Posted 9:46 PM by Gene

Katrina costs could hit $300 billion

$500 billion! $1 trillion! $3 trillion! $650 QUADRAZILLION!!!!!

Nearly everything the hacks have said about the hurricane has been WRONG, and we've no doubt this will JOIN the parade.

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

Two weekends a trend may not make, but I have this horrible feeling the MOVIE BIZ is COMING BACK, meaning THE CONSPIRACY and the HACKS can let go with a SIGH of RELIEF that will nearly asphyxiate us with its BAD BREATH, meaning the former can make ROTTEN MOVIES with IMPUNITY again, meaning the latter can ENDLESSLY SELL these pictures as MASTERPIECES AGAIN, meaning they can jointly WHAP US over the HEAD with their SUPERIORITY again, meaning they can ENDLESSLY BOAST and BLUSTER over their KNEE-JERK LEFTIST POLITICS again.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Well, maybe it's NOT a new mega-platinum age:

If the season ahead has many shows as aggressively wretched as this lame loser, then the TV critics of the nation will have to demand substantial raises -- or full-time psychiatric care. Or transfer to the protective solace of, say, the gardening column or hints a la Heloise.

Big, BIG caveat: This is Tom Shales, who's written so many raves over RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S masterworks he should turn over all his annual salary to the hurricane relief.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Has anybody noticed that in the last two weeks we've hardly had any news of the death and destruction in Iraq the hacks so crave? That we haven't had any U. S. casualties either? Knock on wood, but maybe it pays to have hacks distracted from their central goals, which include sticking pins in soldier voodoo dolls.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

I suppose any company named Halliburton will be guilty until proven innocent so long as Dubya's prez. That said, there will be a lot of waste and corruption connected to this rebuilding, but don't be surprised if the HACKS ignore it because it isn't SEXY -- or POLITICAL.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Barron's, the cheerleading tabloid business flack sheet starring Alan Abelson's faux-iconoclasm, decided it had to conduct a popularity contest with investors to see which big bad company they liked the best. The winner (surprise) was GE BANCORP, most likely due to all those hacks saying "LEGENDARY" -- this despite the fact its stock has hardly budged since Little Jeffy took over. Natch the PR types who write the rag had to say how wonderful it was so many big bad companies are so well liked. It didn't hurt the rag goosed the survey with four categories of liking: "Well-Respected," "Respected," "Fairly Respected" and "Not Respected," or whatever they were, something even Alan could not have improved on. Grading on this curve, however, and using a scale of 0 to 5, 72 of the 100 big bad companies got a 2.5 or less, and half got less than 2.0. Maybe this isn't a failing grade by Alan's adjectives, but it is by mine. One bright spot: the investors held BIG BAD MEDIA COMPANIES in especially low regard, so maybe even their most rabid defenders are getting tired of their act.

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

SHUCKS, THE GREATEST POP MUSIC SENSATION SINCE DER BINGLE GOT BOOED. How DISCONCERTING the PEONS in BOSTON didn't appreciate his GREATNESS.

We may need some more INDOCTRINATION -- RIGHT PINCH?

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Here's a new way of burning money, brought to you by the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers:

I KNOW PAUL McCARTNEY AND YOU DON'T!!!!!

And elsewhere in the precinct of reverse Robin Hoodism:

"Lee Iacocca sounds like he has absolutely no clue as to what he's saying," Mehlman says. "You used to hear the rumor that the group Abba didn't know any English and was just fed the lines. That's how he sounds. 'What am I saying here, yada, yada, yada?' It's sad."

IT'S ADVERTISING!!!!!

P. S. A big DEMERIT to the article for quoting from our favorite blurb machine, PERFESSER THOMPSON.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

We would note, MICKEYMOUSE NIXON, that Your stock is only slightly higher than in '95, when You made THE DEAL OF ALL TIME. We would further note that You probably had less to do with Your company soaring beforehand than raising ticket prices at Disney World did, or U. S. STEEL. And most of Your social experiments FAILED, like the WHINER BROTHERS, and getting into the BOOK BIZ, and the RESTAURANT BIZ, and the HOCKEY BIZ, and the BASEBALL BIZ, and the RECORD BIZ. Goodbye TRICKY, and GET LOST.

And the best thing is, Bill Foreman (whoever he is) shook his head like a good little boy and said, "No tough questions -- MICHAEL."

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

BIG CAVEAT: This IS NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUT:

If President Bush is upset that former national security advisor Sandy Berger destroyed top secret terrorism documents in a bid to obstruct the 9/11 Commission investigation, he sure has a strange way of showing it.

In June, two months after Berger pled guilty to what some say is the most serious crime ever committed by a senior White House official - Bush invited him to the White House, where, according to the Associated Press, the disgraced former Clinton advisor was trotted out to voice support for CAFTA legislation.

Does Dubya stand for ANYTHING?

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE MARKET CAP: $85.44 BILLION.

YAHOO! MARKET CAP: $47.14 BILLION.

EBAY MARKET CAP: $52.29 BILLION.

AMAZON.COM MARKET CAP: $17.69 BILLION.

WE'RE NOT TALKING CUTE LITTLE GUYS ANYMORE.

P. S. It's a shame someone can't start a boycott of Yahoo!, but that proposition's probably worthless.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

What? Me worry? I wasn't jailed! I'm worth ZILLIONS!

You have to wonder, though, with all these INSIDER SALES how much longer THIS GAG can last.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

At least Yahoo! had the GUTS -- no not guts, the PR-DRIVEN CRAVENNESS -- to finally admit it handed over documents that led a Chinese dissident to be jailed. Its continued silence created the notion that it was COMPLICIT in the CRIME. We're not sure it ISN'T. In any case it's now painted for all time as just another RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sucking its way up to NIRVANA.

A further excuse here from these FRAUDS.

P.. S. WHEN WILL G00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE YAHOO!?

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

We are lucky for the most part these THINKER'S POSES on 9/11 are headed to the outhous -- ARThouses, and most will be bombs anyway, as people may not want to be told their country deserved to go to Hell.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

It is fitting that the SOAP OPERA OF THE DECADE should end this way -- or at least come to an INTERMISSION. We will not soon forget how the FRED FLINTSTONES of PHILADELPHIA turned this into a NATIONAL CRISIS, nor will we forget they helped bury important stories so they could engage in their muscle-bound cement-headed intellectual ONANISM.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

AND SPEAKING OF ST. WARREN'S CHERUBIM: we KNOW you and your brethren want to turn this story into CLASS WARFARE and RACE WARFARE and POLITICAL WARFARE, but won't it do that PEOPLE OF EVERY STRIPE lost something -- and if some lost more than others it might be as much MOTHER NATURE's fault as LUCK'S?

Hey ST.! Have YOU given to the relief effort? Didn't think so.

Or as the ST. might put it in an UNGUARDED MOMENT:

I'M GIVING TO THE RELIEF EFFORT THROUGH MY INSURANCE COMPANIES!!!!!

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Odd that in this story on this MARCH FOR FASCISM is no mention of a certain Bible owned by a certain SAINT, proof news hacks will always protect their own first.

Posted 7:24 PM by Gene

First School Day Is Calm, Orderly and Attended by Many Politicians

...who should have flunked KINDERGARTEN.

(Well, we being the excessively sensitive type we would not wish such a fate on anyone, however we have no doubt most pols HAVE flunked English and math, and seem to be none the worse for in THEIR bank accounts.)

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

"Be prepared to be fired."

This is signal advice for the conscientious, courageous reporter; it is laughable, to put it mildly, when KEN FELATTA offers it. Felatta has not committed a fireable offense since the time he stepped his expensive wingtip shoes into the magical offices of Thomas Murphy and Daniel Burke and saw GOD. From there it was an Armani-suited step to SUMNER's office to proclaim Him immortal, and the bald-pated JESUS II's office to proclaim Him immortal, and the POET LAUREATE GERRY LEVIN's office to proclaim Him immortal, and from there to ridicule as the news biz' most profitable sycophant. "It's wrong to portray our bosses in a cartoon fashion as greedy capitalists unconcerned with anything besides maximum profits," saith the great court jester Kenneth, and PRAISE THE LORDS he never has. If these Notre Dame students want advice on how to be a good reporter the LAST person they should heed is KEN FELATTA.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

We are in a pretty bind when we must judge our cultural giants by their peccadilloes. The era of ROCK GENIUS brought this on as most of its HEROES were ALL peccadilloes. We therefore confess to be confused and slightly dismayed to learn that in his teens Bix Beiderbecke, Satch's alter ego on the cornet, "molested a five-year-old girl", and his anguish over the event may have been behind the self-loathing and supreme alcoholism that killed him at 28. We can forgive Bix, but we must also wonder if Satch, who no doubt had his own cringe-producing moments away from the spotlight, would ever have done this.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!

When did you stop watching "The Daily Show"?

This week.

It was once your favorite TV show, wasn't it?

Yes.

IN THE COMMENTS: I explain my reason for drawing the line now:

This week's show, the first post-Katrina coverage, has been just blatantly telegraphing from the very first moment that the whole point of the show is to slam Bush....

TRANSLATION: IT WAS ALMOST AS GREAT AN ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD ART AND CULTURE AS YOU-KNOW-WHAT -- UNTIL IT SLAMMED BUSH.

WAS IT EVER ANY GOOD?????

P. S. THE PROFESSOR found this, which means he's a KNEE-JERK TOO.

Posted 4:51 PM by Gene

We see a new trick for both sides: THEIR NATURAL DISASTER WAS JUST AS BAD AS OUR NATURAL DISASTER! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

To augment what I said before, that many people lost lives and property, at ANY TIME, during ANY natural disaster, matters not ONE IOTA to PEA-BRAINED HYPERPOLITICAL NINNIES.

P. S. on September 10 at 5:35 P. M. AS I SAID.

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

I didn't want to mention this, but when you have TRUE BELIEVERS like the DOLTS at THE CORNER, it's unavoidable -- indeed you wonder why they didn't come to a complete stop and prostrate themselves near their hyperactive keyboards in ardent prayer and thanks to THE LORD GOD SUMNER when the great news came: to wit -- THE PC CONSERVATIVE'S FAVORITE PROGRAM HAS BEEN RENEWED THROUGH 2008!

Only in America would a show with less than a 1 rating among young dullards -- "adults" (how many thousands is that?) be considered a hit. Only at THE CORNER would it be considered the OPUS MAXIMUS OF ART AND CULTURE IN WORLD HISTORY.

Posted 3:30 PM by Gene

In and around The Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, approximately 1,500 to 2,000 Entergy employees, tree trimmers, caterers and others have formed a small city from which they are working to restore power to the larger one outside. It’s not the only such Entergy-driven compound in the metro area, with two similar staging grounds on the West Bank, but it is the first and largest, and one whose population, according to Entergy officials, may swell to as many as 4,000 people by the time the lights are turned back on....

Entergy corporate communications specialist Mike Duhe, who served in the Air Force and is still in the Reserve, said, "This all reminds me of a military operation. It’s a well-oiled machine and everyone’s doing what they need to do."

That sentiment was echoed by [Entergy staging site manager Joe] Catalanotto. "I have been through a lot of emergency situations, but never one this large or one with such cooperation and teamwork. And there is no way in the world we could get this done without it. Everyone knows what they’ve got to do and they just go do it."

Give a solid A-PLUS to ENTERGY!

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

Listen to him -- even IF you loony leftists find him a YANKEE PUPPET:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Friday he believes that within two years, there'll be no further need for U.S. forces there.

Praising U.S. forces for contributing to Iraq's emergence from hardline rule by Saddam Hussein, Talabani said, "We need American troops to intimidate our neighbors."

He warned that a quick withdrawal of American and multinational forces "could lead to the victory of the terrorists in Iraq and create grave threats to the region, the United States and the civilized world."

Hear THAT, ST. CINDY? No.

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

In my never-ending search for a new TV I've now narrowed it down to two or three models, including several Sonys top-rated in Consumer Reports. CRTs are out -- too bulky. I think. If money were no object I'd get something like this Sony plasma, which must have an incredible picture, and has an ATSC (hi-def) tuner to boot. But it's too big for me at 53" wide and over 86 lbs. (100 counting the physically separate tuner), it's too expensive (the lowest price I can find is about $3,500 with shipping), it's an energy hog at 430W, and plasma sets are said to dim over time and have burn-in problems, though not so much as in the past. Another choice is this now-discontinued Sony LCD. CR says its picture isn't quite as good as the top plasmas but it's a manageable 33" and weighs only 43 lbs. with the stand, and it's a solid 26" in the 4:3 ratio for standard-def, plus you can use its speakers for the center channel in a Dolby Digital hook-up; neat! Plus it's selling for under $1,500 with shipping on eBay; the price has come down $50 in the last few days. Sony has a new (and better looking) 32" LCD, however, and I shall wait until CR's new ratings, which are due out soon. Decisions, decisions.

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

Airlines seek $600 million in jet-fuel tax relief

Is Norman Mineta still the Transportation Secretary?

I guess the answer to BOTH questions is YES.

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

I have a hunch the IDIOT G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER ALGHORITHMS are mistaking me for a JUNK blog, so whenever I get Next Blog to notice it shuts me out after only five minutes! What makes these people such EINSTEINS?

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

Shouldn't what the con-SER-va-tives will NOT call price gouging cause demand for gasoline to drop off, which should lower prices?

I would say yes but this IS the energy biz.

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

Sad: The Center for Public Integrity had an integrity problem.

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

Authorities finding fewer bodies than expected in New Orleans

Why am I NOT surprised at this?

In a small sign of progress, authorities said the New Orleans airport will reopen to commercial flights on Sept. 19.

Doesn't ANYONE notice there've been quite a few small signs of progress?

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being relieved of his duties in managing the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts, The Associated Press has learned.

WHAT?!?!? DUBYA FIRED SOMEBODY?!?!?!?!?

Of COURSE not. He merely RESHUFFLED him.

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! DEY WON' WET US FINGUH-POINT OUW WAY!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

We don't want to say ANYONE can get a star on Hollywood's Alleged Walk of Fame, but it's close, it's close.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

State Papers Hail Mubarak's Victory

The next time the hacks go ga-ga over a Democrat, remember this, and remember -- most papers in Egypt have the advantage of ENFORCED conformity.

Al-Ahram, Egypt's newspaper of record, said the turnout appeared to be 20 percent to 30 percent in its news columns. But in its editorial, the paper spoke of an "an influx of masses at the polling stations ... (which) confirmed to the whole world the extent of the credibility of the democratic experience." [Emphasis added.]

Sort of like OUR PAPER OF RE-CORD, n'est-ce pas?

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

And speaking of P&G, the head of its razor-blade division had a "meltdown." I don't exactly blame the Bostonians for being mad -- the whole company's in Cincinnati now.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, big business's addiction to advertising CONTINUES.

There are a few morsels of good news, such as declining throwing away of money on spot TV and network radio, and P&G's spending unbelieveably went DOWN, but then these clowns are wasting more on cable (thanks to "higher unit costs" and "increases in commercial time" -- the latter's gotta make people who spend $1000 on their monthly cable bills happy) -- and THE SENIOR CLUNKER BROTHER increased its money shredding by TWENTY PERCENT, presumably to tell the world of "EMPLOYEE DISCOUNTS" the public already knew of through HYPERBOLISTIC PRESS ACCOUNTS.

STRANGE P. S. As has been reported elsewhere, THE CONSPIRACY'S SPENDING is DOWN. At least THIS industry's trying to target its message. WHY CAN'T ANYONE ELSE?

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

Now is not the time for constructive suggestions.

The way you hacks operate will there ever be?

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

"'A Chorus Line' came at a time when our industry was dying. It was raw, it was emotional and it had a tremendous impact. But there is no way you can recapture that excitement."

Any industry may not look dying when its ticket prices have gone up 2000 percent.

P. S. Of Thee I Sing was a raging satire too.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

News hackery has come to resemble a superkingdom with lots of mini-kingdoms, each mini-kingdom populated by scribblers who could not communicate intelligently with other mini-kingdoms if they tried. Because most hacks stay in one assignment practically their whole careers they guarantee each mini-kingdom is sealed off from others, though there be no impediments to communication. Thus a sports hack cannot intelligently write on foreign affairs, nor a Congressional correspondent on the movies -- not that we'd expect ANY news hack to write intelligently on ANYTHING.

This may help explain among other things why TV ad-blurb copywriters are increasingly prone to raves and sycophancy. With no points of reference save the limited ones of watching a tube and attending their annual shindigs on the coast, they've effectively blocked themselves off from people who might not believe the medium has become the greatest invention since the wheel -- people like their readers. Readers? What are READERS?

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

More decent news:

[M]any business owners are planning their return, lining up contractors and suppliers for what could be the city's largest building boom since the Works Progress Administration during the Depression. The WPA put millions of unemployed people to work building roads, bridges and airport runways.

If only this writer hadn't likened this to the WPA, but then again, with all the waste, er, MONEY Dubya's pouring into the recovery, it's sort of apt.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Don King isn't exactly the sort who'd budge the Ethics-O-Meter into positive land, so what does he do? He gets ROMY into yet another snit today because he has the GALL to use a black paper he owns to endorse a WHITE CANDIDATE!

Honestly ROMY couldn't better define the press's cement-headed CW if he tried. Actually, he DOES.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

I couldn't have painted it better myself.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Sandy "Itchy Fingers" Berger was supposed to pay a $10,000 fine for pinching classified documents, so what happens? A mean judge forces him to pay $50,000!

That'll teach you not to do any more FAVORS, Itchy.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

More things to keep our courts busy:

Judge refuses to reinstate overweight football player

1. Is there such a thing as overweight in football? and 2. What are lawyers doing in this?

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

How interesting that Toll Brothers is sponsoring the Met on the radio. Selling $20,000 houses for $800,000 and climbing they can afford it.

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

A hopeful precursor for all that "aid" Dubya's pouring down the RATHOLE:

The government's $5 billion effort to help small businesses recover from the Sept. 11 attacks was so loosely managed that it gave low-interest loans to companies that didn't need terrorism relief — or even know they were getting it, The Associated Press has found.

And while some at New York's Ground Zero couldn't get assistance they desperately sought, companies far removed from the devastation — a South Dakota country radio station, a Virgin Islands perfume shop, a Utah dog boutique and more than 100 Dunkin' Donuts and Subway sandwich shops — had no problem winning the government-guaranteed loans.

Dentists and chiropractors in numerous cities, as well as an Oregon winery that sold trendy pinot noir to New York City restaurants also got assistance.

"That's scary. Nine-11 had nothing to do with this," said James Munsey, a Virginia entrepreneur who described himself as "beyond shocked" to learn his nearly $1 million loan to buy a special events company in Richmond was drawn from the Sept. 11 program.

Hey Mr. Munsey, just consider yourself a "victim" of 9/11 -- like EVERYONE ELSE.

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

TINA BROWN, CELEBRITY-SMITTEN and SUPERFICIAL as USUAL:

If 9/11 was Bush's Woodstock, Katrina is his Altamont -- the place where his ability to unite people behind a flurry of flag-waving came to look like the hollow sham it always was.

Or to put it another way, if 9/11 was Tina Brown taking over VANITY FAIR, Katrina is Tina Brown LEAVING TALK -- and she had more experience at HOLLOW SHAMS.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Texas grand jury indicts PAC connected to DeLay

Let's do a CLEVER NEWS-HACK EDIT for the NEXT THREE DAYS:

TEXAS GRAND JURY INDICTS DELAY

And while we have no doubt one of SNIDELY WHIPLASH's greatest thrills is running one step beyond the law, no one's indicted him -- yet.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

FURTHER UPDATE ON THE CONSPIRACY OF CORPORATE AMERICA TO TAKE OVER THE HOLY NEWS BUSINESS WITH EEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL ADVERTISING PRACTICES: Which is worse, a cutely deceptive news story or a CUTELY DECEPTIVE AD?

YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHOUT THE ANSWER, ROMY.

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

Annan accepts criticism for troubles at UN

TRANSLATION: My job is safe.

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

Mubarak's rival to seek rerun

You don't stand a chance against Hosni, who's been rerunning for twenty-four years.

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

"The league can't cannibalize itself. The way it's set up now, you play on Monday night, and then you don't get another game until Sunday afternoon for most of the season. In other sports, if you miss a game today, you can see another one tonight or another one tomorrow. In football, you only play once a week and you only play 16 weeks, so the interest stays up.

"No matter what they do," Madden said, "they can't really screw it up."

Sure, Coach? Boxing was once the number-one sport. Baseball was once the number-one sport. They screwed it up big-time. Perhaps professional football makes too much money to ever screw itself up. Then again no one ever thought we'd be without the NHL for a full season either.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

The Orange Revolution may have turned GREEN.

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

Above all, these Republican politicians say, let's get the lawyers out of disaster relief.

Hey DOW 36,000, wouldn't OUTSOURCING disaster relief give more business to LAWYERS?

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

And in another kind of CLUELESSNESS, Romy is EXERCISED because TARGET DARED to finance a WHOLE ISSUE of THE NEW YORKER (YES -- THE NEW YORKER!) -- and WITHOUT SLUGGING THE ADS. Now the APPROPRIATE BUSYBODIES are INVESTIGATING the scheme as a -- VIOLATION OF ETHICS.

Just like these dimwit magazine editors: they slant and sell to their heart's content -- and get exercised over an ADVERTISER.

Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor and the ASME board president....

NUF SAID.

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

Also in TCS (which given its recent contents may stand for something other than Tech Central Station):

If anything, the argument can be made -- as Daniel Henninger has -- that the response to Hurricane Katrina shows that the government is inherently ill-equipped to handle a great deal of the responsibilities that come with disaster relief and that many of those responsibilities should be outsourced to the private sector. Commenting on Henninger's article, law professor Stephen Bainbridge aptly sums up the quite cogent rationale behind such a move:

The capital, product, and labor markets give corporate managers and directors incentives to produce goods and services efficiently. What defenders of government regulation often overlook is that regulators are also actors with their own self-interested motivations. The trouble is that the incentives to which regulators and legislators respond are often contrary to the public interest. The incentives of legislators and regulators are driven by rent-seeking and interest group politics, which have no necessary correlation to corporate profit-maximization. Accordingly, government preparation for and response to disasters is likely to be driven by the political concerns of the governmental actors rather than the public good.

In sum, it may be time to try Adam Smith's invisible hand by outsourcing disaster relief.

We know how a certain kind of FREE-EN-TER-PRISE CON-SER-VA-TIVE LUUUUUUUUUVES MONOPOLIES. Is DOW 36,000 trying to MONOPOLIZE ON CLUELESSNESS?

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Reason is not enough to make the strong and the ruthless renounce their natural mastery over the weak and frail.

SO WHY ARE YOU CLOWNS SUCH CHEERLEADERS FOR PRICE GOUGING?

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

STUDY: DVR THREAT TO ADS OVERBLOWN

WHEW! That means we can STILL FINANCE BAD TELEVISION.

BUT:

"If predictions of large numbers of DVR subscriptions in the next couple of years are unfounded -- and the data we are seeing shows the rate of growth is slowing, not increasing -- our point of view is that DVRs appeal to higher-end subscribers," Mr. Weiser told AdAge.com.

Who wants to sell to POOR PEOPLE?

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Why would G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE waste its SAINTLY CAPITAL on REUTERS?

We say GO FOR IT -- if it will cause your stock to tumble.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

For once E&P is right: the leaders of New Orleans were CLUELESS.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

It is hard to imagine anyone who's spent fifty-two years eating in fancy restaurants and who upon his retirement received "[f]ull-page tributes" in his home rag Variety from "DreamWorks, CBS, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, Sony Pictures, the Walt Disney Co., 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, the Directors Guild of America, Mel Brooks, Steven Spielberg, and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones" as having done anything worthwhile. Army spent his career as a stenographer, and if anyone remembers him fifty-two years hence (highly unlikely) it will be as a stenographer. What pains us is the biz he so assiduously courted engages in DICTATION.

We realize this is harsh; we're sure Army is what is called a "nice guy," and there's something to be said for a man always ready with a good word; and if our entertainments were a parade of genius we too would slap Army on the back and nosh with him and his friends, if we could. But synergy and the proclivities of hacks and the media biz' love for us peons and especially the high quality of its current product preclude us from wanting to do so. The link in the preceding post gives a reason as well.

Besides, there's BEN STEIN. (Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffft!)

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

Tom Friedman becomes LOLLIPOP LOU DOBBS!

Whassa matter, your salary not good enough for you?

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

President Bush, call Oprah

Just what he needs, more squooshy touchy-feely. Mr. President, call a psychic and connect with FDR, or Churchill, or Harry Truman.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

Meantime, THIS is why THE LORD GOD PINCH REIGNS: to expel -- er, DISSEMINATE The Word for His PARTY.

If a whole month of ST. CINDY effected nothing, think of the impatience the people will have with POLS screaming at the top of their lungs.

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

Alarm Growing on Storm's Cost for Agriculture

We are getting very near the point where people will shut out news from this story, whatever the circumstances, because of the constant exaggeration. We have had alarm all throughout this disaster, but things seem to be coming back a little faster than expected, and the same will hold true for agriculture, whatever the sirens and bells and whistles.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

Today will be a very bad day for little: Yassir Arafat did NOT die of AIDS. Oh well, he did die, and that's the important thing.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Don't worry, we'll still build on flood plains and up to the water's edge, and the GUVMENT will still help finance it, and those needed maps will be ready -- after the NEXT disaster, or three.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

So Jake thinks the Republicans are de facto racists. Jake makes so much money he would never note that he is merely a different and liberal version of the idiot conservatives who think price gouging is great. Max Boot seems to have written his well-taken polemic on the tone-deafness and hard-heartedness of both our infernal political factions in vain.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

Here is why Mrs. Bush's remarks rankle the knee-jerk leftists, despite their obvious good intentions; the jerks have interpreted them as the sniffing of a nose-in-the-air over the peons. Not without reason; the Bushes are a chosen family, as copiously illustrated in a man whose best friends included the detestable Jim Baker and the late unlamented King Fahd, and who gladly sent the amoral Brent "My Favorite Martian" Scowcroft and Lawrence "Whataburger" Eagleburger to suck on the Chinese Communists' shoes. Mrs. Bush meant to say that the Astrodome was a far better outcome than a hole through an attic, or death; I've no doubt that's what she meant. But then the BLATHERERS at NRO unearth three sluglike perfessers who celebrate price gouging, and how can one not think of conservatives and Republicans as snobbish and spiteful and unfeeling, and all but wading in the gold of their own private Fort Knoxes? Sometimes con-SER-va-tives' best weapons are the ones they aim at THEMSELVES.

Posted 2:07 PM by Gene

Francois Truffaut once published a book called ''The Films in My Life." Anyone interested in the books in Pauline Kael's life, or at least the ones about film, can inspect the contents of a sizable alcove on the second floor of Hampshire College's Johnson Library Center. Shelved there are the roughly 3,000 books and periodicals that made up Kael's professional library.

And we'd bet not ONE about RICHARD NIXON.

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

WHY DO THESE BLITHERING CONSERVATIVE PH.D IDIOTS DECLARE GREED THE NOBLEST TRAIT OF MAN?

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

One of these things is NOT like the other:

The dank and putrid floodwaters choking this once-gracious city are so poisoned with gasoline, industrial chemicals, feces and other contaminants that even casual contact is hazardous, and safe drinking water may not be available for the entire population for years to come, state and federal officials warned Tuesday.

Some people in five parishes surrounding New Orleans no longer have to disinfect their water because the bacteria level is no longer unsafe, the state health department announced today.

I think I'll believe the people closer to the situation.

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

If SCENARISTS shot SCREENPLAYS BEFORE they SOLD them they MIGHT be BETTER.

Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

If I had the salary this ESPN JERK just forfeited by being a prima donna that "second fiddle" would look like a STRAD to me.

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

What if somebody won the pennant and nobody cared?

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

THE Volcker inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal called for a significant overhaul of the UN yesterday as it prepared to reveal details of "serious instances of illicit, unethical and corrupt behaviour" at the world body.

Thank God the hurricane came along so we could forget that.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

BETCHA ED MURROW NEVER DID THAT!

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

Oh dear oh dear, Mayor Noggin's police may use -- FORCE!

I DO hope no CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS are BROKEN.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

The CUTTING EDGE lacerates the GREAT WHITE WAY -- or, MIKE REIDEL DOES IT AGAIN:

Most of the critics consider Stephen Sondheim God, [I thought that was PINCH! Oh. This is BROADWAY. --ED.] but there's not a lot of excitement about the revival of "Sweeney Todd," in which the cast, including Patti LuPone (as Mrs. Lovett), doubles as the band.

"[The show is] done constantly," says a critic, noting recent productions at City Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington and a televised concert on PBS.

"This is supposed to be a real skeletal production, and anything that's stripped down these days gets credit for being revelatory. But I don't know how much more there is to reveal about 'Sweeney Todd.' "

Another critic, not a Sondheim fan, sneers: "What is this, the 16th or 19th Sondheim revival we've had to sit through in the last couple of years?

"It says something about how dead the musical theater is when Stephen Sondheim is still considered cutting edge.

"And when he dies, we'll have to sit through all these shows again." [And after that you, he AND his shows will ALL be dead. --ED.]

A critic who worships at the Sondheim shrine says: "My goodness gracious me, this production sounds eccentric. I can't wait to see Miss LuPone with a meat cleaver in one hand and a tuba in the other."

It's unfortunate THEA-TAH audiences aren't in the PRODUCE business, or there might be lots of FRUITS AND VEGETABLES to add to the menu.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

So what will it be: our gas guzzling SUVs -- or cute animals?

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

All this TYPING, all this TEARING OUT OF HAIR, all this GNASHING OF TEETH, AND...

Instead of a recession, the general consensus emerging is that Katrina will shave growth from the third and fourth quarters's growth rates, but will boost the economy early next year, just when the economy was expected to slow down pre-Katrina.

The net effect will be about zero.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Bush to Speak at Rehnquist Funeral

I'd hate to be on Dubya's speechwriting staff. They may be ready to send in the National Guard.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Hard-core video gamers watched 18 hours of TV per week in 2005, down from 22 hours per week last year. However, hard-core players watch more TV than general gamers, the study said.

I have decided it is useless to implore video-game phreaks to GET A LIFE! Narcotizing themselves before a screen IS their life.

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

I did not wish to bring this up again, but the cloyingly facetious typings of THE PROFESSOR and THE CORNER forced my hand: a reason so many insist in revering bad sixties sitcoms (aside from the loss-of-innocence-after-our-favorite-assassination angle, surely a piece of junk in itself) is that for years mongrel UHF stations reran the shows ad nauseum, as they had too much time to fill, and more recently some cable networks did exactly the same thing, and combined with the simultaneous burgeoning of pop-culturitis this created a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, where some people loved their cultural tormentors. A country that falls in love with awful sitcoms, however "ironic" that love, may be capable of consigning hundreds or thousands to death in a hurricane, as in both instances it's stuck its head where a head oughtn't to be.

Posted 7:59 AM by Gene

Stupid queston: What became of all those Formosan termites?

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

The top U.S. disaster official waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers, internal documents show.

Part of the mission, according to the documents obtained by The Associated Press, was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.



The Great Seal of the United States of America.

Posted 6:33 AM by Gene

James Dickey's son comes up with a solution to suicide bombing -- and no, it's not us getting out Iraq (that would be half the solution, although one wonders if getting the U. S. off the face of the map might be even better); no, it's -- GETTING MUSLIM SOCIETIES TO CHANGE!

I just LOVE the PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS Mr. Mark's millionaire scribblers devise!

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

There are more excellent shows on the air now then [SIC] at any one time in the past decade.

There are more TV ad-blurb copywriters insisting there are more excellent shows on the air now then [SIC] at any one time in the past decade than in the WHOLE HISTORY of the HACKS' BIZ.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO U [SIC], DICK!

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

WE MUST UNACCUSTOM ourselves to the idea of major cities as sinkholes to be skirted. Like everything else, the barbarification of urban America is a national security issue -- because, like everything else, at is core national security is an issue of law and order. Americans -- the privileged and the disaffected alike -- can endure great pressures, and retain a noble spirit. But the suddenness of a breakdown in infrastructure that strips a city's people of drinking water, electricity, and security is sufficient to break the levee that keeps police in place instead of soldiers.

R. EMMETT ran THIS?!?!?

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

Poll: Most Americans believe New Orleans will never recover

The news hacks take another poll, and shake their heads, and smile -- yes, we can DEFINITELY hear ourselves.

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

We see it now: untold soldiers pumping out the water and distributing the necessities of life, untold construction and maintenance workers clearing the rubble and the roads and the stench, untold doctors and nurses healing the sick, untold engineers and linemen restoring power, untold carpenters and electricians and plumbers rebuilding homes and schools and businesses.

From the vantage point of the hacks and the pols and the pundits, all is gloom and doom with a smirk, and the chance for grand larceny and oppression of one's fellow man an eternal hope. But how can one doubt, as these cretins recede into their richly-deserved nothing, that this catastrophe has become a story of unprecedented HEROISM. We will have redeemed ourselves, if only we knew.

Posted 6:58 PM by Gene

Repairs to I-10, the road across Lake Pontchartrain, may begin next week.

And as I predicted for this week, power is back on in a few portions of New Orleans.

Way to go!

I guess I WAS wrong about the Superdome, however. It's hard to see now how it won't be replaced -- especially with all that wasteful money pouring in.

And here's our Picture of the Day:



Sherri Locke, a registered nurse from Wichita, Kansas, checks on and plays with Jai Lynn Butler on the floor of the Reliant Astrodome today. Locke came to Houston from Kansas to help the evacuees.

Good job, Steve Campbell of the Houston Chronicle!

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

That we debate semantics at a time of crisis shows how too many of our superiors have taken REFUGE in Fantasyland.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

CNN:

House Government Reform Committee will begin holding hearings next week into what went wrong in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. More soon.

THE PREENING BEGINS, THE POSTURING BEGINS, THE FINGER POINTING BEGINS. ASSUMING RESPONSIBILITY -- NEVER.

AND NOW DUBYA, WORRIED FOR HIS PR, ACCELERATES THE FLOW OF MONEY INTO A BOTTOMLESS PIT.

Meantime, IN SPITE OF IT ALL:

On Tuesday, the Corps said the area under water had fallen to about 60 percent.

THIS IS PROGRESS, NO THANKS TO POLITICIANS OR PUNDITS.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Bob Denver was a harmless symbol of the genuinely despicable men who took over television in the sixties and seventies and helped turn it from a vast wasteland to a vaster sewer - the James "The Cobra" Aubreys, the Fred Silvermans, the Aaron Spellings, the Chuck Barrises, men so eager to put ratings and advertising dollars above everything that they sacrificed the public to their overweaning ambitions -- but as time went on the public increasingly refused to be thrown into their burning pit. Denver merely starred in a very bad sitcom on their way to perdition, and made a nice living from it, and we hope he died peacefully.

Posted 3:39 PM by Gene

MR. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH of TOENAIL.COM TYPES AGAIN:

[A]re "better movies" a realistic alternative for the New Hollywood? The most prolonged decline in Hollywood's history, from 1963 to 1973, in which the weekly audience dropped from 43.5 million to 16 million, was not stemmed by such critically acclaimed films as Mike Nichols' The Graduate, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, David Lean's Doctor Zhivago, George Lucas' American Graffiti, George Cukor's My Fair Lady, and Stanley Kramer's Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. More than $1.4 billion in theater admissions a year were lost. Nor would such quality movies bring in the popcorn consumers on whom the multiplexes now depend.

Given the RANK STUPIDITY of the moviegoing crowd we have no doubt that last sentence is true. Shrewdly MR. MOVIE ECONOMICS does not QUITE emptily echo the arrant idiot PETER BISKIND by citing a box-office decline despite GENIUS and including movies like My Fair Lady and Doctor Zhivago in his list from this particular PLATINUM AGE -- perhaps the real insiders have come to realize how much BISKIND'S TOTAL CW STINKS -- but in the sixties and early seventies there were surely far more BAD movies than in previous decades, owing to the growth of cheapie B-movie factories like American International. Today, the whole BIZ is B movies.

Posted 3:08 PM by Gene

The pea-brained hyperpolitical ninnies are out. The left blames the ineffectual Dubya because he's a Republican; the right blames a fool mayor and governor because they're Democrats. That many people lost lives and property matters not ONE IOTA to PEA-BRAINED HYPERPOLITICAL NINNIES.

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

I don't know that I'd want to spend weeks guarding a cot in a big stadium, but at least your heart is in the right place, as it always was, Mrs. Bush.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Waters recede, fears rise

Then again, we may NOT need TELEVISION for an absence of context and continuity.

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

"[W]ith the glut of energy coming to our aid, it may take a toll on the market."

GLUT?!?!?

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

Even though this IS Jack Shafer, he elucidates well the reasons we've stopped watching news on television -- such as the music, the "video wallpaper," "the absence of context and continuity" (a highfalutin media-critic way of saying they can't see beyond their noses and when they do see they need bottle-bottom glasses), and above all the "dishonesty" of "24/7 coverage." Hey, isn't dishonesty what TV news is about?

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

Four alleged bigwigs come up with ideas on how they'd IMPROVE (!) THE PAPER OF RE-CORD. One comes up with coffee shops. A second mentions "hierarchy." A third says turn it into a tabloid. A fourth (with GE BANCORP) mentions "hierarchy" while saying put it on a piece of electronic plastic and charge for it with micropayments.

None, it would appear, has a CLUE.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

"It's going to wake the nation up again," Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday.

Sorry Mayor Noggin. 9/11 woke America up for a couple of days before it went back into a deep, DEEP SLEEP.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

The jellyfish-like Beeb effuses that the HACKS got their SPINE back.

Sure their SKULLS aren't getting thicker too?

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

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

Katrina's Victims Poorer Than U.S. Average

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

New observations by the international Cassini spacecraft reveal that Saturn's trademark shimmering rings, which have dazzled astronomers since Galileo's time, have dramatically changed over the past 25 years.

GLOBAL WARMING?

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

"I've already said enough. Mr. Sulzberger will be calling in."

The FORMER president knows who the REAL president is.

Plus he's just moonlighting. His real job is GOD.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

Doctors May Be Helping Sick Kids Die

Isn't that the HUMANE thing to do?

Hey JOHNNY! When do we find the RIGHT in the LIVING CONSTITUTION?

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

Many of the 500,000 displaced by Hurricane Katrina may never return to what was home; country hasn't seen such mass movements of refugees since Southerners fled Civil War armies.

The Dust Bowl?

History? What's history?

Posted 8:04 AM by Gene

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the HACKS' intransigence may owe something to the Web and talk radio: the biz can claim it's merely counteracting a powerful conservative influence. The idea that there is a HIGHER TRUTH, indeed that there's any TRUTH at all other than what WE call truth, seems quite passe these days in the luxury news suites.

JOKE OF THE DAY:

The mainstream media’s lack of interest in [ST. CINDY's] little verbal grenades is astonishing. According to a computer search, not one of them made it into news coverage by the New York Times. The Times has a public editor, or ombudsman, who might want to ask why.

A public WHAT?

Posted 7:59 AM by Gene

ROMY's worried that we're losing a WHOLE GENERATION of YOUNG IDEALISTS to the PR BIZ.

I don't think we should worry, Romy. It's just another way to lie for big bucks.

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Assuming we can believe this, there's good news for the back-slapping pickpocketing Babbitts and their accomplices in flipping: house prices could REALLY go nuts. (Presumably this includes zillion-dollar condos in New York, which may not be made of timber.)

Also, in most other areas hit by hurricanes, populations returned to normal. Let's not write New Orleans off YET.

P. S. Why didn't we hear that "the four hurricanes that hit Florida last year...damaged about 2.5 million homes"? Where were all the displaced people then?

P. P. S. The oil biz is revving up.

Posted 4:15 PM by Gene

Why couldn't the Sun-Times have folded when it got in its mess? It employs three of the biggest P-Uiest loudmouths in the news biz: BOB, ROGER and THIS GUY. Why must newspapers have star turns? Why can't these clowns encourage more than a handful of high-paid mucky-mucks to contribute? Why is a hack most contented when he imagines "PROFIT CENTERS" in the likes of a scheming glorified fixer, a studio-owned millionaire raver of movies and a PC defender of rotten "music"?

Posted 4:03 PM by Gene

Just as the race thing has become the guiding principle on the left regarding the hurricane, so we have an embellishment of a theme in the con-SER-va-tive CW: that the National Guard's response was GREAT and that to have had them in position before the storm would have meant untold casualties. Well we seem to have done well enough on the death-and-destruction front, haven't we? And why is it GREAT to take a WEEK to move 50,000 soldiers? We know all about the logistical problems of D-Day. Unfortunately there were no Germans in cement bunkers in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Posted 2:17 PM by Gene

"Welcome to the Islamic Kingdom of Qaim."

Welcome to the Stone Age.

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

NewsMax First Reported Roberts as Chief Justice Pick

No, NO, talk about STOPPED CLOCKS is TOO EASY.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

And while the National Guard rearranges the rubble, soon enough the BUREAUCRATS will be rearranging THEIRS.

AND PRESIDENT -- ER, SENATOR RODHAM WANTS TO HELP.

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

Stung by critics who say its sluggish response compounded the suffering and cost lives, the Bush administration rolled out a public relations offensive.

If it's THE PAPER OF RE-CORD, it's another way of getting back at the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Dubya. If it's DUBYA, it FIGURES.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

For what it's worth, many of the tourist traps apparently escaped damage, so that helps.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

I am astonished to learn from the POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that Adrian Karsten, an ESPN personality, was found guilty of tax evasion, and has killed himself. He reminded me quite a bit of Durward Kirby, a smooth, easy-going type, and Kirby would be the last imaginable person to do this.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

And in what under other circumstances might be termed INCEST:

A study by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers unearthed some positive news about the differences in viewing levels of TV programs and commercials: The audience falloff, on average, is only 5 percent, far less than some previous projections.

WHEW! We thought we were wasting money.

Here's the rub: Advertisers have to pick their venues with care, because there are huge variations among individual programs. For some telecasts, the audience falloff during commercials is greater than 50 percent.

STOP US BEFORE WE ADVERTISE AGAIN!!!!!

P. S. CAVEAT in the following graf:

But according to the study, which analyzed Nielsen Media Research data for two periods in 2004 (in the spring and fall), only about 4 percent of the 15,585 telecasts monitored lost 20 percent or more of their audiences. Forty-five percent of the shows, however, lost between 5-20 percent of their audiences when commercials aired.

It's news that people use their TVs as bug repellants and night lights?

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Forgetting it's not a holiday overseas:

"Prices peaked immediately after the hurricane because nobody had an idea of what the damage would be,'' said Richard Savage, global head of commodities research at Bank of America in London. Traders "factored in a worst case scenario. It's difficult to see how things can do anything but improve. Refineries are coming back and the IEA will release reserves of crude and products."

Brent crude oil for October settlement fell as much as $1.63, or 2.5 percent, to $64.43 a barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange, the lowest price since Aug. 24. The contract was down $1.32 at 1:03 p.m. local time. Brent reached a record $68.89 on Aug. 30, a day after Katrina struck. Prices have gained 59 percent from a year ago.

Okay, maybe it's too soon to tell, but do you suppose all that talk of ECONOMIC COLLAPSE may have been a bit PREMATURE?

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

In so many words, New Orleans's tourist trade is CONVENTIONS -- and with all these last-minute cancellations who is to say this disaster won't deliver a knockout punch to the whole notion of gathering thousands in one place to get drunk, when you could better transact your business in smaller gatherings, or over the WEB? At the very least it could save cities BILLIONS in building WHITE-ELEPHANT CONVENTION HALLS.

And tragically, without "TOURISM," New Orleans is next to nothing.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

The CLEM KADIDDLEHOPPERS of the CIA in MOUNTAIN VIEW are BACK TO THEIR OLD, SLOW, LAZY, DO-NOTHING WAYS.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

BLITHERING IMBECILES: "Burger King Corp., Nestle, Kellogg Co., Volkswagen of America, JP Morgan Chase and Toshiba" have produced a movie. If their purpose is to produce a movie -- and with the maker of $10 cereals it definitely is -- why don't they start production companies? If their CEOs are so gung-ho about pestering their subordinates for weeks about all the HOLLYWOOD types they know, why don't they just live in Tinseltown FULL-TIME?

BONUS POINTS: "[GE BANCORP] has linked with Kellogg and Nestle for some children- and teen-centric promotions on cereals and candy bars" for an R -- PG-13 movie. Not only do these MORONS want to be in MOVIES, they want to engage in SOCIAL ENGINEERING using JACK'S SECRET-RECIPE ALPHABET SOUP.

P. S. This will probably be the kind of huge hit the BIZ needs in order to feel good about making rotten movies again, because the GET-A-LIFE crowd is worked up, but the last time so many companies linked up in a promotion like this it was AUDREY'S MONSTER -- from the SAME COMPANY -- and NOT a BOFFEROO HIT.

P. P. S. Why am I hoping $500 gazillion of CGI will prove less impressive than Willis O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen?

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

The NEW CW: The HACKS sounded the clarion call for New Orleans to do SOMETHING. The problem with this is even if a dozen five-part articles appeared in the last three or four years they would have been drowned out in the news noise, and people could easily dismiss them as "what-ifs." With some probing we could find half-a-dozen or more stories warning of Osama's cockroaches, and here there is even less excuse for the hacks' indifference because all humanity was at risk, not a town or two. Five hundred such series would not rouse INCOMPETENTS -- do we need proof? -- but news hacks can still delude themselves into thinking they perform a PUBLIC SERVICE. What is more, the Times-Picayune, so heroic at the moment, is owned by SI, whose news inclinations lean more toward PARIS than New Orleans.

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

NBC: Bush taps Roberts to succeed Rehnquist

Given the last week we may wonder if President Rove knows what he's doing.

Is placating SEN. FATSO GLUB-GLUB worth the cost?

Posted 9:21 PM by Gene

Jonny Alter has Einsteined solutions for New Orleans, and he's come up with four brilliant ones: 1. "'Build communities from scratch that don't just warehouse people.'" 2. Bring back tourism. 3. Don't go the way of Camden, N. J. 4. Don't do tax cuts or other "glib [i.e., conservative] ephemeralities."

TRANSLATION: Jonny Alter hasn't a clue.

Posted 3:50 PM by Gene

Meantime, as ever more self-obsoleting electronic JUNK ACCRETES in our LIVING ROOMS:

For the foreseeable future, the only certainty is that all these mighty companies will continue to preach interoperability while pursuing proprietary hegemony. This could lead to several scenarios. One is that one company, or camp, wins. The digital home, unified by the winner's standards, might then become a reality in the mass market. For this to happen, however, several companies and industries would first have to make huge strategic mistakes, and consumers would have to accede, in effect, to a repeat of the "Wintel" (Windows and Intel) near monopoly in the PC industry today.

Another possibility is that the technology wars end with a truce, perhaps brokered by industry consortia that push open standards. This would be infinitely preferable for consumers and would probably make the digital home a reality much sooner, since it would mean that consumers could shop incrementally for new gadgets, all of which will fit with the others. The catch for providers is that this is much less exciting for their own bottom lines.

There is a third possibility. This is that the wars continue, but consumers continue not to care. As John Barrett, research director at Parks Associates, says, "it seems that we've concocted a new variant of the ‘paperless' office." This, you recall, was the consensus a decade or so ago among technophiles (but almost nobody else), that computer technology would save our forests by freeing us from having to read and write on paper. Today's variant, says Mr Barrett, is "no more tapes, CDs, DVDs, discs." In other words, expect them to be around for a very long time to come.

(Linked, oddly enough, on Slashdot, where the true believers don't seem to care.)

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

Already the NEWS BIZ has an OPINION:

[O]nly two hours after the announcement of Rehnquist’s death, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., issued a statement that suggested that Democrats would try to pressure Bush to nominate to the chief justice opening a non-conservative acceptable to them — not Scalia or Thomas, but someone along the lines of Justices David Souter or Sandra Day O’Connor — a nominee who, they argue, could “unify” the nation.

"In the midst of great loss and great tragedy, it is a time for America to come together," Kennedy said.

He also hinted at delaying consideration of any nominee. "Our first priority must be to remain focused on relieving the suffering of the victims of Hurricane Katrina and rebuilding those lives, those cities and those communities," Kennedy said. "With Justice O’Connor committing to stay until her replacement is named, we can and should remain focused first on protecting our citizens who need help the most...."

We shall refrain from any further discussion of dead bodies in water.

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

And while MR. MARK broods that the republic is DYING, he has another of his SIX-DIGIT PRESS AGENTS PUMMEL US with a MOVIE PITCH, reminding us yet AGAIN that behind his RAG's noble front is a RAGING GUST of HOT AIR.

Posted 1:07 PM by Gene

I've gotten around to the HONORARY TENTH FINGER'S obituary, and she says "[h]is majority opinions could be cryptic, sometimes only hinting at the legal reasoning, let alone the broader context or implications of the ruling," which makes me wonder just how groundbreaking his court was. But no denying he was a truly honorable man.

Posted 1:01 PM by Gene

Rehnquist Death Puts Stevens in Charge

With an 85-year-old now nominally the boss we must brace for a third replacement Finger. We must also contemplate TERM LIMITS.

Posted 11:59 AM by Gene

ME! ME! ME!

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

If Dubya didn't demand any resignations after 9/11, what makes anyone think he'll demand them after THIS?

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

HED OF THE WEEK:

Fats Domino safe but missing

What is a Thomas Crosbie Media?

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Poll: Bush Not Taking Brunt of Katrina Criticism

See? I told you some IDIOTS were taking a POLL!

And what I especially LOVE about pollsters is they're always trying to split us. You mean it's absolutely NOT possible for a Republican to criticize Dubya -- or the other way around?

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

I've noticed lately the FOR-PROFIT CIA OF MOUNTAIN VIEW puts me on Next Blog for only a HALF-HOUR. WHY?

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

All RIGHT, already, we need more REFINERIES -- but if anybody thinks of building one YOUR BOSS SCREAMS.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

WHY JERNALISM STINKS:

For cub reporters eager to hit the big time in Washington, there has always been a secret fast track, few more legendary than the research assistant network run years ago by the late James Reston, the former New York Times bureau chief. Do well there, and the well-connected "Scotty" Reston did the rest. Just ask Steven Roberts, a former Times and U.S. News reporter and author of a new memoir, My Fathers' Houses. "Every day," he says, "Reston did something to help me. He shaped my whole life."

Now, 40 years later, Roberts is following Reston's lead with a much-expanded mentoring network based out of George Washington University, where he has taught politics and journalism since 1991. Pass his course, and Roberts might hook you up with jobs he learns about from former students now working at places like Fox, CNN, and several Washington newspaper bureaus. "Steve is that lucky break for so many people," says Heather Clapp, who produces CNN's shows at GWU. "He just asks that you help someone else someday." Roberts's students also fill a Who's Who list of spokespeople sprinkled throughout the White House, Capitol Hill, and K Street, many in top GOP jobs--ironic, they think, because of Roberts's liberal leanings. "That's where the jobs are," he shrugs. The Roberts network also extends beyond schools and jobs: He officiates at weddings as the "designated substitute" rabbi.

TRANSLATION: A new clique plays the same old practical jokes on the PUBLIC.

P. S. This is Cokie's husband, and judging from this blurb Steve intends to get as much out of us turnips for his family's ELEVEN HOUSES as he can.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Meantime the NEWSRAGS are full of politically-motivated gloom and doom, blaming Bush for the hurricane under their breaths. What we get from NEWS RAGS on such occasions is the what the hacks always give us, but with the sort of drawn-out excessive detail that makes their efforts a chore to read, plus pictures to further assist the padding. Besides these clowns seem to have completed their tasks before the more optimistic turn over the weekend. There is no denying the disaster, and there is no denying, as always, the NEWSRAGS are FULL OF IT.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

William Rehnquist was supposedly a conservative justice, but his too-long stewardship of his court was in some ways an extension of Warren Burger's, as the Nine Fingers continued to make law out of thin air, and to improvise their way around the Constitution. His landmark ruling is Bush v. Gore, and whatever one thinks of its merits it was the sound of justice flailing. That we now view the Fingers as a superlegislature owes to their intellectual torpor of the last thirty-five years. The Chief Justice gallantly tried extending his rule through terminal cancer, but his pride and stubbornness merely put off the inevitable, an inevitable that would have been better served with retirement. Still, he was exceptionally cultivated, a man of real dignity, with a surpassing love of the law, and he almost overcame what his court amounted to. RIP.

Already the HACKS are SMILING:

Bush’s weaker political standing may nudge him another way now, toward someone like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, an African American or a woman like appellate court Judge Edith Clement.

TRANSLATION: Another David Souter or Anthony Kennedy, a man the HACKS can put in their WEEDY GREENHOUSE to GROW in OFFICE. Well, maybe. Or maybe not.