Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

Saturday, September 03, 2005


Qatar offers $100M in hurricane aid

Given that Qatar offers THE OSAMA CHANNEL it's the LEAST it can do.


THE TWXSTERS' COVER HERO FORCES A WHITE HOUSE MEETING ON RACISM!!!!!

Sort of.

Cummings said that while the race issue was discussed, the issue consumed only about seven minutes of the two-hour meeting.

In the Beltway, that qualifies as the beginning of maturity.


Chertoff: Katrina scenario did not exist

That comes from years of obsessing over COLOR CODES.


Ah-NULT may RAISE TAXES!

There goes THAT hero.


NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! finds another con-SER-va-tive CAUSE:

Al Sharpton: Looters Were Angry Taxpayers

Hey JONAH! Think we can run THIS football in for a TOUCHDOWN?


It appears the New Orleans crime wave is thankfully over -- and they're finally fighting the fires there too.

This will sound really boneheaded, but don't you think someone could have found a use for all that WATER?


More clear writing from the nation's CRUSADING PRESS:

Hundreds of newly arrived National Guard troops patrolled the lawless streets of New Orleans yesterday, beginning the task of wresting control from thugs and looters and restoring order in a city that had all but surrendered to death and disorder after Hurricane Katrina. Their numbers were unknown, but the head of the city's emergency services said there were only about a thousand, far fewer than needed.

"Their," of course, refers to the "National Guard troops"; but with the lazy construction of this graf it could just as well describe the "thugs and looters," of whom a thousand probably would be far fewer than needed.




Here's a pic the HACKS can play up: a soldier "pointing" his armament at the BLACK kid -- only he's not pointing at the kid (he's standing a few feet off), and the kid is minding his business; but if the last several years have taught us something it's the HACKS are capable of ANYTHING.


Water continues to recede, Corps officials say

Water continued to recede from New Orleans into Lake Pontchartrain Saturday morning, Major Gen. Don Riley of the Army Corps of Engineers told CNN. “Water is flowing out of the city into the lake...The lake levels are about a foot below what’s in the city,” he said.

The Corps of Engineers continues to bring in generators to operate the city’s drainage pumps, Riley said. We’re also tapping into the natural gas lines in the city...to run some of the pumps."


You mean it might NOT take TEN YEARS to dry it out?


This informative Q&A pretty well sums up what happened: EVERYONE screwed up. But note this question:

Q: Why did the levees fail?

A: While there has been discussion about Washington under-funding corps requests for levee improvements, the 17th Street levee that broke had recently been upgraded with concrete walls on the top.


So maybe Dubya WASN'T ENTIRELY to blame for that.


SHUCKS:

By yesterday, as gas prices exceeded $3 a gallon in many areas, images of motorists waiting in line to buy gas conjured memories for many adults of the worst times in the 1970s, when sharp reductions in oil supplies helped send inflation and interest rates soaring, contributing to deep recessions.

Forecasters do not foresee a replay of such turmoil today, largely because the economy is much more energy-efficient than three decades ago, and is based more on providing services and less on manufacturing products. The country requires half as much oil to produce a dollar's worth of output as it did in the 1970s.


This was far down in the story. I increasingly question the purpose of the hacks. We can often guess the outcome of news events for ourselves. Moreover, there are only so many variations of people suffering. With every passing day the HACKS' myopia becomes so pronounced they're making US blind.


Why we DESPERATELY need NEWS HACKS -- and ESPECIALLY CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES:

Jobless Rate in Gulf Coast Likely to Surge


Shameful: Only 25 Nations Offer Help to the U.S.

Oh for God's sake, STOGIE, er STOGEL, we're rich enough to help ourselves. The rest of the world knows it. If anything it should be a mark of pride that we needn't be a basket case for anyone else.


The question is, do we build up to the shoreline again, so that all sorts of expensive houses can get ripped up -- AGAIN?

One other thing: we spotted the other day that Cokie Roberts's family lost its estate, with eleven houses. This is quite sad, but should GUVMENT pay for these very rich people's loss?


Alas, the screaming has started:

In a statement, NBC said, "Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks.

"It would be most unfortunate," the statement continued,
[this is Little Jeffy talking -- not that he knew, or would have cared -- ED.] "if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion."

But isn't that the point, GE Bancorp -- to let the world know how wonderful we are and to broadcast to the world WE ARE THE SENTINELS OF TRUTH?



"IT'S JUST A MAN-MADE DISEASE IN THE FIRST PLACE THAT WAS PLACED IN AFRICA JUST LIKE CRACK WAS PLACED IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY TO BREAK UP THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, I think we know why all those IDIOT AD-BLURB COPYWRITERS ADORE YOU.


We're not at normal -- it will be some time before we get there -- but at least we're pulling quickly away from abnormal.

Now -- when do the NEWS HACKS more vigorously turn this into a Jim-and-Bob-screaming-meemie-Battle-of-the-Teeny-Tiny-Pigmies rage fest?

Friday, September 02, 2005


Wanna bet today -- at this very moment -- some IDIOT NEWS ORGANIZATION is doing a POLL?


This should help:

Entergy Corp., Louisiana's largest utility, has restored electricity to a majority of the refineries that lost power after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.

Hey con-SERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-va-tives! BloomyLite has GREAT news for you!

The profit margin for turning a barrel of crude oil into gasoline and heating oil is $22.849, based on futures prices in New York. That has almost doubled from Aug. 26 and is almost four times higher than a year ago.

This isn't price gouging! It's FREE ENTERPRISE.


If the HACKS are doing such a BRILLIANT job covering this disaster why is it nearly every dispatch is from CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES?


Memphis takes in refugees.

There's another kind of New Orleans. How many such poor tourist traps ARE there in the south?


Here's predicting that, rather than killing off New Orleans, the dread hurricane causes its RENDELLIFICATION! Consider: most of the poor people in town have left. Many will not come back. Most of the more affluent people will -- and they may buy up adjacent properties and extend their own reach! Plus the Saints will soon be screaming for a new stadium -- there's a $5 billion playpen for the RICH! And we can get more casinos in! There's the ticket to prosperity! Maybe turn the French Quarter into even more of a theme park! Plus if he's shrewd (not likely) Mayor Noggin can sell the town as the Riviera of America! And the best thing is, the poor will be poorer and more marginalized than ever! But hey, they can work in the casinos. Go for it, New Orleans! GET RENDELLIFIED!

I figure this isn't any more stupid than what OTHER people have said.


The cavalry arrives -- about four days too late.

"Thank you, Jesus!"

And a big AMEN to that one, even if His help came four days late.


And if Gordon Russell of the Times-Picayune is right, some tiny bit of order IS returning.

There are SOME people who work in this business, and most are in the vicinity of NOLA.COM!


Economically speaking, Katrina is no 9/11. It may be much worse.

TRANSLATION: Danny hasn't budged from his office since he started writing for TOENAIL.COM.


USAOKAY's getting into TELEVISION!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Question: how will we tell the commercials from the COMMERCIALS?


Here's one pundit who's impressed with the response -- and we should be impressed with HIM because he's a "senior fellow in national-security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council [AND] a trustee for the Leaders for Liberty Foundation":

The New York Times has called the military response “a costly game of catch up.” Catching up compared to what, one wonders. National Guard units were mobilized immediately; 7,500 troops from four states were on the ground within 24 hours of Katrina — a commendable response given the disruptions to the transportation infrastructure.

Don't you love crystal-clear writing? Within 24 hours of what? Of the Weather Service spotting it? Of landfall? If it's landfall that's disaster -- it should be obvious even to an NRO writer what a hurricane can do in 12 hours. THE PAPER OF RE-CORD is RIGHT. Let's end these costly catch-up games with A PERMANENT HURRICANE CORPS.

P. S.

A disaster of this magnitude is certain to be politicized....

That is true; we've had faint inklings of it. But the other side can politicize it too, especially in a not-too-carefully disguised attempt to defend THE MISSING PRESIDENT.

Hell, even HE doesn't like it.


No, let's put it more bluntly: this story's becoming SUPERDOME AND $3 GAS. NEWS HACKS! COME OUT FROM YOUR HUGE SALARIES!!


KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!



Vietnam Marks 60 Years of Independence

Communism? Wal-Mart? INDEPENDENCE?


The SENIOR CLUNKER BROTHER, which doesn't know what a COMPUTER is, let alone the WEB (although they have these big things for crunching employee discounts and PENSIONS) does some MARKETING:

In the Impala campaign, the brand's digitally embedded logo will appear for roughly eight seconds in the background of the CBS shows.

Hey CLUNKER BROTHER! I've got an idea: why don't you put BUGS on the screen? You know, for TIVO? That would REALLY goose sales!

TiVo? That's a high-tech video recorder. WHATS A VIDEO RECORDER?!? Never mind.


Indeed it now seems the HACKS are pulling the same gag down south they're pulling in Iraq -- not for politicial reasons, yet; they're merely displaying the kind of smug misanthropy rip-roaringly celebrated in pieces of "comedy" junk like The Front Page before knee-jerk liberalism gave it that extra added spice of poison.

We do agree, Bob: "The Front Page is the play that never ends."

I wonder too if we're beginning to see the kind of SMIRKY SMILE the hacks shone on us during the LALA -- REBELLION.


And to the dimwits in GUVMENT, you had a few days to prepare for this. Longer -- I have seen no fewer than three stories prophesying the misfortune. Here's a suggestion: have a permanent gaggle of National Guard and other soldiers and relief workers on call during the hurricane season, from Massachusetts to Texas, and put them into position BEFORE LANDFALL. This may entail spreading out the bases of operations and some needless moving back and forth, but chances are they'd be in place when the big one hits, and there'd be less talk of disorder and inefficiency. But no, you CLOWNS will do things the usual way -- under your desks.


Indeed we wonder how miraculous the hacks' coverage is as they make us forget this disaster ruined parts of three states, not one; and though raging crowds and the occasional telegenic corpse floating in the water may get our competitive juices flowing (and New Orleans's troubles were all but inevitable given its horrid poverty) we note that much progress has occured in bringing utilites back, and the oil business is on its way to recovery; we should not be surprised if even the Underwater City gets some small amount of electricity by next week. All in all, preeners, you aren't THAT good.


PAT YOURSELVES ON THE BACK FOR A JOB WELL DONE!!!!!

So what? Misery loves company, and news hacks love misery. Among the photogenic stories there's surely been a LOT of filler and speculation and HUMBUG. And once this disaster abates (sorry hacks, it WILL), it's back to the old spinning and selling, and the blip of good reputation disappears off the radar screen -- until the next attack of MISERY.

Thursday, September 01, 2005


"Flood control has been a priority of this administration from Day One," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

BRING BACK ARI FLEISCHER!


Pentagon Finds More Who Recall Atta Intel

When do we finally get a quorum?


Stupid:

Gap Closes Two Popular Internet Stores

Why do you shut down a link to your customers -- especially when they're more likely than others to shop on the Web?


We hope the Times-Picayune does not mind our posting this in full:

500 eggs, 60 men in blue

Thursday, 4:25 p.m.

By Eva Jacob Barkoff
Staff writer

NEW IBERIA -- Around 5 a.m. today, Mary Tripeaux received a call that members of a search-and rescue-team from Phoenix, Ariz., were on their way for breakfast at Victor's Cafeteria on Main Street. Soon the crew arrived and filled themselves with coffee, grits, biscuits, bacon, potatoes and sausage -- and more than 500 eggs.

"There are 180 eggs in one case and we went through at least three cases," Tripeaux said. "And by around 9 a.m., we had run out of sausage. They had eaten it all."

After breakfast, about 60 men in blue uniforms from Phoenix's Urban Search and Rescue Team held a meeting under a gazebo across from Victor's to go over final details of their mission. They wouldn't discuss details with a reporter.

The men had arrived in several trucks and two 18-wheelers filled with equipment. Also along were three Labrador retrievers.

"We have a lot of equipment here to try and do what we can to help," one of the men said.

Before leaving for New Orleans, he reflected on breakfast at Victor's and concluded: "That was the best meal we have had in 48 hours."


P. S.: Electricity slowly coming back in southern Mississippi -- and the world's biggest guitar still stands.


We may wonder why anyone would bother subscribing to The Econowiz at $500 per annum (or whatever it is) when it calls the increasingly festering Mayor Daley "hugely successful." I suppose hugely successful is defined as not posing with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. It may also be defined by having built such monuments to civic vanity as the Millennium Park and Spaceship, er, Soldier Field. Success isn't measured by losing jobs and corporate headquarters like Sears's. No, we suspect his "success" as measured by a VERY CW publication is EDDIE's, who made Philly feel good as the city got it bad.

But we forget, all those CEOs don't READ The Econowiz, they boast of it and Bill Gates and themselves in the same breath, while whapping their underlings with it.

P. S. I now discover The Chicago Ebert ran a FIVE-PART SERIES on its FAVORITE MOVIE, which means here's another town deserving ONE NEWSPAPER -- if THAT many.


THE PAPER OF RE-CORD touts a FEARLESS, HILARIOUS COMEDY about TERRORISM:

While the script's heroes are ostensibly out to kill and paralyze Americans with fear, the running joke of "The Cell" is that they quickly fall in love with Americans and Americana. They order Domino's Pizza and heat up Hot Pockets, and get weak-kneed over super-sizes and double coupons and sexy college women. They become Chicago Cubs fans - these are hapless terrorists, after all - and derive their cultural literacy straight from television and the movies: their secret password is "Kelly Ripa."

...so why does it sound like the SAME OLD SAME OLD?


The Invisible President of the White House says we should rebuild New Orleans. The President of the House says we shouldn't.

No wonder GUVMENT'S going in circles.


P. S. BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH:

Hastert's press secretary, Ron Bonjean, said Hastert was not suggesting New Orleans should be abandoned or relocated. "The speaker believes that we should have a discussion about how best to rebuild New Orleans so as to protect its citizens," he said. "What he is saying is that rebuilding the city in the same way is not sensible."

We do not forget his predecessor now serves for THE CONSPIRACY, so we know how much truth there is to HIS words.


Congress is about to proclaim how awful this tragedy is, and write a few bills, and spend a few billions of which much will be wasted.

I repeat, they don't need money so much as machines to unflood the flooded zone and the men to rebuild it. Giving money by the billions is a guarantee of corruption, especially in a state as morally incontinent as Lousiana.


And further on the subject of DR. EVIL, some multi-millionaire hack named FINEMAN is IMPRESSED by His ANALOGIES.

I suppose if somebody invented an animal out of thin air I'd be impressed by him to.

Howie, why don't you do some reporting. It would be your first in decades.


With a few changes of words this piece of -- typing could justify cigarette smoking. This is precisely the too-clever-by-half stuff that makes conservatives look like greedy calculating ogres, and it is not surprising that it was co-authored by someone whose only life experience is in the fantasy world of sociology.

By the way John, everybody in New Orleans seems to have a gun. Isn't that GOOD NEWS?

P. S. Sorry for the previous wrong link, if anyone cares.


This is what I love about MARKETWATCH (aka DOW JONES' THIRD-RATE WEB SITE FOR CHEAP SLOBS WHO CAN'T AFFORD THE WALL STREET JOURNALS ONLINE): it will run a hed like this:

Wall St. in retreat

...at the very moment the market's going up.


I wish there were an alternative to blogging. It is bad enough typing into the ether; it is worse making a fool of yourself doing so. Plus these last few days it's done no good for my nerves. I think we all need a punching bag on occasion, but the problem with blogging is that sometimes you aim the punches below your own belt.


We must not forget, one reason this is worse than it should be is that New Orleans and Biloxi are not exactly teeming with millionaires; after all, both cities have CASINOS, the panaceas of dirt-poor towns.


"I guess when you've served almost 39 years, a ring-tailed orangutan can be called a legend," [DR. EVIL] said.

WELL PUT!

The attitude embodied by the continued oohing and aahing of "A RING-TAILED ORANGUTAN" is why WASHINGTON CANNOT AND WILL NOT HELP THE HURRICANE VICTIMS.


And count on the "ring-tailed orangutan" of the Beltway not to know what the hell he's talking about; there IS no such creature. There is, however, a ring-tailed lemur, but when we think of DR. EVIL we're more in mind of CROCODILES, or SCORPIONS -- OR VIPERS.


Speaking of, the UNIONS in Boston are in a FURY that the company would even THINK of opening there.

I'm not crazy about Wal-Mart either, but I'm not crazy about pouting intransigents who'd hold back needed retailers -- meaning YOU.


I am tired of the all-enveloping aura of doom, gloom and despair. To be sure, I wrongly made light of this disaster early on thinking it little more than wind and a very heavy rain, but now we're the exact oppoisite of cockiness: a PARALYSIS seems to have gripped America; we can't do ANYTHING about this because the problem is INSUPERABLE!!!!! Doesn't anybody remember our HISTORY? Why are people sitting around feeling sorry for themselves? And GUVMENT isn't helping at all because you figure at this point the chief incompetents are merely devising new organization charts. If this is our national attitude maybe the terrorists of 9/11 were right -- we're nothing but MARSHMALLOW INSIDE. It is up to the strong and the brave to prove them wrong.

I've been thinking of contributing my two cents to the relief, but what the people down south need right now is MANPOWER, and MACHINES. That's something only GUVMENT can do.

WAL-MART's reopening.


Here is why Gov. Babbler and Mayor Noggin are flooded over: as I've said before, most mu-ni-CI-pal authority roles are largely ceremonial, going to town meetings and lavish banquets and generally making an amiable fool of yourself; but when something HAPPENS and the people need LEADERSHIP, these handshakers have nothing to fall back on, so they all but have a nervous breakdown like Gov. Babbler, or they take two days to decide maybe looting's not such a good thing, like Mayor Noggin. Given that transparent ectoplasm in the mansion on Pennsylvania Ave. it's a wonder America doesn't fall apart -- or isn't sacked TOTALLY.

P. S. I looked up Mayor Noggin's last name in Google Images and the first entry in was this. I must bookmark it. (But beware the pop-ups.)

P. P. S. Tearing myself away from this beauty I find Mayor Noggin was a NEW DEM OF THE WEEK:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin unveiled a plan last fall to fully reinvent the city's Office of Workforce Development. With newfound purpose and well-defined goals, the new program -- renamed Job 1 -- has since become a top priority of the mayor's office. It aims to help workers better market themselves, respond to the need of small businesses, and develop a strong, stable, and educated workforce for the future. Nagin is confident that Job 1 will create new opportunities not only for individuals and businesses, but ultimately, for the entire local economy.

"We are offering new strategic solutions on how to deal with and tackle old problems." Nagin said. "This is a comprehensive approach to strengthening our workforce."


Comprehensive approach, all right.


It is a measure of how power-packed entertainment is that someone can make a brief thing of how Paul Lynde died twenty-three years after the fact. We can understand how such flamboyant gays can make enemies, especially with a Liz, who wanted all the flamboyance for herself. Oh well, we liked him, and but for such memories we'd collectively have nothing.


'PRESIDENT RUDY' DECISION ON HOLD

But not for long with an INVISIBLE PRESIDENT blending in with the White House.




Happily, the people disorganizing the relief efforts have their PRIORITIES straight. (See upper-right-hand corner, please.)


Draining the billions of gallons of water that have inundated New Orleans could take three to six months, substantially longer than some experts have expected, the Army Corps of Engineers said late Wednesday.

Col. Richard Wagenaar, the corps' senior official in New Orleans, said that the estimate was based on planning done as Hurricane Katrina approached and that it remained the corps' best estimate. He is directing the agency's recovery efforts.


Did he have any experience with the NEW YORK SUBWAY SYSTEM?

Public officials, meanwhile, were furious over the corps' delays. Mayor C. Ray Nagin blistered officials on television for what he called their inaction. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco scowled in irritation, saying, "I'm extremely upset about it."

So let's scream and cry some more, and say our city's dead. YOU haven't shown the world such a great face YOURSELF, GOV. BABBLER.


Signs of Israeli Diplomatic Thaw with Muslim World

Maybe that unilateral withdrawal is starting to pay off -- but now it's the MUSLIM WORLD's turn.

I'd say things are more hopeful in the Mid-East than in NAWLANS, which says a lot about US.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005


Schwarzenegger's hints fuel expectation he'll run for re-election

Will he announce it on Letterman? Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!


Get ready and ROLL YOUR EYES AGAIN:

"We have people on the platform and working to restore communication right now," said Mark Bugg, scheduling manager at New Orleans-based Loop LLC, the port operator. "A tanker may dock this afternoon and possibly offload by this evening."

The oil port stopped unloading tankers on Aug. 27 as Kristina
[SIC!!!!!] approached. Port Fourchon in Louisiana, a staging area for workers who staff Gulf oil and natural-gas production platforms, opened this morning after damage was cleared.

Kerr-McGee Corp. said today that most of its facilities avoided serious damage and 55,000 barrels of daily oil and gas production was restored at production platforms....

Traders are watching the Colonial Pipeline, the world's biggest network of petroleum-product pipelines, which carries gasoline and distillate fuels from Houston to New York harbor. Colonial Pipeline Co., owner of the network, said today two lines shut on Aug. 29 because of power failures will be started this weekend. Distillates include heating oil and diesel....

"The biggest issue is getting power to these facilities," said Chris Ovrebo, a broker with FC Stone LLC in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. "Most of these refineries didn't sustain heavy damage," he said. "It's not going to take them six months to get back on line."


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!


Newly decoded, chimp DNA holds promise for humans

Finally we can be smarter than apes.


"IT WILL TAKE FIVE YEARS TO FIX THE SUBWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

SHUT UP, ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Get ready and ROLL YOUR EYES:

There's a "surfeit of worry over gasoline supplies to much of the U.S. and gasoline prices have acted accordingly," said John Kilduff, an analyst at Fimat USA....

And "$4 gasoline will likely be visited upon consumers in many areas," he said....

There's a "huge crisis in gasoline -- our worst fears are recognized," said John Person, president of National Futures Advisory Service.

Near term, he believes prices at the pump may reach $3 -- "possibly as high as $3.20 as a national average as early as late next week," he said.

But in late September, he sees prices backing down toward $2.35 to $2.50 for regular unleaded "as long as these refineries get on-line and we do not have further disruptions," he said.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!


And how many months do you suppose it will take for GUVMENT to get its REAR in GEAR?


Forecasters at Economy.com, a West Chester, Pa., firm, says Katrina will create a modest drag on the economy in the third quarter and give it a modest kick in the fourth quarter due to reconstruction.

We need the HUMUNGOUS INFORMATIVE POWER of the WEB to tell us THIS?

This is going to be an EXASPERATING next two weeks. Beyond the press's CRYING JAG and all sorts of pundits RESTATING THE OBVIOUS our NATIONAL SANITY is at stake.


Here's a story to shake the HACKS out of their MOURNING:

FDA Official Resigns In Protest Of Morning-After Pill Decision

Now maybe we can get back to telling people how to think!


ROMY GOES ON THE WARPA -- ROMY GETS MAD!

Letters: WHY DO BLACKS "LOOT" AND WHITES "FIND" GROCERIES??????????

AND….

NPR OMBUD GETS COMPLAINTS AFTER GOLDBERG FILLS IN FOR SCHORR!!!!!!!!!!


Hey ROM, after about another week of KATRINA KILLED AMERICA people might START to get slightly MAD at YOU.


WHEN WILL THEY LEARN?!?!?

Today's Doonesbury: All hole and no donut [SIC].


I had not mentioned Jude Wanniski, one of these idiot public-policy savants known largely in the Beltway and little else, but he was proof everyone in Washington has a price, and Louis Farrakhan paid it.


It's THE CORNER, and a BIG FAN of John "The Acquitted Killer" Landis, but even SHE can have a point:

RE: GOVERNORS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Readers watching more of her are critical:

Sorry, but I ain’t buying it. This woman is lost and looks lost. She may have won the election but she has no business being in charge of anything. Watching her on TV the last two days has made this pretty clear. Now is not the time to be sobbing. She sure as hell should not be doing it on the tube in front of her fellow citizens – the ones looking to her for leadership.

Compare her performance to Barbour in MS. You just know his state will come at way ahead of her state when it is all said and done.

Posted at 10:10 AM


I have NOT watched television, but I have read of the gov's oh-woe-is-me-the-sky-is-falling-our-state-has-died routine, and I've had it too.


It's amazing how the same HACKS who want to stomp our morale into the ground pound their feet and scream and yell, "MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!" This article throws down the gauntlet: there will be some high-pressure sales pitches this fall, and lots of raves, because MOVIEMAKERS are the HACKS' BRETHREN, and we must NEVER see them fail, regardless of what happens to THE PEOPLE.


How the future ONE-COMPANY STATE helps America:

Trucks use too much fuel per mile, and with traffic congestion growing, they will operate even more inefficiently as time passes (bumper-to-bumper driving guzzles fuel). The demand for diesel fuel for trucks is placing extreme pressure on refined fuel stocks, which helps push the rise in fuel prices and increases cause for concern each passing day.

We are, in the foreseeable future, stuck with this gross use of nearly 40 quadrillion British Thermal Units of petroleum derived energy per year.

Railroads aren't a viable alternative. U.S. commercial railroad capacity is stretched: We continue to lose rail track, hubs like Chicago and Kansas City don't have contemporary technology, and, whereas in 1975 there were 76 major railroad companies there are now six....


Hundreds reported killed in Iraq stampede

1. Do the news-hack math: that's equal to ten Americans. 2. Did WE do this too?

Tuesday, August 30, 2005


Ban on extreme internet porn

Like it or not, the "PRUDES" are getting louder -- because SOCIETY FORCES THEM TO.


The Indianapolis Colts, city and state negotiators apparently are ready to announce a lease agreement today, a major step toward building a new football stadium Downtown.

Ka-CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P. S. When do the SAINTS start the "negotiations"?


Mark Steyn has a thought or three:

[T]he real test of this hurricane is whether, after the event, there's still the will to tackle the long-term questions. For example, as further refutation of the Diamond thesis, in 1981 America had 315 oil refineries in operation; today, it has 144.

Louisiana has 17 of them, operating - pre-hurricane - at capacity. Which is why petrol will be up 20 cents a gallon by the weekend. Why, in the middle of a war centred on unstable foreign oil regimes in the Middle East, is it still politically impossible to upgrade the capacity of the domestic oil industry?

As the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina demonstrate, mankind has got very good at responding to acts of God. We're not so hot at responding to the acts (political and cultural) of man.


SAT math scores hit record high

How often has this holy grail of testing been tweaked so that we cannot be believe one word of that, and behind the news lies the suspicion that more kids are testing for the test?




For some reason I am forcibly reminded of Mencken's story in one of his memoirs about how he achieved manhood covering the now forgotten Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, an event so CATACLYSMIC the city's mayor may have killed himself. The city rebuilt, just as Frisco rebuilt from the far worse earthquake two years later. So will Nawlans.

Haven't we had enough tub-thumping doom and gloom for the day?


Whatever happened to the Asian tsunami?


Yesterday I rolled my eyeballs because everybody had CATASTROPHE on his lips. Well wouldn't you know, the head of FEMA used it, although in this case it might be justified because of the famous botch his agency's made of disaster relief in the past. CATASTROPHE implies something so overwhelming as to be unrecoverable. People died, yes, and a few buildings collapsed, but within weeks the recovery will be full bore (unless of course GOVERNMENT AGENCIES and GREEDY BUSINESSMEN interfere), and God knows more than several of the devastated neighborhoods could BENEFIT from rebuilding. Certainly the swiftness of the evacuation was enough to restore one's faith in government, and without that we WOULD have said CATASTROPHE.

Indeed the LAST thing we need is people moping and declaring how irremediably BAD the situation is because that gets people thinking they're beyond help.


Well, back to the more PRESSING business, HACKS:

Study: Few Gay Characters in New TV Season

And since most would be swishy or weepy that may not be a bad thing.

Monday, August 29, 2005


I'm surprised the hacks aren't jumping over this one, and playing petty politics with it. If the Pope can make amends with Cardinal Lefebvre he is surely aligning with the FORCES OF REACTION. But Benedict XVI is not a man to confirm the scribblers' base prejudices, and he acknowledges returning to Latin is hardly a panacea for the Catholic church. Nevertheless that he is eager to reach out like this is a sign his church lost more than strange words when it all but ditched the glory that was the language of Rome.


Survey SAID:

MOVIES STINK!!!!!!!!!!!!


"Going to the movies used to be fun and exciting. It used to be an event. It's none of those anymore."

That sums it up, doesn't it.


Mike Myers, Andy Richter, Rachel Dratch and Amy Poehler -- the leading lights of improv and sketch comedy -- were improvising gamely on stage, drawn back to Sweet Home Chicago by their love of their comedic alma mater, ImprovOlympic. But due to a jaw-dropping lack of technical planning and a sound failure of CATASTROPHIC [SIC!!!!!] proportions, most of the sold-out Chicago Theater could hear hardly a single, made-up word.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

That's the funniest joke since the people ran screaming from THE GREATEST COMEDY DOCUMENTARY OF ALL TIME!

Betcha Mike Myers was almost as mad as the subordinates of the many CEOs who boasted they knew him after AUDREY'S MONSTER!


The FUTURE for POPCORN RESTAURANTS:

Firm Tests Gaming on Movie-Style Screens


And with the hurricane having failed to knock down every building in Nawlans, CNN looks on the bright side:

Life-threatening flooding next fear


Here's one reason the talk of CATASTROPHE quickly grew tiring:



That old building on the right got it badly, to be sure, but the skyscraper on the left probably escaped with nothing more than broken windows and maybe some water in the lobby. Good solid construction by itself should hold down hurricane damage -- and talk of CATASTROPHES.


CNN PANICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

REPORT: ROOF OF SUPERDOME IN NEW ORLEANS, WHERE THOUSANDS EVACUATED AHEAD OF HURRICANE KATRINA, IS LEAKING RAIN!!!!! DETAILS SOON!!!!!!!!!!

My guess is the only practical outcome of this news is that the Saints will be asking half-a-trillion bucks for a new stadium.

"NEW ORLEANS MAY NEVER BE THE SAME!!!!!!!!!!" warned National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield.

Spare us the melo, Max. Nawlans hasn't been the same since SATCH left.

And who, or WHAT, is EQECAT?


Did the Cindy Sheehan vigil succeed?

Yes: she generated hundreds of millions of column inches in the Charmin rolls and tens of thousands of hours on video and NOT ONE CRITICAL WORD.


More news about our FAVORITE Web site:

MORRISVILLE, N.C. — A man who used to work for farm equipment-maker John Deere is accused of stealing more than 100 miniature tractors and selling them online.

Timothy Paul Weekes, 25, was charged with embezzlement and the theft of 104 miniatures worth a total of more than $2,000. He was arrested Thursday and freed on bond, a day after police seized hats, gloves and other merchandise with the John Deere logo from his home.

He had worked at the John Deere training center in Morrisville until March 17, according to court records.

The company, based in Moline, Ill., sells memorabilia including the pewter equipment models, T-shirts and hats that are popular with collectors, said Bill Klutho, a John Deere public relations manager.

A tipster had called a company hotline in July to report that someone was selling the toy tractors on eBay.


Romy, back from his day off of a computer, gets MAD because the HACKS were "FAWNING" over DUBYA.

To which we say, 1. We're only supposed to fawn over a DEMOCRAT? and 2. You'll have PLENTY of opportunities for REVENGE.


Microsoft Corp. is on the prowl for a store in Times Square.

What will it sell besides BUGS?

Does that mean all the famed signs on the Square go on the fritz?

Microsoft is looking for a large space to create a "branding experience" a la Apple's showroom and information center.

Isn't it enough for the BUGMEISTER to BRAND people?


Speaking of Saints, some FREE-ENTERPRISE CON-SER-VA-TIVE lets ST. WARREN have it for being ANTI-AMERICAN. This is a thin, crumbling reed to base an argument on. If He is "ANTI-AMERICAN" it's only as an investment strategy. No, I've said it before: St. Warren became God because NEWS HACKS put their skepticism away -- easy enough for them -- and the shenanigans surrounding His insurance investments make it clear they've let Him get away with SOMETHING.

Also, one must suspect He's hitting a law of diminishing returns at $90,000 A SHARE.


I would rather read OMERTA genuflecting to St. Cindy or his hacks calling Hiroshima the crime of the millennium than read this naked PLUG for somebody's casino development. If all you frauds can do is hype and sell, why do we need you? Most stories can be told in one paragraph, or in charts, but we can't do that, no -- we have to PANIC PEOPLE, or we have to make our CONNECTIONS.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO JERRY HIRSCH FOR A SALES PITCH WELL DONE.


EXPERTS WARN OF DISASTER OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let us judge for ourselves. News hacks must put everything in caps, boldface and italics, and we never know until after the fact. Please guys, take a deep breath and take your meds.

Sunday, August 28, 2005


I live within spitting distance of our RENDELLTORIUM-- and I have no desire to see a concert. Why? Who needs the expense or the impatience of squirming in a seat, all for something performed no better than on a budget CD? This is why fewer people are going to movies and concerts; real life, alas, has become a pale imitation of an imitation.


Sorry Rich, but when it comes to the economy both sides are full of it. Yes, liberals have their MALAISE shtick, and their we-should-all-ride-bicycles shtick, but you FREE-ENTERPRISE TYPES have your bigger-is-better-and-BIGGEST-IS-BEST shtick. I don't want to live in Vietnam or Cuba -- and I don't want to live in A ONE-COMPANY STATE EITHER.


I have HAD IT with these [C]RAP publicity stunts. The whole purpose of the scene is to glorify violence and death, and too many of the PIMPS who run the recorded-SOUND trade must have patted themselves on the back and said, "GOOD CAREER MOVE." If VIACON has "zero tolerance" for guns (PFFH-HH-HH!), we must have zero tolerance for [C]RAP.


I'm surprised Kyle didn't mention Capote, which is sure OSCAR®-arthouse fodder -- the story of an ar-TISTE who boozed and talk-showed his way through life, a society upsucker who published a "fictional" account of Bill Paley's sex life while his wife Babe was dying of cancer, whose bold writing wound him up in the friendly arms of -- ALLAN CARR.

A HERO FOR ALL TIME.

P. S. A brief tour through Amazon.com shows most of his books aren't selling very well. Oh, the fate of the Johnny Carson guest.


And speaking of landfills, another down weekend for the BEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOH!


And since we mention the men who inspired LORD KOPPEL of ESPNCORP, here's another tribute to the REALISM of the Hollywood Toxic Landfill:

Rosie's Nephew:



Fred W. Friendly:



Good night, and good luck.


Our fad of the moment: Just because Starbucks has become the NPR of the food biz doesn't mean turning stores into glorified multimedia kiosks is a good idea; and when retailers latch onto such a fad you know they're desperate to turn their eyes away from their operational shortcomings, which with companies like MICKEY D's are CONSIDERABLE.


It is a measure of how willing the HACKS are to BEND OVER for their brethren in SHOW-BIZ (the only difference is their scrolling credits are bylines) that they'll call anything OSCAR® material. Somehow though their lists look slightly less inviting after the fact. Still, let us look over Kyle's (man? woman?) list and make a few guesses ourselves:

Good Night. And Good Luck (Oct. 7)

I don't know how Rosie's nephew can tie the photogenic story of Ed and Fred into the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL of Dubya and Iraq, but he'll manage, he'll manage. A BO bomb, needless to say, just like his take on the CIA (PFFH-HH-HH!!!!!).

Elizabethtown (Oct. 14)

This sounds like a comic weepie, and if the tragic tale of Cinderella Man says anything it's that the very few adults who attend movies anymore have a limited tolerance for anything that's stamped AN ADULT MOVIE, and especially for weepies. They can see through the strategem of trying to justify all those comic books with OSCAR® BAIT. A lot, however, depends on how the HACKS sell it, and if they can say WORD OF MOUTH often enough it will probably be a hit.

Northcountry (Oct. 14)
Walk the Line (Nov. 18)


Seems to me we've done a few movies on SEXUAL HARASSMENT before --well, we ARE the EXPERTS -- but that's not what I'm interested in; I'm interested in what is sure to be an EXTREEEEEEEEMELY SERIOUS TAKE on JOHNNY CASH, turning him from a country superstar into a Jesus who boozed and drugged for our sins, and BANGS HIS HEAD AGAINST A BEDPOST in repentance. This may be the most self-serious bio in years -- and Joaquin Phoenix will GET his @#$%&* OSCAR®.

That was a shrewd PR stunt, RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The film's gone WAY UP on HSX, as if that matters.

Jarhead (Nov. 4)

Not only is our EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL war in Iraq wrong -- SO WAS THE FIRST ONE!

It was new for LUCAS SPIELBERG to turn D-Day into a theme park, but one suspects the public is getting sick of these anti-war movies.

The New World (Nov. 9)

Didn't ESPNCORP already give us a PC take on POCAHONTAS?

Breakfast on Pluto (Nov. 18)

When I saw the words Pluto and Murphy I thought, OH, NO! A REMAKE?!?!? Sadly it's just another arthouse film, and thus a possible OSCAR® nominee no matter how droopy and boring it is, as it no doubt will be.

Rent (Nov. 23)
The Producers (Dec. 21)


These two will get lots of fatuous raves from the ad-blurb copywriters, who will think they're bringing Arthur Freed back from the dead, but here's guessing they both get disrespectful reviews from the very few discerning critics left, the first because Puccini did it better, the second because mugging may not be comedy -- especially the THIRD time around.

Memoirs of A Geisha (Dec. 9)
Brokeback Mountain (Dec. 9)


Several years ago there was a SURE FIRE BEST-PICTURE-OSCAR® WINNER!!!!! called Warm Mountain or something, some sort of period piece the blurbists proclaimed the next Gone With the Wind or something, and it tanked at the B.O. because as it happened somebody already did Gone With the Wind. There've been enough bombs made of LI-TE-RA-RY novels that I might want to wager our geisha tale would be in that category. As for the second, how can a proud arthouse season be without a GAY MOVIE?

All the king's men [SIC] (Dec. 16)

Why remake a BEST-PICTURE-OSCAR® WINNER that starred BRODERICK CRAWFORD?

Munich (Dec. 23)

Here is your winner for 2005: it's PC, it makes the JEWS villains, and it explains that the MILITANTS of Munich were depraved on accounta they were deprived. Plus, it's the MASTER. (!!!!!) The 50-strong PAPER OF RE-CORD movie-blurbist staff must DREAD its arrival; on the one hand, raving it may unleash the fierce pain of much of its readership; on the other hand, panning it will unleash the fierce screaming of THE LORD GOD PINCH. When the time comes these folks will tread such a fine rope they could unbalance a Wallenda. Then again Luke isn't stupid; He knows if He tweaks something the right way with the blurbists He can make the greatest movie of all time. Yes, there is no upstaging destiny:

®

ACCEPT THE AWARD, LUCAS SPIELBERG!


Well, Mr. Mark and his gang are taking a long weekend off, so I had to turn elsewhere for laughs, and it didn't take long to find them: as the TWXSTERS were selling a cover on how high-tech can foresee heart attacks, what popped up on the screen but an ad from Altria MOtive urging parents keep their kids from smoking?

Nah, no relation.

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