Posted 8:52 PM by Gene

We would say Al Franken has his work cut out for him as there are already enough comedians in the Congress, but we'll let it pass.

Posted 8:38 PM by Gene

Conservative bloggers sometimes exaggerate and write that so-and-so "slammed" the troops, and then you follow the link and read the comments in context and find out they're not that bad — usually it's a garden-variety criticism of how the war is being managed or, at worst, a "botched joke".

BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM, MICHELLE, HUGH THREESEATS, SAM LITTLE -- oh, no, no one that I can think of.

Posted 8:09 PM by Gene

BLITHERING IDIOT TWXSTERS ORCHESTRATED A BOMB SCARE TO PROMOTE THE CARTOON NETWORK!

SLIME AND O. J., THE WII WATER STUNT, THIS -- IS THERE NO DEPTH TO WHICH THESE FRAUDS WILL GO?



THE SAME TO YOU, KING RICHARD! I THINK THIS ENDS YOUR MAYORAL CAMPAIGN.

P. S. BOSTON.COM is reporting some dimwit with A GUERILLA MARKETING COMPANY has been arrested. (Link here)

P. P. S. Infernal Slashdotters are taking the TWXSTERS' side, which proves the only differences between Slashdotters and FREEPERS are LIBERTARIANISM and LINUX. All right, your fool devices didn't look like bombs -- but damnit there are enough people with tech skills and your weenie attitude who'd pull a stunt exactly like this. Anyone for THE UNABOMBER? Why must the world revolve around your sci-fi and your cartoons? As for the notion these were dorks who overreacted -- okay -- but where did American Airlines Flight 11 come from?

P. P. S. Blithering idiotic guerilla marketing firm is called -- get this -- INTERFERENCE. How convenient: ITS SITE ISN'T WORKING. Also the promotion was for a TIE-IN MOVIE.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

SEPTEMBER, Newt? Your fellow Republicans need you now! Con-SER-va-tives need you now! Joke writers and editorial cartoonists need you NOW!

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

A lot of news hacks presume the downfall of their business just -- happened. It's a systemic thing. More people are getting their news from the Web. The Do-Not-Call Law hurt. Kids don't know how to read. Perhaps it's all these things. Perhaps getting the news from the Web is so much more convenient than leafing through tons of newsprint. And then again it might be the content. Just possibly. When Mort Zuck has the gall to run tripe like this and this you wonder what some readers may think. Perhaps they reflexively roll their eyes and grimace, or figure insults to their intelligence are like City Hall -- you can't fight them. But one thing is certain: some readers -- maybe not very many, maybe not enough to matter at the honor box, but some -- remember they were insulted. And they take it out the best way they know how: by not buying newspapers, and possibly even not frequenting their Web sites. And if they do continue to force themselves into their embrace -- and many of us have no choice but to surf as many sites as we can to be well-informed -- they spread the contempt to the whole business, like a thin greasy coat of grime. We note DA NOOZ used to be owned by TRIB, and by Robert Maxwell. We wonder how the fraction of His investment He'd earn back in a sale would compare to, say, PINCH's. We suspect it's a topic MORT does not like thinking about. We suggest His readership should remind him.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO MORT ZUCK!

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

As he moved from trading post to trading post, all the floor brokers and their assistants stopped work and started cheering and applauding.

And I mean loud applause and huge cheers.

Still, even Bush's words on pay were met with complete silence from the business crowd he addressed.

We don't know what Greed-is-Good and Ben were up to with their respective spins. Greed wants to spin Dubya as a savior; Ben wants to spin him as a nincompoop. The truth, one suspects, lies between these two goalposts. Wall Street has a reason for cheering Dubya. It also has a reason to keep silent about excessive CEO pay.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

Venezuela? ZIMBABWE WITH OIL!

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

The bad news: PEOPLE WARNER did better than expected. Pfffffffffffffft!

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

We can see why THE LORD GOD PINCH is outsourcing: He's written down the value of His New England papers by $814 MILLION. Ouch!

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Hey Jonny Hairshirt! Maybe we wouldn't have such an awful letdown about our favorite CELEBRITY BUSINESS NEWS BEAUTY if we hadn't built her and her network up in the first place.

SHUT UP, JONNY HAIRSHIRT!

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Sad nostalgia in Branson East, for a tourist trap called Sardi's:

The banquettes were always packed with celebrities: Zero Mostel, Ethel Merman, Richard Rodgers, Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Barbra Streisand, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, all made Sardi's their second home.

Celebrity caricatures, the restaurant's calling card, still adorn the walls. (Most, though, are copies; the valuable originals are kept in vaults.)

Leonard Lyons, the legendary Post columnist, table-hopped every night, collecting tidbits and anecdotes ("without taking notes," says Gelb). Robert Preston held court at the bar after performances of "The Music Man."

After a couple of glasses of white wine, recalls a Broadway old-timer, Maureen Stapleton sometimes wandered out into the middle of 44th Street and talked to God. "How could I let Max go?" she once asked the Lord after she'd split from her husband, Max Allentuck [sic]

Happily the joint made ONE MILLION BUCKS in December -- THE BEST IN ITS HISTORY!!!!! -- with "boisterous families on their way to "Mary Poppins" or "The Lion King"...fortifying themselves with plates of cannelloni"!!!!! That's the spirit!!!!! Who needs Zero, or MM, or Liz, or Robert Preston -- or the theater?

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

CITIGROUP's pouring moneydown a rath -- INVESTING IN THE MOVIE BIZ!

Maybe we could get MONEY HONEY® to STAR in one of them!

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

This nascent fad of viewer-produced commercials will go nowhere because 1.) The ads rely too much on buzz and not enough on the sales pitch, 2.) They'll get buried by the professional junk, and 3.) If one proves really good and memorable (doubtful, unless the hacks go into their Ein-Volk-Ein-Reich-Ein-Führer mode), every last consumer marketer will rush to make them, creating an advertising implosion.

It's also a crutch. Why can't the ad biz make decent ads anymore? We have a reason: it's even more self-obsessed than the rest of BIGMEDIA.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

LALA, in a further move to prove its hipness and irrelevance, is lobbying for THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMEDIAN to emcee the Os-CARS®.

TRANSLATION: In the name of attracting stupid teens to the show these toadies want to create a second MTV Movie Awards. Isn't one enough?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

Oops, "There She Is" done gone and went south, and not to Oklahoma.

Viacom-owned CMT picked up the rights to run the pageant in 2006 and 2007, with the option to renew through 2011. The network has not yet decided whether it will exercise that option, according to a spokesperson.

Face it, beauty pageants are finis because they've become reality shows, and you can hardly distinguish them otherwise. Their attraction, such as it was, vanished when they pulled the plug on Bert Parks and the live orchestra.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

Say it isn't so, Paper of Re-CORD -- you're outsourcing jobs to INJA?

This should not hurt its self-righteousness one iota.

Posted 6:59 AM by Gene

When will clowns learn you do not predict Fidel's death prematurely?

We don't know Fidel's health, we don't know what terrorists are doing -- wouldn't you say we're in a pretty pickle?

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

Sidney Sheldon, the Aaron Spelling of words, who went from the prolific hackwork of movies to the prolific hackwork of TV to the prolific hackwork of potboilers, has died. RIP.

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

The ROOTKIT MUSIC CO. may have settled with the government, but we wonder if it can ever settle in the court of public opinion.

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

LEGENDARY WELCHING LIVES: Yes, we know it's Consumer Reports, and it might still want to hold its head a little low after the car-seat fiasco, but it's run an article blasting the airline business for outsourcing maintenance, and runs a chart linking the increased outsourcing to increased cancellations. When LEGENDARY ran the show he let loose a lot of bean counters who were even more serious about running America into the ground than he in the name of inflated CEO wages, and thus we got the panacea of outsourcing, and the screwups attendant thereto.

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

The usual tantrum throwers are mad because Dubya has signed a directive taking greater control about how the White House "implements policy". We have never liked Dubya's secrecy kick, and everything about top-level Republicans is about doing favors for the kind of people who helped it lose the midterms; but this can cut both ways, and we suspect if Hill's prez she'll do the same sneaky thing for her friends -- and we'll hear no complaining from DRUMMERS.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Does anyone other than the usual onanistic pundits and bloggers give a tinker's damn about the Libby case? It's a veritable three-ring circular argument, and hacks of all sorts make us spin already.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Vista may be (as the CW has it) a fait accompli for being automatically offered with new computers, but this is the third time the Redmond monolith has made a big push for a new OS in twelve years, and forgive us for not thinking the third time the charm, but rather three strikes and you're out -- no matter how beautiful it is.

(We shouldn't sneer too much; we just got a free copy [or rather a product key enabling a download] of Office 2007 Professional for participating in a promotion. I'd rather have it than the OS. Now I won't have to worry about that part of the upgrade -- until the next planned obsolescence.)

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

How fitting: A scholarship for veterinary medicine is the least the racing business can do.

I could not resist posting this picture.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

CURT SCHILLING FOR SENATE -- against MONSIEUR HEIN-TZZZ?

I think he's underestimating all those ketchup bottles.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

BUGMEISTER BILL'S PEARL OF WISDOM NO. 2:

Planned obsolescence is good for you.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

"Congratulations? It was unintentionally successful," Sahakian said. "She lied to me. She falsified records, knowing my cutoff for single women is 55….I don't think the last chapter has been closed, either. She could die 10 years from now. What will happen to the children?"

We ask again: Just because science says you can do something does it mean science says you should?

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Who would have thought: The FRENCH are more sympathetic to us than DEMOCRATS?

We'll take friends wherever we can get them.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

The Spy Who Glowed becomes target practice!

By the way, whatever happened to him?

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Time to make up your minds, con-SER-va-tives: Is Rudy kosher, or is he not?

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

An insider offers a post-mortem on Sundance, which as the great Robert says isn't a market, it's a FESTIVAL:

Longtime visitors to Park City become so inured to its drawbacks that sometimes a newcomer has to point them out. A visitor from Europe, who had never been here before, was appalled by the poor projection in the makeshift theaters annually installed in the Yarrow and Racquet Club. Will this ever be remedied?

No, because then the crowds couldn't give all those STANDING O'S.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Okay con-SER-va-tives, repeat after me:

Reid's Whitewater

Con-SER-va-tives continue to deny their party lost because of ITS corruption.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Bloggers are glorified ward leaders.

FURTHER TRANSLATION: Bloggers weren't important when they didn't take OUR side.

(Via TownHall.com, which for some reason refused to give the source)

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

If the Protestants and the Catholics can come to terms in Northern Ireland, why can't the Sunnis and the Shiites?

There are reasons, mostly beginning with the letter I.

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

A man who was drummed out of the securities biz says the "brilliant vaudeville comic" JIM! BOOM! BOOM! CRAMER! is an ass.

We'll take that as definitive.

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

Despite "(this magazine has a contractual relationship with the Fox News cable network to jointly produce the show Forbes on Fox)", Little Malcolm runs a surprisingly hard-nosed piece on SLIME's dreams of Web domination, with terms like "Bubble 2.0" and a few reminders of His VISIONARY failures. When will Wall Street's cretins see there's precious little gold in the Web's fool's gold?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Burning question among the SUPERINTELLECTUALS of the WEB:

Is Opra [SIC!!!!!] and [SIC!!!!!] Dr. Phil Gay?

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

First Big Pharma had one excuse for mergers -- it was doing well! Now it has another excuse for mergers -- it's doing ROTTEN!

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

ONE MORE YEAR* for BARRY BONDS* to BREAK* the RECORD*!

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

CALAMITY: The TWXSTERS may obliterate B. S. DEFENDER'S LEGACY: There's TALK of PEOPLE WEEKLY and EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!! MERGING!

What will his ego do?

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 4:51 PM by Gene

BUGMEISTER BILL PEARL OF WISDOM NO.1:

The best idea is always somebody else's.

Posted 3:08 PM by Gene

3,310 WORDS ON THE PHENOMENON OF THE CENTURY, THE BIG O (or rather one of the TWO BIG O's), and it boils down to THIS:

Glenn Garvin, television writer for the Miami Herald, says most of America isn't paying attention. "Olbermann is a media cause célèbre and a popular flop," Garvin wrote in an e-mail interview. "To me, he's simply the flip side of Bill O'Reilly, a guy rewriting the wires and sprinkling it with random political rants, better gag lines, but a more predictable point of view."

Further defying the notion of a full-fledged youth revolution is the matter of the age of "Countdown's" audience. MSNBC has made much of Olbermann's pull with younger viewers. Among the ratings coups last year was "Countdown" moving past CNN into second place among the cable news networks for viewers age 25 to 54. Its own research, however, shows the median age of the "Countdown" viewer at 59. If nothing else, the numbers show just how tiny the younger audience is for even the hippest cable television news.

Will you hacks (writing for JERNALISM REVUES or otherwise) please stop wasting millions of words restating the obvious?

(Via the usual Romy, who'd have used millions of words too)

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

A small brigade of megalomaniacs engages in civil warfare to see WHOSE LOGO appears on the front of some MOVIES.

Do any of these imbeciles (and we include LUKE SPIELBERG) care what kind of PRODUCT they turn out? We can guess the answer.

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

We are very sorry to hear that Barbaro has been put down. We wonder if all the noble effort to save his life was really worth it, whether the humane thing to do would have been just to euthanize the horse then and there at Pimlico. One might be forgiven for thinking the money factor but in this case given the horse's supreme belovedness that was surely the last concern. And beloved he deserved to be; Barbaro showed the kind of personality and spunk known to homo sapiens, and if his dreadful tale can improve the lot of race horses -- the tracks are starting to use using more horse-friendly synthetic turfs in no small measure as a result -- so be it.

P. S. I have struggled to get this in decent shape because it's so easy to sound like an idiot on something like this, as if I'm never an idiot on anything.

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

ASTONISHING: P&G and UNILEVER are AVOIDING the SUPER BOWL this year, with this dire consequence:

(Yes, really, there won't even be a terrible Gillette commercial.)

GADZOOKS!

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

"The solution is to bring solutions and be very practical," said Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, the Republican Conference vice chairman. "Let them know we listened and we're making some changes."

Freshman members agree.

"We have to show the American public that we can get things done," said Rep. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma. Voters "want to see Congress work on real solutions to real problems."

And with such bold, innovative thinking the Republicans should regain the House in...when?

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

WAIT a second: We KNOW Sen. Hole-in-the-Bagel's OUR kind of Republican, but isn't all the campaigning in our company reserved for Lenny? Doesn't HE get the first shots?

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

It just occured to me that when that dimwit at NRO screamed THERE ARE NOT 46 MILLION UNINSURED!!!!!!!!!! he forgot that THE DUHB screamed when his health insurer nearly doubled the cost of his coverage. People worry about health insurance for good reasons -- because of the expense both ways, and because it's nowadays something too easily taken away.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

The Big C? LOGROLLING?

Who WOULD have guessed?

(Via the usual Romy, who is astonished too)

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

Sen. Chuck Schumer sponsored 184 bills last year, plus he successfully coordinated his party's efforts to retake the Senate and held more press conferences than anyone would care to count.

On top of all that, he wrote a 265-page book.

Why doesn't he run for president?

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

Fr. Robert Drinan, the news hacks' kind of Catholic, has died. To the extent any Congressman can be remembered (few deserve to be) with Drinan it will not be for his "courageous" stands on topics like THE WAR and abortion (moderate = pro-choice; better update THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY) but because Pope John Paul II told him to quit his job, presumably because he wasn't that Catholic. Such are the perils of taking courageous stands on the issues, and of siding with the angels. RIP.

I realize how sour this sounds but when news hacks do a favor it turns the recipient into a caricature.

Posted 9:31 PM by Gene

Yes, I think it's hard not to like a man like this.

Posted 9:30 PM by Gene

We stumbled on this by accident, but how many smaller towns like Shreveport have gone zillions into debt to build convention centers that end up drawing nobody, all so they can make up for the industry and retailing that Corporate America has resolutely decided will never locate there again?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Clinton: Bush should withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq before leaving office

Okay, Hill, here's your first trick question: What makes you think Dubya will withdraw them? Here's your second trick question: When would you withdraw them? Here's your third trick question: How?

Yes, the race is on.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

We wonder if a certain prominent Paramount executive would have typed this diatribe if his nominal boss SUMNER were in MSOs. Such writing is at best phony-baloney -- at best -- because it lets the author grudgingly and falsely admit to how much his show-biz stinks while he continues to kiss every last rear end he can get his fat lips on.

SHUT UP, PETER BART!

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

If NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wants to be speaker for one term here's something she MUST push VIGOROUSLY: a LAW against RACIAL PROFILING.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

Another lemming enters the race: former Gov. Huckabee of -- ARKANSAS, who gets a royal endorsement from -- well, you can guess:

This one went over well — introducing his tax philosophy: "I think Steve Forbes was right..."

MS. TRAVERS ought to run his campaign!

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

Saudi Officials Seek to Temper the Price of Oil

I am sure we appreciate that favor, O holy enemies of THE LETTER X. (But not EXXonMobil?)

The Saudis appear to be rediscovering that painfully high energy prices take a profound toll on the global economy, which in turn reduces demand for their oil.

We thought you guys sorta liked blowback!

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

An Iranian nuclear agency official has denied claims made by a top lawmaker that the Islamic Republic had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at an uranium enrichment plant, Iran's state-run news agency reported late Saturday.

Hossein Simorgh, spokesman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization public relations department [SIC].... (Emphasis added)

NUF SAID.

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

DA POST!!!!!!!!!! recalls the smashes of 2006 that had fans in the dozens -- like The Long Weekend, whose "sexual and bodily humor" was so "outrageous" the film's producer got "calls" (from whom? his mother?), and Rank (!!!!!), which despite glorious raves from the likes of DA POST!!!!!!!!!! earned only $2,485, which would seem to indicate most of DA POST!!!!!!!!!!'s subscribers can't read. Or maybe they can.

We say it again: most movies are made for NOBODY -- and that's how the industry wants it.

P. S. Not to fret, though: Zyzzyx Road is 8,265 in ALL-TIME DOMESTIC!

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

Is it me or is the ASSPress turning into the public relations office of the Miss Vegas -- er, America Pageant?

Posted 8:57 PM by Gene

We must have been in QUITE A HURRY to put out that survey DEMANDING BUSH RESIGN or something because JonBoy has already put up the covers: ours a downer on BLACK HAWK DOWN and everyone else's dealing with a world space race. (I guess we wouldn't be interested, huh JonBoy?) Or maybe they're feeling the hot breath of THE TWXSTERS -- but WHY would they compete with a rag that's as skinny as though it's printed on onion-skin?

And just how valuable IS a newsrag? Its top MEDIA WRITER (ugh) does a story on (ugh) MONEY HONEY® -- and it contains nothing you wouldn't have found elsewhere. Why do we need newsrags?

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

I see con-SER-va-tives throwing a TAN-trum:

Some Democrats in Congress have pushed legislation that would require many employers with 15 workers or more to provide a minimum of seven paid sick days a year.

I see Larry "Greed is Good" Kudlow throwing a very VIOLENT tantrum -- perhaps banging on his desk so hard he breaks his hand -- which would allow him a paid day or two off from one of his employers.

Yes, I KNOW, it's Sen. Fatso Glub-Glub, and I know this is a form of advocacy jernalism, but dammit why is mandated paid sick leave THAT bad an idea?

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

AWWWWWW, poh GOOGUUWH is SOWWY for DAMAGING its WEPUTATION.

GOOG on January 27, 2006: $433.89. GOOG on FRIDAY: $495.84.

NUF SAID.

(Via Slashdot)

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Speaking of the past, I can recall when my mother and brother had this thing about the Brits. They were mad for shows like The Avengers and Secret Agent and The Saint and were glued to the papers when Bonnie Prince Charlie got his job. (I too, in a way; I liked Matchbox and Corgi cars.) A lot has happened since; we now know, for instance, that the royals are a extra-ordinary family with a pedigree, and they try to breed like mongrels. Today we Philthydelphians are supposed to be excited that Charles and his mis -- DUCHESS are here for some PR stunt, and it seems less than exciting because we all know he's a middle-aged old fogy who's been waiting and waiting and waiting to become king, God knows why, and he has less than stellar taste in women, although Di once looked nice in a see-through skirt. They get to see our domestic middle-aged old fogies who think their increasingly anemic bloodlines are still an entitlement, and they witness some doing good in the neighborhood, and they go back to Merrie Olde Englande, presumably to argue, and to wait.

All this said, we shouldn't be hard on Charlie; he is a good guy, tastes notwithstanding, and we wish him a jolly olde visit.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Is it forty years since Apollo I? Something has changed since then. We came back from that disaster to put men on the moon. We barely came back after the two orbiting-jalopy accidents. We know what has changed, and it hasn't been for the better.

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

Guess the number of protesters at the DC antiwar rally, as it will FINALLY be tallied by the ASSPress and other UNBIASED NEWS ORGANIZATIONS:

a) 250,000
b) 500,000
c) 1,000,000
d) The entire U. S. population
e) Who cares? They'll make up a figure anyhow

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

THERE ARE NOT 46 MILLION UNINSURED!!!!!!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

Just 21 to 31 million. WHEW! I was worried there.

Posted 12:42 PM by Gene

"It is tough to be in the minority, isn't it? I feel your pain," Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Democrats, Republicans, MILLIONAIRES AND BUMS taste about alike to me.

Posted 12:36 PM by Gene

For $60 million, forfeiting your Heisman Trophy and your team's victories is a small price to pay.

PROFESSIONALIZE PROFESSIONAL COLLEGE SPORTS!

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

When people start making grand pronouncements about terrorism it is best to remember hardly anyone knows. It's clear the one place where they're smiling is in Pakistan; but we hope they're smiling with sweaty palms.

(Via TNR's Open University)

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

In MONEY news from DA POST!!!!!!!!!!: We think this checkout clerk has the right idea to keep working. $1 million dollars is not that much, and lottery winners have hardly been known for their miserliness.

And in MONEY HONEY® NEWS (bleaaah!)...well, let's just say she's further embroiled in the E word -- IF you can believe PAGE SIX!!!!!!!!!!!!

She will NOT leave her job BECAUSE SHE'S A PROFIT CENTER. But now that she's TRADEMARKED the term she really SHOULD be a profit center SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Posted 8:38 PM by Gene

Another brilliant insider (who is this Lefsetz?) says we're living in a GOLDEN AGE of "music" (I still say it's DOUBLE MEGA-PLATINUM at LEAST) but even HE, brilliant, savvy insider, doesn't have A CLUE how to sell all this burgeoning genius. Maybe -- and here is where the Lefsetzes will hit a wall, or bang their heads on it -- this "music" CAN'T SELL.

The "merger" of EMI's U. S. pop operations says there are STILL too many needless marques as it is. And who buys music by the brand name these days? There used to be a reason. Not anymore. But then there's no reason to buy music anymore.

(Link via PaidContent.org, which can also be clueless on occasion)

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

The most prominent princess in Saudi Arabia's royal family said yesterday that if she could change one thing about her country, she would let women drive — a rare and direct challenge to the driving ban imposed by the kingdom's ruling male elite.

Just three things wrong with this: 1. You're a woman; 2. This is Davos, and nobody was listening because so many people were busy talking; and 3. Your royal poohbahdom's high-and-holy religious-law overseers just issued a fatwa against THE LETTER X.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Why didn't the Bugmeister waste half His company's marketing budget on the Super Bowl? Then the hacks wouldn't have stopped yakkety-yakking for WEEKS.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Awww, poor Ruthie is "lonely" and needs company.

We know just what company YOU have in mind, hacks.

(Revised at 8:50 p. m. Did I say "Sandy"? I most certainly DID! Pfffffffffffft!)

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: In order to justify putting our CEO in a luxury suite for the SUPER BOWL, we have to do a lot of other little things WE'D PROBABLY HAVE TO DO ANYWAY, and which we now do solely to justify PUTTING OUR CEO IN A LUXURY SUITE.

FURTHER TRANSLATION: The Paper of Re-CORD challenges USAOKAY!!!!! in justifying the waste on SUPER BOWL ADVERTISING!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

"It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel."

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, I made a stupid.

AND NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Good news:

U.N. officials say Iran plans to start assembling thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges next month.

BETTER news:

Report: Iran Preparing to Put Satellite in Orbit

Let's just save the effort and build a WET-NOODLE FACTORY THERE!

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

In more news from the very AHTISTIC THEATRICAL CAPITAL of the UNIVERSE, BRANSON EAST, THE BOYS will fleece expense-account holders one more time, and Singin' in the Rain's coming back. Who says you can't find anything new and different there?

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

Of course Dubya isn't serious about energy. The very word "ethanol" prompts gales of canned laughter. But if he raised gasoline taxes imagine the firestorm from con-SER-va-tives -- and from media simpletons who would spend their every last waking moment ferreting out people complaining of higher gas prices. Yes Dubya isn't serious; but since when have we expected any of our superior ruling class to BE serious?

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

OH oh, MONEY HONEY's embroiled in the -- E word.

This is the problem with profit centers in JERNALISM: they think themselves omnipotent and insuperable. How many times have idiot hacks praised HONEY for her BEEEEEYOUTEE? and her "brains"? Honest, she was an ordinary hack who got a big break. The same with someone like THE KEYBOARD THROWER, or half the staff at ESPN, or your average millionaire pundit. By concentrating on profit centers the news biz devises one more reason why meat-and-potatoes reporting goes to hell.

(Via MediaBistro)

P. S. Howie Hairshirt and Jonny Hairshirt are lecturing her, meaning her job is safe -- for now. (Via the usual Romy)

Posted 8:03 AM by Gene

I'm sure we are all astonished that several of the entertainers at a "famed flesh palace" would engage in extracurricular activities.

How many "gentlemen's clubs" are glorified whorehouses?

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Just what the world needs -- a cell-phone cable network.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

"She’s a real stage mother," one of them said at the screening. "The negotiations just go on and on."

Someone should write a musical!

No takers -- and a long line of negotiators, no doubt.

(We have not mentioned this grand talent before figuring, just another Tatum or Brooke or Drew -- and look what they became. Please.)

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Now that another scribbler is getting a huge paycheck, we may ask, for what? What makes Mike's prose so special that ESPNCorp's paying him $2 million a year? Yes, he's earning it as a talking whoopee cushion, as are most of the FRED FLINTSTONES of SPORT, but still, what has entitled so many scribblers to make so many millions disgorging tripe? And how can BIGMEDIA pay the huge salaries when they're firing people right and left? And no, "PROFIT CENTER" isn't an explanation, it's an excuse.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

British Conservatives Remain Unchanged

Has any political party changed?

Posted 3:45 PM by Gene

GRUMPY EMOTICON MOMENT: The TWXSTERS raise the white flag on THEIR OWN PICTURE ("[Letters was co-produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, a subsidiary of Time Warner, which also owns TIME.]") -- albeit in the LAST GRAF:

As difficult as Letters can be to watch, that fact might make it easier for Japanese audiences to embrace it. They aren't required to ponder the psychic cost of the battle on the survivors — few as there were — nor to wonder at the political mistakes that wrought horror from Manchuria to New Guinea. That's not the film Eastwood wanted to make, and that he chose not to takes nothing away from his accomplishment. But if he had, I doubt that Abe would have walked out of a screening calling it a "very good film" — and that $40 million gross might have come out a bit lighter.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

DUNCAN WHO? FOR PRESIDENT!
DUNCAN WHO? FOR PRESIDENT!
He's the man three people choose!
Betcha that he's gonna lose!

NYAAAAAAAAAAAH NYAH NYAH NYAAAAAAAAAAH NYAH NYAH NYAAAAAAAAAAH NYAAAAAAAAAAH NYAAAAAAAAAAAH....

Well, WE know who he is: he used to stand around and shoot the bull during special orders with a fine old gang -- folks like "Surfer Dude" Rohrabacher...and Bob "PSYCHO" Dornan...and THE DUKE....

So he has two votes there!

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

So what does HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN do about ATHUHLETE-students? Does it dumb down their regular courses or does it have them take dumbed-down majors?

TOUGH question.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

The median age of FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! viewers has gone up FIVE YEARS to 42!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

And at the World High-Mucky-Muck-Networking and Gaseous-Speechifying Conference:

The forum has dedicated 17 sessions to climate change, including a working dinner Thursday night that's to ask the question: "Can Markets Save the Planet?"

That's a LOT of global warming.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

Comforting:

Georgian Sting Seizes Bomb Grade Uranium

Meantime the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY plays its game of willful stupidity with nuclear blackmailers.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

And in other entertainment news from the Big V:

McCain target of early '08 attack ad
2008 ad campaign expected to cost $2.8 bil

Do I hear BROAD¢A$TER$ $LURPING?

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Before they start boasting of being the "walking wounded", the reason we have so many aging Senators with serious health problems is that nobody can stop them from running...and running...and running.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

AllllllllllllllllllllVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN?!?!?!?!?

Posted 7:56 PM by Gene

Windows Vista is essentially warmed-over Windows XP.

NewEgg is selling the top-of-the-line Ultimate OEM for $199. Maybe a second MS bubble won't happen.

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

...nonbinding resolution....

NUF SAID.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

We laugh -- bitterly: A broadcaster has petitioned to prevent CHEAP CHANNEL JR. from acquiring stations from VIACON NETWORK because it staged that murderous Wii stunt -- presumably so IT can buy the stations, and do a few dubious things of its own.

Meantime "Madcow" Mancow has organized a "foundation" to prevent future such stunts -- and it is a measure of how much we trust the radio biz that we can't help thinking this is a stunt too, whatever its motives.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Today is CURLEY's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) day:

Peter O'Toole has a hangover. And he's relishing it.

If somebody says a politically incorrect thing the MORAL ARBITERS who are AMERICA'S NEWS HACKS unite in KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPHING unity to arrange for the closest thing to exile to Siberia. But when a fool actor who's just starred in a movie with an "'ick factor'" (the ASSPress admits it?) says he has a hangover, why, we want to win him THE ACADEMY AWARD®.

And now that IVANA has joined in THAT @#$%&* FEUD we can say this: When a tree in an abandoned forest falls, it makes no sound -- unless it's picked up by 2,000 PARABOLIC MIKES.

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

For a blogger accept a bribe to change an article is wrong. We wonder how many of the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS would hustle off with the cash.

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

It is highly unlikely, Mr. Former Ambassador, that GLOBAL WARMING caused Darfur. Hitler didn't need global warming to cause the Holocaust. (Oh, but we forget, in the League of Nations genocide against Jews isn't a crime. Must always keep that in mind.)

Amazing too that for the first time in ages al Reut uses THE T WORD -- when it's PC to do so.

(Revised at 5:30 p.m. There was a severe drought in Darfur in the early 80s. Still one must ask -- did the DUST BOWL cause a genocide?)

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

Shucks, Senatuh HEIN-TZZZ has decided he'd rather have a permanent Senate seat after all, one that perhaps he can will to his -- SIGNIFICANT OTHUH.

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

It makes me angrier to realize I'm typing for nobody when I read this calling SecondLife a pyramid scheme -- almost four months after I called it a scam.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYBODY OUT THERE?!?!?!?!?!?!?

(Via Slashdot)

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

Sen. Lugar has "doubts", but he'll back Dubya anyway.

Dick Lugar walks a fine line between common sense and squishy.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

THE POLITICO makes NEWS:

Pennsylvania Republican Don Sherwood, who lost his House seat last fall, is now refusing to pay his ex-mistress more than half of a $500,000 settlement he promised her to keep quiet about their affair, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Yes, I guess the voters had a very good reason to take away the GOP's car privileges.

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

Time to post a picture of everybody's favorite news-ASSociation prexy again:



For those who haven't yet, somehow, had their fill of Paris Hilton, there's a new Web site that has posted a seemingly endless offering of the celebutante's belongings.

The Web site, ParisExposed.com, launched Tuesday. It boasts that it has an array of Hilton photographs, home videos, diaries, love letters, recorded phone conversations and phone numbers of friends and celebrities, all left behind at a Los-Angeles based storage facility.

Where's all this crusading reporting your promised us, CURLEY? (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Why haven't you said anything lately about your political prisoner?

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Houston's crime rate drops more than 5 percent in 2006

...thanks to all the folks from N'AWLANS who left?

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

The ASSPress's NOBLE TRUTH-TELLERS give us another reason to read their work from a KNEELING position:

Jimi Hendrix Energy Drink in Works

Don't overdose on it!

Junk like this, combined with Little Malcolm's press release, has moved me to start my long-threatened NEUHARTHISM blog. Perhaps if I insult these cretins through a dedicated blog I can get through. I doubt it.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

Little Malcolm wastes more of His readers' time with another of His damfool LISTS. Yes, these bloggers will be forgotten in twenty years, but they're "famous" now, and this salt in the wound reminds me I've been at it for four years typing and no one reads me. This uses every last hype word in the show-biz flack's thesaurus. ("PHENOMENAL!!" "POPULAR!!" "HUGELY POPULAR!!" [SEVERAL TIMES!!] "HUGELY INFLUENTIAL!!" "HOT!!") And of course it's all the flatulent compromising horn-tooters we hear too much of every blasted day. (HARRY KNOWLES!!!!!) Why does Little Malcolm want to kiss all the world's behinds?

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD to DAVE!

P. S. A measure of how supremely contemptuous the Forbes.com staff is of its surfers: Every HOT!! blogger merits his own page -- so that if you want to use Recent Pages or Go Back to get to the article before you hit this PR screech, you have to leaf through 25 pages! MORONS.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Jo-NAH:

Webb's Awful

Little Michael Crowley:

Boy, was he good. That response could do for Webb something akin to what Barack Obama's 2004 convention speech did for the Illinois senator.

I HATE KNEE-JERKS!

P. S. These were posted within five minutes of each other, meaning neither man was thinking.

P. P. S. We may gather from Head-Scratchin' Jonny he's just been elected president. He posted an hour after these two clowns. He wasn't thinking either.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

This story, which Little Malcolm somehow buried on His site, suggests SLIME's talent extravaganza has a closet full of skeletons. But because it's become a profit center to the news biz and so many Web sites we despair of ever hearing anything other than more breathless cheerleading. Indeed SLIME's show has probably wasted more column inches than any other story in newspaper HISTORY. And the grand poohbahs of the biz wonder why people don't trust them.

And how much of a story might there be? SLIME has one of His charges run a MEA CULPA.

We see too that SLIME may buy a stake in TRIB. We thought Your thing was SOCIAL NETWORKING, SLIME!

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

MONEY HONEY, one of America's most overrated TV personalities, got a sweetheart of a deal from CITIGROUP!

If THE BIG C didn't exist no one would want to invent it.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

N Korea helping Iran with nuclear testing

Time for another helping of WET NOODLES!

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

And in the latest of another LEGENDARY mayor's quest for IMMORTALITY:

In a press conference Tuesday morning, the day after the two cities filed bid books with the U.S. Olympic Committee, the Chicago 2016 Bid Committee revealed a host of fresh details:

--A temporary stadium at Washington Park, the linchpin for the Games, has reduced in size, while cost estimates have risen. The plan now calls for 80,000 seats, rather than 95,000, to trim costs. This is estimated to cost $316 million.

-- After the stadium is dismantled, another $50 million will be spent to construct a lasting amphitheater in Washington Park. The facility, for cultural and sporting events, will seat 5,000, down from the 10,000 originally planned.

-- The combined cost of the temporary stadium and the amphitheater, $366 million, is up from earlier estimates of $300 million to $320 million....

Yes, your turnips...TAXPAYERS will be paying for quite some time!

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

THOSE WHO LIVE BY TV: We are not surprised that what was once professional hockey has lousy ratings and thus is ripe for another cancellation, even with Superman as commissioner. Figure skating is another thing, as that was definitely a province of the CEO luxury-suite stuffers, and as its audience was mostly female and uncritical; even it seems to have found other distractions, perhaps because like most things that rely on cultivating personalities it can't seem to make any. The decline of so many sports is the mere byproduct of so many TV viewers getting fed up with the medium's GENIUS and the constant hectoring from MADAVE, neither of which is letting up, idiot talk of VIRAL VIDEOS notwithstanding.

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

And of course it's not just Stale.com -- Mogul's Friend is worried that the fat cats he's been toadying for years have suddenly become PASSÉ, so now he's belching of the Web's infinite cultural wonders too!

Where do people have the time to take in all this genius? Why is it genius? Why must I spend my day more glued to a computer than I already am? Why do so many columnists think this is the second coming of Christ?

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: In Japan there are a million bands posting MP3 junk -- but because you can't download them via EVIL ITUNES they've become "INSANELY GREAT".

Where does ST. WARREN FIND these typists?

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Someone tries to coin a catchphrase:

A new crop of kids: Generation We

And what, pray tell, is the difference between this generation and their Internet-addled elders who are Generation ME?

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Analysts unanimously agree oil won't avg $70/bbl

Is this a contrary indicator?

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

Dubya concocts another applause line:

Bush proposes bipartisan advisory council for war on terror

I hear the sound of one hand clapping.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Lobbyists are counterproductive. The traits that make them effective among Congresspoops -- the high-fiving, the hard-sell -- are disgusting to common people. They're expert at talking past the public right into its pocketbooks. They think if they say the same dishonest thing 500 times they win an argument. That's why their gag isn't working quite as well: the public can vote too. The GOP lost Congress because it was the Party of Lobbyists. Look at the two biggest morons among the glad-handers: BILLY and SAMMY. Billy has the sort of demeanor that makes you think if he isn't guilty of something, he should be; he is the BAYOU DELAY. Big Pharma is in trouble all across the board -- threats of mandated price cutting, investigations into predatory advertising, Pfizer's big layoffs. Okay, maybe the problems are systemic -- and maybe they're the result of a biz that thought it could lobby out of them. Billy wanted what is now Sammy's job. Sammy thinks he's smarter than Hillary; you see that smug smile and you know it. He's losing on two fronts: Congress may raise violent porn on TV to the level of indecent material (!), and the record business is slowly unfurling the white flag on DRM. And he's a DEMOCRAT. For all their superduperego these two men are fundamentally clueless. Why do their cigar-chomping bosses (well, maybe not in Big Pharma -- it's UNHEALTHY) pay such big salaries to people who couldn't lobby their way out of a thimble?

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

HERE COMES SP1!

(Via -- who else? Slashdot)

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

What is the purpose of Davos? So far as we can tell it's for self-important cretins to schmooze. No less important is for said self-important cretins to lift a leg, make a speech someone else wrote, lower the leg, and leave. Among the self-important cretins there will be B. S. DEFENDER, who may spend his whole visit busily looking for consulting work -- when he isn't having an intern type about YouTube. Apparently one thing B. S. and his gang have been telling the attendees is to blog along with them. If most of blogging serves no purpose, think of blogs devoted to boilerplate and buzzwords. Isn't the "Webosphere" already crowded with nothing?

(Link via MediaBistro)

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

Someone else in the ad biz shows a sense of humor.

RANCE! AD AGENCY OF THE CENTURY!

"VIRAL" has become the "METROSEXUAL" of 2007.

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

Sen. Jim Webb to rebut State of the Union

If he mentions children....

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

Dubya concocts an applause line...

In his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress, President Bush is calling for Americans to slash gasoline consumption by up to 20 percent by 2017.

...and proposes we use lots more ETHANOL, which should make certain CORN-state lobbyist-largess receivers very happy.

In the words of a certain rabbit, "What a maroon!"

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

And the hacks rub their hands:

Al Gore 'Thrilled' by Oscar Nominations

While he is not technically a nominee....

That doesn't mean we can't MAKE him one!

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

Excitement at The Corner:

“GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY ANNOUNCES SUPPORT OF FORMER SPEAKER DENNIS HASTERT” [Rich Lowry]

From Romney press shop.

01/23 11:12 AM

This would seem a -- dubious endorsement.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

And here's a good first example: NEWT GINGRICH -- BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE GAMB...GAMING INDUSTRY!

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

If we're going to have corporate sponsorship of presidential elections let's do it right. Since the lobbyists will always run the show the least they can do is put their names and logos on the candidates. O. J. and Slick blotted out every last trace of our sense of shame; why shouldn't we have corporate-sponsored candidates? We know they're the puppeteers, and we know they don't contribute the big bucks out of altruism.

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

The ACADEMY® has spoken, and has shut Singin' in the Rain out. We confess to be surprised, but somehow we could not see that picture winning the Os-CAR® given the musicals that didn't. The other nominees are AHThouse pictures -- excepting MR. TAXI DRIVER's, which is half-and-half. This would seem to mean he'll snag the COVETED HONOR, in overdue recognition of the...although we wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't. Who cares?

(And where did we find this out? Via a headline in THE POLITICO! Let's see how that experiment in ego works.)

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

A pig farmer allegedly killed scores of Vancouver prostitutes, and the locals' first concern seems to be whether it will hurt tourism for THE GAMES.

The town fathers underestimate the Ajax cleansing power of PUBLICITY.

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

To think of the sun swallowing the moon in 5 billion years, or a dinosaur with two sets of wings like a biplane, is to be reminded of how infinitessimal man is, and how so very little we can ever know.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Every once in a while a hack writes something that tells the truth despite itself. He tries to hide what he thinks with qualifiers and weasel words, but somehow a faint aroma of verity still wafts in. Thus does The Paper of Re-CORD's Stephen "Quarter of a Century" Holden say a bit more about the supposed Branson East "superstar" Kristin than he intended -- and starting with descriptions like "acres of determined cuteness" and "an entertainment JumboTron" it is not entirely appetizing:

Every number was directed to a different audience bloc. “Popular,” from the hit musical “Wicked,” played to the visible claque of upscale teenage girls of the kind who have helped make that show a box-office phenomenon. For male couples (also abundant), a comic dance number found the star romanced by two dancing men who abandon her for each other....

I don’t imagine Ms. Chenoweth cares all that much about the quality of her songs, so long as they hit their demographic bull’s-eyes. If she did, she would drop songs like “Taylor, the Latte Boy,” a moony folk-pop trifle about a wistful flirtation with a Starbucks employee. It seems aimed at the same fans who treasure “Popular.”

And what, you may wonder, lies beneath the glare of Ms. Chenoweth’s formidable talent? Is there buried treasure, or is the center hollow? The concert offered no clues.

But your review does.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

And speaking of DR. EVIL, his biz just excreted something else out of sight of the press:

The dialogue is dumb, but that sparks audience participation, which is part of the show. Guess which lines are in the script and which ones were contributed by viewers at the AMC Empire Thursday night:

1) "You're a sick f- - -, aren't you?"

2) "Dumbass!"

3) "Kill that motherf- - - er!"

4) "Be careful!"

5) "Shoot him!"

6) "This guy is really bleedin'!"

7) "Tell them that you didn't do it!"

Nos. 1, 4, 6 and 7 are the work of professional screenwriters. [We would NEVER have guessed. --ED.] The best line I heard all night, though, was from the audience. When the lovers go to a motel and watch "The Birds" on TV, a guy yelled, "Better movie!"

'TAIN'T FUNNY, McGEE.

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

We're sympathetic to Jill Carroll's cause, but the problem isn't budgeting -- it's priorities. The voice of God hasn't told the ASSPress and the networks to cover "celebutards" ad nauseum. So long as the priorities are skewed so will be the news budgets.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Mayor Mike Bloomberg couldn't resist kidding Sen. Chuck Schumer about his new book during a press conference on Monday. Introducing the senator at a gathering to hail a study on keeping New York City's lead in the financial services market, Bloomberg described Schumer as "one of the great authors of all time." N.Y. Governor Eliot Spitzer, who also attended the event, joined in the laughter.

I'd laugh too -- chances are SEN. RED-LIGHT! didn't write the book.

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

Bill Parcells is retiring from football -- and the ASSPress gives him the Unkindest Cut of the Day:

Parcells' legacy with the Cowboys can be framed this way: Instead of joining Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as coaches who led them to championships, he leaves lumped with Chan Gailey and Dave Campo.

Ouch! Wasn't he a little better than that?

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Princeton Mutual Fund is freezing its "tuition" -- but will make up for it with a considerable hike in its "room and board"; and only in HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN would people fall over one another calling it a "dramatic" step and blahblahblah. Why all of a sudden are these mutual funds being so apologetic? Or is it a case of the clients not getting what they're paying through the nose for?

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

CONAgra devises "creepy" advertising. TRANSLATION: A company that devises creepy advertising will finance ANYTHING on television -- WHICH IS WHY CONGRESS IS TALKING ABOUT TV VIOLENCE.

Besides, aren't its products creepy enough?

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

Lower Gas Prices No Help to Gas-Guzzlers

TRANSLATION: The public may finally realize the oil biz has more than one trick up its sleeve.

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

No Changes Planned at CBS Evening News with Katie Couric

HINT HINT?

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

With the epochal success of its NSA SCOOP still resounding in its ears, USAOKAY!!!!! gives us more of the MUST-KNOW NEWS that has MADE IT ITS STERLING REPUTATION:

Is 'Idol' trying to set record in off-key auditions?

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

One of America's greatest cynics eructs yet again:

"It's such an easy thing to do, curse Hollywood, curse television," said Jack Valenti, the former top movie studio lobbyist who is leading an industry initiative to head off government action by teaching parents how to block objectionable TV shows. "It makes headlines…. It looks like they're doing something and they get political brownie points for it."

Look at it this way, DR. EVIL -- YOU taught them VERY well.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:33 PM by Gene

We do not know how much this story reflects mere politics and spin, but we do recall saying when Pope Benedict was chosen the Catholic Church may have "squandered an opportunity" by electing a 78-year-old pontiff. He will be 80 in April. Is it too soon to think of the next pope?

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

When was the last time you heard that bold cliché, "AMERICA'S GREATEST EX-PRESIDENT"? Not lately? Well, despite its conservative bona-fides (and citing FRONTPAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), this article may explain why.

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

MR. MELODRAMA moves his gay-marriage shtick and other shticks to Atlantic.com, presumably to keep from getting fired, and no one cares.

Maybe SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGING isn't what it used to be.

(Via the hyperkinetic MICKEY!!!!!)

Posted 3:17 PM by Gene

Newt Gingrich says he would run as ‘last resort’



HEEEEEEEEEEERE I COMMMMMMMME TO SAVE THE DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

Posted 3:11 PM by Gene

"Grimace" all you want, Mr. FBI, because LALA's undertaking another unserious project to "stop" gang warfare -- unserious because the ruling class will always find an excuse to let up, unserious because it takes place out of sight of those who are charged to stop it.

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

HILLARY WINS!!!!!!!!!!

So far.

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Now the world will get to know what a RENDELL FOR PRESIDENT campaign would be like.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

RAH! RAH! RAH! SIS! BOOM! BAH!

"The Departed" is a great mob movie. "Dreamgirls" is a great musical adaptation. "The Queen" is a great political drama. "Babel" is a great globe-hopping thinking-person's thriller. And though they aren't getting the attention they deserve, Clint Eastwood's two WWII dramas - "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" - are great war movies.

And Jack is a GREAT example of the thousands of base scribblers who PAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO THE OS-CARS®!

RIGHT, MR. GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME?

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

When Norm Thomas's grandson writes about this Missouri kidnapping for the cover, it has to be a slow news -- er, period. So let's see what's in AMERICAS LEA...NEWSWEEKLY'S OVERSEAS EDITIONS:

It's SEVEN SIMPLE IDEAS THAT CAN SAVE THE WORLD!!!!! Aw JonBoy, why did you have to play up that other story? President Gore was counting on you!

Posted 10:12 PM by Gene

Hillary runs for the White House as ‘new Thatcher’

Is SLIME giving to somebody?

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

It's easy to think today's cineastes invented the notion of totally excluding common sense from the movies. I frequently succumb to this notion; it's hard not to. Today shuffling through the worthless LPs at Philadelphia Record Exchange I came across several soundtrack albums that demonstrate conclusively this isn't so. First a double-album including snippets from Words and Music, the noxious biography of Rodgers and Hart that couldn't tell the truth about Larry Hart's life because you couldn't do such things then, and (we now know) Dick Rodgers wouldn't have permitted it anyway. It ends with Mickey Rooney dying by wandering off in the rain. And the tragedy is MGM was sitting on all these wonderful songs! And Mickey and Judy Garland sang "I Wish I Were in Love Again", the best thing they ever did. The mess seems to have been inspired by Warner's Night and Day, with Cary Grant as Cole Porter [!!!!!]; it was so bad even Porter could laugh at it. Perhaps Arthur Freed was thinking of his rapturous first encounter with Shirley Temple when he made it.

Then I happened across four copies of a masterpiece of 26 (!) years ago: a two-disc set of Pennies from Heaven. This is odd, I thought; it's a soundtrack album -- and it's mostly old music! Then I remembered; this was a WUHK by the CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED DENNIS POTTUH, the HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM of TV, based on his mini-series in which people with lousy lives lip-synched to thirties hits, the whole point to make fun of all those stupid wretched songs. Imagine being Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters and having to lip-sync to fifty-year old recordings! Of course it bombed, it bombed because it was a cheat, a pretentious cheat, the kind of movie designed to give people a bad time. I wonder if that's why no one but "African-Americans, gays and upscale whites" crowded into places like the "Zeigfield Theater" to see Singin' in the Rain; who wants to be beat over the head to fourth-rate music?

P. S. Wikipedia tells us Mistuh Pottuh came to believe "'every line that dripped from his pen was a work of genius'", which would definitely put him in the realm of EINSTEIN. He wasn't all bad, however; as he was dying of cancer he called his illness RUPERT, after -- YOU-KNOW-WHO.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

"There'll Always Be an England":

Prince Charles canceled a traditional skiing holiday in a bid to reduce his carbon footprint, his office said Saturday.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

CHEAP CHANNEL did a WATER stunt first.

People can gas about "Darwin Awards" and all that jazz -- they were doing that at Slashdot, a site full of idiot savants -- but this stunt should provoke anger was because of the malevolence at its root, the vague misanthropic hope that something would go catastrophically wrong, the idea of putting people in danger for laughs -- and because it involves BIGMEDIA, and the idiots of MADAVE who back it. That's why one should be angry.

Posted 12:35 PM by Gene

REASON NO. 16,396 WHY MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!: While looking up some numbers on BoxOfficeMojo Goodthings Entertainment subjected us to an ad for an...UPCOMING piece of GENIUS, and here is precisely why you have to drag people to the popcorn restaurants: THERE WAS A CUT EVERY HALF-SECOND! If THAT doesn't say GODAWFUL nothing does. And Little Jeffy thinks He can make big money from the movies? Your stock didn't do too well yesterday despite the news You're buying up 500 more companies. Isn't it time for a spinoff -- or better still a BREAK-UP?

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

Once again the world deludes itself into thinking that TALKTALKTALK will solve the North Korea problem, because the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY has the collective courage of a bowl of WET NOODLES.

Meantime the League of Nations gives millions to Kim to subsidize his fabulous "lifestyle" -- and possibly his NUKES.

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

O.J. Simpson Ordered to Limit Spending

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

Hey DICKIE V! I don't think the DUKIES are quite the ROCKIN' and ROLLIN' and SHAKIN' and BAKIN' CLASS ACT OF PROFESSIONAL COLLEGE SPORT they USED to be!

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

COMSYMPS at BLOOMBERG (!) complain business's wealth isn't going to the workers!

Who cares about the workers? It's LEGENDARY WELCHES and BOB NARDELLIS and KENNYBOYS and MICKEYMOUSE NIXONS and MEAN BUSINESSES and DENNIS KOZLOWSKIS and BERNIE EBBERSES and WALT FORBESES who make the wealth! Their egos work long hard hours to build the corporations that, um, er....

Larry Kudlow can come up with something.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

The beautiful but violent Rio de Janeiro invited the pretty but troubled Naomi Campbell to be its ambassador on Friday, two days after she admitted in a New York court to throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper.

Why wasn't the ASSPRESS on top of this story?

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Having just censored BOB BARKER'S LINE the ASSPRESS flies from LALA to LAS VEGAS to spin THIS breathless thread:

The pageant was aired a combined 20 times on CMT, owned by Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks, and its sister-network VH1, the network said. Although just 3.1 million viewers watched the show live — less than one-third the viewers she last found on ABC — a total of 36 million people saw the show including the replays. Even the traditionalists couldn’t argue with that exposure.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO KATHLEEN! And the ASSPRESS is now one of the FIVE FINALISTS (or however many) for NEUHARTHISM OF THE YEAR! We wanted Bernie Wayne to write a theme song but he wasn't available, so we'll choose something at random from YouTube.

(Via THE MESS, which DIDN'T run a byline)

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

FINALLY -- the moment PINCH has been waiting His entire career for -- HILLARY is COY NO LONGER: SHE'S IN!!!!!

Now can she control her temper?

P. S. How long did she rehearse for her video? And how many people will that back-and-forth of the camera make seasick?

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Loral stock rises on satellite contract

Which seems odd given the Chinese allegedly just destroyed a satellite possibly using technology donated by UNCLE BERNIE SCHWARTZ.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

CHEAP CHANNEL IS HAVING A SALE!

One thing, though: wouldn't it fetch more money if it ADVERTISED on the RADIO?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

CNN: Amanpour Shocked By Radicals

...so says the link in the NEW! IMPROVED!! PEOPLENEWSRAG.COM, but just past the midway point Christiane pretty well concedes why holy cockroaches so often get their way:

Extremists and radicals are very adept at playing the media's game. Even though they are a minority, a small number of them can gather on a corner, hold a protest or demonstration and get a massive amount of media attention and air time. That's because today's mostly tabloid media culture in the UK has sensationalized the "Muslim issue" and focuses only on the extremists, rarely finding the facts, context and texture beneath the surface.

Possibly -- but when you jump with glee pointing at an Osama poster it will attract attention.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Is there a direct correlation between horn honking and bad driving?

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

WOW!!!!! The TWXSTERS are using some of the money they saved from firing magazine types to DOUBLE SENSITIVE ANDERSON'S SALARY!

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

Motorola may be teaching Apple a lesson: that sexy toys may go only so far.

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER is ACTING UP AGAIN!

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

The same courageous, truth-telling SUPERHACKS of the ASSPress, who leave not one classified file untouched in their quest to reveal every last EVIL ACT of our government, keep a SECRET:

Barker said he couldn't understand why he, and his show, have become cult favorites for college students. He talks about the number of young people who ask him to say his salty line from his appearance in the Adam Sandler movie "Happy Gilmore."

"I've been in television 50 years and what am I going to be remembered for?" he said, then repeated his line. [SIC]

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO THE ASSPRESS AND ITS SECRET WRITER!

P. S. on 1/20 at 10:30 a.m.: For the first time (and probably the last) David "PLATINUM" Bianculli does something right. I guess you have to be a stupid drunk teen to find that line funny -- or maybe THE BIONIC GAME-SHOW HOST.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Someone wants to build a huge luxury hotel and condo project in Beverly Hills.

There goes the neighborhood!

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

Excitement at Slashdot:

"Yahoo! News is running an article about a New Jersey home that uses solar power to provide 100% of its energy needs, including fuel for the owner's hydrogen fuel cell-powered automobile...."

And does it look like one great big solar panel?

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

"If I had done as vice president what this vice president has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there," Mondale said.

Thankfully the voters threw you out before he had a chance.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

A nice combo:

Toyota will be a Super Bowl advertiser again this year, Jim Lentz, exec VP of Toyota Motor Sales USA, told Advertising Age. Toyota will showcase its newly remodeled Tundra full-size pickup, he said.

Toyota recalls half million Tundra, Sequoias

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

Ex-Congresspoop Ney gets a richly deserved thirty months for his dreams of avarice.

The sentence was harsher than recommended by prosecutors or Ney's lawyers, Huvelle said, because Ney had violated the trust place on him as a public official. "Both your constituents and the public trusted you to represent them honestly," she said.

Thus should it always be -- especially when a Congresspoop becomes a lobbyist's accessory.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

Going from THE ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY to Rich Little is a comedown.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Michael Agger starts to make a point about cameraphones, but then he remembers this is Stale.com, and he goes on longeurs, and he waxes philosophic. The point can be summed up in one sentence: technology is in the hands of idiots.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

I suggest it is time for someone to foment a feud between THE NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE and THE DONALD. (Links via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in THE UNIVERSE'S GREATEST GROUP BLOG:

Lee Day [John J. Miller]

Today is the 200th anniversary of Robert E. Lee's birth.

Why hasn't a certain kind of con-SER-va-tive moved to make it a FEDERAL HOLIDAY?

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

Marvel Comics Postage Stamps [Jonah Goldberg]

'Nuff said.

01/19 08:21 AM

"'NUFF SAID"? You mean you're not as excited as the day the Postal Disservice issues A HUNDRED STAR WARS STAMPS? Oh, we forgot. You don't trust THE LORD anymore.

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

The Senate somehow passes ethics "reform", despite Sen. Fundrai$er Moneybag$ insisting "THE DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP DOES NOT HAVE TO KILL THIS LEGISLATION!!!!!!!!!!"

Any boob who uses Democrat as an ADJECTIVE clearly has not learned ANY lesson.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

When someone says something will happen, fate may apply the banana peel. Greg Sandow, an ArtsJournal.com blogger, has written three lengthy essays (thus far) on why classical music WILL die -- senescent audiences, nonexistent record buyers, etc., etc., -- and the commenters have been fighting back (politely and informedly) suggesting he is misguided. This is precisely how a blog should work -- with a writer making provocative statements, and an intelligent audience challenging his assertions. Unfortunately most discussions on the Web are merely a matter of who can make the biggest ass of himself.

(Link via Mr. Teachout's blog)

Posted 8:18 PM by Gene

House Dems close the first '100 hours'

They did? We didn't know. And what did they do?

Posted 7:36 PM by Gene

OH oh, SAMMY GLICKMAN'S NEW SECRET-BUT-NOT-TOP-SECRET-RECIPE ALPHABET SOUP is striking a few as distinctly UNCOOKED!

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

ITSHINESFORALL.COM (like dead mackerel in the moonlight?) thinks it has an ENORMOUS scoop because JIMMAH "interceded" on behalf of a KNOWN NAZI KILLER -- and SAM LITTLE confirmed his handwriting!!!!! Alas, the BLOGOSPHERE may not be taking it that strenuously, given the first comment:

And exactly why is this news? Dogs bark.

Posted by: Q at January 18, 2007 3:10 PM

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in America's Greatest Group Blog, a "reader" comforts Jo-NAH about all the wonderful things that have happened under Dubya's watch -- eight of the twelve economic -- and says if Dubya were a "D"....Well, we'd guess if this were 1998 and NRO were liberal some "reader" would have comforted some smug glib editor about all the wonderful economic things that happened under Slick, and added some platitudes about the Cleaning Lady for good measure. But William Jefferson's era was a tawdry, sleazy, worthless time built largely on the greatly depreciating boxes of computerdom, and save for a different president and a slow-grinding war there's little difference, except that the tawdry and sleazy have ossified into outright ennui, and Dubya has no known girlfriends.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

BIG NEWS at NRO from Rick Brookhiser:

Tomorrow I begin a new gig as a Contributor [sic] to Time.

Hasn't he heard of rearranging the deck chairs on -- oh, never mind.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Just what we need, George -- a guvment commission on STEROIDS.

Of course so long as athletes insist on drinking marijuana....

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

We suspect Sen. Hein-TZZZ cares not a hoot about Iran; he just wants to embarrass Republicans. We suspect the military-industrial complex, as is too often the case, would rather we not know.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

We wonder if the public is engaging in an active rebellion against BIGMEDIA. Not in television or the movies, at least not outwardly; visual media have a hypnotic effect, and their Pavlovian fans have no taste. But the news business's badness cannot hypnotize itself away. Nor with recorded sound and its allied art of stench making, radio. The sound biz is hurting because many of its buyers are casual partakers -- and female; and they increasingly resent paying for one song and filler, and not a very good song at that. Moreover we'd bet [C]RAP has done it mighty damage; so much of recorded sound's output is [C]RAP, and people may figure that's all there is to it -- which in a sense, may be right. One of the big secrets of recent years (which those secret-exposers the HACKS naturally won't tell) is that [C]RAP has lost market-share big time. How many ways can one have an attitude reciting slant rhymes like Hitler? We cannot take comfort in the alleged comeback of the classics as it builds from a tiny base; but we would hope conscience and intellect would gain a small foothold with the people, and then improve all of music. Nonetheless we fear the rot is so great it's not only taken the ground out from beneath our culture, but the universe from around it.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Gosh almighty, why would anyone want to drink marijuana?

Pfffffffffffffft!!!!!

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

The Kookiest Klowns in Kongress want to restore the Fairness Doctrine -- so they can hear THEIR SIDE OF THE STORY!

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

By the way, MANKIND'S SEXUAL SAVIOR should keep in mind HE'S ONLY A YEAR YOUNGER THAN ART BUCHWALD WAS.

Any organization that runs press releases like this is guilty of news malpractice -- though we've long kept a wary distance from SLIME's scalpels.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

We are very sorry to see that Art Buchwald has died. He was a very funny man. It might not seem so on the basis of his columns of the last few decades, but back in the mid-sixties he recorded a Capitol album before an audience at Georgetown, and though the material is dated he had an insouciance and a gravelly voice that even today could provoke mirth. I wonder if his real calling wasn't stand-up comedy. His last year shows us a "dying" man can have more fight and joie de vivre than most healthy people, and we are sad he somehow didn't beat the odds a little longer, but his bravery is an example for us all. God bless you, Mr. Buchwald, and we hope you know many smiles.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

NOW, after over ten years in business, eBay gets SERIOUS about FRAUD?!?!?

Methinks they've seen those phishing listings too.

I don't know, though -- aren't "egregious shipping and handling fees" part of the eBay ethic?

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

A fitting conclusion: Not only does SLIME dump Lady Judith's IMPRINT into the garbage, it's withdrawing its new novel The Sex Life of Mickey Mantle.

What will porn "stars" do?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

The WaPosties are printing The Onion...it's in talks with VIACON COMEDY NEWS NETWORK...

Who needs a news business?

(Via Romy, who isn't at all concerned)

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

How will THE NEW! IMPROVED!! PEOPLE NEWSRAG!!! be great with "40 percent" fewer staff?

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

DIMWIT:

Bill O'Reilly said no to interviewing Sacha Baron Cohen in character as Borat, but he's willing to interview Stephen Colbert in character as, well, O'Reilly.

Does anyone in this blithering business NOT talk in character?