Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

What is with USAOKAY!!!!!? Has it become the Official Paper of NASCAR? This rag has run dozens of stories of thousands of words each. Now it's promoing Jeff Gordon into a movie actor. Could it be one reason we've gotten sick and tired of THE GAMES is that BIGMEDIA PROMO THEM to death?

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

Maybe if Spin magazine were a Web site it could sell for $100 million too!

(Via MediaBistro.com)

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

And speaking of bubbles, I think someone's planning a mystery novel about the murder of a guy named -- Daniel Gross:

The Gullible Latecomers: In the end stages of any investment mania, the clueless and the greedy flood in. You know things are really poised for a fall when people who have no management experience and feeble business plans somehow manage to raise cash for ventures. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Pajamas Media. Last November, the collection of right-wing blogs (with a few lefties thrown in for laughs) grandly announced the closing of a $3.5 million round of venture capital financing. Roger Simon, the screenwriter-turned-blogger who is the CEO of the enterprise, promised "to change the way people report and access news and commentary." I don't know. It looks to me like a bunch of blogs with their own logo.

SAM LITTLE!!!!! Time to take on THE VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY!!!!!

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

$100 MILLION for THIS piece of junk?

That's okay; these are the same clowns who first told the world the DONALD's worth $500 gigazillion.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

How many stores does the world need to sell patch cords and cell-phone calling plans?

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

PINCH has a new talent:

WEEKEND DESK / June 26, 2087
Film: 'Dragnet,' Parody of Television Series
By Vincent Canby

He's able to get dead writers to work again -- eighty years into the future!

(We found this after clicking on a link in Ben Brantley's scathing review of Barefoot in the Park, in which we're led to ask, how many producers does it take to make a show as exciting as "watching paint dry"?)

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Meantime, elsewhere in LALA's site, another story painfully reminds us that once people came to see movies, and they saw them in something other than a Dolbyized® box, and it was reasonably expected they'd be made by humans.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

The Visual Effects Awards may sound like a geekfest. But they also give a glimpse of the Hollywood to come.

TRANSLATION: If you think the movies are video games now....

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

And now the dread M word comes to the fore: makegoods. Here's betting the ladies come to the rescue. But I can't recall when the GE BANCORP and REALTY GAMES were less engaging, and justly so. Has the public appeal of skeleton and luge been overplayed? Do we care what Canadians do with brooms?

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

Sir Carl's bid "falters"! King Richard LIVES! All hail the KING!

Nice of you to run an HBO ad with that, TWXSTERS.

Posted 8:19 PM by Gene

Where your Wal-Mart savings go, not to mention your G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE and Yah000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! clicks.

Posted 8:14 PM by Gene

It looks like the Organization for an Eighth-Century World and its friends will be running the League of Nations's Human Rights Farce a little while longer.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

And while the hacks were screaming over buckshot, did you hear about the company from the United Arab Emirates ("one of only three countries to recognize the now-toppled Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government") Dubya allowed to help run our nation's biggest ports?

Does the name Chandra Levy ring a bell?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

RIAA aims to ban CD ripping

Hey greedmeisters who disgorge that junk you call "MUSIC", why not go whole-hog and ban PCs?

(Via Topix.net)

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

For once Little Howie Hairshirt says something truthful, however accidentally:

The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which ran 4,726 editorials on Whitewater, mocks the Cheney story.

We could mock The Wall Street Journals 4,726 times just for being The Wall Street Journals.

(Via the perennially hyper Michelle)

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

But the findings could fuel anger among Arabs already incensed by images of abuse of Iraqi inmates at Baghdad's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison newly broadcast by Australian television.

When does reporting turn into hopeful thinking?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Dell's Profit Rises 52% as PC Shipments Reach Record

So much for all that whining by a certain blogger about customer service.

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

"Fame is almost a poison."

Whassa madda Bode? That cover-story hemlock getting to you?

Don't worry too much, Bode -- not too many people will see you, despite our success in stupid cold-weather imitations of surfing.

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

We wish we'd seen this yesterday: Ford, which will be 103 in June and whose share price reflects it, is getting out its low-riding pants (or whatever they call those things with the crotches that drag to the ground) and sponsoring an Hispanic [C]RAP show on ESPNCORP Radio, which should add tons to its sales.

The effort is a "big part of us continuing to build a dialogue with the market,” said Dave Rodriguez, multicultural marketing communications manager [!] of Ford division.

Sorry Dave, a big part of your market stopped speaking to you when you built rattletraps.

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

We may ask if that defining monument of news CW, the In the News section of Yahoo!'s home page, isn't a Democratic party front. Every time I hit the page I see "Democratic" this, "Democrats" that. We may easily explain it: the hacks' only sources are Democrats. But aren't they carrying their obsession into the realm of the mental hospital?

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

I hope bloggers don't get too entranced with traffic and ad revenues, although they are addictive in a way. It should still be fun - and a blog with a hundred readers can be just as effective in what it does as one with a million.

Let's see you trade your fan club for a hundred, Mr. Lachrymose.

(Via the Professor, who doesn't seem to have read that article in New York, despite citing it.)

Posted 1:48 PM by Gene

News hacks have one big reason it will be a month of Sundays before the secret inhabitants of the Black Box on Pennsylvania Avenue do another interview:

DAVID GREGORY!!!!!!!!!!

Most V.I.P.'s in trouble choose the safe waters of Larry King on CNN to do damage control.

What is the difference between doing a softball interview with BRIT and doing a softball interview with LARRY except the latter is NEWS HACK-APPROVED?

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

XM Satellite Fan Flees Cash Furnace

60 trillion for the Lord Goddess Oprah, a zillion for sports rights -- yes I'd say this is a very prudently run business.

And we're not counting the King of Lilliput, whoever he is.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

That BIG piece of PEOPLE WARNER-G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE... SYNERGY'S PAYING OFF:

'THE SOPRANOS' USE GOOGLE MAPS TO PROMOTE NEW SEASON

Larry and Sergey, why don't you off a few dissidents?

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

Would the world love us any more if Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kookcinich were president?

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

U.N. report urges Gitmo shutdown

I'm sure we will.

The report's findings were based on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and a questionnaire filled out by the U.S. government.

Definitive!

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

How many other professional college basketball coaches drink?

Posted 6:40 AM by Gene

Hmm, look who's benefited from lobbying trickery -- a staffer of Sen. O'SPECTER!

We must have written this story with great reluctance; this supreme expert on Scottish law was what every Republican should be. But the earmarks were there, all shaped like dollar signs.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

KnightRidder's hacks are putting in a bid for some of its papers.

If they win it will be the lunatics running the asylum -- and losing money to boot.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Sorry to pose this question, but: Would jernalistic organizations pay a ransom to release a captive reporter?

Given their actions of the last several weeks, we can guess the answer.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

The bad news, starting at COMEDY CENTRAL NEWS NETWORK:

Among the other [potential] shows: a vehicle for politically incorrect comedian Sarah Silverman and Lewis Black's Red State Diaries. If that flies, it would be the third spin-off from The Daily Show after Steven Colbert's The Colbert Report.

The very bad news, for its "parent" MTV Networks:

[MTV Networks prez Michael] Wolf is crafting a plan with Honda Motor Co. to market cars to younger buyers across all MTV platforms. (Advertising brings in 60% of MTV revenues; distribution fees, 30%; consumer products, 10%.) "Advertisers would rather connect with that one alpha consumer [young trendsetter] vs. three beta consumers," he says. "We understand that audience, and we can help them do that."

The good news, for SUMNER:

Shares have been flat, at about $42, since the new Viacom began trading on its own on Jan. 3.

Knowing the hideous consequences, it's outfits like SUMNER's that explain why we want BIGMEDIA to fail.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

This gag makes no sense. What's the purpose of a virtual store if people can find the same things at home on their computers? Indeed having a brick-and-mortar store with no goods would seem to combine the worst of the Web with the worst of conventional retailing. And what's the fun of shopping without the goods? Or returning them, for that matter?

And here's the rub:

The store coincides with the company's exclusive retail sponsorship of the Academy Awards.

Translation: We're doing this so our top executives can say, "I WAS AT THE OSCARS® AND YOU WEREN'T!" (Sorry for violating my rule.)

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

And speaking of bad-taste South Park Con-SER-Va-Tives:

It's not THE VICE PRESDENT [SIC!!!!!] OF THE UNITED STATES AND AN ACCIDENT HE TRIED TO HIDE!

When KLo uses caps that means I shouldn't.

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

Vice-President Inside said he's sorry (and no doubt Brit kissed him on the forehead to ease the pain), but this won't stop the questions, because Mr. Inside has become a hermetically-sealed pompous ass.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

Republicans Criticize Bush Mideast Policy

Though the moderate Chafee and Hagel, a frequent GOP maverick, are less conservative than many of their Republican colleagues.... [Seventh graf.]

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

One of the drawbacks, as Spectator readers know full well, of being a "South Park Conservative" is a chronic lack of taste...

...and Corner readers, and Free Republic readers, and Ann Coulter readers, and TCS Daily readers, and....

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

BIGINTERNET sent lobbyists and PR types.

Okay guys, that's over. Back to collaboration as usual.

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

We can guess what another kind of effete snob -- the second rate o-pe-RA cri-TIC -- wants from the opera house: "the Stephen Sondheim musical 'A Little Night Music'" (despite the fact it "didn't do as well at the box office as expected and left a large deficit"), a "provocative intellectual approach of using opera as a lens for the exploration of social issues", and above all, "a heavy dose of controversial fare." He does NOT want music, and especially not good music, and even if he did there's hardly an army of Bizets and Puccinis knocking down the Met's doors to provide it. In the end we'll get more Jerry Springers and Nixon in Chinas, and the aging opera crowd will get angrier and smaller, and opera will join other art forms in total dust-collecting irrelevance.

(Via the INEVITABLE ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

I'm of two minds about this article. Clearly the Web is breeding a new kind of selfishness. (It's certainly creating a new kind of caste system with bloggers.) Yes, with so many people creating what they suppose to be culture through rapidly obsolescing means a large part of it is going down the memory rat hole. And we would be right to fear weakened mass media -- if they did things worth doing. But since when have the likes of RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "discover[ed], nurture[d], and reward[ed] elite talent"? All they're developing is elitist talent, with an aptitude for telling us how inferior we are, and a further aptitude of accreting guano in our minds.

And if blogging's such a scourge why do you have a blog -- and a PODCAST?

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers was praying for this day: the number inventors of Nielsen will now measure college campuses -- which has more than a few people agitated:

Agencies admit they are in danger of drowning under a flood of research. Buyers are grappling with the value of viewers watching shows via digital video recorders such as TiVo. Nielsen began providing data about DVR playback in December, as networks argued these viewers have been undercounted until now. Agencies say viewers are more likely to skip commercials using DVRs and therefore they shouldn’t have to pay for additional rating points.

“College viewing, coupled with DVR ratings, and the arrival of the CW will be a whole new set of headaches for us,” said one senior agency research chief.

But isn't this what you CLOWNS wanted -- more measurements to prove more people were watching more hours so you could waste more of OUR money financing MORE JUNK TELEVISION?

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

EXCELLENT NEWS: A new methodology for measuring newspaper circulation reveals it might be -- worse than we thought:

Consider the Los Angeles Times. The September FAS-FAX shows that the paper's best circ day is Friday with 990,904 copies. The paper's most sluggish day is Tuesday with 780,957. That's a spread of 200,947 copies. The Chicago Tribune's gap between its best and worst weekday is even wider. On Friday, the paper's circ is 684,664. On Monday, it's 464,415 -- a difference of 220,249 copies.

The question is, if so many people can do without papers on one or two days of the week, why not the whole week?

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

OH oh:

U.S. Stocks Fail to Rise on Bernanke's Congressional Debut

Let's bring the WIZARD out from his VERY WEALTHY RETIREMENT!

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

Imagine a man apologizing to another man.

Now imaging the other man getting down and kissing the apologist's shoes.

Vice-President BigOil "apologizes" on Rush Limbaugh.

P. S. He beat me to it -- FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

"Humor" at the Corner:

GOOD POINT [Jonah Goldberg]

A reader suggests that we track down what Helen Thomas wrote when Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton and see if she's more biased against Cheney.

Posted at 10:36 AM

Pffh-hh-hh!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

LUKE SPIELBERG should run for office; like Congresspoops he has lots of experience making billions out of fantasies, and fantasies out of billions.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

WASHINGTON -- In a blistering critique of the trade relationship between the U.S. and China, the nation's top trade warrior told Beijing that it was time to end the Asian industrial giant's free ride.

This is the lead story on a news site. Nothing unusual but consider the site. If it weren't for airplanes and maybe one or two other types of capital goods junk entertainment would be our lead export. Can we take pride in ourselves when insulting others' intelligence is what we do best?

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Now you done it veep -- you got ARI mad!

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

While CURLEY'S (NYUK! NYUK! NYUK!) STOOGES work themselves into high blood pressure over the PERFIDY of the VICE-PRESIDENT, they get a chance to relax running another press release -- and raising OUR blood pressure.

The song, which debuted Tuesday on Howard Stern's satellite radio show....

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK TO ANOTHER ANONYMOUS HACK! Okay Curley, why is it we MUST know every last state secret but hiding your flacks with the no-byline gag is okay?

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

On the day of THE HEARING -- which will likely be a big fat fizzle -- why can I say that these cute little we-wanna-sponsor-THE-BEIJING-GAMES thingies are getting on my nerves?

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Terry Teachout hugs himself over the Beatles. Granted they were better than average tunesmiths, but their success merged lawyers and marketing and pretentiousness, and the production tricks that seemed so with-it and now are ALL we have in pop music anymore. Terry also forgets that in 1964 there were still many different types of music. Now it's ONLY pop, and its destructive low-IQ sensibility. And whatever is charming about their best songs -- and they are -- is largely wiped out by the fact that we've heard them a trillion times, and will be forced to hear them a trillion more whether we want to or not. The difference between mediocrity then and mediocrity now is that with technology mediocrity is FOREVER.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Overall, Time Inc.’s latest round of staff cuts is supposed to eliminate 26 editorial positions and 40 business-side jobs at the company. Some members of the staff have greeted the news—the second major reduction in two months—with anger. One pointed to New York magazine’s pay survey, which listed Time Warner chief executive Richard Parsons’ compensation at $23.5 million.

The King NEVER takes a salary cut.

Posted 6:32 AM by Gene

"'You ask the stupid questions, and I won't answer them.'"

Unfortunately, Vice-President Inside, there's a difference between answering stupid questions and answering no questions, and that's what makes people think you're in cahoots with big oil, and running your own government in hiding (aside from the fact that you are).

Dick's become the most untrustworthy veep since Spiro T. Agnew.

"I cannot believe he does not look back and say this should have been handled differently," said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is close to the White House.

I can.

Here's what will happen: The Great Mr. Inside will come sulking into a room, growl a meaningless two-sentence statement, field four stupid questions, and go storming out in a tantrum, never to be seen in public again -- until he launches his new superdupermegalobbying group.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

SEN. AIRHEAD will advise BOOBS McKEATING to the WHITE HOUSE!

Maybe she'll get him more movie roles.

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

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

The HIGHLY CRITICAL MOGUL'S FRIEND does a favor for a client -- er, buddy -- er, famous ac-TOR, presumably to raise his fees, so he can magnanimously cut them again and win applause from THE MOGUL'S FRIEND.

He and DICK "GUNS CAUSED COLUMBINE" CORLISS ought to form a publicity agency -- and get DICK SCHICK in on the gag.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

IOC warns Russians, Austrians on logos

They're not our sponsors. If they ponied the money up they could wear FULL-BODY LOGOS.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

What you think about Vice President Dick Cheney seems to determine your view of the hunting incident. [Photo caption]

What if we're very sorry this happened and can't stand Dick Cheney's guts?

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

A Roone Arledge Lab with a Fred Friendly Newsroom will probably yield more Dan Blather News.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 3:16 PM by Gene

As we might expect from a MR. MARK cover boy, he's all talk and no ski.

Posted 2:51 PM by Gene

ALWAYS ON TOP OF THE STORY: CURLEY'S (NYUK! NYUK! NYUK!) STOOGES blazingly report that the news hacks' favorite social-club chairman (or whatever they call these "bishops" nowadays) is being treated for alcoholism -- almost a day after the Freepers disclosed the same thing.

And these clowns have the GUTS to scream at the WHITE HOUSE for HIDING a story?

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

On this Valentine's Day it warms the cockles of our heart to learn of SUMNER's close and loving relationship with his son.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer, kinder, SWEETER tyrant.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

OH oh, maybe USAOKAY!!!!!'s annual sales orgy for the SUPER BORE ads doesn't help:

This year marketers snapped up last-minute ads at 40% discounts as ABC scrambled to sell a number of spots going into the weekend. Three-and-a-half minutes of advertising -- including at least two spots sold over the weekend -- went to ABC’s corporate siblings, making the Walt Disney Co. the second-biggest advertiser in the game.

It gets -- worse:

Imagine if Anheuser-Busch decreased its level of commitment -- the beer marketer has publicly said it will re-evaluate its Super Bowl strategy going forward.

And then:

[S]ome marketers believe the game’s blatant focus on advertising can kill a product’s cool factor.

We're not exactly sure house ads for ESPNCORP movies have a high cool factor to begin with.

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

DUBYA spent $1.62 BILLION on ADVERTISING?!?!?!?!?!?

Well, actually it's mostly the armed forces, which are prime members of the American Society of Willfully Ignroant Advertisers anyway. And now Democrats are going WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!, meaning they must object to military recruiting, however misguided.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

St. Warren will not stand for reanointment to Coke's board as He is busy tending to His Heaven and definitely not because of some unholy conflicts of interest.

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE THE LORD!

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

At the Westminster Dog Show, several awwwwwwwwwwwesome moments:

There was hardly a dry eye in the building in 2002 when 20 German shepherds and retrievers came onto the Garden’s green carpet to honor search and rescue dogs for their tireless work at the World Trade Center and Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Katrina tribute, featuring dogs and those that saved them, brought a standing ovation.

I'll join in by standing on hind legs and going ARF! ARF!

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

"What is the use of getting angry for the sake of the Prophet when I have a thousand poor people in my neighborhood?"

Well, because it...lets off steam?

A United Nations report in September said the Arab world was unlikely to meet the world body's goals for cutting poverty, hunger and unemployment by 2015, partly because of the unequal distribution of wealth.

So we'll let 'em let off some steam.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

If you were a let-'em-eat-cake Congresspoop, which would you prefer: instituting a few tiny restrictions on wining and dining, or GIVING AWAY $100 BILLION IN TAX BREAKS?

Well, as a let-'em-eat-cake Congresspoop, YOU CAN DO BOTH!

Posted 6:53 AM by Gene

So -- Yahoo! can escape Congress's wrath because it owns just a small piece of the outfit that helps imprison dissidents!

Good luck!

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

Someone has written a sympathetic biography of William Jennings Bryan. Though his chief claim to history is as the first (and only) three-time losing Presidential candidate for a major party --twice to William McKinley, the Dick Cheney of his day -- we remember him now because some first-string NEWS HACK with a striking resemblance to Gene Kelly painted Bryan as the apotheosis of intolerance, hence we remember him as some fantastical kook from a stage and movie lecture called Inherit the Wind, who looks amazingly like Fredric March and dies a Boothian death in public he never died. The truth might be different:

Readers of "A Godly Hero" will also get a fresh perspective on the Scopes Trial. Bryan, who paid scant attention to theological controversies, was "not a fundamentalist." He "burned only and always to see religion heal the world."

There was much to fix: Social Darwinists of the Gilded Age had turned the naturalist's ideas about "the survival of the fittest" into a tool of class hierarchy. By the 1920s, eugenicists were hoping to harness evolution and purify the race by sterilizing the weak.

Kazin persuasively shows that Bryan's real crusade in Tennessee was not against free inquiry (he never opposed altogether the teaching of evolution), but against the enormous condescension of scientists who knew what was best for ordinary people - the same battle, in other words, that Bryan fought throughout his life.

But that's news hacks: nothing ever gets in their way of their desire to tell a good story -- THEIR story.

P. S. The first-string NEWS HACK largely kept his clattering typewriter shut about the Nazis as he shared their ethnicity.

(Corrected 1/29/2007 to correct a boneheaded mistake: I thought Spencer Tracy played THE VILLAIN.)

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

Now we're "said" to be linking the Red-State Scorpion to the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Dr. Rove.

We suspect much of this is like linking him to Dubya -- his face appears way in a photo background, and still we can say he appeared WITH him. News hacks stretching the truth to convict Dubya is not that much different from the Red-State Scorpion stretching the laws to help his friends.

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

A former high mucky-muck at PEOPLE WARNER makes a startling admission:

AA: You started in publishing 35 years ago; what’s different about the business now?

Mr. Logan: Too many magazines. Everybody needs to prune their portfolio a little bit. Go out to a newsstand and there’s so many out there jammed in that it’s hard to find them. And most of the magazines are not very good ... they just throw things together thinking they can generate some advertising.

We would talk pots and kettles but will instead wish Mr. Logan a happy retirement.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

ARTICLES of the DAY: Here's one that suggests annual check-ups are "almost worthless" and a financial waste. Here's another that suggests we make juries professional as the amateurs don't know what the hell they're doing.

How much of what we must improve we can't because we're such creatures of bad habits?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

What's the difference between the GAMES and political conventions?

The GAMES have an audience.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Hacks continue to glamorize graffiti because with their salaries and in their hermetically-sealed luxury news suites they are protected from the street, from reality, and from the anger of their readers.

This and the cartoon fiasco are common progeny of the same unthinking tramps.

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

In a typically Neuharthian USAOKAY!!!!! puff piece on MySpace.com that mentions RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the TENTH graf comes this interesting tidbit:

That's not to say there aren't problems. MySpace employs a staff of about 12 who do nothing but look at all 1.5 million images uploaded each day for inappropriate photos, including pornography. Advertisers are sensitive about the content their brands appear with, DeWolfe says. Despite their efforts, some illicit images still get through [SIC]

We wonder why the RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is so touchy about inappropriate photos given that the reverse Robin Hoods of MADAVE can't control their joyous compulsion to finance anything and everything of His. P. S. This has to be one of the worst jobs in the Web.

P. S. This puff piece happily doesn't mention that sensational murder either. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO MATT!

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

By all appearances, the blog boom is the most democratized revolution in media ever. Starting a blog is ridiculously cheap; indeed, blogging software and hosting can be had for free online. There are also easy-to-use ad services that, for a small fee, will place advertisements from major corporations on blogs, then mail the blogger his profits. Blogging, therefore, should be the purest meritocracy there is. It doesn’t matter if you’re a nobody from the sticks or a well-connected Harvard grad. If you launch a witty blog in a sexy niche, if you’re good at scrounging for news nuggets, and if you’re dedicated enough to post around the clock—well, there’s nothing separating you from the big successful bloggers, right? I can do that.

In theory, sure. But if you talk to many of today’s bloggers, they’ll complain that the game seems fixed. They’ve targeted one of the more lucrative niches—gossip or politics or gadgets (or sex, of course)—yet they cannot reach anywhere close to the size of the existing big blogs. It’s as if there were an A-list of a few extremely lucky, well-trafficked blogs—then hordes of people stuck on the B-list or C-list, also-rans who can’t figure out why their audiences stay so comparatively puny no matter how hard they work. “It just seems like it’s a big in-party,” one blogger complained to me. (Indeed, a couple of pranksters last spring started a joke site called Blogebrity and posted actual lists of the blogs they figured were A-, B-, and C-level famous.)

That’s a lot of inequality for a supposedly democratic medium.

Whoever said blogging was democratic?

And we can figure Adam would run after a chimera given that blogging's popularity with Web surfers may be down.

P. S. None of the MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSBBBBBBBBBBs (that's MAINSTREAM BLOGGERS) have paid attention to this story, which proves discussing the caste system of blogging hits a little too close to their treasured castles in the thin hot air.

P. P. S. There is one way to even the blogging playing field a little: for more of the big name Web sites to do what WaPost has done -- link to blogs that link to their stories.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

WOW!!!!!!!!!! THE WIZARD OF OZ has touched his balloon down in midtown Manhattan to write BORING MEMOIRS FOR ZILLIONS!!!!!!!!!!

There MUST be something up.

In the memoir field, Robert Rubin, who served as Treasury secretary under President Clinton, snagged $3.2 million for his book. Most expect a Greenspan book to command far more.

And we all know how memorable that book was, right JAKE?

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

A brilliant idea: High schools are issuing multimedia yearbook supplements. Let's see how many can be played in time for the twentieth-year reunion.

Posted 8:12 PM by Gene

Old figure skaters never die; they go to networks and become "analysts."

We won't make fun here however -- certainly not when we can recall the ethereally beautiful Peggy Fleming. There are worse fates than being a figure skater-turned-"analyst."

Posted 8:06 PM by Gene

The author Peter Benchley, descendant of a long-lived literary dynasty already somewhat forgotten -- his grandfather was Robert Benchley, the now-unfunny "humorist" -- has died at 65. One wonders how his career would have progressed without a certain LEGENDARY direc-TOR:

Thanks to Benchley's 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name, the simple act of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic.

''Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased,'' Wendy Benchley told The Associated Press.

''But Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia.''

And ol' Luke has proved in more recent days that he cannot discern fiction from non-fiction, and has spread the contagion to his audience. We agree, Mrs. Benchley; your husband was blameless.

Posted 8:04 PM by Gene

Sadly, this battle between Ford and Chevy isn't over who's selling more cars, but who's managing to avoid selling fewer of them.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

We may presume the hacks will make A LOT of this story, as this is THE FORCE OF EVIL, and also because it's HUNTING, and WE HATE GUNS, and we don't know ANYTHING about them, which allows us to revel in our ignorance.

Indeed we may presume there's a lot of smiling among the hacks, as we not only can paint the Vice-President as a lummox (as if we don't think with three-tenths of a brain and type with 27 fingers), but chuckle (obliquely) that he did physical damage (however slight, we hope) to another human being, something that we could NEVER EVER do -- except when ENDING UNJUST WARS.

Posted 3:13 PM by Gene

Curley's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooges SPINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN:

Senators: Cheney Should Be Probed in Leak

Or as the Stooges SHOULD say,

Senators: CHENEY SHOULD BE PROBED in Leak

Oh, and you'll NEVER guess who the SENATORS (or rather, the SENATOR, the STOOGES having such a proud record of EXACTITUDE) are. You'll NEVER guess.

Posted 3:09 PM by Gene

Can anyone doubt that, in the long haul, and with most children, day care is just a low-level form of child neglect?

(Via -- have to say it -- THE CORNER, from just before the food fight)

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

There's another food fight in the con-SER-va-tive playpen between the Gliberal of the Right and the MODO of the Right because she said something she shouldn't have said, prompting FREEPERS to go into their Tarzan routine again.

By our rights Jonah, MoDo and the Freepers should all get lost, and we'd include a few of their opposite numbers from the left like Kos and St. Cindy and the DUers, and the world would be a happier place for it.

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

And we must ask again: What's the difference between the movie conspiracy and the Mob?

Posted 12:46 PM by Gene

The movie S&M phreaks are back. But the folks at the ROOTKIT MOVIE CO. must be cursing a PG-13 streak (remember, JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP adjusts to the times) because they showed Pink to the effete snobs; last week's SCREEN GEM opened in fewer theaters and did just as much biz -- without a press preview! Of course things were made difficult because Pink was already an Internet fave from last summer. This whole episode says one of two things: either ROOTKIT improved the movie (not bloody likely) or the movie S&M phreaks have no brains (bloody likely).

Meantime LUKE SPIELBERG'S MAMMOTH MEA CULPA is disappearing from the popcorn restaurants to the tune of a huge loss, and not even a big dose of Little Jeffy's SIX SIGMA can solve that.

There is slight hope, longer term: though the cinematic bird droppings are not doing worse than last year, they're not doing that much better, and our hopes spring eternal -- but with the fate of their favorite industry on the line we expect NEWS HACKS to do the same massive PR assault for the biz this summer that they do every four years for Democrats.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

You know guys, I'd rather have read a five-page disclaimer than read a cover press release saying how wonderful KING RICHARD'S JOINT VENTURE PARTNER is.

And no, I don't THINK it'll help on WEDNESDAY.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

ESPNCORP prepares another smash (alas) for BransonEast, but thankfully this one may include some ridicule.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

And it seems our patriotically loudmouthed ugly American was out DRINKING, with predictable results.

What have you to say for such heroism, VISA? COKE? KODAK? MICKEY D'S?

We know: WE'RE AT THE OLYMPICS AND YOU AREN'T!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

We feel slightly sad for Michelle Kwan, but let's face it, if the GAMES were ever about inner greatness, that vanished long ago as they became a carnival for greed and buncombe -- and every last athlete going mememe so he could get a big endorsement from some tone-deaf consumer products firm whose CEO will never let his staff forget HE was THERE.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

From now on we will check every one of Mr. Mark's cover stories for PC (this would have been a GREAT week for a CARTOON story, as we could have coweringly pontificated and issued a page-long disclaimer at once -- and we're the experts on offending Islam!), but I'd rather not start with four depressing pages of a newsrag patting me on the back and saying, yes buddy, you CAN have sex at middle-age. It isn't worth it.