Posted 10:05 PM by Gene

We regret that you captured our sailors, boo hoo...

NYET!

What an apt story for April Fool's Day!

Posted 9:51 PM by Gene

Observation of the week from the great ASIFA-Hollywood animation blog:

The other day, a student at Woodbury volunteered to help build out our database. His name is Jo-Jo. He told me how much this blog, along with Eddie Fitzgerald's and John K's, has opened his eyes to how great cartoons were in the 30s, 40s and 50s. He had a sketchbook full of Preston Blair drawings and enthusiasm for Fleischer, MGM and Warner Bros cartoons.

So I asked him what kinds of music he listens to...

"David Bowie mostly."

My jaw hit the floor. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I gave Jo-Jo the best tip he'll ever get...

Cartoons aren't the only things that were better back in the first half of the 20th century.

[sic]

Posted 8:02 PM by Gene

How I Live with Cancer

Let's see the international editions:

Aw, C'MON, JonBoy! Why haven't you posted them yet?

P. S. on 4/1 at 3:40 P.M.: Because they're taking the weekend off for Easter. And we thought St. WARREN was their god!

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

Only in NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

● LOU DOBBS IS SAVING A TROUBLED NATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Nation-saving overemphasis added]

So click on the link, and....

Sorry, the page you requested could not be found.

Posted 3:54 PM by Gene

Speaking of JonBoy, 9 out of 10 people still believe in God!

I'm glad we have divine POLLSTERS to tell us!

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

I finally figured out how The Most Overrated "Comedy" "Stars" of All Time, Bob and Ray, lasted so long. They started on radio in 1946 as a Boston local act, and only came to the national air in 1951, as the medium began its slow inexorable decline toward three-song playlists and CHEAP CHANNEL; surely a two-man "comedy" act with stock music or an organ (not even that sometimes) was far cheaper to procure than the expensive series still dominating the waves. By the late fifties they had it made; with the biz now All-Freed-All-The-Time there were nonetheless plenty of outlets for their ultracoy witlessness, notably NBC's Monitor, a parade of tiresome greasy radio personalities famous for its irritating theme music, and WOR, which was even greasier. With increased exposure came Sondheimization, the notion that when a very few people in very elite parts like you it means you're good, and they became "cult" performers, which doesn't seem to have improved their "act." We can be sure its cult had no sense because each Bob and Ray sketch sounded just like 5,000 others, assuring a comfort zone for the cult's ego. (That they starred in a pretentious Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. space-"comedy" on public TV didn't hurt.) In the meantime they secured their fortunes with an ad-voiceover empire. The act ultimately became a ward of public radio, guaranteeing its tiresomeness would be total. We aren't surprised to see the NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE's archenemy reveres their memory, which tells us that in time his rep will fade too. (Interesting that his Bob-and-Ray-worshipping shtick gets its name from a Bob and Ray shtick inspired by a pan of John Simon's -- the one man among thousands of fanny kissers with sense.)

P. S.

Like most old-line broadcasters, they are indefatigable throat-clearers, and when they are in the same room the ceaseless coughs, harrumphs and roars are almost deafening.

No further comment.

(Monitor theme link updated 2/18/2009; NPNTR link updated 5/1/2009)

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

Gadzooks! They're replacing the Bionic Game Show Host with the Bionic Smiling Celebrity!

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

I have taken several days off from blogging -- an abscessed tooth will force such things -- and made me further confront the essential vapidity of what I do. Blogging is words and prejudices bound in a digital corset. It annoys me to think how many of my posts fall into so many puny categories:

1. Stupid liberal demagogue says something stupid, hypocritical or dishonest about a conservative;
2. Stupid conservative demagogue says something stupid, hypocritical or dishonest about a liberal;
3. Stupid conservative and liberal sling simultaneous invective, the verbal slime besmirching parties other than those intended;
4. Stupid liberal reveres fellow stupid liberal for saying something stupid.
5. Stupid conservative reveres fellow stupid conservative for saying something stupid.
6. Stupid liberal and stupid conservative mutually revere someone for saying something stupid. (Rare, although think of the comedy team of Slick and Papa or History's Greatest Comic Novelist and you'll get the idea.)
7. Stupid news hack demonstrates he cannot write a sentence without emasculating the language or inserting his egregious prejudices;
8. Government does something idiotic;
9. Business does something idiotic;
10. Another show biz blowhard earns thousands of times his weight in unjustified publicity.

And one could go on and on and on, but one is already benumbed by all this blogging.

Perhaps the problem is words by the oceanful. I have already railed about how the ASSPress disgorges twenty million of them a day; add our almost infinite overcapacity now with newspapers and television and the Web and surely America will be the first nation to perish from verbiage. Even Thomas Paine could not amplify his voice above the deafening scream, a scream which for all its inconsequence is a deafening silence.

The several scathing reviews that have greeted the adaptation of Ms. Didion's latest masterpiece in Branson East point to another problem. Technology has vitiated language's power, and not just through its awful excess. It has ameliorated heartbreak. Once separation could be permanent; today you could live in Australia, and your very closest friend could live in France, and you could scoot back and forth across the globe to remeet within two days. The passionate love letter sent tearfully from the nearest intolerably mute mailbox has become :-*. Even the horrible killings of ghetto infants are becoming routine, routinized in no small part by technology. And Ms. Didion is putatively talking of grief, of the death of her husband and daughter. Abe Lincoln caught the essence in his wrenching letter to Mrs. Bixby (and she lost two sons in the War, not five). Constant technology has slowly calmed the tragic muse. "Memory stops. The frame freezes. You'll find that's something that happens'' will not do. Perhaps only a genius can communicate the depths of heartbreak now, and it seems safe to say there are no Shakespeares on the horizon.

Further let us admit life is not as interesting anymore. Lacking any solider evidence we must assume Shakespeare got his playwriting guts from boozing and fighting and whoring, much like Ben Jonson, much like Hemingway, much like many "classic" writers, who went sailing and boxing and cowpoking besides; that we don't know if Shakespeare was interesting doesn't mean he wasn't, and his plays most certainly are (if not always for the right reasons). Alexander and Attila the Hun did not merely conquer nations. Having just read over Truman a third or fourth time I know how he jumped from one wet rag to another, a seeming failure in middle-age, before stepping into a county judgeship and history. Failure made the man. Today a child goes to a bland elementary school (where, despite the ever-changing always trendy pedagogy, the accent is forever on conformity), to a bland high-school, to a bland college, to a bland Dilberty life; the most he can say is that he'll have had sex with more people than others, usually under a drug-heavy haze. This is experience? This foments maturity and wisdom? No wonder each successive generation looks like a lesser order of infants. Words can have little power when an increasingly contented life robs them of their meaning.

And of course science will be in the vanguard of making words obsolete. It is hard to believe it won't be. As Mustapha Monds seek to enable wi-fi-like interaction among human brains, where all communication becomes non-verbal, sensual, visceral, words will become obsolete. That this must rank with nuclear fission as a cause for the world's end matters not; we must go forward into an ever-speedier, ever-larger, ever-more-enveloping void, not only within our communities, but within ourselves.

So I have gassed why I an abscessed tooth has kept me from blogging the last few days. I can only resume with my usual futile and foolish attempts at aphorisms and wit, realizing no one reads them willingly in the first place, but content with the fact with, if I must make a fool of myself -- and that is the blogger's first obligation -- no one will be watching.

(Corrected 9/4/2010 -- "or "replaces "of" in fourth sentence of sixth graf)

Posted 6:49 PM by Gene

Another rag the world desperately needs: Golf for Women.

Gotta say it again: Magazines are on the verge of becoming a mass medium without an audience.

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

Dr. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!! disqualifies Sen. Law-and-Order because he's not a Christian.

I think we should check again. The guy's from Hollywood so he had to approve of the WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!ING.

Posted 3:52 PM by Gene

Apt: Bugmeister may buy into a world leader in pop-up ads. Now if He can apply the same successful formula that has worked with His other software we may never be plagued by pop-upsd again!

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

Even Chinese movie makers play for the ad-blurbists:

China Daily further commented: "Chinese directors have long been chided by domestic fans because they are always capturing and revealing the dark sides of the country in their movies, solely for the alleged purpose of winning international acknowledgements."

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

The viciousness of the left:

It is worth recalling that the explosion of vulgarity, cruelty, and viciousness that the Web is mostly a phenomenon of the left. Hugh Hewitt linked to this informal study that shows left wing sites are 18 times as filthy as right wing ones.

Thankfully we atone for that with all the posts (like the preceding one) claiming 300 is a con-SER-va-tive movie.

SIX OF ONE....

Posted 11:50 AM by Gene

The Kaiser Family Foundation sez:

Kids 8-12-years old see an average 21 food ads a day--more than 7,600 a year--most of which are for candy and snacks (34%), cereal (28%), and fast food (10%). Teenagers are next at at 17 a day or about 6,000 a year.

Remember, youth are our future customers -- if they live that long.

Posted 11:43 AM by Gene

AP NEWS ALERT!

President Bush has withdrawn the ambassadorial nomination of a businessman who donated money to a group that undermined Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Since when has Dubya been conducting most of his business from under the Oval Office desk? Cramped for you, Dubya?

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

I don't know -- would you do business with a company with a name like Beazer?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

The best possible reason for Firefox:

Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

I do not know how many times IE7 has peremptorily shut itself off. I switched from IE6 figuring it could only be better. Bugmeister? Better? How many times have bloggers lost their contents because the Bug wanted time off? And unlike Firefox He doesn't save your selections. This is precisely why so many seem to think the Meister is Spandexily stretching the truth when He boasts of all the copies of XP ME -- Vista He's "sold." I'd wager there are at least as many complaints of how slow and cumbersome it is. In these sixteen words are precisely the reason computing needs competition, something it has gotten in fits and starts, when it's gotten it at all.

And notice this link (and the one preceding) doesn't even list IE7! What do these jerks know?

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Daniel Gross is the sort of hack whose writing knows more than he does. That said he's probably pratfalled into a truth when he says CDs will survive. There is no reason for the people who go for disposable bansheeing and the bigoted truths of [C]RAP to buy them; they have their iPods. But those of us who collect, and moreover, those of us who want a superior sound experience, are sticking with it. What is more, many, many albums are available for much less than $10 -- and not just cutouts or rackjobber's stuff. Look through Amazon.com, or Berkshire Record Outlet if you're a classical fan. The latest adenoidal attitudinal screech deserves downloads. Horowitz and Toscanini and Heifetz and Bernstein, and Satch and the Duke and the Count, and Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Buddy Holly and Ray Charles and the Supremes, deserve only the immortality that the CD alone can promise.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Shucks, Rummy can't be tried for torture.

The greatest injustice of the milleni -- of the centu -- no, the century's not long enough -- of recent histo -- of, of...WHY CAN'T SOMEBODY PUNISH HIM FOR BEING DUBYA'S DEFENSE SECRETARY?

Posted 2:27 PM by Gene

Scintillating NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hed of the Week:

Harris Poll: 50% of Adults Won't Vote for Hillary

Which means (although there may have been some undecideds and no opinions) that possibly 50 percent of adults would vote for Hillary. And 50 percent plus one is all a candidate needs.

Posted 2:27 PM by Gene

How apt that TRIBCO should plug a new rag called Obit on the day another high-profile rag gets offed.

Magazines are on the verge of becoming a mass medium without an audience.

(TRIBCO link via the usual Romy)

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Belly Kisser praises the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich:

"In all your life and creative work you have many times shown the truth that art and morality together supplement each other and constitute a single goal. In all of the world you are known not only as a brilliant cellist and gifted conductor but as a confirmed defender of human rights and freedom of spirit and an uncompromising fighter for the ideals of democracy," Putin said in a statement.

TRANSLATION: Look behind you, maestro.

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Good Lord -- someone spammed MySpace?

Perish the thought!

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

Oh oh, this wasn't supposed to happen:

Is Obama All Style and Little Substance?

Or was it?

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

The onanism of news hacks becomes ever more fiercely onanistic: not only is LALA having its ombudsman investigate its recent op-ed E-THI-CAL LAPSE, but another hack is banging his head on his keyboard because people outside the biz don't seem to care about Sleepy Gonzales and his attorney thing. Who'd have guessed?

(Via Romy, who else?)

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

"Senate energy bill contains goodies for Illinois."

Our Abe JFK Lincoln voted for -- pork?!?!?

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Oh well, The Onion beat SUMNER for establishing a 24-hour "comedy"-news channel, although SUM's still in competition because this sounds like a grabbag of video clips.

No, a 24-hour "comedy"-news channel is an inevitability, though it's hard to guess how it can beat the rest of the news biz for laughs.

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Ah, so maybe not everyone held at Gitmo is -- innocent.

Posted 3:27 PM by Gene

Ooooh, Ms. Travers consults again with WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!, or somebody:

According to a newsroom source: An aide to Senator Webb was arrested earlier today for entering a Senate building with a handgu, [SIC!!!!!] according to Capitol Police.

So what? Doesn't that help him with the NRA?

And after rapidly correcting her typo Ms. Travers issues another late-breaking bulletin:

All kinds of rumors — o.k., one in particular — keep coming in to me about who that gun is registered. [SIC!!!!!] I have one question: Where is The Politico?!

You're doing very nicely, thank you.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

The Smithsonian's boss spent $31,000 on upholstery for his office, and $2,535 cleaning a chandelier at home, and now he gets to resign as a result.

This seems like a fair trade.

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

Good news for the multitudes who think Joe Theismann talks too much: ESPN's shutting him up in favor of Ron Jaworski.

We like him, but then we think all the announcers talk too much.

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

Somebody's auditioning for your JOB, Little Jeffy!

Remember the name: Pamela Daley!

P. S. For GE BANCORP to get back up to LEGENDARY WELCHIAN levels it would need a $1 TRILLION market cap -- NOT BLOODY LIKELY.

So what is GE BANCORP doing other than spinning its wheels?

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

The unnecessary newspaper insert Life kicks the bucket. Now to revive it as a Web site, which should have been the idea anyway.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

In 2006, Heinz spent only $16 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence, barely a blip compared to Kraft Foods' $940 million layout....

Despite the paltry spending, Heinz has certainly been doing something right. Nielsen scanner data for the four weeks ended Feb. 24 show Heinz's average dollar sales up 9.1%, with its Smart Ones frozen-dinners business up 16.4% and Ore-Ida potatoes up 6.9%.

So why does Heinz plan to spend lots more money on crappy television?

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

It's official: it was an "accidental" overdose.

It was still an overdose.

Now may we forget about this story for, say, the next fourteen centuries?

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

Police: G-Unit Rapper Struck Boy, 14

Another [C]RAPPER makes a BRILLIANT career move.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

People achieve more success by cooperation than by competition. This is because people who cooperate share a myriad of aspects that can be applied to their work. Those in competition impede on others success and deny themselves the opportunities to embellish the opportunities of others.

When people cooperate they bring together a plethora of personal talents which can be used to achieve a common goal. In the Redwall Chronicles by Brian Jacques the animals of redwall were able to achieve freedom from their masters by working together. They all brought together special talents such as the moles ability to dig holes and the rabbits ability to jump walls. They were also able to settle their differences (such as the competition for berries and between the fox and the raccoon), and they eventually, though cooperation were vindicated.

Another reason why cooperation is more efficient method of achieving ones means than competition is because people work better in benevolent setting, which is a usual component of cooperation. Last fall my high school was rehearsing for the theatre production of Seussical and I entered with a competitive attitude which hindered the shows progress by making my fellow cast members uncomfortable. However, when I started to work as a team with everyone, the fellow cast calmed down, and together we were able to think straight and achieve our common goal of creating art.

A major reason why cooperation is a preference to competition is because competition induces civil struggle at a time of crisis while cooperation reduces tension. In the 1930’s, American businesses were locked in a fierce economic competition with Russian merchants for fear that their communist philosophies would dominate American markets. As a result, American competition drove the country into an economic depression and the only way to pull them out of it was through civil cooperation. American president Franklin Delenor Roosevelt advocated for civil unity despite the communist threat of success by quoting ‘the only thing we need to fear is itself,’ which desdained competition as an alternative to cooperation for success. In the end, the American economy pulled out of the depression and succeeded communism.

Because of the spirit of unity it induces, cooperation is the key to success. People unified work as a larger and stronger than those separated by competition, allowing utmost success to transpire.

TRANSLATION: An MIT prof dekes out the SATs!

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

Oh, goody! GE BANCORP AND REALTY may sell its plastics unit to the SAUDIS!

Is GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT next?

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Sen. Fatso Glub-Glub's dozens of staffers write an op-ed -- again:

Most of us in Congress know that a retreat to mediocrity is wrong.

Wait, Fats! I thought you Congresspooops were questioning the Every Child a Dilbert Act because it was an advance to mediocrity!

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

The bad: Only streams iTunes content--leaving it up to you to get your videos into iTunes; current crop of iTunes movies and TV shows look much worse on a big-screen TV; no HD content on iTunes Store; can't connect to older non-wide-screen TVs; small 40GB hard drive has only 33GB of usable disk space; oversimplified remote can't control other devices; no ability to purchase iTunes Store content directly through Apple TV; no A/V cables included; no Internet radio support.

The Lord God Steve has another smash hit!

(Via SFGate)

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

The TWXSTERS' former publishing house is changing its name, and it omits "books" -- but that's okay; publishing houses have omitted books for a long time.

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

America's straightest straight-talker is talking curley-Qs again:

"One of the reasons Republicans lost the war - excuse me, lost the election," he said in Ames, Iowa. Then, in Milford, N.H., he said, "My friends, we lost the war - we lost the election, we lost the election because of spending."

So we lost the war -- BOOBS McKEATING!

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: I apologize for Japan turning women into sex slaves even though we didn't have any.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Correction of the day -- of sorts:

Shop Talk [Mark Steyn]

In my post on The New York Times’ interminable report on The Los Angeles Times’ interminable non-scandal, I referred to Henry Weinstein, “a veteran reporter at the paper”, as a “unionized staffer you can never get rid of.” Several readers have pointed out the LA Times is a non-union shop. So Mr Weinstein is not a unionized deadbeat but a non-union deadbeat. I regret the error.

But it does make the paper’s over-staffing with under-performers even less explicable.

03/26 12:56 AM

Does that mean he's still a union man?

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

1. One of America's greatest supereditors garners umpteen Magazine Academy Award nominations! 2. Circulation and ad pages are down.

Guess who's right.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

Lott Predicts Senate Will Block Withdrawal Timetable for Iraq

That we suspect just about takes care of it, noble, courageous leaders like Sen. Hole-in-the-Bagel notwithstanding.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

On the other hand, mark two dates: May 31, when A. C. Nielsen starts rating TV commercials, and an as-yet-unspecified date when the FTC issues a report on THE CONSPIRACY'S marketing of violence to youth.

We're praying!

Further reason to pray:

Neither After Dark nor Lionsgate is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major studios. Such nonmember companies are not bound by the association’s promise to keep ads away from television shows, magazines and Web sites for which 35 percent or more of the audience is under 17. But they do agree to use approved advertising materials for any film that is submitted to the group for rating. In the case of “Captivity,” the association had disapproved of the material and is now considering disciplinary measures.

Like the League of Nations just meted out to Iran? What can THE CONSPIRACY do that isn't a restraint of trade? We hope maybe one of the offenders will sue it the way Tark the Jark sued the professional college sports trust -- and nearly won.

(Second link via ArtsJournal)

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Bob of ADAGE gazes into his crystal ball (more like cubic zirconia on a bad day) and sees...

...something barely imaginable: a post-apocalyptic media world substantially devoid of brand advertising as we have long known it.

The new realities that are unending the old media and marketing order are now clearly visible and gaining momentum every day.

It's a world in which Canadian trees are left standing and broadcast towers aren't. It's a world in which consumer engagement occurs without consumer interruption, in which listening trumps dictating, in which the internet is a dollar store for movies and series, in which ad agencies are marginalized and Cannes is deserted in the third week of June. It is a world, to be specific, in which marketing -- and even branding -- are conducted without much reliance on the 30-second spot or glossy spread. Because nobody is much interested in seeing them, and because soon they will be largely unnecessary.

TRANSLATION: Bigmedia as we know it now -- crappy long-form TV with whiny ads, newspapers that dictate to the people, three-song-playlist radio -- will be here ten years from now, and twenty years from now, regardless of new paradigms.



Cute artwork, but if I know The Lord God SUMNER, the sledgehammer bounces off His face and conks someone in the audience on the head -- as it always does.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

Sports as the expression of the brotherhood of man:

Cricketers from the Indian subcontinent probably suffer more than anyone. Supporters revere their sports idols, but vilify them when things go wrong. Fans routinely burn effigies of their players, and chant death threats when they lose.

When India lost its first match of this tournament, fans back home ransacked one player's house. In anticipation of the Pakistan team's return, "people are buying rotten eggs," says Syed Shafqat Hussein Shah, a gas station attendant in Islamabad. "They're going to bombard the team."

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

Thunkthunkthunkthunk testing-testing 1-2! Mike on? Okay! We may want to impeach the president. Hear that? WE MAY WANT TO IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT! Guys in the back can you hear me? WE MAY WANT TO IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT!!!!! LOUDER?!? ALL RIGHT -- WE MAY WANT TO IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!

Why can't my fellow Republicans be reasonable like reporters?

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

AudioAnimatronics comes to the orchestra pit in Branson East!

Now is there any telling apart those two tourist traps?

P. S. It still sounds synthesized.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Some more of Zbig's fine Eyetalian Polish hand at work:

Iran ‘to try Britons for espionage’

That seems fair. After all Iran's a sovereign state, and it has a right to prosecute foreign nationals for breaking the law -- like our embassy personnel. Right, Zbig?

Now would be a good time for some Polish Jimmah jokes, but we can't think up any.

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

Having just been burned by its Three-Stooges-Meet-the-Marx-Brothers handling of that op-ed-section controversy, LALA decides it's going to start making trends.

When news hack start making trends, we hope they start trending -- down.

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

Greedy eBay sellers who thought prices would go upupUP are upset because it's doing what all those con-SER-va-tives say the free market should be doing (for once) -- driving prices DOWN.

Heck things must be slumping at eBay -- nobody wanted KennyBoy's desk!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

Okay, Zbig, what did YOU do about the evil war on terror? You helped start it by giving Iran to the mad mullahs. A lot of good that did. I suppose America was "respected" in 1980, when the nation wallowed in self-pity and Jimmah couldn't get his head unstuck from the ostrich hole?

The Fixer, Zbig, Cleaning Lady, Whataburger -- there is NO SHUTTING UP THESE EXPERTS.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

Well, well! JonBoy puts the same story on all the covers! I guess he wants to end this unjust war! That'll resonate with hundreds of thousands of coffee tables overseas! Plus an elaborate multimedia feature on the Web site! Who says a dinosaur can't change its scales, or whatever?

No DEVIN this week? Shame on YOU!

Posted 10:30 PM by Gene

Further in the official site of the Newsrag of the Zeitgeist, impassioned eloquence:

In fairness to 1919, not everything then was worse than today. Government spying on citizens was still technologically crude, neither Einstein’s theory nor GLOBAL WARMING had yet threatened the survival of humanity, Stalin was still a wannabe and Auschwitz just another Polish town. Fewer American troops were dying in an undeclared war—in 1919, it was in the Arctic, against the new Soviet Union. But. While [SIC] RACIAL SEGREGATION PERSISTS TODAY, at least the federal government is integrated, and while African-Americans go in fear of traffic stops, and periodic police shootings and mob violence, WE DON’T HAVE PUBLIC LYNCHINGS WITH WHITE FOLKS GRINNING, ABU GHRAIB-STYLE, AT A DANGLING OR BURNING BLACK BODY!!!!!!!!!! Nobody gets 10 years in the can for saying that A WAR WAS A MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!, much as SOME AMERICANS WOULD LOVE TO BRING THAT PRACTICE BACK!!!!!!!!!! Women can vote. (The 19th Amendment didn’t pass till 1920.) And despite the influence of the JERRY FALWELLS AND JAMES DOBSONS, the Bush administration couldn’t get away with a holiday message like what the Wilson administration put out in 1919: “The world ... should find renewed hope that CHRISTIAN!!!!!!!!!! principles will triumph and become the dominant force in the affairs of all men and all nations.” It’s all enough to make you wonder if we really are crawling up toward the light—though of course it could be A NUCLEAR FIREBALL OR A MERCILESS SUN!!!!!!!!!! Hagedorn’s account of 1919 might help reconcile you to living in the scary new millennium. [Truth-telling overemphasis added]

He teaches in the graduate writing program at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont.

We can imagine.

P. S. Nothing yet on covers. When do we finally get a movie plug from your PR exec Devin, JonBoy?

P. P. S. And while were tapping our fingers waiting for the N of the Z to post its covers, we found this:

But Webb doesn't favor a timeline for withdrawal, as the Nancy Pelosi bill passed by the House on Friday proposes, or capping the number of troops in Iraq, as Hillary Clinton suggests. Webb wants a diplomatic solution, and he's working with Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a fellow Vietnam veteran and a friend for 30 years, to come up with a bipartisan bill that would incorporate some of what he calls "the more workable points" from the House bill without unnecessarily tying the hands of the military. He wouldn't say much about it—other than it's a work in progress....

We would not want to begin to guess how many columnists of every stripe view their readers as retards. This sort of graf we could have invented ourselves if someone had asked us -- and we earn several million less than Elea-NOAH. (That stinky still on?) Is JonBoy still sure we need newsrags -- or his zeitgeist?

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

Here all this YouSpaceMyTube huddling was supposed to make for THE CAMPAIGN OF THE MILLENNIUM, and a staffer for The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist finds it BORING?!?

Howard "CW" Fineman MUST have a chat with him.

If the site can force power-hungry politicians to act like human beings every once in awhile, that's impact enough for me.

This 24-year-old has a lot to learn.

Posted 4:46 PM by Gene

Following up on their enormously successful Blogger.com captchas of yore, the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View develop a new patented trick:

This site may harm your computer

Posted 4:33 PM by Gene

Ooooh, the League of Nations slaps more wet noodles on Iran!



Stop kibitzing, Nukeman!

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Oops:

In an editors' note in tomorrow's edition of The New York Times Book Review, the paper states that it regrets publishing a recent essay with certain resemblances to passages in someone else's essay -- particularly one involving a chambermaid.

Posted 3:16 PM by Gene

And THE CONSPIRACY's number-one hit is a nineties retread. Can't people think up things anymore?

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Branson East comes up with another blast from the past:

What [Curtains] really brings to mind is less vintage Broadway than vintage prime time.

Lawrence Welk in Branson, "vintage prime-time" in Branson East -- I think it's quite fitting.

More fitting yet -- it's from Kander and Ebb, half of which is dead, so Branson East and its namesake merge into one inseparable slough of worthless nostalgia.

Posted 2:39 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in Stale.com, another typist goes into mourning over a comedian's self-cancellation of his Web video series. When a typist uses words like "classic" it smacks of desperation; when he admits "most blogs have an audience in the single digits[, a]nd most video blogs, unless made by an attractive woman, have a likely audience of one" he confesses to his "classic"'s ephemerality. (He hammers home the last e-nail in the coffin with "fleeting" in the last graf.) How many watched this comic? And how many could remember his routines? And how many, on second thought, would call them "classics"? There's too much of the you-had-to-be-there in our culture; that it all but disposes itself assures that it leaves behind not only nothing of value, but for all practical purposes nothing.

(Via Slashdot, where they're mildly upset too)

Posted 2:26 PM by Gene

Who is to say, given the tremendous sighhhhhhhhhhhhs of anguish from con-SER-va-tive pundits, that an unknown can't win the Republican nomination?

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

Stale.com's TV ad-blurbist is upset because her favorite Web site has been absconded by GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT and won't be "quirky" anymore. We say any Web site that is a favorite of TV GET A LIFES! and offers "rambling recaps" and "talmudic forum commentary" is a perfect fit for a company that is the last word in obsessive-compulsive.

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

And of course the Iranians' agreeable hospitality toward 15 British soldiers proves we don't have to worry about them anymore.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

"As we enter the fifth year of the war, Iraq remains in chaos and the Iraqi government has failed to stand up and take ownership of the country."

Which is why we have to get outoutoutOUTOUT YESTERDAY!

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

New Study Offers More Bad News For GOP :-D [Emoticon added]

TRANSLATION: Hacks are going to play this story so hard all weekend we'll wish they'd find another "ethics" "scandal" to masturbate over. I pray Lenny or any of our vaunted media superiors would please explain to us why public opinion polls (and précis thereof) are the wisdom of society, why polls are infallible, and why they so accurately predict societal trends. Okay, hacks may be happy now; we're going through a "liberal" phase. But history seems to happen in cycles; we had the ultra-capitalist presidents of the Gilded Age, and sixty years later we had FDR. But happy or sad over polls we can't look to them for confirmation of our right or wrong, but as mileposts that guess at the mileage. A society that places its faith in public-opinion polls, however "accurate", and that uses them to find its philosophical moorings, is a hollow one, and for that reason they've become the hack's crutch, a replacement for reporting, and observation, and wisdom.

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

Wet noodles could cover Nukeman as early as tomorrow!



Nukeman TREMBLES.

P. S. GOSH DARN, Nukeman isn't coming to America after all!

We know -- he did it to show up Foggy Bottom!

Posted 3:23 PM by Gene

HA HA HA! WE'VE LOST THE WAR! HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

That's what YOU think.

P. S.

Still, the House legislation is HUGELY significant as a gauge of political support for the Bush administration’s war strategy. [PINCHIAN overemphasis added]

Hey Jeff 'n' Dave, do you think with our shares still trading near A TEN-YEAR LOW (and with our bonds on S&P credit watch so PINCH could shut up His malcontents) our adverbial power has waned just a little bit?

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

What did a four-year-old do to deserve to die from psychiatric drugs, regardless of who was not being responsible?

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

washingtonpost.com Goofs
Technical glitch of the cringe-inducing variety leads to 51-second error in Edwards coverage.
–Howard Kurtz 1:00 p.m. ET

Has ever this business been more self-centered?

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

Let us guess what happens: Dems claim to have helped balance the budget -- while denying tax relief (albeit to the supermegarich), and the GOP screams that the Dems have denied tax relief -- at the cost of blowing a hole in the budget.

SIX OF ONE....

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

ASSPress admits the Census Bureau admits it's overstated the numbers of uninsured!

So how do we know this number is accurate?

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

Somebody finally gets Jo-NAH mad! And who is it? It's -- MR. MELLERDRAMMER!

Which puts us in mind of The School for Scandal:

SIR PETER.

What Sir Oliver do you blame him for not making Enemies?

SIR OLIVER.

Yes--if He has merit enough to deserve them.

We think judging Jo-NAH and MR. MELLERDRAMMER Richard Brinsley would have to revise that.

(Corrected at 5:00 p. m.; I misattributed a thought to Sheridan)

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

$282,500 for:

"It was a okay day," she wrote of June 11, 1992. "I had lunch with Howard. Someone ran over my cat yesterday. I was real sad. Clay came over last nite and gave me some sleeping pills."

If I were you I'd have a few hundred press agents on hand -- or hope the greater-fool theory works.

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

A question with no easy answer: What could be more boring than swimmers blogging?

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Whenever a hack does the show-biz-is-better-than-ever routine, we think dollars -- the writer's and ours. And when some scribbler for an ALTERNARAG belches about this superplatinum age of "INDEPENDENT" music, we know what it means: more tunelessness with more of an attitude. The film biz' misuse of "INDEPENDENT" makes us distrust the word anyway. Of course he bemoans the "knee-jerk conservative" types with their set-in-cement playlists (if that isn't in danger of becoming a cliche....), but why should CHEAP CHANNEL play music that offends its listeners even more than it offends them now? Besides, for God's sake, if people want to listen to new kinds of crappy music, there are more ways to do so than ever, as even this toady admits.

(Via ArtsJournal, which has these annoying links)

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

The Blodget calling the Cramer black:

Leaving aside the insult that Cramer lobbed at "the Pisanis of the world," can CNBC really say nothing when one of its most visible employees urges investors to use the network to engage in behavior that is questionable to say the least?

It did it with MoneyHoney®!

Preceding sentence:

CNBC, meanwhile, is a subsidiary of GE, a company with a well-deserved global reputation for integrity, fairness, and quality.

You looking for a job, Hank?

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Now that "our" side's going to win (it says here), can there be any doubt this will not change one blasted thing? We're committed to Iraq for years, even if the Dems want us out to spite the oil companies, and Israel too on the side, just to show their superiority.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

More competition in the software biz:

Oracle's courthouse claims that SAP stole from it gigabytes of valuable customer-support software from September 2006 to January include dozens of stunning allegations that, if true, describe one of the most egregious cases of corporate shenanigans in computing industry history.

Oracle alleged in the lawsuit that workers at an SAP subsidiary "copied and swept thousands of Oracle products and other proprietary and confidential materials into its own servers" using fake log-ins or credentials stolen from legitimate, high profile Oracle customers like Honeywell, Merck & Co., Bear Sterns [SIC], and others.

The trove of ill gotten products allowed SAP "to offer cut rate support services to customers who use Oracle software, and to attempt to lure them to SAP's applications software," Oracle said.

Forgive us for thinking the only difference between software makers and Mafiosi is that most Mafiosi don't write code.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

So -- was the coach of Pakistan's cricket team murdered for losing or wasn't he?

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

We are surprised the hacks haven't made more of how close a rocket came to the League of Nations' new boss, which pretty well proves its usefulness, in Iraq or elsewhere.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

About one-third of the people living in the national's capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.

TRANSLATION: The illiteracy outside the Capitol cannot match the illiteracy inside.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

More proof most TV viewers use their sets as night lights anyway:

Total time: 30 minutes.
Total commercial time: 15 minutes.
Total judges' time: 2 seconds.
Total Idolette time: 5 minutes.
Total "mentor" singing time: 6 minutes.

You tell me -- is this a "show"?

No -- but it's a helluva good marketing vehicle.

Speaking of marketing, Sharp is wasting "hundreds of millions" financing SeligSigns™ behind home plate, which will not stop the public from buying cheaper HDTVs.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Brent, having shot himself in the foot with an incomplete survey, fires back by blasting the ludicrousness of V-chip ratings. The only thing is he did it before the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers, which wasn't listening.

The battle continues.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

There has been much Tarzanian chest thumping over LALA's decision to choose a Hollywood producer as an honorary opinion editor. We have not followed this figuring this is more onanism from a biz that can only pile it on. If these cretins who are seeing their circulation frigate leaking from all directions are so concerned about conflicts of interest why do they put out non-stop PR as show-biz coverage? This is the sort of conflict of interest that should get editors mad: instead, they self-righteously scream, and fool no one with their pretend anguish as the vessel takes on more water.

More to the point, what disqualifies a Hollywood producer from being an opinion editor so long as the paper puts him on a leash and clears him of any conflict of interest? We've seen worse from "professionals."

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Unconstitutional difference splitting and foot-stomping lobbying -- the Congress lives down to its reputation as usual.

Posted 3:31 PM by Gene

ESPNCorp Network comes up with a brilliant idea: it's "thinking" of turning ads into "pop-ups." If networks want to do this why not just put all the shows on the Web, where we can hover a cursor over them, and voila! Instant ad! This lamebrained stunt, like the GOODTHINGS Frankenstein research, misses the point, as usual: the public does NOT want advertising, and it's devising means of avoiding it much faster than BIGMEDIA can make commercials palatable.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

Whatever we have said about Sen. Edwards -- the man or his politics -- we salute his continuing to campaign. The fact that he can continue shows some grit, and whatever a man's politics, some grit is a good thing.

Posted 12:19 PM by Gene

In another IWantMedia link:

FCC Member Wants More Fruits, Vegetables on TV

We are sorely tempted to say something, but we think it best not to.

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

Sen. Edwards may end his campaign because his wife has suffered a bad cancer setback, so what does a proud NRO blogger do? He bloviates!

UPDATE: Pardon my cynicism, but if big news days are the days to release bad news that you want swept under the rug, then is this the perfect day for a particular North Carolina district attorney announce what [a certain highly inaccurate, formerly-spyware-spreading multi-millionaire headline pusher] is saying?

REPORT!!!!!: ALL CHARGES MAY BE DROPPED AS EARLY AS TOMORROW IN DUKE LACROSSE RAPE CASE, FOXNEWS REPORTS!!!!!!!!!! 'WE WILL BE HEARING A DISMISSAL IN THE COMING DAYS'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....

Would this very embarrassing news end up at the bottom of the front page in North Carolina papers tomorrow, instead of above the fold? [WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!! overemphasis added and link removed]

NO WE DON'T PARDON YOUR CYNICISM.

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the world of throwing our money down the toilet, GOODTHINGS and SLIME are starting another YOUTUBE, and the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View shoot back by calling the venture "Clown Co."

Hey clowns, when you spend $1.6 billion for $15 million in ad revenues the joke's pretty much on YOU. (Just don't anyone tell the credulous shareholders.)

(Also via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT SIX SIGMAS TV COMMERCIALS ON TIVO! Its crack Dr. Frankensteins use "neurophyisiology" to "examin[e] brain waves, galvanic skin response and eye movement of TV viewers" watching fast-forwarded ads!

LITTLE JEFFY, WHY DON'T YOU JUST SPIN OFF THE DAMNED THING?!?!?

I needed a laugh after that last post.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

Our favorite PR man Rog has a heartbreaking story on the singer Phoebe Snow's profoundly disabled daughter, who died this week at 31. I will do no more than link to it; it speaks for itself. (Picture from phoebesnow.com)

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

We've been hearing it for years. Decades. D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people.

Okay -- now it's prettier ugly people.

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

A brilliant use for BlackBerry -- Monopoly and Tetris!

What hath God -- oh, never mind.

I wonder -- how much time do games take up on cell phones and pocket organizers?

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

George P. Bush Chosen for Navy Reserves

How many George Bushes are there?!?!?

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

Bertelsmann posts record profits
Music sales boost conglom

Bay City Rollers sue Arista
Band claims royalties for last 25 years

These things wouldn't be related, would they? Naaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Speaking of, with NFL lunkheads getting arrested right and left, its commish is instituting a new code of conduct.

Good luck!

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

Wonderful:

U.K. School Kids Strap on Stab-Proof Vests as Knife Crime Soars

Those who think good parenting will cure society's ills have to realize some problems are beyond parenting.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

There is mourning in the world of jernalism: Our long-time StinkyInky TV columnist has been forced to stop writing her insidey stuff.

Asked if it was unwise to chip away at yet another area in which the Inqwaster [cutely self-deprecating SIC] had national standing, Clark said the paper's goal is to "serve our readers, not to make Romenesko," a popular journalism blog found on Poynter.org.

Realizing that StinkyInky Publishing Co. is out to make two aggressively dumb papers, there is worse advice.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

This is peachy:

Data stolen from TJX -- the parent company of T.J. Maxx and other retailers -- has surfaced in the Sunshine State, where it's been used to help thieves steal about $8 million in merchandise from Wal-Mart stores. The thieves used the stolen TJX customer data to create dummy credit cards for purchasing Wal-Mart and Sam's Club gift cards, and then used those to hit stores in 50 of the Florida's 67 counties.

I understand why some people won't order on the Web; you never know where your credit card will show up. That a big company had sensitive data stolen so easily like this is inexcusable -- and a little scary.

(See also here)

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Jernalism perfesser Shafer on -- "editors writing badly":

I take as an article of faith that every workaday journalist who blossoms into the supreme editor of a publication demonstrates at some point an ability to write effectively—if not artfully. Unless they can write, how can they judge and edit their staff's copy?

And some would-be jernalism profs can't write either. We're sure Jack whizzed by the disagreement of "every" and "they." If he wanted to be non-sexist and not a dimbulb he could have written, "...all workaday reporters who blossom into supreme news editors demonstrate...." (We've replaced "journalists" as it has a "sanitation-engineer" reek.) Yes, this is just one klumpy piece of verbiage. But one such here and one such there and klumpy verbiage here and there and you're talking a sea of verbal molasses that makes people fume over reading news hacks even more than mere errors or omissions.

That this occurs in a piece about editing is a typical news-hack joke.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Speaking of presidential campaigns, Duncan Who? is giving up his House seat, but does intend to pass it on to his son.

Don't you love hereditary Congresspoops?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Today President EarthSaver launched his presidential campaign without doing so, and King Richard of People Warner launched his mayoral campaign likewise.

Don't you hate when these overambitious pols play coy?

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

Oops: people have the audacity to complain about the USAOKAY.com's NEW! IMPROVED!! site -- and somebody lets a certain Web and BS "evangelist" have it -- though not by name:

If some users of Web sites like Netscape and USA Today don't care for some of the newfangled ideas, it might be because their demographics skew toward the 40-somethings and 50-somethings who are dazed and confused by the emerging Web world. It's also possible that the corner of the tech world that shills for each Web fad de jour is an echo chamber of folks more captivated by technology than the rest of the world.

Hint hint?

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Figures: the creators of the Lonelygirl15 shtick have signed an advertising deal with Hershey.

In other Internet BS, Howard "CW" Fineman says the uncontrolled viral YouTube Web blahblahblah will decide our next president. So why do I think it's still going to be news-hack bias and "polls" -- and megapundits like Howard "CW" Fineman?

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

Jo-NAH really MUST comb his hair.

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

Evidently (as I predicted) AH-nult and PILLHEAD have agreed not to call each other irrelevant and a sell-out, respectively.

Now they can compete to be asses in other endeavors, and will succeed swimmingly.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Well lookie here: Guess who may face criminal charges for doctoring his company's books? Our favorite budgetary truth-teller, David Stockman!

Stockman and Heartland Industrial Partners, the Greenwich, Conn., private-investment fund he co-founded to invest in the auto industry in 1999, lost hundreds of millions of dollars when Collins & Aikman plummeted into bankruptcy protection.

I guess that's one means of bringing your government expertise to bear.

(Via Freep.com)

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

Is somebody else running for president?

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

We're almost starting to feel sorry for these newspaper companies; they finally realize the mess they're in. But we harbor no illusions; all their mammoth blatherskite has to go someplace, and we have no doubt people like SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS are picking up the slack big-time (which may explain why their audiences are down).

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

I wonder -- will the Dems in these committees be crass enough to give President EarthSaver a standing O?

I wouldn't bet against it.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

The massive national pet-food recall stemming from deaths of at least 10 pets is also letting consumers in on one of the industry's well-guarded secrets -- that some of most premium pet-food brands in the U.S. use the same manufacturer that processes dozens of low-price private-label products.

You don't say!

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

The network that pioneered the financial funnies is going to do a cartoon?!?

When they have Jim "ILLEGAL BOOM-BOOM" Cramer?!?!?

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

GREAT news for con-SER-va-tives: Dennis Miller's starting a radio talk show!

You wonder why it took so long; he's a -- natural for it.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

The more officials are "outraged" over negotiations with terrorists the more likely they are to countenance them.

On this topic we can definitively not expect one word of truth from our superiors.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

"I really resent this," the lawmaker said. "Rahm Emanuel told us a vote against this bill is a vote to give the Republicans victory."

Republicans need no help when Democrats start arguing.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

The Wizard of Angry Money says the Democratic party must distance itself from the Israel lobby -- and Democrats respond in a manner suggesting their courage is a function of political donations.

What have the Dems been doing these last few years? Of course many of them can't stand Israel. When will they have the spine to proclaim their spinelessness?

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

AH-nult calls PILLHEAD "irrelevant" -- and PILLHEAD shoots back saying AH-nult "SOLD US OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Here we have two kinds of pompous asses: the pompous ass who plays to his audience (media) in the guise of "governing" and the pompous ass who plays to his audience (con-SER-va-tives) in the guise of "telling the truth." It would be nice if once in a while they kept their asses shut. [Pardon my French.]

Judging from Ms. Travers (and her sidekick WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] PILLHEAD's trying to effect a reconciliation -- for the good of the party.

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

Mickey D's is about to try to expunge dictionaries of "McJob."

There is nothing wrong with working for the Mick; but building thousands and putting so many of them in lower-grade neighborhoods (plus neglecting the food and the -- "atmosphere" for so long) allowed the notion of a bad job to sink in because the Mick was a bad place to work. And the chain hardly pays medical-industry wages. "McJob" will stick because it so pungently describes the too many menial jobs in our "service" economy.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Like James Frey before him, SNIDELY WHIPLASH is selling his "memoir":

DeLay told The Associated Press on Tuesday that writing the book had been a "cleansing process" and that his co-author, Stephen Mansfield, "really captured me."

1. How much cleanser did you use? 2. Are you sure that's a compliment? 3. Should you have used the word "captured"?

P. S. At least James Frey wrote his.

P. P. S. 274 on Amazon.com. We have a little catching up to do. Anyone for Oprah?

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

The paper of Robert "Beat Me" Fisk apologizes for something else:

In 1997, when this paper called for decriminalisation, 1,600 people were being treated for cannabis addiction. Today, the number is 22,000.

...[A]lmost half of those affected [are] under 18. With doctors and drugs experts warning that skunk can be as damaging as cocaine and heroin, leading to mental health problems and psychosis for thousands of teenagers, The Independent on Sunday has today reversed its landmark campaign for cannabis use to be decriminalised.

When news hacks support something, we shouldn't count to ten -- we should count to ten million.

(Via, alas, The Corner)

Posted 3:27 PM by Gene

"There have been losses in the past, but they have always been close," said Stanford sports economist Roger Noll, who says California is the leading edge of a growing national antipathy to taxpayer financed stadiums. "Maybe California has gone from 55 percent against to 80 against, while the rest of the country has gone from 40 against to 60 against. But it's still against."

There's a lead the rest of us should follow.

Posted 3:08 PM by Gene

The NBA fined Charlotte Bobcats part-owner Michael Jordan $15,000 for discussing Texas freshman Kevin Durant during an interview last week....

A Bobcats spokesman Tuesday confirmed the fine, which is at least the second in a week for an NBA team involving Durant, the 6-foot-10 forward who is expected to be the first or second overall pick if he declares for the draft.

The Boston Celtics were fined $30,000 after general manager Danny Ainge sat next to Durant's mother during the Big 12 tournament.

This kid's hot!

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

Putin also ordered a commission be set up to find the reasons for the three tragedies.

I think we can find some reasons: Russia's falling apart, life is cheap there, no one assumes responsibility, and Belly Kisser thinks he can fix it all with daydreams of superpowerdom.

Posted 2:29 PM by Gene

And in other great achievements of big business:

Cost-cutting, lax oversight blamed for deadly BP blast

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

1. This publicity stunt was intentional; 2. THE CONSPIRACY'S mock OUTRAGE was intentional; 3. No one would dare ask why what's acceptable in movie houses is unacceptable on billboards and taxis.

After Dark said the posting of the billboards was an accident. CEO Courtney Solomon said the wrong files were sent to the printer, who then passed them on to the billboard company without approval from any executives at After Dark.

TRANSLATION: The dog ate my homework!

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

300 people are getting together in Washington to discuss HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN, meaning if nothing gets done it will be better than the alternative.

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

And the answer to MS. NANCY is:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., described as "maybe the most dangerous leader in the long campaign by anti-Catholics within the Church who mislead Americans," has advanced "the culture of death," a former congressman charged.

Former U.S. Rep. Robert Dornan....

Can't these California Congresspoops retire peacefully, like Duke Cunningham?

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

MARKETERS NEED to "get real" and acknowledge that marketing isn't merely advertising and communication: It's about "building a relationship with consumers," according to Jason McDonell, director of marketing for Frito-Lay's Doritos brand.

DAMMIT you're only selling corn chips!

Yes, when we hear "marketers" talking getting real and relationships they're more honed in to schmoozing in Hollywood than ever.

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

Halle Berry Says No More Marriages

You free?

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

There is a simple solution to D. C.'s lack of voting rights: have the government cede all residential areas in the District back to the state of Maryland, and limit the District to Federal facilities. (Congress ceded part of the district back to Virginia before the Civil War.) Of course I'm sure the Marylanders will love having responsibility for the Crime Capitol of the World, not to mention the citizens would now live in Washington, MD -- but at least they'd stop yapping about non-representation.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

PRESIDENT BUSH CALLS EMBATTLED ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES TO REAFFIRM HIS SUPPORT IN THE FACE OF CALLS FOR HIS RESIGNATION [ESPNCORPNetworkNews.com "breaking-news" SIC]

Ciphers will hang together!

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

I wonder if Jo-NAH calling the alleged "Reaganite" Sen. Law-and-Order "more of a Howard Baker type" is his way of trying to call off his kennel.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Russia's getting -- serious about Iran?

There must be a reason. There's always a reason.

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

The Mogul's Friend, who has surely spent as much time in the mansions of the industry's bigwigs as anyone, now sides with -- the PEE-PUL!

We note some editor didn't put the word "idiots" in quotation marks in the subhed. That says it all.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Great: Dubya may replace Sleepy Gonzales with the head of Der Homeland.

The muddle continues.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

104.2 channels and nothing on.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Warhol's $250 `Marilyn' for Sale at $15 Million at Christie's

Get out the cookie jars!

``Prices for Warhol and others are reaching the point of absurdity,'' said U.S. private dealer Richard Polsky. ``I would be a seller right now -- especially if I had a blue-chip work.''

Absurdity is the art market's middle name.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

If anyone can get people to watch TV through a computer, Apple can. Not that its technology is that good (although it certainly is sexy looking), just that when The Lord God Steve programs His 500,000 press agents to say "HOT" and "HIP" there will be no defense.

And we suspect there will still be problems with watching TV through a computer.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Lunkheaded Promotion of the Month:

A campaign to promote a push-button ignition system on the 2007 Nissan Altima sedan is to begin this week and continue through March 30. For the promotion, 20,000 key rings will be deliberately “lost” in bars, concert halls, sports arenas and other public places in seven large markets.

Each key ring will have three keys, all real, and two tags. The biggest key resembles a car key and the other two look as if they could fit the locks on house or office doors.

One tag declares, “If found, please do not return,” because the Altima “has Intelligent Key with push-button ignition, and I no longer need these,” a reference to the technology that allows an Altima owner to start the car by pressing a button on the dash rather than inserting a key.

So if we don't need keys, who needs key rings?

(Via Media Buyer Planner)

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

According to Senate Judiciary sources, committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy has asked his Democratic attorneys....

Stop the presses! STOP THE PRESSES! The PROWLER said "DEMOCRATIC"!!!!!!!!!!

They'll drum you out of the movement for that!

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Gonzales [Rich Lowry]

Smart insiders are thinking he's out, perhaps by the end of the week. For what it's worth...

03/19 03:47 PM

Who says insiders are smart?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Now Georgia wants to apologize for slavery.

Leavign aside that the time for action was 142 years ago, we ask: when reparations?

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Which last post may explain the subhed to this MESS story:

Why is the mind wired to wander every chance it gets?

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Take that, Sen. Ossified Kleagle: Arlen O'Specter runs again!

"There are a lot of important things to be done and finally after being here to acquire some seniority, I'm in a position to do that," said Specter, 77. "I'm full of energy and my wife doesn't want me home for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Neither do we, which is probably why we'll elect you for your @#$%&* sixth term.

Posted 2:12 PM by Gene

Planner of USS Cole bombing confesses

TRANSLATION: The usual gang of idiots will spend inordinate time pondering our government's motives in releasing such confessions while paying no mind to the confessors.

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

I've said it before, I'll say it again: at some point the Reverse Robin Hoods of MadAve have to tell themselves, "We must stop financing Hollywood, we must stop financing fiefdoms, we must stop financing luxury boxes -- and we must start moving our product!"

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Just what I need, Terry: to buy another album I listen to once. Okay, this act with the cute name (and the cute album cover) may be all right, but for what CDs cost I want something a little more than cute and all right. I've bought enough CDs I've listened to once. So they do "a forty-minute-long multi-movement work for voice and bluegrass quintet that is through-composed" -- please! Plus you plant these guys in the same graf as three favorites of the tiny musical-theater cult, whose cast albums sell in the hundreds. (Can you believe Hello, Dolly! sold 80,000 units -- in its first week?) The republic swarms with regiments of musicians just above the level of anonymity: "accomplished" jazzers and "accomplished" rockers and "accomplished" bluegrassers and what not, all very good for what they do -- and because they all have high technical competence and low inspiration they'll stay there. They generally crib quite freely off one another and rely on their friends and their tiny fan details for support, which doesn't help. I do not like it that our culture seems to be devolving into these limitless glorified high-school cliques centered around glorified no-names. I want something good, and I want something I can remember. Maybe these guys are good, and maybe some other act you could pull from a hat would be just as good. But I've had it with this vast sea of gray -- I want some colors.

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

Obviously Mr. Wittes has never heard of Don Quixote or "tilting at windmills", but at least he's honest: let's ditch the Second Amendment and stop all these right-wing -- er, criminals from owning guns!

Now we've said this before; we don't like the NRA either, especially its constant obstructionism. But of course Benjamin isn't serious, which places a big fat doughnut hole in the middle of his showy non-argument.

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

When Sen. O'Specter says Sen Red-Light is being political, we'll count that as definitive.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Here the craven Spaniards say, "Please, please, don't attack us! We're good guys!" and install SUPERCHICKEN to seal the deal, so what happens? The holy cockroaches target Spain anyway!

We would say serves 'em right, but in this case it would be serves 'em left.

Posted 7:08 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: At some point a brand becomes so identified with mediocrity that people view line extensions as extensions of the mediocrity. If beer drinkers are to be believed Bud defines mediocrity. Why should they waste their money on more expensive forms of mediocrity?

P. S. That @#$%&* word VIRAL appears here too, meaning people know the same old BS now comes in fancy new high-tech packages, and can behave accordingly.

Posted 4:41 PM by Gene

Why we do not trust news hacks, reason no. 72,458:

Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, nearly 9 of 10 Iraqis say they live in fear that the violence ravaging their country will strike themselves and the people with whom they live.

MOST Iraqis believe life is better for them now than it was under Saddam Hussein, according to a British opinion poll published today.

Posted 4:41 PM by Gene

Lately Mark Steyn's been veering off frequently into glibness, but then he writes an article like this, honoring one of history's true heroes, William Wilberforce, and he regains his old poise again.

(Link via -- oh well -- NRO)

Posted 4:30 PM by Gene

OH oh, that Paramount exec's drumming his fingers:

"Ghost Rider" didn"t register a single positive review on Variety"s [SIC] Crix Picks chart ("Cheesy Rider" headlined the review in the New York Post) but the movie has passed $156 million worldwide. "Night at the Museum" inspired Stephen Holden of the New York Times to this lumpy metaphor: "The movie is an overstuffed grab bag in which lumps of coal are glued together with melted candy."

There"s [SIC] always a degree of culture shock when movies this inept produce numbers this ecstatic. Several glib explanations suggest themselves.

From a marketing standpoint, we are reminded that February and March are oddly underrated by the studios. Every "tentpole" movie seemingly has to be released within the eight week May-June corridor of self-destruction. Yet clearly a lot of filmgoers would like to be entertained in the post-Oscar period as well, and they deserve better than they are getting.

When news orgs quote the NEW! IMPROVED!! PAUL DRECK!!!!! as saying this is a SUPERMEGAPLATINUM AGE for movies, and the hacks bow down on one knee yelling AAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!!!!!, who says so?

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Need we any further proof one of war's chief victims is art?

Then again, that so much creative endeavor could flourish even in concentration camps is a sign of man's unquenchable spirit.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

"Gee, are those two schmendricks [jerks] still alive?"

Yes, and they write for The American Spectator.

On the other hand, you should talk, given the average age of your audience.

Posted 12:42 PM by Gene

Somehow we can't see a PEOPLE WARNER subsidiary (explain to us, o TRIBCO -- what is "a joint venture between HBO and AOL"?) producing satiric videos that are any good -- after all, TMZ.com is a self-parody of its own -- but so long as we can use words like VIRAL (this year's METROSEXUAL) then I guess they're okay.

Somebody tell these folks they'll NEVER see $90 a share again.

Posted 12:36 PM by Gene

The airline biz is said to be "institutionalizing the apology."

Didn't America do that some time ago?

Apologizing is not particularly costly for airlines.

TRANSLATION: Some people are shut up easily.

Posted 12:30 PM by Gene

We'll willingly concede, for once, that the governor of Massachusetts is getting the kind of treatment he'd receive were he a Republican. That said we wonder if there isn't a piling on here. Is it realistic to expect someone like this to run perfectly out of the box? Perhaps if "expectations" are high it's because news hacks helped raise them, as usual.

Posted 10:30 PM by Gene

On the cover of America's Leadi -- The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist: Exercise and the brain! That means we must be up to something internationally! Let's see...

We are: putting people to sleep with the European Union at 50. C'mon, Jon -- do better next time!

Posted 10:21 PM by Gene

The Dukes of Hazzard fall victim to the PC movement in Cincinnati.

Our culture grows grotesquely violent while simultaneously hiding below ground at the mere thought of offending "protected" minority groups -- hypocrisy run amok, and yet another example of how PC plays mind games on the republic, and makes us all mad, in several senses.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 8:25 PM by Gene

Our prediction (as if even we care): not guilty by reason of insanity. His race won't help. LALA's "justice system" will.

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

By accident we came to know why that story about that knocked-off Marvel Entertainment character was a total waste of news resources and an insult to the public: it has not stopped a Captain America movie from remaining in development.

Indeed note when the chart spikes -- around the time of this PR stunt. HSX.com's fans aren't stupid, even if moviegoers and news hacks are.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Here in brief is why I hate big business: A company in these here parts that named a stadium for itself is moving offices out of town. It claims it is not moving its corporate HQ, but this is mere semantics; the $20 million CEO's moving, presumably to be closer to his golf game, and definitely so he won't have to pay our city's wage tax. Then a spokespoop comes along and insists the company has an undying fealty to our city, which reminds me why PR is high on my s-list. Then I get angry because so many companies like GE BANCORP AND REALTY, which shrieked out of cities everywhere to avoid politically correct races, are now lying down and playing dead doing PC. Business, politicians, the press, show-biz and academe seem engaged in a fight to see who can commit the greatest affronts, and to screw the greatest number of people in doing so.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

A story like this is a sort of nyah-nyah-nyah at conservatives. We have our bloggers! So there! Fact is Josh Marshall and most of the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS are professional writers, and they've succeeded because they know how to network. And for all their alleged adeptness the SUPES still break a fraction of a stories as the dread MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMM. (Moreover both Talking Points and TPMMuckraker have seen recent audience declines, as with most of the SUPES.) And I am not impressed that our author says bloggers do such a fantastic job covering baseball. When I have to read 500 blogs to learn of a sport what do I gain except a sort of low-grade insanity? Why should I have to read 500 blogs? Can't you press clowns do your work right?

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

The sad, sad tale of Attorney General Sleepy Gonzales reminds us of Warren Harding's old line:

“I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!”

Of course as we've seen from his presidency Dubya does a lot of sleepwalking.

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

Speaking of "conservatism", it is obvious a small coterie of "influential pundits" is doing more than its share to talk up Sen. Law-and-Order.

If the right's suspicious of Boobs McKeating why should it be so gung ho for him?

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

``Complicit is too strong a word, but this is a guy who presided over a bubble in the equity markets,'' said Charles White, who helps manage $1.8 billion at ThomasLloyd Asset Management in Pleasantville, New York. ``He was the provider of liquidity to the financial markets, and he took the risk out of people doing these trades.'' [Last graf]

Being the Wizard of Oz ain't what it used to be.

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

Actress Amanda Cooley Davis became the object of David Garvin's twisted obsession after he cast her in one of his movies.

But when Davis rebuffed Garvin's advances, she told the Daily News, he unleashed his venom in nasty e-mails in which he warned her, "This is the cost of picking a fight with your director."

This man is in line for an ACADEMY AWARD®!

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

"The war with Iraq marked a turning point. It shattered America's image," said Villepin, who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This from the foreign minister of a country that perfected collaboration.

No word from al Reut on whether Dominique got a standing O, though we should not be surprised.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

Hundreds of thousands of families who bought houses in the last two years — using loans with low teaser interest rates and no down payments — are now losing them.

Their short tenure as homeowners calls into question whether the nation’s long drive to increase homeownership — pushed by both public policy and financial innovations — has overstepped some boundary of demographic and economic sense.

“Clearly we went too far,” said Joseph E. Gyourko, a professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s not the case that high homeownership is always good.”

What would the late Paul Krugman say?

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Is Conservatism Dying?

Congresspoops chasing after lobbyists and bribes, government officials who'll spend anything and everything, leaders who pound tables with their moral lectures while engaged in creative bed-hopping, pundits blasé over social issues who think up myriad excuses for political and business corruption and prostrate themselves at the feet of Hollywood...

Yes, I'd say conservatism's dying.

Posted 8:21 PM by Gene

"'Family Guy,' like 'The Carol Burnett Show,' is famous for its pop culture parodies and satirical jabs at celebrities. We are surprised that Ms. Burnett, who has made a career of spoofing others on television, would go so far as to sue 'Family Guy' for a simple bit of comedy," said 20th Century Fox Television spokesman Chris Alexander.

The problem is, as He proved with OJ, SLIME likes to pull practical jokes.

(Via the crusading B&C)

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

Putting KSM on trial as the criminal he is would not have precluded U.S. military action against Al Qaeda targets on foreign territory. BUT.... [Emphasis and overemphasis added]

TRANSLATION: Some people will always come up with well-meaning excuses.

BRING BACK ROBERT SCHEER!

Posted 7:18 PM by Gene

Another proud seller on eBay!

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Redstone Loves YouTube at CBS, Hates It at Viacom

Now we know why Sumner split up His empire: His doctors are trying to create two of Him to prolong His life!

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Figures: Congresspoops thought they reformed EHDYUKAYSHUN with the Every Child a Dilbert Act, and it's proven so wondrous they're about to reform it AGAIN!