Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Months ago we excerpted an article from New York's Daily Nooz about the twelve-year-old who upstaged SUMNER at VIACON's shareholder meeting. Well! Said twelve-year-old has a blog -- and he linked to us!

Thank you, Joshua. You have a bright future -- and we STILL think you should take over from Sumner.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

Given how GoogleNews and Yahoo!'s "In the News" work, I wonder -- do we impute too much power to news hacks as individuals? Don't they tend to work like one giant amoeba anyway, an amoeba that thinks itself more intelligent than its readers though it is collectively without a brain, that is the unvarnished soul of right, that cannot make mistakes and when it does is better than to apologize for it? I often think of the news as being generated by one superbeing, or some giant Minitrue, and one cannot shake the aura of centralization and conformity when reading even the mildest of stories. This is why news hackery poses such a danger to us: it is a force of its own, with no accounting even to itself, that is as human as galaxies and stars, and just as imperturbable.

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

Kirk Kevorkian -- KERKORIAN tried to pull an MGM on DaimlerCorp. Now he's doing the same with GM. How would he do it? Would he put all the factories up for sale and sell the intellectual rights to People Warner? Or would he keep the GM name and use it for a Vegas casino chain?

Posted 4:30 PM by Gene

A quick scan of some of the CW bloggers reveals them to be oblivious to all but their petty obsessions, demonstrating once again that the forces of reform remain well down the news food chain, even if they have sexy names.

Posted 4:14 PM by Gene

Freepers have a link to a sporadically working official site saying Richard Pryor has died. I suppose he was funny, if that was your taste, and the hacks will mourn ALL weekend.

Amazing about FR: it beat the hacks by about ten minutes.

P. S. Currently Yahoo!'s "In the News" box, which has surely become last word for instant jernalistic CW, has the Sen. first, but it can't last under the crushing weight of show-biz' genius. For once, however, it has it right.

Posted 4:02 PM by Gene

Eugene McCarthy, who was for one brief moment after the awful terrorist assassination of Sen. Kennedy a bright shining hope for the Democrats, and quickly faded away under Hubert Humphrey's flailing to become a reform crank, has died. The question with him is not that he didn't go further but that he got as far as he did. Indeed he was a one-issue candidate before such candidates became popular. All things said, he was an honorable man, far more than we can say for the current ranks of bloviators and budding crooks. RIP.

P. S An apt eulogy for the Democratic Party, and its coming apart in 1968:

"It was a tragic year for the Democratic Party and for responsible politics, in a way," McCarthy said in a 1988 interview.

"There were already forces at work that might have torn the party apart anyway — the growing women's movement, the growing demands for greater racial equality, an inability to incorporate all the demands of a new generation.

"But in 1968, the party became a kind of unrelated bloc of factions ... each refusing accommodation with another, each wanting control at the expense of all the others."

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

Before the Reps get TOO excited about Joe Lieberman, they should remember how they often feel about BOOBS McKEATING.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

As announced Thursday, the all-new Love Boat will set sail with the following passengers: Wayne's World shwing-er Tia Carrere, 38; original Access Hollywood host Giselle Fernandez, 44; WWE star Stacy Keibler, 26; 98 Degrees pop singer Drew (Not Nick) Lachey, 29; ESPN veteran Kenny Mayne, 46; trivia question answer Tatum O'Neal, 42 (the youngest-ever Oscar winner); future NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, 43; soap star Lisa Rinna, 42; rapper-actor Romeo, 24; and, in a nod to the inevitable, George Hamilton, 66, player of self in film, commercials and, now, Dancing with the Stars.

Glub glub!

Keibler is such an obscure name, at least to ABC, it misspelled her last name in its press release ("Kiebler").

All she has to do is change the name and Kellogg's will sponsor her.

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Volkswagen wastes money building cars for the AUDIOPHILES of the HIGHWAY.

Let's see someone go at 253 MPH in this beauty! Most of these cars will hardly ever leave the garage.

At that speed, the tires would begin to soften in about half an hour. Fortunately, at top speed, it runs out of gas in 12 minutes. "It's a safety feature," Wolfgang Schreiber, the Veyron's chief engineer, says with a smile.

So what is the point of building a car that allegedly goes 253 MPH if it begins to self-destruct in half-an-hour? I doubt even St. Warren's company would insure it.

VOLKSWAGEN DOES IT -- AGAIN!

Posted 1:12 PM by Gene

Early BEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOH numbers indicate HUGH and KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ will go NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Rosie's Nephew less so.

And again the masses are avoiding any movie that isn't number one, which makes me ask if tentpoles have pyrrhic victories.

And to the news biz' PR men who say these masterworks will close the gap, this year's GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME will open on so many screens you'll have to search for anything else.

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

We may wonder: after Iran nukes Israel will there still be any need for the Nobel Good Intentions Prize?

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

We give away a lot of Crosley radios on the Hugh Hewitt Show, becasue [SIC] it is a great product and Crosley is a great sponsor.

Figures it WOULD be a manufacturer of overpriced faux-art-deco radios with a faked name.

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

L.A. Leaders Seek Peace if Williams Dies

TRANSLATION: THE HACKS WANT ANOTHER RIOT.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

The WAPOST asks:

Should bias be treated as a mental illness?

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM....

Amid a profusion of recent studies into the nature of prejudice, researchers have found that biases are very common. Almost everyone harbors what might be termed "ordinary prejudice," the research indicates.

EXCEPT NEWS HACKS.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

The ACADEMY® is in a BIND -- it will have to find a new EMCEE for its OSCARS®!

We think it should bring back Bob Hope.

We'll have quite an ACADEMY AWARD® ceremony this year!

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

The fat cats at the top of corporate America might have to disclose just what goes into their compensation packages, if a proposed Securities and Exchange Commission regulation is enacted.

If SEC Chairman Christopher Cox gets his way, publicly traded companies will have to put a chief executive's base salary, bonus, deferred compensation, and stock and option awards into a single figure.

COMMUNIST!

Expect a DOW 36,000 article in the NEW, IMPROVED TCS next week.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Excellent! We'll have more talks to have more talks to screw up the world economy in the name of greenhouse gases. No wonder they invited Slick!

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

When first we saw this CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES press release we thought, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh, People Warner again (it's a RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), but then we got to thinking, media have gotten folks to thinking the best way to redemption is to make an utter fool of yourself, and to be in the worst possible taste -- in short, to expose yourself in public. And then we wonder why so few have a good reputation. Here is another reason we hold news hacks in the kind of esteem we reserve for mass murderers -- and mass murderers only kill people; news hacks kill brains -- and why, even if every last newspaper and news-gathering organization went out of business, their toxic influence would remain.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

Another story that makes news hacks laugh, and gives them added incentive to give us the shaft every day.

Posted 8:20 PM by Gene

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL comes to KNIGHTRIDDER, and its names are "Blackstone Group LP, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Providence Equity Partners Inc."

We think we know the ending to this story: if white- er, knight JERNALISTS were to take over the company we'd get THE TRUTH. When the money managers take it over we'll get CELEBRITY NEWS. Of course we could get THE TRUTH AND CELEBRITY NEWS, just like now, but we could get a lot more of something too: a big gray pile of badly written banality -- just like now.

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

Here we thought Little Malcolm would subject us to another plug for YOU-KNOW-WHAT, and instead he reports on a man who may be the most conscientious in the entertainment biz: George Feltenstein, whose name has graced Rhino's superb vintage-movie soundtracks and who is in charge of the vaults at what should be called MGM's video unit, but is instead another fiefdom of People Warner. This man must be up against all manner of pressure groups in reissuing vintage movies -- the ultra geeks, the purists, the anal-retentive fans, the PC brigade, not to mention People Warner's lunatical bean counters, not further to mention the extremely variable quality of the stuff in the vaults -- and yet from all accounts he's done a great job, and RKO's inferior version of THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME was yet another labor of love and diligence, taking two years to assemble. We have already bought a few of his DVDs, like the first Astaire-Rogers anthology and two of the Looney Tunes sets, with more on the way (a three-pack of The Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with a bonus disc -- that should be something), and while we don't like financing a media tyranny, at least it's a benign part of it, despite the fungibility of media bucks. Thank you, Mr. Feltenstein!

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

China Police Kill As Many As 10 Protesters

They're basically protesting for more rice, and Wal-Mart and Yahoo! can take care of them.

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

Sumner may throw His money down the DreamWorks drain!

I thought the whole point of Your demerger was to DEMERGE.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Another tiresome celeb story: It puzzles me how somebody with a non-face like this can become a name in show-biz. I guess he is an ac-TOR, like the guy in the Truman film. Most likely he got where he is due to good breaks and better publicity. To me he's another grade of Ben Affleck. The fairer sex should demand justice. Is there any film star a female can call sexy? I needn't say how we males fare; think of all the blather regarding this Kyra what's-her-name. She's too angular and too jut-jawed to be attractive, and she won't stay young much longer. Won't show-biz ever have memorable, desirable faces again?

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

When a blogger says you must see a movie, and when the blogger insinuates you must see a movie for political reasons, chances are that blogger is not worth reading.

Cases in point: The infernal Corner has been blahblahing superlatives about CGI Lewis, and has just blasted Rosie's Nephew's latest world-saver. Apparently Leon Wieseltier (not a blogger, yet) has belittled Luke Spielberg's masterwork (of COURSE TNR being better than its readers it's put it off limits to the plebeians); but that could easily be answered by, say, an Arab, or an ultra-liberal, or a TWXSTER. We may add: when movie reviews become turnabout-fair-play they aren't worth reading.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

Three whole pages and somebody like Bonnie Raitt keeps her mouth shut on Iraq?

An honorary NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK award to whoever wrote that opening paragraph. Don't we have enough flunkies telling show-biz types how wonderful they are?

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

A lot of self-righteous laughter as Europeans get to pontificate about how Big Bad Mean Old Uncle Sam VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS. But I wouldn't trust the Red Cross or any European organization not to act as a helper for terrorists, however unintentionally. After all, the WaPost did it, and they're smiling too.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

How many idiotic buzz words can you spot here?

MediaWorks: What are the right reasons to use the Super Bowl?

Mark Stewart: You have to have a product or a service that scales to the constituents. The Super Bowl is one of those properties that do a very important thing in capturing the population and the imagination all in one. It scales, it has lean-forward interest, it’s a sought-after event. And the advertising is as heralded as the game itself. It’s an experiential marketing event. Buying just one spot and not activating around it is not the best use of the investment. But buying a spot as an anchor and activating a marketing program around it is still a fabulous opportunity.

TRANSLATION: We get to sit in a suite at the 50-yard line and harangue our subordinates for weeks.

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

Typetypetypetypetypetypetypetype:

Today's Pictures: Adolf Eichmann's infamous trial.

Was some intern typing that a trial involved the infamous Adolf Eichmann -- or that maybe the idea of putting Adolf Eichmann on trial was infamous? Such is the ever tightening ideological pretzel of news hacks and liberals that we cannot entirely rule out the latter.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

Time Warner still open to buying MGM at 'reasonable price'

That should make Carl Icahn very happy.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

Bad news for WALTER "THE SPYWARE COWBOY" WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

FTC COMMISSIONER WANTS ADWARE POP-UPS STOPPED

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Here's another potential con-SER-va-tive cause: truck emissions.

What will surely get DOW 36,000 and company excited is the notion of "$5,000 and $10,000 per truck" in extra costs, so the trucking lobby says. But every time we see a big black belch of smoke from a big-rig exhaust we guess it may not be good for one's health.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

Bill Clinton to Surprise U.N. Conference

No comment.

BUT SERIOUSLY, if we have a second Civil War (and lots of folks on both sides wouldn't mind), Democratic ex-presidents may help precipitate it; the two current ones don't seem to think Dubya's -- legitimate. After three terms with you guys we're not sure you were either.

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Some symphony plays in a former sports arena now called a "megachurch," and some factotum calls it branding.

How apt: music that isn't in a church that isn't.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

If these French rappers had committed their art in America the HACKS would be praising their SUBVERSIVENESS.

Also, with an irony that must make the French government wince, the music gained an incalculable boost from legislation introduced in 1994 to "protect the French language". This enforced quotas on all radio stations, obliging them to play at least 40 per cent Francophone music....

Laws designed to protect the "French identity" thus helped create a movement which is now seen as a threat to that identity. Artists have been prosecuted for "dangerous" or obscene lyrics, especially in the south, where Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National is strongest.

Mayeb you guys should let Americans do American culture. We're better at it.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

Aging baby boomers are battling major health problems, but Americans are living longer, according to a federal report on the health of the nation....

The 535-page report, which includes a special section on baby boomers, says half of the oldest boomers, ages 55 to 64, have high blood pressure, and nearly 40 percent are obese.

The generation that promised itself eternal youth is turning out to be just like everybody else.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOOH, the world's losing patience with IRAN!

Gotta take ya out to the woodshed and slap ya with a wet noodle.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

"I'm not sure the world needs another Nation."

Joe Con is.

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

There is no greater thing for me than to combine my love of Peyton Manning with my confidence in the phenomenal strength of the American economy in one blog post. Thanks to this piece, I can.

We're SO happy Hugh Hewitt has found LOVE.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

Boy, this is almost as good as plugging SUPER BOWL ADS!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to SUE!

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

As for the rest of current breed of Democrats:

Their challenge comes down to how to undermine the mission in Iraq while at the same time seeming to support it.

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

A eulogy for the Democrats, from "crusty" John Dingell:

But Dingell also thinks his party is a victim of its own success. A fierce advocate of national health care and labor unions, Dingell says the voters who remember his party's struggles to improve wages, health and labor standards are mostly gone. “A lot of them have died,” he says, but their children have “gotten affluent. Now they think they're Republicans.”

We may think we're Republicans too after a day with MSSSSSSSSS. Pelosi.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

More news to warm our hearts for Big Pharma: Merck may have deleted inconvenient data about Vioxx from a study for a medical journal. Any other bright ideas, Sleazeball?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Some of the FREEPERS have been Tarzaning that the air marshals "set an example."

They forget one thing: The cockroaches who brought down the WTC WANTED to die.

The two shootists have been put on paid leave, so I guess this incident isn't THAT cut-and-dried.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

The hacks have a new excuse:

“THE AP IS NOT BIASED!!!!! IT COVERS STORIES EPISODICALLY, ATTEMPTING TO PUT THEM IN CONTEXT!!!!!”

So now when we're biased we can blame The Perils of Pauline -- or The Beverly Hillbillies.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

We do not know WHY corporate America should care about its rep. Bad press is merely a cost of doing business. The only time big business can be abashed is when it does something politically incorrect or its product kills somebody, and then that's only a legal matter. And Big Pharma chose its new flatulent spokespoop well: had Sleazeball Gumbo hung around he'd probably have had his grimy hands in the Katrina dough, or faced an indictment. We suspect he's sorry now he didn't, ulcer or no ulcer.

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

Bob gets into the 1939 spirit! "So many GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD movies" are coming out (so says THUMBS-UP ROEPER) they may not all win awards! Isn't that sad?

Isn't that PR?

P. S. The reason such advertising reaches the threshhold of pain is that many of these masterworks have tiny audiences. Truman's opus, the putative front runner for THE BEST-AC-TOR OSCAR® because the ad blurbists loved the lead's verisimilitude (and how does such acting differ from impersonation?), has been seen by roughly a million people, or about NINE PERCENT of all those who came to see JK's latest tentpole IN ITS FIRST WEEKEND. Rosie's Nephew's immortality about ST. EDWARD of MURROW has done less than A TENTH of its total gross. Excluding the CGI properties we suspect nearly all these masterworks will do no more BO than JK's genius COMBINED. (Most of them come from arthouse labels, and sorry, the arthouse is merely high-toned OUTHOUSE.) And who's to say the coming tentpoles can't be axed? Today in my office more than a few people expressed high annoyance at how weathermen hawk snowstorms, much of their gag designed to fill up two hours' air time. The hacks' work can be a kind of reverse psychology, and people hate the media enough. Probably the tentpoles will do the umpteen kazillion all the ad-blurbists say, but I would not be surprised if the dread word "disappointment" rears its ugly letters.

P. P. S. We are not sure who David Poland is, but whoever he is (and El Reut calls him an EXPERT), he is not impressed. One thing is clear: we're following the OSCARS® more closely this year, as they may really afford the hacks a chance to make ASSES of themselves.

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

Iran's Ahmadinejad says Israel should be moved to Europe

Okay, if you'll agree to move Iran to the moon.

Oh, it's already THERE? Didn't know.

Meantime the Organization of the Islamic Conference said...?

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

Someone attempts to let a little sun in on the supersecret kitchen where JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP is made -- and someone else bricks up the walls and seals the doors.

Sadly, we suspect this is a culturally PC movie that hews to Peter Biskind's blinkered cataracted view of the world, but we hope SAMMY GLICKMAN will finally have to explain himself.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

The moral equivalent of head banging: the Army spending money on recruiting in media that always knock the Iraq war effort.

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

5,410 LINKS!!!!!



KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

The shooting, said Jon Adler, a vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Agents Assn., provides "a strong argument" for Congress to put more marshals on flights.

For what? To up the firepower?

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

If we could ask a question of Mike Wallace, it might be, "What's the difference between you and Drudge except he works the Web and you have a reputation?"

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

As Artemus Ward famously observed, "It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we do know that just ain't so."

And that's why God invented blogging, and cured cancer.

And Tech Central Station.

Dow 36,000 seems to love that line.

P. S. Elsewhere on the Web those words are ascribed to Mark Twain and Will Rogers, so I guess it IS true.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

And speaking of the MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, it says Gov. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!! urged us to cut and run from Iraq out of context.

Isn't it time to see a doctor other than yourself?

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

With all the dreams of unlimited wealth among bloggers we wonder why WALTER "SPYWARE" WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hasn't entertained a buyout, or an IPO. His over-the-top errors and carefully crafted show-biz plugs are worth MILLIONS. And then there's his help for the SOFTWARE COMMUNITY. At the very least you'd think he'd take over Free Republic and start a CONGLOMERATE.

And if he REALLY wants big bucks he'll then merge with NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

Next: A Pulitzer-prize-winning blog?

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Another thing that gets the HACKS excited: the POP NOISE OF THE YEAR AWARDS. Anyone who gets excited about this is deaf, or makes too much money, or both.

If there's any justice in life Mariah will make another movie.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

David and the other SHOW-BIZ FLACKS are SO EXCITED about 1939 they CAN'T KEEP THEIR FINGERS OFF THEIR KEYBOARDS!!!!!

HOWEVER:

A wealth of performance-driven films, costume pageants and visual spectacles....

Which is somewhat unlike a wealth of GOOD MOVIES, but then this IS 1939.

AND:

Classic that it is, the original "King Kong" earned no Oscar nominations.

TRANSLATION: The ACADEMY® MEMBERS will look like the BLITHERING IDIOTS THEY ARE by giving this one BEST-PICTURE -- but that's okay; they're SUPPOSED TO BE.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

More of the NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW from TOPIX.NET:

Lindsay Lohan flakes out
The Superficial 19 hours ago
Sometimes I call in sick for work on days when I would rather sit at home and play Madden while downloading porn. 6.7
13 more stories

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

Whatever you think of ANN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (in my case not much), it never ceases to annoy me that the same people who so piously speak for tolerance are the first to man (or rather, PERSON) the barricades for CENSORSHIP.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

SHUCKS! Meathead won't run.

Now democracy rests on YOUR shoulders, Warren.

In Reiner's case, 41% of voters viewed him in an unfavorable light, compared to 25% who liked him. About 48% of voters viewed Beatty unfavorably, compared to 16% who saw him in a positive light.

When Californians LUUUUUUUUUUUUUHVE entertainers think how the rest of America feels.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

How many people read CGI Lewis?

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

We wonder if the hacks are Goebbellizing over A GREAT ARTIST as a reflection of their own mortality. Twenty-five years ago news hacks seemed to be on a permanent ascendant, ready to oust any president and send any number of millions to perdition. Then came Janet Cooke, then the appointment of the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Ronald Reagan, and despite the triumph of News-for-Dummies in USAOKAY!!!!! things have gone downhill since. Now the industry, though wading in dough, faces an uncertain future (meaning 10-percent profits rather than 20), and great Boomer writers like Robert "Over the" Hilburn are being shown the door, and truly immortal Boomers like Woodstein are close to decamping to their mansions, and what is left? Things were so much sweeter in 1980, during a hostage crisis.

Posted 7:24 PM by Gene

As I suspected, there was no bomb, although the man allegedly reached into his backpack.

I still think this is the equivalent of swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. I do not underestimate the dangers of flying from holy cockroaches, but our hands are already tied because the security people have to frisk infants and grandmothers for PC reasons, and this helps put innocent screwlooses at risk. And I will not second-guess the air marshals; they have dangerous jobs. But there has to be a better way of subduing passengers who pose no risk other than being off their meds.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

IF this survey is true:

While most Internet users think they are safe online, they're not, according to a new study released Wednesday by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance. In fact, about 80 percent are exposed to common Internet threats, the study found.

More than half of the participants either had no anti-virus protection or had not updated it within the last week, researchers found. About half did not have a properly-configured firewall, and four in ten didn't have spyware protection. Taken collectively, more than 4 in five consumers lacked at least one of the three types of basic protection.

Still, 83 percent told researchers they were "safe from online threats," the study found.

...people are ignorant or else they're raging geniuses -- such as invented the PC.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

Cable companies consider family tier

Fine, but here's betting it fails, for two reasons: lack of interest (and here the news hacks can have their laff riot by calling viewers HYPOCRITES -- but not too loudly, because after all we base our circulation fictions on some of them), and just as likely, suspicion over this most greedy of industries' motives.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Dog saves 3 Germans from fire but burns to death

Oh well, we can still say the dog is man's best friend.

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

And in more FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS, our man Rog, America's greatest PR man, says not-so-between the lines THE OSCAR® BEST PICTURE is a "better version of the 'Mission: Impossible' movies." So Luke Spielberg dispensed His medicine with a whole bag of action sugar, as we'd have thought, and it'll go down easily with the scribblers. It is exasperating how we have to draw teeth from the ad-blurbists to get them to tell even the smallest morsel of the truth, especially now in 1939. We forget that truly great art has often been accompanied by indifferent to rotten reviews; it is rare the scribblers instantly acclaim true brilliance, and they're easily blinded by the dazzle of fool's gold. Think of the bored reaction to The Great Gatsby. Better yet, read these reviews of Huckleberry Finn. Even the few favorable ones don't get the point. Or to quote this noxious example from a paper happily long folded:

It is little wonder that Mr. Samuel Clemens, otherwise Mark Twain, resorted to real or mock lawsuits, as may be, to restrain some real or imaginary selling of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" as a means of advertising that extraordinarily senseless publication. Before the work is disposed of, Mr. Mark Twain will probably have to resort to law to compel some to sell it by any sort of bribery or corruption. It is doubtful if the edition could be disposed of to people of average intellect at anything short of the point of the bayonet. This publication rejoices in two frontispieces, of which the one is supposed to be a faithful portrait of Huckleberry Finn, and the other an engraving of the classic features of Mr. Mark Twain as seen in the bust made by Karl Gerhardt. The taste of this gratuitous presentation is as bad as is the book itself, which is an extreme statement. Mr. Clemens has contributed some humorous literature that is excellent and will hold its place, but his Huckleberry Finn appears to be singularly flat, stale and unprofitable. The book is sold by subscription.

By Roger Friedman.

Okay, we made that last line up. And possibly we too might have gotten into the spirit of raillery, especially if we'd made up our minds that Sam Clemens was but the Garrison Keillor of his day (which to some extent he was, only better). But when the blurbists tell us six movies in a row are masterpieces it is for a reason, and it is NOT for our erudition. So broad and sweeping is the urge to rave that when somebody like Bert Lahrson pans THE OPRAH MUSICAL we can't believe him -- owing, to be sure, from a long and distinguished career of fatuousness, but because he is an AD-BLURBIST, and such creatures do NOT deserve the benefit of the doubt; and besides, they're looking for the next property to overrate.

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

THE FEDS GET THEIR MAN!

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Aviation experts postulated that the situation must have been seen as a dangerous one if the air marshal drew his gun.

Or maybe they fired four or five shots because they knew he had a bomb.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich described the incident as "regrettable" but defended the air marshals' actions.

HIM??????????????????????????????????????

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

The heavies of the Organization of the Islamic Conference are meeting again -- and they sound like the American Society of Newspaper Editors. "We don't have the luxury of blaming others for our own problems," says its sec-general. But it always helps.

Meantime:

"Today, the world of Islam is required to adopt a policy to confront conspiracies of the US and Israel and is obliged to make use of all potentials to isolate the enemy."

That's more like it.

Posted 2:31 PM by Gene

Which will get more GoogleNews hits: the Pearl Harbor anniversary -- or THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN LENNON?

194 links for Pearl Harbor. We'll wait until tomorrow for the MARTYR OF MUSIC.

And we haven't forgotten RESPECTED MURTHA; he's up to 1,780 links!

Posted 2:18 PM by Gene

Can anyone doubt rag publishers play tricks with their numbers? These pulp piles are far better known among the reverse Robin Hoods than newspapers, and a select few have sex appeal, all the more reason to play fast and loose with the truth. How can we not suspect the rags of trickery when (as we've said before) the leading newsrags have such large, unchanging, sadomasochistic reader bases? And let us not forget the PUBLISHERS CLEARING HOUSE promos.

Interesting too that Family Circle had its numbers supercharged. This made us recall it was once owned by -- THE PAPER OF RE-CORD COMPANY.

Posted 12:48 PM by Gene

Canada plane crash report was false alarm - police

Which didn't prevent THOUSANDS of bloggers from reporting it, no doubt.

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

What To Do With All These New Actors?

Put 'em in restaurants!

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

The only thing worse would be for a vindicated DeLay to be relegated to the backbenches because his acquittal was a couple of weeks late.



BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

You're sure he'll be vindicated, Sons o'Buckley?

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

Amazing how the forces of right tend to cower when they're up for REELECTION.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

Stepin Fetchit LIVES!

And he does [C]RAP!!!!!

OR:

The venerable Hollywood slapstick producer Hal Roach (The Little Rascals) is quoted as saying:

Stepin Fetchit was a very funny guy. That's why we tried to use him, because he was a skilled comic. … [T]he colored people in those days got as big a kick out of Stepin Fetchit as anybody. They used to come to the studio every single day, you know, dozens of them, wanted to see him.

What Watkins is suggesting here is that Stepin Fetchit's act continued the "trickster" tradition of slaves: outwitting their oppressors by pretending to be slow-witted and lazy, and thereby exploiting whites' sense of superiority. This ironical defense of black stereotypes misses the basic fact that while even black folks may recognize and laugh at the buffoons in their community, it doesn't mean that this disdainful reflex is subversive.

Which is precisely what some people call [C]RAPPERS.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Frits Philips, whom we might call a Dutch David Sarnoff or Akio Morita, and who saved lives in a concentration camp, has died at 100, and we won't hear about it because he came from an obscure country.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

And speaking of VNU (and people who should become consultants), the fair and impartial Greg is mad because a story he liked didn't get front-page treatment.

We might be inclined to agree here, except the story did get wide play on the Web, so front-page exposure isn't THAT important anymore; and besides, we can think of lots of important stories it wouldn't bother Greg not to see on the front page.

P. S. Your blood pressure at work:

The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001--you remember them. Cost nearly 3000 American lives and haunted the families of the victims. Traumatized the nation. Damaged our economy, led to a new cabinet department and the controversial Patriot Act. Gave the new U.S. president, who was foundering in the polls, almost unprecedented power and popularity. Led directly to a war against Afghanistan and overthrow of the government there. Led almost as directly to the invasion of Iraq, then a continuing war and occupation that has cost another 2000-plus American lives and countless billions of dollars in expenditures.

Wait a second, Greg -- the Iraq war is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL. Isn't that DUBYA's fault?

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

We see our favorite revealingly-dressed airhead has a lawyer named Howard K. Stern.

I don't know why Bob Geldof's folks should be so mad -- they only CHANGED THE WORLD.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Sony BMG Music Entertainment said Tuesday some 5.7 million of its CDs were shipped with anti-piracy technology that requires a new software patch to plug a potential security breach in computers used to play the CDs.

The Rootkit Music Co. resembles BILL'S BUGMEISTERS more and more every day.

P. S. This time the junk was from the BMG side of the company, meaning this was a delayed-reaction bug.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

And in more news of show-biz toadies -- REPORTERS looking for work:

Robert Dowling, editor-in-chief and publisher of The Hollywood Reporter and president of the VNU Business Media Film and Performing Arts Group, is retiring after 17 years at the helm effective Dec. 31, he said Tuesday.

Dowling said he is starting his own consulting firm, the Bob Dowling Group, to serve clients looking to navigate the converging worlds of entertainment and technology. VNU Business Media has signed a three-year deal as Dowling's first client.

Okay, he's 66 so he's close to retirement, but this gets us to thinking: Most show-biz hacks write screenplays when they want to harvest their connections. This sounds even BETTER! You can get to be a power in the BIZ as a consultant -- and this guy has a client! Good luck, Bob -- and we hope you inspire many, MANY AWFUL MOVIES!

And we hope they make a TOP 100 list.

Posted 8:06 AM by Gene

ONNNNNNNWARRRRRRRRRD MOOOOOOOOVEONNNNNNNNNN SOLLLLLLLDIERRRRRRRRRRRS:

Todd Gitlin, a professor at Columbia University's School of Journalism [KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! --ED.], said the MoveOn effort has "the potential to be effective," but only if there are shareholders sympathetic to its message.

"We know how they think they can raise profits - by hollowing out and crippling the [journalistic] enterprise," he said of media executives. "Maybe there will be stockholders who think otherwise."

Some newspapers have cited sagging readership, increased competition from the Internet and rising costs for their decision to reduce staffing to levels MoveOn suggests spreads remaining reporters too thinly to be effective watchdogs. But Newsday also was hard hit by a circulation scandal that forced it to reduce its reported daily circulation figure by about 100,000 copies and to compensate advertisers over the bogus subscriber claims.

MARRRRRRRRCHING AAAAAAAAAAS TOOOOOOOOOO...what?

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

GanNETt's selling air time on its stations for promos. Now why doesn't it take the next logical step: sell space in USAOKAY!!!!! stories? It already does so for free, so why not profit from it? A big growing boy like GanNETt can use the money.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

Saddam refusing to attend trial, court source says

Let's see him refuse to be executed.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

Michael "FORE" Dell and Co. outsource all that money to India, and still the Indians go and spend it hoarding gold. Makes sense.

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

Ah, the ways of the rich and famous:

Mr. Downie said that he and his famed assistant managing editor needed to increase their communication.

“I’m not satisfied on my own part,” Mr. Downie said.

Asked to explain why he’d been out of touch, Mr. Downie replied, “Because he’s a rich man, who has an entire floor of his house as his office, and he has a staff of his own working for him. He doesn’t come into the office so much. We have to take the initiative to talk to each other.”

Mr. Woodward has no direct editorial oversight at The Post. And despite his title, Mr. Woodward hasn’t edited a story for the paper in years, Mr. Downie said. He writes for the paper when he wants. When he’s pursuing a book project, he discusses some of the content with Mr. Downie.

“It varies from project to project, depending on what he’s working on,” Mr. Downie said.

Thus goes the life of John Belushi's biographer, "America's pre-eminent celebrity...reporter" [ellipsis mine] and lead investigative man for Simon and Schuster.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

Smells like Katie wants to change the world!

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

"Non Sequitur" creator Wiley Miller thinks editorial cartoonists should protest job losses by withholding their work from syndication for at least a week or month.

I've got a better idea, Wiley: have all news hacks stop writing for at least a month to protest job losses. Then....

The Web really WOULD take over.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Keyword Prices Tumble

So why is G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE still worth $500 quadrillion quintillion megazillion?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

We know con-SER-va-tives like to -- FUME at smoking bans, but their fulminations merely confirm that ciggies are to the right what hard drugs are to the left, and besides, a smoker's "right" ends at the tip of my NOSE.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Ethical Concerns on Face Transplant Grow

What'd I say?

Posted 3:20 PM by Gene

NCAA March Madness on Demand to be offered free of charge on NCAAsports.com

The day is quickly coming when we may not necessarily need cable.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

UK Conservatives opt for youth to challenge Blair

Does that mean they've chosen a younger adolescent?

Posted 12:27 PM by Gene

"Radio, you shouldn't have to pay for it."

PEOPLE ARE PAYING FOR IT BECAUSE YOU PAID FOR IT.

The new channels will be commercial-free for at least two years. Programmed locally, they will be free to anyone who purchases a new HD radio.

You mean we won't get to hear A REALLY GREAT DEEEEEL ON AN AU-TO-MO-BEEEEEL in DIGITAL?

Posted 12:22 PM by Gene

1. Ben Stein's become the Larry King of print. 2. CJR hates him because he's a Republican.

SIX OF ONE....

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

OH oh:

A government report today that accuses food marketers of using billions in marketing dollars to woo children away from good diet choices could become a watershed on the scale of the 1964 Surgeon General’s report on tobacco.

This may be hype, but if not, we can expect no help from the hacks. They've already squidgeted themselves into a quandary: obviously PC diets are the right thing, but not if they HURT OUR SYNERGY. And we can expect the usual political schizophrenia, the left taking the side of the food police, the right lining up with the junk-food kings, and the public be damned.

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

A huge chunk feels like "Jurassic Park 4" or "5"....

We know you're the greatest press agent since SOB, but isn't this, er, damning with not-so-faint praise?

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

• Charges against Tom DeLay reduced [MSNBC home-page hed]

DeLay money-laundering charges upheld [Story hed]

It may not be easy to do a fair hed when a story has two sides, like SNIDELY's legal woes; but there must be a better way, and news hacks, as usual, are not looking for it.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

A eulogy for the Hank Luce of our time:

"Would he sell Rolling Stone, which is his complete and utter identity?" said one longtime underling. "Without that, he's just another rich guy with bad manners."

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

Is that sacred sound I hear Nine-Finger Souter and friends throwing out the Solomon Amendment?

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

Why would Couric want to jump to "CBS Evening News"?

TO RULE THE WORLD!

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL: Ford will no longer advertise the Jaguar and Land Rover in gay rags!

I guess we'll hear about this for the next three weeks. And the nice thing about forcing this controversy is that it will work the ulterior motive of getting more money into our pockets.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

The recorded-sound conspiracy further rewards its customers by forcing them to buy NEW! IMPROVED! re-edits!

We're surprised an experienced rock blurbist like Edna says something not-so-nice about the record biz. That's not The SOB Way.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

DR. EVIL's in control again.

Wherever he is, bad lurks.

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

What is GanNETt doing but what LEGENDARY WELCH proposed for Today: play for pay?

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

As with STERNO's God, Roger Ebert is a small pile of common sense buried under a huge pile of shtick. So we were astonished to hear he's made a stink among the GET-A-LIFE! crowd for claiming videogames will never be high art. He is right of course; with their limited first-person perspective and their surfeit of the kind of design work that could have graced Saddam's mansions, video games can never be anything more than a cheesy onanistic thrill, an obsession for the mentally challenged mentally gifted. We suspect no one has let videogames have it for the simple reason that hacks are afraid of offending their huge audience, a strange notion as most of them can't read.

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

We wouldn't guess which of Europe's marshmallows is most deserving of being overrun by holy cockroaches, but we can't deny Sweden has staked its claim.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

"My message to corporate America is: please, pretty please, honor your pension plans!"

Posted 7:56 PM by Gene

Saddam trial told of horror in Room 63

...which for NEWS HACKS is quite a few floors away from ROOM 2000.

Posted 7:08 PM by Gene

CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES SPIN:

A judge dismissed a conspiracy charge Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out the FAR MORE SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS of money-laundering, dashing the congressman's hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader.

It's propaganda like this that makes CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) ETHICS CODE the funniest thing to come to comedy since THE HONEYMOONERS -- and WE CAN'T STAND SNIDELY WHIPLASH EITHER.

P. S. SIGN THE MOVEON PETITION! PFFH-HH-HH!!!!!

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Seven secretaries of state and not one brain cell.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! WE WIN!!!!!!!!!!

You sure?

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! WE WIN!!!!!!!!!!

You sure?

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

The world finally realizes Wikipedia is not Encyclopedia Britannica.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

If only this weren't NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, then we could say Sen. Kerry's a scoundrel, but because this is NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we have a little trouble saying it.

And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not...

SCHIEFFER: Yeah.

BRING ON KATIE!

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Another homeschooled kid wins another competition, which makes us question more than ever if OWR NAYSHUNS SKOOLS have a reason for being.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Army Drops Charges in Killing of Iraqis

Shucks, why can't anything stick against the forces of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Half a loaf is still a lot of bread SNIDELY WHIPLASH may have taken.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

There's an irony in THE CONSPIRACY making villains out of businessmen, they being -- ARTISTS.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

The weathermen consulted their bunions and scared us into thinking we'll get two feet of snow tonight, so what happens? Someone at our local transit authority blizzarded a walkway at the el stop with slippery sand. Later near my apartment I nearly slipped on a blizzard of calcium chloride pellets. I know they do these things for insurance, but does it ever occur to the no-brains' supervisors that applied fast and loose sand and calcium chloride pellets can be almost as hazardous as snow?

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

Carl LIMBURGER pulls another one:

Only 25% Show Up in Venezuela Polls

Problem is, nowhere in "his" story does this factoid show up. But then we are well versed in Carl's excellent cutting-and-pasting, like the time he nearly turned ST. WARREN into a goddess.

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

ESPNCORP NETWORK NEWS KNIGHTS ITS NEW ANCHORPOOPS!

Worrrrld News Tonight with Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff really trips off the tongue!

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

And speaking of self-regulation:

The House ethics committee, the panel responsible for upholding the chamber's ethics code, has been virtually moribund for the past year, handling only routine business despite a wave of federal investigations into close and potentially illegal relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists.

I think these guys are trying to make NEWS HACKS look good.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

In a conversation not long ago, the president of a major university asked me about the various scandals haunting the mainstream media: Why can't the news media get their house in order? he wondered.

I mumbled the usual platitudes about over-eager reporters, overstretched editors and stressed-out executives under immense pressure to hold their print and television audiences against new forms of competition. And sensing that we were headed toward a debate about whether the media's problems were severe enough to require some sort of oversight, I cited the clause in the First Amendment of the Constitution that prohibits the government from making any laws "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

"Well, why not self-regulation?" the educator asked.

BECAUSE THE LAST TIME YOU BONEHEADS DISCUSSED IT YOU COULDN'T AGREE TO THE RULES.

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

Duh, we spend so much time pointing fingers we can't solve our murder problem, duhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

P. S. Given the choice between hiring more police and gun control, guess which solution a NEWS HACK would choose?

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

EVERYTHING'S GREAT IN NEW ORLEANS BECAUSE I, EL RUSHBO, AM THE GUARDIAN OF TRUTH.

BESIDES, I SHOULD KNOW -- I'M NOT THERE!

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

Hey John Belushi's biographer may have damaged the republic, but look -- he made big money and big friends. That's a pretty good trade if you ask me.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

BUYBUYBUYBUYBUYBUYBUYBUY VIACONS!!!!!

The other day someone said newspaper sales -- ANALYSTS don't read the papers whose companies they sell -- ANALYZE. That's okay, just as long as they can offer a BUY RECOMMENDATION!!!!!

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

The hacks are doing another Goebbels. Keep in mind guys, you thought your hero would deliver the election to your candidate Sen. Kerry. And if people don't want to spend $50 a year for PAPER OF RE-CORD op-ed pieces, what makes you think they'll spend $156 a year for your hero -- especially when PAPER OF RE-CORD fans can afford it?

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

And speaking of echo chambers, DOW 36,000 defends his favorite biz (oil), complete with footnotes.

Safe to say Lew and DOW should both go where the sun don't shine.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Public discourse now takes place in echo chambers, each side preaching to its own choir. And that’s bad, isn’t it?

“Yeah, that is bad,” he says. “Most obviously so in the success of Fox NewsFoxNewsFoxNewsFoxNewsFoxNewsFoxNewsFoxNewsFoxNews....”

Get lost, Lew "VANITY FAIR" Lapham!

Lewis Lapham’s Harper’s compensation
in 1997 : $246,000
In 2004: $315,000

Not bad for a subsidized rag no one reads.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

Oh, so now Dubya's evil for using slogans.

Aren't you the guys who shrank the news hole?

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

"I want Lou Kratz removed from office," Cunningham thundered. "I think he's incompetent. And I'm calling for his removal. I've had it."

How does THAT boomerang feel -- DUKE?

Or rather:

"I WANT LOU KRATZ REMOVED FROM OFFICE!!!!!" Cunningham thundered. "I THINK HE'S INCOMPETENT!!!!! AND I'M CALLING FOR HIS REMOVAL!!!!! I'VE HAD IT!!!!!!!!!!"

That's better.

P. S.

Cunningham came to Washington from the San Diego area 15 years ago with the campaign slogan "A Congressman We Can Be Proud Of." He was replacing a Democrat who had been driven from office by charges of sexual harassment. Two years later, in 1992, when Cunningham was redistricted out of his first seat, he took over a seat from a Republican incumbent who had been tainted by the House banking scandal.

He must have learned something.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Accounts of an American predator operating inside Pakistani territory is expected to cause a backlash in the tribal region.

Thankfully the tribes can fight back with their Stone-Age theology.

Posted 7:23 PM by Gene

“Yesterday I said (the death) was 200 per cent confirmed. Now, I say it is 500 per cent confirmed.”

And I say it's 10,000 PER CENT CONFIRMED that you haven't got the BIG KAHUNA.

Posted 6:39 PM by Gene

Surprise, surprise: A couple of boys at the top of the ROOTKIT MUSIC CO. engaged in a little payola.

I guess maybe that's why they started their harebrained scheme -- to keep the organized crime to themselves.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

John Lennon's Death Lingers for Witnesses

We are four days away and we are already in our oh-shut-up mode.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Perhaps like Mr. Mark's proud correspondent, we can still feel the tug of scientific "progress", although one would think WWII and the Holocaust would have put paid to that notion. Or as Henry Adams wrote:

Impossibilities no longer stood in the way. One’s life had fattened on impossibilities. Before the boy was six years old, he had seen four impossibilities made actual,—the ocean-steamer, the railway, the electric telegraph, and the Daguerreotype; nor could he ever learn which of the four had most hurried others to come. He had seen the coal-output of the United States grow from nothing to three hundred million tons or more. What was far more serious, he had seen the number of minds, engaged in pursuing force—the truest measure of its attraction—increase from a few scores or hundreds, in 1838, to many thousands in 1905, trained to sharpness never before reached, and armed with instruments amounting to new senses of indefinite power and accuracy, while they chased force into hiding-places where Nature herself had never known it to be, making analyses that contradicted being, and syntheses that endangered the elements. No one could say that the social mind now failed to respond to new force, even when the new force annoyed it horribly. Every day Nature violently revolted, causing so-called accidents with enormous destruction of property and life, while plainly laughing at man, who helplessly groaned and shrieked and shuddered, but never for a single instant could stop. The railways alone approached the carnage of war; automobiles and fire-arms ravaged society, until an earthquake became almost a nervous relaxation. An immense volume of force had detached itself from the unknown universe of energy, while still vaster reservoirs, supposed to be infinite, steadily revealed themselves, attracting mankind with more compulsive course than all the Pontic Seas or Gods or Gold that ever existed, and feeling still less of retiring ebb.

Or more to the point:

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant, was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

The Professor boasts that Bill Hobbs boasts that Jack Kingston boasts that a Moveon.org ad in his district flopped.

Maybe, but would you entirely trust a man who frequently appeared in Special Orders with The DUKE?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

The only way we'll feel a sense of "urgency" about terrorism is if we get hit again, and we've pretty well spent the last four years Novocaining ourselves.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

We too may be annoyed that a vastly mismanaged company like Trib can pay $50 million to a shortstop even as it's offering hundreds of newsroom buyouts; but Trib ceased being in the news biz a long time ago, and there's no guarantee the new phenom can play ball any better than, say, Robert "Over the" Hilburn could write.

Posted 2:39 PM by Gene

"I look like a stripper," said Preston, 30, who dances at Scores West Side. "I have platinum blond hair down to my waist, I'm tanned and have huge breasts. People look at me and think immediately I'm in the sex industry."

Aren't you?

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

Andy S. is IRONIC again:

I just wish both groups would find a very small, sound-proof room somewhere, shut the door tight and yell at each other for a while.

How about you and Derb?

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

6,705 movies and nothing to see.

[F]ilm critics who find the festival too commercial. Acquisitions people who say it is too arty.

They may both be right: the films are too commercial for the ad-blurbists' taste, and too arty for the public, and therefore we have 6,705 movies and nothing to see.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

The latest on the forgotten music they called JAZZ:

It’s not dead, it’s resting

Sure it's breathing?

You can always tell when an art form is in crisis: a telling staging post is the formation of an appreciation society. Its members know that the art form in question can no longer reliably be expected to produce sufficient spontaneous energy to keep it fresh and relevant, so they dutifully roll out the membership application forms, and hold meetings in unlikely settings to impress upon onlookers their cultural virility.

You're sure it's breathing?

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

A company with cable networks protests a la carte!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD (boss-toadying synergy division) to PETE!

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

Has anyone dared ask the impact on our society of our not knowing where hundreds of billions of dollars are going? Isn't it time to find out?

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

Did you know there was a championship fight last night? I didn't. Could you care less? I couldn't.

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

In looking up Joe Cannon's cover we accidentally stumbled across an infrequently-updated blog for PEOPLE NEWSMAGAZINE's archive, and it appears there was actually a time the rag could write a less-than-flattering article on a show-biz type. We cannot recall the last time or any time this rag has mocked someone in the high calling of entertainment -- certainly not since 1990 -- but the fact that it once (if intermittently) did tells us we've lost a lot to SYNERGY. And alas there's something to be said for no-bylines; it prevents hacks from playing to the red light.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

We must ask: has any newsrag editor in recent memory actually sat down with a reader and asked him what he likes or dislikes about his publication? Does anyone ever ask a real person if he likes or dislikes the constant political spin, the constant show-biz ads, the constant glib writing? And has anyone ever asked a newsrag editor if he edits a rag for a reader? The answer to all three questions is no; newsrag editors edit them for themselves, for the CW, for ADVERTISERS -- ANYTHING and ANYBODY BUT a reader. Mere readers have not entered into the newsrag equation since the liars Hank and Briton put Joe Cannon on their cover, and they never will.

Posted 9:55 AM by Gene

Well, I was HALF right. And this time it was RICHARD SCHICKEL, the man who acclaimed TIME WARNER WIDE SHUT a masterwork. (Isn't it time for him to retire?) Thankfully the TWXSTERS have revived their behind-the-wall gag. What MORON would pay money to read an AD?

As for Mr. Mark, the solace is he has Jimson Dickey bring FEMINISM to TERRORISM. And with the eloquence that made him a POET'S SON, he concludes:

"It's a new generation, and, perversely, emancipation allows women to aspire to martyrdom," he said.

Finding another answer that is right—a variety of answers, in fact, for many unique societies—will help make the difference between an endless war of terror with "insurgents all around" and a fight that is won, with a peace that endures.

Such BRILLIANCE, Jimson! These two rags must be up to tricks. Does anybody willingly read these piles of toilet paper outside classrooms and doctors' offices? If so, whom? Would it not be worth their while to offer them free psychiatric help?

Mr. Mark's groundbreaking plug must be NEXT week.