Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

For the longest time news hacks have been the Wallendas of words, refusing to take one side or the other of a topic in the name of "neutrality", even as they devise new ways of spinning their stories. The combination of forced neutrality and spin is why we cannot trust them. There must be a truth somewhere, and news hacks won't find it engaged in their version of a high-wire act. And besides, we know the biz is on the side of THE ANGELS when it comes to porn, just as it is with ABORTION.

CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES, PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Did it take a rocket scientist to suspect Jill Carroll spoke under duress?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

I've come up with a new EDDIEISM: roving Dixieland bands! Today there was a not-all-that-good one on South Street, playing the same tunes over and over and over ("You Are My Sunshine", "When the Saints Go Marching In"), and I thought to myself, RENDELLISTS are always selling this city as THE CAPITAL OF MUSIC (never mind that practically all the music was made long ago), so why not have three or four roving Dixieland bands tooting for the tourists to entice them into spending more money at our INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED RESTAURANTS to help pay for more of the waiters and janitors and dishwashers and cooks who'll move our city into the 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMY!

It can't be worse than RENDELLMINIUMS as a force for economic "growth."

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

The bad news: PAUL DRECK won't stop gushing for WEEKS.

The good news: People aren't going to horror movies.

Posted 12:48 PM by Gene

GEN. McCLELLAN'S RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN!

OR:

A candidate in 2004 for the Democratic nomination, Clark has been mentioned as a possible contender again in 2008.

I'm sure GEORGE's advisors will thank you very much, Donna, if they haven't already hired you.

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

"Student-athletes, including Division I men's basketball student-athletes, benefit from participation in the sport in a number of ways, but 'revenue sharing' is not an appropriate benefit," Isch wrote. "That is the professional model."

So what are your ATHLETE-"STUDENTS"? CHOPPED LIVER?

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Charles Taylor's Son Arrested in Miami

Like father....

Posted 9:55 AM by Gene

And in further "news" on the hundredth anniversary of the PRESS RELEASE, table-pounding sales -- ANALYSTS like TUNA (!) are excited because ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN'S ACT brought in A MILLION NEW CUSTOMERS -- and he's raised his twelve-month price target to 8!!!!!!!!!!

Or about where the stock was THREE MONTHS AGO WHEN HE CAME ON.

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

IBM scientists tout tool to possibly build atom-size computers

Mustapha Mond and Dr. Frankenstein march on, hand-in-hand.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

And continuing on the divine subject of SYNERGY, explain to us Sammy how a PROFESSIONAL with no experience and less talent got an instant job as a morning-drive radio host, and has flailed away ever since. There are lots of AMATEURS who could do a better job than HIM too.

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

The other day somebody named Samuel Freedman got exercised because AMATEURS are engaging in a systematic effort "to degrade, even to disenfranchise journalism as practiced by trained professionals":

I appreciate the access that citizen journalism provides to first-hand accounts of major events. Yet I recognize those accounts are less journalism than the raw material, generated by amateurs, that a trained, skilled journalist should know how to weigh, analyze, describe, and explain.

Okay Sammy, explain how a trained, skilled "journalist" weighed, analyzed, described and explained THE GOLFING MACHINE. ED makes more money than a million bloggers, yet his puff piece exposed him in the fundamentals as a starry-eyed rank amateur. Explain how all these trained, skilled "journalists" disgorge zillions of column inches with the flavor of watery oatmeal. A lot of people who'll never get a job in YOUR biz SOLELY because they LACK CONNECTIONS could do better work than ED and the people putting out all that BLANDNESS. Stop obsessing over CASTE and LET THEM DO IT.

(Via ROMY, who's equally exercised over CASTE)

Posted 9:24 PM by Gene

The true believers have discovered an "ideological football" -- and RUN IT IN FOR A TOUCHDOWN!

Given the exceptionally mealy-mouthed writing it is obvious THE PAPER OF RE-CORD is not the FOUNTAIN OF TRUTH it was, even though it will always spout THE TRUTH.

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: George Mason isn't an underdog anymore.

Posted 7:06 PM by Gene

And while the diplomats bloviated, Iran successfully fired a new ballistic missile, meaning we get still more statements from the Puzzle Palace on the East River.

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

We don't like having to think of this stuff, but the BS Defender's lobby just did a survey (by an obscure research firm that did an earth-shattering poll proving that "e-mail users are overwhelmed with spam" -- and still links to it as "recent news") proving that nearly everybody agrees with everything the lobby says about the evil FCC. Jim Dyke's no dummy -- he doesn't mention his sugar daddies in the release. (Abramoffs are not dumb. EVIL, but not dumb.) This is about as honest as some damfool Republicans claiming to have "bipartisan" support for a cable-biz giveaway.

So much of America is choose-your-poison. On the one side: Babbitts who exclusively throw raging tantrums over bad language on TV, and reap big fundraising rewards. On the other, the greedmeisters of the money-minting broadcasting biz, and the blasé elitists who think their opponents deserve no say. MILLIONAIRE AND BUMS....

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

The company hasn't posted huge profits: For the year ended Jan. 1, 2005, Apple Corps claimed a loss of nearly $950,000. It noted in financial statements filed with Companies House, the official government register of British companies, that more than $2.2 million each was paid for the "promotional services" of McCartney, Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison. (Convenient CURLEY [Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!] STOOGE LAST GRAF)

For the first time we salute Steve Jobs.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

Somewhere there must be a bigger picture than this, but it will have to do -- it reminds me of the young Afghan girl on the cover of National Geographic.

Africa is what the world would be like if the League of Nations ran it, as in a sense it does. Thankfully for the tyrants and thugs, only the innocent seem to suffer.

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

MORE SEARING TRUTH TELLING FROM A SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER:

Larry Kudlow is a terrific television host, full of energy and the love of selling --which is why he's a writer's dream when a book comes out. On today's show he plugged Painting the Map Red from start to finish of two segments, but he did so while calling attention to its controversial recommendations and assuring that the lefty Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter and Chicago Tribune MSMer Jim Warren got some shots in while Townhall's Joel Mowbray got to add some depth to the center-right forces.

In short, a rollicking good two segments of television with smart, sharp panelists spurred on by a humor filled, somewhat edgy host.

Memo to NBC: Take a look at double-breasting LK with a pure politics show on MSNBC.

Now, to Larry King's studio...

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Meanwhile, here's the kind of intermittent reminder we need that 9/11 wasn't about cute little puppy dogs, or long tranquil grassy fields, or platitudes.

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

WAL-MART TURNS PC!

As if we don't have enough reasons not to like it.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

How did a nerdy ex-Republican ex-con join a nerdy ex-conservative liar as chief spokesman of the Democratic Party?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

In honor of the 100th ANNIVERSARY of the PRESS RELEASE, NewsMax!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, home of the villainous-looking "SUPER-HERO," runs one from a CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGE.

I don't know which is most risible -- that "4 million" number, CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES or NewsMax!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Lately the A&P (whoops!! SUPER FRESH) where I shop has subjected its "customers" to the gargle of Regis Philbin selling Welch's Grape Juice. It is not soothing listening when you're standing for twenty minutes in the Express Line. Philbin has no discernible talent except mugging at a camera and surely hasn't had a bad thing happen to him his whole life. When will advertisers realize show-biz types should be the last to peddle their products because they inspire instant resentment over their undeserved luck?

P. S. He followed another overpublicized idiot, Larry "SOFTBALL" King. How apt.

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

THE GREATEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING SHOW IN TV HISTORY ZINGS ANOTHER ONE:

This puffy profile reminded me of a "documentary" about Woods — "Son, Hero, Champion" — that preceded CBS's fourth-round coverage of the Masters in 1997. It was produced by IMG, the agency that represents Woods, so you know how objective and unconflicted it was.

And THE GOLFING MACHINE lets the sycophant ED BRADLEY near to worship It -- but not TOO near, lest he see Its gears:

As friendly as Bradley was (at one point declaring that Woods's best years are ahead of him), Woods placed limits on him. He would not, as Bradley said, let him into his home or onto his boat, or, more important, to speak to his wife, Elin — restrictions that send up red flags. If entree to elements of his life that would further humanize him are prohibited, why participate? One of the best profiles on "60 Minutes" featured Jackie Gleason, the late Great One, discoursing while playing pool and drinking booze, which enlivened him.

We'd rather be in an age with one minute of The Great One than a thousand eternities with GOLFING MACHINES.

Hey SUMNER! LES "MOONER" MOONVES! Maybe SIXTY should join THE INQUISITOR in RETIREMENT.

(Via ROMY, who was upset too -- for reasons HOWIE HAIRSHIRT knows all about)

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

"Basic Instinker" gets, er, HISTORICAL REVIEWS:

Stone appears to have had so much work done that her face resembles a tautly made bed, and her unchanging expression of smoldering arrogance seems less an acting decision and more the result of neurotoxins. The body may be willing but the flesh has been immobilized.

AND:

[T]here are inflatable toys that are livelier than Stone, but how can you tell the difference?

ANOTHER TRIUMPH, SAMMY GLICKMAN!!!!!

(The latter HISTORICAL quote via ShowBizData.com)

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

Nigerian soccer referees OK'd to take bribes

You don't suppose this mindset had something to do with Chuckie Taylor nearly going free, do you?

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

Oops:

Ex-DeLay aide to plead guilty in lobbyist fraud probe

Con-SER-va-tives, are we STILL willing to call this a SET-UP?

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

Congresspoop Cynthia "WOMAN OF THE YEAR!!!!!" McKinney faces an arrest warrant, possibly because she thought some Capitol police officer was JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOISH.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

Six of one: A Popeye-style sheriff who relishes being super-tough on prison inmates. Half a dozen of the other: professional nannies who cry for the prisoners.

Why must so much of modern life be either-or?

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

There is this burgeoning notion that Barry Bonds* is the black Pagliacci of our time, crying -- or rather, FUMING -- because of his skin tone.

Ty Cobb was very angry. What was HIS color?

And if we recall right, he didn't need STEROIDS to be angry.

P. S. I prefer Spike Jones's version with Homer and Jethro.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

If our high elected muckymucks spent as much time governing as pretending to make fun of themselves...

and turning the public into a punchline...

never mind.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

And speaking of STANDING UP IN DEFENSE OF...

George Will argues in favor of a fence to seal the Mexican border and a guest worker program to supply what the U.S. economy demands. I agree in principle.

AND:

George Will's column today is quite an accomplishement [typical NRO spelling SIC] -- he's loaded every worn-out cliche and discredited notion about immigration into one package....

Fight! FIGHT! We want NO PUNDIT OR SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER STANDING!!!!!

P. S. The same column, despite the clever difference in the URLs.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

It is time to stand up in defense of bullshit.

YOU DA MAN!

(Sorry for the language, but this is is why I try to stay away from SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS as much as possible. And he's not the only one who stands up in defense of it.)

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: God, if only our favorite "conservative" crackpot were more -- sanely liberal.

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

Science "is not designed to study the supernatural."

Why not? It can study anthing else.

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

LOU DOBBS FOR PRESIDENT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Wonderful. A chicken in every pot and a toady on every TV.

Make that two toadies, given he's so well-fed.

Pardon -- two toadies with a CAUSE.

Posted 3:23 PM by Gene

In other Looney Family news, Rosie's Nephew's Dad says, EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

Incidentally, there were many former Cincinnatians in the audience who said hello. One brought

[SIC] a newspaper which showed that "Good Night, and Good Luck" had been running continuously in two Washington theaters since its release last fall and was still filling the houses.

...which accounts for all its gross.

(Via ROMY, who eats his vegetables -- cabbage, mostly)

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

Surprise: Rosie's Nephew's condos aren't getting built.

(Via Free Republic, where it's headlined, "Clooney high-rise condos hit snag [Vegas condo bubble]". BUBBLE! That's ULTRA-LIBERAL TALK!)

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

AL JAZEERA TO HELP FINANCE TV AND THEATRICAL MOVIES

The Protocols of the...NAH.

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

The BIG C isn't the only place where they POUND THE TABLE:

Having worked with AOL in a period when the company went from 1 million subscribers to 40 million, I find MySpace’s growth to be uncannily similar....

News Corp. has a market cap of $53 billion, a figure that hasn’t changed much in two years. Its stock has traded in a channel between $15 and $19, and in a pattern that must have made "swing traders" good profits. In short, News Corp. has been going nowhere for two years. Does the market realize the implications of News Corp.’s purchase of MySpace?

Possibly. The TWXSTERS were once worth $90 A SHARE.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

Sleazeball Gumbo, want to work up sympathy for your biz? Here's one for you: Poor Pfizer is putting its consumer-products biz up for sale because nobody likes its stock. You could even write a song: "Brother, Can You Spare $10 Billion?"

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

Polls and Presidents
What Truman and Bush have in common.

Well, they both polled bad.

What else?

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

The first installment of CNBC’s bimonthly interview series, Conversations With Michael Eisner, earned the cable news channel decidedly mousey ratings, drawing 95,000 viewers in its Tuesday 9:00 p.m. debut, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The show, hosted by the former chairman and CEO of Disney, attracted a mere 39,000 in the 25-54 news demo, numbers that suggest CNBC may have another celebrity bust on its hands.
Does that include family members and former underlings seeing if he was still alive?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

Now that the EMPIRE is out of video rentals, SUMNERETTE is blasting the film biz for closing the window, another way of saying the empire can't make money off rotten movies the way it used to.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Rolling Stone Silenced in China

JANN didn't get to be the RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of ROCK for nothing, so we suspect he'll cave.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Today (the WaPost reminds us) is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attempt on President Reagan. The first thing we must ask is, what did the luxury news suites think? Sadly, 9/11 puts such questions in bounds. We know some Texans were overjoyed when JFK was shot, presumably because a Texan assumed power (although that the Texan was LBJ should have stopped their cheering). Oh to be a fly and buzz though the news hacks' empty skulls, and probe their withered souls. We suspect it wouldn't be a pretty sight. We recall how some publicity seeking student at a college here ran some screed in the school paper saying how Reagan deserved it, and everybody rushed to him and said no no, you mustn't do that, all the while muttering "First Amendment" with a slight smirk. We recall too how THE GREATEST FILM DIRECTOR OF ALL TIME, MR. SCORSESE, fluttered like a chicken with its head shot -- CUT off to get mention of HIS IMMORTAL MASTERPIECE excised from his endorsements for Mitsubishi TVs. So we must wonder. Perhaps they were too busy with the pretentious phone-calling paper-shuffling rewrite-screaming seven-bell-ringing bustle that is the hacks' staff of life, but we imagine some of them were hoping. That PAPA would have taken over never entered their thick skulls; but who knows? After one flailing term it could have been DEMOCRATS FOREVER!!!!! Not that the Eastern Europeans would have been too pleased. Nor Jim Brady.

Whether or not the hacks were hoping, we know this: the attempt came about six months after JIMMY'S WORLD, and a scarce nine months after the RIGHTEOUS PERSECUTION of BILLY CARTER for being a fool. It was after an eternity when the hacks screamed to know WHO SHOT J. R.????? (the agony prolonged by an otherwise welcome actors' strike), and about eight months before they threw tons of rice over THE WEDDING OF LUKE AND LAURA. With that cavalcade of total JERNALISTIC miscreancy we never trusted news hacks again.

And that's why we ask what they were thinking.

Posted 6:59 AM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!! hunches into its THINKER pose and asks a deep question about Barry Bonds:

Why does his image suffer?

That's a toughie there, sons of SOB. Don't they pay you the big bucks not to pose such stupid questions? Or do you merely run a year-long popularity contest for SUPER BORE ads? Thankfully we seem to have come up with an answer: THE MAN. That light above our heads allows us to engage in our superiority complex when it comes to the readers, and flip out the R-CARD and engage in more race baiting. It would NEVER have anything to do with Barry CHEATING -- or the fact that, even with chartreuse skin covered with flower tattoos, and maybe a cute pig nose for a snout, he may NOT BE A NICE GUY.

And when Barry breaks* the home-run record*, we can be sure the sons of SOB will be there, cheering him on for the Gipper and the circ.

A NEUHARTHISM of the WEEK Award (social-justice division) to BOB! Nighty-night, Nightengale!

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

The Christian Science Monitor's reporter is happily out of captivity, no thanks to anyone, it would appear.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Okay OKAY!!!!!, we SUPPOSE we can understand: Crooks might not want to snitch on the other crooks because they might go free, an injustice in itself. But considering how your biz gleefully and malignantly turned OJ into a RACIAL CRISIS, and given the ardor with which you sell [C]RAP (we must remind you, this is the 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRESS RELEASES!!!!!), we suspect you in your grand collective wisdom would come out against "snitching" merely to please your withered PC souls.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Shucks! MEATHEAD has to resign from a commission he founded.

These things will happen when you try to change the world one boondoggle at a time.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

Lucia Newman, CNN's first and only correspondent based in Havana, has jumped to the new Al-Jazeera International network....

No comment.

Posted 3:13 PM by Gene

Speaking of suits and Apple, will the heirs of GREATEST MUSIC ACT IN THE HISTORY OF EVERY UNIVERSE THAT WAS OR WILL BE ever STOP SUING IT?

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

Apple Releases Software to Set iPod Volume

Yep, I smell lawsuits!

Posted 2:52 PM by Gene

Hmmm:

He was not known for producing thoughtful conservative think-pieces, or even for intrepid reporting. On the contrary, he was better known for his vitriol. Domenech, in his RedState.com blog posts, wrote that Teresa Heinz Kerry looks like an "oddly shaped egotistical ketchup-colored muppet," former TNR Editor Andrew Sullivan needs "a woman to give him some stability," and cartoonist Ted Rall is a "steaming bag of pus." He used words like "environuts." His posts often began with profound statements such as "That's ridiculous," "Yeesh, that's sad," and "That's bullcrap." He accused Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein of using cocaine. He described Coretta Scott King as a "Communist." He wrote that federal judges are "worse than the KKK."

What, exactly, did Brady see in Domenech? Certainly not a principled conservative journalist. Either Brady didn't read Domenech's blog posts, or he did, and they fit the ticket. If the former is true, well, shame on Brady. But the latter seems more likely. In other words, as far as Brady was concerned, Domenech--an angry, bigoted bloviator--was the face of true conservatism.

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

A SUMNER SPOKESMAN SEZ:

[I]f the 40- to 60-year-old population is indeed so wealthy with so much buying power, why aren’t more non-news networks selling on the 25-to-54 demo and, what’s more, why are so many TV deals built upon the 18-to-49 demo?

“We’ve done focus groups with this demo who say they turn on the TV and there are 500 channels and they can’t find anything to watch,” he said. “They start to feel annoyed, like media has blatantly disregarded them.”

Why is that, SUM? Is it because you aim to be older than METHUSELAH? Or is it because your SPONSORS are WHINING INFANTS?

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

I just noticed this. Apparently AmSpec wants to Confirm Him Now! in the OLD Senate Chamber. Well if AmSpec wants to use an OLD chamber I would have no objection. Meantime, what happens in the newer one?

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

The five U.N. Security Council powers moved closer to an agreement on Wednesday on a statement that would call on Iran to suspend parts of its suspect nuclear program that could be used to build weapons.

THIS SHOULD STOP IRAN BUT GOOD!!!!!

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

So -- Dubya was to meet with Nigeria's president, then Chuckie Taylor escapes, then Dubya threatens to cancel the engagement, then Nigeria miraculously finds Chuckie and arrests him!

Clever!

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

Are we going a little too far?

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

I didn't know: the press release "turns 100 this year" -- and news hacks will celebrate with whole hosts of them!

Helped by "news aggregators"!

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

YOUR AD TITHE AT WORK:

Cadbury Schweppes spent $5 million producing a Dr Pepper TV campaign that now won’t see the light of day.

The marketer has quietly canned an elaborate “mash-up” campaign from famed director Kinka Usher that mixes music from Kiss, Will Smith, EMP and Cyndi Lauper, and ordered up new creative to be produced before the crucial Memorial Day kickoff to soft-drink season. The company attributed the switch to a new strategy.

Is our new strategy to spend $50 million?

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

BizWeek insists the Street may have misinterpreted Son of Wizard's statement on interest-rate hikes.

Does that mean he's better at obfuscation than the Wiz?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Shucks, Son of Wizard starts with a hike.

Now, can he explain it in words of seven syllables and sentences of two hundred words?

Posted 3:16 PM by Gene

Another actors' union has authorized another strike, meaning there'll be no strike, meaning we'll have junk movies and TV as usual.

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

How many secretaries and assistants and aides and other crawling things around the White House have changed the course of history? How many were William Seward buying Alaska, or George C. Marshall saving Western Europe? We know little of history but the secretaries, aides et al seem to fall into five broad groups: jolliers (like Jim Farley), would-be kingmakers (like the nefarious Henry the K and Jim Baker), true believers (like John Foster Dulles), nerds and technoweenies (like Bob McNamara and GEORGE THE KID), and -- the vast majority, alas -- ciphers (we have in mind Ronald Reagan's "mayor", although for some reason that fellow from Kellogg's also comes to mind). Caspar Weinberger and Lyn Nofziger are getting the usual plaudits from the usual sides, but from what nothing we know Nofziger was a true believer and Weinberger was a cross between a kingmaker and a technoweenie. And though we know the Beltway has the permanent Fame syndrome -- it's gonna live forever -- we may wonder whether Sec. Weinberger (who did run a department, as opposed to bending ears) left such a mark -- he spent lots on military hardware, then Dick Cheney came along (remember him?) and spent lots less. (The best the hacks can come up with for Mr. Nofziger is "irreverent", mute testimony to the vapor of public reputation.) But then we'd be hard pressed to gather how important any cabinet member or folks of that ilk can be when so much of our fate is written in the stars: we must spend, and we must tax, and we must rule the world, and there's not a whole lot any mortal can do to change that.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

If they're old enough to operate a computer they're old enough to dr -- oh, never mind.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

A BRILLIANT campaign slogan:

Hillary Clinton: I'm No Marie Antoinette

(Sorry for the NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

Justice, African style:

Liberian warlord Charles Taylor has disappeared from his haven in Nigeria, just as he was to have been handed over to face trial on war crimes charges, Nigerian officials said Tuesday.

Why am I thinking Switzerland?

There is much laughter in the Nigerian government, no doubt.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

AUTO AD SLUMP CRUSHES MAGAZINES

Translation: Fewer girlie -- er, MEN's magazines and, with any luck, fewer TRUTH TELLERS in the newsrags.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Yesterday in skimming over that blithering puff piece about THE ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY we read something that didn't register quite at first glance, but when we thought of it made us fume:

CBS anchor Bob Schieffer said Colbert had successfully bottled the spirit of the annual Gridiron dinner, a clubby inside-the-Beltway roast of major Washington figures, and given it broad appeal.

"I think it's part of the American redemption process now that you have to let people make fun of you a bit," said 69-year-old Schieffer, who joked on the program this month that most viewers of "CBS Evening News" were older than he was.

We remember watching the Gridiron Club belch on television years ago, on PBS -- or maybe it was the @#$%&* White House Correspondents' dinner, what's the diff? -- and we were angry the whole time. You couldn't have cut through the high self-regard with a jackhammer. (We will forgive Bob for appearing on the SEVAREID show; it's a VIACON, and he's a good, smart guy.) As emcees of mini-Gridiron Clubs ERIC and the EDWARD R. MURROW OF COMEDY are mere court jesters for a corrupt system, just as the drunken clod IMUS is, and we should scorn and ridicule them with the same vitriol that we do our other Beltway betters.

Posted 7:14 PM by Gene

In the spirit of truthfulness and humility we will confess that apparently the Napoleon of the Nine Fingers did not raise the middle finger as had been bruited about, and he seemed in a good frame of mind. Nonetheless we do note that this jocular titan has a thin skin for hecklers and had a "deputy" break the law by confiscating a recorder and erasing the contents of one of his majestic speeches; he wants to be a public figure without being one. We're disappointed in that; this Finger is as close to a firebrand as our stubbed-cigarette age will allow, and he does himself no favors with his magisterially silly tantrums.

Posted 6:43 PM by Gene

For three seasons Lynda Carter played the Golden Lasso of Truth-wielding, bulletproof cuff-wearing, American flag-donned hero on the CBS television series. One just wonders what Carter would thing of Lohan filling her red, patent leather boots.

About what I thing of would-be movie execs who don't know how to type right.

(Via Yahoo! Movies, which proudly repeats the error -- and also forgets the show started on another network)

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

That protest blindsided me; it came out of nowhere, and I've a hunch the whole topic will go back to nowhere, or at least a low-simmering somewhere. We've lived with the illegals this long and NOW we're mad? Perhaps we should have built that 700-mile fence before we lost our temper.

But I will confess this business barely moves me as we are closer to teeming hordes yelling "Eh?"

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Someone must grant the poor man amnesty; his life is as much in danger now as it was in the courtroom.

Who will be the first with the FATWA?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

The phonies who take glorified bribes from lobbyists are about to have another fit of "transparency" like a painted-over window with the shades drawn.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

The Napoleon of the Nine Fingers raised a middle one, then "jocularly" squinched himself into a fit of anger and demanded no pictures be printed, proving yet again the validity of term limits for these emperors of jurisprudence.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Elvis' Graceland joins White House on list of national landmarks

Is Dubya running for president?

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

On this day when Number 20 all but smiled when he recalled how he was going to plow into the White House, we should read Chuck Krauthammer's essay with grave concern. The Iranian psychos who would nuke Israel laughed on 9/11. We haven't done a thing but appease them; our endless non-negotiations are but a stalling move that cannot forestall the inevitable. Perhaps in the back of their reinforced-concrete skulls the yayas know that nuking Israel (or anyone else) means their own destruction, and perhaps the destruction of the human race to go with it. Or do they know? How much longer can we pay the price of stalling when it goes up every minute?

Which raises a further question, one I'd hoped to hold off for a while, but I can't help it now -- but first, a preface:

CNN is not showing the negative caricatures of the likeness of the Prophet Mohammed because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding fuel to the controversy itself.

We're less than six months to the fifth anniversary. Will the idiot NEWS HACKS cover themselves with glory as they did during the cartoon riots? Will they turn it into Strawberry Fields Forever? Will there be acres of yellow ribbons and flowers (and as few flags as possible) decorating the front pages, like kittens on a calendar? Will they sentimentalize all the anger and infamy out of it? We suspect so, and it will be another shameless exercise in knee-jerk reactionary cowardice.

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

Another FIST IN THE AIR for HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN -- in a USAOKAY!!!!! sidebar:

Some Connecticut players said before Sunday's game they didn't know George Mason's players, coach or team nickname. But then, some of the Patriots don't know much about the man their school is named for.

"I heard somebody say he was the president, but I know he wasn't the president," Tony Skinn said. "I have no clue who he was."

Skinn gave it more thought and came up with a guess: "He was one of those people who signed the Constitution. I know he signed it, but I don't know what else he did."

Actually, Mason was one of three delegates to a federal convention in Philadelphia who did not sign it. Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, forerunner of the Bill of Rights, and he did not sign the Constitution in part because those rights were not originally included.



RAH! RAH! George...who?

P. S. We now learn the George was a line extension of Jeff's school, meaning HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN will ALWAYS be a boondoggle.

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

The Federal Election Commission decided Monday that the nation's new campaign finance law will not apply to most political activity on the Internet.

KOS! SAM LITTLE! You're safe.

Posted 12:16 PM by Gene

New software included on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD releases, however, will automatically slash the picture quality in half, unless consumers have a relatively new connector and cable called HDMI to hook up players to their televisions. Only one in 20 HD sets sold to early adopters over the past few years has the right version of the connector. Only 15% of new sets sold this year will include it, and deliver the full 1080 resolution capable of showing such detail. "What do you have then? A very expensive DVD player," says Sony Senior Vice-President Tim Baxter.

High tech the DR. EVIL way.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, I think SAMMY GLICKMAN took down your PAGE, DOC!

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

A Dutch school was wrong to bar a Muslim woman from its classes for refusing to shake hands with men, the Commission for Equal Treatment found on Monday.

Please! Please! You don't have to tell us! We'll be good little boys and girls. We'll do whatever you want us to. Please! PLEASE!

With dhimmitude, the accent is on dhim.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

And last and least on THE HOTTEST SITE ON THE WEB: since WHEN, Kurt, have you been hoping for an end to "our" celebrity "fixation"?

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Elsewhere on THE HOTTEST SITE ON THE WEB:

Rupert Murdoch F.O.B. (and Hillary)

And an Idiot Shall Lead Them

Okay, site unseen (sic), which hed goes with the story?

Or maybe it's the one in CULTURE GUIDE.

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

Forever Youngish

Why Nobody Wants to Be an Adult Anymore

Tell us about it, ADAM!!!!! (See CULTURE GUIDE.)

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

In Iran, a Warning on Radicalism
As Tehran's politics shift sharply to the right, even traditional conservatives warn against extremes.

Bias? WHAT bias?

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

Not long ago I came up with a brilliant idea: someone should make a stage musical out of XANADU!

I SHOULD SUE!

It's being directed by a man named BEANE -- who gave us ALL SHOOK UP!!!!!

AND

The Smell of the Kill [Peeeeeeeee-U!], Voices in the Dark [hearing things?], Princesses, As Thousands Cheers [SIC], The Country Club, Rude Entertainment [!!!!!!!!!!], The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told [??????????], Jeffrey, Blown Sideways Through Life, Fires in the Mirror, Bunny Bunny and Das Barbecu.

So -- we're in a for a RUDE BARBECUE, THE MOST FABULOUS STORY EVER TOLD, AS THOUSANDS CHEERS -- while the audience gets BLOWN SIDEWAYS!

JEFFREY!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Where do hack pols get this blitheringly idiotic idea they must have a sense of humor?

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Bertelsmann's getting out of its celebrated, er, ROOTKIT joint venture, ostensibly so it doesn't have to take part of its wonderful company public.

LEGENDARY DAVIS cannot be pleased. He was all set for world domination!

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Seattle shooter said to be 'respectful'

How nice. I'm sure we all appreciate a respectful killer.

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft!

P. S. at 6:00 P. M. "300 rounds of ammunition." Very respectful.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Whenever we see this picture of the CLATCH's boss at E&P Online, we can't help thinking of a Southern Babbitt or a prosperity preacher.

That suggests, when it comes to slanting the news, he may unfortunately know what he's doing.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, insists his proposal has nothing to do with his political ambitions.

...he told A CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGE.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Well I am IMPRESSED, MICK:

Hollywood veteran Rob Long [a National Review and NRO contributor -- don't forget not to tell that, MICK!], after watching Lazy Muncie on YouTube, validates Glenn Reynolds' thesis--that technology is empowering ordinary people to beat large organizations, including Big Media--as it applies to the comedy industry:

Well, at least it applies to THE COMEDY INDUSTRY. But why shouldn't it? Blogging and homemade videos are mere COMPETITION.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

And as DUBYA orders our schools to teach to the test, there will be more pressure to CHEAT.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Further on Mark Twain, he's another one of those who can be cited on anything, by anyone, for anything. William Dean Howells called him "the Lincoln of our literature," but at his most mischievious he was also our Jefferson. This story could have gotten a few good contradictory grafs from him: one on replacing a beaten down hulk of a church at over twice the cost of new because it's an "historic landmark" vaguely associated with him; one on his atheism (we fear he'd have sounded like a Hollywood scenarist on that one); and one on charitable giving. We would not want to presume exactly how Samuel Langhorne would have written on this, and God (or as he might put it, god) knows he wrote too much, be we'd like to think it would be good for a laugh.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Richard Fleischer, a descendant of a famous animation family who went on to direct many mediocrities some would now call "classics", has died. That we might now call them "classics" not only indicates how far the bar has fallen, you couldn't even limbo-rock under it.

Leonard "The Multi-Millionaire Blurbist" Maltin says he directed "one of the best B pictures ever made," which we'll take as definitive on his count -- and ours.

P. S. We regret having had nothing to say about Buck Owens, a great country star, but that owes entirely to our ignorance.

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

Unfortunately the slump appears to have come to a momentary halt, but no one can expect sunshine all the time -- except maybe in LALALand, where it's frequently obscured by the SMOG, inside and out.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

Answer us this, St. Warren, King Richard: when GLOBAL WARMING is a problem in one NEWSRAG but not in the other, does that mean it's not a problem?

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

While the case has become hopelessly mired in partisan one-upmanship, we hope the peculiar love affair of SNIDELY WHIPLASH and the RED-STATE SCORPION blasts to the surface again, if only to put lots of Congresspoops and millionaire lobbyists out of business.

The heavy price we'll pay: Babs as speaker and impeachment proceedings against DUBYA.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO JOE UNPRONOUNCEABLE!!!!!

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

REPORTING FOR THE ENEMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

March 26, 2006 -- "I know it's troubled times. And it's turbulence on your TV screens that affects the conscience of Americans. I know that - and so does the enemy."

- President Bush, Friday, on media coverage of the war in Iraq

Okay, I know why the Times runs those pieces -- RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has an EVIL TWIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

How interesting: One of America's most PC colleges has a fraternity scrum. What would Osama think?

"Someone threw a bottle of liquor - Hennessy, the good stuff," said store manager Jason Gonzalez, 20.

Probably someone from the JERNALISM SKOOL.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

K-LO the MOVIE PHREAK is AT IT AGAIN:

THIS SOUNDS RIGHT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Reacting to the pro-illegal-immigration marches, InstaPundit writes: " I think that these marches just made passage of strict immigration laws much more likely."

Posted at 10:31 AM

I'd like to go back through the PROFESSOR'S archive and find out how many times he's been wrong, but I don't think I could stand going into a stupor.

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More proof RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is NOT conservative: every week He runs stories like this in His Times; the hacks are trying to put the My Lai into Iraq. But if we could have clean, neat wars chances are we wouldn't have wars period.

Whatever happened to Saddam Hussein?

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

Let us hope the Islamist nutcases don't stage huge protests over this one, but had this man been executed for his beliefs it would have been a giant step backward for Afghanistan, and for the hope, however dim, that the Muslim world will not be a separate and unequal one.

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

And PEOPLE NEWSRAG, more in line with what the editors of news rags have THOUGHT they should be doing, has prepared a lecture on GLOBAL WARMING, though it's rather hard to know because the TWXSTERS have rearranged the home page and made the cover illustration a teeny tiny thumbnail, all so they can sell the overpaid, overpublicized writers -- BLOGGERS they insist will get readers to their rag.

But they are smiling that "Republicans are on the run." That's good!

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

A GOLD MINE from MR. MARK, though it has nothing to do with REPUBLICANS: The good news is:

Why is everyone so happy in Silicon Valley again? A new wave of start-ups are cashing in on the next stage of the Internet!!!!!!!!!!

Which we can hope is a cover jinx and portends another blowout. And of course being Mr. Mark's rag it's full of trendy-sounding nonsense, such as:

The smartest guy in the room is everybody.

No, the smartest guy in the room is the guy who owns the machinery, like Larry and Sergey, and RUPERT, and -- well, you get the picture? (Now to talk ST. WARREN out of His Webophobia.)

Tom Sawyer was an early adopter.

So far as we know Tom Sawyer never had a computer, and the closest Mark Twain came to one was an automated typesetter that didn't work.

It's all one Web.

So why have we heard so much talk of separate and unequal Webs?

It's not an audience, it's a community.

Yes, a community of millions typing alone. Honest Mr. Mark, you've impressed me today more than ever!

The bad news is Devin's looking for a big executive job in Hollywood again, and he insists "horror" (read violent porno) movies will run their course, meaning they'll go on forever.

P. S. A movie ad-blurbist THINKS:

Can we really be surprised, at a time when huge segments of the shockproof public are inured to the concept of real-life torture, that our horrormeisters are working overtime to test the limits of our sang-froid?

TRANSLATION: If it weren't for DUBYA and RUMMY and CONDI and all those EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL people in the WHITE HOUSE we could ENJOY violent porno!