Posted 4:46 PM by Gene

PINCH has a new girlfriend!

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

A "legendary" Chicago jazz "landmark" closes, and Al Reut mourns (albeit superficially; news hacks' tastes are more akin to Josh "ER" Tyrangiel's). To be sure, jazz needs no help in interring itself, and the giants who've undoubtedly graced this landmark for ages are proof it could have closed years ago, and no one outside the "jazz community" would have noticed.

Indeed, when "a Chicago-based avant-garde jazz musician and winner of a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship 'genius' award fears what the scene would be like without it", we know. We KNOW. It would be EXACTLY the same as before.

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

Saddam hasn't been buried and LALA gets in one last elbow poke in the side:

One famous photograph shows Hussein shaking hands with Donald H. Rumsfeld in 1983, who served as an informal envoy to Baghdad at a time when the United States was aiding Iraq in its eight-year war with Iran.

For his country, now convulsed in CIVIL WAR.... [Greatly pondering should-we-or-should-we-not-use-this-term truth-telling overemphasis added]

Hey Dave! Save yourself the trouble and just BURN your fortune!

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

How often do the news hacks chortle chortle about what hypocrites their readers -- er, ordinary people are about TV? How they say they hate what's on the tube but watch it anyway? Given that no network show draws more than fifteen percent of America's households, and that the networks combined get no more than 40% of the audience on any given night, this might not be hypocrisy. TV, like the movies, increasingly centers around a small but idiotically dedicated core of fans who will (and do) watch anything, and with the Web those disgusted with the medium have an (imperfect) alternative. That the dimwits at Nielsen can allege every year that how more people are watching more than ever means nothing; many may use their TVs as nightlights or babysitters, but they may not be watching, and meantime the majority is unmoved.

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

Dahlia no doubt had to get into a Frank-Rich-like stroke-imitating mood to write this, but really, all these AWFUL desecrations of the Bill of Rights mean nothing to me. The inept prosecution of No. 20? The NSA "TAPPING!!!!!" our phones? Jose Padilla being ABUSED!!!!!!!!!!? This is why when people talk about First Amendment OUTRAGES you can hear a giant audible CLICK. They're isolated things, they don't affect the public, those affected are usually guilty of something, they'll be superseded by other OUTRAGES, and in time they'll go away.

No, when people want to ruin the Bill of Rights, they generally do it more stealthily and sneakily -- like the bureaucrat behind the desk, or RUPERT AND SLIME.

Wishing you and yours a happy, and freer, New Year.

And hoping you and your fellow hacks can cure that unstoppable St. Vitus's dance of the fingers.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

Hey Lenny! Luuuuuuve that picture of Teddy! Makes him look twenty years younger! Almost like Dick Vermeil! What did you do, retouch it? And do you have a new scheme in mind -- use the most flattering picture for Dem op-eds, and the least for Republicans?

As for the accompanying piece, it was something about Iraqi refugees, how we've produced 20 million of them and blahblahblah. We doubt if Fatso could remember what was in it, or the staffers who wrote it.

Posted 10:14 PM by Gene

As the great mystic sages would say, GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH.

Posted 9:09 PM by Gene

Well! It appears all may not be so lovey dovey between the Dems and Muslims. There comes a time when the stench of moral opprobrium becomes so strong even a politican has to back off.

"To praise an organization because they haven't been indicted is like somebody saying, 'I'm not a crook.'”

Some things may not be accountable to mere laws.

As for the FBI, we can see it bending over backwards to be PC. On the other hand, outfits like SUPERHOOPER's may be full of its best leads.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

We may wonder how much of themselves youth are revealing online, for if one could steel himself up to read even 500 of these excruciatingly boring private exposures one would think they're all alike. Indeed how do the predators tell one girl from another? Mass anonymous chatting would seem its own protection. That said this generation of teens does have a predilection for stupid idle boasting.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

We do not know the point of running the story of some louse who sold his step-daughter's beagle to a bar owner to get drunk -- or rather "quenching his thirst for beer," as Al Reut must euphemize it. (The bar owner showed humanity: he returned the dog to the girl). The 2.5 rating among 689 Web surfers shows they might not get the point either. Why waste so much bandwidth on this maudlin discomforting junk?

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Surprise: MJ's getting divorced. It's a marvel it took so long.

How could anyone share a house with the greatest athuhlete of all time?

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

The Saint of Live-Action Road Runner Cartoons makes good on His threat:

Lucas: Filming `Indiana Jones 4' in 2007

"It's going to be fantastic. It's going to be the best one yet," the 62-year-old filmmaker said during a break from preparing for his duties as grand marshal of Monday's Rose Parade.

Do I hear the sound of thousands of AD-BLURBISTS cutting and pasting away for their reviews?

P. S. A great gushing fount of movie wisdom orates as if Moses on the Mount:

I have lost all faith in Lucas, and I trust Spielberg less than I used to.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Gerry's palsy-walsy with Tricky would seem to undercut the only justification for calling the 38th president a man for the ages.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Saddam's been incarcerated for three years. What's the big hurry to execute him?

The hurry's even faster: the prime minister has signed his death warrant.

10 p. m. ET, says another part of SLIME's Empire.

For all we know he's dead already.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Another pretentious news-hack tsk-tsk about another pop-cult-driven stupid-teen fad.

Such articles are getting to be the most excruciating of pills because they delineate the two-hands system of media where the one hand doesn't know what the other's doing -- and tries its darnedest not to know. And when something stupid happens, news hacks wring their hands even as their cousins in show-biz make money hand-over-fist -- as if the former are trying to justify the latter.

I HATE BIGMEDIA!

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

The SWORN ARCHENEMY of the BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM SWEARS:

[O]ne thing is clear: A newspaper company abandoned its employees and readers, for profit, not principle.

McClatchy leaves Minnesota's newspapers weakened and in the hands of companies with no local ties.

And with its departure, McClatchy is taking away important resources that a newspaper chain provides, resources that help each newspaper in the chain serve readers.

Wait a second, Nick: you guys were for local ownership when you thought that was good. You were especially for it when cookie-cutter companies like GanNETt threatened to gobble up the whole biz. Now you're suddenly against it. Make up your mind!

And to you, BLOGGERS, as we said before, we hope the NEW management is every bit as intransigent as the OLD.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

Another group of taxpayer-connected ah-TISTES scribbles up another list, which makes one wonder what the difference is with some jobs between working and not working.

Posted 6:33 AM by Gene

Smell that? Someone's trying to sell you something

Yep, and we can smell USAOKAY!!!!! a mile off. Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-U!

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

With the unspeakable African famines the West seems capable of answering only in two modes: a condescending sympathy or a misplaced generosity. Neither have helped the untold dead, or the maimed survivors. It is hard to believe that a League of Nations program has helped anywhere; that apparently is the case in Ethiopia. But the only inevitability is the cycle of famine repeating endlessly -- until the continent's nations learn how to live for themselves.

Posted 9:13 PM by Gene

Take off the sunglasses and the spell is broken.

I cannot believe I posted this, but this might be the first halfway decent picture of YOU-KNOW-WHO's girlfriend.

Posted 8:24 PM by Gene

The persecutor -- PROSECUTOR in the Dukies' "RAPE" case is going before an "independent review panel", the first inkling a huge civil suit against Durham may be in order.

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

AND IN MORE URGENT NEED-TO-KNOW ASSPRESS NEWS, THE DONALD AND ROSIE STILL ♥ EACH OTHER!

Will the mudslinging ever stop?

Not as long as you news hacks give them an OPEN LINE.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

So Second Life may be another media balloon full of hot air?

Who'd have thought?

(Via InfoWorld)

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

The WaPost and Woodstein threaten us with MORE PC nostalgia from Gerry!

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

And the WaPosties open up a torrent of useless nostalgia: his press agent -- er, spokesman recalls how "Ford headed off a bitter postwar campaign of recrimination about 'Who lost Vietnam?'", meaning either he or Woodstein isn't telling the truth; and Mr. Viagra proves that the only thing more loyal than a dog is a former vice-presidential candidate.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

“If Lincoln were alive today, he’d roll over in his grave.”

The more I am forced to remember Gerry with an affection reserved for puppies the more the word CHUCKLEHEAD comes to mind.

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

I am so TICKLED to think WE spend $250,000 per annum to finance an OUR FAVORITE OLD MOVIES LIST! (And of course the movies are getting -- BETTER.)

Multiply this by thousands such stunts and GOD KNOWS how much money our GUVMENT wastes.

And I am NOT going to call the Librarian of Congress a blithering idiot, but something has sprung a leak:

"The registry should not be seen as 'the Kennedy Center Honors,' 'the Academy Awards' or even 'America's Most Beloved Films'...."

But DAMMIT, Dr. Billington, that's what it's become. The "Registry" was willed into being by one of the millionaire Thumbs-Up Twins wanting to flatter himself. And it doesn't even preserve anything -- only THE CONSPIRACY can do that, and outside of George Feltenstein's outstanding work it's still largely ignoring its past.

And since you mention them the Kennedy Center HHonors are a joke to hang a fundraiser on. Here's the list of honorees from 1978: Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubinstein. Okay, a touch of glitz, but every name is a distinguished artist of the highest caliber. Now it's all show-biz types and some second-rank classical musician the TV audience has never heard of. (Hey Mabel! See this guy with the curly hair? Don't he look like Larry the Stooge -- only uglier?) The latest fundraiser became a PR disaster when some simp named Simpson couldn't sing a song (by an HHonoree whose chief distinctions are her whiny voice and her BOOBS). Non-singers notwithstanding this sort of thing has become an embarrassment and a press release. Stop it. We know you won't.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

Smells like holiday spirit
Researchers say levels of cinnamon and vanilla pouring into Puget Sound are spiking.» Why?

STARBUCKS!!!!!

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

I guess with all these single-digit-visit days it's time for me to say:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYBODY OUT THERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE?????

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Yesterday demonstrated how even words like "brave" can be besmudged by trendy uses, but it is clear the Ethiopians did a brave thing by taking on Somalia's hyper-Islamic "courts." Whether the holy cockroaches are now engaged in one of those sneaky tactical retreats is sheer guessing (we suspect it), but at least one nation has shown the only way to treat human sludge is to FLUSH IT OUT.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

OOOOOoooooh, the LORD GOD STEVE got a little more than He was entitled to!

It's almost enough to shake your faith in OVERPRICED INCOMPATIBLE HARDWARE.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Somebody calls Hairshirt Howie an "old-fart media guy." So what happens? ROMY finds him -- and it turns out we get a new-fart media guy.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

Half of Woodstein (got 2 go disco) says Gerry took the right side on Iraq.

Why am I starting to think all this "niceness" biz is code for Gerry's humongous mental squoosh?



Aren't you feeling nostalgic NOW?

P. S. The guy on the left is rehearsing as Prof. Harold Hill; the guy on the right is rehearsing for K Street -- or maybe Chevy Chase's place on WEEKEND UPDATE.

P. P. S. (LAST TWO GRAFS)

In the end, though, it was Vietnam and the legacy of the retreat he presided over that troubled Ford. After Saigon fell in 1975 and the United States evacuated from Vietnam, Ford was often labeled the only American president to lose a war. The label always rankled.

"Well," he said, "I was mad as hell, to be honest with you, but I never publicly admitted it."

Alas, NICE GUY, you deserved it.

Yes the more I hear this NICE GUY routine the more I'm convinced Gerry was a bad president. Why can't you hacks quit while you're ahead?

P. P. P. S. MORALS BENNETT'S MAD.

Posted 8:06 AM by Gene

I wonder if the hacks are feeling so mellow about Gerald Ford ("Have You Never Been Mellow" -- wasn't that a big hit in '75?) because it was their megaplatinum age -- of the genius of disco, the greater genius of film (Scorsese, Altman), a time when we stopped a war and ditched a prez...

It's enough to make you daydream of the napalm girl, and helicopters taking off from rooftops.

Posted 6:40 AM by Gene

MOVIEGOING IS BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UP NINE MILLION FROM LAST YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OR ABOUT THIRTY MILLION LESS THAN SAW THE PIRATE FLICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OR TO USE THE CONSPIRACY'S FIGURES, WE WERE UP 0.643 PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BOFFO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO SCOTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

Not wanting to insult an icon, and therefore being extremely selective in his choice of words, a Paper of Re-CORD scribbler nonetheless manages to say very discreetly what is quite obvious: Hugh Hefner's huge advance to civilization printed a lot of crap.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The numbers on housing may be as reliable as the numbers on the movies -- more so as most movies don't include a fully-furnished kitchen.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

And we weren't going to mention it, but wasn't Chevy Chase the EDWARD R. MURROW OF COMEDY of his day? And didn't he reach far more viewers? And what happened to him? At least he had a movie career. ED only had a one-shot at the Os-CARS®.

Chevy does say Ford (!) was "very sweet", and whatever their foibles you have to like a guy like that.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Interesting: CNN.com has "PASSING OF A PRESIDENT" in big big type, and a big big photo in a big big box, but go to the "International" edition and you have to...look for it.

And what's up with Stale.com? Back when Ronald Reagan died it ran stories like "THIS MOST EVIL PRESIDENT" and "DEATH IS TOO KIND FOR REAGAN", or whatever it is they ran, paid for by Citigroup and Toyota and JCPenney and AmEx and other big name sponsors, most of whom have been conspicuously absent since; indeed Bugmeister Bill sold Stale.com not long after. Not even something to break the mood from Chris Hitchens? Oh well, I can see why St. Warren's boys are reluctant.

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

In 1,306 ELOQUENT WORDS Ron of MediaBistro declares he wants a sci-fi ad blurbist in the Paper of Re-CORD Book Review.

Don't we have enough names above the titles?

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

Beijing to spend $9 bln on public transport

Which, if we know the Chinese, will make it harder to get around than ever.

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

We are now being told Gerald Ford had "integrity." No one can doubt he was an honorable man. The problem is too much of our recent past has involved men of integrity with no brains, or men of brains with no integrity. Why is it too much to ask that our leaders have both?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

The only good thing about Gerald Ford's death is that it knocks SEX MACHINE's state funeral down a peg -- we think. We suspect Dubya is still pondering what to do.

Speaking of:

"One of the things I've learned on the Google [SIC] is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see -- I've forgotten the name of the program -- but you get the satellite, and you can -- like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It reminds me of where I wanna be sometimes."

Just think, Dubya: in two years, that's exactly where you'll be -- if you haven't become the Saudis' U. S. ambassador, that is.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

Already there are the excuses, on both sides. AmSpec praises Gerald Ford for vetoing a lot of bills. Much good that did. Over at AMERICA'S LEADI -- NEWSRAG some hack congratulates Ford for having been liberal. This demonstrates there can be more than one way to be full of it.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Gerald Ford fell up. He fell up from football herodom to the law to the Navy to the House to the vice-presidency to the White House. His only bad luck was when he became president. And then he fell down. He decided to make amends for all his good luck by Writing Himself into the History Books and into a kind of Fairy-Tale Land where he could Live Forever. If The Pardon now seems not so important it was still a kind of moral evasion -- and its outcome was hardly a salve as it brought us JIMMAH and HIS long national nightmare. Having Written Himself into the History Books he all but ignored Southeast Asia and stagflation. After saying something stupid about the Poles during a debate he retired for a long life of golf and profitable speechmaking. Gerald Ford was a good and decent man, but America needed more, and he was not up to it.

Posted 7:53 PM by Gene

Some typist (the "special" byline is a giveaway it's no good) marvels at the movies' multitasking -- unfortunately, even Special must admit it's for a reason:

"We've run out of new content," says Howard Suber, a longtime professor of story structure at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television and author of "The Power of Film."

"It's hard to think of any subject, any kind of story, where somebody could say, 'No film has ever talked about what this film talks about.' That leaves, if there are aspirations to be an artistic filmmaker, experiments with style."

Somehow "same old same old" would merely prove the point.

(Via the exasperating ArtsJournal)

Posted 7:47 PM by Gene

The gap between New England's slow-growing population and the nation's growth rate widened over the past year, with the United States adding people at a rate five times faster than the region.

We know -- all those New England senators discourage sex!

Posted 7:30 PM by Gene

The Internet is a new world of media, fertile and endlessly receptive to communication needs of all kinds. It could very well become so overwhelmed by commercial and political stratagems, so cluttered and so untrustworthy that it winds up utterly useless for honest communication.

That possibility is not, as Herbert Hoover put it, ''inconceivable.'' It has already happened with local radio -- and it has happened with the postal service, which has become primarily a conduit for junk mail.

The Internet can still be saved. But it won't save itself.

Do I hear the cancer curers fuming again?

(Via Romy, of all places)

Posted 7:23 PM by Gene

A state funeral gathers -- Dubya MOURNS, and REV. AL PREACHES.

This will be VERY serious before it's out. Will the Big Four preempt their programming?

And would the Sex Machine recognize himself?

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

The BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM are CHORTLING: The Clatch just sold the STRIB at a $670 MILLION LOSS (before inflation).

Let's hope the new owners are as intransigent as the old.

Posted 3:39 PM by Gene

NIKKI!!!!!!!!!!, who's getting to be a higher-toned version of PAUL DRECK!!!!!!!!!!, says Singin' in the Rain is appealing to more than "African-Americans, gays and upscale whites" -- although we wonder.

NIKKI!!!!!!!!!! also says it drew like gangbusters at "NEW YORK'S ZEIGFIELD"!!!!! [SIC]

(First link via ShowBizData; rewritten at 7:25 p.m. because I stupidly misinterpreted the ShowBizData piece)

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

Fidel has "a digestive problem."

Maybe eating all his enemies finally got to him.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

James Brown’s widow said Monday she was denied access to the home she shared with the singer and their 5-year-old son, claiming the gate was padlocked at the request of Brown’s lawyer and accountant.

Is there not something apt about this?

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

A nation that can't govern itself -- and what nation in sub-Saharan Africa can? -- will have catastrophes like this, the second such in eight months.

Does anyone care even in Africa?

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Citigroup Inc., the world's biggest bank, is losing investment-banking business in Japan after the top two executives at partner Nikko Cordial Corp. resigned over charges of falsified earnings statements.

Eh, don't worry about it -- you can still prop your feet up so you won't have to see the SELIGBALL in your luxury boxes at CITISTADIUM, or whatever you're calling it. And so long as you can prop your feet in front of your face, you can say it's WORKING.

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

ANOTHER BRANSON EAST DELUSION:

The art of writing for the musical theatre is dying, they've been lamenting since round about 1905. Line up The Light in the Piazza, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Grey Gardens and Spring Awakening — four remarkably different musicals — on your iPod. Enough said?

1905 -- let's see: George M. Cohan, Victor Herbert, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hammerstein and company put a lot more sheet music on pianos than the geniuses who wrote these masterworks will put in iPods.

NUF SAID.

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in our favorite bizrag:

Housing prices were pushed up in part by get-rich-quick speculation. Now real estate has lost its grip on the public's imagination. Says Richard J. DeKaser, chief economist of National City Corp. in Cleveland: "We're looking at several years of weak home prices. It'll return to the time when no one is talking about real estate." Oh, well. You can still take a flier on Google Inc.

Say what?

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

And isn't this unexpected: during the holidays we get all sorts of reports about how people shopped and shopped, then after the holidays we get reports saying people didn't shop. Like CLOCKWORK.

"It's possible that consumers may have responded to the anticipated large crowds and taken pains to avoid crowded malls altogether," says Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak.

You don't suppose...?

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

Meantime "a donkey flies" at GE BANCORP AND REALTY NETWORK -- they're airing a prime-time documentary, something we might see more of had "Dr." Stanton not expended so much energy selling THE SELLING OF THE PENTAGON.

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

"Dr." Frank Stanton, a market researcher turned Bill Paley's sidekick at CBS, who was instrumental in keeping up the fiction he ran "The Tiffany Network", and whose chief distinction was promising during the quiz-show scandals he'd get rid of canned laugh tracks because they weren't honest, and who then reversed himself, has died. RIP.

Posted 6:34 AM by Gene

U. S. DEATHS IN IRAQ EXCEED 9-11 COUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Unbiased, nonpartisan overemphasis added)

And how's your POLITICAL PRISONER there, CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk!)? You know, the one who was merely doing his duty taking pictures, and whose motives are as pure as the driven snow? Say CURLEY, remember the time you said your business is run by CONSERVATIVES? And listen CURLEY, do you think if we had a dollar for all the times any ASSPressian has said he's UNBIASED we could possibly raise enough money to keep every last reporter who's been FIRED the last couple of years ON THE JOB?

Just a thought, CURLEY.

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

Sometimes when a prominent figure dies you're stumped for words, or facts, and I try not to write from ignorance, though I seldom succeed. I didn't post on, say, Red Auerbach because what could you say? He won a lot of games, he smoked cigars, and people liked him. The same with James Brown. He was an R&B man when it was still a lot of honking, and he sang about sex, and he wiggled a lot, and he frequently made an ass of himself, and got in trouble with the law, all so he could be called "legendary" by the tone-deaf. You couldn't help noticing though that he smiled all the time, and whatever made him smile (we'll skip that), he seemed happy. His fans seemed happy in return. Let's just say a lot of people liked him, and be done with it.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

Something called AlJazeera.com, which, we are assured, has NO relation to the place where Dave Marash and David Frost work, poses this timely and important question:

"WHAT ABOUT ZIONISTS' NUKES???????????????????????????" [Overemphasis added]

Now calm down, calm down, and remember, this is Christmas, and for one day this year it would do your blood pressure good to SHUT UP.

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

"Would you rather have tax dollars spent on some [disabled] guy sitting at home? We're not looking for handouts, damn it."

I'd rather not have tax dollars building empires for friends of Congressman Total Crap, damn it.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

And now for the usual annual posting of Yahoo! News Christmas tree photos which come down in thirty days (I HATE that), and what's more they've made them smaller since the last time:



A Christmas tree in Frankfurt;



Christmas trees in "Tokyo's Odaiba bay area";



A, er, Christmas tree in Detroit (the man's name, Reuters tells us, is Joe T. Sanders);



THE OFFICIAL PEOPLE WARNER CHRISTMAS TREE in Jakarta, made of "1,390 Looney Tunes dolls" (Reuters and Yahoo! cut off the caption after the word "Looney");



A Christmas tree in Dubai (it's a wonder they just don't build a building that looks like a Christmas tree);



A Christmas tree in Beirut;



A Christmas tree in Vilnius, Lithuania;



A Christmas tree in Kabul;



Another Christmas tree in Jakarta, in a church, "made out of 6000 used cans";



A Christmas tree at St. Peter's Basilica;



A Christmas tree in Malaga, Spain;



A Christmas tree in "Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, near Soldotna, Alaska" (the AP tells us these are Jeff Selinger and "his son Zack, 7");



A "Living Christmas tree" in Seoul;



A Christmas tree in Stavropol, Russia;



A Christmas tree at the Colosseum;



A Christmas tree (Reuters insists) at Washington's Botanical Gardens;



A Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square;



A Christmas tree at the San Francisco Zoo;



A Christmas tree at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem;



A Christmas tree in Chongqing, China, made of "thousands of Coca-Cola cans" (my teeth can appreciate that);



A Christmas tree "in the middle of Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris";



A chocolate Christmas tree in Bangkok, with 35,000 M&Ms (why not Reese's Pieces?);



A Christmas tree surounded by beuatiful architecture at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (he said);



And finally, a Christmas tree in Basra.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Posted 7:33 PM by Gene

Speaking of, Kurt "The Rich Spy" Andersen got a bunch of "creative" types together to try to "rebrand" $MA$. Their solution: call it "x.mas".

Don't these morons realize emphasizing the x like that summons up visions of porn?

(Via ArtsJournal, which is occasionally also clueless)

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

Did anyone dream of a white Christmas before Irving Berlin dreamed of it?

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

Nothing gratifies us more than when a highly expected movie comes apart at the seams, and Carl Hiaasen's discovery's is doing just that. We puzzle why; don't dumb blind teens make up the bulk of the popcorn-restaurant clientele? and aren't they "into" fantasy to the exclusion of everything else except godawful horror excretions? Okay, maybe the third in the line of SPIDER-MANS stretching to infinity will do its BILLION or TRILLION or whatever, but this is surely bad news for our superiors who think they can lure a crowd with their stupid CGI fantasies -- and bad news for the movie biz is good news for us.

Elsewhere the NEW! IMPROVED!! PAUL DRECK!!!!! is bathing his tonsils in Chloraseptic in preparation for the 10,000 phone calls he'll make boasting about how the biz CAME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it appears it will have "come back" by about three to four percent, and all because of ONE TENTPOLE. Also, this year has seen five pieces of doodoo break $200 million, and sixteen do over $100 million, compared to EIGHT and NINETEEN in the ANNUS HORRIBILIS of 2005 -- and down a collective $700 MILLION PLUS. (In 2003 it was SIX and TWENTY-NINE; in 2004 it was SIX and TWENTY-FOUR.) PAUL DRECK will scream, "THERE WAS A BROADER LINE-UP!!!!!" Yeah, from A to B. Still, we smile.

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Ethiopian prime minister says his country is at war with Islamists in Somalia.

Isn't the whole world (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia excepted)?

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

Meantime Spanish doctors are zooming to Cuba to prolong the life of the LEFT's favorite dictator, proof that tyranny and senselessness come in different flavors.

Posted 1:16 PM by Gene

See? See? The Chilean coup WAS justified!

"If the experience was to repeat itself, I wish I had a greater wisdom."

Not to worry; according to con-SER-vatives you had PLENTY of wisdom.

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

How often need we be reminded "friends" like Pakistan are de facto enemies?

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

TV IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO MARISA!

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

You too are a knight, Sir Bono

Tony's giving 'em away!

Like Geldof, who received the award 20 years ago, Bono, 46, will not be entitled to call himself sir, even under his real name of Paul Hewson.

Aw shucks, now he'll have to content himself with LORD.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

$50 BILLION for HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN LOANS, $40 BILLION for ELUHMEANTURRY SKOOLS --

E'REWAY INHAY EETHAY ONEYMAY!

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

I love Lenny. First he elects Sen. Webb; now he elects Abe and Hillary the front-runners -- and the primaries are over a year away!

Hey Lenny -- after a few more elections you won't need voters!