Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

Cable Costs Will Keep Rising, ESPN To Double By 2009

The future is a la carte over the WEB, whether the media tyrannies and THE CABLE CONSPIRACY LIKE IT OR NOT.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

In his 15 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Alito repeatedly has upheld the rights of companies to enforce the terms of their contracts, including clauses requiring binding arbitration and specifying where the parties can sue. He's also favored corporate defendants when there is a question about how to apply federal regulations and has been tough on plaintiffs accusing companies of committing securities fraud.

Do I hear con-SER-va-tives going BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA?

Well, all we can say is LIBERALS HAD THEIR CHANCE.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Did computer geek Steve Jobs have a system meltdown?

On Friday, the svengali-like CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animated Studios lashed out at author Fredric Alan Maxwell after he sent Jobs a 4,000-word article he wrote for Fast Company magazine about the untold story of Jobs' biological father, a Syrian immigrant and political science professor named Abdulfattah Jandali.

"Are you a nut case?" Jobs demanded, signing the oneliner "Steve."

Maxwell fired back: "Are you?"

Just A problem: one of these nut cases is worth ZILLIONS.

Posted 4:18 PM by Gene

Dell Says Its Third-Quarter Revenue Missed Company's Forecasts

STERNO!!!!! YOU'RE ALMOST AS POWERFUL AS YAHWEH!!!!!

Dell said sales in its American consumer and British business customer lines was partly to blame for the shortfall....

ALMOST? AS POWERFUL!

Posted 4:05 PM by Gene

So! THE CONSPIRACY sent FAKE NUMBERS to THE PAPER OF RE-CORD, which SWALLOWED THEM WHOLE!

Who'd have THOUGHT THE CONSPIRACY capable of such MENDACITY? Who'd have thought THE PAPER OF RE-CORD capable of such GULLIBILITY?

Not US!

Posted 3:53 PM by Gene

Shucks, Kellogg, a leading BIGMEDIA firm, announces higher earnings, but the Street ditched the stock anyway because presumably it's spending even MORE money advertising its TV shows and movies.

Don't the people in Battle Creek realize this is no time for BIGMEDIA stocks?

Posted 12:16 PM by Gene

CNN.com seems to be in a good mood today:

• Truck hits hayride, killing 4
• Woman falls after dangling from hot air balloon
• Pastor electrocuted while performing baptism

[Fourth through sixth listings in "More News" on the home page]

News hacks should apologize for doing everything they can to avoid hard news, replacing it with misfortunes, bias and selling.

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

The latest FAD among NEWS HACKS is to APOLOGIZE for being WRONG on IRAQ's WMDs. What they're doing is not apologizing for being wrong but for being wrong ON BEHALF OF A "CONSERVATIVE" CAUSE. Were this a LIBERAL cause there would be no apologies -- as there are seldom apologies for the REAL CRIMES NEWS HACKS FOREVER COMMIT ON OUR INTELLIGENCE.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

OH oh -- a FREEPER asks:

Is Drudge "over"?

He was over when the SPYWARE entered the HOLE IN HIS HEAD.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

How Dowd became the most dangerous columnist in America

Instead of the most risible?

Posted 7:14 AM by Gene

The Mogul's Friend does A FAVOR.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO PAT!

We sorta liked it better when you were behind the wall.

Posted 7:01 AM by Gene

Which will be the first newspaper to yell, "BUSH HAS NO RIGHT TO CHOOSE A CONSERVATIVE"?

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

The Saints ain't stayin' in Nawlans. LET THE SWATTING BEGIN!

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

Arts Groups Pessimistic Over Prospects for Culture Downtown

Look folks, there was little "culture" before Osama. What your neighborhood needs is what it used to have -- jobs, commercial jobs, retailing jobs, not all sorts of jobs knocking America or sitting on its behinds or pleasing THE LORD GOD PINCH.

Face it, doesn't New York have enough ARTS as it is?

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

Dubya chooses someone the movement likes -- and what's more, he's a MAN, which means NEWS HACKS will be MONUMENTALLY JUSTIFIED in going after him, regardless of how qualified he is -- and you can bet they'll try to make him as UNQUALIFIED as possible.

Conservatives and Republicans must learn to rule America WITHOUT the help of NEWS HACKS and their FRIENDS, because they can do NOTHING to please them, and EVERYTHING to ANNOY them. And if NEWS HACKS and their FRIENDS scream and cry and tell mommy -- so be it.

Posted 1:21 AM by Gene

We have no doubt Der Homeland has been grossly incompetent in implementing improvements to our national security -- how could it not be having spent much of its life debating COLOR CODES -- but CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES are up to something too when they quote a Democrat in the third graf, followed four paragraphs down by someone from Harvard's very liberal Kennedy School. Here again is the problem with HACKS; they view themselves not as curious truth-seekers, but as a GOVERNMENT-IN-WAITING representing THE FORCES OF RIGHT.

Posted 1:05 AM by Gene

I must confess I'm up this morning just to make sure our local ill-begotten transit authority is shut down today. Both sides wanted this strike: the transit union because it didn't want to give up its health benefits, their bosses because they didn't want to pay them. Now they're fighting with "statements" and the equivalent of expelling gas loudly in close quarters. Forgive me for saying both sides deserve to go to hell. I'm sure traffic will be horrendous today, but after the first few days things will sort themselves out, and by the time they settle this thing (in two months) the transit authority will be much poorer in its revenue stream, and the workers will have to give up some of their benefits anyway, and both sides will have earned not undying enmity from the public, but something worse -- indifference.

Posted 12:32 AM by Gene

THE USEFULNESS OF ARTSJOURNAL.COM: A writer for The Observer asks what became of theater critics. Had he paid attention to this sometimes annoying site he'd have found his answer from FT, which ran a bubbly press release for Les Miz. 3,000 AMATEUR PRODUCTIONS! WOW!!!!! And here is why we no longer have critics: the modern NEWS HACK mistakes popularity for excellence, when he deigns to acknowledge excellence at all. That the critic has been replaced by the above-the-title ad-blurbist is also a function of the larger culture, where "Olivier, Ashcroft, Richardson, Gielgud, Dench, the Redgraves, Gambon, Walter, Sher, Russell Beale and McCrory" have been replaced by ciphers. Why bother writing knowledgably on culture when the culture has no respect for itself anyway? You just do what most blurbists do: transcribe the first echo that resounds in your empty head. Part of the problem too is that a certain aesthete like our Observer scribbler must champion THE SHOCK OF THE NEW, which in practice means sticking it in the public's face again and again until its face is black and blue; hence the idiot championing of [C]RAPPERS and movies directed with meat cleavers. Plainly people are tired of ATTITUDE, but the HACKS aren't.

Posted 7:38 PM by Gene

When will overpaid keepers of the CW like SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX realize their typing acts as a reverse psychological trigger and that everything they praise turns to dross?

Posted 7:12 PM by Gene

The problem is Halloween turned from a reasonably innocent festival into an industry, and when it turned into an industry it lost its much of charm and sense of humor. (Part of it too was the BOOMERS remaking it into another warped self-conscious excuse to relive their childhood.) Hence the beauty of little kids dressing up in weird costumes was replaced with intolerance and finger pointing, as with much that becomes an industry.

Can't we just forget about politics and let the kids exercise their imaginations?

[I]ts sometimes-dark imagery - and the gory movies and masks that go along with it - mean that some Christian and Muslim families keep their kids at home that day.

I think this merits a special THANK YOU to DR. EVIL!!!!!

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

I SUPPOSE Little Malcolm may have an excuse when he says people are curious about this sort of thing, but when he engages in "guesstimations" (and broad ones they have to be) isn't he helping to make people believe even less of what they read from NEWS HACKS?

Posted 4:19 PM by Gene

"(They're) not being written for the traditional 13-year-old boy any more, but for a 40-year-old who wants to read what he read when he was 13. He still wants the Legion of Super-Heroes, but he wants it to be more adult." Birkemoe smiles and shrugs. "But it's still the Legion of Super-Heroes ... It's still all guys in tights pounding each other."

The eulogy for the comic book.

Posted 4:06 PM by Gene

Hed of the Day, on USAOKAY!!!!!'s home page:

Reid: Apologize

That's right Reid, APOLOGIZE.

Well taken, USAOKAY!!!!! (Pffh-hh-hh!)

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

THE PAPER OF RE-CORD PROSTRATES ITSELF BEFORE THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD -- and SLASHDOT'S GEEKS will have none of it:

Don't forget about all the fraudulent clicks ey... It seems like they're having [joelonsoftware.com] a [webpronews.com] lot [webpronews.com] of [cnn.com] problems [theregister.co.uk] with those...

I remember, a day or two after Katrina, trying to track down a few friends who had fled New Orleans, and when reading my email thread in gmail I was offered a great deal on a travel package to the historic French quarter. :)

It figures that one of the most sophisticated AIs ever developed would find its use in advertising.

Shouldn't this posting be titled: Smarter Google Ads Targets Stupid People Better.

And there will be MORE, to be SURE, but I don't have all day with SLASHDOT.

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

1,571 WORDS to say what I said in FOURTEEN: Why do I get the idea in the Windy City they're not that excited?

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

Now we'll confess we like sexy babes as much as the next man, but is it, er, REALISTIC to expect to find them on a Web dating service?

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Excellent news; The BEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOO was down again (not so much as we'd like, but we'll take it), and but for the SLIME that oozed to the MARKET LEADER it would have been down SHARPLY, just as the MARKET LEADER will be down SHARPLY NEXT WEEK.

Also, it appears six of the top ten may not earn back their production costs. BETTER!

And SHUCKS, DOOM went down ONLY by 73.8 PERCENT. How ya gonna bring Goodthings to THAT number, PLASTIC MAN?

Interesting: CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGE doesn't mention it, thus once again practicing that SUPREME NEWS-HACK DICTUM: If the PUBLIC DOESN'T KNOW, it DOESN'T HAVE TO KNOW.

P. S. THE UNDER-17-UNACCOMPANIED-BY-A-PARENT SLIME.

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

I confess I'm of more than two minds about the reconstruction of that magnificent church in Drseden. On the one hand it's a grand thing to know it's been rebuilt; on the other hand the church's very "pockmarks" and the dark ghostly presence of an original wall must remind people that it has been rebuilt, and therefore it's not quite the same. And I suppose with 60 years hindsight we should probe our consciences that we destroyed such a landmark. On the other hand, that scum like "Doctor Death" still evades justice tells us why we had to do it. Nonetheless its very reconstruction after too long is a symbol of reconciliation -- and reunification -- with the hope that never again will Europe be bombed by the sons of Europe, or anyone else.

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS:

Consider the case of Brent Scowcroft. According to last week's New Yorker, former president Bush has tried to arrange a meeting between his old national-security adviser (and best friend) and his son. But after Scowcroft wrote a 2002 op-ed piece titled "Don't Attack Saddam," the president has consistently refused his own father's request. Now we know that Bush's lack of curiosity has proved fatal.

SO -- the guy who licked the Chinese shoes after Tiananmen is now a GOOD GUY. Yep, one or two more scribblings like this and we WILL make fun of your HAIR.

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

Nazi "Doctor Death" hid in Spain

Simon Wiesenthal's work is not done yet.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Another J'ACCUSE for the HACKS:

Two American soldiers have been charged with allegedly assaulting two detainees at a U.S.-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan, the military said Sunday.

But goshdarnit, not EVERYTHING can go the HACKS' WAY:

The announcement came 10 days after the U.S. military launched an investigation into allegations that some American troops allegedly burned the bodies of two Taliban rebels slain in battle, an act that purportedly was caught on video by an embedded freelance cameraman and broadcast on television.

Cremation of corpses is banned in Islam and the alleged desecration sparked outrage in Afghanistan. Some Islamic clerics warned of a violent anti-American backlash, but so far there have no demonstrations.

JEEZ, you'd think the AFGHANIS would KNOW BETTER. They'd get LOTS OF SUPPORT from NEWS HACKS.

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

THE EBAY ZILLIONAIRE who would CHANGE AMERICA by LECTURING PEOPLE is now making a movie about the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL FAST-FOOD BIZ. BUT:

In recent years, the Skoll Foundation, which shares Participant's commitment to social change (though it has no direct ties to the film company), has had its own encounters with the fast food industry - as an investor. According to its tax statement for the year ending Nov. 30, 2003, the foundation's $161 million in assets included $1.3 million worth of shares in fast food companies and their suppliers. Holdings included Yum! Brands (which claims to be the world's largest fast food restaurant company and includes Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell and other chains), Kraft Foods, Cadbury-Schweppes, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Bottling Group, and Aramark, a vending machine company.

Mr. Skoll, who is the foundation's chairman as well as the founder and chief executive of Participant, said, "I don't see a conflict between these investments and our intent with 'Fast Food Nation.'" The film, he said, is "intended to educate consumers about industry-wide practices, not pick on the practices of any specific company."

The foundation's president and chief executive, Sally Osberg, defended the foundation's investment strategy. "It's only inconsistent on the surface," she said.

So long as our MOUTHS are in the right place.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Console yourself, George McGovern: You've been president of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY for 33 YEARS.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

I wouldn't do that, RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE PAPER OF RE-CORD could always come back at YOU -- and YOU'RE OLDER.

And for all THAT:

Indeed, not one person interviewed for this article thinks he'll be forced to offer up anything more severe than the "culpas" already dispensed.

ONCE a GOD, ALWAYS a GOD.

Posted 7:48 AM by Gene

Hed of the Week from the FREEP:

War blamed as 6,000 quit Territorial Army (UK's National Guard - What's with Murdoch's Press?)

Posted 7:40 AM by Gene

Not a good day for the weekly dishrags: Mr. Mark has L'AFFAIRE WHO CARESzzzzzzzzzzzz and the TWXSTERS have put a totally inscrutable black-and-white cover on PEOPLE NEWSMAGAZINE (the story isn't even up on their Web site yet); newsstand sales won't be good THIS week. Even TOILETBOWL's EXCLUSIVE PLUG for ESPNCORP's Christian CGI fantasy is muted. What gives with you guys? We expect PATRIOTISM on Sunday mornings -- and SELLING! Oh well, GO GET 'EM NEXT TIME.

Posted 10:15 PM by Gene

"Sometimes movies that are about something can be preachy movies," says Jeff Robinov, president of production of Warner Bros.

Suddenly there's a whole SLEW of movies that MUST be about something. Two of them are from the TWXSTERS and that eBay -- merchant, the one's playing to small groups of the converted and the other's playing to largely empty houses. And now they're about to inflict MORE on us, courtesy in no small part of ROSIE'S NEPHEW. These clowns have trouble enough making money entertaining us, and now they want to TELL us something. If all four of the Warner brothers could come back from the dead they'd probably run these preachers out of Burbank with an batallion of armed guards and an arsenal of brickbats.

Posted 10:06 PM by Gene

• 'Odd Couple' musical opens to mixed reviews [Yahoo! home-page hed]

I think I see why Yahoo! is charging more for its music service: that way it can pay for better interns.

Posted 10:04 PM by Gene

GEORGE Galloway is under criminal investigation over allegations that he lied to the US Senate about his role in the Saddam Hussein oil-for-food bribery scandal, American prosecutors have disclosed.

The controversial MP now faces the full weight of the US justice system. Scotland on Sunday can reveal that Galloway has been referred to the US Department of Justice, two federal prosecutors and to the district attorney in Manhattan, New York, over claims that he has committed perjury.

Forgive us for saying this, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Posted 4:45 PM by Gene

With luck THE CONSPIRACY will have another down weekend -- it's looking rather iffy -- but here we must congratulate GE BANCORP ENTERTAINMENT for pulling an unprecedented thing: having a movie decline almost EIGHTY PERCENT WEEK-TO-WEEK! Now if only we could SIX SIGMA that and send it out to our COMPETITORS! Then maybe NOBODY would watch movies AGAIN!

God knows THE CONSPIRACY's working at it.

Still think people are banging down the popcorn restaurants' doors for VIDEOGAME MOVIES, Little Jeffy?

Posted 4:06 PM by Gene

WHAT IS IT about D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and trouble?

YOU have to ask? I mean you ONLY endorsed him for mayor, what, three times?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me THRICE....

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

Rambo is back in business.

And we suspect after this Rambo will be out of business.

Don't CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES have anything better to do than plug show-biz and persecute Republicans? It doesn't seem so.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

If BOB "LEAK" NOVAK is to be believed (?!?!?) Dubya's going to fill Justice O'Connor's slot with one of two "quota" candidates.

Back to square one?

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

The rotten all-people-are-basically-good greedmeisters of eBay have a new sale up their sleeves: MREs possibly intended for hurricane victims.

How low will they go?

Then again, maybe they're showing mercy for the poor MREs.

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

Figures: the crime culture idiots like LARRY FINE help to celebrate claimed one of show-biz' own.

"Oh we're sorry to hear that," says show-biz. "Now how much will SAW II make this weekend?"

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

OH oh:

Credible Reporters? Libby Trial Will Feature Journalists as Key Witnesses

We recall what happened to Vanity Fair after LEW LAPHAM (who would SURELY consider HIMself a JERNALIST) testified on its behalf in that Roman Polanski libel case: it LOST.

Better be careful with those witnesses!

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

Shucks, we believe he can't FLYYYY-YYYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYY-YYYYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYYY from a trial.

Now if the state could put him on trial for his "MUSIC"-MAKING any jury would find him GUILTY.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

Great news for our economy:

China Trade Surplus May Widen to $90 Billion in 2005

WAL-MART UBER ALLES!

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Mike Schmidt interviews for D-Rays job

We hope Schmitty gets it, and does well, but why are we thinking great players make mediocre managers?

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

"The Islamic Republic of Iran (pffh-hh) is committed (pffh-hh-hh) to its U.N. (ha ha) charter commitments (HA HA). It has never used force(HA HA HA HA) against a second country (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA) or threatened the use of force (HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!)," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday. [Sound effects included.]

We all know that laughter is supposed to prolong life. Just by making that statement the Foreign Ministry assured Iranians will live MUCH longer.



C'MON Mahmoud, you can SIEG HEIL better than THAT!

Posted 3:01 AM by Gene

What does the LEAGUE OF NATIONS do with all its MONEY that so many Africans STARVE?

Posted 2:56 AM by Gene

An investor yearns for BILL'S BUGDOM of yore:

Revenue at Google soared 96% during the September quarter with an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin of 43%. Quarterly sequential revenue, a telling metric, rose 14% and caught the street flat-footed. This is what Microsoft used to deliver--in 1986.

You mean CODEWRITER can't do it again? (Pffh-hh-hh.)

I've got a suggestion, Marty -- dump your MSFT and go G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE. Then watch it climb 20,000 TIMES, and THEN....

The problem with INVESTORS is they think they can WIN in HIGH-TECH.

Posted 2:47 AM by Gene

SUMNER gets His publicity for His piece of trash (which is no doubt already CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED in the adjectivists' hard drives), but what makes this villain a hero to KEN FELATTA is precisely what makes Him a BAD BUSINESSMAN: He'll go to any lengths to OFFEND HIS CUSTOMERS and then scratches His scalp raw wondering why SOME OF THEM WON'T COME BACK.

It also appears He's selling a R film to minors, of which we're not the least surprised.

(As you may have guessed from my post time, I'm having trouble sleeping.)

P. S.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO LARRY FINE!

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

I'm not sure we shouldn't throw chicken nuggets and milkshakes at NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD WINNERS LIKE BUCK who insist on plugging third-rate movies starring actors with willies-provoking faces.

And a special award to the ESPNCORPNETWORKNEWS.COM functionary who typed in this dateline:

Nov. 28, 2005 —

Was this plug planned a little bit too far in advance?

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

And here's news to make Iran's president smile:

Bone Fragments Found Near WTC Said Human

P. S.

Most politicians and religious leaders who have been vocal in the past have maintained a public silence over his performance. But in private many express worry.

TRANSLATION: 1. They don't want to be executed; 2. They don't want to do the right thing. Six of one.....

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

UN raps Iran's anti-Israel remark

End of story, except in Iran's nuke factories.

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

Does anyone expect CNN or the mid-morning plug fests to report NEWS?

I'm surprised VIACON COMEDY NETWORK NEWS hasn't joined the showoffy-weatherman-in-a-hurricane crowd.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

Right Stares Down White House, and Wins

This isn't supposed to happen!

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

I have just received the dispiriting news that a supermarket a convenient few steps away (really a glorified corner grocery) will close in two weeks. What's upsetting is not so much it's closing, or even that it probably won't be replaced (the property's too small; over the past six months they'd reduced store hours, and people complained about the noise of its deliveries) but that the site will no doubt be RENDELLIZED, either with another pretentious superexpensive restaurant (the Kimmel Mausoleum's across the street, though it faces the rear entrance) or worse, with ANOTHER RENDELLMINIUM, which maybe the IDIOT SCRIBBLERS who now write the name PHILADELPHIA within an en-space of HIP think we need, but which CONDOMANIA suggests we MAY NOT. I'm not totally out of luck -- Center City has two A & Ps, er, SUPERFRESHES -- but every time I hear words like HOT I wonder if the city I was born and raised in is becoming any better, especially as the surrounding neighborhoods aren't.

P. S. I cannot find a blasted thing about it online, ANYWHERE -- and you'd think the RENDELLIZERS would go NUTS as this IS PRRRRRRRRRIME REAL ESTATE. One possible negative for CONDOS: the first twelve floors on the east side would look out onto the Mausoleum's glass and brick, the first eleven floors on the north side would stare at a parking garage, the south side would face out to a new RENDELLMINIUM under construction, and I suspect the owners of the HISTORIC LANDMARK where I live would object because it would block THEIR view, and the MAUSOLEUM was built in no small measure to be framed by it. And if you want to imagine CONDOS with no views, take a trek to 15th and Locust, the Grand Canyon of Center City -- and anyone facing out on it is at the BOTTOM of it.

P. P. S. Which isn't to say people aren't DOING something about our city's lack of supermarkets, hardy har har.

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

Well, now L'AFFAIRE WHO CARES has an official scapegoat; let's see if anyone cares.

NEWS HACKS and BLOGGERS excepted.

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

Harriet, we hardly knew ye. The following week of strips on the planned confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers were [SIC] intended for publication beginning Monday, October 31st. Rendered obsolete by the announcement of her withdrawal from consideration on Thursday the 27th, they are nonetheless presented below for your reading pleasure. Next week's strips will be repeats.

G. B. isn't cool anymore.

Actually, he's been a little less than lukewarm for quite some time.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

National CineMedia, which sells ad time on 14,000 theater screens, is revamping its pre-show program to make it more palatable to marketing-weary moviegoers who might be inclined to skip the 20-minute promotions-and-ad package....

Marketers have been encouraged to create spots specifically for the big screen instead of recycling TV ads. Wal-Mart, a new in-theater advertiser, plans a 60-second image spot in December to encourage holiday shopping. Sears also is planning its first theater ads, and other marketers will use the big screen to break ads before migrating them to other media....

It's still advertising, and it's still television.

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

The PROFEESSOR got in a snit last night because Little Malcolm issued a towering (registration-required) cover screed about blogs, calling G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE and Yahoo! abettors of libel. (Greed, yes.) We admit sometimes the Web resembles the box after Pandora opened it. Heck even one of the BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM admits it can do harm. Odd too because Malc always boasts how well his SITE is doing. That said, it is best to presume when reading blogs that everyone has a motive, and only a fool would glean for truth by gleaning blogs. As for the notion the big three of blogging should shut down defamatory blogs, let's see them try it. They're popular enough as is.

It behooves bloggers to be outspoken. But it also behooves them to be careful. These two traits need not be mutually exclusive. (I will never comment on a private person, something it might behoove other bloggers to do.)

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Today ROMY OUTDOES himself:

How about ending the evening news with a humor segment? [From JONNY HAIRSHIRT]

Who needs a humor segment when the whole show's a PUNCHline?

Bernstein: We're watching the implosion of a presidency

BwahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Harry Potter’s 'flying' car 'stolen' [Second pair of quotes added]

Things have come to such a pass with NEWS HACKS that we suspect this not a crime but a PUBLICITY STUNT, exquisitely timed by PEOPLE WARNER and JKRCORP. Indeed we would not be surprised if the car turns up right under PEOPLE WARNER'S BIG FAT GREASY NOSE.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

PERILS OF LATENIGHT BLOGGING [Jonah Goldberg]

Hey Jonah, the way you folks do it there are perils blogging any hour of the day.

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

This is pompous gassing. The movies have already become TV de facto; all that awaits is for them to become TV de jure.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

Syria's Power May Be in Peril
The Assad family in Syria could be brought down if relatives are directly linked to the killing of Hariri. [From the home page]

Thugs have killed enemies before and survived. What makes us doubtful here is who would take over from the Assads, as Syria's been a family business for decades.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

We suspect the biggest laughs last night for The Odd Couple came at the cast party as people read the write-ups. If every show made this kind of money reviewing so badly we'd have standing room on the standing room. It will be interesting to see, though, with lines like "Apparently the entire run is already sold out. If you haven't got a ticket, you've lucked out", when THE BOYS play their "LEGENDARY" shtick: taking days off for reasons that, again, may be funnier than the show.

Posted 6:54 PM by Gene

Arab States Silent on Iran's Remarks

TRANSLATION: Yeah yeah yeah!

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

FUN NEAR CHARLOTTE:

Eight North Mecklenburg High School students were arrested, two Tasered, and the rest were sent home this morning after fights just outside a crowded cafeteria.

And JERNALISM:

CONTACT US: Did you take a photo during the fight at North Mecklenburg High this morning? If so, please email jarwood@charlotteobserver.com

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

No amount of trees and upscale merchants and high-toned gewgaws can make us forget the mall is a RACE-AVOIDANCE MECHANISM, and a CITY-EMPTYING MECHANISM.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Frist orders oil price probe

Is he running for president?

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Ex-CITING news of the THEA-TAH: The new stage version of WHITE CHRISTMAS will STAR (among OTHERS):

Kate Baldwin and Graham Rowat, David Ogden Stiers (as the ex-general), Karen Morrow, Michael Gruber and Nadine Isenegger!!!!!

And here's even MORE EXCITING NEWS: this MAMMOTH POTENTIAL HIT's being done in THREE SEPARATE PRODUCTIONS! AND....

The acting company for the triple franchise, directed by tireless Walter Bobbie and choreographed by Randy Skinner, is punctuated with tap dancers (Skinner was the tap wizard behind 42nd Street), newcomers who are getting principal billing for the first time: potent singer-actresses (Anastasia Barzee is Betty in L.A., Shannon O'Bryan is Judy in San Francisco, Meredith Patterson is Judy in L.A.); nimble comic song and dance men (including L.A.'s Jeffry Denman, once of The Producers, and San Francisco's Mark Ledbetter, who appeared in the 2004 premiere of Irving Berlin's White Christmas); and Tony Award nominees — Brian D'Arcy James (Sweet Smell of Success) is Bob in Los Angeles, Terry Beaver (The Last Night of Ballyhoo) is Gen. Waverly in Boston, Stephen Bogardus (Love! Valour! Compassion!) is Bob in Boston.

All I can say is -- WOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

By the way, the film version starred only, oh, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen and Dean Jagger.

Still this has to be the most EXCITING casting since CHEYENNE JACKSON played, er, ELVIS in ALL SHOOK UP!

P. S. I have just stumbled across Amazon.com's page for the faux-Elvis cast album, and DEAF doesn't begin to describe its fans; they're a cross of people who LOVED CATS and people who LOVED MAMMA MIA! and have two cents worth of TASTE among them; they don't know musicals and know Elvis only through SONY BMG's redundant repackagings, barnacles accreting barnacles, or more likely through commercials. We can guess what the creators (which shamefully included R&HCORP) had in mind by putting a ™ next to nine of the song titles. And they didn't know beans either, though they expelled much gas: "Teddy Bear™" and "Hound Dog™" as a MEDLEY? "Follow That Dream" as a BALLAD? This is the CD tombstone of the musical - and of ROCK 'N' ROLL.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Who will hate Paul Tagliafool more: the fans in Nawlans who may see their team get taken away, or the fans in LALA who'll see the top TV matchups replaced by the sloggings of a third-rate team?

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

Critics say the mergers will lead to fewer choices for consumers and higher prices, a claim both SBC and Verizon dispute.

...laughing all the way to the bank.

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

How do you SIX SIGMA three hours?

And I wouldn't be worried about the length, Plastic Man. Seeing how Kellogg's is in the movie biz these days just pass it on to them -- and to us CEREAL EATERS.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Judy does have a history of dating powerful men for, you know, three decades it goes back," Dowd asserted.

The outrageous statement prompted Imus to quip, "Unlike you, of course."

She proceeded, tantalizingly, to flog unfounded allegations that Miller had a personal relationship with Scooter Libby, the source who told Miller about CIA operative Valerie Plame. Miller went to jail for 85 days to protect him.

"I think it diminishes the problem with Judy and Scooter to say they were involved," she said.

"They obviously — I don't think they were involved, and it's just because Judy has a history with powerful men some people say that about her, and I think that's pretty sexist . . .

"It's not about the sex," she said finally. "It's about the bombs."

The more I hear of this story the more I'd like to tell all concerned to go sulk in the nearest cave.

Posted 12:55 PM by Gene

Well look who kicked back Saddam! DaimlerCorp. and Volvo!

Like the NRA, THEY DID THEIR PART!

And there's MORE where THAT came from!

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: We formed the NEW Big East playing Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey!

But as DICKIE V says, that's how you make mone -- that's how you PRESERVE THE INTEGRITY of the GAME!

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

God, as Mies van der Rohe famously said, is in the details.

God doesn't know today's architects.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

[W]ith Washington now dusting off public diplomacy as a strategy to combat rampant anti-Americanism, is it time to revive cultural diplomacy?

The answer, tragically, is no. Martha Bayles explains why: It was one thing when we had Marian Anderson and Satch on our side. Who do we have now? [C]RAPPERS? That League of Nations vote against cultural imperialism wasn't just a vote against the big mean ol' U. S. A. It was a vote against Hollywood "values," the worship of sleaze and fornication and death. What with the GENIUSES of OUR AGE cultural diplomacy would probably do more harm than good.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

The BLITHERING IDIOCY of WALL STREET: ExxonMobil's (DilbertSpell) latest QUARTERLY REVENUES were LESS THAN G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE'S MARKET CAP!

And ExxonMobil's MARKET CAP is only THREE-AND-A-HALF TIMES G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE'S!

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

THE VOLOKHEADS: Eighteen words down and 36,500 TO GO.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Don't ANYONE wake up the TITAN for the titmice. He's in a bad mood ALREADY.

PROFESSOR!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

WHO'S NEXT?

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Well, at least I'm not completely devoid of attention. I would like to thank Patrick Ruffini for linking to me a few times. Now a few more Patrick Ruffinis and I've got it made.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Getting the NBA to grow up may be a bigger task than growing Jack's beanstalk.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

The new Dilbert buzz word with TV executives is "edgy."

"Edgy" draws ad-blurbists' adjectives like flies. (Or given who writes them, we should say, it draws flies like flies.) It may not draw audiences. How many people watch VIACON COMEDY NETWORK NEWS's block? HBO has had trouble lately with its CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED programming. No, perhaps the problem is the networks haven't wanted to do anything good since long before FRED SILVERFISH -- SILVERMAN, and that's reason enough to avoid them.

P. S. Which raises a further question: If this is (as many of the adjectivists say) a MEGA-PLATINUM AGE FOR TELEVISION!!!!!!!!!! why did the LALATIMES complain about all these copycat crime shows?

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

The boneheaded museum that could not guard "The Scream" has decided to stop selling a game based on its theft.

You have to wonder if people have any pride or dignity anymore, or if everything's a reality show.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

The nation's largest conservative women's group yesterday called for the withdrawal of the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination as The Washington Times learned that a key promoter of the nomination had suddenly quit the White House lobbying effort.

It's DUBYA against the WORLD!

Posted 6:16 AM by Gene

We will presume SNIDELY WHIPLASH just forgot the money. The problem, however, is that SNIDELY may have left his ethics at the door when he entered Congress.

Posted 6:14 AM by Gene

White Sox win zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Why do I get the idea in the Windy City they're not that excited?

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

USA Today removed a digitally altered photo of Condoleezza Rice from its Web site Wednesday after several bloggers complained that it made the Secretary of State look demonic.

ANOTHER IMMORTAL TRIUMPH FOR THE BLOGOSPHERE!

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

And in news re the G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE of CHINA:

Baidu posted a third-quarter profit, but its shares plummeted 17% in late action Wednesday.

The Beijing-based Internet search outfit made $1.1 million, or 3 cents a share. That's down 29% sequentially but nearly triple the year-ago level. Revenue rose 28% sequentially and 174% from a year ago to $11 million....

Baidu.com went public with a bang on Aug. 5. The stock has spent its public life above $70 after pricing at $27. It rocketing [SIC] as high as $153.98 on Aug. 6, riding two speculative themes: the growing interest among investors in Chinese Internet companies and the rapid growth in search-related advertising, led in the U.S. by Google and Yahoo!.

Late Wednesday, Baidu slipped $14.05 to $67.

Here's hoping.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

TECH CENTRAL STATION offers ANOTHER BOLD SOLUTION:

This is perhaps the most revealing way to think about the country's endangered infrastructure: what would be needed to make it adequate is a Pentagon-size budget spent annually for the next five years. Obviously, nothing even remotely close is going to happen but if there ever was a case for governments, industries and academics coming together and developing a set of rational priorities this is it. There will never be enough money to fix everything and to erase the entire backlog and hence any rational, long-term program of effective investment should be guided by carefully defined priorities (designed, above all, to strengthen national security and to reduce user risks) rather than by dubious congressional deals and by competing, piecemeal interventions. The enormity of the problem calls for a grand strategy: I wish I could say that there will be no shortage of bold initiatives to bring it about.

I guess DOW 36,000 realizes THE BLESSED MARKETPLACE won't help, but what WILL? When he hasn't a clue you can be sure he's clueless on lots of other things.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Something to make con-SER-va-tives smile:

At $9 per hour, some Delphi workers would make $18,720 a year under the new proposal. That's more than $600 below the federal poverty line for a family of four, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

To be sure, the UAW deserves considerable credit for making the auto biz' mess. And I'm not sure someone should make $40 an hour assembling cars. But doesn't the tone-deaf clown who runs Delphi realize the number substandard wages are doing to WAL-MART's rep?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

“Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury, any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world,” Ahmadinejad said.

TRANSLATION: The Jimmah Carter Memorial Nobel Good Intentions Prize was a joke.

Posted 3:01 PM by Gene

As Hugh "Honorary Volokhead" Hewitt devotes 3,755 WORDS (counting headings) to the STEALTH JUSTICE, we may hope that he and his fellow SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS will follow the news biz into irrelevance.

Surely he's made a BIG try.

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

So if it's not an incarceration and it's not a house arrest, may we assume the holy cockroaches are having a good time in Iran?

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

Surprising truth: most show-biz child prodigies become adult wrecks.

Who'da thunk?

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

The Wall Street Journals are having a second exasperating "open house."

Why not just take the site free and be done with it?

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

This year’s World Series is on pace to become the least-watched in history, averaging just 16.1 million total viewers for Games One and Two over the weekend.

Baseball's BACK -- and BETTER THAN EVER!

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

• 'Rathergate' news boss out; CBS names replacement

No no no no no no no no no NO you're NOT supposed to say THAT!

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

A US judge signed a death warrant for a former street gangster and convicted killer who went on to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in tackling youth violence....

Williams, who co-founded Los Angeles' deadly Crips gang, was convicted in 1981 for the murders of four people.... [FOURTH GRAF.]

A witnessed who received immunity from prosecution testified at trial that he, Williams and two other men took 120 dollars from the store's cash register before Williams shot the young man execution-style and mocked the gurgling sounds the victim made as he lay dying. [THIRD-TO-LAST GRAF.]

BIAS? WHAT BIAS?

Posted 11:17 AM by Gene

Well JONAH and LARRY K, here's SOME good news:

ConocoPhillips Profit Rises 89% to Record $3.8 Bln

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

The BIG WAL pulls ANOTHER ONE:

An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart....

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."

The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.

JOOOOOOOOOOOOONAH!!!!! LARRY "GREED IS GOOD" KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!

Or to put it in Wal-Martese:

On both of these issues – affordability and public assistance – it is important to note that our offering and performance are on par with other retailers; Wal-Mart’s critics, however, hold it to a “large company” standard, not a retailer standard. Despite the difference in industry economics, critics believe we should behave more like a GM or a Microsoft than a Target or a Sears. While critics have not yet harnessed all of these facts, they are successfully exploiting those they do have, suggesting that, when discovered, the others will also become effective ammunition.

Hey Dorothy, you're not in RETAILING anymore.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

I hope the day comes when I have an audience that isn't accidental. When I read about blogging cliques and their dreams of avarice I wonder if I'll ever get more than 50 hits a day, and those thanks to LARRY and SERGEY'S LOTTERY. I suppose I should be grateful; in August of 2004 I was still getting just eight or ten hits a day. What intensifies my ill feeling is that people like SAM LITTLE can get away with their bluster and inaccuracies and not be called to the carpet by the public for it. BIG BLOGGING is just another kind of BIG MEDIA -- and I have to admit I wish I were part of it.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

What's the difference between a clique of top MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMM reporters and editors and a clique of SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS?

Beats me.

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

COMEDY CENTRAL TO LAUNCH BROADBAND WEB SITE

I thought VIACON NETWORK NEWS already had one!

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

Let's try it ONE MORE TIME.

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

If you're wondering what those last two posts are -- and I'm leaving them up -- I posted them via Blog This and thought I couldn't. It's working -- for now -- but when do LARRY AND SERGEY START PLAYING THEIR MIND GAMES HERE? It wasn't working the last time I tried.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Let's try that again.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Eugene David
...The One-Minute Punditfvevvevqw

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

THE FIRST NEGATIVE WORD ABOUT G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE IN AT LEAST SIX MONTHS!!!!!

SNMECCW!

(YEP, LARRY AND SERGEY ARE BACK TO THEIR MIND GAMES AGAIN.)

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

Are CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES and THEIR STOOGES going to subject us to BANNER HEDS EVERY TIME we LOSE A SOLDIER NOW?

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Kerry urges post-election troop reduction in Iraq

Hey John, you running for president?

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

SAMMY GLICKMAN and JACK "UNDER 17 ALWAYS ADMITTED" FITHIAN PLAY THEIR USUAL TRICKS:

Glickman and Fithian also addressed the "consistent drumbeat" about consecutively declining weekend boxoffice, with Fithian noting that "this year will still be better than 30 out of the last 35 years."

TRANSLATION: Last one off the Titanic's a rotten eeeeeeeeeeegg!

Fithian mainly stressed the importance of quality in upcoming films, working with theater owners and staffers to rein in rude patrons and cell phone users, making sure that any onscreen ads "don't look or feel like TV" and the launching of a more aggressive PR campaign emphasizing the good value of a "complete" experience at the movies, relative to other communal experiences.

To that end, he debuted a preview of a feature-length documentary tentatively titled "Now Showing: America Goes to the Movies," which will emphasize the history of moviegoing.

GREAT IDEA, Jack -- especially if you juxtaposed old pictures of, say the Roxy in New York with its armies of ushers with the MODERN experience of sticky floors and postage-stamp screens.

AND GREAT MOVIES!

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

Kathryn supposes she uses her ol' bean:

A CINDY SHEEHAN THOUGHT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From an e-mail:
I understand from somewhere online that Cindy is planning on handcuffing herself to the fence at the White House. Instead of arresting her as she anticipates, what would happen if the White house Police just left her there handcuffed with the understanding that as long as she remained handcuffed she could stay. I understand the weather in Washington isn't all that nice this week. It would serve her right if she caught a nasty cold during her "protest"

Posted at 06:05 PM

Yeah, sure. If they did that there'd be all manner of "commentary" from the HACKS alleging inhumane treatment. Then Amnesty International would come in, and...

NEWS HACKS CAN'T LOSE!

Hey LARRY and SERGEY! Where are my CAPTCHAS?

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

"America has changed. On the one hand, Americans don't have the stakes where their sons and daughters were subject to the draft. On the other, we have a media and a people that have been educated to believe in a precision, almost bloodless form of war."

Where were you during PAPA'S WAR, Tony?

RDFNM?

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Why do I think SUMNER'S EDWARD R. MURROWS OF COMEDY are in the end little different from "REAL" TV NEWS HACKS except for a joke and an attitude? That they get so much attention from the HACKS means nothing as their audience is still SMALL by TV standards, and when NEWS HACKS start obsessing over something you're best to STAY AWAY from it.

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

Oop, no little orange thingies on PINCH'S MOST E-MAILED LIST -- AGAIN!

OKNZXJRK!

Posted 6:15 AM by Gene

More mischief from the folks at Gallup:

Poll: Bush would lose an election if held this year

And this is purely mischief. In between their many greedy consulting jobs these pollsters must know Dubya isn't eligible for a third term. But such a poll with a wink and a nod serves the purpose of hammering OUR side into the public, never mind the nail's already been driven clean to China and we're bruised from all that banging.

YJPYHMDJ!

Posted 7:06 PM by Gene

© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Hey Carl Limburger, are you sure that should have run under a story regarding Al Franken's "latest hate-fest Bush-bashing book"?

BVPVVUPU?

Posted 7:03 PM by Gene

The federal government needs the public's trust to operate and businesses need the goodwill of customers, Kohut said.

SEZ WHO?

TYWOSU! (No Tywosu doesn't say anything.)

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

Juxtaposition of the Day, on IWantMedia.com:

The Growth Stocks of the Decade
SmartMoney.com
Yahoo, eBay and Google are "the growth stocks of the decade," writes James B. Stewart. "Yahoo has an array of content offerings that has made it the envy of nearly every media company." He adds: "The Internet revolution is going to be a multiyear phenomenon that's still in its infancy."

...which is three links above:

Media Habits May Lead to Over-Spending
FoxReno.com
Young people's increasing screen time -- Internet, television, cell phones -- impacts their spending habits, claims family finance expert Nathan Dungan. "Why else would Disney be introducing a cell phone for 6-year-olds? And the last time I checked, iPods weren't being sold at the dollar store."

XGEOT!

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

ST. WARREN'S NEW OMBUDSPERSON INTRODUCES HERSELF:

Journalists should think of readers as their friends. Because if we're not in this business to inform and help readers, we're not doing our jobs.

That's a noble thought, but we're inclined to believe NEWS HACKS view us at best as Silly Putty, to be molded in their grimy hands, and at worst, as ENEMIES whose raging philistinism keeps them from pursuing THE TRUTH. The day a JERNALIST calls you his FRIEND is the day you find your pockets picked.

RSDVQ!

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

The bad news:

BBC to compete with Al-Jazeera (home-page hed)

The good news:

The World Service says it will close 10 language services to fund the new station. BBC radio broadcasts in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, Slovene and Thai will cease by March next year.

Meaning many fewer listeners will have to endure the Beeb's fair, unbiased news.

We were about to say "compete" is the wrong word but certainly they will compete -- for PROPAGANDA VIDEOS.

SGGWWO!

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

And while CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES were all but high-fiving one another over the GRIM developments, one of the comedians managed to get in some of the REAL news of the day:

Stern Pranks Call Announcing Replacements

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO LARRY! (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!)

And a XURQHZW!

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES beam the word GRIM -- and plug ST. CINDY again.

Isn't having a joint venture with OSAMA enough?

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES SHAKE HANDS WITH AL-QAIDA!

Keep at it, Curl. You never know where THIS joint venture may lead you.

YMHZDQHP!

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

ANOTHER GLOWING ACHIEVEMENT FOR DER HOMELAND SECURITY:

San Diego airport's commuter terminal was evacuated on Tuesday after baggage screeners found what initially appeared to be bomb components but turned out to be a toy, security officials said.

FKREF!

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

Seven-year-olds, "counterterrorism experts," is there anything the semi-literate BOOK BIZ WON'T PRINT?

The seven-year-old stumped Robin Roberts. That may not be as a great an achievement as one may think.

The RIGHT-WING MODO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! calls the war in Iraq a "magnificent success," which should make the HACKS happy as it's PROOF OF FAILURE.

BookStandard.com is getting to be a better source of comedy than PLAYBILL.com!

RZTBD!

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

Ashlee Simpson No. 1: Evidence of World Ending

Actually I think she's behind some of these natural disasters myself.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Or rather, USGECA!

Is that a trade association dominated by G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE?

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

2,000!!!!!

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

BREAK OUT THE BUBBLY, CRETINOUS HACKS!

OEVGH!

(Which, in G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLESPEAK, means OI VEY!)

Posted 1:27 PM by Gene

With a face like that I might banish him to the basement too.

JQAOUHOM!

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

Military's Advice to Reporters: 2,000 Dead in Iraq 'Not a Milestone'

Reporters' response to military: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

FQOZD!

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

Dow 36,000's site links to this blog entry which has evidently stirred some discussion:

I'm all for blogs and blogging. (I'm writing this, ain't I?) But I'm not blind to the limitations and the flaws of the blogosphere - its superficiality, its emphasis on opinion over reporting, its echolalia, its tendency to reinforce rather than challenge ideological extremism and segregation. Now, all the same criticisms can (and should) be hurled at segments of the mainstream media. And yet, at its best, the mainstream media is able to do things that are different from - and, yes, more important than - what bloggers can do. Those despised "people in a back room" can fund in-depth reporting and research. They can underwrite projects that can take months or years to reach fruition - or that may fail altogether. They can hire and pay talented people who would not be able to survive as sole proprietors on the Internet. They can employ editors and proofreaders and other unsung protectors of quality work. They can place, with equal weight, opposing ideologies on the same page. Forced to choose between reading blogs and subscribing to, say, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Atlantic, and the Economist, I will choose the latter. I will take the professionals over the amateurs.

You also mean professionalism like this?

Martin Scorsese's classic mobster movie "Goodfellas" is the greatest film of all time, according to the experts at a British film magazine.

The 1990 film, based on the exploits of real life gangster Henry Hill, which starred Ray Liotta, Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci who won an Academy Award for his performance was No. 1 in a "Total Film" magazine poll published Monday.

"Goodfellas has it all story, dialogue, performances, technique," the magazine said.

Or maybe professionalism like THIS:

Madonna's new single, "Hung Up," will be featured next month on crossover episodes of CBS' "CSI: Miami" and "CSI: NY."

The song will be heard during the beginning of "CSI: Miami" on Nov. 7 and two days later on "CSI: NY," the network said Monday.

"Hung Up" is from her new album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," set for release Nov. 15.

Or maybe professionalism like Jayson's, or professionalism like our NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK award winners', or professionalism like the late Paul Krugman's, or maybe professionalism like the rampant GUSH that will spew when MR. 2-0-0-0 comes along.

But I don't want to be forced to make that choice.

Neither do I, but forced to choose between amateurs and THESE professionals, I take the AMATEURS.

TUBVZBU!

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

Google hires exec to lead China sales

Can we top JERRY?

With our STOCK PRICE we can!

KGDXQ!

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

NEWS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SESAME STREET:

A Turkish court has fined 20 people for using the letters Q and W on placards at a Kurdish new year celebration, under a law that bans use of characters not in the Turkish alphabet, rights campaigners said.

I'm for J myself.

PCGPVGOP! (Oh oh, is the CIA in MOUNTAIN VIEW turning REPUBLICAN???)

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

Two erstwhile loyalists have come out roaring against President George W. Bush this past week, attacking not just his conduct of the war in Iraq but the foundations of his foreign policy generally.

The critics are retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a longtime friend and former national security adviser of Bush's father, who attacks his targets in a profile by Jeffrey Goldberg in the latest issue of The New Yorker, and retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, another admirer of Bush Sr. and Colin Powell's former chief of staff, who launched his artillery in an Oct. 19 speech at the New America Foundation.

Just these two names conjure the sound of tongues licking boots.

ROVJZFL!

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

Go for it BILL! Achieve a TOTAL MONOPOLY IN COMPUTING! CREATE A ONE-COMPANY COMPUTING STATE!

CREATE THE SOVIET UNION OF HIGH-TECH!

IAGMJ!

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

Iraqis have ratified their new constitution, the results of a referendum showed on Tuesday.

Electoral Commission officials told a news conference 78 percent of voters backed the charter and 21 percent opposed it.

Well NEWS HACKS, celebrating HALF-A-LOAF (THE BIG 2-0-0-0!) is better than NONE.

MLGKC!

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

Shucks, the Dolans can't have a cable system for their personal plaything, like the Rigases. SVPEK!

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

It's a good thing Peter Carlson worked on this story of a gangsta rag or else it would have been FAVORABLE.

GKGQSC!

Yep, CAPTCHA's back on, having been mercifully off this morning. Another 10 points for G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE!

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Okay Ahmed, you got the video? GREAT. Just so long as none of US got killed. Next time though could you have the guys give you, like, more advance warning?

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

If we're going to call Condoleezza a honky let's have the guts to call her one. But that's one sure thing about the hacks -- they don't have them.

It's lockstep scribbling like this that transforms the Rosa Parks story into something worthy of STATE MEDIA.

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

Somehow we're not surprised to hear CURLEY's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES learned of that bombing in Baghdad ahead of time so they could tape it. Already their computers are full of celebrations of 2-0-0-0 -- another reason we cannot mention the HACKS without using words like GOEBBELS and PRAVDA in the same breath.

Never let it be said that these Islamists are savages, because we must never forget that one man's savage is another man's "freedom fighter."

Hey! You just uttered REUTERS's motto!

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

And speaking of Goebbels, the HACKS no doubt think they have a smoking gun, but if their own lives depended on smoking guns their bodies would be full of holes.

Posted 6:19 AM by Gene

Rosa Parks did a courageous and needed thing, but given today's Goebbels-like coverage (as it ALWAYS will be with the HACKS) we must wonder how many other true heroes stood out in the civil rights movement whom we'll never hear about because their names weren't sexy, and because they didn't get the hacks to thinking in the same way all at once.

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

Here's a site that purports to list splogs.

Many may be boring, and more may be asinine, but they AREN'T splogs (at least as I understand the term), which means G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE will use it as a BENCHMARK.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Haunting words from Jane Goodall:

I think we’re still in a muddle with our language, because once you get words and a spoken language it gets harder to communicate.

Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they’re equally as good at reconciliation. They make an appeasing gesture--reaching out a hand, crouching, giving little cries of fear or sadness. Then, very often, the aggressor will reach out and pat or reassure--offer an embrace or something like that--and the victim relaxes, and it is over.

When humans get these sudden outbursts of anger, we add words to the mix. And as you’ve probably experienced, it is much harder to forget a word than it is a slap. Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around. So even if you can make up, the words come back.

Even words like "twfee"?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

``It's tempting to think things are out of control or that it's a stock bubble,'' said Jim Friedland, analyst with SG Cowen in San Francisco.

KIDS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS!

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

The geeks of Slashdot discuss splogging:

Word verification is obsolete.

Programs have been written that can successfully decode capchas most of the time. It turns out not to be too hard to modify OCR programs to do this.

Word verification can be outsourced to third world countries at low cost.

Most cleverly, word verification can outsourced to users of your porno sites, who have to type in soneone else's capcha [SIC] to get free pictures.

All these approaches are in active use.

And we must confess we agree with this:

The trick is to figure out which are "splogs" and which are "real" blogs, because both are usually crap.

And something else: if pornsters and other spammers can goose G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,GLE, why not "legitimate" advertisers? How much of Google's gold-dollars-from-heaven wealth comes from schemes that may not exactly be -- KOSHER?

P. S. I wouldn't object so much to G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's @#$%&* WORD VERIFICATION if EVERYBODY had to do it.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Somehow I don't think having an expensive Star Wars exhibit in a scientific museum is going to stop the brain drain to Asia.

Tkwpyrr!

Posted 3:39 PM by Gene

Surprise: "movies" and video games have morphed into one, thus merging a stupid medium with an unwatchable one. hhkfxp!

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

If there's any consolation TULIPMANIA won't last forever. We forget PEOPLE WARNER was once worth OVER $350 BILLION. eBay was at about $60 at the start of the year, insuperable -- then it missed a target by a penny (or something) and the stock went to $32 in April and it hasn't fully recovered since; it's selling not too far above its high for 2000. We talk of BILL'S BUGDOM; from its idiotic height of $60 in 2000 it went straight to $20 in a year and it's barely budged out of a range since. Who can forget YAHOO!, which was almost as sexy as the CIA from MOUNTAIN VIEW? I wouldn't be surprised if this stock quadruples -- WALL STREET is capable of ANY EVIL -- but the first time it misses a target by so much as a micrometer the fans will head screaming for the exits. The one bothersome thing is that TULIPMANIA will become so absurdly priced it will make BILL'S BUGDOM look like a BARGAIN.

Posted 12:19 PM by Gene

THIS IS IT FOR G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE. NOW ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE THEIR LABELING ME AS A SPAM BLOG HAS CAUSED MY EVERY POST TO GET POSTED SLOWER. Tonight I'm signing up with someone else. I HAVE HAD IT WITH THEIR DEPTHLESS CONTEMPT FOR BLOGGERS. And with EVERY DOLLAR THEIR GODFORSAKEN STOCK GOES UP THERE'S ONE LESS REASON TO PAY ATTENTION TO US.

Posted 12:15 PM by Gene

Surprise! Vultures are using tax incentives to lure business out of New Orleans.

And this is precisely why we will always be afflicted with ENRONS, wlthsyb.

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

OH oh, Dubya wants The Onion to stop using the presidential seal.

I think Dubya has almost as non-existent a sense of humor as THE CIA OF MOUNTAIN VIEW, nbhpq.

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Bush expected to name Bernanke next Fed chief

Okay, what's wrong with THIS one?

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

Why G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE DOESN'T HAVE TO DO A THING ABOUT ITS PROBLEMS:

CURRENT MARKET CAP: $103 BILLION

TOTAL EMPLOYEES AS OF JUNE 30, 2005: 4,183

TOTAL MARKET CAP PER EMPLOYEE:
$24,623,476

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

Back during the Blogger slowdowns GOOG kept hitting new highs. Now that they've found a new nuisance GOOG's hitting new highs.

The CRETINS OF MOUNTAIN VIEW have discovered THE FINANCIAL FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH!

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

There is something awfully sad and strange about a culture in which teenage sex is condoned so long as it is "safe," while teenage smoking is denounced as categorically wrong. Sex has become a mere issue of health and the law, while morality is reserved for tobacco.

WHY?

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

HEY ZILLIONAIRE MORONS OF MOUNTAIN VIEW! IF I CHANGE THE NAME OF MY BLOG TO SPAM BLOG WILL YOU STOP BOTHERING ME?

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Blog this: U.S. workers in 2005 will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs.

Currently, the time employees spend reading non-work blogs is the quivalent of 2.3 million jobs.

About 35 million workers -- one in four people in the labor force -- visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis. Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. Forget lunch breaks -- bloggers essentially take a daily 40-minute blog break.

Either a lot of people waste a lot of time with blogs, or somebody wasted a lot time coming up with numbers saying a lot of people waste a lot of time with blogs.

Who's right?

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

When it comes to L'AFFAIRE WHO CARES I don't know who's worse: ROMY or THE CORNER.

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

Hey, you have two percent market share and who'll want to BOTHER with worms?

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

And if the news hacks want to score the WINNING TOUCHDOWN they'll run more stories of private misfortunes whose SOLE purpose is to unnerve the readership into a sense of helplessness, precisely the sort of strategy that allows the NEWS HACKS to run roughshod over them.

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

A brutal beating delivered last week to Anwar al Bounni, one of the few lawyers who dares to represent political prisoners before Syria's security court, indicates that after a brief "Damascus Spring," the administration of President Bashar Assad is cracking down on dissent.

The snow hasn't melted in Syria in DECADES.

Posted 6:34 AM by Gene

A two-part blog entry:

1. Penn, Teller and David Copperfield -- why don't you ALL make yourselves disappear? (But don't make anyone pregnant doing it, please.)

2. ELVIS, you wasted all that bootlicking just so you could be AWOL from a job making CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED junk movies? Where's the PAUL ATTANASIO in you?

Another TIMESREJECT.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

Nor are we surprised to learn that Little Boy Stephanopoulos and his bosses ran a SYNERGISTIC plug for a TV-movie on their "public-affairs" gabfest. If the HACKS really want to perform a public service this week, they'll run banner headlines over L'AFFAIRE WHO CARES while upping the promos. That way we get it from both ends.

IT'S TIME TO PUT MORE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS OUT OF BUSINESS!

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

If USAOKAY!!!!! went out of business tomorrow, would anybody miss it? Oh sure, the hotel chains, which hand out the free copies (wonder how THAT's counted in the paid circ?), but really, would people be forlorn that the rag and its honor boxes have left the scene?

Yes. PRESS AGENTS.

Posted 6:16 AM by Gene

If most businesses used movie-studio accounting only the bosses would get paid.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

With the grim milestone of the 2,000th U.S. military death looming in Iraq, many wonder about the direction of the insurgency that killed most of them.

Experts think the country's increasingly regional-oriented politics will fuel the insurgency and even spread it further inside Iraq. Others put forward a simple, disquieting scenario: So long as U.S. and other foreign troops remain in Iraq, the insurgency will continue.

Do the hacks put words like "grim" and "disquieting" in their typing because they mean them, or because they're expected to? It's almost as if they're engaged in the written equivalent of bad acting. In truth there will be quiet (but outwardly noisy) celebrations in the luxury news suites when we hit the 2-0-0-0; it doesn't do the hacks any good to pretend they're disquieted by the news, as an Iraqi loss means in their highly cosseted way of thinking a DEMOCRATIC -- and NEWS HACK -- WIN. But think the last time the NEWS HACKS WON BIG. When they win, THE PUBLIC LOSES.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

I've never taken a patent for my work. It's against my values. Ideas should build on each other. So many horrible patents have been issued in the last few years. You can't take it with you.

Fine. So why did you boast your $10,000 investment in some clunky (and highly-patented) algorithms will be worth $40 MILLION?

Speaking of algorithms, Jason's CAPTCHAs seem to have vanished for now. I'm not holding my breath they won't return.

Where do all these geeks get the idea they're SMART?

Posted 4:30 PM by Gene

One of DOW 36,000's gang comes up with A BRILLIANT SUGGESTION:

Rather than attack the white wires, how about trying to put some real music back into city daylife? More looking each other in the eye, more conversations with strangers, more humane streets and transport systems, better jobs to go to. Streets shouldn't wear us out: they should enliven us and put a spring in our step. People will take off their pods when there's something worth listening to.

Why do people bother writing things like this? It's like saying you're opposed to mom, apple pie and the flag. People want to seal themselves up in their little holes, with the Web connections and their iPods, and when they're sealed they tend to stay sealed.

Posted 2:39 PM by Gene

The more NEWS HACKS stare at their navels about Judith (AGAIN?) MILLER, the more they seem to turn out pieces of -- JUNK like THIS.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO MIKE CIDONI!

Why stop at 25 years indeed? THE AP's been SPINNING AND SELLING THE NEWS SINCE 1848!

Posted 2:15 PM by Gene

AND SPECIAL THANKS TO MARK "THE HONEST BILLIONAIRE" CUBAN FOR FORCING CAPTCHAS ON US.

JACKASS.

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

An outdoor sign firm -- engaged in BRIBERY?

Who'da thunk it?

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

A Democrat on the Senate committee that will consider Harriet Miers' nomination said Sunday that President Bush's Supreme Court choice lacks the votes now to be confirmed, saying there are too many questions about her qualifications.

"If you held the vote today, she would not get a majority either in the Judiciary Committee or the floor," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York. On the 18-member GOP-controlled committee, "there are one or two who said they'd support her as of now."

Next time, Dub, have PRESIDENT ROVE choose!

Posted 12:55 PM by Gene

And speaking of which, ANOTHER TREMENDOUS WEEKEND FOR THE BEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOOH!

And the REUT commits some cleverness with numbers:

In the limited-release world, the best performer was "Shopgirl," a romance starring Claire Danes and Steve Martin. The Walt Disney Co. release earned $29,500 from just eight theaters in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto; it will be in 20 additional markets by November 4.

In the world of the REUT, where TERRORISTS are FREEDOM FIGHTERS, we must now presume that PER-SCREEN AVERAGES are TOTAL EARNINGS. Maybe this is just somebody's itchy trigger fingers itching too much, but how can we trust any NEWS HACK on any ENTERTAINMENT NUMBER CRUNCHING?

Posted 12:21 PM by Gene

WHY DOES THE CONSPIRACY WANT TO INFLICT US WITH NICOLAS CAGE'S FACE?

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

Great: Geeks think up a new way of setting fires.

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

Duhhhhhhhhhhhhh, my name is Dr. Hugh Cort III and I'm running for president, duhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

AMEND THE CONSTITUTION! DUBYA FOR A THIRD TERM!

Thanks for the ad in WashingtonTimes.com! We'd NEVER have heard of you!

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Meanwhile, in the strange world of satellite radio:

As Howard Stern has geared up for his January arrival at Sirius Satellite Radio, so have efforts to woo advertisers to his show.

One published report [probably in THE NEW YORK POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --ED.] has Sirius charging $20,000 for a live read by Stern, the same price he currently commands for his terrestrial radio show that attracts 7 million listeners a week.

Just ONE PROBLEM:

However, if every Sirius subscriber tunes to Stern in January, he'll have less than half that many listeners.

And there's ANOTHER PROBLEM:

[Some hedge fund manager named Cody] Willard said sat radio, with its 7.2-million user reach, already has got the attention of advertisers but predicted that the ad money won't start flowing in earnest for another three years or so. By then, though, the demographic of Sirius and XM's listeners might not be quite as appealing to certain advertisers.

"Currently, sat radio's primary subscriber base is very high net worth, young, early-adopting consumers and businesses," he said. "That will change as it becomes increasingly mainstream."

In other words, it'll be JUST LIKE CHEAP CHANNEL.

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

We’re surprised Jed of the Broadway theater oligopoly didn’t trot out the AMERICAN PEEPUL biz in defending higher ticket prices, like that politician Larry in Boston. We will confess to being frustrated by stories like this, for a small part of us yearns to see live entertainment, and that is increasingly a thing only for the rich, unless you want to be greatly inconvenienced with SRO or having to camp out weeks in advance to get cheap tickets. That said, our consolation is this is not an age of O’Neill and Williams and Maxwell Anderson and Kaufman and Hart and Gershwin and Berlin and R&H and Porter, just labor-intensive THEME PARKS.

And how to know a man may be up to something:

Four out of five shows fail to recover costs, according to Mr. Bernstein.

When an industry makes money hand over fist its chief lobbyist ALWAYS pleads POVERTY. Although we will say given some of this industry's masterworks we ALMOST believe him.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

SUPERB NEWS, which the HACKS can IGNORE:

Saudi Oil Income to Reach $163 Bln; Most in 22 Years

That's a lot of MARTYRDOM OPERATIONS to finance.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

Tech Firm Accused of Overcharging Taxpayers

We were hoping when we saw this it might be a FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE like BUGMEISTER BILL, or MIKE "FORE!" DELL. Unfortunately, it's only Unisys, a company that's near going broke anyway.

We wonder when G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE will start taking advantage of THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER.

P. S. THE IDIOTS AT MOUNTAIN VIEW HAVE PUT WORD VERIFICATION BACK FOR MY POSTS. They must be thinking, if we got to $340 doing THAT....

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

AMERICANS TUNING OUT MUSIC DOWNLOADS

So where are all those iPods going?

The GOOD news:

"Weekly digital-downloads have not increased rapidly throughout 2005," wrote Greenfield, who questioned whether the current rate of digital sales growth will be enough to offset music's still-declining physical sales.

EXCELLENT! Anything that'll do in the RECORDED...SOUND BIZ!

We may wonder too how enthusiastic the turni -- PUBLIC will be toward schemes like VOD.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

YAHOO! is being EXTREMELY HELPFUL this morning by putting THIS on its HOME PAGE:

Study Refutes Soft Drinks' Impact on Kids' Obesity

SIXTH GRAF:

The study appeared in the October issue of Risk Analysis, and was funded by the American Beverage Association.

Thanks a LOT, guys!

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

And all PEOPLE NEWSMAGAZINE can muster is something about how the Pope is turning out to be a NAZI after all. Guess you can't put THAT on the cover. Hey KING RICHARD! Where's Your PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE when You need it?

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Shucks, we hoped for SOMETHING from MR. MARK, but helping choose those 40 GREATEST COVERS OF THE MILLENNIUM must have TIRED HIM OUT. BIRD FLU just won't cut it. God knows we wanted to do SOMETHING with L'AFFAIRE WHO CARES, something more than a COVER SQUIB, but that might have tested our readers' patience, not that they READ the rag anyway. Oh well, better luck next week, when maybe VICE-PRESIDENT BIGOIL will RESIGN -- or maybe WE CAN RUN ANOTHER MOVIE PLUG!