Posted 8:10 PM by Gene

So -- the Paks let Elvis get away two years ago.

You keep doing things like that and you'll get more unscheduled flights from us.

Posted 7:57 PM by Gene

Why am I thinking the appropriate soundtrack to this scene should come from a porno movie?

But then, she already loves herself.

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers must be wasting LOTS when it can afford to finance stunt men on soap operas.

At this rate Luke Spielberg may have competition.

Posted 4:33 PM by Gene

It's beyond me why anybody would buy a collectable through eBay; the risk of getting fake goods is enormous. Happily Meg "Mug" Whitman has been able to keep her head profitably buried in the sand for years. That Tiffany & Co. would attempt to police eBay's wrongdoing does not surprise us. eBay won't do it.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

On this arbitrary twentieth anniversary of the Challenger disaster, and knowing the crew was still alive after the explosion, we reflect we're still flying the orbiting jalopy (or we're supposed to be; it hasn't gone up lately for some reason) and we're still putting lives at risk for hi-mom moments.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

The two questions that come to mind in reading this piece of junk are: 1. Andy, how long have you been buddies with Jack Abramoff? and 2. What kind of mentor has he been in your life?

(Via Spyware Info, via Topix.com)

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

And further on the subject of the non-evil devils of Mountain View, the intrepid PROFESSOR had to link to a SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER who said THIS:

In a high-tech economy, the free flow of information defines how competitive a people can be. Less freedom, lower competitiveness. There's more to it than that, however. More information means less opacity, and that means more corruption. This, in turn again, means lower competitiveness.

Just one problem: the Chinese have proved they can be EXTREMELY competitive without freedom.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE practices its unevil censorship, beta version:

A day after Google's buggy censorship of sites for Chinese-users was revealed, the search giant has responded by fixing its filters so topics such as beer and jokes are no longer deleted.

An investigation published Thursday by CNET News.com showed that Google's new China search engine not only censored criticisms of the Chinese government, but went further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting sites related to teen pregnancy, alcohol, dating and homosexuality.

So! Brin and Sergey are more totalitarian capitalist than the Chinese! Who knows! You might run the PARTY someday -- unless, that is, your stock's worth $10 million a share.

P. S. Congress is having a hearing. That should be a RED-letter day for the CIA of Mountain View -- provided it shows up.

This may go away, but not before February 16.

P. P. S. The ZILLIONAIRE IDIOT Sergey has learned how to show-offishly bang his head on a wall. Sorry JERKS, we KNOW your NAMES now. You're the BUGMEISTER BILLS of SEARCH.

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

How the mighty do fall:

Jacques Barzun was not specifically referring to this movie when he theorized that civilizations invariably fall into decadence. But consider that "Big Momma's House 2" was produced by David T. Friendly, the son of the CBS News President Fred Friendly (played by George Clooney in "Good Night, and Good Luck"), who resigned when the network refused to preempt reruns of "I Love Lucy" to cover Senate hearings about Vietnam. It took only one generation for this family to fall this far.

Consider too this film is distributed by RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, who didn't even need a generation to fall.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"

Frankly, in this country, the perfect is the enemy of the good, but hopefully we can impact future generations by sticking up for the little guy, and hopefully standing for family values, and saying, "God bless America!"

We have spoiled a whole lot, haven't we?

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Speaking of weasel words:

Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn’t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.

We didn't feel that way when we were raking in the dough.

(Via PublishersWeekly.com)

P. S. at 5:10 p.m. And now, needless to say, the book biz is doing its version of the news hacks' mea culpa headbanging routine, which raises the question: would the publishiong whizzes have problems with liars if they read their manuscripts?

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooh:

A Google search I did of the word ``courage'' yielded more than 49 million results. ``Conscience'' returned 32 million. ``Backbone'' got more than 29 million.

And G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's stock yields $128 billion!

Today's going to be a nutty day on Wall Street.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

When ah-TEESTES use an avalanche of weasel words to defend "strong language" and mockery of religion, the solid ground of their principles turns to quicksand.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

We wish the writer hadn't worded this so cutesy-pie ironically, for he has a point: bad local television may be better than the good national kind because the viewers can at least feel it's theirs. We've come to hate the media biz because it's controlled by a few tyrants who put the same thing on over all media, with the same slickness, the same heavy-handed marketing. Bring back the dance shows, the talent shows, the kiddie puppet shows. They may not be Shakespeare, but at least they're local.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

The holy cockroaches in "Palestine" are moving toward a unilateral temper tantrum.

How do you say "Uncle" in Arabic? Here's betting the Europeans cry it.

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

Ford says it does not need gov't bailout

Hint hint?

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

Shucks, Democrats are backing Judge Alioto. Meanwhile, there's some talk about the inaptly named Lincoln Chafee, the acme of wimpdom. Why doesn't this guy vote no and then resign?

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

We are sorry to learn that Sony's vastly improved profits have led it to discontinue its several lines of robots, including Aibo. We've seen an Aibo in action and were quite charmed by it, but Sony has a knack for keeping things to itself; to this end it priced Aibo way out of most people's reach. We do hope others will revive the robot pet, although it's likely to stay just within the realm of hobbyists and other get-a-life types; but we must confess having been near cats and dogs I'd rather mine have fur.

It also killed the Qualia. Of this we have no regrets whatsoever. Who wants to buy a $20,000 CD player? Not even get-a-lifes could afford it.

(Via the robotic geeks of Slashdot, one of whom wrote, "Billions in annual sales at a 2% margin makes less sense than hundreds of millions at a 20% margin." I'm SURE Lord Springer will follow your advice TO THE LETTER.)

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

The Enron disaster should (but won't) teach the free-en-ter-prise con-SER-va-tive that some corporate crimes aren't victimless.

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

The anonymous hack who calls him/her/itself "The Washington Prowler" says using Democrat as an adjective is the bee's knees. It's not enough to remind us why many conservatives found Jim "The Beamed-Up Crook" Traficant a great orator. We already have enough offenses against English, some grammatical ("disinterested" meaning uninterested), others well-intended ("flammable" for inflammable), others grating polticospeak (the "floating 'hopefully'", the overuse of "frankly"), others grating PR speak ("edgy", "metrosexual"), others flat-out evasive euphemisms ("the n word"). Twerps like the Prowler love Democrat as an adjective because they think it STICKS it to Fatso Glub-Glubs; but in the process of pricking such buffoons they draw blood from those of us who take offense at these small demolition jobs on our language, whose ultimate purpose is to make us all sound STOOPID.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

It's Hamas's choice: if it wants to be an international outcast, it will join the Iranians and Asia's other hillbillies in the world Islamist Mafia. If it wants not to be, it will have to talk, and we wonder if it has the guts for it, having spent its life shouting the virtues of 72 virgins.

(We should have posted on this before but we were busy with more important stories, like lying "memoirists.")

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

“The right man in the right place at the right time.”

That’s a quote from an important article in Newsweek by economist Milton Friedman in which he claimed that the person about to be chairman of the Federal Reserve Board would be a good pick. No, Friedman didn’t write that in 2005 about Ben Bernanke. Instead, he wrote it in 1970 about his friend and fellow inflation hawk, Arthur Burns, who, shortly after becoming Fed chairman, stoked the fires of inflation and turned out to be one of the worst Fed chairmen of the post-World War II years.

How DARE we insult a GOD! Which leads to the question -- why must the heroes of economists always be GODS?

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Oprah snubs Her former boy-toy!

We don't expect Her to employ batteries of lawyers to check the veracity of the books She magically extols into bestsellers (although She can afford it), but would such episodes happen (and this isn't the first one -- She turned THE FLYING KEYBOARD into a national nuisance) if the Queen didn't firmly believe in Herself?

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

Oprah's boy-toy prevaricating literary druggie spills MORE beans?

We thought he sold the book!

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

With their BIG tuitions and their BIG endowments, why should America's HYER EHDYUKAYTORS be concerned with WASTE?

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

The EU is MAD! It wants the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL DICK CHENEY and his puppet RUMMY to TESTIFY on the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL of SECRET PRISONS -- or ELSE!!!!!

Or else what?

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Long before Lord Koppel left for the exalted heights of National Public TalkRadio, Nightlight had become just another news show. Now it's even more so.

Look at it this way, Ub: Cancelling it will be Steve's first big decision!

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

Ah b'leeve in th' Golden Rule: Doo others as thahy wod doo YEEW -- an' git all the gold you cayn whahle yur dooin' 'em!

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM comes to BOSTON:

''Our hospitals are growing, academia is growing," Menino said. ''WE are the ECONOMIC ENGINE!!!!!"

With which dynamic non-profit non-taxpaying industries we can start construction of thousands of restaurants to employ more WAITERS and JANITORS and other HIGH-TECH JOBS to grow us into the 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMY!

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

I'm not sure we should be happy that a little bit o' duPont is floaing around in our bloodstreams, but one must wonder if this is the same panicky pseudo-science that led to the ban on DDT, to the celebration of millions who are now dead because of that.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Ub Iger paid about $1.25 billion a picture for the God Steve's output, meaning it's all the more likely he's financed his own palace coup.

And Ub got a nice help on the way out from the SENATOR.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Little Malcolm has put together one of his patchwork guesswork lists for the Capitalist Dictatorship of China, which tells us the Red Dragon with the Green Trim is quickly developing its own lockstep oligopoly.

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

Our guest tonight is one of the truly great humanitarians and one of my biggest fans, Osama Bin Laden. Sammy, thanks for being here. First I gotta askya, Sammy, what's it like living in a cave?

(Via IWantMedia.com)

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

School to Be Named After Johnnie Cochran

With any justice it should be a problem school.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS have signed John Ashcroft to "write" a "book", which we hope will be the most boring and self-serving of the year.

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

I know this is His Holiness PINCH's New England Edition, but lots of FREE-ENTERPRISE CON-SER-VA-TIVES are SMILING:

Friendly's Ice Cream Corp., the 500-restaurant chain based in Wilbraham, has dramatically cut healthcare benefits for 454 of its full-time employees.

The new plan provides a maximum annual benefit of $2,000 for outpatient care, and covers only a small portion of the costs associated with major illnesses. Under the plan, employees could be liable for thousands of dollars in bills after a short hospital stay, leading some to seek free care from the state. Until last fall, the company offered them comprehensive healthcare insurance.

And here's the -- cherry on the sundae:

Many Friendly's employees do not qualify for coverage through the company and rely on MassHealth, the state Medicaid program for low-income residents, or free care that hospitals are required to provide. According to a state study, Friendly's had the 14th-highest number of such employees in the state. The top of the list is dominated by other food-service companies, including McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King, and several supermarket chains.

I see no difference between this and the CIA of MOUNTAIN VIEW's extremely tortured entry into the Capitalist Dictatorship of China. It's the sort of thing Jack Abramoffs would think up, and it's motivated entirely by a sense of "screw you."

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Sen. Reid Says Bush Should 'Come Clean'

After your party's stirring performance in the Senate Judiciary Committee you need a long hot shower.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Only media types can call losing over two-thirds of your audience a "success."

We said last month the P. T. Barnum of beauty pageants would be lucky if he got a third of his last network audience. Well, he didn't quite get it, and he wasn't lucky he got it.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

Meantime, in more news to make Larry and Sergey and the WALTONS happy:

Chinese Economy Grows to 4th Largest in the World

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

While General Mills spends twice as much to push its products on Nickelodeon, CSPI picked Kellogg as the target of its suit, noting its “alluring product packaging, toy giveaways, contests, collectibles, kid-oriented Web sites, magazine ads and branded toys and clothes,” including a Froot Loops pillow that particularly irked CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson.

Kellogg's isn't about cereals -- it's about MARKETING.

Bill Keegan, director of Edelman’s crisis-management practice, believes “high-profile litigation will go a long way toward” encouraging Kellogg to adopt a healthful positioning. After all, he said, “Public sentiment is very important to them.”

Sure. Like G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE.

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

We are somehow not surprised the same academic-industrial complex that could not care less about the quality of its instruction or the corruption in its professional athletics divisions is so fiercely indifferent to the health of so many of its turnips.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE does EVIL, meaning it's at a NEW HIGH TODAY.

In seeking to compete in the world's second biggest Internet market, where Google has lost ground to a more popular home-grown search company Baidu Inc....

Here's one time we will NOT root for the Americans -- even if the CIA of MOUNTAIN VIEW has a 2.6-percent stake.

Neither Google's e-mail nor blogging services will be offered in China because the company doesn't want to risk being ordered by the government to turn over anyone's personal information.

Well WHOOP-ty DOO!

Posted 6:34 AM by Gene

“My name is Simon Rich and I’m 21 years old...I love David Sedaris, Woody Allen and Philip Roth. I also love television, specifically the show Cops. I write for Mad Magazine and go to Harvard, where I’m president of the Harvard Lampoon. I also write greeting card poetry for Blue Mountain Arts, mostly from the perspective of an old man.”

Guess which insufferable columnist this guy's the son of. Now we know why Mad isn't funny anymore.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Remember how news hacks made vicious, uninterrupted fun of Dan Quayle because he didn't know how to spell "potato"? WELL:

N.D. Potatoe Storage Level Low

The nice thing about being a news hack is that it exempts you from all kinds of criticism.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

How will another law stop child murders?

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

BYE UB!

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

Well what a surprise: a straight party-line vote. I am flabbergasted.

Pfffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 11:31 AM by Gene

Misery loves company: SUMNER and KING RICHARD are merging the number five and six TV networks and calling their new shotgun wedding The CW.

As in CONVENTIONAL WISDOM?

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Beltway people are among the most despicable on the planet, and one of their favored behaviors is showy self-flagellation when things go wrong. Not accepting bribes does not make anyone less of a conniving, two-timing, double-crossing, public-shafting PHONY.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

JONAH has written a movie.

Pardon, William F. Buckleyson.

Same difference.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Having served for decades as propaganda machines of the left, and now paying the price for it, our truth tellers have turned to the kinder, gentler, reader-friendlier approach -- like GIVING A FRONT-PAGE HED TO THE DONALD.

IS THIS WHY?

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

More instant cliches in the greatest biz on earth:

“One down year is an anomaly, but two could be a trend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office-tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “This year is really a turning point.”

Does that mean you're set to top your Guinness-Book record for self-serving blurbs in newspapers?

“Movie theaters will realize they are not in the exhibition business, but are in the entertainment business,” said Mark Cuban, who owns the art-house Landmark Theaters.

No you're NOT, Mr. Captcha, you're in the popcorn-restaurant business, and everything is aimed to maximize the profit on the popcorn.

“Having tent-pole movies and franchises gives you a solid base—it takes some of the pressure off if you have good anchors,” said Tom Ortenberg, president of Lionsgate Releasing.

What if the tentpoles are infested with termites?

OR (since you must mix metaphors) what if the anchors sink the ship?

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

Why does a certain kind of news hack think we'll only have reached nirvana when all the arts have become irreversibly bad and hopelessly political?

(Via the frequently annoying ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Ub Iger just got permission to buy Steve Jobs's star dust and hope it rubs off on him.

Good luck!

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

Fort-NEY Stark blows off steam to a WaPost reporter because the little boys won't let him join them at play.

We don't like that the GOP is doing exactly what the Dems did before 1995. We don't like that Congress is run by a bunch of obstreperous ninnies more interested in protecting their perks than governing. But Fortney's complaint underlines one essential truth: the power of government is more than offset by the power of media and its allies -- and that is an almost exclusively Democratic province.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

If every last movie award show were televised the audience for the Os-CARS® might be close to ZERO.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Even now that the remaining 420 pages of Oprah's boy toy's opus maximus are finally being disclosed as fiction the publishing biz remains the most credulous place on earth.

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

Another food fight on the Web, between the Podman and Franklin "Furor" Foer, makes me wonder if the race shouldn't go back to smoke signals; but knowing these two they'd find a way to incinerate the planet.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

What if a formerly prominent columnist of a prominent newspaper left to write a book and nobody cared?

Thank YOU, PINCH!

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

As has been widely touted Mercedes has introduced a top-of-the-line car that can drive itself.

The thing is with its reliability problems this Mercedes may develop a mind of its own.

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

Thuh uh-DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHB discovers another PC CONSERVATIVE MOVIE!

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Come to think of it, why DO Republican presidents pledge their fealty to the pro-life movement on the PHONE?

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

Mars Inc. says, HEIL SUMNER!

Masterfoods spent $52 million between MTV and CBS TV networks, two major drivers of the new Viacom and CBS Corp.

Think of all the junk food we peddle to kids; think of all the morally dubious stuff we finance on MTV; think of the rot in prime time...well, here's another company that increases our girth as it shrinks our brains!

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Byrd says mine deaths were preventable

Sen. Ossified Kleagle's been around so long he invented coal.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Well if the energy traders are back, does that mean more crooks will follow?

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Incredible:

Bummer: NFC game
nosedives on Fox

Down by 63 percent from last year, to a 10.7

Maybe the NFL is dispensable.

P. S. on 1/24: MEDIALIFE made a mistake, and not its first. We must resist these heds from fourt-rate sources.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

CCCCCCCCC-NNNNNNNN-NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!! FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!!!!!

Buttafuocos, Amy Fisher Plan TV Reunion

Posted 12:33 PM by Gene

One thing I must make clear: I do not intend to link to WaPost properties just because they link to blogs (although it does help). It behooves the rest of the news biz to start similar links so that not just the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGBLOGGERS dominate the discussion.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!!!!! must be having the fidgets today: his friend ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN may set up a STANDARDS-AND-PRACTICES DEPARTMENT!

It's all the MORAL JIHADISTS' FAULT!

How did that CRANK PERFESSER from that SPORTS FACTORY in SYRACUSE wheedle his way in here? That man has a PHONE ADDICTION!

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

One hopes between now and whenever the next big auto layoffs have to be announced our guys will learn how to design better cars.

On hopes that's it not a case that our guys can't design better cars no matter how hard they try.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

I thank the WaPosties for giving me some hits -- see? You're not always bad -- but I just wish the CIA in Mountain View would make Next Blog work again.

And whenever things like this happen I have profound doubts I'm fully sensible.

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

2,342 WORDS to tell us LUKE SPIELBERG's the INNOCENT VICTIM of the VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY, of SWIFT BOATERS, of LEON WIESELTIERS SCREAMING MORAL EQUIVALENCE?

Maybe the LaLaTimes hasn't reformed that much.

Although the entertainment press tends to be slavish to the celebrities that sell their magazines, the political press can be conversely patronizing to what it views as self-satisfied, shallow-thinking, overpaid Hollywood fat cats.

TRANSLATION: Show-biz news hacks are toadies, and right-wing pundits are evil.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

The senior senator from Arizona can occasionally say the right thing. Can he do the right thing?

(Sorry for the NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Many Phila. homicide victims had records

Why am I not surprised to learn this?

And why am I not exactly heartened to know it's bad guys taking out other bad guys?

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

A nation needs strong political magazines, and for that and other reasons we are very sorry to hear The New Leader is folding. We are told it was a powerful voice for truth, and we for a second wouldn't doubt a magazine that ran Solzhenitsyn and Dr. King was precisely that, though much of its truth came from before we started reading the magazine in the seventies, and that was largely due to John Simon's theater reviews, and that Serb was at his (as they must say) acerbic best then. But people don't read magazines anymore, only coffee tables do, and when people seem fit to read them it's for the pictures.

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

CVS is getting into the supermarket biz, and if it can bring the same commitment to cluttered stores and surly help it's brought to its glorified Woolworths' it should be one doozy of a debt.

And speaking of upper-level corruption a company still remembered for selling high-tech equipment to the Soviets is buying a company that may be related to a company that used to be called Westinghouse before it got acquired by a string of louts and megalomaniacs, who turned it into an overfull stomach and a lagging media stock.

P. S. We should have known: CVS is merely adding to its collection of cluttered stores with surly help.

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

Little Howie Hairshirt once again proves the best conflict of interest is always your own.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

Greenspan's Legacy Still Unclear [home-page hed]

TRANSLATION: Eighteen years of the Wizard and we STILL can't figure out what he said.

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

Meantime Gil and his Os-CAR® crew grimly make do with the S. S. Minnow they've been handed as it lists severely to port, heading full-bore into the inevitable 100-footer of audience contempt.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

A RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! factotum offers us hope for the future:

"I think we have to do what George Clooney did in The Perfect Storm," Sherak says of the 2000 thriller about an ill-fated fishing voyage.

"We just have to take the storm head on. Keep doing what we're doing, and steer straight for the tidal wave."

Of course, in the film, Clooney's character, along with all of his crew, drowned in the storm.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Why do news hacks mistake Rendellism (in this case "a new federal building...two sports stadiums, a performing-arts center, a central library, a "River Walk"-style canal in the HIP Bricktown district, and a trolley linking everything") for recovery? Oklahoma City may be a "different" town -- but is it better?

Posted 7:27 PM by Gene

Clever thinking from the hermetically sealed crawl space of Mr. Mark: We make fun of "the Greenhouse Effect," then celebrate Nine Finger Mr. Squoosh for having succumbed to it.

Yep, as the late Sam "The Heavy" Donaldson said, "Who elected you?" Certainly no one can UNELECT you. (I refer to news hacks AND judges.)

Posted 7:05 PM by Gene

Syrians oppose US but love KFC

Stories like these make me sigh. On the one hand they expose foreigners as hedonistic hypocrites; on the other hand they expose our sole talent as catering to the appetites of hedonistic hypocrites. Can any nation be proud of itself?

Posted 6:27 PM by Gene

Some two-bit bar chain called Fox & Hound is being taken over in a leveraged buyout for about $160 million. I mention this because here in our neighborhood we're in the first of ten hours of on-street revelry emanating from one of its tony hives because tonight we happen to be a Pittsburgh suburb. This is the same neighborhood where some high strung neurotics forced a supermarket to close because its deliveries made too much noise. The Beloved EDDIE was no doubt on the phone for DAYS getting this joint to locate here -- "it's near culture and high art! It's near a palace of MUSIC!" Never mind the patrons' tastes may run more toward the infernal ELTON (whom the rich moron who named his money-munching musical mausoleum for himself insisted on opening it with); Eddie was then in his 10,000-restaurants-or-bust kick, with the result that anyone earning over a quarter-million a year can eat anywhere, and the rest of us are out of luck. And so tonight we get what Mr. RENDELI can insist is "the noise and bustle of a great booming city, always expanding, always creating more jobs for waiters and janitors and busboys and maids to propel this city into the 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMY!!!!!"

Shut up, Steeler fans -- and SHUT UP, EDDIE.

P. S. at 6:52 p.m. Well, the Steeler fans have shut up, a lot sooner than I thought. Eddie will never shut up -- even if a former Steeler puts him out of the government biz.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

Bravo! Mozart
Because of his greatness, Mozart cannot help but be edifying.

Mozart's Gift
His music has taught us how to live.

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is up to something. It would be harder to find someone who could be more hostile to the high arts than he; probably the last time he heard Mozart's music was as background on a TV commercial, and he pushed the button on his remote so hard he damaged it, and then probably threw the remote at the set for good measure. Woe be unto anyone who'd dare play Mozart in his presence. We can hear him screaming now: "WHOY D'YEW HAFTA PLYYY THAT STYYNKIN EGGHHEAD MEEWSIC?????" (But then we could just as readily assume RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has no taste in the arts -- as he has no taste.) Now the RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can proudly claim he's producing a high art of his own kind; he has plenty of ad-blurb copywriters who'll attest that he's putting out the greatest art since -- well, since THE GREATEST WORK OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENNNNNNTURY; but hacks will in a crisis always stick together, even if it's with someone as evil as RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, he's up to something, maybe like the old guy played by Eddie Robinson in Soylent Green before Charlton Heston learns what goes into the stuff. Maybe RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wants to keep it to himself. Maybe RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S realizes been turning out cultural Soylent Green too long, and the cri-TICS have an insatiable appetite for it, and it stinks. Maybe RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is just being his usual genius bonehead self.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

I'd like a copy of the PERFESSER's phone bills:

"This guy has become famous for being really, really brilliant and really, really smart about something, but most people have no idea what it is he does," says pop culture expert Robert Thompson from New York.

And you've become famous for making really, really snappy sound bytes and for posing as really, really smart about something, and most people have no idea why you must be in the papers at least 10,000 times a day.

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

I'd prefer not to have to link to EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!, but the guy engaged in his hearts-and-flowers gag...reflex:

I just heard from Sen. Lautenberg’s office, responding to my request to testify before today’s Commerce Committee decency hearing. Doug Mehan, a legislative assistant, explained that even Lautenberg has little influence on the witness list. It’s a prerogative of the chairman, he said. The chairman decides whom to hear — or more to the point, not to hear. They should call them Senate unhearings.

I said it is shameful that Brent Bozell is heard — though he does not represent mainstream America — and no one is called on to speak for First Amendment rights in a Senate hearing about government restricting speech. He was sympathetic but shrugged. Politics. Washington. Power.

Sniff sniff, it's enough to make a grown man cry. Why didn't you turn to the broadcaster-backed Abramoffs whose lobby you cofounded? Why didn't you turn to the dozen or so BIGMEDIA firms you worked for? Why didn't you call your pal ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN? This is posturing every bit as raw as The Great Alaskan Boar's, and every bit as offensive.

Millionaires and bums, Buzzes and Brents, they all taste about alike to me.

Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

And speaking of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL, here's a Curley (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooge to define it:

Troops and civilians at a U.S. military base in Iraq were exposed to contaminated water last year and employees for the responsible contractor, Halliburton, couldn't get their company to inform camp residents, according to interviews and internal company documents.

Halliburton, the company formerly headed by VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY....

So! Dick Cheney polluted the water in Iraq?

How much lower can news hacks' reps go?

The Associated Press obtained the documents from Senate Democrats who are holding a public inquiry into the allegations Monday.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who will chair the session....

Bias? What bias?

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Now ya done it, conservative lawmakers: you're stepping up the evil fight against abortion.

You don't suppose 33 million or whatever was the turning point?

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

[T]he prevailing tone of Dog Days is one of boredom rather than indignation. It's suffused with a kind of jaded cynicism that seems more like the product of callow inexperience than battle-hardened wisdom. Knowingness serves as a substitute for having a point of view.

We mightn't be writing about MIKE KINSLEY's invention, might we?

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

Okay, maybe Little Jeffy's no idiot, but somebody thinks his readers are, or else we wouldn't try to salvage something out of our SYNERGY with GE BANCORP and REALTY. Or to put it in other words: the BANCORP's in HOLLYWOOD, and it would tolerate things it most likely wouldn't tolerate in its other divisions, because the non-idiot boss and his sub-bosses can spend all day boasting about the CELEBRITIES they know.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Here's one for you, Your Lordship of the Holy Religion of Apple: iPod muggings!

This may be just an excuse. Then again, teens is stupid.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

The Asian hillbillies chant, "MORE 9/11s!"

This may not decrease the likelihood we send some of their friends to their 72 virgins.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

And what Dick Posner has become to a certain breed of conservative pundit, so PERFESSER THOMPSON has become to a certain breed of pop-cultyure writer, and any story where the PERFESSER comes within six paragraphs of the top is most likely full of it.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

"Long live coca, death to the gringos!"

Let's hear you say that when WE come a-courting.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Bert Parks sang last night, but not about Atlantic City.

CMT officials kept expectations low: They said they would be happy if they got a million viewers to their network....

TRANSLATION: 1. SUMNER's bifurcated empire's managing expectations, and 2. If we get a tenth of the audience, we should (by rights) get a tenth of the ad revenues, meaning the pageant's under new management soon, or out of business.

P. S. How clever PR keeps CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES' expenses down -- by avoiding having to report anything:

Miss America rolled the dice moving to Las Vegas, and the gamble paid off, according to organizers _ [SIC] for the pageant, its new network and the casino that played host. [Lead graf]

The [contestants] also shared bathrooms, doubling up at the Aladdin hotel-casino to help keep expenses down. [SIXTEENTH graf]

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

So Michael Barone, writing in a rag that has Abe Lincoln on its cover, says we're just in another temporary political fix, and he cites the superduper all-purpose judge Dick Posner to prove it.

I don't know that we should be citing the Roman Empire, though. It felt pretty good about itself too. Nor do I think we should cite the 2004 election as proof of increased voter interest; that was largely a referendum on one of the greatest DO'S in the Senate and his party's wussiness on defense. Nor do I think we can justify the billions in sleaze by uttering folderol like "Americans are busy striving and risking their lives and making the world better, as they have been since World War II." Heck, they've been doing it since the first colonials. We forget their toil. We do remember the scandals, however. And one can't help guessing if the time will come that they so accrete on our ship of state that the whole thing goes under.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Well! It's not just NBA PLAYERS who have AAAAAAAAAAAAAATTITUUUUUUUUUUDE!!

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

In all, the Super Bowl could contribute up to $300 million to the local economy, including spending on hotel rooms, meals, transportation and other attractions, the mayor said.

...of which half is fiction and the rest will quickly go in one municipal ear and out the other.

"Detroit is a gritty town with rough edges, and we love it, and we celebrate it!"

TRANSLATION: We used to call it urban decay, now we call it GRITTY! We're making PROGRESS!

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

Boys (who have become a cause du jour) and Bill Ford? Exzzzzzzzzzzzzciting. But hardly enough to stop waiting rooms from subscribing to newsrags.