Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Speaking of "news", did you know Miss Czech Republic won the Miss World title? Did you care?

[O]rganizers expected more than 2 billion people in 200 countries to tune in.

This is the sort of blatant statistical PR news hacks ply us with every day. If the fanatical World Cup drew only 400 million why should this draw five times as many? Please explain, al Reut. You can't? Didn't think you could.

Does any American network air this? Should any?

Speaking of statistics:

It has been estimated that contest may draw some five million extra tourists to Warsaw by 2010, help create 20 000 [sic] jobs and boost Poland’s economic output.

Get this scribbler a job in Washington!

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Honest, I don't know why this story didn't appear in USAOKAY!!!!! Honest, I don't know why we should care for these swingers any more than the Brazilians could care for Horny Mark.

These two stories make you wonder how much "news" is necessary.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

I have just learned Real Clear Politics has become a PEOPLE WARNER co-production, so I guess I'll never appear there again. I just wish I knew of some way to gain attention. I had thought of joining Town Hall's list but a) I'd be buried among other bloggers, b) I don't want to identify with one political philosophy, and c) I'd have to use TownHall as my blogging provider, so forget it.

Maybe if I sent out IMs....

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Belly Kisser may be using psychiatry as a tool against his opponents.

Perhaps it's isolated -- we can hope so -- but one wonders if it's too much to hope with a guy who wants to be buddies with every tyrant on the block.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

Finally, after over twenty years, a portion of the gay community has awakened to the fact that its politicking and denial cost tens of thousands within it their lives. Finally we no longer have to view AIDS as a specious civil-rights issue, but as the plague it is.

Posted 8:25 PM by Gene

A certain kind of news hack or ad-blurbist could accuse this movie theater owner of grandstanding for shutting down his theater rather than showing some of the age's masterpieces.

Turnabout's fair play, though: I can accuse SAMMY GLICKMAN and THE CONSPIRACY of grandstanding by making junk movies -- and I'd be on stronger ground.

Posted 7:06 PM by Gene

It is now obvious the rest of the news biz cannot report Horny Mark's story without ESPNCORP's permission -- and they're running almost the exact same AP dispatch they ran over three hours ago. The rest of the press continues to insist it involves A House page and a few innocent e-mails when ESPNCORP Network News's Brian Ross says it involves a number of minors -- and obscene language.

Hooray for freedom of the press!

Posted 6:49 PM by Gene

AND THE SUPEREST OF SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS -- THINKS:

CONTRIBUTE TO THE RNC AND KEEP AMERICA'S NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY FOCUSED COMMITTED TO VICTORY -- NOT RETREAT!!!!!!!!!! [Patriotic overemphasis added]

In his prior entry he devotes two words to Horny Mark and 55 to Sen. Menendez.

Who needs bloggers when they ape LENNY in reverse?

Posted 6:31 PM by Gene

We are not in the slightest sympathetic to SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS, but Miss Malkin is making legal noises through a proxy after the CW's FAVORITE BLOGGER posted composite pictures of her and refused to apologize.

I smell an out-of-court settlement in NICK DORKEN's future.

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

An excerpt from the life of a GREAT CONGRESSMAN:

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex.

Federal authorities say such messages could result in Foley's prosecution, under some of the same laws he helped to enact.

HARDY HAR HAR!!!!!

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Amazing how deaf, dumb and blind news hacks are to religion until they find somebody who they think takes their side.

Having just skimmed through both guides I can say Lenny's trying to pull another one on us. The "Common Good" guide is certainly squooshy enough to appeal to the scribblers, but the "Voter's Guide" explicitly calls abortion evil and gay marriage wrong. We would argue this: any news story with links almost makes reporters irrelevant.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Another congresspoop justly resigns over moral turpitude, or perhaps a total lack of common sense, or possibly both.

I can't say I'm entirely surprised; Mark Foley was a "MODERATE."

One other reason I'm not entirely surprised -- he was a REPUBLICAN.

P. S. AMSPEC predicted trouble in 2003!

P. P. S. Why must the DEMOCRATS be the MORAL EQUIVALENT of SPAIN'S CHICKEN MAN?

P. P. P. S.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he had asked the chairman of the House's page board, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., to investigate the page system. "We want to make sure that all our pages are safe and the page system is safe," Hastert said.

I think we can trust a House with an EFFECTIVE ETHICS COMMITTEE to do this, KING DENNY.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Dave of Cheapie Marketwatch helpfully compiles a laundry list of excuses for the newspaper biz:

If you follow newspaper earnings on any kind of regular basis, you're aware that most of the problems that brought Tribune to this point are issues shared by all of its peers. Among them:

-- Overall print publishing advertising revenue has been essentially flat for several quarters.

-- Newsprint prices are rising.

-- National ad revenue has been down, with marked weakness in such categories as movies and technology. The movie category is critical to Tribune, publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

-- Within classified, automotive advertising has been on the decline for some time, due to an ongoing slump in the auto industry.

-- Help-wanted, which had been one of the strongest classified categories, has recently been slowing down.

-- Retail advertising, hampered by the consolidation of several big retailers, has been flat to down.

-- Circulation is down, as an increasing numbers of readers get their news online. Also, the implementation of the Do Not Call registry three years ago prevents newspapers from making as many telephone solicitations for new subscriptions as they had in the past.

That DO-NOT-CALL blatherskite is a dead giveaway: it is precisely the kind of excuse TRIB and other publishers used during their steady slide. Naturally not ONE item on the laundry list deals with the PRODUCT. It's almost as if these cretins sell widgets. And we're sure even widget customers care for quality. Possibly, just possibly, if newspapers were better written and less biased, if they didn't employ so many GREENHOUSE EFFECTS and FLYING KEYBOARDS, its business quandary wouldn't be so all-consuming. True, some of the rag trade's problems are "structural." But SOME ARE NOT.

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

The problem with "learning" Klingon is that if enough people do it it crowds out more useful preoccupations en masse, like reading good books, or listening to good music, or hiking, or swimming, eventually getting the mass to become self-justifying. Even more troublesome is how timewasting activities have become crucial in people's lives. Fantasy sports, "learning" Klingon, producing the umpteenth Star Wars clone video, living in virtual communites: all push real life off to the sidelines, and disengagement from society to midfield -- and for no better reason than for people to be proud to be stupid.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

"It's time for terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who planned the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to face justice!!!!!" [Overemphasis added]

What about after the election?

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives could have a field day with this:

A review of the Government's speed cameras policy was demanded yesterday after official statistics showed that only five per cent of crashes are caused by drivers breaking the speed limit.

Drivers who let their attention wander cause more than six times as many accidents.

You mean like beep-beep-beep-yakkety-yak-blah-blah-blah-SCREEEEEEEECH-CRASSSSH!!?

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

REPUBLICANS! ANY ETHNIC SLUR CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU!

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

Mitch Albom is a fabulist all right, but not just in the journalistic sense. Albom is literally a teller of fables, a peddler of shallow morality tales for the masses. You can see it in his risible sports writing, and you can see it in his best-selling books. A representative of Starbucks, which will sell For One More Day as part of its new books promotion, told the Los Angeles Times that the chain wanted its literary selections to be "deeply felt." Albom's writing is deeply felt, and dimly thought. He's a huckster evangelist for the soccer-mom set.

MITCH! THROW A KEYBOARD AT BRYAN!

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

Bush talks to Henry the K and THE FIXER. Kazakhstan has oil.

A neat way to conduct foreign policy!

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Here is the latest dimwitted fad for Wall Street and the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers: virtual universes. That IDIOTS would pay real money for non-existent land in the name of "communication", and that this fad has a chance to fleece people out of billions, says something about us is out of kilter, whatever the gushing press releases that will sell this the next few years. This also has the pungent whiff of Walden Two.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Maybe the best-selling author Pervez could write a novel about the mess he made on his border.

Meantime his triumphant book tour may hit a speed bump. Folks, it's only fiction!

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

OF COURSE IRAQ MADE IT WORSE!!!!!!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

Daniel Benjamin is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Steven Simon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. They served on the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999. [LAST GRAF]

OF COURSE NEWS HACKS THINK WE CAN'T READ.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

The author of this USAOKAY!!!!! press release -- er, SPECIAL (when will the hacks ditch that by-line accessory and just use "ADVERTISEMENT"?) conveniently forgets to tell us that Hef has hardly had a great record in gamb...GAMING -- he was barely denied a license in AC -- and more to the point, whatever the hacks may say about a hero, Hef and his "movement" are antediluvian.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

WHY CAN'T THE RIGHT LET GO OF VIETNAM?????????? (Front-page link, overemphasis added)

Why can't the left?

Posted 7:22 PM by Gene

DID YOU KNOW: Noam Chomsky's table-pounding foot-stomping diatribe was #1 on Amazon.com -- and has sold only about 2,000 copies since Hugo's plug? We wonder how useful Amazon's sales figures really are. Plenty of items are ranked that clearly have no sales (like discontinued merchandise) but get spurious "rankings" anyway. But then we've noticed something screwy when we've put items in our Amazon cart -- prices go up and down and up and down for no reason. We've purchased often from Amazon and appreciate their speedy service, but we might wonder if its computers have too much time on their boards.

Posted 7:17 PM by Gene

My mother, who was an elementary-school teacher, lived through many "innovations" that short-circuited learning. Let us hope what's happening in Baltimore isn't another innovation.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has made DAPOST!!!!!!!!!!.com so difficult to navigate through we didn't see this story, which thoroughly warms our hearts: there's a chance THE GREATEST MUSICAL OF ALL TIME may CLOSE ten years before THE PAPER OF RE-CORD said it would. People can blame the casting, but somehow other shows have lasted through second- and even third-stringers. Sorry, I blame the BRILLIANT SHOW.

Last week it played to a walloping 50.4 PERCENT of capacity, and at an average $68.65 a ticket, suggesting those superexpensive orchestra seats aren't flying like latkes anymore. BOYS!!!!!

P. S. We note lots of good seats are available for MONTY PYTHON'S BLAZING SADDLES, which opened to thunderous hordes clapping above their heads just eighteen months ago. MORONS.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

This story is exasperating because it reminds us the retailers who helped ruin America's cities by running to the suburbs screaming of the oncoming incorrectly pigmented horde intentionally left their buildings to rot. They didn't give ANYTHING a chance. "Vertical retailing" may be a dubious concept -- it hasn't worked here in Philthydelphia -- but that doesn't mean it can't work somewhere, and it would at least provide an impetus to bringing people back in our cities, and saving beautiful buildings.

Now can retailers abandon their urban and race prejudices?

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

Has Lord Elton ever thought of blogging?

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Remember this, Chamberlains: When those you hope to appease into silence get their revenge, you'll be among they first they get.

P. S. Roger Kimball says the production was drecky, but it should have been canceled only because it was drecky. Nonetheless:

The spectacle of Deutsche Oper's decision to cancel "Idomeneo" suggests that the West's dealings with Islam have entered a new phase. Yesterday, we waited until after the Muslims took to the streets before capitulating; today, it appears we have moved on to pre-emptive capitulation.

Where will it end? I suppose that depends on how much we really care about the liberty and freedom we champion with words. Freedom, as some wit observed, is not free. Will we have the gumption to pay the cost? The jury is still out on that question. I hope and pray that the answer will be yes. "There is," G.K. Chesterton noted nearly 100 years ago, "a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped."

By the way, what are the chances Rog would ever appear in THE WALL STREET JOURNALS LIBERAL EDITION? About the chances a liberal will criticize a Muslim?

(First link via CSMonitor.com; second link via ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

Ommmmmmmmmmm, these reactionaries voted against my sane, solid, sensible proposal to give ter -- detainees the rights of habeus corpus. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS UNAMERICAN!

And I'm part of it ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

CONGRESS PASSED A TYRANNICAL LAW THAT WILL BE RANKED WITH THE LOW POINTS IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, OUR GENERATION’S VERSION OF THE ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Pinch-like-raging overemphasis added)

It appears some news hacks have decided to scream all the time, having decided the Nazi -- er, right-wing Web and talk radio scream all the time. The problem is, the longer the screams, the more likely we go deaf -- and the screamers LOSE THEIR VOICES.

(Via -- alas -- AMSPEC)

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

4,000 fewer holy cockroaches!

4,000 times 72 is -- 28,800 Helen Thomases!

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

Last graf, from Ada Louise Huxtable in the Wall Street Journals' CONSERVATIVE EDITION's Freedloaders Review:

Rockefeller Center is not a model to be followed literally--every age has its own style and sensibility. Today's aesthetic and technological resources are enormous; they can support a wide variety of solutions. I do not believe for a moment that we are no longer capable of building great cities of symbolic beauty and enduring public amenity. What Ground Zero tells us is that we have lost the faith and the nerve, the knowledge and the leadership, to make it happen now.

We may have resources, but do we have inspiration? The Chrysler Building was inspired. 30 Rock was inspired. Whatever monumental boxes grow up in Lower Manhattan will probably not be inspired. We cannot extract architecture from the rest of our culture. Look at the rest of our culture and know we lack inspiration.

(Via ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

Pakistan's powerful secret service is aiding terrorist groups through its support for shadowy religious organisations, according to a report prepared for the Ministry of Defence.

We think Pervez should write another novel. He's already showed his skill at fictions.

Number 4 on Amazon.com!

People with Muslim-sounding names LOVE it; people with Hindu-sounding names HATE it. Yes, I think your two nations really OUGHT to nuke each other over that pile of rocks.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

From Far Left to Libertarian

What's the difference?

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

ESPNCORP'S ESPN is getting out of the cell-phone biz after noisily getting in?!?

Not much money to be made from DICKIE V ringtones.

So much for BRANDING.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

U.N. Front-Runner Denies He's Too Weak

What?!? That's a job qualification! The secretary-general must be a pushover for every thug, anti-Semite and Communist in the "body"!

Remember the name: Ban Ki-Moon -- exceptionally well-qualified!

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

A dealer in antique treasures who admitted stealing more than $3 million in rare maps was sentenced on Wednesday to three and a half years in prison after a judge ruled that he deserved leniency for cooperating.

Edward Forbes Smiley III, once one of the country’s most respected dealers in rare maps, also must pay $1.9 million in restitution for stealing 98 of the world’s most precious maps, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton said.

I don't know; I think he should have gotten a job at eBay.

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

David Remnick should get in touch with Pervez and have him write a short story about that state dinner for The New Yorker.

The passion! The intrigue! The backstabbing!

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

Sheldon Adelson, who sounds like the SUMNER of gamb -- GAMING, wants to be atop Little Malcolm's list. To do that, he'll have to 1. Create buggy software and 2. Assume a holier-than-thou attitude. If he can do those things -- voila!

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Verizon's push into TV to cost $18 billion

Who says the cable biz has a monopoly on empire building?

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

Sorry Romy, I don't want to spend three pages celebrating Mr. BOOM BOOM of STOCKS.

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

Now the best-selling author Pervez insists Elvis is in Afghanistan.

How do you know, Perv? Your "intelligence" agents helping him out?

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

Cle-VER: The head of the "collegiate"-sports trade association insists graduation rates are going upupUP! Of course the women would be doing well; they're more studious and for them sports are mere sidelines. But 59% in professional college men's basketball is NOT great shakes (God knows how many cake courses are involved), nor is two-thirds in professional college football. Despite Florida's (!) stellar record we still suspect in these disciplines the higher the winning percentage the lower the "graduation" rate. Take out the service academies (where graduation is an order) and the few demanding schools and the rates are surely lower. Sorry, Mr. Brand, we're not THAT impressed.

P. S. Typical news-hack scribble:

Thirteen of last season's final USA TODAY Coaches' Poll top 25 hoops teams bettered the Division I men's basketball average of 59%.

Which probably means twelve were worse. So WHAT?

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has become the latest to inconvenience his inferiors with a Web-site redesign. With FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS.com it was overdue, and the site was never very good-looking or surfer-friendly; but here one now has to search and search and search to get what was formerly available in one click -- and being so vastly superior to us neither He nor His lackeys explain why. Nice going, RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

RAH RAH RAH! SIS BOOM BAH! DEMOCRATS! DEMOCRATS! RAH RAH RAH!

YaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TEAM!!!!!

The other day there was a slight (and happily, quickly stifled) brouhaha when NPR of all outfits disclosed THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT delivered a stemwinder at Hahvahd Mutual Fund, citing the political philosophers Simon and Garfunkel. There is now no reason to think news hacks are anything but partisans. When will they stop insulting their inferiors the readers with the objective gag? If we're going to have campaigning let's have it. I'm tired of the chicanery.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

An admission from CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES:

The man who co-wrote the song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" had the unsettling experience this week of reading his own obituary — the result of an impostor who went through life claiming to be the author of the 1960s smash hit.

On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported that a 68-year-old man named Paul Vance, who lived in Ormond Beach, Fla., had died. Citing the man's wife, the obituary credited him with being the writer of the song.

But the music industry's real Paul Vance, a 76-year-old man from Westbury, N.Y., is alive and well, and says the other Paul Vance appears to have made the whole thing up.

The Paul Vance who wrote the songs — and provided proof with royalty payments he is still receiving for the hit — said he has been inundated with calls from people who think he died. An owner of racehorses, Vance said two of his horses were scratched from races Wednesday because people thought he had died.

"Do you know what it's like to have grandchildren calling you and say, ‘Grandpa, you're still alive?'" he said in a telephone interview from Coral Springs, Fla. "This is not a game. I am who I am and I'm proud of who I am. But these phones don't stop with people calling thinking I'm dead."

And you STILL think we can trust you guys in Iraq? And you still want us to believe Bilal is a POLITICAL PRISONER?

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

And speaking of trajectories (and also from Dow Jones Market News for Freeloaders):

People camped out for the chance to buy a unit in Radius, a condominium development in Hollywood, Fla. The building's 285 units sold out in just over 10 hours -- half a year before construction was even set to start.

But that was in the summer of 2004, when the red-hot condo market was peaking and money could be made by investing in condos expected to quickly appreciate. Units were often on the market for resale as soon as they were completed. It's a much riskier proposition to flip a condo in some of today's cooling markets.

"You see some of these communities that investors purchased ... there are no lights on at night," said Bill Donges, chief executive officer of Lane Company, developer of Radius, which is scheduled for completion in the spring.

Last flipper out turn on the lights!

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

MYSPACE WORTH $15 BILLION IN THREE YEARS!!!!!!!!!!: analyst [Overemphasis added]

If the last bubble taught us one thing it's never trust sales -- ANALYSTS. Even those who don't have an inside interest act it. Saying stupid things is also the best way of getting your name in the papers -- and reaping big commissions.

And as if we didn't have enough proof this guy might be full of it:

"THE TRAJECTORY FOR PROFITABILITY OF MYSPACE IS EVERY BIT AS STEEP AS THAT OF GOOGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!," the search giant that generated about $6.1 billion in revenues last year, the analyst wrote Wednesday.

That's not bad for a company that at the time of its purchase was barely generating a profit, and three years later is still wrestling with the ways in which it will make money. [Further overemphasis added]

P. S. AOL had a trajectory too. So did Yahoo!

Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

Not only are news hacks doing their happy GRIM!!!! routine (only they've discovered a new word -- BLEAK!), now they're NYAH-NYAH-NYAHING DUBYA for not releasing the WHOLE THING!

Why did Dubya bother?

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

CONSIDERING HOW MANY PROBLEMS I'VE HAD WITH G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER TODAY DON'T YOU THINK WE COULD HAVE AT LEAST GONE UP $1,000?

Posted 2:07 PM by Gene

THE BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM are DANCIN', DANCIN': THE GOP's COMING TO THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD!!!!! NON-STOP TOADYING!!!!!!!!!!

Now don't forget to TAKE CREDIT FOR THIS TOO!!!!!

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

A marketing guy comes up with a brilliant analogy:

For Peter Gerber, former director-global corporate brand strategy and management at General Motors Corp., building brand loyalty is just like dating.

"When you go on your first date, you don't pop the question," Mr. Gerber said during a panel discussion yesterday at Advertising Week. "It's about listening, respect and creating a dialogue. Then, once you've established trust, you seal the deal."

So why are so much of advertising and marketing date rape?

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

How much of the EXCITING RECORD RUN-UP in the DOW!!!!! is due to TWO COMPANIES that pay many of their employees close to MINIMUM WAGE?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Speaking of tiresome, thank YOU, LENNY, for turning the Virginia Senate battle into DUELING RACE SLURS. What would our FIRST AMENDMENT be without you?

HEALTHIER.

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

We will not comment further on T. O. except to acknowledge this. Today stories can become tiresome before they hit the wires.

P. S. at 6:00 p.m.: Well, we can now say one thing: If T.O.'s not the NFL's Mike Tyson he's getting there.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Well, Ms. Travers, now that we know who somebody named Paul Pillar is, what exactly does this prove?

It proves partisans on both sides will scream even more violently and public-be-damnedly than before.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

America may not be the only nation where people have stopped reading the papers. One has to ask -- is it mere ideology or are people becoming too stupid to read papers?

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

I'd guess street races have become as intractable a thing with the young as alcohol, meaning more le-gis-la-TORS will pass more laws, meaning more street races.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Annie Leibovitz is becoming a CAUSE CELEBRE!!!!!

Remember -- you read it here FIRST! (At least two of you did.)

We do stand corrected on one point: this was a MR. MARK production -- from the same brilliant mind that brought us the Koran in the toilet! You couldn't have thought of a better way to get yourself kicked upstairs!

(Via the inevitable ROMY)

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

At what point does adding cores to a microprocessor stop being a help and start becoming a gimmick?

The first chip, the Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor, will be available in November. Intel says it will deliver a 70 percent performance improvement over Intel's current chips, which have one or two computing cores.

If I read this right they're doubling the cores but not the performance. As I said....

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

If it's BAD it's in AD...AGE: Two leading political consultants insist they're getting away from negative campaigning, meaning more of the same.

"Broadcast is still the nuclear weapon of a campaign," said Mr. Axelrod, suggesting no speech or literature to date will make approval ratings move the way a good commercial will.

Why have our heads become hardened silos?

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

When will people get it into their thick skulls that RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is NOT CONSERVATIVE?

(Another via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

And needless to say EHDYUKAYTORS are doing the same thing as MU-NI-CI-PAL-I-TIES. These same dimwits don't make the same stink over their students' failing as they do over CUPCAKES.

America's tying herself up in POLITICALLY-CORRECT KNOTS.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

I want the entire staff of POYNTER, or the whole faculties of America's JERNALISM SKOOLS, or all the well-fed denizens of AMERICA'S LUXURY NEWS SUITES, to tell me why THE EDWARD R. MURROW OF COMEDY should not be considered one of theirs. He is no longer a comedian, if He ever was -- He is an anchorman. I also want to know why we shouldn't hold Him to the same high standards and in the same roaring contempt as the rest of the news biz.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Amazing how the same mu-ni-ci-PAL types who outlaw smoking in restaurants, and ban pate fois gras in Chicago, and are now about to eliminate trans-fatty acids in Noo Yawk, turn the other way at the thousands of murders in their midsts. It says something that mu-ni-ci-PAL-i-ties can do something about nothing -- and NOTHING ABOUT SOMETHING.

Next on the agenda: using local anti-discrimination codes to prevent defamation of ISLAM. What will the excuse be here? That people's feelings are getting hurt?

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

The 'Moderate Republican' Scam

Hey Harry! When it comes to scams nobody comes close to news hacks. Whenever you've got a unpalatable liberal you want in office you're the ones who always call him a "moderate", or a "progressive", or whatever ploy we can use to put another one past the IDIOTS who read you folks. Actually, wasn't it YOUR biz' idea to call whiny little Lincoln a "moderate" -- since he agreed with us? Unfortunately Harry, people may be smarter than even you hacks.

Don't "scam" us. You typists are the masters.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER's celebrating the birthday in its own inimitable fashion -- by NOT WORKING RIGHT.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

After Annan, what kind of UN leader?

We have a few suggestions: He has to love all humanity (except the U. S. and Israel), he must learn how to speak for hours at a time without thinking, and his suits must have big, BIG pockets.

If he has a few canceled parking violations he has it made.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE pats itself on the back again. (Another $500 a share today?) At least today isn't National Cute Little Kitties and Puppies Day. But those tantrum throwers at The Corner have us primed; we're waiting for next Memorial Day. We're sure Larry and Sergey won't disappoint us.

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

Tidbits from Nukeman's visit:

The following morning, Mr. Ahmadinejad held a 7:30 a.m. breakfast meeting, again at his hotel, with American academics and journalists. Earlier, he had expressed some interest in having Michael Moore attend, and although attempts were made to reach him (even by myself, since I was asked), they were unsuccessful.

One would have thought Fatso would have RUSHED down there to give him a great big -- BEAR hug, maybe bringing St. Cindy in tow to give hers.

Nuance in Persian is difficult to translate, but it can be most ­misleading—sometimes comically so—during interviews with the American press. When Brian Williams of NBC asked about Mr. Ahmadinejad’s attire—a suit rather than his trademark windbreaker—the Iranian president replied, “Sheneedem shoma kot-shalvaree hasteen, manam kot-shalvar poosheedam”—which was translated as “ … you wear a suit, so I wore a suit.” The phrase is actually much closer to “ … you are a suit, so I wore a suit.”

Say lots of things about Nukeman -- one thing you can't say is he's stupid.

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

We yield to no one in detesting CEOs, but something tells us the new quick-turnover fad will prove every bit as damaging to business as the former PERSONALITY CULTS.

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Mickey Starbucks's next gag: high-tech juke boxes.

Which is rather ironic since Ray Kroc (Ray who?) wouldn't put juke boxes and telephones into his stores as he thought they attracted teenage riff-raff. Now his slopatoria play [C]RAP. In the end this will be another high-maintenance fad that the young kids will grease up with their paw prints, and it's back to selling on the strength of its FOOD, which Mickey Starbucks should NEVER do.

I have a new motto for you, Rance: If it's BAD it's in ADAGE.

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

Even one of America's leading bloggers-pundits-INTELLECTUALS can make an exception:

NIE: FULL DISCLOSURE [Jonah Goldberg]
The New York Times reporter credited with breaking the NIE story, Mark Mazzetti , is an old friend of mine. I understand that some people want him drawn and quartered or at least thrown in jail. I for one cannot abide this. I oppose the drawing and quartering entirely. And, if he goes to jail, I will volunteer to water his plants while he's gone.




Posted at 1:29 PM (SIC)

How much bad stuff has seen print because of friendships -- and how much good stuff hasn't seen it because of the lack thereof?

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

WOW! It took the deep, DEEP thinkers of The Nation TWO DAYS to notice what I noticed on SUNDAY!! I am IMPRESSED!!!

(Via the easily impressible Romy)

Posted 1:12 PM by Gene

Did bumping up Oscar's date shrink the season or just kick it off earlier?

GUESS.

By the way, flacks, what makes you think potential Os-CAR® nominees are "QUALITY" movies?

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

Dubya's going to declassify that Democratic campaign docu -- er, that CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT of Iraq.

Either he's confident or he's clueless.

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

There goes that reactionary Nazi pope again -- now he's excommunicating an African archbishop for installing four married bishops.

The one good thing as we see it is at least they didn't bugger any boys.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

This strikes US as good news:

No breakthrough series in season so far

Despite all that cranium flexing?

Further good news: Maybe the sitcom can't come back.

(First link via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the world of the ASSociated Press:

AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

MANCHESTER, England (AP) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair says it is sometimes hard to be the United States' strongest ally. [Overemphasis added.]

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

A leading opera house canceled a 3-year-old production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that included a scene showing the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, unleashing a furious debate over free speech.

Why doesn't the League of Nations pass a law prohibiting all criticism of Islam? That would save a LOT of trouble.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

PRESIDENT Clooney....

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Awwwwww, poor Pervez had to end his allegiance with the Taliban because he was afraid his country would get hurt.

That and maybe other reasons?

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

The guy who used to smile in the Sharper Image catalog (the company's founder) has resigned and has been replaced by a "turnaround specialist."

TRANSLATION: Chapter XI?

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER'S A PAIN WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE TODAY!

UP 200 POINTS!!!!!

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

Little Jeffy's Teacher's Pet says he's not leaving Goodthings Entertainment.

And after the spinoff?

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Richard Cohen expels a half-truth: Yes, photos can be deceiving, but so can news hacks. The reason this suddenly famous one has been "interpreted" incorrectly (note the clever use of the passive voice) is that some widely unread PAPER OF RE-CORD columnist decided to make A CHEAP POLITICAL POINT, and your rag's sister Web site exposed it. We wonder whether Dick's failure to mention the widely-unread columnist was intentional. (Don't you believe in SYNERGY?) But then nobody would have paid attention to what these people may or may not have been doing except that news hacks have a compulsion to scribble -- and to cover up for their fellow news hacks.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

CJR DAILY'S MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD because Lucy Van Pelt tossed "SOFTBALLS" at Condi!

CJR DAILY'S MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD because MIKE'S SON PROSECUTED AN EX-PRESIDENT!!!!!

(No doubt.)

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

And B. S. DEFENDER was 100% RIGHT after all:

Howard Stern's Ad Rates on Sirius Slump to Low of $5,000

Of course this being ADAGE we have to offer our own junk stats (5 MILLION LISTENERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and our own junk sound byte from the president of the Jackass: Number 2 Fan Club:

"He had to know going in that his universe would be smaller," said Rich Russo, director-broadcast, JL Media, who said that although Mr. Stern is "not the pop-cultural force he once was" in radio, he's still up there with Guglielmo Marconi and Alan Freed, making him "one of the three most important men in history of radio -- and one of them invented it."

Yes, take eighty years out of radio's history and you're right.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

We know why the addled number crunchers at V-NU played up this junk story about TV viewing going up: D-DAY is approaching. No, we don't mean Ike and the brave soldiers; we mean D as in DOOM -- for the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS, for those with a psychotic compulsion to spendspendspend on television just as lawmakers must spendspendspend on us: TV-COMMERCIAL RATINGS ARE COMING. Everyone guesses they'll be lower than the programs they "sponsor"; the pall of CHEAP CHANNEL and its largely unsuccessful effort at clutter busting hangs over the biz. How much lower? And can ASWIA play tricks with the numbers? No doubt they can invent a few rationalizations, like a stickiness factor that would award a lower-rated show a higher proportional CPM if it retains more viewers. We'd further guess truly annoying commercials will not lose viewers. Nor would we surprised if the losses are in the single digits as so many people use their TVs as night lights. We wouldn't be surprised given the TV S&M phreaks if a few commercial pods drew MORE viewers than the programs. On the other hand, people don't buy DVRs for nothing; already there is speculation the high-commercial-load cable channels could suffer. We suspect also political ads would have by far the lowest stickiness factor, a potential disaster (we hope) on the local side that might force true reform on our money-grubbing elections. We have no doubt the idiot advertisers will find varied excuses to finance junk television whatever the numbers avoiding them; but we fervently wish that the numbers will be big enough to make television a losing proposition and might finally force change in the industry. We don't expect it, knowing that media are UNREFORMABLE, and because the hard-core viewers and ad-blurbists have a terminal case of STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

Guess I'll have to stop talking about Six Sigma. Little Jeffy has a brand new buzzword: NPS! It measures how much people like you. We can assume Jeffy won't use it at his show-biz operations, where liking doesn't matter -- and that he'll abandon it whenever his job is threatened.

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, SHUCKS: The company that makes that race-baiting strip with the AAAAAAAAAAAAAATTITUDE has decided not to resume newspaper operations.

I guess its founder Mr. McGruder liked the easy TV money too much. Hasn't someone told him his company's art is the greatest since REMBRANDT?

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

New tests corroborate the theory that former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a massive suicide truck bomb, investigators said in a report Monday.

The report from Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz's investigators said that Syria - which had been accused of obstructing the probe - has been generally cooperative in its investigation of the Feb. 14, 2005 bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others.

We may assume The Ophthalmologist is cooperating because he has nothing to lose anyway. He already lost his reputation.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Allen Denies College Use of Racial Slur

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

In an Associated Press interview Monday, Allen vehemently denied the allegations Shelton made in an article published Sunday in the online magazine SALON.COM and an AP interview Sunday night. [Overemphasis added]

Don't forget not to tell the SWINE, Lenny.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

In more BAD GOODTHINGS NEWS: Jeff Zuck or somebody started a "BLOG" for BRAIN FOOD or EINSTEIN or whatever his new muscle-flexing of the gray matter's called, and detractors (and competitors) started posting nasty comments! As in:

I loved watching Wes Mendel's breakdown -- it was the most amazing few minutes of television I've ever seen. Unfortunately they cut the part where he bashed Jeff Zucker for consistently programming crap like "Joey" and losing 60% of his audience over the years. Oh, and who can forget Zucker firing Rick Kaplan at MSNBC because Zucker wanted to focus the network on infotainment instead of real news. Zucker simply does not know how to run a network.
Posted by: barry September 22, 2006 12:22 AM

And:

I type in Google to look for the magic mushroom, and find this page. Strange?
I have phish show tonight and need the head trip.
http://myspace.com/billybackpack
Posted by: Billy Backpack September 22, 2006 12:22 AM

And:

Oh this show is so up its own neuroses. A world that hates TV, but is TV, brilliant but troubled recovery genius who somehow shake off the cruel/shallow/materialistic world they to get in touch with their passionate, liberal, heart-felt beliefs. Why oh why does every character sound the same? Rehab windbags to a man... As if the Network references will excuse the rip-off. And what is going on with (the admittedly hot) Amanda Peet glittering eye stare to end every scene. Faye Dunaway but twinkly? Oy vay. Aaron - let some other people write this stuff to stop making it such clever smug self-serving bollocks.
Posted by: Aaron Gherkin September 22, 2006 12:56 AM

AND:

Wes Mendel and the cast of Studio 60 urge you to boycott anyone who advertises on arch-rival NBC. Nissan cars suck -- they break down and need to be serviced all the time. Anyone notice how slow FedEx is? They always lose your stuff! According to a new study Weight Watchers actually makes you fat! Oh, and AT&T sucks ass because they outsource American jobs to third world countries. Just tell them you heard it from Matt Albie and Danny Trip!
Posted by: barry September 22, 2006 01:15 AM

Not to mention:

Someone messed up and neglected to post a link on Defaker to NBC legal information, privacy policy, and terms of services for this board. According to Matt Albie and Wes Mendel that means there are no rules here. Harriet Hayes and Simon Stiles want you to stop watching NBC and read a book instead.
Posted by: Naomi Klein No Logo September 22, 2006 01:34 AM

Little Jeffy, maybe you ought to fire somebody.

P. S. GOODTHINGS changed the "blog's" URL. Six Sigma!

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

When does a zillionaire have time to write a mere sports column when he's busy being the second coming of HOW-WAHD CO-SELL?

(Via the inevitable Romy)

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

The Reverse Robin Hoods of MadAve are hiring a PR firm -- to counteract BAD PRESS!

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

But even some agency PR people familiar with 4A's programs aren't confident Golin can pull off glowing headlines in any credible media outlet, given the issues facing the business. "Journalists aren't idiots," one PR executive said. [Sez who?] "Why would any journalist, let alone one at a mainstream business publication, want to paint a Pollyannaish picture of the ad industry?"

Because you -- pay their bills?

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

The luxury-goods maker LVMH is suing -- well, you'll NEVER guess:

EBay is already fighting a similar case filed by jewelry maker Tiffany in 2004 in New York's federal court. Both Tiffany and LVMH say their investigators made test purchases of brand-name items offered for sale on eBay and found the overwhelming majority were phony.

LVMH says in its lawsuit that of 300,000 Dior-branded items and 150,000 Vuitton bags offered on eBay during the first six months of this year, 90% were fakes.

Is that all?

The perceived prevalence of fakes on the site is already hurting some sellers of legitimate goods, says a West Coast e-commerce analyst who requested anonymity. "Buyers also see it as a problem, and that makes them unwilling to pay high prices for anything on the site," the analyst says.

Furthermore:

If the suit is successful, it could shake the foundations of eBay's longstanding practice of letting buyers and sellers make deals on its site with minimal supervision by the company. "You can imagine what a change that would be to their business model," says Louis S. Ederer, an intellectual-property expert at the law firm of Torys in New York.

Well, you COULD say that.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Rummy's incompetent and the Dems respond with what one of CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES calls a "hearing."

SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

P. S. GREG has published a picture of CURLEY:



Whoops!



We prefer old movies ourselves.

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

BULLETIN!!!!!

VIACOM TO CUT CHAIRMAN REDSTONE'S SALARY TO $1M, REDUCE BONUS

Does He also reduce His holdings?

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Actually, we'd be happy to see Little JonnyBoy offer an MBA -- if it'll get him doing more business stories and fewer about ANNIE LEIBOVITZ.

Do I hear grade inflation?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

RAH RAH RAH! SIS BOOM BAH! M----M! M----M! RAH RAH RAH!

YaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TEAM!!!!!

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

PRESIDENT Musharraf of Pakistan says that the CIA has secretly paid his government millions of dollars for handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects to America.

Okay, we paid the money -- you say. But look who took it.

Did it do its part in the battle against terrorism?

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Dream Endorser: Tiger Woods as a Giant of Marketing ROI

TRANSLATION: GET READY, SUBORDINATES: AMERICA'S CEOS WILL REALLY LET YOU HAVE IT!

Mr. Woods has not signed a significant deal in a while, preferring to keep his endorsements limited.

"That's his management's M.O.," Mr. Barr said. "They don't want to overdistribute a product that is difficult to access already. You better have a blockbuster deal ready for his people to even take a sniff at."

TRANSLATION:....

"We're not talking about switching him from Buick to another vehicle brand," GM's top sales executive, Mark LaNeve, told the Detroit Free Press. "But maybe we could find ways to associate traits of Tiger's -- like precision -- with the corporate GM image."

Larry Peck, Buick's golf-marketing manager, confirmed that. "We look to leverage the assets we have, and we look at how we can do that with Tiger," Mr. Peck said. "We're now using him in China and Canada. ... We continue to try to leverage him for the GM brand as well as Buick. From a sponsor standpoint, he's a perfect partner."

Yes, Tiger's really helped pull your company out of its funk -- and BUICK!

EA Sports, which makes and markets Mr. Woods' video game, has seen revenue triple from $500 million in 1999 to $1.6 billion in North America. (Of course, it's had a lot more help from NFL commentator John Madden's football franchise.)

A Neuharthism of the Week Award to RICH!

P. S. OR:

“I think $400 plus million dollars is a lot of money for athlete endorsements alone. Brands like New Balance for example, spend zero dollars on athlete endorsements, and New Balance is a top five company in terms of athlete shoes”, said Ben Sturner, President of the Leverage Agency....

Nike, together with Michael Jordan, virtually inventing modern day sports marketing, and although basketball shoe sales are up 15 percent, it can’t be a great sign that the next Michael Jordan is apparently Jordan himself.

Despite the fact that he last retired three years ago, the top five selling basketball shoes domestically this year are all retro Jordans, according to market retail firm SportsOneSource.

(Caveat: this IS the BIG C!)

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

"YOU DID FOX'S BIDDING ON THIS SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Apparently Mike's son got our second greatest ex-president mad. We have no love for RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S "news" channel but this collision of egos might be the first less-than-prostrating interview Slick's ever been subjected to. We can hear the thousands of hacks fuming away at their keyboards for this great show of disrespect for one of history's great leaders, blissfully unaware of the disrespect they gladly show Republicans every day of the week.

By the way, does this mean -- the end of the affair? PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

Posted 7:01 AM by Gene

Kurt worries about an alleged profusion of millennial talk because then he couldn't go to all those wonderful parties.

SUPERADAM! You chose well!

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Democrats Cite Report to Undermine GOP

You do that, Democrats -- cite a classified "report" news hacks unclassified. Then you'll really demonstrate your national-security bona fides.

Honest, when CURLEY's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) campaign managers suggest things....

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

Would we better off if we had a leader with at least a little of the -- call it what you will, the guts of Hugo or Nukeman?

When do we finally tire of being led by the buried heads of ostriches?

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Speaking of panics, every unfunny "comedian" who earns $20 million a picture is now panicking because 1. Jim Carrey's career is effectively over because 2. THE CONSPIRACY finally got it into its big fat steel trap not to pay $20 million a picture to unfunny "comedians" anymore.

"Not so funny"? This is FAR more mirthful than ANY of their masterworks.

Posted 6:40 AM by Gene

Five years after the anthrax attacks that killed five people...

...the Fumblers, Bumblers and Incompetents still don't know.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

Flu vaccine
Remember 2 years ago?

You mean when you guys created another NATIONAL PANIC by screaming about SHORTAGES OF FLU VACCINE? What's happened since then? Well, maybe we have more vaccine, or maybe you hacks have moved onto other panics (that spinach one has proven profitable), or maybe you've inured us to so many of your PANICS we don't pay much attention anymore.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

U.N. Force Is Treading Lightly on Lebanese Soil

Indeed if the past is a guide they can just float above the ground propelled by their blue helmets.

Posted 7:58 PM by Gene

Well whadya know! The former Cat Stevens agrees with PINCH!

Posted 7:40 PM by Gene

"I think it was, ‘Holy blank, we‘ve done it again. What is wrong with the country?‘"

Holy blank, David "NON" Germain, you think we ASSPress boys would be more willing to stick the unexpurgated truth in our faces!

A Holy Blank Neuharthism of the Week Award to NON!

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

I just got an order from Oldies.com and with it were three of that outfit's exasperating catalogs -- exasperating not just for the cheap newsprint and the rubbing-off ink but for their contents: the $5 rack-jobber "bargain" CDs (twenty minutes of music) and public-domain B- and C-picture DVDs. I have little time enough and I'm not sure I want to waste it with second-string movies. Surely a few of them are entertaining -- probably a very few -- but which ones? Time spent on a B-picture is time better spent with an A -- and lately the TWXSTERS have been selling their A's in reasonably-priced box sets (like the upcoming volume two of the Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection). What's more outside George Feltenstein and his masterly work we have trouble enough with the big studios; go to Amazon.com and you'll find some GOODTHINGS BOYS releases getting mauled for cramming three movies on compressed discs with no extras. If I want B pictures I want them at C prices. And with public domain there's no guarantee the video and sound will be any good -- these masterworks have been neglected for decades. Who wants to rummage through tons of haystacks for the glint of a golden needle? Oldies.com should sell its B's for $3 each -- and that's too much.

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

And in Spiegel, The Ophthalmologist pulls his Statesman act, all the better to be a thug.

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

We knew going to the League of Nations' wingding was expensive -- but THAT expensive?

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

"Europe" has won the Ryder Cup again. So what? Golf knows no international boundaries; the whole pro world is a PGA TOUR (as they like to spell it), and the best are all Babbitts. Besides, we remember how "our" oafs flung the flag in the "Europeans'" faces back in '99, and challenged "their" manhood, which made us think, you don't work for a living. Now on to more manufactured rivalries, and more snoozes.

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

Jerry Falwell raises his leg again, and -- speaks.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Foggy Bottom has apologized for our detaining that Venezuelan minister, but then Foggy Bottom would apologize for our existing.

And Hugo has rejected the apology. He knows 98-pound weaklings when he sees them.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

We wish we knew why some mayors (we can think of one offhand) have such a high tolerance for urban warfare -- and why the usual black leaders have such a high tolerance for NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

We see the doofus Sen. Akaka has won his primary, meaning someday he and Sen. No-Way will have the privilege of being carted onto the Senate floor in their personal cryonic chambers, speaking through a computerized device attached to their brains, and voting on a neurological signal conveyed to the attending staffer.

(Via St. Warren)

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

Still elsewhere in the Kingdom of God whose Bethlehem is Omaha, Jonathan Yardley reminds us PEOPLE NEWSRAG has gone from Robert Hughes to MR. GUNS CAUSED COLUMBINE and ER, proof the time has come to cut off the newsrags' allowance.

Most important for the career that was to follow, he rejected "the idea that there was something inherently repressive about old art, as though the past were a dead weight that new art, young art, had to shake off." He learned that "the past is pervasive; it seeps into everything; it is the very air that artists and their public breathe," and he lost for good "a belief in the potency of the avant-garde." He writes: "I have never regained it, and today, looking at the ever-more-feeble efforts on the part of the art world to designate its latest products as 'cutting-edge,' 'edgy,' 'radical,' etcetera, I am not in the least sorry to have lost it. Some new works of art have value of some kind or another. Others, the majority, have little or none. But newness as such, in art, is never a value."

MR. GUNS CAUSED COLUMBINE and ER would first scream at him, then shoot him.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in St. Warren's Heaven, Lenny is also playing tricks with his readers, saying WE'RE LOSING THE WAR ON TERRORISM!!!!!, and citing a secret report to prove it -- only of course his sources "would only discuss intelligence analyses on the condition of anonymity", and reserving this choice nugget for the 23rd of 27 grafs:

National Intelligence Estimates have often sparked controversy, both for what they have said and what they have omitted. A 1997 estimate, the last on global terrorism before the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks, mentioned bin Laden in only three sentences, describing him only as a "terrorist financier" and making no reference at all to al-Qaeda.

You seem to know everything, Lenny. What would YOU have done -- PRESIDENT DOWNIE?

P. S. Evidently Lenny cribbed off Pinch. Here is the roaring conundrum the hacks have scribbled themselves, and US, into: We need to be told honestly about terrorism; but because hacks are PC to the nth -- Pinch, after all, begged the Pope to apologize -- and because we still remember their P-Ulitzer-winning withdrawal from 'Nam, we wouldn't trust them if they printed the Ten Commandments at God's direction. What are you guys going to do about that, LENNY? PINCH? Nothing, of course. You're better than us.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Little Boy Jonny has barely warmed his seat in the editor's luxury office and he's proving he can play tricks on the public with the best of them! He says we're LOSING AFGHANISTAN!!!!! (YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!) and puts that story on the cover of the INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS -- but NOT DOMESTICALLY, where he does some extended blurb on some trendy photographer (not Bilal, by the way), whose first graf goes like this:

Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue. Like so many of her photo sessions, there was nothing simple about it. "I talked with Angelina before the shoot," says Leibovitz, who's famous for her preparation. "She felt like she was coming back from having the baby and she felt very sexy and ready to go." Jolie, a pilot, suggested shooting on an old airfield near the desert, with motorcycles and small planes among the props. (She flew herself to the location and the next day, Brad Pitt buzzed up in his plane.) They also spent a day shooting in the dunes near Death Valley, where the mercury hit 104, and the wind whipped so hard that everyone was peppered with sand. There were 50 people on the set, and racks of clothes from the New York spring collections to be tried and styled. It was as if Leibovitz were directing a small movie.

It's bad enough that you cheer on the Taliban internationally, but you don't have the guts to stick the middle finger in our faces, opting instead for celebrity twaddle, because you know some of your readers might see through it -- or worse, cancel their subscriptions. What a louse! For this alone ST. WARREN should DOUBLE YOUR SALARY!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO LITTLE BOY JONNY -- and he's a finalist for our NEUHARTHISM OF THE YEAR AWARD!

Posted 10:15 PM by Gene

Has anyone devoted a page to all the criminal activity inspired by RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S "invention"? That would be a good idea, and we wish someone would do it -- though it won't be us; we're busy writing for three people.

Here's another one -- RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Thank God criminals are stupid.”

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! isn't.

Posted 9:54 PM by Gene

Pinch dreams of Augusta again.

No golf club will ever be quite as exclusive as the news hacks' own mutual admiration society.

Posted 9:32 PM by Gene

CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) SPEAKS:

It is a measure of just how dangerous and disorienting Iraq has become that suspicions such as these are considered adequate grounds for locking up a man and throwing away the key.

It is a measure of just how dangerous and disorienting the news biz can be that the leader of the ASSPress could once insist his business is run by CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS. It is also a measure of how dangerous and disorienting it can be when CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) can speak of Bilal as though he knew him intimately, when in fact we suspect he's known him well only since the P-Ulitzer, and especially since his boys turned his detention into a J'ACCUSE! We do wish CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) at least had the guts to proclaim his prize photographer a political prisoner, as that would put the difference between our superiors the NEWS HACKS and we mere peon news consumers in bold relief.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

"You should never say 'never,' but the source of the intelligence is not a very good one – Saudi intelligence can sometimes be an oxymoron," Michael Scheuer, who ran the CIA's bin Laden unit, said on the Saturday Early Show. "It almost sounds like between the French and the Saudis are trying to goad bin Laden into saying something to prove he is still alive."

Figures -- if he does prove he's alive it would make the Saudis happy...and the French VERY happy.

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS "confirm" it, but we'll wait until we're sure Elvis has left the building. He's died on us before.

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

Speaking of natural disasters:

The tsunami of 2004 triggered the biggest humanitarian response in history, feeding the hungry, heading off epidemics and engendering the hope that out of a calamity that took 216,000 lives, a better Indian Ocean rim would emerge.

But 18 months later recriminations are rife, with aid agencies standing accused of planning poorly, raising unrealistic expectations and simply being incompetent.

Brand-new homes infested with termites are being torn down in Indonesia while families in India were put into shelters deemed of "poor quality" and "uninhabitable" because of the heat. Thousands of boats donated to fishermen in Indonesia and Sri Lanka sit idle because they are unseaworthy or too small. Only 23 percent of the $10.4 billion in disaster aid to the worst hit countries, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, has been spent, according to the United Nations, because so much of it is earmarked for long-term construction projects.

Is it too much to expect governments ever to do anything right?

Former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery....

Oh, never mind.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

[A]longside the musical entertainment provided by superstar bands such as U2 and the Goo Goo Dolls, and city jazz legends Allen Toussaint, Kermit Ruffins and Irma Thomas, there are notes of discord. Is it right to spend such huge sums on a sports arena when hospitals, schools and government buildings are in desperate need of rebuilding and when half the city's population has yet to return?

Kathleen Blanco, the Louisiana governor, has no doubt. "The Superdome was symbolic of a lot of misery," she said. "It is now a symbol of recovery. It stands as a symbol of all our experiences over the past year."

Who needs Nero and his fiddle?

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

Supermodel Cindy Crawford has caused controversy by allowing her five-year-old daughter to model a new swimwear range.

Kaya, Crawford's daughter with Rande Gerber, poses topless and in a string bikini, showing off a tattoo on her lower back in the ads for Melissa Odabash beachwear.

Odabash has been inundated with so much criticism, the company has removed the pictures of Kaya from its website.

You must have a good publicist, Cindy; we haven't heard of this.

We can see why.

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

The bad news is: THE CONSPIRACY is selling R movies to minors again.

The GOOD news is: Hardly anyone else is going to the movies.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

The Democrats have a foreign-policy-and-defense Achilles heel, and they know it. They refuse to do the sensible thing here because common sense was forcibly removed from their party many years ago. If the Dems lose the midterms this is why.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

There must come a point when Little Jeffy must ask himself if LEGENDARY WELCH's goal of total universal (er, NBC Universal) domination is worth being in entertainment. It was one thing when it was the fad to try to assemble one big national media firm, when LEGENDARY did it. Now the trend is to disassemble it. Financially we'd guess the new fad won't be any better for the shareholders than the old. And as the public gets wiser to media shenanigans merged or unmerged big business must ask itself how much the rabid obsessive association with media has hurt its rep. We despise GE BANCORP AND REALTY because it's in entertainment. If it weren't we might merely detest it.

And if Jeff Zucks thought he could play a game with certain of his viewers, SAMMY GLICKMAN can tell him it's one game he can lose.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Now a once-overexposed has-been "comedian" tries to make money with Netcasting.

It's official: we're in another bubble!

...[T]he comedian is breaking just about every rule in television.

The hacks who write such usually enforce their own rules like Waffen SS.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Shucks, despite the blandishments of St. Cindy (and because his attorney didn't file papers on time) an heroic deserter is returning to the states to face charges.

Now in the minds of St. Cindys, which is ignoble: going AWOL, or coming home?

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Elvis has more lives than an army of alley cats, and we've a hunch he has a few more.

Posted 3:32 PM by Gene

(Fill in the blank with the sound of a man expelling a great deal of gas): Any scribbler who can use that sulfurous cliche "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted" or some variation thereof most surely thinks he know all to the universe -- and we wouldn't disabuse him of that notion except, perhaps, for two things: 1. The news biz (and I've said this too often before) comforts the comfortable (show-biz megazillionaires) and afflicts the afflicted (the victims of tainted spinach and their families); and 2. The news biz was once run by the forces of right-wing reaction. Now it's run by the forces of left-wing reaction. What's the difference? (I've said that before too.)

Such are the perils of planning an IPO these days.

(Via MediaBistro and, alas, THE NEW! IMPROVED!! NRO!!!)

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

Another reason TRIB sank to JUNK: I like cute animals too, but do we HAVE to devote 908 words to a glorified cartoon character who may be a composite? Aren't there real live human beings who deserve as much coverage -- like, say, stray-bullet homicide victims in the South Central ghetto our brave editor Mr. Baquet probably has never stepped in?

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

B. S. DEFENDER GETS RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S REPORTER FIRED!!!!!

Ol' B. S. must be dancing on his DELL LAPTOP!

Now he'll be as insufferable as SAM LITTLE. Pardon -- he already is.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 12:15 PM by Gene

Why is it news that the government screwed up after a terrorist attack?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Tech-savvy teen is CEO of $200k podcasting website

The bubble is BACK!!!!!

Don't get us wrong; we salute the ingenuity of these young entrepreneurs. But didn't we have lots of firebrands the last time?

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

Cablevision Systems Corp., the U.S. cable-television provider that owns Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks, awarded stock options to a dead executive in 1999, then backdated them to give the illusion they were granted when he was alive.

Niiiiiiiiiice work if you can get it....

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

Mr. Hezbollah holds a victory rally.



Mission accomplished?

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

The Pope is emceeing a "summit" re his remarks, meaning the Vatican may float off its foundations for all the platitudes.

Meantime Britain's Muslims are mad because the Beeb aired a tirade by a -- "moderate." Can nothing content them?

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

More stupid from RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s zillion-dollar acquisition:

A university student appears to be responsible for an advertising class assignment that went awry when the teacher's pug was threatened to be killed online, the school said....

Mike Lear, an adjunct professor at VCU's Adcenter, last week gave his class an assignment to make his 6-year-old pug famous. While most students posted fliers around campus with the pooch's picture on them, the MySpace user opted for a more shocking approach.

It worked....

As RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! could have told him.

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

Jonah or Ms. Travers or whomever has "fixed" NRO's home page so it can run video ads -- and it's eliminated drop-down menus.

Let's see: eBay tries Microsofting in "beta" and gets justly raked over the coals; Yahoo! Mail adds new inconveniences in a "beta" version -- why must Web sites always "improve" themselves?

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

Amid reports that an American official threatened to bomb Pakistan back to "the Stone Age" if it didn't cooperate with the United States in the war on terror, the Bush administration said today that its policy was "not to make bombing threats."

Given some portions of Pakistan bombing may not be necessary.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

H-P was lauded by Business Ethics magazine for its efforts in helping communities and promoting diversity among its ranks. The magazine quotes Sid Reel, vice president of global inclusion and diversity at H-P who heads up a team that works with country managers on multiple diversity dimensions, including disabled employees: "We have 60 employee-resource groups involving race, gender and sexual orientation that air professional development and raise awareness of diversity issues," she says. "Our employees also help us make sure our own products are accessible."

Further, its cites H-P's Digital Village program, which establishes computer centers in villages in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And it says H-P is reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by cutting employee travel and using renewable energy.

And here is one reason we are destined for KennyBoys as far as the eye can see: Corporate America mistakes PC for ETHICAL.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

A story like the SPINACH PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is a double godsend for the hacks, first because it allows them to create a national crisis (which will be forgotten in six months), and second because it allows them to violate the privacy of the private citizens who suffer dreadful losses as a result.

In the end, do such stories serve the slightest useful purpose?

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Kellogg Man, no doubt back from 500 whirlwind tours where his subordinates could give our technology away, admits his Census Bureau has lost hundreds of laptops.

Thankfully Census already pries into our inner workings so our privacy isn't violated.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Oh oh, King Richard says social networking sites might NOT be worth $100 billion?

Is this a contrary indicator?

(Via Media Bistro)

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

What is Starbucks but a twee McDonald's?

Evidently Wall Street's starting to notice.

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

SNL'S DARKEST CHAPTER [Jonah Goldberg]

Consensus from readers is the first cast after the original cast quit in the early 80's — right before Eddie Murphy & Co — was the absolute worst.

Posted at 8:24 AM

We figure you should know as an expert on comedy.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

We could fit 10,000 Dubyas in a dark recess of John Adams's mind and still have room for 20 billion more.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

The loud grinding noise you hear is the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers shredding even more of our money.

Posted 7:02 AM by Gene

TRIB may do a KNIGHTRIDDER!

What's the point of all these big media tyrannies now?

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Wal-Mart once again shows its warm, fuzzy side: it screams at THE CONSPIRACY for underselling it!

Don't you believe in FREE ENTERPRISE, Wal?

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

This is all well and good Chuck -- we agree with you -- but here's the problem: you're a CONSERVATIVE columnist, and it is increasingly obvious ONLY conservatives hold your viewpoint, meaning the other side of America at best condones the raging hypocrisy of Islamists, and is willing to go the whole way in shameless craven surrender.

Why can't a LIBERAL write a column like this?

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

The Palestinians' ruling Hamas group will not join a planned coalition government if recognizing Israel is a condition, a close aide to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said Friday.

Do I hear all the slime that applauded Nukeman and Hugo shaking their heads and going "Yah yah!"?

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

"MGM" brings us more GENIUS in entertainment:

"Flyboys" represents an $80 million investment -- including a minority stake from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, whose son David Ellison plays one of the U.S. aviators who volunteered to join the French Lafayette Escadrille before America entered the first World War.

TRANSLATION: The studio that used to be UA is releasing a vanity movie. It sure sounds it.

We suspect the Tantrum of Oracle knows no more about fillum than James "All the King's Men" Carville.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

And why would someone remake All the King's Men, a great film by all accounts that starred the inimitable Broderick Crawford?



That's almost like remaking Sophia Loren.

I'd like to see THE CONSPIRACY redo GONE WITH THE WIND.

We meant to post this picture yesterday and now we have the excuse.

Oh hell, one more from Stale.com:



These photos are argument enough the movies were once good and now stink and will only get worse.

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

In the months ahead we must not forget to talk up the upcoming (!) Os-CAR® nominees -- works of brilliance and enduring virtue, like All the King's Men. Or For Your Consideration (from the same independent TWXSTERS who gave us The Knighting of St. Edward of Murrow). Doesn't the biz tell enough bad inside jokes?

This will be a BRILLIANT year for FILLUM!

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

I don't see what's unusual about a pol talking from both sides of his mouth about "Hollywood values." Republicans all but ran off cliffs together proclaiming Ah-NULT one of their own despite his -- record. But then the question isn't will politicians hate the public, but how? And the Dems have a pretty good record as pusillanimous two-faces themselves.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

All right, Ms. Travers, Ralph Kramden said something stupid. We expect politicians to say stupid things and hope the public forgets them. Your beloved Dubya comes to mind. Now can we p-lease hold the raves for awhile?

Posted 3:25 PM by Gene

Yale to post courses, video on Internet for free

Another argument against tuition.

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

We hate wasting our time on the guy, but Romy noticed that Sirius employee B. S. DEFENDER went, er, ape. "HA! RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!! EMPLOYS A RADIO CONSULTANT!! GOTCHA!!!!!" We suspected that piece was -- bull, considering the HUNDREDS of times RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! plugged the late King in His paper; and RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is nothing but for His (and his wage slaves') conflicts of interest; but while we would not want to guess about the late King's celebrity bookings, we would say (to the extent we can trust Alexa and Hitwise) his traffic is way down from the first of the year (and down from late 2004, not long after the site began in earnest; it was a placeholder before), as are search engine hits, and Artie's (whoever that is) movie did BOMB. Want more proof your God isn't working?

Honest, I don't like exhumations. Let the King's corpse rest in peace; and shut up, B. S., and go back to gassing into a void about Facetime, or MeTube, or whatever your onanism of the moment.

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

Petericia Travers just can't seem to get The House's Ralph Kramden out of her South Park-agitated rave-reviewing head:

CHARLIE RANGEL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
was just on TV denouncing Hugo Chavez for showing up in Rangel's country, city, and right now even his congressional district and criticize President Bush. That's a job for Americans, Rangel says.

In other words, HE'S TICKED CHAVEZ IS TREADING ON HIS TURF, STEALING HIS THUNDER!!!!!

Posted at 12:49 PM [Overemphasis added]

Dammit, I'm not member #1 of the Charlie Rangel Fan Club -- but I'm definitely NOT member #1 of the PETERICIA TRAVERS FAN CLUB either.

And NEITHER ARE OTHERS.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

Nikki Finke SCREAMS again:

EXCLUSIVE: Top LA Times Editors Loyal To Baquet Said To Have A 'Suicide Pact'

DON'T DO IT, guys! The forces of TRUTH depend upon you! ROMY and CJR depend upon you!

Oh, they're just going to resign en masse. Then they get replaced by bean counters. Will non-audiophiles know the difference?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

And in more MUST-KNOW NEWS from the ASSociated Press:

Thailand's military coup this week interrupted filming of Nicolas Cage's new movie, a gangster thriller being shot in Bangkok, a news report said Thursday.

The Chinese news Web site Sina.com said Cage had prepared a private jet to leave the country on short notice.

Anything to protect that valuable face!

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Mayor Legacy of Chicago is going to try to stage the GE BANCORP GAMES in the SOUTH SIDE!

Take your pick: it's white elephants downtown or white elephants in THE GHETTO.

Good luck, Mayor!

P. S. On second thought maybe we shouldn't be so cynical: the neighborhood could use the uplift. But when will the RENDELLS finally realize TOURISM is not a good substitute for INDUSTRY?

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

The two brothers who owned the Rhode Island "nightclub" where 100 died after that cretinous pyrotechnic display are getting off very lightly. There was probably no decent outcome here. Locking them up for life would have been too harsh. Slapping on the wrist is too gentle. What was the proper punishment here? For what it's worth, they'll live with this forever, which at least is some punishment.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

In other news of our favorite Nukeman:

Columbia Invites Ahmadinejad to Speak

...where he'll get an HOUR-LONG standing O!

And that's just after the introduction.