Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

I wish I knew who came up with the brilliant idea of giving hurricanes first names. It became annoyingly PC when feminists complained. Since people are so forgetful and we must name these things why not use Greek letters in the first place? Why do they need names at all? Don't we anthropomorphize too much?

Posted 3:58 PM by Gene

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that no one is irreplaceable. But in my view, Rove is.

How do you replace the President of the United States?

Posted 3:41 PM by Gene

EXCITING NEWS from our FAVORITE BUS-'N'-TRUCK STOP, the MERRIAM THEATER: Coming up on November 1 is THE FLYING KEYBOARD CLONKS OPRAH -- I mean, TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE! Sadly Hal Linden won't be in it due to a family illness, but we DO get HAROLD GOULD! And it's still brought to you by DODGE, PECO and HILTON!

And three weeks later, AN ORCHESTRA PLAYS LIVE VIDEO-GAME MUSIC -- TO PROJECTIONS!!!!! No word on any sponsorships.

I've said Kiss Me, Kate opened there in tryouts. So did Annie Get Your Gun. Irving Berlin and Ethel Merman must be rolling in their graves.

P. S. Do DODGE, PECO and HILTON get to run commercials during the play? And does THE FLYING KEYBOARD get a cut?

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

We're transitioning from a single business model, which was subscription-based, to a dual-revenue model. We want to hang onto the subscription business, because that's highly profitable and generates a lot of revenue. But we're also transitioning to a portal business, which is going to be built around the advertising, like Yahoo or Google.

TRANSLATION: Gerry, WHY did you merge with AOL?

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

YOU KNOW someone's made a huge difference in the world when the Rev. Jesse Jackson gives her eulogy, and Al Gore is on hand to call her a "four-star general in the army of the righteous."

A KnightRidderite may have written this with tears in his/her/its eyes, but the newly-deceased victim of the eulogy comes across in ONE GRAF as a PC BUFFOON, and this is truly SPEAKING ILL OF THE DEAD, however well-intended.

The question is not IF our DAILY NOOZ folds. The question is WHEN.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

THE GREAT ALASKAN BOAR wants to SUBSIDIZE the conversion to DIGITAL TV.

ANYTHING FOR A HANDOUT.

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

THREE CHEERS FOR THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE:

``The nine categories that remain unchanged in 2006 have been relatively stable over the last three years,'' Red Sox team president and CEO Larry Lucchino said. ``It is important that we remember the need for baseball to remain affordable for the families of New England.''

You running for office, Larry?

Posted 12:52 PM by Gene

THE BOX OFFICE IS DOOMED!!!!!

And Lee's numbers are usually slightly higher than Mojo's. This is flat out DISASTER, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Hey WORLD SAVER! Better cash in some more of your eBay stock! You'll NEED IT!

Good night, ST. EDWARD.

Posted 12:47 PM by Gene

Oh, before we get too excited over the zillions of ad dollars flowing into the Web, we might note the advertisers are getting more annoying in the ways they inflict them on you: witness British Airways's irritating delayed pop-ups, or the ads with the instant audio-on that you have to shut off yourself. There will be other ways, as we would guess from an industry that helped finance SPYWARE.

I'd take advertising on my blog if I ever merited it (fat chance), but in ways as unirritating as possible -- no pop-ups, and no other irksome gadgets.

Posted 12:36 PM by Gene

Which raises another question I'd like to ask of the hacks: What is the retail value of all your press passes to sporting events and concerts? It's at LEAST in the tens of millions. What law entitles you to them? Why is getting a nice free seat your Constitutional right?

I'd just as soon see fans who PAY for their seats write THEIR opinions in a paper. At least THEY'RE not ENTITLED.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM AT WORK IN NORTH CAROLINA:

Victor "Chili Man" Werany voted against an uptown arena in 2001. Standing behind his hot dog cart on Trade Street, he swore to never set foot inside the arena.

"I'll stand here and sell hot dogs," he said. "The voters said no, and it got built anyway. It was our taxpayers' money that could've gone to roads, could have gone to schools. Could have gone anywhere."

But hey, it did go anywhere -- it went to a pleasure palace where a KnightRidderite could groove with the STONES!

WHERE'S THAT ANGRY REPORTING YOU FOLKS PROMISED?

Ticket prices have been a point of controversy already. For Bobcats games, it'll cost $275 a ticket to sit in the first five rows, and no less than $40 a ticket to sit in the lower bowl. Upper deck seats are as low as $15, and Tapscott assures that there are no bad seats in the house. But even though the top row is a lot closer than the worst seat in the Charlotte Coliseum, it's still the nosebleed section.

The cheapest ticket to last night's concert cost $95.

NO PROBLEM -- if you're a NEWS HACK.

TEPID RESPONSE: Anonymously sourced reports in the local media have claimed tickets are selling slowly; the arena also lacks a naming rights sponsor and will open as Charlotte Bobcats Arena.

SEEKING PATIENCE: The team says it needs time to let the public see how great the new building is; some residents remain angry that the arena was built despite citizens' vote against such a facility for the now-departed NBA Hornets.

GOOD LUCK! (Pffh-hh-hh!)

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

Somewhere, in another center of the universe...

Former Australian captain Steve Waugh says star leg spinner Shane Warne is insecure, hits out at Ian Chappell and takes aim at the national selectors in his keenly awaited autobiography.

Prime Minister John Howard will launch Waugh's Out Of My Comfort Zone in Sydney on Sunday with publishers Penguin reportedly paying $1.3 million in the biggest advance paid for an Australian book.

Waugh, who retired as Australian skipper in January last year after 168 Test matches and 10,927 runs, confirms reports from the 1999 World Cup that Warne had problems with his captaincy.

Waugh also reveals Warne, Test cricket's leading wicket-taker, to be a fierce but insecure competitor.

The next time we get into a temper tantrum over something we might remember a story like this, which may as well have run in Greek or Swahili, and realize most of what we rant over isn't worth the proverbial hill of beans.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

TIMMMMMMMMMBERRRR!(?) [Jonah Goldberg ]
Insiders see hint of Miers pullout -- Wash Times.
Posted at 07:54 AM

Con-SER-va-tives busily, mightily pump the last atoms of oxygen from their hermetically-sealed chamber.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

SHUCKS, G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE has left the CONDO TRADE.

Now we'll have to settle for selling them at $5 MILLION.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

The cut was projected at 6 under par, which would tie a PGA Tour record for lowest score to par that made the cut.

AND TIGER MISSED IT?!?!?

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

THE GENERAL DECLARES WAR ON DUBYA!

Is He plotting a COUP?

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

We are tempted to give out a special CO-NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE and the BRITISH READER'S DIGEST for THIS boneheaded story, but FIVE IS ENOUGH -- FOR NOW.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

THE BUBBLE IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The run-up has also benefited smaller investors such as computer software programmer Dave Winer, who bought about $10,000 worth of shares in Google's IPO last year at $85.

"I didn't get in on Apple and Microsoft, so I felt like I should get in on this one," Winer said. "My investment may eventually be worth $40 million."

Let's calculate. This clown thinks he can reap a return on his investment in G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE of 4,000 TIMES. (This assumes he hasn't bought any further stock.) At that rate the whole company would have a market cap of $100 TRILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's nearly 300 GE BANCORPS or 400 BILL BUGDOMS! IT'S SEVEN TIMES THE TOTAL MARKET CAP OF THE NYSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A MIGHTILY APPRECIATING NEUHARTHI$M OF THE WEEK AWARD TO ZACHERY!! HEY ZACH! GET A JOB AT CNBC! THEY NEED YOU!!!!! WE NEED YOU!!!!!

P. S. We just realized: The last six days we've given out FIVE NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARDS -- and a NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD! At this EXCELLENT RATE we may have to give out NEUHARTHISM OF THE HOUR AWARDS! Go to it, NEWS HACKS!

(Corrected to reflect the clown's return thus far on his money.)

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

Hanover said the club may sue Amex for damaging its reputation.

A glorified whorehouse worries for its reputation?

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

MR. MARK has his GRIMY FINGER on the NEWS ZEITGEIST:

• Will Colbert’s new spin on fake news succeed?

• ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ returns to relevance

• Kevin Bacon: Movie bombs can be a boon

These are three of the top four stories listed below his RAG's logo on the MESS's home page. And these clowns expect us to take them seriously? Where's all this ANGRY REPORTING you promised us?

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

OUR RELIGION'S BETTER THAN YOUR RELIGION!

IS NOT!

IS SO!

IS NOT!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!!

How many people have died in the name of God?

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

A billion-dollar deal for a 68-cent stock and it didn't go up?

I think when we try to get money back from a glorified whorehouse we're in TROUBLE.

Pardon -- 64 cents. It lost four cents today.

P. S. It was a CNBC SPECIAL at $22.

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

Nowadays we don't call an "entertainment" bad. We call it "experimental" -- or better still, "CULT."

TIME TO UPDATE THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY AGAIN.

TOO LATE! Ben found it.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO KEN ANYWAY!

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

NYPD to station detective in Amman, Jordan

Riyadh would be better.

Posted 3:46 PM by Gene

Tsk tsk tsk, no orange thingies in MOST E-MAILED! Again! What to do, what to do?

Posted 2:48 PM by Gene

The latest from our HEROIC EBAY GREEDMEISTER:

It's all too easy to make fun of Hollywood actresses for taking on awards-baiting roles, just as it's easy to dismiss a film like "North Country" because, as a young male friend more or less suggested, our screens are overflowing with stories about working-class women sticking it to the Man.

And not just women sticking it to the man, we might say.

When the heck does He change His studio's name to MOSFILM?

Oh, it's still used.

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

I guess we're "lucky" this pile of dirt took his weird behavior out on one person, and not a whole school's worth.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Conservative Group to Release Film Criticizing Ann Coulter

Some Web browsing reveals Citizens for Principled Conservatism is a one-man crank band. But hey, he may be a CONSERVATIVE SOB, but he's OUR SOB.

When will people realize ANN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is just a Modo of the right?

Modo? Who's MODO?

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE = 3.09 CATERPILLARS.

WHY?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

DUBYA! STOP YOUR PANHANDLINK!

You running for president, Ah-NULT?

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

LIBERAL ELITES DESTROYED THE BRITISH EMPIRE!!!!!

Now if only those COMMIES in AMERICA hadn't spoken REVOLUTION....

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

George Lucas Donates $1M for MLK Memorial

Is Mr. AudioAnimaTronics about to make -- SERIOUS MOVIES?

Luke Spielberg, The General, DR. EVIL....

I HAVE A NIGHTMARE!

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

“It’s still an incredibly powerful medium and you walk away from it at your peril, but conventional use of TV by advertisers is on the way out.”

We've heard this song MANY times before. There's no reason, however, advertisers can't continue shredding money on junk television AND finance the fantasies of millions of JIM CRAMERS. That's the best of TWO worlds!

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

"If you go to a high school or college campus and ask people about search, many of them don't know there is an alternative to Google."

People are creatures of habit, and in that circumstance there is no alternative.

JIMMY!!!!! THE BUBBLE'S BACK!!!!! YOWZAH!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Why, then, is Cramer so in-your-face? In the aftermath of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's attacks on Wall Street research, analysts hide behind weaselly ratings such as "In-Line" and "Equal Weight," and scores of stocks are no longer covered. "The analysts," Cramer pronounces, taking a break from another drug-pump tantrum, "they are colorless and odorless and sanitized and fear Spitzer to the point of death." Even CNBC, he complains, is "terribly gun-shy about being anything but 'corporate crime watch' when people still need to make money."

Unfortunately, unlike BusinessWeek (DilbertSpell), we remember back during the CNBC BUBBLE the network was loaded with all sorts of prognosticators predicting permanent upward wealth. The NASDAQ has yet to recover, and Jim Cramer will be forgotten long after he's finally held in scorn for helping bankrupt some of his zany fans.

Does anyone remember another FNN alumnus -- DAN DORFMAN?

P. S. The guy worked for Alan Dershowitz. FIGURES.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Buffett is also known to wear sweat pants and sweat shirts in his spare time. He is a longtime fan of hamburgers, french fries and Cherry Cokes, and enjoys bridge and playing the ukulele.

This morning I worked myself into a bad mood thinking of Ted Field, the notorious junk-film and recorded-sound mogul. As Field is so superior to the slime that has patronized his bird droppings he never speaks to the press, but in his prime he trotted out someone to placate the HACKS, someone who insisted he was Field's "friend" but who was no doubt just a glorified PR officer. The hacks got all their information on this sleazeball from this "friend," and were so overcome with joy they never asked for another direct interview. We've a sneaky hunch this guy may have been an ACT. So when some STENOGRAPHER like HILLEL croons of sweat pants and sweat shirts, hamburgers, french fries and Cherry Cokes, bridge and ukuleles, we must think it pure unmitigated BS, and we'll have to wait until well after ST. WARREN dies to find out anything approaching the truth.

And it's not even HIS book, it's some hack named Schroeder's. (No, not THAT Schroeder.)

P. S. EXCELLENCE IN CUTTING AND PASTING FROM NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A bidding war for an authorized biography of the "ideas" of billionaire Warren Buffett has been won by the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc.

Tentatively titled "The Snowball: How Warren Buffett Collected Friends, Wisdom and Wealth," the book is scheduled to come out in 2008. Several publishers were interested and a representative close to the deal said it was worth more than $7 million, although not as much as the reported $10 million to $12 million for former President Clinton ‘s "My Life." Former General Electric Co. CEO Jack Welch reportedly got $7.1 million for his best seller, "Jack: Straight From the Gut."

"Our deal is with her. She is the author," Bantam president and publisher Irwyn Applebaum told The Associated Press Wednesday through spokeswoman Barbara Burg.

ST. WARREN'S CHANGED SEXES! STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!

IDIOTS.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

In an Aug. 31 e-mail that Bahamonde sent a co-worker, his frustration with Brown burst through.

Bahamonde had just learned, as he huddled in New Orleans' Superdome with evacuees, that Brown's press secretary was fretting about blocking out time for the director to eat dinner at one of Baton Rouge's busy restaurants that night.

"OH MY GOD!!!!!!!" Bahamonde messaged the co-worker. "I just ate an MRE" — military rations — "and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants."

You must wonder how much the insularity of AMERICA'S EFFETE PRIVILIGED CLASS contributed to THIS botch.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

"America's business, professional, intellectual, and academic elites," writes Samuel Huntington in his 2004 book Who Are We? have "attitudes and behavior [that] contrast with the overwhelming patriotism and nationalistic identification with their country of the American public. . . . They abandon commitment to their nation and their fellow citizens and argue the moral superiority of identifying with humanity at large." He believes that this gap between transnational elites and the patriotic public is growing. Huntington knows whereof he speaks: He's been at Harvard for more than half a century.

ENRON in the same boat as SHOW-BIZ, SNIDELY WHIPLASH in the same house as INTOLERANT PROFESSORS, and all hating the public. That does makes sense.

I think this also explains why I distrust even the HACKS' field reporting from Iraq; they're SUPERIOR SCIENTISTS examining a breed of bugs who've invaded an alien landscape. It is not enough to be detached from the world; you must be detached and CYNICALLY SNOBBY about it.

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!! SELLS AN OSCAR® WINNER!!!!!

And the NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD WINNER is...TONY!

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

"It's an R-rated movie, and it's a sci-fi horror movie, and those have capped audiences," said one exec, who declined to be named. "It's not a four-quadrant film."

While we dispute this courageous exec's opinion on the first point -- THE CONSPIRACY has ways -- we do not doubt the biz would RATHER BE RIGHT than make movies with broad appeal, and in any case it stopped making movies for ADULTS a long time ago, as opposed to violent movies for kids.

And that includes that EBAY GREEDMEISTER who merely makes movies for ADULT PYGMIES.

Posted 6:23 AM by Gene

What was going through somebody's mind when he typed this home-page hed...

Frozen WW II airman thawing

...assuming he had any?

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

SURPRISE, SURPRISE! The NERDS who create VIDEO GAMES are mostly NERDS.

Who'da thunk it?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

If NEWS HACKS devoted themselves as religiously to good reporting as they do to PLUGS WITH PUNCHLINES....

THEY WOULDN'T BE NEWS HACKS.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Senators: Bloggers may not be true journalists

And senators may not be real people.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Whatever you think of Bill Ford, it wouldn't hurt for more CEOs to go before the cameras and plug their products. It would give big companies a human face, it would show their managements stand behind what they sell, and it might even discourage them from advertising indiscriminately, saving their best shots for the boss.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

$10,000 A SHARE HERE WE COME!!!!!

Posted 3:49 PM by Gene

THE EXPLOSION OF ANGRY REPORTING GROWS EVER QUIETER:

Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn were photographed kissing, possibly confirming that their relationship has grown romantic. People magazine published the photos, taken last week in Chicago, in its October 31 issue, on newsstands Friday. (See People magazine story)

Do I smell a PLUG and a CIRCULATION GOTCHA? NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO PEOPLE WARNER!

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

Perhaps the last unenhanced human to make a significant contribution in the field of mathematics has already been born. In twenty years, the tenure track at top university mathematics departments may consist entirely of people who depend on drugs, direct neural-computer connections, genetic modification, or a combination of all three in order to achieve high-level performance.

MUSTAPHA MOND WORKS AT TECH CENTRAL STATION.

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

People once made death threats against Johnny Carson. Today, they'd write BLOGS.

What hath God wrought!

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

BUGGY NEWS IN HIGH-TECH:

Software giant Microsoft Corp. announced a seven-figure sponsorship deal with the owners of London's iconic Wembley Stadium Thursday.

The five-year deal makes Microsoft the stadium's first "founding partner," a title the soccer and entertainment stadium is reserving for only its largest sponsors and which comes loaded with perks.

Wembley will be wired up with the latest technology from Microsoft as it enters the final stages of its 757 million pound (US$1.3 billion; euro1.1 billion) rebuild.

How long before everything goes on the fritz?

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

"There are many worse crimes that Saddam committed. But I am an Arab, and as an Arab, I hope for revenge. I hope they give him justice for all the crimes he has committed."

We too want justice, but perhaps a reason the Arab world's in trouble is because it's always seeking revenge.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

And as THE GREATEST SHOW IN COMEDY HISTORY enters its THIRTY-FIRST YEAR (UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH), a THOUGHT OCCURS TO SOMEONE:

'MAN, even I could have written a better sketch than that." Who among us has not entertained this thought when watching "Saturday Night Live" lately?

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

Another EARTHQUAKE in the AD BIZ:

Weeks after a public address in which he called female creative directors "crap," WPP Group's worldwide creative director, Neil French, is leaving the holding company, according to executives familiar with the matter....

Mr. French's remarks came at a $125-a-plate dinner earlier this month. He was reported to have said, "Women don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to. They're crap."

This is what THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS "BUYS" with OUR MONEY.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

We don't care if your rag wins 5,000 AWARDS, Mr. Mark, but we (and we suspect MOST people) will instinctively avoid ANY story that begins with WORDS LIKE THESE:

The lengthy account by New York Times reporter Judy Miller about her grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case....

Posted 6:53 AM by Gene

Yep, TIMESREJECT HAS come to radio.

And in news of the SURGING DEMAND for LIBERAL TALKERS:

Air America, the liberal talk network carried on WWRC-AM (1260), went from bad to nonexistent. After WWRC recorded a mere fraction of a rating point in the spring with syndicated shows from the likes of lefty talkers Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo and Stephanie Miller, Arbitron couldn't detect a measurable listenership for the station this time around.

Pffh-hh-hh!

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

"I consider ourselves evangelical, too," Mr. Buford said, "but for a different market segment."

Yes, for people who go to "church" so they don't have to.

These superliberal social clubs have fallen into a deadly trap: they use advertising because their product can't sell itself.

In 160 test churches, first-time attendance rose 14 percent in the denomination and overall worship attendance rose by 6 percent.

Pitiful. Who was measuring attendance? Did they station little old ladies with counters at the doors? And what about at the franchises they didn't "test"? Here's another deadly trap the social clubs have fallen into: to invent statistics to justify their advertising.

The Episcopal Diocese of Washington is spending $9,000 for the theater ads that appear several times before the start of a movie. Images direct viewers to WeWelcomeYou.org, a diocesan Web site that includes information on various churches, links to their sites, articles about worshipping in an Episcopal church and a short on-line movie about the diocese.

One ad shows a man wearing a dunce cap in a curled-up position atop a question mark beneath a headline: "Because Having Questions is not [SIC] a Sin."

How can an owner of social clubs talk of sin when it's eliminated it from the premises?

No, I forgot: there IS a sin in Episcopal social clubs: investing in ISRAEL.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

THE VIACON NETWORK NEWS BOOK STORE...er, 60 MINUTES is open for business again, selling MJ's admission that he gambled too much.

One good thing does come out of this sales pitch:

He also addressed critics who expected him to be more political and outspoken.

"It's heavy duty to try to do everything and please everybody," he said. "My job was to go out there and play the game of basketball as best I can."

At least we can say MJ never made an INTENTIONAL ass of himself.

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

Astros vs. White Sox zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....

And most of the post-season has been one sided. Another EXCITING Series awaits.

Then again with two boring clubs it might be close.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

And in MARKETINGSTANDARD -- er, BOOKSTANDARD.COM, the PLAYBILL OF THE LITERARY BIZ, these OUTSTANDING DEVELOPMENTS:

Lemony Snicket Launches Book Tour of the Future

Sinatra Book Celebrates, in Time for His 90th Birthday, His Life After Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop and All Things Rat Pack

HarperCollins Swoops on Hot Male Nanny Novel

Wouldn't it be better if our schools didn't teach kids how to read as a matter of PRINCIPLE?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Nagin folding hand on casino zone

Jeez. RENDELLISM has its LIMITS.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

This story proves con-SER-va-tives may almost have a point when it comes to public transportation. If it isn't about machine politics, it's about money, and if it isn't money, it's about incompetence.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

SQUIB OF THE DAY:

DeLay warrant issued Arrest order a formality in Texas case.

As any one of the three people who follow my blog know I cannot STAND SNIDELY WHIPLASH. But a story like this, properly SPUN, can make it appear thousands of police officers trailing doberman pinschers are scouring every last corner of America pursuing this EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL man. Indeed stories like this are propelled by spin, and ONLY by spin.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Shucks, eBay's profit rose, but the shares tanked after hours because the greater-fool traders want 100% growth every year.

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE is NEXT!

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Somebody woke up Melvin Laird (Melvin WHO?) and told him to make NEWS HACKS HAPPY.

Nine hits NOW....

And thanks for YOUR contribution to our TREMENDOUS VICTORY in VIETNAM!

And how could WE not have been awakened the other day by the tremendous CW sound of SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX?

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

And speaking of Sixteen-String Jack, an UPCOMING (!) MASTERPIECE in the THEATAH: A MUSICAL based on HAPPY DAYS!

"Kicking off 2006 will be the world premiere of Happy Days, a brand new musical which I wrote with Oscar and Grammy Award-winning composer/lyricist Paul Williams, with a book based on my successful TV series," boasted Marshall in the company's season announcement.

Boasted?

Posted 3:34 PM by Gene

And now we have another manufactured phenomenon in the "OPERA" biz -- a musical about the invention of the atomic bomb. John Adams is a name that gets the hacks' hearts beating rapidly because he writes "operas" about topical themes -- Nixon, Klinghoffer. That he can't write music worth a tinker's damn says something, too: here is another work that hardly exists at all outside media outlets, and here is another soon-to-be-forgotten Victor Herbert for our generation, without melody and with an ATTITUDE.

We are reminded again of something THE MASTER said to Boswell:

BOSWELL. "Does not Gray's poetry, Sir, tower above the common mark?" JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; but we must attend to the difference between what men in general cannot do if they would, and what every man may do if he would. Sixteen-String Jack towered above the common mark."

We live amidst HUGE POPULATIONS of Sixteen-String Jacks.

Posted 3:28 PM by Gene

It is getting tiresome to read ArtsJournal.com links like this. Every several weeks we're told of some wild new show-biz phenomenon that, we are told, is HUGELY successful. Such stories could not be such stories without a heavy dollop of successful. So now the hacks north of the border tell us of the HUGELY successful Nigerian video biz, which has launched (in ArtsJournal's deathless words) "HUGE STARS." This means that while HACKS and EFFETE SNOBS have another toy to play with, outside of Nigeria these videos will exist as most blogs do -- in stealthy silence.

Posted 3:11 PM by Gene

DUBYA! If you ever need an INTERNET CZAR, I have a suggestion for one: CHRIS PERILLO! (Whoever he is.)

Thanks for gumming up my blog -- and thousands of others.

Posted 3:09 PM by Gene

We should have known the Video iPod would find a neat use -- as a PORN DISPENSER.

Well there's one good thing to come of it: the NINE FINGERS (plus or minus the STEALTH JUDGE) won't be able to LEGALIZE their way around PORN much longer.

Posted 3:07 PM by Gene

Perish the thought! The Chinese would aim missiles -- at US?

With Wal-Mart on their side?

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

Bill KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECK!! You keep up the good PR work and we may have to rename our NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD for YOU!!

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

Anheuser-Busch is shocked. SHOCKED! that underage drinkers would use BEER in BUD PONG.

Hey clowns, you AREN'T in the WATER BIZ.

Posted 2:15 PM by Gene

IF AOL's going GANGBUSTERS why is it CUTTING 700 JOBS?

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: It's a shame we can't put things like Abu Ghraib on our covers EVERY WEEK!

Hey TROMBONE-PLAYING SOUTHERN LIBERAL! Your biz is getting EXACTLY THE COVERS IT DESERVES.

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

TIMESREJECT MUST be working -- several of its former leading lights are boasting of REDUCED AUDIENCES!

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

Well, it APPEARS G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE is working again -- but I am taking NO chances; I intend to sign up for another blog provider tonight and will start a "ghost" blog (i.e., I'll post identical posts on both blogs). It's a pain in the a-double-scribble but these TECHNOLOGICAL TITANS leave me NO CHOICE.

Posted 12:30 PM by Gene

BECAUSE THE CRETINS AT G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE WILL NOT LET ME CREATE ANY MORE POSTS, I'M TAKING THIS SPACE TO ANNOUNCE THAT, BARRING ANY CHANGES IN ITS IDIOTIC OPERATIONS, I AM SWITCHING TO A NEW BLOGGING SERVICE EITHER TONIGHT OR TOMORROW.

FOR THE THREE OF YOU WHO PAY ATTENTION TO MY BLOG, PLEASE WATCH THIS SPACE.

P. S. I HAD TO TRASH A POST TO RUN THIS ONE. THAT'S OKAY -- IT WAS ONE PRAISING G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Yeah Marty, just what THE CONSPIRACY needs: MORE MARKETING.

MARKETING and FOCUS GROUPS and PRODUCT TESTING helped get your BIZ in the RUT it's in. However, if it'll get your BIZ in even MORE of a RUT, I say -- DO MORE MARKETING!

Some good news, though: Marty tells us Unilever's cut back on financing junk television by a fifth worldwide. The right thing, if probably for the wrong reasons.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

But well, even The Cute Little Pink Paper can occasionally show signs of a brain, so we reproduce this "BLOG" entry in full -- despite the permalink (who knows with these clowns):

ASME: Is Good Cover Design Dead?

In keeping with the magazine industry's longtime love affair with lists ("Top 5 Things Magazines Love: Lists, Sex Advice, iPods, Eva Longoria, and... Surprises!"), the American Society of Magazine Editors has announced their Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years.

Making the list are some predictable choices: Saul Steinberg's "View of the World from 9th Avenue," in The New Yorker; George Lois' Andy Warhol drowning in Campbell's soup for Esquire, and... surprises!

But less well-publicized was ASME's Worst 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years. Twenty of the selected covers were of the cast of Desperate Housewives in various configurations. The remaining 20 are listed below:

Vanity Fair, September 2005 (Paris Hilton Wearing White Her Way!).

Tie: Rolling Stone, November 27, 2003 (Housewife of the Year: Jessica Simpson); January 17, 1985 (The Secret Life of Hall and Oates).

New York, August 16, 2004 (Defending Joel Steinberg).

Spin, September 2000 (Creed Confess Their Sins).

Tie: TIME, July 5, 1999 (Cruise & Kidman Like You've Never Seen Them); January 24, 2000 (The Big Deal: How The AOL-Time Warner Merger Happened).

Esquire, December 1995 (Jim Carrey Feels No Pain).

The New Yorker, January 31, 1994 (AKA, 'Anthropomorphic Hassidic Bull with Horns').

Eleven-Way Tie: GQ, February 1998 (Big Ben: Ben Affleck Bellies Up to Stardom); Details, July 1999 (Ben Affleck: Armageddon's Rocket Man); Premiere, August 1999 (Ben Affleck Kicks Asteroid!); Vanity Fair, October 1999 (Ben Affleck: Gwyneth, Girl Talk, And the Whole Matt Thing); Talk, October 2000 (Ben Affleck: "People say I should live like a rock star"); People, February 21, 2000 (The Real Ben Affleck); GQ, May 2001 (Ben Affleck's Journey To Manhood); Details, April 2002 (Ben Affleck's True Hollywood Story); US Weekly, August 12, 2002 (J.Lo & Ben's Hot New Love); People, August 12, 2002 (J.Lo & Ben Affleck's Red-Hot Romance); US Weekly, November 4, 2002 (J.Lo & Ben Wedding on the Way?).

—Matt Haber

Posted by matthaber 10/17/2005 11:47:00 PM

Yes, it does seem that way.

Posted 6:32 AM by Gene

Well this morning G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER ditched WORD VERIFICATION for my posts, so I'm thinking it was another typical GLITCH. Legitimate bloggers shouldn't have to put up with such nuisances.

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

And in more proof that NEWS HACKS largely talk to themselves (and this being The Cute Little Pink Paper I can’t link to it as this @#$%&* RAG uses GENERIC LINKS):

Naturally, the film has gotten caustic reviews from the conservative right [including, we may presume, STEPHEN HUNTER and JACK SHAFER. -- ED.], in reprisal for the rave reviews from the liberal left.

At the showing I attended, there was warm applause at the end—as well there should be, given the film’s ringing defense of dissent in our country at a time of international crisis. But whatever audience the film does attract—and it promises to be not large—it may end up being a case of preaching to the converted, among whom, I suspect, I may count the great bulk of my readers.

If this doesn’t prove media types are conformists –- and media types are all that read The Cute Little Pink Paper –- I don’t know what does.

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

It's not our subjects I'm worried about, it's our souls.

We know you never worried about your subjects –- you HACKS have a way of leaving them out to dry –- but typists having SOULS? Please, you’re not POETS, however much you may THINK you are. It’s not even clear sometimes you’re human beings.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

THE ZILLIONAIRE IDIOTS DID IT TO FIGHT SPAM BLOGS -- AND YESTERDAY THEY CONCEDED IT DOESN'T WORK.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

CLEM KADIDDLEHOPPERS OF MOUNTAIN VIEW! WHY DO I NOW HAVE TO FILL IN SOMETHING CALLED WORD VERIFICATION TO BEFORE I CAN POST?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

BusinessWeek's version of Ken Felatta does a little cheerleading for his friends in Hollywood. But why should people rush to see bad movies by computer just because the technology's sexy?

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

WHAT MAKES EDDIE GREAT (or, Eddie PRNewswire press release #62,395):

GREENSBURG, Pa., Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Governor Edward G. Rendell today broke ground for a new building in downtown Greensburg that will be leased to house the Department of Labor & Industry's local office and save taxpayer dollars by consolidating state offices into one building. The 80,400-square-foot building will provide a boost to the town's revitalization efforts.

"Pennsylvania is making an investment today in downtown Greensburg," Governor Rendell said. "It is not just about bricks and mortar, but about bringing people downtown who will help revitalize and reenergize the community and support local business.

"We are working to improve the quality of life in our towns and cities, by attracting new investment and jobs. We are helping to restore commercial districts and making sure we have affordable housing," the Governor said, citing the rampant condominium speculation that has lowered Philadelphia's cost of living. (WHOOPS! Those last twelve words aren't in there.)

The project will bring 265 employees into the downtown area. The building will be ready for occupancy by the end of 2006 and will be leased by the Department of Labor & Industry for $1.6 million annually. It will house the Bureaus of Disability Determination, Unemployment Compensation and Workers Compensation. More than 50 local contractors will work on the project....

How many times has GUVMENT done something like this -- and downtown didn't budge?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Just how much AOL might be worth in this new environment is hard to say. I've seen $20 billion bandied about, but that seems arbitrary. What's clear is that AOL, recently written off as all but worthless, is not only worth something, but possibly quite a lot. Assign a multiple on AOL's revenues last year of $7.5 billion like Yahoo's (11.5) or Google (20) and you get an eye-popping range of $86 billion to $150 billion. [We can do better than THAT. --ED.] That's more than the $85 billion market capitalization for all of Time Warner, including AOL.

I'm not going to go that far, but even if you come up with a much lower number, don't you think that this would be unmitigated good news for Time Warner? And yet there sits Time Warner stock, dead in the water at barely $18 a share.

There might be a reason: FOOL ME ONCE....

Posted 3:40 PM by Gene

No orange doohickeys on MOST E-MAILED. AGAIN!

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

Speculation over L'AFFAIRE WHO CARES enters the MIGRAINE PHASE, with too many people TWIDDLING THEIR THUMBS and TYPING.

If someone is indicted, the only people who'll care are NEWS HACKS, as its cousin the prosecution of SNIDELY WHIPLASH is just another form of politics, of which people have had ENOUGH. Which isn't to say PRESIDENT ROVE or VICE-PRESIDENT BIGOIL are the types we'd want to meet in a dark alley in the dead of night.

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

"Why can't real estate just have a boom like every other industry?" Toll asked in complaint. "Why do we have to have a bubble and then a pop?"

Because you're addicted to smothering every last inch of farmland with superexpensive ticky-tacky?

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: We can do with the air what the Web has done with wires: create a hundred million broadcasters with no audience.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

SUMNER comes out of hiding with his Victoria's Secret models, so I guess that means it's safe to give the middle finger to viewers again.

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

OOOH, DANICA PATRICK FIGHTS LIKE A MAN!

But doesn't that mean it's okay because she's a WOMAN?

"My son hits harder than she does," said Lazier, whose son Kayden is 4.

OOOH, THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS!

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

BOND? JAMES...BOND?????

AND:

When asked why he didn’t go into television news like his father, TV newcaster Nick Clooney, George Clooney quipped, “I lacked only talent.” But, added Clooney — who directed “Good Night and Good Luck,” the new biopic about famed newsman Edward R. Murrow — “I had the hair for it.”

CALLING LES "MOONER" MOONVES!!!!!

Well, at least he never tried to SING.

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

AND IN FURTHER CRUSADING REPORTING FROM CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES:

Albright to Guest Star on 'Gilmore Girls'

Posted 12:51 PM by Gene

Romy is trying to restart this STUPID DEBATE over the TRAGEDY of so many YOUNG PEOPLE disdaining JERNALISM for PR. I'll say it AGAIN: as currently practiced there is LITTLE DIFFERENCE between REPORTING and FLACKERY. For as long as we've had a PARTISAN PRESS it's indulged in SPIN, and that goes back to before JOHN PETER ZENGER. With the Internet tearing down the physical wall between the luxury news suite and the public-affairs office we see how the two professions have FAR TOO MUCH IN COMMON. Many PR types are former NEWS HACKS, further diminishing the differences to a philosophical level. No, it is HEALTHY that people disdain such angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin musings, for they have nothing to do with REAL LIFE, and as people instinctively know that, however torrid the talk, however plaintive the mea culpas, NEWS HACKS WILL ALWAYS SPIN AND SELL as they're just PRESS AGENTS WITH A "CALLING."

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

I would say this is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!! but I've come to care for the STEALTH NOMINEE story as much as I've cared for the JUDITH MILLER story -- as an excrescence of words that I wish would GO AWAY.

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

EXCELLENT: A G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE SEARCH of "blogspot spam blogs" yields 2,120,000 hits. A search of "blogspot 'spam blogs'" yields 41,900 hits.

THANKS, G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE! You've helped put legitimate Blogspot users in the same category as sleazeballs!

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

Mimic Warren Buffett, Beat the Stock Market

Mimic Warren Buffett, buy a time machine.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

SUMNER DON'T KNOW JACK.

STERNO'S SAVIOR is down 15 percent in Noo Yawk. Is this the usual random zigzag or the beginning of his move to radio's version of TIMESREJECT?

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

You have to wonder if the Martin and Lewis breakup wasn't the beginning of the end for nightlife. Once the big names played nightclubs to packed houses. Now we have forlorn scatological -- er, comedy clubs, jazz funeral homes, and the outhouses for the GREAT WHITE 1-0-0 circuit. What we don't have is nightlife.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

And here's another problem, SAM: MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMM has learned how to BLOG TOO.

Our spin, their lies, their spin, our lies, SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

Another blogging IPO is in the works, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

And there's one advantage these future IPOs have that others don't -- built-in PRESS AGENTS.

P. S. Given that SAM LITTLE's a CO-FOUNDER I would expect this to degenerate into a COMEDY OF ERRORS, however profitable.

Indeed this brave new world of newsgathering is looking more and more distressingly like the old: our spin versus their lies, their spin versus our lies, and the truth be damned.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

Every time someone sells me on a NEW! IMPROVED!! way to surf the Web it turns out to be more of the same. Topix, My Way, Inform, Memeorandum -- they can only go so far as so many sites gaze at the same limited universe of information, the same old universe ruled by PINCH, ST. WARREN and CURLEY and his (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES. And it's naive to think there's some shining blog star out there when BLOGGERS tend to think the same, whatever their dogmas.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

But why the aide or bodyguard? Or is this THE NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE in disguise?

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

AND I AM THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST!

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE JESUS!!!!!

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

I feel (Sniff!) so sorry (Sniff! Sniff!) for JERRY REINSDORF! (BOOHOOHOO!!!!!)

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!!!!!!

P. S. 2,483 WORDS!!!!! WHO SAYS THE NEWS HOLE'S SHRINKING?

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

I think I know why USAOKAY!!!!! filled some of its NEWS HOLE with 1,194 WORDS of PLUG: GE BANCORP NETWORK MAY HAVE TO GIVE MONEY BACK TO ADVERTISERS!

Which they can shred SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Posted 8:00 AM by Gene

Armed Forces Radio Tunes Out Liberal Show Host

CENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNSORSHIP!!!!!

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

If Congress is serious on finding ways to pay for Katrina recovery, it could start by delaying implementation of the Medicare drug prescription program.

PFFH-HH-HH!!!!!

Posted 6:40 AM by Gene

After meeting with six families whose loved ones have served in Iraq, Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday that the United States had invaded the country based on "faulty intelligence." But he refused to press President Bush to bring home the state's National Guard.

Is Mitt running for president?

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

"It's crazy" for Ney to say he was duped, Abramoff said. "He was on the phone for an hour and a half!"

True; the only time CONGRESSPOOPS can be duped is when they inadvertently do good.

WHAT IS WITH ST. WARREN AND THOSE TOENAIL FUNGUS ADS?????

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

Nightlight goes Entertainment Tonight on its road to replacement by a talk show.

Happily, LORD KOPPEL will be on PBS (we've no doubt), doing -- JERNALISM.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

Who says the news hole is shrinking? USAOKAY!!!!! just spent 1,194 WORDS (counting captions) plugging a sitcom!

One way to know you're reading a plug: when an article quotes a MEDIA BUYER.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!

I'M DONE VENTING NOW [John J. Miller]

If you've ever wondered about the politics of magazine editors, check out the 23rd greatest magazine cover of the last 40 years.Some one needs to tell the folks at ASME (i.e., the American Society of Magazine Editors) that their acronym really could use a second "S." Truth in advertising.

Posted at 02:40 PM

Agreed that magazine editors are AS(S)ES -- how could they not be in a biz that's spawned HANK LUCE and GRAY-DON and TINA and MR. MARK -- and BILL BUCKLEY -- and LISTS ARE STUPID THINGS DONE BY MAGAZINE EDITORS, and granted their list is CW and PC to the NTH, but NUMBER 35 should assuage you.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

And speaking of con-SER-va-tives, there's a new ENEMY on their LIST, and his name is -- JOHN BOGLE:

SM: In the book you make comparisons between today's executive compensation excesses and the age of the robber barons.

JB: I talk about the compensation for chief executives. In the book I say the top earners have 430 times the compensation of the average worker. It's like a second Gilded Age.

COMMUNIST!!!!!

Although we cannot imagine how more so than the ONE-COMPANY-STATERS of con-SER-va-tism:

SM: Why is the increasing concentration of stock ownership such an insidious development?

JB: The problem is that we have profound conflicts of interest as agents. Money managers — nearly all of them — are managing both mutual funds and pension funds. So there's not much of a distinction out there from an investment standpoint. The 100 largest institutions own about 58% of all corporate U.S. stocks. That's an amazing concentration. They're managing 401(k) plans and pension plans. They don't want to lose their clients. The managers don't want to offend their clients; and they don't want to offend two types of clients — actual and potential. They don't want to offend anybody.

In my time in this business, investment management has gone from a profession with elements of a business to a business with elements of a profession. Now the dominant form of management is the giant financial conglomerate. Companies, in effect, own themselves.

Maybe the ONE-COMPANY STATE is closer than I thought.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

DOW 36,000 is AT IT AGAIN:

The Strip isn't always pretty. But America, and the world, can learn a lot from Vegas. [Home-page tease]

Like...GREED IS GOOD!

The sunshine helps, no doubt. So does immigration from Mexico and availability of relatively inexpensive land. The lack of a state income tax is a big attraction.

GREED IS GOOD!

DOW, couldn't you have written another article on the MIRACLE of PRICE GOUGING?

And what makes this WORSE is that it overshadows an article justly blasting NEWS HACKS for putting their vile pro-Islamist spin on the situation on Iraq -- even IF the author must refer to the MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMM.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Speaking of PORN:

AN attempt to use Britart to foster relations with Morocco has backfired after locals branded the exhibits offensive to their religious beliefs.

Two of the works, notably an anatomical statement by Tracey Emin, have been withdrawn, while three others by artists including the Chapman brothers have caused offence because of their sexual nature.

The collection was put together and curated by Vanessa Branson, sister of the businessman Sir Richard.

This will happen when Babbitts take over diplomacy; but then we know that, except for making obscene sums of money, the likes of Sir Richard have NO SENSE.

Also withdrawn was a picture of President George W Bush deliberately shown upside down. The print is by the American artist Jonathan Horowitz. “We took it out because this is not the time for political provocation,” said Benjelloun.

I repeat: NO SENSE.

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

But Ms. Katz said Bud Pong was not intended for underage drinkers because promotions were held in bars, not on campuses. And it does not promote binge drinking, she said, because official rules call for water to be used, not beer.

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

This BUD's for you! and THIS one and THIS one and THIS one!! (HIC!)

Legend has it that the game, also known for some reason as Beirut, started years ago at a Dartmouth College fraternity party.

1. I think I can guess why it's called Beirut. 2. How apt the fad started at one of America's most PC colleges.

P. S. Thank You, PINCH! With all Your colyumnists gone it's easier to find stories like this on Most E-Mailed!

But Your Holiness...are You SURE You should have linked to a glorified PORN portal?

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Will the Internet boob tube replace the boob tube?

Yes -- if we can get the BUGS out.

Posted 12:24 PM by Gene

There aren't yet enough quality pages to satisfy advertisers' hunger for a blog presence

There aren't enough quality blogs PERIOD.

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

The nets are about prepared to abandon first-run programming on Friday nights -- but you can bet your ad dollar THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS won't stop shredding money on it!

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

And on this day we hear the charming news that SLEAZEBALL GUMBO tried to get into fiction, a drug company pays over $700 million in fines for promoting an AIDS drug through kickbacks to doctors.

Sorta renews your faith in BIG PHARMA, doesn't it?

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gets a little TETCHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

The New York Times is not too happy with NewsMax’s coverage of major political candidates using U2 concerts to fundraise.

On Friday, NewsMax fell in the crosshairs of the "The Gray Lady."

The paper reported that a NewsMax "Inside Cover” story had set off a brouhaha about U2's involvement with U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania.

NewsMax's story first revealed that a $1,000-a-seat fundraiser was to be held for Sen. Santorum during Sunday night’s U2 concert in Philadelphia.

Citing a response from Santorum’s office, the Times reported that the NewsMax story was "incorrect” and U2 was, indeed, not holding a fundraiser for Santorum.

But here's the rub: NewsMax had never claimed that U2 or Bono were holding their concert for Santorum – though several liberal blogs claimed as much. Apparently, the New York Times has bought into the NewsMax-Santorum-Bono conspiracy theory.

We hadn't seen the original story -- of COURSE NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! doesn't link to it -- but NOW WE HAVE, and given the MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S cute use of words we think it got caught with its hands in the cookie jar. But then someone could put together a Web site with nothing but the MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s BONERS, and here's betting it would have an AUDIENCE.

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

Now we KNOW it's serious: Someone deplores the profusion of TV ads -- ON NRO!!!!!

The EARTH is MOVING.

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

Meanwhile, on a more optimistic note...

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO GREG!

We may soon launch a separate site to honor NEUHARTHISMS. More work, but all these wonderful honorees deserve the attention!

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

This must be the eleventh or twelfth time we've been running out of oil in the last 25 years, and there are sure to be eleven or twelve more.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Even the Sunnis turned out

SHUCKS, democracy WORKS.

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Here come the CLUNKER BROTHERS!

This is why GM and the auto workers finally agreed it couldn't finance the health-care biz FOREVER.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Perhaps the people scored a victory in stopping the International Freedom Center, but one wonders if this a just another skirmish in an undending war; among the backers of the late center were AmEx, GE Bancorp, IBM, and People Warner.

There will be another something in the future, another chance to stick it in our faces.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Oooh! The WIZARD OF OZ is just a MAN BEHIND A CURTAIN?

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

Curators and guardians of Italy's artistic heritage, much of it on open display, will be on high alert this week following the discovery that the country's most persistent art vandal is back in action.

Piero Cannata, who earned worldwide notoriety by taking a hammer to Michelangelo's David, confessed to local newspapers in Tuscany that he had struck again in the very centre of Florence. It was discovered that somebody had sprayed a thick black "x" on a plaque, set into the paving of Piazza della Signoria, commemorating the burning to death of the 15th-century preacher and reformer Girolamo Savonarola.

Time for a PUFF PIECE, PINCH?

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter last month told an audience of advertisers that while he often used Google, he never remembered the ads. Schmidt countered by using Vanity Fair as Exhibit A: Its circulation is around 1 million, he said, and a full-page ad for a Prada bag costs around $100,000. So that ad in Vanity Fair costs 10 cents per impression. How about paying about 20 cents per impression, he offered, for a link to a Web site where you can buy the bag?

In truth, Vanity Fair's ad is cheaper per impression if you measure by the magazine's total audience, but Schmidt's point is nonetheless clear: Which gets you closer to commerce, and how much do you pay for that? So goes this tech-driven narrative of the future. We have seen much of this movie before. But suddenly I'm not sure how this one ends.

I think I know how it ends: with the SUGAR DADDIES again coming to HOLLYWOOD'S RESCUE, and G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE being worth $10,000 a share after a 50-for-1 split -- the USUAL HAPPY ENDING.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

HUMANITARIAN OF THE YEAR:

Sen. Edward Kennedy Helps Rescue Fishermen

NO COMMENT.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

Hmmm, King Kong's getting a new songwriter. Maybe it won't be the masterpiece the news hacks are already raving in their hard drives?

Well, look at it this way, Pete: Stan Kubrick replaced Alex North with Richard Strauss. So it could be worse. Your film could really BE a "MASTERPIECE."

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

As befits their obligation not to tell us what we need to know news hacks have yet to say who got arrested in Dayton, but we suspect it was mostly anarchists, who are Nazis in their own way.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

We would feel sad about Michelle being DQ'ed but she's already made zillions, and she'll make more zillions, and with the help of our Gods and oppressors in the news biz she will soon become INSUFFERABLE.

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

Speaking thereof if Clint can do for Iwo Jima what he did for euthanasia we may surrender to the Japanese!

Can anyone here say CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED?

And we know they'll be PC because LUKE SPIELBERG's producing them!

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

The next big right to invent: the right to euthanasia.

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

AARON gets to ghost his cartoon for the TWXSTERS!

Anything to raise cable rates!

Posted 6:23 AM by Gene

It's that time of year when ADAGE hands out "AWARDS" to crappy magazines to show people it can toady with the best of them -- and this year we award PEOPLE for making celebrity press releases inescapable!

And the cherry on the whipped cream is we get to do it at a RESORT now! Nice going, Rance! Your rag gets more irrelevant by the day!

That's the great thing about the ad biz: everything's an excuse for a paid vacation. And WE PAY FOR IT.

P. S. From now on we will refer to People Magazines and PEOPLE WARNER -- but their employees will still be TWXSTERS.

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

Who knew SLEAZEBALL GUMBO wanted to write a NOVEL?

Hey Billy, there are HUNDREDS of ghostwriters in the Beltway. All you had to do was ASK!

Posted 8:35 PM by Gene

That Mickey can spend 1,297 WORDS on this never-ending business with the PAPER OF RE-CORD reporter suggests why most people don't care.

Posted 4:35 PM by Gene

Despondent over ever being able to get a decent, affordable place to live I came across this widely distributed piece of JUNK from CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES plugging a plug of our city in that sometimes tourist rag National Geographic:

Since 2000, the number of visitors to the city has grown by 21 percent to 25.5 million, said Meryl Levitz, president and chief executive of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.

Looking up this outfit's Web page I found something one step removed from the teen-oriented sites that inflict pop-up ads on you. Googling the number led me to this PRESS RELEASE from our DISINTERESTED TOURISM BOARD that apparently defines Philadelphia as FIVE COUNTIES and involves at least TWO CONSULTANTS and a RESEARCH FIRM, providing MUCHO opportunity for inventing figures. Indeed our tourism board seems to have spent so much time stroking numbers it's hard to believe ANY of them.

In short, those who must depend on CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES for even STRAIGHT FACTS must TEAR THEIR HAIR OUT.

Posted 12:49 PM by Gene

"I do think that this is a revolution on the scale of both the telephone and Gutenberg," Copeland said. "Could you in 1910 have guessed how big a part of our lives the telephone would be?"

We still have the Bible, we still have telephones. It is highly unlikely our greatgrandchildren will read our BLOGS.

P. S. It is disconcerting when a "Christian" university boasts of a Hollywood hack alumnus (whose SUCCESSFUL "film stars big names such as Tom Wilkinson and Laura Linney"). Why must religious types pay so much attention to the things of this world? Or don't they believe there's a next?

Besides, Gonzaga had Der Bingle.

Posted 12:37 PM by Gene

B.O.'s down almost 25 PERCENT from LAST YEAR!

Time for more LIGHTS and WIRES in the BOX.

PAUL DRECK invents a NEW excuse: BASEBALL. People are staying home watching baseball by the ZILLIONS so they can avoid watching movies.

SHUT UP, PAUL DRECK!

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

I've got news for you, Stole -- er SKOLL, your masterworks won't work on three levels: 1. They probably won't make money -- THE KNIGHTING OF ST. EDWARD just fell on its sword; 2. Atop the mighty notion that THE CONSPIRACY wants to extrude the worst product possible comes the notion it wants to HECTOR moviegoers with PC, and sorry, most people DON'T like being hectored, however CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED the hectoring (indeed the more CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED the hectoring the LESS LIKELY some will endure it); and 3. There was a time people in SHOW-BIZ could claim to be better than their idly watching peons. THAT TIME HAS PASSED.

You're worth umpteen zillions, Stole -- SKOLL. Why didn't you give the money to the Red Cross, or the Salvation Army, or somewhere it WOULDN'T SHINE A BIG BRIGHT KLIEGL LIGHT ON YOU?

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

We're bored too, CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES -- bored of all the stories you waste on rich and famous SHOW-BIZ TYPES telling us among other things THEY WERE BORED so they can PLUG THEIR LATEST PROPERTIES.

This is far worse than Al Roker and his DOGS -- that at least was amusing -- and in at least one "PACKAGE" they APPEAR TOGETHER.

We're looking for a BYLINE to give out a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD but CURLEY'S COWARDLY STOOGES OMITTED IT.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

Oh, NO -- an eBay ZILLIONAIRE is behind ALL THESE MOVIE LECTURES!

Is this to make up for all that SLEAZY DEALING on YOUR CREATION?

It's a shame we can't awaken Kaufman and Hart, or maybe Scott Fitzgerald from the dead -- this guy is RIPE for abuse.

I think I've come up with a joke: If you want to send a message, call eBay. (Don't forget the fees and shipping.)

Skoll rhymes with...stole?

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Three months after BOB GELDOF solved the world hunger problem, or whatever he did, Malawi declares a state of emergency owing to hunger.

I'd hate to think what would happen if Bob staged a stunt every MONTH. The whole WORLD might be infested with LOCUSTS.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

THE version of events that prompted NBC Universal to abandon its DreamWorks acquisition reported by the media went like this: DreamWorks partners walked away from talks after NBC Universal Chief Bob Wright tried to lower the price.

But the real reason, according to a knowledgeable source, was that Jeffrey Immelt, chief of NBC Universal parent General Electric, killed the deal because the company has been unable to raise needed cash by selling its 50 percent stake in the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando.

THE MIGHTY GE BANCORP can't sell a THEME PARK?!?!?!? No wonder our stock's sitting there.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

"My fear is that Refco is the canary singing in the mine. I hope I’m wrong."

It never ceases to amaze us how many businessmen want to work in a MINE.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

This isn't to say THE PAPER OF RE-CORD can't do a nice favor for SHOW-BIZ' GENIUSES when SELLING calls, for we have here a POSSIBLE BEST-PICTURE OSCAR® NOMINEE!!!!!

Folks, will you stop with that GENUFLECTING and BABBLING IN TONGUES to St. Murrow, PLEASE! You're not THAT good.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

But golly if the TWXSTERS almost don't do MR. MARK one better! This is what, the FIFTH TIME (or is it the seventh? We've lost track) we've put the God of Cupertino on OUR cover! Granted, He's not as holy as Bruce, but if we can help sell the new iPods -- well, what's good for Time W...APPLE COMPUTER...and we're sure your stenographers did not ask ONE TOUGH QUESTION in their whole time there. Remember the TWXSTERS' motto: Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to SELL -- or die! Only of course NEWS HACKS NEVER DIE -- and neither do their CREATIONS.

Although the LEAST you can do when you're running a PRESS RELEASE is make it available to the PEONS for free! PRNewswire does.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

Well that was an easy one, Mr. Mark! We don't have to worry about the vote in Iraq -- the TOILETBOWL luxury news suite must be in an AWFUL funk over its success -- and the obsession over the STEALTH NOMINEE is a Beltway thing, they wouldn't understand -- but this glorious cover allows us to do the one thing we do better than anybody, better than anything: PLUG SHOW-BIZ!!!!! (Using feminism as an excuse, of course. This isn't just some celebrity puff piece.)

A LOUD HALLELUJAH FROM THE LORD GOD WARREN!