Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

Thursday, June 30, 2005


Hey LORD STRINGER! THIS will help your TENURE:

Report: PS3 to sell for $399, cost $494 to make

Thank you, SLASHDOT!


Ex-Hostages Say Iran Leader-Elect a Captor

I'd say he has a PR problem, but if I know the ARAB WORLD millions have their fists in the air.


Show-biz fundraisers are all hubris. It wasn't always thus. The first big one was the great all-soldier revue This is the Army, which the War Department ASKED Irving Berlin to write on the strength of his WWI revue Yip, Yip, Yaphank. (This according to The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin.) It played on Broadway and then toured three years on the fronts, Berlin slogging along, and earned millions for the Army Emergency Relief. It also had the tremendous distinction of helping to integrate the military.

Hubris kicked in when "celebrities" like Milton Berle and Dennis James held tacky telethons to raise money for the Disease of the Month. This led to the notorious Muscular Dystrophy tearjerker, whose chief purpose seems to be to get Jerry Lewis nominated for the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. BOB'S ERADICATION OF HUNGER is a direct descendant, and every bit as morally dubious, the only real purpose to aim praise right at the organizer.

In Ethiopia, do the underfed masses know who the hell BOB GELDOF IS?


Dubya very magnanimously wants to help Africa.

Here's the $64,000,000,000 question: how much of it goes to Robert Mugabes and Swiss bank accounts?

HUH, BOB GELDOF?

P. S.

Hunger still hovers over the landscape despite the nearly $1 billion in foreign aid Ethiopia has received each year during the past decade, according to a report published for the World Bank last year.

THOUGHT YOU SOLVED THAT, BOB!


Famous last words for the greatest medium ever known to man:

The biggest questions, however, remain unanswered: "What are these people doing on television?" for one, and that American mantra "What else is on?" for another.




"Kenny is having anger issues right now."

Kenny is having some making-too-much-money-on-too-few-brain-cells issues right now.


Big-city booms now look like blips

So much for CONDOS AND RESTAURANTS.


Bank of America to buy MBNA for $35 bln



CAPITALISTS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!


Hoo-boy:

It's been a bad week for Russell Crowe.

First came word of an impending lawsuit from the waiter he hurled his phone at in a Manhattan hotel. Now, the AMC theater chain says it'll offer full refunds to moviegoers who don't enjoy his film "Cinderella Man." AMC says the offer is to encourage audiences to see what it calls "one of the finest motion pictures of the year."


I don't know that I'd do that. If the biz took up money-back guarantees it would give back more than it takes in.


Another heavy thought from ROMY:

Is it wrong for a sports editor to cheer for the home team?

I think we already know the answer. It's YES.


Today our local news monopoly, KNIGHTRIDDER's InkyDinkyDooDoo, that loathsome mixture of left-wing dogma and Babbittry, sends a guinea pig to Ghana to tell us maybe The West isn't so helpful after all, and to make sure nobody can accuse it of running millions of column-inches of unreadable PR.

Meantime the ad-blurb copywriters drool over their front-row seats and thousands have already evacuated, and the millionaires at the Tower of Babble prepare to wrestle the word HISTORIC to a fare-thee-well.

P. S. In more CIRCULATION-BUILD...HISTORIC news:

A PRODUCTION MEMO LISTS KEITH URBAN GOING ON AT 10 A.M., FOLLOWED AT 11 BY SARAH MCLACHLAN AND JOSH GROBAN, BON JOVI AT 12:15, ROB THOMAS AT 1:20 P.M., DEF LEPPARD AT 2:10 P.M., TOBY KEITH AT 4 P.M., WILL SMITH AT 4:50 P.M., KANYE WEST AT 5:55 P.M., LINKIN PARK AND JAY-Z - NOW THAT'S A COMBO!!!! - AT 7 P.M., AND STEVIE WONDER AT 8:05 P.M.!!!!!

SATURDAY - THE DAY OF - SOUND CHECKS ARE DUE TO BEGIN WITH DESTINY'S CHILD AT 7 A.M. THEN IT'S JARS OF CLAY (7:30), DAVE MATTHEWS (8), ALICIA KEYS (8:30), KAISER CHIEFS (9), AND BLACK EYED PEAS, WITH THE MARLEYS (9:30). THE BIG SHOW IS TO START AT NOON!!!!!!!!!!


I concede these are BIG NAMES!!!!! to the Losing-My-Hearing-with-My-iPod set, but given the much bigger names before them there might have been a day when they couldn't have made it past the guards. Plugging these BIG NAMES!!!!! allows us to do our HISTORIC shtick, however, and PULL ANOTHER ONE ON OUR READERS.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005


Russian President Keeps Super Bowl Ring

Maybe he thought it was a BUG.


The brilliance of AD AGE continues:

Much like an audience that’s been desensitized by too much sex and violence, media and marketing executives are becoming inured to the frequent declarations of the death of the 30-second spot.

We needn't add that lots of 30-second spots help pay for the desensitization of...but that's ANOTHER story.


How TOTALLY unexpected:

Despite the whirlwind of publicity generated by its Paris Hilton ad, the controversial spot does not appear to have significantly increased Carl's Jr. restaurant sales.

The chain posted a 1.7% gain in same-store sales for the four weeks ended June 20, while sibling chain Hardee’s posted a 0.7% gain. Both chains are operated by CKE Restaurants of Santa Barbara, Calif....

Analysts and industry watchers were expecting much higher returns....


They ALWAYS do -- which explains why they ALWAYS pull stunts like this.


Smart thinking:

Chicago's sales tax going up

I guess the increase will pay for social services for all the unemployed salespeople.


Newspapers may switch to a lighter stock.

Charmin's still MUCH better.


OR:

In a time when some polls show the popularity of the news media to be even lower than the approval rating for Bush's conduct of the war [PFFH-HH-HH!!!!!], the managements of the networks may have feared hostile reaction if they didn't air the speech live. Political conservatives keep up a steady drumbeat of hostility against the media, something the Bush administration does nothing to discourage. Refusing to air the speech probably would have led to unpleasantness -- or at the least given the new subculture of bellicose bloggers another alleged media conspiracy to shriek about.

ROMY no doubt sees a CONSPIRACY in THAT.


Somehow a story like this does not surprise me:

A former Newsday publisher who once served on a state education board has been charged with possessing child pornography taken off the Internet, authorities said Tuesday.

Considering how the GLIBERALS paint PORN as MANKIND'S SALVATION we should not wonder that a few of the hacks and their bosses should partake of it.


A. O. with B. O. calls it "lesser Spielberg."

One may wonder after what He's done to movies if ALL Luke Spielberg is lesser.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005


What the great Thoreauvian beggars do:

Food not enough

Once when I was in Suburban Station, I was approached by a woman who asked for a dollar to get something to eat. I gave her $1 in hopes that she'd go away. Instead, she asked for another dollar. When I told her I needed what I had to buy a train ticket she replied indignantly, "Well, I have to have something to drink!"

- Jeanne Aldworth, Frankford


I see Mr. Lileks has initiated a new blog within a blog (!), and if he keeps it up like today I may put him on my very short recommended list.

On the other hand, I don't know what's happened to Terry Teachout -- he's been giggling a lot at Our Girlfriend lately. Maybe he's been too busy with his Satchmo bio. Hope he gets back on track soon.


ROMY's unbiased face turns red as he finds an unbiased commentator from unbiased NPR who comes to the unbiased conclusion that cable news spends too much time on "missing white women" -- as opposed to the CONSPIRACY that led to an UNJUST AND EVIL WAR. Let us just say that cable news spends too much time not minding its own business, and be done with it -- and unbiased commentators from unbiased NPR.


Which comes first, the student achievement or the test results?

Here's another place where self-serving plutocrats can use stats to defend themselves.


The VERY glibly written Media Life offers stats from a TWXSTER insisting TV viewing has gone UP. Possibly it has (although the TWXSTER uses a base of 2001, which may not be the best year for comparison), but possibly we could find stats from a leading chemical firm saying chemicals don't cause pollution, or from a leading auto firm saying internal-combustion engines don't cause greenhouse gases. This is the kind of egregious annoyance that occurs too much on the Web, and a site putatively aimed at professionals should know better -- but being on the Web, it doesn't have to.

P. S. to the TWXSTER: 1. What was the last prime-time entertainment to get a 30 RATING -- not share, RATING? 2. When was your stock last worth $90 a share?


Speaking of RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Britain's perennially-adolescent PM shows two new ways in which he refuses to grow up.


Want to wave bye-bye to some hard-earned excess profits? Invest in a "musical."

Invest in a GREAT "musical."

Hey Ben Brantley! You have NOTHING on Mike Riedel. He closes shows BEFORE they open!

P. S. Beware directors named Jerry.


One of the great inside-baseball players of show-biz swallows hard, and --

Not every movie can be an artistic triumph, but moviegoers deserve better. They're already beginning to demand it. CNN did an online poll Friday, asking what movie people were most likely to see over the weekend. The new films "Herbie," "Bewitched" and "Land of the Dead" received 27% of the vote. The landslide winner, with 73%, was "None, I'd rather rent a DVD of something good."

Isn't it wonderful when a business has so many satisfied customers?


Hey you guys of the press have been satifying customers too for decades. Don't talk.


This is why a columnist like Richard Cohen hardly matters. Yes, right-wingers have their infernal crotchets, like their money worship; and as I've noted before, Free Republic is one of the great day care centers of the Web for all its tantrums. But leftists have their infernal crotchets too, like their tolerant bigotry, and their Free Republics as well -- several serve in the Senate. So we really don't need a lefty to tell us of the evil of righties any more than we a righty to tell us the evil of lefties, for in the end, these tantrum throwers can all go to Hell.

Monday, June 27, 2005


The demise of the Carsey-Werner sitcom assembly line moved a contributor to THE CORNER to insist:

I love when people say, give us a great movie with an original story and good acting, and we'll go to it. As if everyone out here hasn't thought of that. "No more originality!" says big studio exec. "Let's remake some crap!"

It's not on purpose, folks. Everyone is doing their best. Every studio that makes a movie out of a sitcom is also developing a hundred other "original" ideas. It's just that they thought the sitcom one would appeal to people. The simple fact is this: every single person in the entertainment business would love to do a breathtakingly fresh, breakthrough film or TV show. But it's VERY VERY HARD!


Pardon us while we laugh. There are many inducements for not trying at all. The automatic funding of DVDs and the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers means you don't have to work to raise the dough. Jack's Alphabet Soup with its several different flavors of botulism means you don't have to use your imagination to be in good taste; when after three seconds you run out of witty things to say (this happens quite readily with quarter-wits, aka "scenarists") you can fall back on Grand Guignol or sex scenes or four-letter words. When you run out of those there's always the stuntmen, or the geeks in special effects, who may not know plot or dialogue but sure do know their crowd-pleasin' filler. When you run out of those you're not completely hopeless -- there are the ad-blurb copywriters, with their reverse snobbery and what JOHN PODHORETZ called "grading on a curve," who can save your meretricious property with chants of "dark" and "edgy." When that fails you have focus groups and market research and Nielsens and b.o. to "prove" there'll always be fans for basest junk. And when all these things don't work, there's your own superiority to the audience.


Honorary Mayor Mike -- raising money from DEMS?

Why not? He's an HONORARY REPUBLICAN too.


ANOTHER ARGUMENT NEWS HACKS CAN'T LOSE: Republicans think the hacks knock America, but not so many Democrats, and it seems enough Democrats allege the press is too soft on Dubya, so the hacks can say it's a PARTISAN thing, a DIVISION thing, a RED-STATE-BLUE-STATE THING, ANYTHING that can get them to keep from acknowledging their biases and prejudices, and they can keep pulling that old gag, IF EVERYBODY HATES US WE'RE DOING A GREAT JOB. NO YOU'RE NOT.

Meantime, ROMY (who posted this) regales us today with the story of a paper that can't verify an ex-columnist's sources, proof the HACKS continue to work overtime at being devious.


My monitor came damaged so I guess it'll be another two weeks before I can post on weekends. It's gotten to the point I don't think I care.


Chief Justice WHO?

Caveat: it's BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB.


You gotta BELIEVE, brothers and sisters, you gotta BELIEVE!!!!!

The prognosticators of doom have been beating the drums of disaster of late, but as history has noted, the industry has more than bounced back from those ruts of yesteryear and will most likely do so again. Using 2004 numbers, annual admissions have increased by a stout 45% since 1985.

News hacks will almost never tell the truth about three things: real estate, autos and show-biz. When the hacks work for a trade rag, the desire to obfuscate is magnified. Okay, flacks, maybe we're comparing apples and oranges, but let's not forget the rotten fruit the audiences of late have thrown at the screens.

P. S. If the Census Bureau is to be believed, judging from your numbers (and what do you mean by admissions? Bodies in seats or dollars? You won't tell us? Par for the course) the moviegoing crowd has increased a not-so-stout just-over ONE PERCENT A YEAR. And God knows how many figures in show-biz are MADE UP.

Friday, June 24, 2005


Congratulations, Rog! All that thumbs-UPping paid off!

"Movies make us more decent people."

More RICHER people, anyway.


Good news: The CONSPIRACY's surfeit of GENIUS is helping the VIDEO-RENTAL BIZ TOO!


SAMMY GLICKMAN'S BOYS DO IT AGAIN:

There were gales of audience laughter at the preview of Nora Ephron's adaptation of the '60s TV comedy "Bewitched" - but almost all of it came from the soundtrack.

The laughter is produced by people on-screen watching episodes of a revived "Bewitched" series being taped in a Hollywood studio. They're providing the so-called "canned laughter" that viewers will later hear at home. Ironically, that what these audiences are cracking up over isn't remotely funny is one of the few things in the movie that is.


Caveat: this is JACK MATHEWS, who's said a few laugh-track-worthy things himself.


Miss World needed -- PLASTIC SURGERY?

Heaven forfend!


Mantilla denied that Morillas operated on her ears, chin, eyebrows and lips as was suggested in before-and-after photographs of her profile supplied by the plastic surgeon to the daily newspaper El Mundo in Spain.

"That violates his professional ethics," she said.


After WACKO JACKO we assume plastic surgeons have ETHICS?


And speaking of not doing what they're supposed to, the HACKS are trying to get Karl Rove to resign for saying a dumb thing. Meantime KNIGHTRIDDER blames TALK RADIO and BLOGGERS (code words for con-SER-va-tives) for Sen. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH putting his foot in his mouth.

Instructive: Google News links to 423 stories about the Sen. while already the mighty propaganda machine has inspired 359 stories about Karl's outburst. TRUTH MARCHES ON.


Poll: U.S. not winning world popularity contest

I'm sure if GEORGE GALLUP and his FELLOW NUMBER MANIPULATORS were around at other times in history we'd get equally dubious results, like polls endorsing Hitler and Stalin, and polls endorsing slavery, and polls endorsing the Crusades, and polls endorsing Attila the Hun, and polls endorsing the crucifixion of Jesus. When news hacks don't do what they're supposed to, they turn to POLLS.


THE POWER OF ADVERTISING:

Gillette Co. has lost another legal round in its razor fight with Energizer Holdings’ Schick -– one that will force it to spend an estimated $1.6 million to relabel millions of M3 Power razors on store shelves and in warehouses.

A U.S. District Court in Connecticut ruled June 20 against Gillette on its motion seeking clarification of a prior May 31 injunction. In the prior ruling, the court ordered the company to stop using claims it said were literally false that the battery-powered vibrating razor raises facial hair, thus making it easier to cut.


My Web connection at work was down ALL DAY, and enough little things piled up to make yesterday rotten I didn't dare get my monitor from our mailroom. We'll try that today. In the meantime given that I got nine hits without posting maybe if I kept not posting I'd get even more hits.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005


More SCINTILLATING SCIENCE:

Brain Cells 'Recognize' Famous People


Judging from this site I'd say these people could ONLY have sex with whores.


Now THE CORNER obsesses over MOVIE LINES.

These fools are a bit too LIBERAL with their YAKETY-YAKKING.


Newspapers root for movie-ad rebound

Does that mean even MORE fawning and preening and SELLING?


Count on some "writer living in New York" to complain in Toenail.com that Monty Python's Blazing Saddles is -- SPAM.

Let's see, last year at this time, you folks ran things like "RONALD REAGAN DESERVED TO DIE." How did we ever come -- DOWN from that standard?

Tuesday, June 21, 2005


NBA, Union Agree on Terms of New Collective Bargaining Agreement

SHUCKS! The AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTITUDE continues.


U.S. General: Many Insurgents in Iraq Paid

What intransigent oil-rich ALLY do you suppose the money might come from?


Late comic Dangerfield to be subject of movie

Given the GENIUS of the biz these days he could say he still don't get no respect.


And in other business shenanigans:

AMC, Loews Cineplex Plan to Merge

Misery loves companies, again.


The Chinese want Maytag, the Chinese want Unocal -- yes, we're living in a WAL-MART ECONOMY!


I CHOOSE NOT to READ you, Vir-GIN-ia.

Thanks AGAIN, ArtsJournal.com!


You wonder USAOKAY!!!!! doesn't have a booth at this big licensing convention -- it does enough SELLING.

Oops:

"There will continue to be breakout properties," says Debra Joester of licensing agency The Joester Loria Group. "But it takes a lot more work and strategic vision than ever. Logo slapping (on merchandise) doesn't excite consumers."

Sales results seem to bear that out. Total licensing revenue grew less than 1%, to $5.85 billion, last year, according to a study out today from the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association (LIMA).

Most of the gains came from entertainment, which benefited from movie sequels led by
Spider-Man 2 and Shrek 2.

Fashion and sports brands generated less excitement.


Translation: it's the same old same old; but part of the fun of BIG MEDIA is packaging the same old same old in the same new same new bottles.


Another side of RENDELLISM:

Center City is likely to be awash in puppets, protesters and skateboarders today, as two major demonstrations are expected to draw thousands of people and temporarily shut down many streets.

Hey, a city hasn't arrived until it has a BIG PROTEST that ties up everything -- like SEATTLE! You NEED big protests in order to attract people to the restaurants that employ all the waiters and janitors and cooks and barmaids a city needs to be in the 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMY! And if the restaurants need new windows, well -- WE'LL PAY FOR THEM WITH SLOTS!


I can feel ROMY's blood pressure rising:

MONITOR OF MOYERS' "NOW" SHOW TIED TO CONSERVATIVE OUTFIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FIND THE NEAREST TREE AND HANG HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I wouldn't bother with this story about a new head reverse Robin Hood in advertising except one of his subordinates wants to rub our faces in junk television -- and this clown's resume seems to presage even more of it:

Prior to joining OMD, he was president and CEO of Raycom Sports, which focused on sports programming and advertising in that area. Before Raycom Sports, he worked at ABC Television in network sales. He started in media buying at Ted Bates Advertising, then moved to BBDO and Benton & Bowles.

TRANSLATION: He has enough connections to help GUARANTEE TV can only get worse.


Grapefruit May Make Women Seem Younger

Especially up front.

I would post an appropriate picture but I'm at work.


Hollywood yells: THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!

And I can't think of a better bunch for it to fall on -- especially when it looks like BATMAN guano.


Sen. Frist flexes his muscles!

Meaning Sen. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! can open his mouth with impunity.

Monday, June 20, 2005


We also have a problem with the JORDANAIRES.

Hey Porter! What good's the world's best intelligence with the world's worst allies?


Kuwait's first female Cabinet member took the oath of office in parliament Monday over the shouts of Muslim fundamentalist and tribal lawmakers opposed to women in politics.

Looks like some people still have some larnin' to do.

The parliament floor was in uproar as CONSERVATIVES [BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!] stood and cried out that Massouma al-Mubarak's appointment was unconstitutional because she was not a registered voter. LIBERAL lawmakers [YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!] then stood as well, shouting back, "Congratulations."

That goes for CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES too.


Slashdot poses a question that needs no answer:

Science: Is Science Fiction the Opiate of the Geek Masses?


Did RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pull a BLATHERGATE?

Big, BIG caveat: this is NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


CUBIC ZIRCONIA SPEAKS:

"I don't think there's an audience for squeaky clean," said Shari Anne Brill, director of programming for ad-buying firm Carat. "It has to be modernized in the way we've all been fed such reality. You need to see the tears, the drama, the makeup, the mascara, the crisis of finding out you have a zit."

CORPORATE AMERICA! DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR AD DOLLARS ARE? DO YOU CARE? DIDN'T THINK SO!!!!!


More important, there simply isn't much evidence that media conglomerates have become dinosaurs at all. News Corp., which publishes The Post, and holds interests in a broad range of media businesses, has been enjoying improving fundamentals and a rising stock price during the same period that Viacom's performance has been heading in the opposite direction.

Chris, we're so happy to hear not all media dinosaurs are dinosaurs -- especially the dinosaur run by YOUR BOSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's true -- you don't have to bribe a NEWS HACK.


For what it's worth I'd have posted over the weekend but my eBay merchant took his time with my monitor, but it should come today, so UPS says. Just as well; I have to rearrange the rubble in my apartment to make room for it.

Friday, June 17, 2005


"Hubris" is probably the most appropriate collective noun for superheroes.

"Hubris" is probably the most appropriate collective noun for LORD STRINGER and KING RICHARD, who AREN'T.


Advice from the TWXSTERS:

Sex Exit Etiquette
Handled well, a one-night stand can be hot and harmless. But know the rules of disappearing with dignity.


Please folks, we've had ENOUGH sex etiquette from you since you were BORN.


OMERTA's idea of "BIPARTISAN":

"It's time to get serious about an exit strategy," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, a Democratic sponsor.

Other sponsors of the resolution include Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) and Lynn C. Woolsey (D-Petaluma).


Let's see -- three far leftists and a PSYCHO. That sounds bipartisan to me, OMERTA.

MEANWHILE....

At U.S. newspapers, news is nearly all bad in 2005

Remember, MERT, it's THE DO-NOT-CALL LAW!!!!!


The TRIB endorses DICK DURBIN FOR PRESIDENT!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

"It would take a seismic shift for us to take back the Senate in the next election," he said.

So we'll try to move the earth with our TANTRUMS!

"When I go home, my friends will say, `Why don't you move your own ideas?'"

Ideas? What are -- IDEAS?

P. S. Hey lookie, Dick -- YOU MADE THE OSAMA CHANNEL! (CAVEAT: This IS AMERICA'S NEWSPAPER.)


If only all Republicans would see OUR SIDE, like Congresspoop JONES.

It's a non-starter -- heck the key won't even make it near the ignition -- but it does get us hugging ourselves as YOU LIKE ME! YOU REALLY LIKE ME!!!!!


Surprise, surprise:

FOOD MARKETERS' SELF-REGULATION CALLED A FAILURE

Meaning the Kellogg's of this world can still sell their $20 boxes of sugar with impunity.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS ATTACK ON FREE ENTERPRISE, LARRY KUDLOW? DOW 36,000?

BIG CAVEAT: The Center for Informed Food Choices "advocates...a whole foods, plant-based diet and educates about the politics of food." TRANSLATION: The fruit-and-nut guys go after the petroleum refiners of the supermarkets. May the worse man win!


Tom Cruise proposes to Katie Holmes atop Eiffel Tower

This story deserves an inevitable comeback -- but we will forgo that, and merely suggest the couple may have been better off flying a kite.


Greek myth tells us how Odysseus plugged his crew's ears with wax and had himself tied to his ship's mast to escape the Sirens. Well, Honorary Mayor Mike wants to build that @#$%&* OLYMPIC WHITE ELEPHANT at ANY COST, so he can bask in the sound of a whole city evacuating for three weeks, and now comes word that OUR beloved mayor is willing to spend millions to bask in the ear-rending screech of NEWS HACK SIRENS praising him to the ages. Did he ever think (no, he never has) that maybe all that money he'll be paying for police and overtime and turning half the city into a frozen zone could have gone to AFRICAN RELIEF? He'd be better donating it to KNIGHTRIDDER to print hundreds of special sections praising him as our CITY'S GREATEST MAYOR.

Thursday, June 16, 2005


Downing Street memo! DOWNING STREET MEMO!!!!!

Meanwhile, down at the ledger books....

NYT Co. says ad market "uneven," lowers forecast for 2005

We'll take the hit for THE TRUTH.

RIGHT ROMY?


Debby Boone sings -- Rosemary Clooney?!?

Forgive us while we sing "You Light Up My Life."


House panel OKs Cafta in test vote

Hooray! Now we can outsource to Guatemala!


S-S-S-Social S-S-S-Security? W-w-w-what's S-S-S-Social S-S-S-Security?

Larry "They Didn't Pay Dick Grasso Enough" Kudlow and Dow 36,000 will be FURIOUS.


Shucks, more bad news -- we capture a holy cockroach in Iraq.

You're a news hack. You hear our soldiers are killed. (YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!)
Then you hear this. You think, they did this on purpose to cover up the bad news that OUR SOLDIERS ARE DYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (As if they didn't gloat every time.) It makes you want to go out and get drunk, which is impossible when you and your colleagues drink nothing but the most expensive bottled water.


As TVs grow, so do electric bills

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Nopw let me get this straight -- the government wants to save us energy (pffh-hh-hh). It also wants to force us to convert to HDTV, which consumes more electricity. WHICH WILL IT BE, GOV? I guess whichever's less intrusive in the HOME.


Spotlight skips cases of missing minorities

Here is why another switch clicks off in our heads when the hacks play their mind games: this isn't about missing people -- it's about MISSING PEOPLE OF THE RIGHT RACE.

Yes, the hacks may report certain stories of missing people because the victims are white. But don't they get even when they run dribble about, say, that repulsive GALLUP POLL? When will the hacks get it into their MENSA-THICK SKULLS to STOP PAYING THE RACE CARD -- EITHER WAY?

Wednesday, June 15, 2005


Today THE PAPER OF RE-CORD commemorates the 101st anniversary of the Gen. Slocum disaster on the East River, near the site of what NEWS HACKS now insist was another "disaster," which makes us ponder when a disaster ceases to be one.




Time Warner and Sony BMG say she's sexy. I say she's untalented. Who's right?

Who has $500 gazillion in revenues?


The "electronic pimp" is selling another lunch with ST. WARREN!

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE DE LAWD!


Grads boo Schwarzenegger

Did the HACKS join in?


ONLY CHEAP CHANNEL:

But despite the new rallying cries, flashes of the old, bumbling Clear Channel shine through. In the too-clever-by-half category, it hoped to create buzz about an Akron station format change from sports to progressive talk last month by starting a critical Web site blasting the corporatization of radio. Problem was, listeners sensed the company's fingerprints on the ersatz opposition, and a second wave of criticism hit -- this one in the form of hate e-mails and a torrent of anti-Clear Channel blogging.


American business -- on the CUTTING EDGE of TECHNOLOGY:

IT: Half Of Businesses Still Use Windows 2000

They LOVE ya, BILL!


Amid 'Live 8' hullabaloo, what about Africa?

WHO SAID IT'S ABOUT AFRICA?

This will be the hacks' latest idiot excuse to apply THEIR hammer to what they think is OUR ANVIL -- only it's really a HUMAN HEAD.


The HACKS pull out their RACE CARD AGAIN!

Hey zillionaire scribblers! Would you like your credibility ratings to be ZERO?

ABOLISH GALLUP INTERNATIONAL!


Noah: Kinsley should just get rid of LAT's editorial page

And while he's at it he should get rid of the REST of the paper.

Abolish Michael Kinsley!

Better!


Exxon hires Bush energy aide

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Let's see, the Reps have bigbiz, the Dems have bigmediabiz. And this merry-go-round NEVER breaks down.

Six of one....


SUMNER'S BOARD has declared He will NOT LIVE FOREVER!

But we suspect He still has a few STRINGS attached to Tom and the MOONER.


I have spoken before about kvetching about your bosses on a blog, unfavorably. But might we wonder if these are more isolated episodes than news hacks may let on? Setting aside the hacks' love for the anecdotal, has anyone looked at PubSub.com lately? If its stats are to be believed less than five percent of all blogs are updated regularly. If so, it means these Web martyrs have oversized chips on their shoulders indeed.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005


There is little concern the Saudis are trying to make nuclear arms, but....

There's only one tiny little difference between our FRIENDS the Saudis and the North Koreans: M-O-N-E-Y.

Other than that and they're several thousand miles closer to PALESTINE there's no reason they'd have nukes.


Memo Suggests Annan Oil-For-Food Link

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH-DAH DUT-DUT!


Madonna has invented yet another persona - the regretful and demure mother of two.

The controversial singer, who appeared on stage wearing a cone-shaped bra and was pictured naked in a book called "Sex," told Ladies Home Journal she pushed her explicit image too far. And she said she feared her sexploits misled her young fans.

"Sometimes I was being overtly sexual for the sake of showing off when I didn't need to be," she said.

"I think I hurt myself. Ultimately, none of us wants to be judged, or approved of, or loved because of the way we look, or how sexy we are.

"One minute I was saying believe in yourself, and the next minute I was saying just be sexually provocative for the sake of being sexually provocative.

"I was letting it pump up my ego, thinking aren't I great? They're writing about me, my picture's on the cover of every magazine, I'm so fabulous."


Is THE MAN pulling her umpteenth GAG?


Potentially good news:

Hollywood studios have profited handsomely as people with new players built DVD libraries. Buyers spent about $15.6 billion last year vs. $9 billion in 2002, says Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. Yet the novelty is cooling now that DVD players are in 70% of homes.

"This is a pivotal year," says Adams. "We're running out of new homes. And the longer you have a machine, the fewer DVDs you buy." He says sales growth will slow from 17% this year to 7% in 2007.


Better news:

Some studios are so worried about failure that they've begun to pay A-list stars and directors as much as 35% of a film's gross revenue, up from 20%, Variety magazine reports. "Hollywood has gone off into fantasy land," Vogel says. "It works as long as the business is growing. If the business is leveling off, it's almost an act of desperation."

But Mr. Vogel forgets that he is in no position to judge one fantasy land, residing as he does in another -- WALL STREET.


Hmmm, how about -- one national hotel chain!

It would go well with ONE NATIONAL AIRLINE.

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!


The LALATimes is trying to be more like Wikipedia.

I was thinking Pravda myself.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

But don't flatter yourselves. People don't think that highly of Wikipedia either.


Well I'm glad it's over, though they must be on a crying jag to end all crying jags at the cable "news" time-fillers. Don't worry, you'll manufacture something else down the line. As for this stunt that never ended, I can't say I'm surprised. Fatty Arbuckle taught us a celebrity trial can be a persecution. It is hard to say, however, that a man with a piece of plastic sticking out where his nose was and skin as mottled as a cow was being persecuted. Some of the hacks may try to pull a New Nixon for him, remembering what's good for Time Warner...but to the tone-deaf "music" fans he may as well have been born B. C. Besides, being acquitted is not the same as being absolved.

Now on to something more edifying -- like the continuing "career" of RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s girlfriend.

Monday, June 13, 2005


Cartoonists' Confab Closes with Jerry Brown, Awards

Okay -- which was the REAL cartoon?


I'm sorry -- so sorry....

I'm sorry too, but in all the days of all those lynchings there was hardly a more reactionary place than the U. S. Senate -- unless of course we include THE SUPREME COURT.


When Congress passed the $417-billion Pentagon spending bill last year, Rep. John P. Murtha, the top Democrat on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, boasted about the money he secured to create jobs in his Pennsylvania district.

But the bill Murtha helped write also benefited at least 10 companies represented by a lobbying firm where his brother, Robert "Kit" Murtha, is a senior partner, according to disclosure records, interviews and an analysis of the bill by The Times.


Heaven forfend! A DEMOCRAT -- doing FAVORS for his BROTHER? Unthinkable.


Let's see, next Monday CNN's relaunching free videos. The following day AOL's pulling down its wall.

You're too late, TWXSTERS.


BELIEVE...

And while this weekend marks the 16th consecutive down session as compared with last year, it was off by just $15 million. That means that this "week's" total should exceed last year's comparable seven-day period since Warner Bros.' "Batman Begins" is expected to do some business when it opens on Wednesday in more than 3,800 theaters.

The Wednesday and Thursday grosses from "Batman" are not a part of the weekend but will be added into the current week's total, which began Friday. So while the past 16 "weekends" have been down as compared with last year, three of those same 16 "weeks" have been up in 2005 due to midweek business, so it's a downward streak -- but with caveats. Since the boxoffice has added some strong players in the holdover area and with "Batman" opening, next weekend has a shot at breaking the down "weekend" trend at the boxoffice.


Ya gotta BELIEVE!!!!!

Do they PRAY at the Hollywood Dictator -- or merely GENUFLECT?


Oooooooooooooooh, the TWXSTERS learn we did EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL things to the prisoners at GITMO -- and Sen. Chuck "Hole in the Bagel" Hagel is SCAAAAAAAAAAARED!!!!!

This is precisely the sort of thing I did not miss during my two days without a computer, and now I'm almost angry I got one.

Friday, June 10, 2005


Well, see you on Monday! I don't like the enforced exile, but you will get this when you install memory cards the wrong way. I did get a replacement -- a LENNY! (And a monitor too.) It's "refurbished" merchandise from an eBay seller, but considering the number of outfits flogging it I wouldn't be surprised if Len's holding a fire-sale of new goods from the old manufacturer, much as Sony did last year with MiniDisc recorders, a greater likelihood given they carry a one-year warranty (new on Lenny's PCs is three years), whereas similar goods from HP on uBid carry ninety days'. It's an INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH model with XP Pro, which is okay by me, even if I just bought the Home edition. I suspect Len will be strictly laptops before long; anyone can make a box. Never mind that nearly anyone can make a laptop too.


A CHARTER MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS DOES IT -- AGAIN:

Procter & Gamble Co. will stop advertising its Secret Sparkle Body Spray to children under 12 following a ruling by the Children’s Advertising Review Unit that P&G's marketing program violates safety provisions of the group’s self-regulatory guidelines.

P&G launched the product –- the first mass-market body spray directed at girls -– this spring with efforts that included sampling and a now-ended co-branded sweepstakes giving away iPod Shuffles at Limited Too, a fashion chain for girls ages 7 to 14. But
the body spray carries a "Keep Out of Reach of Children" warning. [Emphasis added]

This is PRECISELY why P&G and its partners in Reverse Robin Hooding sponsor so much JUNK TV: ONE HAND DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE OTHER'S DOING -- AND THEY WANT TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.


The new big argument at Romy's is over newspaper-site registration. I always tell reasonably close to the truth, which must make me the worst kind of mark, but I must agree with that fellow from the Dallas Morning News: since these folk are kind enough to give me what we used to pay for for free it's the least I can do. As to those who rail over "invasions of privacy," I answer, the Web is history's BIGGEST invader of privacy.


That the Dimocrats have been carefully "distancing themselves" from Chairman Footinmouth suggests that not one of them has the guts to say what someone brave enough would say -- GOV. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!!!! should RESIGN. Why can't someone say that? Do the scrambled eggheads and the Hollywood fornicators have THAT kind of stranglehold on the party? Or is courage something for the OTHER SIDE?


Report: West Coast group to buy Pittsburgh Penguins

TRANSLATION: They're buying nothing for something.


I don't know what to make of the NEW! IMPROVED!! Nielsens. On the one hand it's bad news if more people are taking TV painkiller in ever larger doses, especially as that means THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS can REALLY ramp up the spending on BAD TV. On the other hand, why is Frisco's TV consumption up over 31 percent, but LALA's up only 7.5? My guess is there's a lot of statistical fantasy to these numbers, just as with public opinion polls and anything else that tries to make a literal out of a figurative.


'Batman Begins,' and the franchise starts over [Home-page teaser]

USAOKAY!!!!! begins, and the selling starts over and OVER and OVER and OVER....

P. S. Actually, this article isn't as bad as we might expect from OKAY!!!!!, though Scott mentions the mythical entity "Warner Bros." and not TIME WARNER. And it contains this interesting quote:

"We'll have to see if more than the comic-book nerds turn out," says Box Office Mojo's Brandon Gray. "It's one thing to make a movie for fans. It's another to make a film all of America wants to see."

Actually, we rather hope THE CONSPIRACY keeps making movies for NERDS, if it can go the way of the horse-and-buggy. It certainly doesn't make them for ADULTS.


RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE, MUTINY MUTINY MUTINY:

" DO [NRO Corner SIC] YOU THINK THAT THE FOCUS ON MICHAEL JACKSON HAS HURT YOU?" [K. J. Lopez]
Ugh.

Neil Cavuto asked that of the president. I know the few times I've met the president I have been in total groupie mode, so I shouldn't talk. But you get an interview with the president and you ask him about Michael Jackson? That dude's been on cable news too long. Next he'll ask the leader of the free world about car chases.

Posted at 06:26 AM


1. Yes he has, and 2. I think too many con-SER-va-tives have been watching FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS too long.


The ANIME PHREAKS do it AGAIN:

Hardware: PC Case Made Completely of Fans


A great moment in FINANCIAL HISTORY:

Citigroup to Pay $2 Billion in Enron Lawsuit

With Citigroup, we should say ANOTHER.


Bolivian Lawmakers Select Caretaker President

In that part of the world aren't they always?


ANYTHING CURLEY'S STOOGES can do, the REUT'S FREEDOM FIGHTERS can do BETTER -- LOTS BETTER:

Who would win a fight between Batman and Balzac, Superman and Steinbeck?

The answer may be obvious in literary terms, but comic books are breaking down the stereotype of lightweight entertainment for teenage boys more interested in superheroes than Shakespeare's men in tights.


So -- Batman is better than Balzac, and Superman's better than Steinbeck! We're living in a PLATINUM AGE OF ART! (But don't flatter yourself, typist; anybody could be better than STEINBECK.) And Shakespeare's men wear TIGHTS! Does that include FALSTAFF? Somehow we don't see him in tights.

Graphic novel sales grew around 25 percent in 2004 to more than $205 million, according to trade news Web site ISV2.com...

That's roughly 70 cents per every man, woman and child in America -- WOW!!!!!!!!!!

...which said the fastest growing sector was manga -- Japanese comic books similar to the popular anime cartoons that are now a major part of children's programming on U.S. television.

Pardon -- they don't even qualify as FETUSES.


Chicago Declares 'Roger Ebert Day'

Does that mean everyone's forced into a hospital to have surgery so their thumbs always point UP? Or can they merely stay home and PROTEST?


Report Details F.B.I.'s Failure on 2 Hijackers

OR:

"By building our intelligence capabilities, improving our technology, and working together, we have and will continue to develop the capabilities we need to succeed against all threats," said Cassandra Chandler, an assistant director at the bureau.

TRANSLATION: Knock on wood. Nor does it help that the director's first name is Cassandra. The last thing we expect from the Fumblers, Bumblers and Incompetents is PROPHECY.


And the Republic falls further into dissolution and disrepute:

FRONT-RUNNER FOR PUBLIC BROADCAST AGENCY IS FORMER GOP CHAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, we know what it's like, ST. WARREN. Life's a -- RICHIE RICH.


Reid: No documents, no Bolton

Translation: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, June 09, 2005


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, EVER ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF TRUTH-GATHERING:

Experts Decode Coldplay's Album Cover Art

LONDON - Is Coldplay trying to tell us something with that multicolored symbol on the cover of their new album? Cubelike images adorn the packaging, both on the cover and the liner notes, of "X&Y," the British band's much-anticipated third album that was released Tuesday.

New Music Express asked a number of top art experts to figure out what the geometric figure on the cover means. They've concluded that it's a 19th-century telegraphic code known as the Baudot Code, or The International Telegraph Code Number One. It was used in teletype machines in the late 1800s.

So, what does it say on the album cover? It says, appropriately enough, "X and Y." The rainbow colors are there just to make it pretty.

A message on the back of the liner notes says, "Make Trade Fair." The band is politically active, and lists several Web sites in the liner notes at which fans can get involved in global affairs.


CURLEY!!!!! YOUR STOOGES HAVE OUTDONE THEMSELVES!!!!! NYUK!!!!! NYUK!!!!! NYUK!!!!!


YET ANOTHER DEFINITION OF DELUSIONAL:

Why the media loves the disastrous Howard Dean and doesn't understand the greatness of Ken Mehlman.

YET ANOTHER DEFINITION OF DELUSIONAL:

THERE ARE THREE MEDIA ANALYSTS who command wide readership and deserve their influence--Jay Rosen of NYU, who writes PressThink, Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine and now the New York Times [SIC], and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.

This from the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER for the LITTLE GUY. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh....


"I think there is no divide today between the U.S. and Europe as far as the main objectives of Iraq."

1. CHUCKLE CHUCKLE CHUCKLE! 2. Maybe the death of the EEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUU has put the fear of God into our rivals.


Panel: NASA has work to do before return to flight

Isn't that putting it mildly? Isn't this admitting maybe the Orbiting Jalopy shouldn't go up again, whatever the gung-ho bleats of solidarity?


Time for a Google-Time Warner merger!

DO IT! Then with luck you'll be worth $30 a share!


This will be a LONG SUMMER for the movie conspiracy. And when some AINT-IT-COOL-NEWS-STYLE BLUBRIST can remark, "How could anything with Kevin Kline and Steve Martin be so unfunny?", one can only answer, BECAUSE IT'S A MOVIE.


The Ralph Kramden of Congress says our war in Iraq is JUST LIKE the Holocaust.

Here is another argument for passing a law requiring every public official have his mouth surgically closed.


Bob Costas is a very appropriate successor to Larry CourtJester. While no one could ever approach that unique blend of sycophancy toward his guests, disgust toward his audience, inanity and megalomania of the Jester, Bob has enough of the sports broadcaster in him to be regally fatuous, and to ask stupid questions that sound intelligent. Congratulations, Your Royal Lowness!


More EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL from the extremist, hermetically-sealed, RACISTSEXISTHOMOPHOBIC WORLD of DUBYA:

Latest Confirmed Nominee Sees Slavery in Liberalism

And she's BLACK! What do we call her, PINCH? AUNTIE TOM? Or do we call YOU narrow-minded and bigoted as USUAL?

Sounds like she's ready to shake out a few cobwebs.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005


"A WHITE, CHRISTIAN PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

How does FILET OF SOLE taste, CHAIRMAN FOOTINMOUTH?


Further hmmm....

A cache of weapons and bugging devices has been found at Iraq's abandoned embassy in London, the country's newly appointed ambassador said....

The discovery was made when new Iraqi ambassador Dr. Salah Al Shaikhly recently opened the embassy for the first time since staff abandoned it just before the war started in 2003.

Al Shaikhly told BBC radio Wednesday the arms haul, which dates from Saddam Hussein's regime, included four machine guns, 10 handguns and four silencers. The weapons had been found in one of the 20-odd safes at the embassy.

"It was amazing, you really despair when you know this kind of arsenal was kept at the Iraqi Embassy," Al Shaikhly said.

"There were also other things which looked like electric cattle prods," he added.

Aside from boxes of live and spent ammunition, there were also telescopic cameras and bugging devices.

"I believe they must have been bugging their own people inside the embassy ... Such was the regime, it didn't trust anybody. Everybody was spying on everybody else," the ambassador said.


You kidding? These were the GOOD guys. Right Chariman Footinmouth?


Hmmm....

Far from cleaning up the atmosphere, the Amazon is now a major source for pollution. Rampant burning and deforestation, mostly at the hands of illegal loggers and of ranchers, release hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the skies each year.

Brazil now ranks as one of the world's leading producers of greenhouse gases, thanks in large part to the Amazon, the source for up to two-thirds of the country's emissions.


Before you go attacking BIG MEAN UNCLE SAM, maybe you folks had better look in your own backyards, eh?


If BIGMEDIA keeps pulling gags like this who says they'll still be BIG?

Here's betting VIACON or its successor changes formats again in a year.

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