in public, and tell dirty jokes.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

A speculator has trouble selling JOHNNY's house despite being a devout believer in Meg "Mug" Whitman's credo: "All people are basically good -- TARGETS."

Terry Teachout, you're looking righter every day.

P. S.

Pruett says there's a market for celebrity homes, but his favorite example — the childhood house of rapper Eminem — is more a cautionary tale than inspiration.

A pair of investors bought the cramped tract home in Warren, Mich., from Eminem's uncle and tried several times to auction it on EBay. The bids raced up to $10 million [pffh-hh-hh], but they weren't from serious buyers [chuckle chuckle chuckle]. Two years later, the house is still unsold. [HARDY HAR HAR!!!!!]

You don't suppose this is one reason Mug's Kingdom has gone from $118 to $80 in a month, do you?

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

A Kofi-appointed commission talked to Kofi twice about Kofigate.

Sounds like justice will be done, don't it?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

I see About Last Night has been flooded with visitors and besmirched by cranks. I don't post comments either in part because I'm afraid what people would say (and also in part because I'm afraid I wouldn't get any comments); but one of the downsides to the Web is its herd mentality, a mentality exacerbated by the general youth and geekiness of its audience, and by being smack in the middle of POPU-LAR CULTYURE, which makes everything into GEEEEEEENIUS. Mr. Teachout's remarks were measured, and they have the additional merit of being true. That people would scream about this (and it isn't worth screaming about) either says that they've been conditioned by watching too much television, a medium they really must wean themselves from, or that too many people read People -- or NEWSPAPERS.

P. S. I posted my remarks about Johnny ten minutes before Mr. Teachout (although he was probably first), and I think I avoided his trap, but as I said, he had those grace notes, and I wish I could write like him at his best. He also added this neat line: "For [British obituary writers], the statute of limitations on candor expires when the death certificate is signed."

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

More than 20 years after the AIDS epidemic arrived in the United States, a significant proportion of African Americans embrace the theory that government scientists created the disease to control or wipe out their communities, according to a study released today by Rand Corp. and Oregon State University.

And what have you NEWS HACKS and your FRIENDS in SHOW-BIZ and ACADEME done to COUNTER THAT?

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Surprise: Fumblers, Bumblers and Incompetents report the Boston terror alert was "a false alarm."

Now let's hold our breaths (and our noses) for the next one.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Ted Turner awakens from the dead to belch that RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S news org is Hitler.

Sorry what happened to your stock. Now go back to posterity and hide there.

Posted 2:32 PM by Gene

The bad news is: lazy galoots intend not to repair a subway line for years because of a fire. The GOOD NEWS: A CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED BAG MAN SET IT.

THE PAPER OF RE-CORD must ALREADY be preparing a PUFF PIECE on the BRAVE BAG MAN. (Maybe they can get STEPHEN FREARS TO MAKE HIS LIFE'S STORY!! CALLING JIM "FUDD" ULMER!!!!!)

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

FLASH! PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS HAS TURNED LIBERAL!!!!!

There's ANOTHER word for the NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY: CONSCIENCE.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

Well, I got only three of the five BEST PICTURE OSCAR® NOMINEES right, but no matter: we ALL know who'll win -- MAR-TIN, as a reward for TAXI DRI -- A BRILLIANT CAREER.

Do I hear the BOTTOM falling out of this AU-GUST CEREMONY'S RATINGS?

P. S. The FREEPERS!!!!!!!!!! seem to be taking the BETRAYAL of THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD HISTORY in stride, with one correctly pointing out:

Academy voters (disproportionately older, Jewish, and liberal) snubbed the film because they sincerely believe The Passion is anti-Semetic, and they don't want to promote anti-Semetism.

As opposed to Free Republic, which is sometimes an emetic and promotes emetism. (I say that as A MEMBER.)

I would comment on what STERNO said about the masterwork's nomination for BEST MAKE-UP, but before then he put down 10,000 WORDS ABOUT THE FCC, and on those days he resembles a street guy covered with placards, or an agent for Lyndon LaRouche, or both.

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Hey STERNO, before you take credit for THIS TOO, remember THIS:

The [FCC] issued $7.9 million in fines in 2004, up from $48,000 for similar penalties four years earlier.

And I repeat, STERNO, as the LALATimes reported, the new chairman may not be what YOU want.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

When Chris Gruener moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to begin graduate school, he looked forward to experiencing the region's renowned tolerance of all people and lifestyles.

Mr. Gruener was raised in a devout Christian family near Seattle and attended a Baptist high school and a Christian college, where he studied business. His passion, however, was literature, and so he was excited to begin a master's program in English at Sonoma State University. But during his first semester, a classroom incident put a damper on Gruener's ardor.

While lecturing on James Joyce's rejection of the church, a professor drew two mountains with a valley between them on the chalkboard, explaining that Joyce's church believed one mountain was man and the other mountain was God.

Next he drew a cross in the valley, touching both peaks - a visual metaphor Gruener knew from childhood - and explained that this was Christ on the cross connecting man to God. Then the professor broke into peals of mocking laughter. The rest of the class joined in.

"My heart stopped," says Gruener. "If this were any other religion, the professor wouldn't get away with his remarks - it would be politically incorrect. But in the Bay Area, it is OK to laugh at Christianity and its God."

Today, on college campuses throughout the United States, great stress is placed on the importance of treating divergent views with sensitivity. And there are many religious students who say they appreciate the respect with which their beliefs are received.

Yet complaints like Gruener's are not uncommon and, ironically, they are sometimes heard at schools that particularly pride themselves on being open-minded and tolerant.

[Insert peals of mocking laughter at open-minded and tolerant schools here.]

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

GOODY! The SCREEN AC-TORS GUILD voted to RE-OPEN NEGOTIATIONS ON ITS CONTRACT -- SETTING UP A POSSIBLE WALKOUT!

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! PRETTY PLEASE, STRIKE! It would be good for our national mental health! WE WANNNNA STRIKE! WE WANNNNA STRIKE!

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

'Rolling Stone' reverses, will accept Bible ad

...after RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! said, "We'll give ya first crack at some PR -- I mean, interviews on our -- "ENVELOPE PUSHIN'" on FX!

And SIEG-HEILING JANN WENNER said, "IT'S A DEAL!"

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

Hip-Hop radio station HOT 97 has sparked outrage across the city by airing a twisted song that shockingly mocks the 200,000 victims of the South Asian tsunami.

AND IT'S NOT OWNED BY CHEAP CHANNEL OR VIACON!!!!!

Hey SALES -- ANALYSTS! Put a STRONG BUY on EMMIS COMMUNICATIONS!

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

OH oh, THE NOBEL LAUREATE HENRY THE K and TIGER BUTT counsel PATIENCE.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE....

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

Gosh almighty, looks like that Kennedy-Cuomo DREAM RACE won't happen after all.

Back to gazing upon distant HILLARIES.

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

HILLARY FOR PRESI -- er, THE PAPER OF RE-CORD INTONES:

Clinton Seeking Shared Ground Over Abortions

Blah blah blah blah moon, blah blah blah blah star, yah-ta-ta yah-ta-ta TALK TALK TALK...

Until we've successfully shucked this VALUES jive.

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

A thumbnail of this photo depicting "Critter" and "Vampirezza" [note the SWASTIKA] appears next to a Yahoo! News story heded "Senate Democrats Ready Anti-War Speeches". This is bias every bit as bad as CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES unleash on REPUBLICANS. Bad -- but also very telling.

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

Speaking of Web surfing:

Only 1 in 6 users of Internet search engines can tell the difference between unbiased search results and paid advertisements, a new survey finds.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

I notice more and more ads actively interfere with Web surfing -- and I'm not talking pop-ups. MediaLife.com had a "ticker" ad for the TWXSTERS' CNN that caused the scroll bar to jerk as it ran. Now Bloomberg Lite has run an ad for SMITH BAHHHHHHHHNEY that does the same thing, only worse. Why do so many firms want to turn the Internet into a California freeway at rush hour?

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

I have little sympathy for many of those who've lost their jobs for griping online about work. From the moment two years ago I got my job I decided the last thing I'd do was mention it. Aside from the fact that it's part of my personal life and for me none of anybody's business, I have no reason to write about work; this blog was always to be about culture and politics and world affairs, and my fancy. People who use their blogs to kvetch about their bosses and co-workers should probably be in another line of employment -- and quite possibly on another planet.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

There are reasons I linked to About Last Night, and Terry Teachout has provided another. It is now impossible to speak of Johnny Carson without entering the realm of cliche (Dubya not only entered the realm -- he RULES over it), but Mr. Teachout has managed not only to cut through the hyperbole and the blather, he provides his own inimitable grace notes. I cannot find anyone who writes about our culture with such eloquence and common sense, and if wanting to be part of the in-crowd very occasionally undercuts his judgment, I understand, as part of me wanted to be in the in-crowd last night. This man, ladies and gentlemen (or should I say, lady and gentleman, given my huge audience), can WRITE.

P. S. Mr. Teachout links to STERNO, and of course all he can manage is THE END OF ME-DIA. No, some people will always write in cliches, especially instant ones.

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

By the way, HEAVENLY FATHER, Your holy prose shouting that GOOD WORK of Yours to Heaven got me so hell-fire-and-brimstone riled I only now realized it lacks a DISTRIBUTOR! I know we should be spreading THE WORD far and wide but isn't this going a little too far? I mean, if You can spread THE WORD for what You allege to be a comedy (praise PINCH, one that might offend RED-COUNTRY SENSIBILITIES), can't we spread THE WORD for -- Sean Huze?

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

NYTer Chris Hedges says journalists have a moral contract with viewers and readers to be truthful, even when it means challenging conventional wisdom and ferreting out unpleasant facts.

Since when have NEWS HACKS done THAT? Moreover a holy kingdom of news that can EXCRETE THIS FLACKERY will NEVER challenge the CW and NEVER ferret out unpleasant facts, except for those unpleasant to intelligent and sensitive readers.

This priest at THE PAPER OF RE-CORD gets the LORD GOD PINCH's GOSPEL right, though:

"Balance does not mean giving everyone the same space"

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

The Iraqis got one of the top yayas and car-bombers!

If the Iraqis eradicated the yayas would that shut the news hacks up? Can toasters fly?

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

The Conservative Michael Moore

Ohhhhhhhhhh, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Hopeful sign:

Evan Coyne Maloney, 32, who dresses and looks like a college student, may very well be America's most promising conservative documentary filmmaker. Yet the Upper East Side resident hasn't completed a single film.

Meaning we may never hear from him outside DAVID HOROWITZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' precincts.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

Given all the shuffling RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s done through the years of his ASSETS it's a wonder the Feds are only NOW investigating accounting -- "ISSUES."

Maybe it was that piece of paper RONNY REAGAN signed.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Another thing NEWS HACKS and SHOW-BIZ have in common is a devotion to euphemism. Among their favorite double-meaning words is INDEPENDENT, because it gives them a feeling of FREEDOM when they're walking in KLUMPH KLUMPH LOCKSTEP with their bosses or their rigor-mortis-rigid ideology.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

The scientists have screwed up with their stem cells -- but count on NEWS HACKS to find a silver lining:

The finding is a setback to the Bush administration's controversial policy that provides federal funding only for research using embryonic stem cell lines that were created before August 2001.

How did ABORTION get to be a LITMUS TEST for the SCRIBBLERS?

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

• Madrid a hotbed of sin, says cardinal

Is that why Chris Columbus left for the new world? (That's what it linked to.)

Posted 6:32 AM by Gene

This should salve the wounds in Western P. A.:

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher might want to look over his shoulder - Snoop Dogg is after his job.

"My dream is to coach in the NFL, probably for the Steelers," the cornrowed rapper and actor revealed to Lowdown. "Put that out there for me."

The 33-year-old ex-Crip gangsta - born Calvin Broadus - doesn't completely lack for on-field experience: He coaches his 10-year-old son, Spanky's, football team and has recently teamed with Juba Entertainment (www.jubaentertainment.com) to organize the Snooper Bowl, a charity concert and football game in Jacksonville on Feb. 5 between Spanky's team and an all-star Florida team.

I see EIGHTYSOMETHINGS IN BAGGY PANTS AND SHORT SKIRTS DANCING.

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

Rat on Osama, get $50M

Their side STILL has 72 VIRGINS.

Posted 7:32 PM by Gene

NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK -- IN THE PAPER OF RE-CORD!!!!!



Remember the name: James "FUDD" Ulmer! GET THIS GUY A JOB FLACKING IN ARLINGTON!!!!!

Posted 6:27 PM by Gene

Well, they're at it again here in PHILTHYDELPHIA: the mindless noise-making (I have to live near a RENDELI), the I've-just-won-the-lottery screaming over a bunch of mercenaries and a zillionaire owner who would move with the slightest notice if the price were right. And please don't BLATHER about CIVIC PRIDE; I see the fruits of CIVIC PRIDE every time I take the El to work through RUINED NEIGHBORHOODS. Certainly I am resigned to all-night celebrations when the LORD JE -- I mean when the team wins the BORE; but there is one way to put the celebration to a halt -- with four words:

HOW ABOUT THEM FLYERS!!!!!!!!!!

I can recall when the city went into near-riot mode when they won the first of their two Stanley Cups. With the NHL on the brink of extinction we should know no team and no league can be forever; that championships can be forgotten; but that the basics will endure: that our government will still be mismanaged, and people will still find it in their hearts to murder other people.

And if this article is to be believed it's a truly PYRRHIC victory. We'll soon have 4.4 million square feet of empty office space in downtown west of Broad -- but we DO have great restaurants -- and the IGGLES!!!!! Idiots.

Posted 6:17 PM by Gene

Which reminds me -- is the 18 1/2-minute GAP that worried NEWS HACKS for DECADES SO IMPORTANT NOW?

(Or as the AP must inimitably put it, an "1861/27-minute gap" -- which according to GOOGLE'S CALCULATOR is a 68.9259259-minute GAP! NAUGHTY!!)

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

It has been a while since I've heard Kismet, as I did tonight in the absence of a working TV. I once got the brilliant idea the show should be a feature-length -- cartoon. It really isn't so absurd on the face of it; instead of having Vincente Minnelli grumble his way to a mediocrity M-G-M could have assigned Tex Avery. That beloved screwloose could have flung his imagination on the scenes involving -- THE GIRLS; picture an ANIMATED "Zubbediya"! Of course it might also have required Friz Freleng to provide some Tweety-and-Sylvester laughs (not that Avery was a slouch there); but it could have been one of the glories of film, and saved animated features from their descent into sticky sentiment, a move that, for all the box-office success of computer animation, has never really stopped.

Listening to Kismet one may forget it was panned by most of the print critics -- but it opened during a NEWSPAPER STRIKE, and meantime Tony Bennett made a hit of "Stranger in Paradise," so its short-term success was assured. Longer term it could only be boffo, as its music was adapted from the inspired melodist Aleksandr Borodin, a full-time organic chemist and medical professor but only a part-time composer, so careless in his work habits fellow musicians like Rimsky-Korsakov had to edit much of his work. (Today, of course, Dubya and the EDUCRATS and the DILBERT CEOs would encourage Borodin to be a SCIENTIST.) Somehow mating Borodin and a creaky old play set in an indeterminate Baghdad worked, and the show has been recorded many times since -- but not revived since 1978 (in an all-black version [?!?!?]). Perhaps it can't be revived; perhaps it would be politically incorrect; perhaps it would be tone-deaf given our low-grade war; perhaps we're sated by Vegas spectacles and too much sex on the screen. But think if Ziegfeld did it -- it opened in his long-ago-demolished theater!

Maybe it's just as well; listening to the great Alfred Drake close the affair with "Sands of Time" I had to reflect practically everyone involved in this is gone now, irreplaceable -- Drake, the ethereal Doretta Morrow, Richard Kiley, Henry Calvin, the adapters Robert Wright and George Forrest, the album's producer Goddard Lieberson -- but the sands of time can never cover up this masterpiece of a score; some ages are better at leaving trinkets behind for posterity.

Posted 3:53 PM by Gene

Look Mike, we know Dubya may have greased his own skids to get himself through life -- it's the Bush family MO -- but isn't it a little late in the day to be harping on this? The guy's in his second term already.

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

Johnny Carson has died. You have to wonder if he was show-biz' version of The Man who Wasn't There. He was unparalleled at topical jokes, and especially in ad-libbing his way out of an unfunny situation -- but what was he besides? It will not do to utter the cliche that he was a "private man"; as with MJ there probably wasn't much to him besides his jokes; he was, after all, a former game-show host. He didn't have personality enough to succeed in acting, nor business acumen enough to break beyond late-night. Oh well, he made America laugh, and if his jokes and even much of his manner are already forgotten, that's still an accomplishment.

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

U.S. regulators are raising national- security concerns over International Business Machines Corp.'s pending $1.25 billion sale of its personal-computer business to China's Lenovo Group, people familiar with the matter said.

Members of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, including the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security, worry that Chinese operatives might use an IBM facility in North Carolina to engage in industrial espionage, using stolen technologies for military purposes, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A mere formality, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Posted 11:29 AM by Gene

A disciple of HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM whose musicals have all been successes d'estime (meaning the NEWS HACKS LOVE them and not one has been a hit) has written a show about SPELLING BEES, and this paragraph neatly sums it up:

"When I went to N.Y.U.'s graduate music theater writing program, Bill was my teacher," Ms. Sheinkin began. "He once said my lyrics were sub-English."

"No!" Mr. Finn thundered. "I said they were perverse!"

There might be a hint of a notion that musicals should be fun, but musicals can never be fun when they're written by professors of GRADUATE MUSIC THEATER WRITING PROGRAMS, and ESPECIALLY when they're SUCCESSES D'ESTIME.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

And on a side of ST. WARREN'S HEAVEN opposite Mr. MARK's new saintly cubicle, Jonathan Yardley gets into a just ire of the sort we haven't seen from him in years about a blessed saint of the GODDESS OPRAH and his instruction manual on how to scribble and be anointed. If more Jonathan Yardleys deconstructed the heroes of the age like this there'd be no need to blast PAPERS OF RE-CORD -- and NO NEED FOR BLOGS.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Al Franken wants to paste his lovely mug on television -- again, proving once more that if children should be seen and not heard, comedians are children who should be neither seen nor heard.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

The PUBLIC EDI-TOR RAISES a QUESTION -- it seems some people inside the BIZ have questioned a STORY about OUR CIRCULATION FIGURES, which leades him to MUSE:

Set aside the question of whether The Times should have stated its figures higher and more completely in the piece. (No, let's not set it aside: Caesar's wife should speak early and loudly.) There's another issue rolling around all these numbers - namely, numbers. Do you have any idea which of the figures I've cited, all of them accurate, are meaningful?

Neither do I.

This would be an astonishing admission if it came from someone other than THE PUBLIC EDI-TOR of THE PAPER OF RE-CORD. Why should we believe ANY statistics you print? After all, we learned yesterday of THE TREMENDOUS UPRISING OF BRAVE SOLDIERS AGAINST OUR WAR, and if you can spin a story with mere words, your heads (and the heads of ALL NEWS HACKS) must practically FLY OFF THEIR TORSOS when you use NUMBERS. Why then, MR. PUBLIC EDI-TOR, should we believe ANYTHING YOU SAY, WITH OR WITHOUT NUMBERS, especially when your GOD's objectives are to RULE AS MANY UNIVERSES AS HE CAN, and MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS HE CAN?

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Mr. Mark, ST. WARREN WILL DOUBLY BLESS YOU. Here we have nothing but ARTHOUSE PIC -- MASTERPIECES in contention for THE COVETED OSCAR®, and you, being the courageous JERNALIST that you are, decided to PUT THAT FACT ON THE COVER! This shows that our first allegiance is ALWAYS to OUR FELLOW JERNALISTS, for they believe as you do, not only does SHOW-BIZ know EVERYTHING (it being OUR SISTER BIZ -- we MUST NEVER FORGET THAT) but that WHATEVER a JERNALIST THINKS IS RIGHT, TRUE AND BEAUTIFUL ALWAYS IS! After ALL, these ARE MASTERPIECES, and who better to judge that fact than YOU JERNALISTS?

HALLELUJAH! to the GREATEST MAGAZINE EDITOR OF THE AGES -- ST. MARK!!!!! ST. WARREN's already cleared a place for you in Heaven.

And remember -- GET THOSE REPUBLICANS!!!!! (As you ALWAYS will.)

P. S. I recognize the guy on the right -- that's HOWARD HUGHES!!!!! -- but who are those other two? Maybe I'm just out of it. (Or maybe that's why we have PAT KINGSLEY as a CONTRIBUTING EDITOR.)

Posted 8:50 PM by Gene

How do we SIXSIGMA our way out of NUMBER FOUR, ZUCKER?

"It's never been so close. There's never been such parity between the four networks."

TRANSLATION: The networks aren't fighting for first, they're fighting to AVOID LAST.

P. S. Hey ZUCK! Don't you realize PARITY is a word SPORTS HACKS use when they want to describe MEDIOCRITY? You don't even have THAT fall-back position. You SHOULD have said BOTTOM-FEEDING.

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

Fumblers, Bumblers and Incompetents found one of the "terrorists"?

Now let's keep her in jail for ten years whether she's guilty or not.

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

WHOM THE LORD GOD PINCH BE FOR....

Sean Huze enlisted in the Marine Corps right after the Sept. 11 attacks and was, in his own words, "red, white and blue all the way" when he deployed to Iraq 16 months later. Unquestioning in his support of the invasion, he grew irritated when his father, a former National Guardsman, expressed doubts about the war.

Today, all that has changed. Haunted by the civilian casualties he witnessed, Corporal Huze has become one of a small but increasing number of Iraq veterans who have formed or joined groups to oppose the war or to criticize the way it is being fought.

The two most visible organizations - Operation Truth, of which Corporal Huze is a member, and Iraq Veterans Against the War....

Now we know GOD does NOT use a computer because it would never occur to Him that maybe people on the Web would look up these sites. Yes, GOD, we CAN GOOGLE. As in Iraq Veterans Against the War.* And Sean has developed looney left bonafides easily.

QUITE UNBIASED OF YOU, GOD. Can we expect another cutesy-pie essay from Your cherubim THE PUBLIC EDI-TOR musing why people don't like his Employer because -- some think He's LIBERAL?

*We found few incriminating links for Operation Truth, but they'll come now that GOD has BLESSED it. Let us note many of the links above, praise be to PINCH, seem to revolve around stories from His BOSTON WORD.

Posted 4:31 PM by Gene

Officials Mum on Rumored Zarqawi Capture

They should be -- he's been captured twenty times by LITTLE, DEBKA.COM and NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

MORE comedy from CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should be stripped of citizenship in his native Austria for approving the execution of a convicted killer, a leading Austrian politician said Saturday.

Peter Pilz, a top official with the environmentalist Green Party....

EIGHTH GRAF:

It appeared unlikely that the Greens, a leftist opposition party which holds just a handful of seats in parliament, would persuade Austria's conservative government to revoke Schwarzenegger's citizenship.

But with NEWS HACKS, it's THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS!

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

This morning I asked why we need newspapers. Now I ask why we need NEWS HACKS. If all they can be is GOEBBELSES and NEUHARTHS, what is their purpose?

I try not to pay mind to junk polls like Yahoo!'s ratings, but I note stories like this always get low ones. CAN'T CURLEY AND HIS STOOGES COMPREHEND?

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaad news, STERNO -- as I might have predicted:

Since his appointment to the FCC in 2001, [Kevin J.] Martin [GENERAL JR.'s most likely replacement] has appeared to follow a more stringent deregulatory path than Powell in certain matters, yet in others he can be more bent on using regulation to achieve results. He also is considered more hard-line on indecency issues than Powell, who has drawn fire from broadcast executives for taking them to task for sexually explicit content.

OKAY STERNO, time for your YOSEMITE SAM act:

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

November 8, 2004:

eBay is not cheap, but could be worth $130 a share, according to J.P. Morgan.

Good night...sleep tight...don't let the bedbugs bite!

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

It's a HERD! It's a PAIN! It's -- SUPER-ASPIRIN!!!!!

COX-2 inhibitors cost 10 to 15 times as much as the drugs they replaced, the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine said.

NOT OUR MONEY!

Within a year of being introduced in 1999, Vioxx and Celebrex were being heavily promoted as "super-aspirin" and bringing in billions of dollars in revenue annually, the study said. Merck spent $161 million in 2000 on direct-to-consumer marketing of Vioxx, it said.

That's a lot of junk television and INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS to pay for.

Posted 8:02 AM by Gene

Bush's Smiles Meet Some Frowns in Europe

We smile, they frown. We frown, they smile. What should we expect from Democrats in other countries?

I see THE PAPER OF RE-CORD bases its estimate on the eructations of "commentators." That must mean overseas NEWS HACKS, who are even more SS lockstep than OURS.

Posted 7:50 AM by Gene

Note to readers:

Due to weather conditions, many home delivery subscribers will receive an early edition of the Sunday Inquirer. Those who do not receive it today will receive it tomorrow, weather permitting.

For those who buy

The Inquirer at retail outlets, the early edition of the Sunday Inquirer will be available today as usual. Weather conditions permitting, later editions will be available tomorrow at retail outlets.

For the most up-to-date news, go to www.philly.com.

Why do we need newspapers?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Our HEROES are ready for a Nine-Finger transplant:

The People for the American Way has a war room with 50 work stations and plans to mobilize more than 1,000 groups against any Bush choice considered a threat to civil rights.

Does that include this group? Or this?

We're sure they're already ready.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

'Moesha' actor killed in auto accident

No disrespect intended, but would anyone have written, "Screwball comedienne killed in plane crash," or "Angry young actor killed in high-speed car crash"? We've seen a lot of these heds lately. Which should tell us our age lacks something. (Although all it tells the NEWS HACK TOADIES is, SHOW-BIZ IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!)

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

I'm not so sure a president who fought a war with Mexico and got Texas and the Southwest to boot should be called a "milquetoast."

Which raises the question: what would BUGMEISTER BILL be without his CODE?

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

The word "ethics" now stands side-by-side with "bloggers," meaning the truth tellers have boarded the dinghy commanded by NEWS HACKS, the same dinghy where the water's rushing in.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Pilgrims stone "devil" Bush in haj ritual

Democrats will never learn.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Town council refuses fireworks permit for Trump wedding

SHUCKS, now he'll have to make his own.

Posted 12:23 PM by Gene

Sorry to complain but this exasperates me: I got ten hits (the usual pittance) in five hours this morning -- and though I've posted six times since I HAVEN'T GOTTEN ANY FURTHER HITS! I wonder if this too is G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER at work. How can I hope to have ANYBODY read me? If I'm not that good I can understand, and perhaps that's the problem -- but why do I think the problem also lies with some sort of huge on-off switch with its own half-brain?

Well, for what it's worth, I'm no. 121,811 on PubSub. I was around 1,000,000 a month ago -- and 2,000,000 once in the last two weeks. What do these numbers MEAN?

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

Could ErrAmerica be subsidized into prominence -- the ERRBUS [sic] of RADIO -- with the added help of a damfool reactionary company trying to prove it can boogie with the EIGHTYSOMETHINGS in BAGGY PANTS and SHORT SKIRTS?

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

'Flammable' Titan covered in liquid gas

Imagine -- even more gas than Congress!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

P. S. That should be "inflammable" -- but people don't use that word anymore because OWR EDYUKAYSHUN SISTUM has taught STUPIDS the word means NOT INFLAMMABLE.

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

Bush Set to Open Ambitious Second Term

TRANSLATION: TWO from column A and THREE from column B -- and let's add a dozen from column C even though I don't see one here.

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

I'd like to see THE GLIBERAL and THE RIGHT-WING GLIBERAL write two identical columns and subject them to a sort-of BLINDFOLD TEST. NO ONE COULD TELL THE DIFFERENCE.

Don't worry, RIGHT-WING GLIBERAL. You don't have to worry about growing OLD so long as you grow FATUOUS.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

STERNO!!! STERNO!!!! GREAT NEWS!!!!! GENERAL JR.'S QUITTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To go into SUPERLOBBYING, no doubt. GOOD RIDDANCE.

Just one problem, STERNO. YOU might get someone WORSE.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

The star of a SUPER BORE AD -- or a SUPER BORE MEDIA BUYER?

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

MORRIS: BUSH SPEECH BEST SINCE JFK'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A reason someone invented the words "oh," "shut" and "up."

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

A TV Ar-TISTE says THE MEDIUM has become MORE -- CONSERVATIVE. (As in BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!)

Take THAT, MOONER!

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

CASTING DIRECTORS are threatening to strike (?!?!?) -- for health benefits. (?!?!?)

Strike, STRIKE! Pretty please, STRIKE! Anything to put the EIGHTY-SOMETHINGS IN BAGGY PANTS and SHORT SKIRTS in a bad mood!

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

NFL Bridges Generations in Super Bowl XXXIX Pregame Show

Strange -- I thought all this AAAAAAAATTITUUUUUUUUDE stuff this last year was meant to appeal to the 18-34 DEMOGRAPHIC, the KEY TARGET of the EIGHTY-SOMETHINGS IN BAGGY PANTS and SHORT SKIRTS who are THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Since the election the Dems have been trying to figure out how to be pro-choice and pro-life at the same time. They still haven't gotten it.

[Some pro-choice Catholic named Frances] Kissling calls for a new discourse that "will permit us to acknowledge both women's rights and needs and our basic respect for all human life, including fetal life."

TRANSLATION: Let's talk -- and talk and talk and talk. YOU'RE DOING THAT NOW.

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

EXCELLENT: AN INCH OF SNOW stymied our air marshals hunting down terrorists.

What would a FOOT OF SNOW do?

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

If The American Spectator is to be believed (tough sometimes), Sen. O'SPECTER may still be forced to hang up his KILTS.

You take the high road, and Arlen takes the LOW ROAD.

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

JPMorgan Chase (or is it JPMorganChase? or J. P. MorganChase?) admits it dealt in slaves and as a good boy has now paid a small token of reparations.

If -- and when -- the reparations bandwagon gets moving again, BUSINESSPOOPS will be the wagon masters, cracking the wh -- er, leading the charge, just to show that, if you prick them, they too can bleed. (Oops! Shylock was talking about JEWS.)

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

From the inimitable ROMY:

What editors usually say about Pulitzer Prize-winning stories
Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)
"They should have seen that piece of junk before I cleaned it up." JOHN BOGERT ON SELECTING CONTEST ENTRIES: "I just wish that I could avoid the tortured self-analysis that comes with sifting through the year's work, rereading things that sounded so cool at press time but that now sound like dated, truncated, overblown failures."

NUF SAID.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

The world DEMANDED the ALL-TIME GENIUS OF MUSICALS, KERNGERSHWIN HAMMERSTEIN, REMAKE one of his GREATEST (and, it goes without saying, least commercially successful) MOVIES as an ANIMATED TV SERIES...

AND HE OBLIGED!!!!!

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

More proof that, old management or new, the CW is SAFE at TOENAIL.COM:

The Hollywood movies that dominated the mid-1980s consisted of titles like Porky's Revenge. The 1970s had seen a flurry of GREATNESS, when directors like Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman had briefly usurped power from the studios, but in the following decade American film became something of a wasteland. The studios had regained control and began to churn out an endless stream of sex comedies.

FORTUNATELY (we're talking Robert Redford's "BLOATED, DECADENT" film festival -- at least that's what the typically misleading home-page link says)...

[T]he Sundance program gradually improved as the films became riskier, more adventurous. Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs played three years after sex, lies, and videotape, and The Usual Suspects played three years after that.

So -- despite running an "ad campaign" now, Bob put his heart in the right place...and MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

The First Nonsmoking Nation
Bhutan banned tobacco. Could the rest of the world follow?

Sure -- if our average elevation was 8,500 FEET. (COOOOOOOOOUUUUUGHHHH!!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG!!!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!!!!!)

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

THE BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM have a MESSAGE:

I'm leaving for Boston in a few hours, which shows, I guess, how seriously I take the "dirty bomb" warning....

TAKE THAT, DAN BLATHER!!!!!

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!!!!!!! writes itself a 2,390-WORD POST-IT NOTE to remind it which BIGMEDIA TYRANTS to FLATTER in the next few years -- and gets off to a GREAT START by invoking JACK KENNEDY!

HAPPY NEUHARTHING!

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

Guess who's giving to today's razor-wire-festooned inaugural? The TWXSTERS and BUFFETTMEDIA!!!!!

Given there's not ONE PERSON at EITHER COMPANY who can STAND DUBYA'S GUTS (except perhaps GEORGE "MY BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS" WILL, and he doesn't count because Dubya DESTROYED THE CONSTITUTION with CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM) this is truly MAJOR-LEAGUE KA-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!

P. S.

Others that contributed $250,000 [like THE TWXSTERS] included Bristol-Myers Squibb, ChevronTexaco, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, Pfizer, Aflac, Home Depot and Bank of America. [And ALTRIA MOTIVE, the JUNIOR CLUNKER BROTHER and AT&T too!] Those contributing $100,00 [sic] [like BUFFETTMEDIA] included Qualcomm, SBC Communications, Coca-Cola Co., and Microsof [sic] Corp.

What is this, Dubya or the SUPER BORE?

(Two disadvantages to sponsoring an inauguration: you don't get a luxury suite, and you can't be sure the money goes to finance JUNK TELEVISION -- but you might get an invite to a ball with other high-mucky mucks who can't stand the country, and you can DEFINITELY boom around the office for two months screaming, "I SAW THE PRESIDENT INAUGURATED AND YOU DIDN'T!!!!!")

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

If THE MOONER is a BAMBOOZLER, you HACKS were ALL TOO EAGER to JOIN IN THE BAMBOOZLING.

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

I suspect all those amateurs who listened to the SIRENS whispering SWEET NOTHINGS about eBay now wish they'd STOPPED UP THEIR EARS.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Jazz died decades ago; Christie's and Sotheby's are now holding the funeral.

This should help explain it:

One auction piece from [John Coltrane's widow's] house in California - the original sheet-music sketches for Coltrane's 1964 suite "A Love Supreme," among the most important works in jazz - bears explicit notes and markings in Coltrane's hand. ("Make ending attempt to reach transcendent level"; "Rising harmonies to a level of blissful stability at end"; "Last chord to sound like final chord of 'Alabama.' ") These two pages, which have never been seen by scholars, aren't just a curio: they will affect scholarship.

No, we don't have jazz music anymore, but we have plenty of JAZZ SCHOLARSHIP.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Guess who's being questioned by the feds over KOFIGATE? JACK KEMP!

Here's ANOTHER Republican who's had a bit too much Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

"Edgy is the word that keeps coming up," Bruce Davis, the academy's executive director, said. "I like to hear that people are nervous, because that means you're more likely to watch."

And with luck this year's OSCARS® will prove so EDGY they'll follow the GOLDEN GLOBES® down the drain.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

Now HERE's the way to prevent future Columbines: do a mental-health screening on ALL children.

Figures Dubya would be tied to it.

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

On Television, Torture Takes a Holiday

In THE PAPER OF RE-CORD, torture NEVER takes a holiday.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

I remember well how, when MICKEYMOUSENIXON took the oath, the typing oaf Dick "GUNS CAUSED COLUMBINE" Corliss said he couldn't stop pinching himself because the guy had caused his company to GROW UP. Well, TRICKYMICKEY will soon be out of office several centuries earlier than planned, and even a veteran cheerleader like Claudia "RAH! RAH!" Eller must admit his rep is tarnished for good -- but what can we expect from the hero of a gang of infant thugs like NEWS HACKS?

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

At his steel-trap inaugural, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of soldiers and millions of miles of razor wire, Dubya will talk "freedom."

Ya gotta love the guy.

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

The suggestion by Harvard University's president that innate differences might help explain why women lag in science and math could hurt efforts to recruit female scholars, a faculty committee said.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Standing Committee on Women told school president Lawrence Summers in a letter Tuesday that his remarks at a conference Friday did not "serve our institution well."

WE run this MUTUAL FUN -- er, UNIVERSITY!

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

Alas, the goons and their masters are talking again. I cannot see the NHL jumping off the roof any more than I could see baseball in '95 persisting with its folly after a few replacement spring-training games. The life of a sport is at stake, and it's already received last rites from broadcasters.

Besides, I can't stand to see a grown Canadian cry.

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

I must confess between G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER'S BREAKDOWNS and the long stretches without hits I am getting very discouraged about continuing. What's the point of blogging if you're merely talking to yourself? I don't have connections and I don't have admirers and I don't have flacks, even though I'd put my malarkey up against the best of them. And God knows the best in the blogging trade are sometimes not very good.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Skimming through the ever useful IWantMedia.com, I find The Mooner says the networks are still proudly flicking the middle finger in viewers' faces, and the TWXSTERS say an obscure opt-out clause for SI subscribers re THE SWIMSUIT ISSUE is NOT due to EEEEEEEEEEVIL CONSERVATISM.

Now to make it complete we need THE SUGAR DADDIES of ADVERTISING to DOUBLE their outlays, and maybe The Mooner to deny there was ever hanky panky in his news outhouse.

P. S. to The Mooner: SAM BROWNBACK WILL BE BACK.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

And a Fumblers, Bumblers and Incompetents informant...oh, never mind.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Fumblers, Bumblers and Incompetents are looking for "four Chinese and two Iraqis" who may pose "a terrorist threat" -- or who may just be four Chinese and two Iraqis.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting that a federal law enforcement official has stressed the tip is one of many from around the country that routinely are forwarded to local task forces for further investigation. No credible, specific terror threat has been identified in connection with the tip about suspects possibly entering the country from Mexico.

Thus it is, always.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

An his-TO-rian uses 1,182 WORDS to bloviate why inaugural address stink when the answer requires far fewer: our education system stinks, public oratory stinks, most recent presidents have stunk, and, let us face it, WE STINK, for demanding so little of OURSELVES.

I don't know if it has chiasmus, anaphora or anastrophe, but it sure is less than 1,182 WORDS.

NOW WILL YOU POST IT THIS TIME, G000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER?

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

The next president of the United States voted NO!

Oh well, we're appointing SANDY WHATA BURGLAR as OUR secretary of state! PFFH-HH-HH!

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!! growls (with a little help from Newsday) that FDR had an "EXTRAVAGANT" INAUGURAL!!!!! with a $100,000 REPLICA of FEDERAL HALL IN NEW YORK!!!!! and "WARNER BROTHER'S" [sic] STARS IMBIBING "BOOTLEG BOOZE"!!!!! And then in the LAST PARAGRAPH....

FDR dispensed with the tradition of inaugural parties altogether for his 1937, 1941 and 1945 inaugurations.

Something to keep in mind as CORPORATE AMERICA bribes -- POURS ZILLIONS into tomorrow's STEEL-TRAP INAUGURAL.