Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

[I]t is remarkable that not a single Google insider has bought a single share of the company in the 18 months since the IPO lock-ups expired, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Washington Service, which tracks insider sales. Philip Remek at Guzman & Co. in Coral Gables, Florida, is still the only equity analyst with a ``sell'' rating on Google; you could argue that he's not such a lone wolf, given the behavior of the company's owners.

So that's why it isn't $2 million a share -- yet?

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Everyone was responsible for what happened to New Orleans -- and in modern America, when everyone's responsible, no one's responsible.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

And speaking of movies:

The DSCC has launched a new site tittled Sankes on a Senate.

NRO's tradition of typos MARCHES ON!

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

ER:

West Nile Cases Drop as Immunities Emerge, Experts Say

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

All that mammoth publicity and the TWXSTERS' stunt does a mere SIX MILLION PLUS ON FRIDAY. (LEE predicted over $38 MILLION for the weekend.) This must be called a THOROUGHGOING DISASTER. No doubt the film will make money -- that is, if they didn't spend TOO MUCH on the hype -- but wasn't this a NATIONAL OBSESSION? Wasn't this the PHENOMENON EVERY WEB SURFER HAD ON HIS LIPS? Wasn't this the MIRACLE MILLIONS of ADOLESCENTS eagerly awaited for MONTHS? And did the TWXSTERS outsmart themselves by caving and letting the ad-blurbists in at the last second -- who then proceeded to give it MIGHTY FLATULENT RAVES, and stink out the FANS?

In short, it IS possible to PUBLICIZE TOO MUCH -- a lesson lost on our SUPERIORS the MEDIA CRETINS.

We're also in a good mood because with this flackery failing the BIZ may be entering a new double-digit SLUMP TIME -- we can hope.

P. S. One wonders if 9/11 might also be to blame; this is, in the end, an airplane disaster movie -- and the fans didn't seem too hot for the last one.

[E]ven within New Line, there were skeptics who viewed "Snakes on a Plane" as nothing but a simple programr [SIC] with a "stupid title."

You TWXSTERS should have quit while you were ahead.

P. P. S. One wonders too if THAT CATCHPHRASE did it. Perhaps people figured all this movie was about was a middle-finger-in-the-eye gimmick.

P. P. P. S. For once, USAOKAY!!!!! CALLED IT. (Via Hollywood Elsewhere)

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

Wouldn't it be something if Ehud had to resign over a home-grown macaca -- rather than his INCOMPETENCE?

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

Even the savviest of terrorists have a low attack success rate, and Murphy's law--that everything that can go wrong, will--applies to terrorists and law enforcement alike.

Comforting.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

No doubt the truth tellers who once emblazoned the skies with news of a SEPARATE COACH LAW completely ignored that the "reformer" Raul was up and about, and throwing a tantrum.

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

OH oh:

Google's share of U.S. search market dips in July

You mean we may NOT be worth $2 million a share?

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Here's another area where we can ascertain the perfidy of news hacks. No doubt LALA's skid row needs a -- fumigation. But the hacks are uncritical lockstep suporters of outfits like the ACLU, whose agendas are the veritable ideological pretzel of liberalism. TRIB -- WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

WEBB FOR SENATE DOES IT AGAIN!!!!!

Why can't somebody look into the history of the sainted GRAHAMS, or ST. WARREN, and find some MACACAS in THEIR pasts? I wonder -- how did the WaPosties respond to, say, Plessy v. Ferguson -- or did they?

They didn't -- all these battlers for truth and justice ran was a 255-word piece on a "SEPARATE COACH LAW" -- on PAGE 6. Heck, sainted GRAHAMS, even the lone dissenter Justice Harlan called the decision INFAMOUS:

In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case. It was adjudged in that case that the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country and sold as slaves were not included nor intended to be included under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and could not claim any of the rights and privileges which that instrument provided for and secured to citizens of the United States; that, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, they were

considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant [163 U.S. 560] race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them.

19 How. 393, 404. The recent amendments of the Constitution, it was supposed, had eradicated these principles from our institutions. But it seems that we have yet, in some of the States, a dominant race -- a superior class of citizens, which assumes to regulate the enjoyment of civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race. The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution, by one of which the blacks of this country were made citizens of the United States and of the States in which they respectively reside, and whose privileges and immunities, as citizens, the States are forbidden to abridge. Sixty millions of whites are in no danger from the presence here of eight millions of blacks. The destinies of the two races in this country are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens. That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana.

441 words -- 186 MORE THAN THE WAPOSTIES WROTE. (And I've cited just PART of the dissent.) This TOTAL EDITORIAL INDIFFERENCE to one of the worst Supreme Court rulings ever is far more DAMNABLE than any STUPID NAME CALLING by a STUPID SENATOR. And no, IDIOTS, I DON'T excuse it because of the ERA.

Here is an argument for FREE ACCESS to ALL PARTS OF A NEWSPAPER'S WEB SITE -- so we can GET TO THE BOTTOM OF EDITORIAL MALFEASANCE.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

The most e-mailed article at PAPEROFRE-CORD.COM:

Throw Your Tweezers Away

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

The hacks are in a tiz because THE ISRAELIS VIOLATED THE CEASE FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, but then as any news hack knows the Israelis are guilty until proven innocent -- and they're never innocent.

In our world the truth must come through the news hacks' prism, between their blinders, through a slit in their sunglasses, through a blindfold.

Posted 6:35 PM by Gene

A PREDICTION: that stupid TWXSTER Web stunt will decline Friday-to-Saturday faster than any movie in memory -- proof marketing may go only SO FAR.

And more than a few of the ad-blurbists are displaying STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

The UN still says that it hopes to have 3,500 troops on the ground within ten days and the entire 15,000-strong force by early November. But that timetable was questioned today by Lewis MacKenzie, a former Canadian general who headed the UN Protection Force in Bosnia during the early days of the siege of Sarajevo.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, General MacKenzie said that he expected it to take a year before the UN force was operational - and it would be hamstrung by a mandate, under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter rather than the more robust Chapter 7, that would allow it to use lethal force only in self-defence.

"We all understand that what comes out of the Security Council is the lowest common denominator for the best-case scenario. What will happen is the worst-case scenario and the UN will be ill-prepared to cope with it," he said.

The lowest common denominator and the worst-case scenario. That sounds like the League of Nations to us.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

I have a solution for all your problems: the British should profile -- Buddhists. And Scandinavians, and Latinos, and blondes, and redheads, and Christians, and atheists, and 80-year-olds, and two-year-olds, and -- JEWS. Yes, I believe that would solve ALL your problems, and Britain's, and ours -- and the WORLD'S.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

We wish Roger Ebert a complete recovery. To his great credit he has been honest and upfront about his illness. We ruefully recall how when the co-inventor of multimillionaire ad-blurbing and NC-17, Mr. Siskel, was dying his thousands of self-proclaimed news-hack friends helped cover it up. They did neither JERNALISM nor his rep any good. We have long had our differences with Mr. Ebert, but at his too-seldom best he has passion and eloquence and wit, and we hope for more of it in the future.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Here is news we could and should have predicted. All this blather that Prudhoe would be down for months should have made heads roll. Then again the World's Friendliest Oil Company seems to be a monster with five thousand divisions and half-a-million independent brains.

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

Once again, we in the media rush to judgment

Once again, you in the media rush to be BLITHERING SELF-SERVING IDIOTS.

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Now it's 1,877 WORDS for ANOTHER musical genius.

ANOTHER NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD for the CRUSADING USAOKAY!!!!!'s EDNA!

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

A NEW HERO FOR PINCH: That Bernie Sanders constituent who caused the ruckus on the plane is an anti-war "activist." Her lawyer says she is also mentally ill.

The two things do seem to go together.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Teen actor Haley Joel Osment, who suffered a broken rib last month when his car struck a mailbox, faces up to six months in jail on charges that he was driving drunk and possessing marijuana, authorities said.

Osment's blood-alcohol level after the July 20 crash was measured at .16 percent, twice the legal limit, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

If young Haley were in the [C]RAP trade we'd say he made a brilliant career move.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

Rev. Sharpton pulls all sorts of stupid tricks, and then he comes out against "gangsterism." Now why can't he use the common-sense side of his head a little more often? Or are Noo Yawkers impervious to it?

P. S. Apparently this was just another stupid trick.

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

"On February 7, 2005, I became a member of the Bush/Halliburton/Zionist/CIA/New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy for global domination."

Join the crowd, sigggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives are about to get riled: some mean old hyperliberal judge (a CLINTON appointee!!!!!!!!!!) ruled the tobacco companies lied when they used terms like "low-tar" and "light" -- and her ruling may apply to THE "FOOD AND ALCOHOL" INDUSTRIES. Just one problem: the government did not point a gun at their heads to make them lie.

On the other hand, tobacco stocks will go UP today (praise God, or god, or Adam Smith) because the judge didn't mandate anti-smoking programs for youth -- meaning even a hyperliberal's influence may be limited.

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

Questions and answers at a table for the world
112 thinkers prepare to meet at global town hall in Berlin

Question One: Do we need internal-combustion engines to produce greenhouse gas?

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

A Krispy Kreme shop in LALA closes, and another CNBC Bubble company slowly bites the dust.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

I have not posted on the JonBenet story because we've been filled to our gills with it a hundred times over, but the notion this "confession" may be fake does not surprise me; we've seen a bit too much of the "killer's" face these last few days, and once again the press displays the thoroughgoing credulousness that propelled it (and the public) into endless titillating cul-de-sacs.

Jack "The Lecturer" Shafer says the press did a superb job. OR:

But my reading of the mainstream coverage of the case is this: When the press behaved in an amateurish fashion, it was generally because they were relying on amateurish investigation by the police and prosecutor. As the press came to realize authorities were doofuses, over their heads and out of control, coverage became sharper and more skeptical.

TRANSLATION: NOT OUR FAULT. PFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Who is Jack Shafer and when does he become a high-paid PERFESSER of JERNALISM?

Posted 7:59 PM by Gene

Deal: Hezbollah will bear arms, but not in public

Oh.

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

City-council types really should do something with their time besides passing laws. Chicago's have come up with this doozy prohibiting big-box chains from building if they don't pay a minimum wage and benefits. Inner-city residents already suffer for their abysmal shopping choices. Indeed one could call this legislation racist if its sponsors weren't so gung-ho PC.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Bertelsmann -- er, Random House is getting into the movie biz. (Actually this was announced long before but is now proceeding in earnest.) We wonder what Bennett Cerf would think. Though Cerf was no publicity wallflower we suspect he was wise enough to know his books' photogenic nature probably didn't extend much beyond his appearances on What's My Line? In the end this is just the creation of written-down assets for its vaults and a mere exercise in vanity -- film publishing.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

As we predicted, as anyone could have predicted, the Second Coming of Christ got virtually no punishment.

Three years, however, is a long time to go without a drink.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

And how many bad movies (capitalized or no) has RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! voided?

Posted 2:31 PM by Gene

Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of audience analysis at Magna Global, says Fox may be the only network this season to post increased ratings.

1. VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2. All MadAve's saying, LET'S INCREASE OUR NETWORK TV SPENDING A THOUSAND PERCENT!!!!!

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Earth-shattering news: PEOPLE NEWSRAG's selling on FRIDAYS!!!!!

No day of the week will make a newsrag better.

"The new Friday on-sale date gives advertisers a tremendous opportunity to convey their messages to TIME's 27 million readers before the weekend, when consumers do the large majority of purchasing."

Coffee tables shop?

P. S. We can only guess what the megalomaniac Briton Hadden would think about not being a founder of that pulp pile.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Speaking further of bad guys, The Great Alaskan Boar and the Great Prairie Mouth are an argument we needn't wait for the afterlife for Hell.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

The best laid plans of mice and Kos:

New poll shows Lieberman leading Lamont

...The Quinnipiac University poll has Lieberman leading Lamont among registered voters 49 percent to 38 percent. Republican Alan Schlesinger gets support from 4 percent. Among likely voters, Lieberman was supported by 53 percent, compared to Lamont's 41 percent and Schlesinger's 4 percent....

Political pundits say the primary was evidence of voters' frustration with the war and predict it could have national political ramifications.

Pundits type too much.

This is not news; there'd been a Rasmussen poll beforehand. We can understand the hacks' reluctance.

Posted 6:59 AM by Gene

And when are the bad guys of K Street good guys?

When they finance DEMOCRATS!

Sleaze isn't sleaze when it's for the public weal.

Posted 6:59 AM by Gene

12 people wounded in drive-by shooting

Ho-hum, more disregard for human life in the ghetto.

JE$$E!!!!! Where are your PLATITUDES?

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

I am glad Mr. Mark cares about our credit-card crunch, but this is one of those stories that makes you wonder why you bother to follow the news, and that makes you suspicious of its every motive. No sooner are we on page two than we get a factoid from something called the Center for American Progress -- and Mr. Mark has NEVER heard of Google; looking it up we find this:

Democratic think tank viewed as the Left's version of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The article also quotes no Republican. And so we get two contradictory anger-provoking thoughts: is this mere spin? And where are the Republicans? In bed with bankers?

As we noted yesterday, there is no leadership for most of us; it's either one bad guy or the other.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Eight-year-old kids with mobile phones might sound like a crazy idea, but according to a report carried out last year, that is the average age of a child owning their first mobile phone. The age is expected to drop to five years old this year....

I could say something about cell phones and infants, but it's self-evident.

(Via the usual Slashdot)

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

I have not commented on L'Affaire Macaca because it's been done to death by Mr. Webb's campaign diary and con-SER-va-tives, but it is a total irrelevance: we expect Republicans to be appeasing spending wimps, and Democrats to appeasing race-baiting loudmouths.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

"We wanted folks from Connecticut up there with Ned, but plans sometimes don't happen," Mr. Swan said. "Folks decided to go up to the party and get up on stage."

Sure Ned, suuuuure.

(Via The Plank)

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

LEGENDARY WELCH LIVES!!!!!

Northwest Airlines Corp. is apologizing to workers offended by company suggestions on how to save money, including buying jewelry at pawnshops, getting auto parts at junkyards and taking shorter showers....

Suggestions on the money-saving idea list included giving homemade cards and gifts, asking doctors for prescription-drug samples, borrowing a dress for ``a big night out'' and giving children hand-me-down toys and clothes. ``Don't be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash,'' the list said.

Did MR. MEAN BUSINESS write this?

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

It's not healthy in our republic for such a large slice of the populace to be unrepresented by any politician. But that is the case today.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!

Soon enough it will change.

With the Corruption Party and the Defeatism Party in power -- HOW?

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

Grass’s Publisher Releases His Memoir Early

Joining the Waffen SS PAYS!

P. S.

Grass Nobel Prize Will Not Be Revoked

Hmmm...could that be because of -- NAH.

P. P. S. Typetypetypetypetyping from THE TWXSTERS:

If Grass had not been living with this wretched little skeleton in his closet, he might never have written a word. Like 99% of his compatriots, he might have just dusted himself off at war's end, said his 20 Hail Marys, and gone about joining the blithely ahistorical postwar boom. Instead, a haunted Grass cranked out a series of brutal novels about the war and childhood in occupied Poland, beginning with his powerful 1959 novel The Tin Drum. Those unforgettable narratives, along with a good measure of his public hectoring and politicking, helped his entire country stave off collective amnesia for decades. So while his opponents, and even a share of his friends, are piling on him about the lies he told about his past, it's worth considering that those personal lies helped keep alive important national truths.

If we're going to take that attitude we may as well say Mein Kampf was a lie that told the truth. Hasn't this clod heard of "Fake but Accurate"?

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Fighter jets escorted a London-to-Washington, D.C., flight to Boston's Logan airport Wednesday after the pilot declared an emergency because an apparently claustrophobic passenger caused a disturbance, a federal official said.

At least this time the Feds didn't open fire.

P. S. A woman from the state of BERNIE SANDERS?!?!?

Posted 3:54 PM by Gene

How reassuring:

• Lebanon skirts issue of disarming Hezbollah
• U.N. troops' mandate may still be unclear

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

A former star of the Maryland basketball factory (the same one that gave us the legendary EXREE HIPP) is arrested for using a gun near the White House, presumably because he was mad at being kicked off an NBA team, or perhaps because he was auditioning for a [C]RAP video.

Lonny! Meet Maurice!

Posted 9:55 AM by Gene

Another indicator of this PLATINUM AGE OF SHOW-BIZ:

• 'Harry met Sally' actor dead

Who?

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

When do the big-box stores finally morph into GM?

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

The Hollywood Stenographer begs for the two future CHAPTER XI candidates of satradio to merge.

We're all for it. Misery can love company or companies.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

"I don't think there is an expectation that this (U.N.) force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah," Rice said. "I think it's a little bit of a misreading about how you disarm a militia. You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of the militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily."

Yep, I don't think anyone's shouting CONDI FOR PRESIDENT!!!!! anymore.

(Via -- oh well -- THE CORNER)

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Ron Suskind’s new book, The One Percent Doctrine, explores Dick Cheney’s view that if there’s a one-percent chance terrorists might detonate a nuclear bomb in an American city, the government must act as if there’s a 100-percent chance. Despite the guffawing this elicited from administration critics, it strikes me as eminently sensible. (If there were a 1 percent chance the snake in your back yard would kill your child, wouldn’t 1 percent equal 100 percent for you, too?) The ACLU’s self-indulgent position, meanwhile, seems to be that if there’s a 1 percent chance a cop will be a racist, we must act as if it’s a 100 percent chance. And that means humans can’t ever be trusted.

This same man started THE CORNER. Go figure.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

College kids have come to "despise" "cinder block walls, twin beds and low wattage lighting." SO....

One particular group, the Association of College and University Housing Officers International, is making a push to change that with an initiative called the 21st Century Project.

Earlier this year it polled everyone from students to architects to administrators in order to rethink the current college housing experience.

While the summit arrived at no specific answers, some attendees floated a number of ideas such as allowing students to alter their room color by turning a knob or having dorm furniture that could be stowed into the wall or floor when not in use.

"Some of this technology is out there, it just has never been put into this kind of application," explains Michael Coakley, the director of the 21st Century Project.

I smell -- MONEY!

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

Years ago there was a "lounge act" called Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, that played and sang standards in its own -- unique way. Now we must roll our eyes as Branson East goes bananas with what sounds to us hinterlands folk like an updated version of the Edwardses, only it's -- EDGY. (Ben being in his -- MODE he gives us a 1,284-word in-joke.) This reminds us that every time we read a press release about THE MAN we should know there was a marginal talent named Eva Tanguay who got herself in the top rung of vaudeville (and in the papers) by singing risqué tunes and simulating an orgasm doing Salomé's Dance. The more things change....

(Photo and first and fourth links updated 7/4/2008)

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

So -- in the brave new world of tabloids, Trib gets to be the new GanNETt.

This begs the question: Why should an outfit have five thousand foreign correspondents when they're all going to write the same thing?

Posted 8:45 PM by Gene

The exasperating Jo-NAH HAD to link to THIS blog, which asks the question:

25. How Many Licks Does It Take to Get to the Center of a Tootsie Pop?

Jo-NAH and this post are two excellent arguments for throwing your computer out the window.

Posted 8:05 PM by Gene

The high cost of being a b-ball coach:

In the first such act of its ethics committee, the National Association of Basketball Coaches reprimanded new Indiana University coach Kelvin Sampson today for NCAA violations committed while he was coach at Oklahoma.

For three years, Sampson will not receive Final Four ticket privileges or consideration for district or national coach-of-the-year honors. He also cannot serve on NABC committees.

He must feel so deprived.

Meantime:

A reserve basketball player at Kansas State was dismissed from the team Monday because his name appears in a registered sex offender database.

Huh?

Posted 7:57 PM by Gene

Textbook prices are soaring into the hundreds of dollars, but in some courses this fall, students won’t pay a dime. The catch: Their textbooks will have ads for companies including FedEx Kinko’s and Pura Vida coffee. [FIRST GRAF]

The model faces big obstacles. Freeload doesn’t yet have a stable of well-known textbook authors across a range of subjects, and it lacks the editorial and marketing muscle of the “Big 3” textbook publishers (Thomson, Pearson, and McGraw-Hill). Its textbooks don’t come with bells and whistles such as online study guides that bigger publishers have spent millions developing in order to lure professors — who assign textbooks and are the industry’s real customers. [FOURTH GRAF]

Don't you get the feeling sometimes when reading the news you've been had?

Posted 7:54 PM by Gene

Firefox 2.0 Delayed Until October

There are approximately 40 bugs in the under-construction Firefox 2.0 Beta 2, and about 100 that need to be addressed before the final version goes out the door, Mozilla says.

So much for the underdog.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

A surprise: Tower Records is finally going bust. It sold too many records for too much.

(Via BookStandard.com)

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

Romy gets active during the last part of his day:

1. When I say "luxury news suites", alas, I'm not kidding.

2. Nick Dorken folds a blog, and he expects us to care. And we do -- because 50,000 NEWS HACKS DO.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Israeli forces kill Hezbollah leader

1. Maybe the Israelis weren't losing. 2. Let's hear the news hacks SCREAM.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Does anyone here remember the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award? We've got one to replace it: the Upraising Middle Finger of the Web Award. To go through the whole list of the twenty "Most Expensive Rental Markets In America 2006" you have to click on a pop-up window twenty times. I wonder why -- does it have to do with BONO?

AN UPRAISING MIDDLE FINGER OF THE WEB AWARD TO LITTLE MALCOLM!

Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

A small favor: it appears the hacks aren't running the "Holocaust" cartoons either.

Just one thing: they're not making that decision hiding under a desk.

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER's being "upgraded."

Whoopee -- about three years too late.

(Via Slashdot)

Posted 12:27 PM by Gene

Is Dell just unlucky?

No; Dell was just very lucky for a very long time.

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

Another poll says people don't know who's chief justice, and the reporter cites THE INFERNAL QUOTE MACHINE PERFESSER THOMPSON, and we wonder why people are ignorant.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

MORT ZUCK, who has a way of drooling over dreadful personal tragedies, compounds the offense today on His Web site by being cute.

MORT! SELL DA NOOZ!

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

FCC Investigates Video News Releases
42 TV Stations Accused of Disguising Spin as News

If the FCC had to investigate spin as news it would be a cabinet-level agency.

DUBYA!!!!!

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

We said yesterday news hacks shouldn't criticize their own because it raises suspicions. Today the WaPost still insists it can be fair and unbiased with its PROFIT CENTER on MNSNF (that's Monday Night Sunday Night Football) by unleashing a critique. Cut the comedy, guys; we know he makes huge money, and we know with any justice he'll be out of there in two seasons. He's just this year's Boomer, or DENNIS MILLER.

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

LALA, irrelevant as usual: Today it wastes our time with The Mogul's Friend suggesting newspaper ad-blurbists spend more time blogging and podcasting (brilliant idea, Mog'! That'll get the teens reading them!), and some flack devoting 1,592 WORDS to yet another musical masterpiece. Who needs irrelevance when we have the LALATIMES?

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

HSN to offer point and shop by TV remote

TRANSLATION: Barry Diller, who used to walk on water, finds another way to beat Amazon.com and eBay.

Posted 3:35 PM by Gene

Tucker Carlson of MSNBC and talk-show host Jerry Springer will be among the celebrities competing on the third season of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! IT'S A SWINE FLU EPIDEMIC!!!!!

Posted 3:26 PM by Gene

Only the Poles would have the guts to suggest that one of the greatest figures in all literary history (and, oh, a member of the Waffen SS) give up his honorary citizenship. We doubt this will stick; an honorary citizen can issue an honorary refusal.

His confession has sparked an outcry from historians, writers and politicians, with some critics blaming him more for waiting to confess than for joining the SS.

There goes Kos again!

Posted 2:24 PM by Gene

Loonylibs turn Sen. Morals into Saddam!

Even TNR's -- embarrassed.

Posted 2:07 PM by Gene

Hezbollah Leader Declares 'Historic Victory' Over Israel (FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News hed)

All Europe, most of the Middle East, Turtle Bay, Foggy Bottom, and news suites everywhere smile.

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

With what we predicted would be increasingly cookie-cutter programming, the satradio boys give us hope BOTH can go CHAPTER XI.

(Via ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Good news for the economy?

Restaurant Business in Worst Slump Since '91

Good news for cities that base their economic growth on RENDELIS -- like RENDELLPHIA!

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

And speaking of blogging, guess who's! MIKE WALLACE'S FAVORITE IRANIAN LEADER!

BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM! You have competition!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

Remember that PepsiCo executive who uttered a stupid PC remark and got FLAMED by the BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM?

Well guess what? SHE'S JUST BEEN PROMOTED TO CEO!!!!!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

THE POWER OF BLOGGING DOES IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

Why is it, o rare Monitor, the centrists in trouble are all sainted Republicans?

One answer: there are none left in the other party.

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

BusinessWeek (DilbertSpell), which once estimated THE DONALD's wealth at $80 BILLION (or whatever number they used), now says several of RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s competitors in the social networking fad may be worth a billion or more, which with luck means this annoying bubble is about to burst.

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

Okay, how do we, one of the universe's greatest newspapers, report on one of our own? The answer is we shouldn't and in any case we don't, especially when he's a PROFIT CENTER and a zillionaire. Regardless of what the ombudspoops say there is no way news organizations can report on themselves -- it's an automatic conflict of interest. But then we shouldn't expect the straight scoop from an industry that is always tilted to one side anyway.

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

So these three guys with M----m names bought all these prepaid cell phones just to resell them?

If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

Posted 1:01 PM by Gene

Robert "Over the" Hilburn Lives: LALA uses 3,327 WORDS to burnish up another no-talent for his epochal triumph. This same blithering industry had trouble the other day figuring out when Mike Douglas made his first hits. If you clowns are going to act as press agents please get yourselves NEW JOBS.

A NEUHARTISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO GEOFF!

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

Unfortunately the trend is still up, but yet another "top" movie has opened with a lower Saturday. I don't care what the PAUL DRECKS say; this is evidence of public unhappiness with Hollywood's product. Also the obsessively wired may be spreading the word faster.

Posted 12:53 PM by Gene

One might ask if 9/11 is morphing into our own version of Princess Di's death, complete with televised ribbons and teddy bears. Somehow we overcame Pearl Harbor. But there's a difference: back in '41 they didn't have MEDIA.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

One thing might end our roaring divisive partisanship: a convincing victory in the 2008 election.

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

We are sorry to see John Leo is hanging up his keyboard for good -- one less reason to read newspapers and magazines, or to surf the Web.

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

It is not enough for effete snobs to rule the world. Now they must elect their own into office.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Israel Seeks Hint of Victory

Translation: Ehud wants to keep his job.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

If Arabs can't do anything about all these MOSSAD PLOTS it's a reflection of the extraordinary impotence of the Arab world. But we should never underestimate a politically correct people when they're angry. Then again Arabs seem to be angry all the time, which may be why they're impotent.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

And speaking of EHDYUKAYSHUN, we are heartened to see Jeb and Honorary Mayor Mike (with the help of five ghost writers, no doubt) endorse the Every Kid a Dilbert Act. Now if only our lunkheaded superiors would endorse a decent education.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Dammit, Mr. Mark! If only we hadn't had a terrorist plot thwarted, we could have plastered our WHOLE COVER with 25 HOT!!!!! SCHOOLS!!!!!!!!!! Now THAT'S News You Can Use®!!!!! And SYNERGY too!

Does anyone still believe newsweeklies are about news?

And Mr. Mark's "international" edition goes one better with THE TOP 100 GLOBAL SCHOOLS!!!!!!!!!!

Take THAT, Useless News!