Posted 9:10 PM by Gene

Noam Chomsky is DANCIN', DANCIN': his hero Fidel's up and at 'em and ready to be mankind's savior for another seventy-five years!

I wonder -- did the CIA ever try exploding birthday candles?

Posted 9:08 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS come up with a BRILLIANT idea: sell AOL to MR. WARNER BROS.!

That may not be as brilliant an idea as selling AOL to the TWXSTERS, but it's getting there.

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

One thing or another has ruined every big holiday. That Maryland's authorities must urge sex offenders to keep their porch lights off on Halloween says that, whatever the whizbang wonders of our age, we've lost something tangible -- like decency and trust.

(Via USAOKAY.com)

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

I wish I knew what could willingly get me to stand in line for hours. Today some scruffians stood outside that rickety old TLA theater on South Street awaiting standing-room seats (shades of -- Great White?) for The Dresden Dolls, a "critically-acclaimed" second-string pseudo-Cabaret punk act, and my first thought was, who was the last pop star to sell more than 10 million units of an album? I'm guessing Alanis Morissette -- and her career went down in whirring-vibrato-like flames with DE-Lovely. Who speaks of her anymore? And the name got me to thinking of Pussycat Dolls and their alleged "burlesque" turns (from this dispatch they sound like mere no-talents who dress too skimpily); will they be around in ten years? And then I thought, what would get ME to stand in happy anticipation for hours? Al Jolson at the Winter Garden? The Four Marx Brothers at the Walnut Street for I'll Say She Is? Mickey and Judy at the Capitol? The opening of South Pacific? Duke and the band at Newport? And then I think, America has almost three times the population of show-biz' golden age. Where's all the talent now? Who in his right mind would line up for -- The Dresden Dolls?

Although it goes without saying most of today's "music" fans don't have a mind.

Posted 3:51 PM by Gene

Coaching -- and a defense:

“My concern is that some Democrats will [SIC] learn the wrong lessons from our victory,” Senator Joe Biden of Delaware said.

Noting the number of conservative Democratic challengers this fall, he said that voters are seeking “a bipartisan consensus” about how to leave more than chaos and instability in Iraq. “A pullout is not a plan,” Mr. Biden said, “it is a reaction.” What sealed the Democrats’ image after Vietnam, historians say, was not just Mr. McGovern’s campaign but also their reaction as public opinion turned on the war. After 1968, Democrats in Congress began pressing to curtail the war or cut off its financing. And their efforts reached a peak after the post-Watergate midterm election of 1974, when many Democrats interpreted their landslide gains as a mandate to cut back on national defense.

TRANSLATION: There has to be a plan -- to make us look pro-American.

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

There will be a problem with stories like this: just as the news hacks are conditioned to go KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!, now we have become conditioned to look for the traits that mark sneaky reporting: the use of "some", the careful hiding of important information, and with stories like this, the singing of the PATRIOTIC RAG in the FIRST GRAFS. These IDIOTS are not paying the slightest attention to their circulations, their ratings, their reputations -- and that appears to be fine with them.

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Another friend of the hacks gets to leak things THEY want to hear, and bask in the warm glow of their adjectives.

How many idiots in Washington are motivated by reading their names in the papers? And how many truly selfless beings inhabit the Beltway? Perhaps DR. Zelikow is one of the latter. Then again, maybe he's just another GENERAL.

And why is it increasingly when we peruse the hacks we feel we're being had -- even if we aren't?

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

One of Stale.com's partisans says PILLHEAD has a "psychosis."

We're increasingly of a mind that if we could zap every last tantrum-throwing partisan of either persuasion to another universe we'd all be better off. PILLHEAD breaks wind with his mouth. So liberals must respond by breaking wind with theirs. Every outrageous comment by one side must be answered by an equally outrageous remark by the other side. Both sides would believe the politics of their enemies constitutes a mental illness; both sides, if given the chance, would build them concentration camps. It is not enough these frauds must fill us with bile to our gills; they must turn the world into a sea of bile, from which we can never see high land.

P. S. Clever that ST. WARREN'S BOYS don't use the word. At what point does one synergistic division's dishonesty cease to be another's? You can't be synergistic and disclaim its "advantages."

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

Meantime Condi says Hezbollah must disarm!

If I didn't know better I'd say this is a change in policy. But that's okay; Foggy Bottom changes its policy every week.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

Lenny's stooge says he has a solution for the war!

What is it?

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

I realize we're supposed to chuckle knowingly over someone having the Sesame Street crowd staging Mr. Taxi Driver's masterpieces, but the gag's been done before, and besides, it's more arteriosclerosis of the Web, more instantly dead instant culture, more needless material accreting, more confusion and exasperation. The Tower of Babel is nothing compared to this infinite monument of nothing we're putting up.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Another Democrat helps Sen. Morals!

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

This Time, Ballot Issues Could Rally Liberal Base

Lenny says, "THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE THE MOONIES' TOILET PAPER! THE HELL WITH CONSERVATIVES!"

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Well, at least there were no nail-biters -- and no rioting.

An extra-added bonus: the owners get to shake down taxpayers for more "development"!

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Bill O'Reilly to Oprah: I Hate The Media

You ARE the media.

BONEHEAD.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: "OI wish OI'D HAED DAT SHEEO ounn FX!"

How 'bout them M-----S!

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

We'll find out on election day whether all that money wins races. Why am I doubtful?

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

A TV writer and former magazine editor I know, for instance, once told me he cancelled his L.A. Times subscription to get USA Today instead, which really seems pretty crazy. He added that he just wants the following three questions answered when he reads his morning paper: 1) How are the Dodgers doing? 2) Rain today? 3) What’s on TV?

“Those are the only three answers I want from American journalism,” he noted. “USA Today is perfect.”

1. You don't need a newspaper for those. 2. If this is all people read newspapers for they're doomed.

(Via Romy, strange)

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Picket signs are being printed here in Philthydelphia!

Two likeliest outcomes: 1. Our papers get DUMMER; 2. The bigshots like the ones who work most of the time in BRISTOL won't be touched, as they're PROFIT CENTERS.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

OMG, did RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pay too much for MySpace after all?

(As a rule we'd rather not link to Wall Street Journals stories, even "free" ones, and we will actively try not to link to Wall Street Journals stories until Philips Phree Phridays happen SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.)

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

LARRY AND SERGEY ARE IN THE AUTOMOTIVE BIZ!

If it's anything like those jokes about Bugmeister Bill making cars this should be something.

But then do people who aren't superrich really want cars from micromanufacturers? What if one breaks? Do you take it to a factory a thousand miles away? And we're told how sexy these cars are. So why does the DeLorean look so boxy and cheap nowadays?

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

There's only one way for the newspaper biz to save itself, it won't happen, and it wouldn't work: It must issue a series of high-visibility ads admitting in the humblest terms to the biz' bias, mistakes, bad writing and superiority complex, and offering to immediately cut newsstand and home delivery prices. It won't happen because the biz makes those 25% margins, but more to the point, it won't happen because the hacks could turn this into a labor negotiating ploy, and besides, no one tells the greatest men on the planet what to do. Even if they miraculously agreed the Web has proved you don't have to get nothing for something.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

And in one of the GREAT INJUSTICES of ALL TIME, Twyla Tharp has DESTROYED the AHT of WILLIAM ZIMMERMAN SHAKESPEARE.

Here's what gets us about His personality cult: it's based on a notion that informs so many of the scribblers, that somehow rock is superior to all that came before it, therefore excusing you for your philistinism. Thus did a Man who issued some silly rhymes about flowers and times a-changin' become THE VOICE OF HISTORY. Attack the Man and you attack news hacks and all they stand for. No wonder "Greatest Musical" Ben takes it so -- personally.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

TRUTH-TELLING DAVID LETTERMAN AUDITIONS FOR MSNBC!

1. We don't know what it is about these zillionaire blowhards that compels them to start PR feuds. 2. "Bonehead" may describe many people in your biz, O Noble Truth Teller. 3. Why did the Truth-Telling Bonehead invite him -- and why did the NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE accept? Or do I smell PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 7:05 AM by Gene

And just how bad is it in the news biz? We suspect when it comes to this overpublicized historical artifact the movie ad-blurbists are engaging in the most evil sin of all: SELF-CENSORSHIP. They're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. If they rave this masterwork they sound as though they're vicariously living their daydreams; if they don't they're being insincere. Such conundrums force one to hope the news biz gets the worst, knowing all along those who deserve to lose their jobs will get raises, and vice versa.

Hey frauds! If your daydream came true we'd have PRESIDENT BIG OIL! How would you like THAT practical joke? Or do you have ANOTHER daydream besides?

Elsewhere Claudia Pig -- PUIG shakes her head vigorously, and gives us another reason newspapers should NOT run movie reviews.

P. S. When a tantrum thrower like HARVEY WHINER uses the word "un-American", remember how many people he's blackballed. What in God's name do our superiors have against us? (Via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Indian cities are changing their names for PC.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

"WE ARE LEFT TO CONCLUDE THAT THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE OF A THREAT TO AMERICAN SECURITY!!!!!" Curley told mediabistro.com in an email. "IT IS AN OVERT EFFORT TO STIFLE A FREE PRESS!!!!!!!!!!" [Overemphasis added.]

I don't think CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) should have made his COURAGEOUS DEFENSE of his TRUTHTELLER after CNN'S FAVOR. Nor do we think his executive editor should have boasted that he "committed" journalism. THAT'S the problem.

We wonder, CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) -- have you met the president about this? You're a powerful man. You have that option. Or are you merely POSTURING?

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

TOM FRESTON FOR PRESIDENT!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's?"

"The uncovered meat is the problem!! If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred!!!!!" [Overemphasis added.]

Ah, the scrumptious morals of I---m.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

Timmy thinks he's being cute by saying PILLHEAD is stupid and isn't stupid.

That's the thing about Stale.com: it's always playing mind games with its readers. Let's be blunt: PILLHEAD IS stupid, and his mouth and luck are geniuses.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

All this means is that these "independent" labels will have to sell more of their noise on the Web. If they can't it merely means the public can only support so many full-line no-talents.

(Via Yahoo! News)

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Good news for con-SER-va-tives:

Exxon Mobil [sic] Corp. says its profit rose to $10.49 billion in the third quarter, making it the second largest quarterly profit ever for a publicly traded U.S. company.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

It seems odd the WaPost should worship an "atheist evangelist" when we're 18-percent owned by GOD. It's even weirder when you consider news hacks are Gods. I guess it depends on what hero you're worshipping.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

The only difference between NFL players in the pile and Neanderthals is that the Neanderthals didn't get paid.

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

Repeat after me: TOO MUCH PUBLICITY...

"Our research showed it was soft in awareness," said Bruce Snyder, Fox's distribution chief.

So where did those tons of mind-numbing publicity go? Did they vanish into the air? We're they carted off to landfills? Or did people STOP UP THEIR EARS?

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

Jane Pauley is suing The Paper of Re-CORD for putting her in an ad supplement and lying about it.

Jane Pauley, top-secret programs, what's the diff? The Paper of Re-CORD knows better.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

The BIG C, remembering the days it ran more infomercials than any other channel (or seemed to), floats a hothothot rumor that CHEAP CHANNEL may go PRIVATE!

As the author of this story notes, there's only one problem: it's still in the RADIO biz (or as we say, the annoy-them-with-loud-car-dealer-ads biz).

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

Little Malcolm's lists are a double-nuisance because not only does he get to make up numbers regarding his subjects, he flogs them as ways to get advertising into his magazine. He's upped the nuisance quotient by forcing his Web surfers to click through endless photo galleries. If Forbes spent a third as much time on good solid reporting as it does on promoting itself, it would be the world's best magazine.

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

The Post hypes its circulation

And DA NOOZ spins that DA POST!!!!!!!!! hypes its circulation. "1,582,053 copies"!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!! That's a LOT!!!!! Until you consider it's "6,303 extra copies for each weekday - nearly 1% of its total circulation" (it sez here) -- which, when you come down to it, isn't that much, unless you're Bugmeister Bill counting your pocket change.

Speaking of plagues, both RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and Mort Zuck lose big money pouring their fortunes down Big Apple ratholes that seem to be getting bigger and rattier. As with the networks, it isn't who comes first -- it's who avoids being LAST.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Conservatives defend PILLHEAD, the WaPost CAMPAIGNS...

A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

We hope those of you looking vainly on my blog for info on Formosan termites might find other things worthy of your perusal.

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

Oh, NO! LEGENDARY WELCH is part of a group that wants to bid on the Globe!

Everyone jump out the windows!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Dick Clark is giving a ton of his memorabilia hoard away for a (largely) charity auction, and given how pop-culturalists are at the top of the GET-A-LIFE! crowd this could be the screwiest thing since people paid half-a-million or whatever for Andy Warhol's cookie jars. Well, it is for (largely) charity.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

The CLOWNS who run America's rags are justifiably fretful: they do the same shtick as their newspaper brethren -- putting out a bad product, thinking they can correct it with buzzwords -- and wonder why their readers are screaming out of their rooms. There's hardly a decent magazine these days because everyone's in the business of schmoozing advertisers and condescendingly flattering the readers. And there's no way out of it because every periodical makes a practice of being indifferently written at best.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

A meltdown threatens in Boston!

Did some people have dreams of world domination?

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

I've been getting weird referrals lately. First people hit on my blog with searches for "carter of sitcomdom", and now it's Formosan termites. Well, I'll take my hits however I can, but I do wish there were rhyme and reason to them.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

PILLHEAD said somethin' stupid, and now the hacks and their stooge "bloggers" are laughingly all over him -- not because he said something stupid, but because he's CONSERVATIVE -- therefore we can play the hypocrite safely.

This is why I loathe politics: we attack someone not because he's an ass, but because he's a CONSERVATIVE ass, or a LIBERAL ass. An ass is an ass, and PILLHEAD's one of the biggest -- and he HAPPENS to be a conservative one.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Putin says he won't run for 3rd term

Will he have to?

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

Does anyone really have to remind us Gray-DOHN and Kurt are schmucks?

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Senate Republicans with enormous campaign war chests are refusing to transfer significant amounts of money to help fellow Republicans who are cash-strapped and face defeat in the final weeks of the campaign.

How aptly CAPITALISTIC.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Associated Press photographer abducted in Gaza on Tuesday by Palestinian gunmen has been freed, Palestinian security and political sources told CNN Tuesday night. ["Breaking news" squib]

That didn't take long; someone must have told the kidnappers about Bilal.

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Not only is CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED becoming the kiss of death, we're approaching to the point where too much publicity may not be good publicity. We saw it with the TWXSTERS' SNAKES stunt, and now we're possibly seeing it with RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s "comedy", whose star increasingly sounds like a petulant control phreak. If morons like the man who saved the StinkyInky want to know why their publications stand to go the way of the dodo, they should check on the show-biz typists with the suction-cup lips.

But why must these articles run in ALTERNARAGS?

(Via the inevitable Romy, who seems to get half his stuff from alternarags)

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

TNR plugs a comic roman à clef by a former aide to King Denny -- and it's still only 708,452 in Amazon.com?

The reason is obvious: Who needs a fictional farce when you have King Denny?

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

Can a city do without its daily newspapers? We in Philthydelphia may be about to find out. While the situation at StinkyInky Publishing Co. isn't yet approaching meltdown it can't be long before someone readies the picket signs. And alas, we know the answer to the question; the Web has all but rendered newspapering obsolete. We do not want to see newspapers die, and find it hard to believe they ever really will. But the news barons and their scribblers have brought this general mess on themselves by refusing to meet their customers even a quarter of the way and insisting not only that the peons take their castor oil, but that only their castor oil is good for you. The retarded readers, however, may be tired of constant gagging.

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

Be quick to recognize not only that there is a problem but also the magnitude of the problem; be quick to address it, not only with the outside world but also with your own colleagues; and be open-minded about what your critics are saying.

So why weren't you and Danno Blather?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

ROME (AP) -- Pete Doherty broke a microphone stand and brandished it before fans during a Babyshambles concert at the Piper club.

He isn't even a [C]RAPPER and he's made a BRILLIANT career move!

Doherty, 27, has had a string of arrests in London for drug possession and is undergoing a court-ordered rehabilitation program. He is the on-off boyfriend of Kate Moss.

Definitely.

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

Oops: A precinct sergeant in a central station of the media-police-state force says the cops are beating their reader retards a bit too hard with their Democratic-victory batons!

Are all the captains getting nervous?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

ILLINOIS GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
looks a little bit like actor Sean Astin. Never noticed before.

You've been raving too many movies, Ms. Travers!

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Report: Dye Turns Yellow River Red

Somewhere, Mao is smiling.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Higher sales, lower costs lift DuPont's profit

Not good enough! Still have $110 billion in market cap to reach G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE.

I want all those investors who don't blog with BLOGGER to justify this.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Is it me or have the hacks really been giving it the old college try these last few weeks -- as in trying our patience? Their media-police-state campaigning for Democrats has reached a blood-curdling banshee-screaming pitch, most of the blood curdling and banshee screaming originating from the readers. Today USAOKAY!!!!! tries a new tack by convincing those blithering morons (as they surely call them in Arlington) that Generation Y (I HATE TERMS LIKE THAT!) is erupting in a MASSIVE WAVE OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC REASON!!!!! Of course winning a Pulitzer prize in advance for its courageous disclosure of our EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL secret telephone surveillance it doesn't quite say that; it merely says the young want to "get involved." Otherwise the long-suffering peons might give the customer-service types a headache. Thank God for hermetically sealed luxury news suites! No one can ever penetrate THEM.

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

And in more news from the Southern California Insane Asylum, last year's slump in the biz happened because -- it happened. People decided they wanted to see fewer movies and buy fewer DVDs because a bird sang in their ears.

Amazing how slumps can happen, isn't it?

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

See there are all these immortal masterpieces of fillum -- more proof that movies ARE better than ever -- and nobody's going to watch them because the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Harvey Whiner got THE CONSPIRACY to schedule them all together to create an Os-CAR® "bloodbath" and make the movie ad-blurbists mad!

Mogul's Friend, better look in the mirror the next time you smoke crack.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

What? Try to beat Lenny? NEVER!

Posted 7:49 PM by Gene

Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

It would appear the Japanese were born yesterday, mais oui?

Posted 7:46 PM by Gene

I smile: Romy's worried that StinkyInky Publishing Co. may be in trouble. What would one expect when an amateur invests in a declining business whose first obligation is to stiff its customers?

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Possibly record-low ratings and a controversy over a pitcher.

I think this PLATINUM AGE of SELIGISM deserves them, don't you?

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Obviously not ONE investor in G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE BLOGS with BLOGGER.

As for me, I've voted with my mouse clicks: I've uninstalled Blogger for Word (which never worked that well anyway) and intend to sign up with a blog hosting outfit by the end of the week. I only regret I didn't do this several years ago. I'd rather pay $7 or $8 a month and know I can connect than get what I pay for with BLOGGER.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Deep thinking at NRO:

PRIORITIES [Andy McCarthy]

Regarding Lynne Stewart's 28-month sentence last week for materially supporting terrorism, I wrote that "Valuing [terror] promotion at 28 months in prison — which is about ten percent of what corporate executives get nowadays for financial fraud — is unserious."

Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was apparently just sentenced to 24 years and four months in prison.

OK, so I was off by a few months ...

Posted at 5:08 PM

I know con-SER-va-tives enough that their answer would be to give a Jeffrey Skilling 28 months too. I think we can call that DOUBLE unserious.

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

So! That official is "sorry" for his "stupidity" comment.

Why did the whole neighborhood around Foggy Bottom rumble with the deafening sound of agreement?

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Speaking of FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, the Beeb is biased.

As I say a thousand times -- who knew?

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

The two-inch-high wimp who calls himself the Paper of Re-CORD's PUBLIC EDI-TOR scampered under his desk and admitted in a mouse squeak that maybe his paper was wrong about that secret banking surveillance program, but if he thought he could hide, the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS wouldn't let him.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

If it's BAD it's in AD...AGE: It's time for our annual award for running an unreadable, smarmy, popular rag bursting with tons of ADS, and this year it goes to Anna Wintour, for being like Horace Greeley. Which raises the question: when does somebody get it into her huge skull that SHE should run for president?

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

And now Yahoo! thinks it's performing a public service by subjecting us to Andy Rooney. Hey Mr. Warner Bros.! If you turn the Web into TV maybe people will start turning YOU off too.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Who'd have guessed? Charlie Rose kisses rear ends.

He is the Larry King of PBS. Where did he get his brilliant reputation?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 10:02 PM by Gene

Two-faced RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! remembers Hungary's courageous patriots of '56 -- and lets IKE and his fellow Chamberlains of the day have it:

For the West, the Uprising was a brutal lesson in hypocrisy. Nato leaders had trumpeted their commitment to fighting Soviet domination and broadcasts had urged on brave democrats beyond the Iron Curtain. But when the final, tearful plea for help came from Budapest in television appeals that were quickly cut short, the West did nothing. Preoccupied with British and French adventurism in Suez, Nato had to admit to a pragmatism that may have avoided a greater conflagration but which underlined the realities of power.

I wonder, RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -- which side would YOU have taken?

Posted 12:29 PM by Gene

LALA runs a PRESS RELEASE for the ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY. LALA runs ANOTHER PRESS RELEASE celebrating LUKE AND LAURA'S 25TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. Meantime, something important might be happening in Los Angeles, something the locals might want to know about, but that won't get reported in their universe-leading paper because it's so busy running JUNK.

And this is why the recent NEAR-REVOLT was so noxious: because the rebel asses see nothing wrong with running JUNK so long as they can run the CW propaganda that aligns them with the FORCES of RIGHT.

There can't be too many layoffs at the LALA TIMES.

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

Nuclear "carrot and stick" approach doomed: Iran

The Iranians know something the CHAMBERLAINS don't.

When do the CHAMBERLAINS learn?

We note too the talk about North Korea has abated. Does it mean that problem's over too?

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

Another teenage crime, and no doubt the only reason the perpetrators can think up is "duuuuuuuuuh, Idunno."

At least these teens have shown remorse, but it is only a short time before another outrage and more drones of "duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, Idunno."

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

A Seattle ad-blurbist goes to reverent pieces beholding -- GOD.

Alas, GOD's CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED film has not been heavenly at the B. O. We must say it again: the term "CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED" has become a kiss of death. The reader sees a prancing buffoon like Effete Edelstein rummaging a dictionary for the most preposterous adjectives, calling up every last fragment of his film-theory training, and looking for any excuse to ingratiate himself with the people who have made his job possible, stifling the notion that he sifts through mountains of dross in the process out of sheer self-preservation. In short, the ad-blurbist is an ill-educated snob and phony who forever excuses dreck, and the sad fate of EINSTEIN and other such CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED masterpieces says the public may not be as credulous as it used to be.

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Thanks to DA POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we learned of a site "that has arguably supplanted Rolling Stone and Blender as the go-to place to learn about new music" -- and it's so "cool" it stiffed the BUGMEISTER. (That would seem an uncool idea if it wants to reap BILLIONS.) Having studiously scanned the site we can say it would take weeks to know all the obscure names there, and we doubt we could ever link them to all the bubbling-over musical masterworks they've no doubt produced. Here is the enigma of the Web: you can be famous and yet, for all practical purposes, obscure at the same time. And anyone who's famous to only an in-crowd may not be famous.

Then again RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or SUMNER will probably buy out the site soon for $20 BILLION, and reinforce their fame for stupidity.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

One thing about news hacks is they're like rubber bands: they can twist themselves into all sorts of tangles and still think they can spring back to normal even when hopelessly tangled. Tom's insistence that "Mr. and Mrs. Median" are doing okay is a sop from a rag that cares only about Mr. and Mrs. (or rather, Mistress) Moneybags, and it's clear the author has to struggle a little to believe what he's writing, and we're not sure why Little Malcolm ran it, unless he's running for president again.

And he would seem to undercut his reluctant argument by noting more mothers are working, and $46,326 a year does not seem like a lot of money to us, even with all that wonderful technology.

Here's another reason we can't stand news hacks: they live on Mt. Olympus.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Which reminds us the latest Barron's says the Republicans will win the mid-terms thanks to a "predictor" related to the strength of their fundraising. When someone rubs the crystal ball like this we may see a self-serving attempt not to appear CW. We would not presume to know anything about elections, but CW has so congealed and ossified within ther MEDIA has to become a kind of state religion, so any spitting against this mammoth belch of CW wind can seem welcome.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

And here's another reason we can't stand the hacks: this constant self-granting of favors. We said before we were skeptical of Gregg Easterbrook's notion that TV may be linked to autism, largely as we're so skeptical of social-science number crunchers in the first place; but when a typist like Claudia calls the link "bizarre" the first thing into our peon-like heads is WHO EMPLOYS HER, and how far she can go touting the corporate line; because, for all the talk of independence, if there's one thing that carries you far in the news biz, it's TOADYING, and we can resent stories like this even if they tell the truth, because we're so used to all the SLOP-BUCKET CARRYING.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to CLAUDIA!

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

One of USAOKAY!!!!!'s most annoying traits from early on (now largely disappeared) was its insistent use of the first person plural when describing America. What made this especially annoying is that news hacks constitutionally speak in the third person plural. News hacks aren't us; they're our superiors, part of a college-government-clique-like force so brilliant and so superior to the human race they can view their consumers as digits, as part of an angry mob, as peons to be ruled with brute force, as retards to be laughed at.

When Little Jon turns his rag into a Democratic Party campaign document he is clearly speaking in the third person plural. Yet he and other news hacks would presume to speak in the first person plural because some part of them presumes they're speaking for us, the Pygmies they'd otherwise sneer at. It's precisely this disconnect that helps explain our ever increasing hatred of media, and media's ever shrinking returns.

And somehow even Jonny "The Thinker" Alter must concede the election may not be the unalloyed triumph he and the other hacks are fervently hoping for.