Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

South Americans embrace leftist tyrants, and then profess to be annoyed when the tyrants engage in empire building.

But you will have this with a perennially second-rate continent.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Artists discuss plan to wrap Arkansas River

Can they include a certain presidential library?

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

26 stabbed as Berlin station opens

The attacker was a 16-year old German from Neukoelln, a south Berlin district with a large immigrant population.

OR:

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.

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

Another news hack PUBLIC SERVICE:

The biggest business news story of recent weeks is the Wall Street Journal series of reports on options backdating. It hasn't received wider play in part because the pieces remain behind the Journal's subscription firewall.

Posted 12:45 PM by Gene

Amazing that Dubya was willing to risk gutting his Justice Department rather than do the right thing -- although a Justice Department with Alllll-BEHRRRRR-toooooh may be considered partially gutted.

(Via JO-nah)

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

Speaking of megahits, who wants to bet Pixar's CGI doodle is PACKED with PRODUCT PLACEMENTS? Who wants to further bet it'll hold down its B.O.?

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

Paul Dreck (and RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) will be excited again, but as I said last week, wait till the next day -- and it does seem I was right about DVC!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It'll barely make $200 million domestically (as execs like Peter would say). So much for THAT megahit.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

And on the opposite side of news, MOVIES DO BOFFO BIZ OVERSEAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even Bill -- who has surely done a nice favor for Sammy Glickman; like a job with him, Bill? -- must concede the biz does $21 billion worldwide. How much of the world's GDP is that? He does a further favor by insisting our garbage exports make possible all sorts of "increasingly sophisticated" local films -- meaning blurbist-pleasin' masterworks like that six-hour one from Italy, no doubt.

He also quotes the VIACON exec Peter Bart. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO BILL!

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

Even if this alleged massacre in Iraq is confirmed, even if it is shown to be totally premeditated and unjustified, it will likely remain a subsurface affair, though news hacks try to spin it. Why? Because we still remember, after over thirty years, how the hacks sold atrocities in Vietnam. Massacres should anger us, but we must remember there's always a low-level hope here, the hope that such stories can get us packing from Iraq. That we can guess its outcome does not seem to deter news hacks into wanting it. But even those opposed to the war must sense it. And they can recall Vietnam too.

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

The petty tyrants of Congress, no doubt hearing it from their inferiors the CONSTITUENTS, concede the FBI may have a right to investigate when one of their own stocks his freezer with CASH.

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

Let us assume, for argument's sake, that today DVC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! does double the $5,265,000 it did yesterday. Let us further assume it does, oh, $31 million this whole weekend. That would mean a 60-PERCENT DROP in the BOX OFFICE!

That's what I call A SMASH HIT!

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

MIKE, with further noises on the EVER-RESURGENT BRANSON EAST, whose Dinner Theater of the Year Awards will have 60 HOSTS:

BROADWAY seems resigned to the fact that this year's Tony telecast is going to be another dreary ratings loser.

A hostless telecast, as this year's will be, was tried in 1999 - with dire results.

Who can forget that chorus line of young-ish stars - Calista Flockhart, Scott "Party of Five" Wolf, Christian Slater - stumbling through the lyrics of "There's No Business Like Show Business"?

As comedian Lea DeLaria said later: "You don't know the words to 'There's No Business Like Show Business'? GET OFF THE STAGE!!"

Tony officials apparently were so embarrassed by their inability to line up a master of ceremonies that they waited until practically the dead of night to announce that they'll have 60 "star presenters" instead of one big-name host.

If they're lucky, maybe Oprah will throw them a bone and plug the Tonys on her show.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

At what point do companies keep on merging and merging and merging that they have nothing left to merge with? Isn't the whole story of the saggy MEDIA BIZ the sad tale of what happens when there's nothing left to merge with? How is that good for anybody's economy, DOW 36,000?

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

The Times of London to launch U.S. edition

Let me guess: it'll be called...DA NOO YAWK POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

D. C.'S CHICKEN LITTLES, AT IT AGAIN:

Capitol Police said Friday they were investigating reports of sounds of gunfire in the garage of the Rayburn Office Building, where members of the House have their offices.

The entire Capitol complex has been locked down, CNN's Dana Bash reported....

"They have no victims at this time, and they have no active shooter," said Mike Brooks, a law enforcement expert.

He noted that Capitol Police have a firing range in the basement.

P. S. These are the same cowardly Pygmy tyrants oblivious to the FIRING RANGE ALL AROUND THEM.

P. P. S. ANOTHER false alarm, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

Another eulogy for our culture: We suspect even Wagner never had to worry about "an imposing 48-foot-long, 28-foot-tall, 20-ton set piece, run by 26 assorted motors, on which about 80% of the opera's action takes place." With any good composer, the music would be the thing. With a spectacle like this the production must be the thing, a production so overwhelming it sends the unmistakable message that this "opera" wouldn't need such loudly meshing electro-mechanical gears if the MUSIC were other than JUNK. It will get RAVED regardless, like JERRY SPRINGER and NIXON IN CHINA, by idiot hacks who MUST be in with the in-crowd, but at the very least the need for 20-ton set pieces would seem to dim its hopes for revival.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal.com)

And in more news of tomorrow's archival dust collectings, the Tune Machine what wrote the immortal Wicked is writing what Opera News calls an "opera."

(Via Playbill.com, which is all about reporting on archival dust collectings)

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

SAMMY GLICKMAN -- a HACKER?!?!?

Who'da THOUGHT?

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

If we say MY LAI often enough does that make it true, GREG?

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

What once big sporting event's going on right now that practically no one's paying attention to?

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

JO-nah has compiled a CON-SER-VA-TIVE ROCK SONGS LIST. (And if he didn't do it was HIS idea.) Why isn't this guy a regular on eight different TV shows making an ass of himself? He is not merely the Frank "Gliberal" Rich of the right, he is its MICHAEL KINSLEY. A guy like that deserves a windfall -- as his agents no doubt remind the TWXSTERS and RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! every day.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

The best way news hacks can cop out is by taking two sides to an issue. This is one of the greatest cliches of the business -- that we can cleave everything down the middle. But some stories have three sides, or fifteen, or one. Side splitting is a kind of forced neutrality, and we suspect it may also be invoked when the two sides engaged in the side splitting has big egos. And it undercuts both sides. "All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait." Does that include Dave? It must, because he wants us to talk. Does that make him a usual suspect or just another six-digit pundit?

We can especially expect intense side splitting when news hacks underreport a story. Can you recall ONE American correspondent interviewing Iran's president? How long has he been in office? Who do you suspect has earned more column inches -- him or THE ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY? Or the winner of RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S contest?

We saw the exact same thing with Osama, whom the hacks all but ignored in favor of now forgotten pleasures like Gary Condit's "mistress" until it literally blew up in our faces. And this guy's waving nukes.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Less than a month after winning themselves the P-Ulitzer Prize for fearless truth telling about out national security, the hacks go back to their old ways, spending 1,195 words to ask if somebody actually walked all the way across America in search of himself.

Why am I supposed to care? He got interviewed by Perky Katie.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

There is no cash wrapped in foil in my freezer. Nothing but ice, some past-its-prime meat, and vegetables. I would think that any self-respecting burglar would check the freezer these days.

Me too. But we may want to check what's in DER SPEAKER's head. That icebox uses the old fashioned door that you can't open easily.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BOASTS:

Yes, Hicks, the 29-year-old grey-haired bar singer from Birmingham, was last night voted American Idol after an astonishing 64 million votes were counted - more than any US president has ever received, according the show's producers.

Then how to explain that a mere 35.4 million watched it? Well, I guess the dead vote in RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s elections too.

And now to completely ignore this stunt until the next time.

Posted 3:33 PM by Gene

Speaking of cooling off, so is DVC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 3:29 PM by Gene

Well, we'll give Dubya the benefit of the doubt and say these prima donnas need a spell to cool off from their latest singing role; but 45 days is a lot of time to -- prove your innocence.

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

Holding up a hard drive, Nicholson said the theft involved 5 gigabytes of material, and could easily have been accessed from his home via computer.

Seeing how a top-of-the-line notebook can hold up to 120 gigs, think of all the things a miscreant can steal!

I'd rather not.

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

Surprise:

Skilling and Lay guilty

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

Shucks, I guess AMNESTY's not going to come THAT easy.

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

Yahoo! and eBay -- MERGE?

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

SHUCKS, Der Speaker is NOT under investigation.

YET.

Do I smell payback?

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

Navy shoots down long-range missile in test

For first time, ship at sea brings down target in its final seconds of flight

Let's hope this helps when the IRANIANS come along.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

Bob Nardelli, the usually feisty chairman and chief executive of Home Depot Inc., will be facing an unusually large group of dogged antagonists at his company's annual meeting on Thursday.

The elephant in the room will be the estimated $245 million pay package -- and that's a conservative estimate -- that Nardelli is receiving while shareholders have lost money during his five years with the home-improvement behemoth.

This looks like a job for -- SUPERKUDLOW!!!!!

In what amounts to a no-confidence vote, AFSCME said on Monday that it will withhold votes from 10 of the 11 directors on Home Depot's board.

COMMIES!

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

Boobs McKeating says, more competition on cable!

I guess so they can pay less to see your SPARKLING CAMEOS.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Now let's see: which has the most links in Google News? The Pope visiting Poland? The Iran nuclear "talks"? The low-level Palestinian civil war?

OR....

Posted 8:19 PM by Gene

Maybe not EVERYTHING RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! touches turns to gold -- and endless publicity.

Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

A-HA! So THIS is why Der Speaker didn't like the Feds rummaging through Billy Jeff's money -- er, PAPERS!

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Vonage Holdings Corp. shares fell 13 percent, the worst debut in six months, after the money-losing Internet phone company's $531.3 million initial public offering.

Somehow we're not surprised with a company whose mascot is a geek.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Sir Edmund Hillary should be astonished that 40 people passed a dying man without helping him on their merry stroll up and down Mt. Everest? What are Everest climbers but another breed of GET-A-LIFES?

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Mass. Gov. Romney makes visit to Iraq

Is somebody running for president?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

When news hacks screech about the GanNETts of the world they carry with their message the inevitable subtext that greedy businessmen are preventing the spread of TRUTH. The courageous Willy (!) forgets that USAOKAY!!!!!!!!!! spread the TRUTH several weeks ago -- and has seen the ground slowly erode under its gold-plated feet. Meantime we get obsessions like this. Which is why, though admitting his beloved industry's defeat at the end of 3,707 WORDS, Willy hasn't a clue.

(Via the unavoidable Romy)

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

If THE CONSPIRACY wants to make PORN let it do so. But let these cretins not wonder why they're under heavy censorship thereafter.

And these same idiots who are all a-giggle at the naughty bits laughed at DVC!!!!!!!!!!!!! and booed some movie about Marie Antoinette; indeed they seem to denigrate everything in sight (as well they should) while kissing one another's behinds.

Speaking of DVC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, it did $6.2 million yesterday, which doesn't sound so hot, even for a Tuesday. Do I smell the word "disappointment" slowly wafting in here?

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

We may ask what the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEU!'s definition of "good progress" is. Neville Chamberlain had good progress too.

No doubt there'll be a grand press conference in a couple of weeks, and highly-classified documents some time thereafter.

Posted 3:33 PM by Gene

The head of the Veterans Affairs Department expressed outrage today over being kept in the dark about the theft of computer data on 26.5 million veterans, as he himself came under heavy criticism from Capitol Hill.

Sometimes, when you head an relatively unimportant Federal agency, and the president may not know you by name, you're the last to find out.

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

With the hacks already engaging in their favorite activity re the 2008 election -- repeating themselves (it makes their own voices sound better in their own ears) -- we get a sage warning from the very CW, very liberal CJR:

It's going to be a long slog.

Happily, Liz offers a solution:

Is there any way we could get some "un-journalists" to cover the '08 election?

Yes, if their places of employment go broke.

(Via the ineffable Romy)

Posted 2:17 PM by Gene

MSSSSSSSSSS. PELOSI, you can take your RESIGNATION REQUEST and STICK IT where the SENIORITY DON'T SHINE!

(Via THE WORLD'S No. 1 SOUTH PARK FAN)

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

On this, the 65th birthday of THE BARD, a perfesser at Syracuse University (What is with that place? does the Carrier Dome emit toxic fumes?) writes what he presumes to be satire.

Mark Steyn got it better.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

In a small, mirror-paneled room guarded by a Secret Service agent and packed with some of the city’s wealthiest and most influential political donors, Mr. McCain got right to the point.

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’” said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

LOOK WHO'S TALKING.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

One of AmSpec's bloggers is visibly disappointed:

AOL News, I see, has picked up yesterday's front page New York Times story on the Clintons' marriage, or as the paper put it, their "Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives." Drudge teased the story on Monday, though in a way that suggests his leakers might have misled him.

But that's the problem with WALTER "THE SPYWARE COWBOY" WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: he loves to be misled.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News are the two most visible parts of Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., which has 2,650 full-time-equivalent employees. Fewer than 525 are newsroom employees of The Inquirer and the Daily News.

Which fact will not keep the fewer than 525 from trying to lose the other more than 2,125 their jobs if it advances THE TRUTH.

Prediction: The Stinky Inky and the Nooz continue to SPIN and SELL, like other papers; it won't stop the circulation losses; and the "owners" sell their pile of debt within five years. Another prediction: I'd lay 50-50 odds the "owners" fold the Nooz when it gets really hard to pay all that interest.

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

What "story" on the Latest News list on CNN.com is missing from the More Stories list on CNN.com International?

I haven't a clue.

Posted 8:08 PM by Gene

One wishes it were a better building, but at the least it's a beginning.

Posted 7:53 PM by Gene

One of the extreme vexations of this age is PR's total dominance. If we consider RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s Major Bowes act as THE GAMES of entertainment this will make more sense. Scarcely three months ago a competition ended in the Italian alps. Who among even the CEO elite that took two-month paid vacations to "supervise" their charges promoing it can recall so much as ONE athlete? Even the MAROON who made the covers of TWO newsrags is a trivia question. But we were SOLDSOLDSOLD the GAMES to the point of migraine, and now this. Some obsessively typing Kinsleyite can try to convince us that IMMORTAL GENIUS comes out of the RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s contest, which is another way of saying undeservedly popular aggressive "singers" singing junk. Who could remember anyone in these affairs but for the oppressive drumbeat of the selling? What's especially irksome is this is now a permanent annual phenomenon, just as the GAMES are a biennial one, and for all its sound and fury it leaves not a trace save for people making asses of themselves, and idiot sponsors falling over themselves to finance it. And now every week unveils a new oppressive PR pestilence, from THE ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY to DVC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Such is the sales pitches' intensity that marketing and promotion have become mental illnesses for our time. They're enough to make one stop watching television, or surfing the Web. But no; the psychotic babble is inescapable.

The Renaissance produced Michelangelo. The great worldwide democratic revolution produced Jefferson and Beethoven. Our age produces TV shows.

P. S. A question for our meretricious age: "How Much Marketing is Too Much Marketing?"

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH:

President Putin is facing the first major test of his pledge to fight corruption after his Communications Minister was found to own large chunks of the telecoms industry.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

Since the auto makers make look-alike cars (except for really ugly ones like Caddies and Toyota's hearse) it figures they'd make sound-alike ads.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

ELVIS is back with a song about Mr. 20.

Do the hacks have to pay attention every time the Osama Channel and its friends issue a new hit?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!

Pet Shop Boys Return to Roots, Attack Bush, Blair
The Pet Shop Boys are back in business, with their best album in more than a decade. [BloomyLite home-page hed]

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Hopeful: A bunch of Congressional ex-mayors forms a caucus to help the cities, and the first thing on the agenda is MORE MONEY, which means they are blissfully unaware of the zillions the Feds have spent on cities, and the negative net worth it left.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

WELL! Our StinkyInky and the Nooz get sold to the PR guy -- "for $562 million, most of which will be borrowed from banks."

Translation: GOOD LUCK!

"I sincerely hope it will be a good deal for the papers," McClatchy chairman Gary Pruitt said in an interview.

Translation: YOU'LL NEED IT!

(From the incalculable ROMY, who's biting his fingernails so hard he has no fingers)

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

The TRAGEDY of producting a NEWSPAPER in an AWFUL AGE:

McDonald pointed out that the buyouts of late 2005, which resulted in 26 Daily News editorial positions gone, and 75 at the Inquirer, had already hit the papers hard: "We have been putting out a paper since then under a bit of duress."

Funny -- that doesn't seem to have stopped you boys from putting us under duress with your constant SPIN and SELLING.

(Via the usual ROMY, who garbled the link)

Posted 1:48 PM by Gene

Traffic Update of the Day:

Gas leak closes Jimmy Carter Blvd.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

And speaking of B. S. DEFENDER, what are the chances 1. This kid watched television and 2. Doesn't know right from wrong?

(Via Yahoo! News)

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

Why must a MUSEUM for NEWS HACKS cost $435 MILLION?

Plans call for the new, 250,000-square-foot museum to have seven levels of galleries, theaters and retail space.

Why not just call it NEWSMALL? Oh, S. O. B. trademarked it.

A 74-foot high marble engraving of the First Amendment will be placed at the museum's entrance.

Which with any luck will be dedicated on the day some news organization runs a front-page correction, or a DISCLAIMER.

(Via the inimitable ROMY)

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

Our Joke of the Month: With fines for indecent programming about to go way up, Playboy is getting behind a cover-your-kids'-eyes-so-they-don't-watch-the-good-stuff-that-makes-us-big-profits campaign. Something this ludicrous must have B. S. DEFENDER as a consultant. In the old days Hef would have gassed about how liberating it was for fourteen-year-olds to consume porn. Now that Congress is on the case it might not be so liberating. It definitely might not be so liberating to scum now sitting in jail for liberating youth. Everyone can see through this moth-eaten fig-leaf, except the broadcasters, who think their cynicism isn't showing.

(Via IWantMedia.com. What's happened to this site? It used to update around 9 a.m.; now the proprietor waits until noon. What gives?)

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

The former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, who coined the instant "you're no Jack Kennedy" cliche that didn't unelect Dan Quail -- Quayyl -- QUAYLE but has stuck to our politics like a Congressman to a lobbyist, has died. RIP.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

ESPNCORP Network News chooses Charlie Gibson (Charles Gibson when doing dramatic roles), which it should have done in the first place.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

MR. BUSH BUILD UP THIS WALL [Jonah Goldberg]
I come down in favor of a border wall in USA Today

How courageous of you, JO-nah! (Or should that be Jo-NAH?)

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

THE ROOTKIT MUSIC CO. settles on its patented -- SOFTWARE.

Now to go back to the biz of making crappy music -- and look for another inconveniencing way to thwart pirates.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

Pre-9/11 records help flag suspicious calling

Is THE PAPER OF RE-CORD LITE backing off its advance P-Ulitzer Prize -- a little?

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

You mean Oliver Stone won't become Hugo's official filmmaker?

The far-left trembles!

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

"There is nothing wrong with holding an opinion and holding it passionately," Rice said, "but at those times when you are absolutely sure you're right, go find someone who disagrees."

Something most NEWS HACKS, academics, politicians and show-biz types try never to do.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

When a news hack says he'll go after both sides he usually divides them by two. (Note the SOURCE.)

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

There are many things we need to know. Some things we need to know but never will because news hacks can convince themselves they're too costly to cover. Other things we'll never know because they challenge the news-hack CW. Still other things we'll never know because nearly all news hacks are liberal.

We did not need to know this, but the ASSociated Press no doubt devoted considerable time and effort getting it through Its jumble, and has wasted countless hours of surfers' time to downloading and reading it.

ANOTHER NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO CURLEY! (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!)

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

New Orleans to Host 2008 NBA All-Star Game

How much will it cost?

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Happily, JO-nah has come to the rescue! by noting "there's an appetite out there among bona fide members of the conservative coalition for elaborate and somewhat unfriendly theories about the Catholic Church" (are we thinking P-- B-------?), and besides, it's a TREMENDOUS HIT -- and that appeals to our GORDON GEKKO FREE EN-TER-PRISE side. Right, JO-nah?

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

ALLL-BERR-TOH climbs out of his hole again and assures some would-be Republican voters we didn't mean it.

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

The new CW is that letting THE LATE KING OF THE UNIVERSE go was the dumbest thing in business history. If THE LORD GOD SUMNER had treated Kingie's noises as a negotiating ploy He might have paid double or triple or quadruple for him -- which might have brought on losses anyway and surely would have brought complaints that SUMNER paid too much. As it is, let's look at SIRI: $6.57 when the late Kingie started his new gig. $3.96 TODAY.

And now the DOG Star's launching shows emceed by BLOGGERS, which makes us question the need for satradio even more.

(Both via IWantMedia)

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

Tribute to a GREAT MAN:

There were no Major League Baseball officials in attendance to celebrate Bonds' home run. Neither were any of Ruth's relatives. Even 19-year-old Tyler Snyder, of Pleasanton, Calif., who caught the ball, told reporters he hated Bonds.

So why do you need 1,612 WORDS, Bob Nighty-Night? Or after that demonstration of P-Ulitzer Prize reporting are they now paying you hacks by the WORD?

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP:

DA VINCI THOUGHTS [Stanley Kurtz]

I just saw The Da Vinci Code. Point one: Michael Novak’s review [BAD LINK, natch] is dead on. Point two: This movie is a salutary kick in the teeth for conservatives. There’s no gainsaying the fact that the Narnia movie was a big deal. Having conceded that, the fact remains that when it comes to exercising influence on the fundamental levers of American culture, conservatives remain in a pathetically weakened position.

I may not be a professor of “symbology,” but I have taught at Harvard and studied religious symbolism. So I feel in a particularly strong position to reveal the entirely unsecret conspiracy against patriotism, tradition, and religion hiding in plain sight on our movie and television screens, in our universities, and on the pages of the mainstream press. Conservatives have forgotten just how precarious our position is. One cable news channel, talk radio, and the blogosphere blahblahblah....

Point No. 1: You still lead TWO CON-SER-VA-TIVE RELIGION MOVIES to ONE. Point No 2.: Which is worse: a bad movie based on a super-bad book or Jesus being WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPED!!!!! ten thousand times? For my part I can't tell the difference.

P. S. For what it's worth, HowStuffWorks.com DISSECTS DVC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Via the Mess]

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

And somehow, raging political bigotry and booze and sex parties seem to go well together.

Matthew Peterson is a powerful argument for reviving the "scarlet letter." And I don't mean VARSITY.

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

Why do colleges bother with celebrities at commencements? It's either bad stupid jokes or a chance to get people to display their intolerance. Doesn't our HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN INNDUSTREE already amply show the world its charges' ignorance?

P. S. If THE CORNER is to be believed (!) the BC crowd behaved quite admirably. Go Eagles!

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Another potential triumph for the WAL-MART GAMES:

China's capital is under attack from twin plagues of termites and moths, newspapers reported on Monday, prompting fears for the city's antiquities and concerns that Beijing's "Green Olympics" could be turned brown....

The wars against termites and moths are just two of the pest control initiatives Beijing has launched ahead of the Olympics.

Other campaigns have included targeting rats, fleas and lice at gymnasiums and athletes' villages.

And dissidents.

Just kidding!

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

Why is it when I hear the term "foreign-policy moderates" the first thing through my head is wishy-washy?

Too many things overwhelm common sense in the Democratic Party, not least the TRUE BELIEVERS.

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

MEL GIBSON SLAMS 'DA VINCI CODE'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The pot...six of one...NAH. Too easy.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Speaking of ROMY, he has LATE-BREAKING CLATCH NEWS:

McClatchy close to selling Philly papers to PR exec's group

After this past weekend we can only say, HOW APT.

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

If Dubya were a liberal Democrat, and he banned FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News, would the six- and seven-digit hacks make a stink?

(Via the inevitable ROMY)

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

The race horse Barbaro has more guts than the Europeans who handed out that ransom money.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

No wonder the Europeans don't like our Iraq policy. It's already cost them $45 millions in the hostage ransoms they denied paying.

If these craven nations are going to pay ransom it should be a matter of OFFICIAL POLICY, and BUDGETED. Then we'd know the Europeans for the hypocritical swine they can be.

Posted 8:01 PM by Gene

Technorati is getting to be almost as ossified as G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER. No matter how many times I post, no matter how many times I ping, I can't get these clowns to update me. I've no doubt the TWXSTERS who run that pile of technology have pings on a hierarchy where the MSB blogs get instantly recognized and atoms like me never do. What makes this even more irritating is that these clowns are always boasting of the zillions of posts they allegedly monitor. How do they know when people like me go four days or more without their posts getting through?

I have complained to Technorati's form e-mail address, to no more effect than when I complained to G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER.

Posted 7:49 PM by Gene

And while one of CURLEY's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) ASSociated Press Stooges raised his fist in the air over a sales-tax increase for a new stadium, another ran an ad for Planned Parenthood.

Forgive us for suspecting that you have something on your minds other than TELLING THE TRUTH.

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

Why is it when taxpayers finance another Taj Mahal stadium some of the loudest cheers come from the PRESS BOX?

Is it because taxpayers are financing their feet-on-the-desk six-digit jobs?

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to DAVE!

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

"'All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking, as if the FBI is watching.'"

And a HARDY HAR HAR to you in JAIL, William Jefferson!

When Jefferson and the informant had dinner at a Washington restaurant on May 12, 2005, the FBI was listening, too. Jefferson indicates he will need an increased stake in the profits of one deal, the affidavit said. Instead of the 7% stake originally agreed upon, he writes "18-20" on a piece of paper and passes it to the informant.

That included the LOBBYING FEE.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

And from WHORVIS COMMUNICATIONS' favorite client, a message of LOVE and TOLERANCE:

"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

So what does that make the flacks at Whorvis?

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

What is the difference between the knee-jerk right-winger who SCREAMS that $250 million is a pittance for a CEO, and the knee-jerk left-winger who SCREAMS we must be out of Iraq yesterday?

I can't tell from the SCREAMING.

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

The ASSociated Press mourns the death of a true pioneer, the Naked Guy, with far more words than it will devote to far worthier people.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

For the first time Alberto emerges from his hole and has made enemies of prospective P-Ulitzer winners.

Posted 1:07 PM by Gene

In yet more ER, the LALATIMES has one of its blurbists run another irksome show-biz "think" piece, this about Hollywood's loss of glamour. Hey Carina! I thought the point of all you scribblers' blurbing was to convince just how absolutely WONDERFUL today's entertainment is!



I'm not convinced.

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

In more news of ER, DVC!!!!!!!!!! went down first day to second. (The Friday estimate has already been trimmed at least once.) This does not bode that well for its, er, long-term prospects.

And for all the alleged good news we're still down slightly from last year. (And because Luke Spielberg opened His live-action Road Runner flick on a Thursday we're down considerably for the week.)

And here's something to make pious KLo-style SOUTH PARK CON-SER-VA-TIVES gloat endlessly -- it did less biz its first weekend than WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!! THE JESUS SLASHER MOVIE -- at ALMOST 700 MORE THEATERS!!!!!

Praise -- uh, God?

P. S. PAUL DRECK's boys spin that it did $80 HEXAZILLION GIGAMILLIONS WORLDWIDE!!!!! If every person who saw HERR DOKTOR BROWN'S MASTERWORK paid $8 by the "official" count MAYBE one half of one percent of the world's population saw it, which goes to show there will never be any accounting for taste.

Posted 12:47 PM by Gene

They've taken their hits, and now the Dixie Chicks hit back with what may be the best adult pop CD of the year. Er, will anyone buy it?

Er, this is why people can't stand news hacks' gutlessness. Er, the whole point of advertising, JOSH, is to SELL things. Er, if they didn't teach you that when you started as a blurbist, you're not a true-blue TWXSTER. Er, you and your bosses decided after a mercifully long vacation from cover plugs to get back into the show-biz flackery biz. Er, the whole point of your AD is to get us to BUY this. Er, do you think we'd feel so monumentally insulted if it weren't? Er, that's why they pay you the big salary and the fabulous expense account. Er, so you answer your own question -- with a RIP-ROARING AFFIRMATIVE!!!!!

Er, a NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD to JOSH and the, er, TWXSTERS!

Er, the next time we run into your mangy name -- and we hope it isn't soon -- we'll call you ER.

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

The BUGMEISTER comes up with a NEW one: the Windows Live Safety Center Full Service Scan! It probes for viruses (think CHKDSK -- and it takes forever) and cleans your registry! When the BUGMEISTER was through He'd zapped my Lenovo Rescue and Recovery GUI -- and I couldn't restore it because He erased my System Restore checkpoints! That's cleaning!

Now what happens when this emerges from BETA?

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

While the TWXSTERS plug a ROCK ACT, their European rag runs a worthy story on how the former East Germany is (or is not) facing up to its Communist past. It appears the further the newsrags are from the U. S. of A., the better their reporting is.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Democratic leaders began this year thinking that Republican corruption in Congress would be one of their most lethal campaign weapons, but GOP officials say that firepower has been defused by new accusations of bribery and other abuses against Democrats.

"The Democrats' attempt to paint this as a one-sided issue has come back to bite them. They have a lot of ethics problems in their own closet," said Ron Bonjean, spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican.

These first two grafs of this story show that bias is not just a liberal thing. Why should it be? The greatest biasers of the first half of the last century were reactionary Republicans -- Bill Hearst, Hank Luce. That the biz is now knee-jerk left is a tribute to the growth of the, er, professional class in the luxury news suites. This sort of typing reminds us of the bad all days -- and that they haven't left us.

Do a little rewriting, and quote a spokespoop for MSSSSSSSSSS. PELOSI instead of THE SPEAKER, and you know the contempt BOTH sides have for their readers.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Hey Mr. Mark, aren't you supposed to plug these movies before they open?

And aren't we supposed to run these reviews before they open?

Posted 10:36 AM by Gene

U.S. Treasury's Snow Urges Oil States to Spend Windfall Wisely

Pfffffffffffffffffft!!!!!