Posted 7:37 PM by Gene

Romney Denounces McCain-Feingold Law

Somebody's running for president!

Posted 7:30 PM by Gene

Meantime Sony has been IMUSSED (or rather brought on its own Imus) over a promo for a video game. The more people drum up these well-paying outrages the harder it is to be outraged -- and when Osamas and psychotic students step into the breach we'll have been so maxed-out on outrage we can only respond with a shrug.

(Via InformationWeek, though we'd vaguely heard of it before -- and didn't care, and might even have gotten mad, figuring another Sharpton was raising money)

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

There's evidently a big debate among pundits and other such onanists over The Paper of Re-CORD's decision to drop out of those stupid annual fanny-kissing Washington wingdings. We could view it whole-heartedly as a plus except taking these millionaire buzzards away from a night of toadying will not take the toadying out of the millionaire buzzards. Indeed if the seven-digit Beltway news hack ever forgot how to suck up he'd lose the will to live.

Posted 6:46 PM by Gene

Jonathan Alter tells -- THE TRUTH:

Henry Waxman looks like your accountant, but he acts more like a dog with a bone—the hard bone of truth.

Alter has also been a contributing correspondent for NBC News, where he appears regularly on all NBC broadcasts including "TODAY," "NBC Nightly News," NBC News specials, MSNBC and CNBC. He can be heard frequently on the radio, including "IMUS IN THE MORNING".... [Truthful emphasis added]

Hey Jonny! Is that bone of Hank's as hard as the gold coin between your teeth?

Posted 6:43 PM by Gene

A curious ASSPress juxtaposition:

Circuit City Expects Loss on Slow Sales

Circuit City CEO Got $17.1M Last Year

Posted 2:32 PM by Gene

We are sorry to hear that "Mr. Excitement", Tommy Newsom, has died.

"I realize things have to end sometime," Newsom said at the time. "I felt regrets at it ending and there was a sense of relief in a way."

But why can't they go on forever?

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

"I'm going to have a Christie's auction," she tells Spinner. "[My house] is like a mausoleum. My daughter [14-year-old Frances Bean] doesn't need to inherit a giant hefty bag full of flannel f***ing shirts ... A sweater, a guitar and the lyrics to 'Teen Spirit' -- that's what my daughter gets. And the rest of it we'll just f***ing sell." [SIC]

Sounds more like eBay to me -- and perhaps a little beneath.

(Via ASSPress)

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

Valenti Funeral Set For May 1

1. We intend to mark who will be there. 2. Will there be live TV? (Here's betting YES.)

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

The Dalai Lamas of Mountain View play do-no-evil evil tricks with innocent people. Who knew?

I think they've shut off my Next Blog button again.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

How many big crime busts are publicity stunts? How many of the publicity stunts fizzle because they were designed for the publicity?

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

Meantime the Turks aren't too happy that someone with "an Islamist past" may accede to their presidency, which suggests a lot of people still want an Islamist future.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

The former CIA boss Mr. Tenet says the holy cockroaches could have may have might have smuggled a nuke into America. He's says that in a book he's selling.

We have heard so many reliable allegations we don't know when to trust them. We should know better both ways.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

It appears from Alexa that (unfortunately) the traffic decline for the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS is leveling off. Are people getting -- CONCERNED over the presidential election -- or merely bored by MySpace?

Posted 12:19 PM by Gene

The bad news: Paul Dreck and company will honor THE IMMORTAL JACK's memory next week with tons of BS about SPIDEY'S NEW BOX OFFICE RECORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The good news: People won't pay to see anything else.

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

Learning how to write at America's greatest newspapers:

Then there is Hagedorn's prose. In her acknowledgments she makes particular mention of the Wall Street Journal, "where I learned how to write well," a quite astonishing boast in and of itself but all the more so when one considers the more than 500 pages of evidence to the contrary. Hagedorn has never met a cliché she didn't like: "To many it meant that Bolshevists had struck the Pacific Northwest like lightning bolts, soon to cause the nation to burst into the flames of revolution," or "It was there that the rolling wave of hope from the Western Front met the rising tide of fear and intolerance back home," or "But that message had no lasting significance and fell like the leaves of autumn into a rushing river."

Hagedorn, her publisher tells us, "has taught writing at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism." If that makes you wonder about the standards of literacy at the country's "best" schools of journalism, well, you are not alone. ? [SIC]

Who put that question mark in there? Paul "UNFORGETTABLE" Farhi?

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

Add $2 billion to the UK's Olympic "black hole"!

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Oh. "God and War." (Mere God when we could have had SPIDEY.) Or how I suppose God hates this war and wants us to be outoutOUT!!!!!

Okay, we all hate this war. But for the umpteenth time, how would you like a Taliban banner on our soil?

Posted 8:45 PM by Gene

This time the Drunken Fool's Former STOOGE puts the international covers up first. And Zeitgeist wants its readers to be HAPPY! (In Latin America and Asia at least.) Well what better way to be happy than to watch SPIDEY!!!!! (Is there as monstrous a debate going on in the Z luxury news suite over whether to cover-sell another movie as over Alky Breath's "ethics"?) For Europe it's SARKO!, which is puzzling as he is, after all, a CONSERVATIVE. We've put James Dickeyson on his trail, so fortunately he can't be that good. STOOGE! What plug do you have planned for US?

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

What if:

"If they were able to finish it by summer '45, then with a bit of luck, we could have been ready in winter '44-45."

One thing's sure: people wouldn't have said how EVIL we were for using the bomb first.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Not only have the infernal Babbitts who've condomized all America built lots of vacant upscale highrises, they've added insult to injury by including lots of empty ground-floor retail space to prove nobody lives in their properties!

Way to go, Babbitts! Now you've shown the rich can eviscerate our cities just as easily as the poor!

Posted 4:46 PM by Gene

There seems to be a tiny backlash brewing over MIT's tantrum over its now departed admissions officer, and I can see the point: most jobs require competence, not degrees. Why does society demand degrees of so many jobs that don't need them?

Hell JACK had an MBA from Harvard and look what HE did.

Posted 4:26 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in the Wonderful World of the ASSPress, America's Leading Truth Gathering Organization puts on its Carnac swami hat (wha?????) and looks forward to what Conan will do with the late-night irrelevance called The Tonight Show.

I put on my swami hat and think we've come up with another reason the sooner Little Jeffy spins off Goodthings Entertainment, the better.

Posted 4:25 PM by Gene

Democrats: U.S. Has Lost Global Standing

Smile when you say that!

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

Mouse Brain Simulated Via Computer

As anyone will know who's ever used a PC.

Posted 1:16 PM by Gene

The Saudis made their celebrated SWEEP over nine months -- and the last arrests were in December.

Just so long as it looks as if we've done something.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Bush should SIGN the bill and get us out NOWNOWNOW!!!!!

Gen. McClellan comes to mind -- and we are being kind.

Posted 12:52 PM by Gene

This promises to be the next cell-phones-fry-your-brain scare: wi-fi zaps your reproductive organs. (So we must assume given the emphasis on laps.)

One thing is clear: many of those who start these scares didn't need cell phones to fry their brains.

Posted 12:45 PM by Gene

SLIME comes up with His own BRILLIANT idea -- having TiVos automatically update ads so the viewers can skip over the latest versions!

Ths, ladies and gentlemen, is the genius that made a media zillionaire.

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

Terry Teachout has, as usual, put his finger on this year's P-Ulitzer in music -- and on the P-Ulitzers in general, and on all arts and media awards:

I can't help but recall the footrace in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" that was judged by a dodo: "There was no 'One, two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked . . . At last the Dodo said, 'EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes.'"

(Via About Last Night)

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

What is with the WaPosties and Jack? Why have they been devoting so many column inches and so much drivel to this guy who destroyed the movies? What is so special about him that we must be constantly reminded of what a good guy he was? Or is all the good-guy talk a cover for the bad he did his industry -- and our nation?

SHUT UP, LENNY!

P. S. Slavery lasted a long time too, and it worked very well for the South -- if it worked. A tear-stained NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to MIKE!

And a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to LENNY for telling us Matt used to be one of JACK'S underlings!

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

The two Senators, men of privilege and heirs to political dynasties both, were notorious in Washington for such antics. I am not one to make an issue out of politicians' personal lives, but I think the Democratic party is crossing a line by tolerating this sort of old-school, old-boy D.C. misogyny.

Liberals frown on the misbehavior of -- Democrats?!?!?

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Surprise number one: Companies that lay off lots of workers don't necessarily do better on Wall Street. Surprise number two: Companies lay off lots of workers because LEGENDARY WELCH did it.

I'm surprised.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

SELIGISM just can't rid itself of the taint of drugs -- and we are told the center of this controversy had "a penchant for tall tales":

Several former Mets said they remember referring to Radomski as "Murdoch," after the owner of a newspaper known to exaggerate. [Emphasis added] Long after he was gone from the Mets, when someone would tell a dubious story in the clubhouse, listeners would say, "That's a Murdoch!"

NYUK! NYUK! NYUK!

Posted 7:57 PM by Gene

It would appear maybe -- just maybe -- the Dems are coming to realize their farce has the proverbial snowball's chance, and not in Alaska.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Hillary: U.S. Ready for 'Multilingual President'

Accents don't count.

Unfortunately Dubya has her beaten -- he can speak English and Spanish badly. Can Hillary do that?

(Sorry for the NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Oh, NO -- GE BANCORP AND REALTY's going WAY UP today because somebody has FINALLY suggested spinning off parts of the company!

And guess which parts the Citigroup "analysts" want to spin off? Show-biz and real estate -- and consumer finance!

We ask again: what is GE BANCORP's purpose other than being big and unwieldy, and generating lots of bad PR?

``As bad as it sounds to say, our earnings have grown into the stock price,'' Immelt said. ``Maybe we were too highly valued on the future. We are not today.''

LEGENDARY WELCH WOULD FIRE YOU!

Posted 2:41 PM by Gene

In other college hijinx:

“WE WILL NEVER FORGET THE ROLE OF THE FBI IN McCARTHYISM!!!!!!!!!!” screamed Michael A. Gould-Wartofsky ’07, who is also a Crimson editorial editor. [Overemphasis added]

...and a future managing editor of THE PAPER OF RE-CORD!

(Via the usual Romy, who was doing a little fist-in-the-air calisthenics himself)

Posted 12:32 PM by Gene

SaaaaaAAAAAaaaaay, we're nowhere near the fall and already some Nittany Lions are gearing up for the season by getting arrested in a fight!

Go, St. JoePa! Your players won't.

There was drinking, too. Good preparation!

Residents of the apartment received a letter a few days after the fight that asked them to drop the charges, Mahon said. It was signed, "The Voice of the Penn State Student Body."

Sounds like the voice of the Penn State Alumni Association to me!

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

Even assuming computers in schools are a good thing -- a dubious assumption -- this should not have us tap-dancing with glee:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A project that aims to deliver low-priced laptops with string pulleys to the world's poorest children may have a new market: U.S. schools.

The nonprofit "One Laptop per Child" project said Thursday it might sell versions of its kid-friendly laptops in the United States, reversing its previous position of only distributing them to the poorest nations.

What about all the millions of perfectly good computers businesses throw out every year?

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: WE SHOULD SIC EVERY LAST REPORTER ON THE EVIL OF WASHINGTON -- unless it's Democrats committing the evil.

This, we would repeat for the 27,398th time, has NOTHING to do with outfits like TRIBCO crawling into a financial cave.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

The Dems had a debate last night, and a few of the hacks like SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX are hugging themselves because everybody won -- except maybe The Eternal Comber, who came across as "canned and phony", or Abe Kennedy, who "appeared ill at ease in his first responses", or Mike "Who?" Gravel (wasn't that Fred Flintstone's boss?), who's "out to destroy the Democratic Party", or....

Chill out, dudes. Fifteen months left before you can inflict a candidate on us.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

More news in the musical realm: The Singing Android, Christopher Cross, has filed for divorce.

Nnthe nnbest nnthat nnyou nncnn nndoo? Sci-fi buffs everywhere will be disappointed.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

The Cold War has not quite ended in the Baltics.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

In a startling departure from his previously stated position on civil unions, Mayor Giuliani came out to The New York Sun yesterday evening in opposition to the civil union law just passed by the New Hampshire state Senate.

SOMEBODY'S RUNNING FOR -- never mind.

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

GASP! BREAKING NEWS!

Reports: Saudi police arrest 172 militants in anti-terror sweep

How many thousands left?

More excellent news: they were learning to fly! Whiny! Babs! We DON'T have to worry about terrorism any more!

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

Fifteen years after the riots we hacks celebrated South Central is still a squalid poverty zone, proof that jernalists don't care about the poor unless it enriches their bottom line.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Commerce Department reports economic growth slowed to a 1.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2007, its weakest performance in four years.

DOW 14,000!

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

One of the greatest victims of Soviet communism was the arts, and perhaps the greatest victim of all the arts was music. Civilized men should never forget Stalin's hideous edict of 1948 blackballing the leading Russian composers of his day, most fearsomely Prokofiev, who was so shattered neither his health nor his music ever recovered. For the Russians it is a double curse because their musical culture, in so many ways, was the most outstanding of all, with a gift of melody and love of harmony that perhaps only the Viennese ever equaled, and an undying quest for perfection. It is therefore sobering to think that the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, himself a gallant and uncompromising fighter for human rights -- and a fierce champion of Shostakovich, who was likewise blackballed -- may be the last well known Russian musical figure (unless some rock hack comes along -- unlikely). This realization makes us mourn ever more for the arts, the mourning exacerbated when in so many precincts it's marked with feverish cheering.

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

We can praise God (and we are being neither facetious nor irreverent) that we cannot hear the Liquor Louse suitably exciting his friends. Alas, we can imagine it, and if our tone is off, and we're sure it is, it is just that we don't usually like having people think for us:

Liquor Louse: We're here with Jon Meacham, Evan Thomas, Howard Kurtz and Jeff Greenfield on the stunning death of a true hero, Jack Valenti. Jeff, you're a ni -- you're a lover....

Blithering Ninny: A lover of what? (with the oh-so-knowing, condescending, smug air of someone in on the joke, the joke being on the listeners, but who is nonetheless so brilliant you harbor the suspicion he thinks he's smarter than Liquor Louse too)

Liquor Louse: You're a lover of -- greatness in men. Jeff, what made Jack such a great man?

P. S. We see Jack asked for donations to a macular degeneration fund in his name. How fitting.

P. P. S. Slashdot mourns:

P. P. P. S. Ten "giant"s and six "legendary"s -- maybe in the back of their empty-quonset-hut skulls the hacks know something.

P. P. P. P. S. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD to PAUL "UNFORGETTABLE" FARHI!

Posted 9:01 PM by Gene

While professional college sport continues to reek, the NPCPCAA, like a blind private eye, pursues the remedies that will restore its virginity -- like banning text messaging from recruiting.

Okay Myles, when's the next big non-Blackberry related scandal?

Posted 8:55 PM by Gene

The more things change....

In the fifties, Baughman tells us, when a large fire broke out near a Schenectady television station, its news manager told his reporters to call the Associated Press.

And how does that differ from modern jernalism -- or blogging?

Posted 8:31 PM by Gene

Hmmm, sounds like the NFL may be preparing to shake down more taxpayers by playing musical chairs with its draft. Wouldn't that be profitable!

Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

Jack Valenti, who played such a big part in turning the movies into junk, has died. It is apt that that he died on the day after the feds proposed regulating violence in television. That alone is a repudiation of his alphabet soup, of the notion that we can ever trust industry types to police themselves. He will also of course be remembered for waking up to home video at the last second and his typically farsighted notion that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone", and for endearing himself to geeks with his subsequent jabber of DRM and his close friendship with the FBI; for talking of the Johnson White House as though he personally ran it (well, him and Bill Moyers); and for constantly dropping references to his friend Cicero in his speechmaking. In that pestilential Potomac swamp of pompous asses he was a pompous ass nonpareil, and his innumerable "friends" (much as two tarantulas are friends) were, like him, enemies of the people.

Judging from how the hacks are playing it they appear to be almost as upset as with David Halberstam.

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

The Dalai Lamas of Mountain View have treated some of their reverent customers to a bit of old-tyme BLOGGER!

No, we're not surprised.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

There is a place for one-hit wonders like Bobby "Monster Mash" Pickett, especially now that we don't even have one-hit wonders.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Thirty percent of all businesses say they won't upgrade to Vista ever, which is making the Bugmeister cry all the way to owning fifteen banks.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

Al-Qaeda's goal isn't a seat at the table. It wants to blow up the table. [Home-page hed]

That's okay, sez Whiny Reid and Speaker Babs; we'll just have a couple of hundred soldiers guard the table.

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWELL!

NEWS UPDATE: The dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology resigned today after 28 years at the school when it was confirmed that she "misrepresented her academic degrees" on her resume, according to a statement issued by MIT. Marilee Jones was perhaps the most prominent admissions director in the country and has spoken widely about combating the college admissions frenzy and restoring the joys of youth to young people obsessed with their resumes. Statement from Marilee Jones [From Boston.com]

If it can happen at MIT it can happen anywhere!

Why now?

(Link added 1:10 p.m.)

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

A BRILLIANT idea, Romy & Co.: let's turn newspapers into wards of the state so we'll be obliged to pay for your TRUTH!

Here's a suggestion, Rom: you agree to pay people like The Flying Keyboard $30,000 a year and we'll agree to your brainstorm. NUF SAID.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

President Bush next week is expected to receive, and swiftly reject, legislation ordering U.S. troops to begin coming home from Iraq this fall. The veto could fall on the fourth anniversary of the president's Iraq “victory” speech.

This appears to be part of a new strategy of Dems and the hacks: to discredit Dubya by calling attention to that stupid campaign rally on the aircraft carrier. To which we say, you guys didn't care the last time you handed a mission accomplished to our enemies, nor do you much care this time. What planet do you live on?

On the other hand, Dubya could have chosen another date -- but then the hacks would still be in the P-Ulitzer mode.

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

HED OF THE DAY:

Hugh Grant Arrested in Alleged Baked Bean Attack

There seem to be several ways to attack with baked beans, but we'll leave this hed as is.



Have the boys who run THE GAMES thought of making baked-bean throwing a sport?

Meanwhile, a police insider ponders how successful a prosecution may be over the alleged food-throwing incident. "The evidence may have been eaten," the source tells PEOPLE.

That would be a problem.

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

BIGMEDIA want it both ways: they want to punish people for saying stupid things, and they want people who'll say stupid things because they can boost ratings. Which will it be, jackasses?

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

It is annoying to reflect (if EXtrEme TrACkiNg or however they spell it is to be believed) that most of our recent hits have come from our posting of the Budweiser logo from the other day. We would hope someone would read us, and not merely look for some sort of excuse for a future drunk.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

News hacks ALWAYS like to tell us how extremely well-informed and erudite and HIP the audiences are for THE ED MURROW and ERIC SEVAREID of COMEDY, so when a certain kind of pol goes on their shows and tells jokes -- why, if the hacks don't get on their 1000-foot-high horses and demand he RESIGN, or whatever.

Really, most pols shouldn't tell jokes, certainly not a Senator who seems altogether too comfortable with his mouth; and as for the hacks, they shouldn't act as humor critics, they being the apex of witlessness.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

The World's Oldest Adolescent shouldn't be worried about picking up some medal from Dubya because he's a "poodle"; he should be worried that he's become a DOG.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

We can't figure out why Wendy's would be in trouble. Wendy's puts out a better burger than Mickey. Our only supposition is most burger fans, like the movie S&M phreaks, have no taste.

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

PINCH is debating whether THE CONSPIRACY is making enough movies for WOMEN when He should be asking if it makes enough movies for HUMANS.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats -- a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.

If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.

You know, even though this is SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX, we're prepared to say he's right.

P. S. at 11:57 a.m.: REPUBLICANS ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE EVER DESERVING OF BLAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, this whatisit named Orr is the MS. TRAVERS of TNR.com.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Nobody tell the geeks of Slashdot:

Hitachi Offering One-Terabyte Hard Drive

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!! More room for more sci-fi parodies!

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

I have no sympathy for a public figure who screams hours before he thinks -- and that includes ac-TORS as well as hack pols.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Outfits like the Pe-ew Foundation gotta poll the way a Skid Row derelict's gotta drink.

The public, in any case, is speaking.

Posted 3:50 PM by Gene

Okay, Rudy said a stupid boom-boom partisan thing, but there's no denying if a Dem became prez the odds would be slightly more favorable.

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

Your name is Jim Glassman. Your fingers are getting itchy....

22,900 POINTS TO GO!

Posted 3:28 PM by Gene

Lucas, Hamill reunite for "Star Wars" spoof

We can safely say this redefines the notion of "has-been."

Posted 3:25 PM by Gene

What could be more boring than a former presidential press secretary's memoirs?

You wouldn't guess.

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

For those who remember journalism back in a 1970s heyday they can't explain to to the young, Halberstam's death was not just the death of a hero, it was like the death of the great Hollywood stars -- Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable. Who would replace them? No one has. Maybe no one ever does.

When hacks see themselves as "the great Hollywood stars" -- or even when they see their heroes as such -- we see what is wrong with JERNALISM.

(Via the usual Romy, who has a little of Jimmy Cagney in him -- or so he thinks)

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

Our favorite P. R. man Rog has discovered Lucy has another preening mortal enemy -- Lesley Stahl!

Is it any wonder these clowns always fight for as much face time as they don't deserve?

Who thought these people could make Lucy look good?

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

I THINK WE KNOW WHEN MS. TRAVERS IS ACTING UP BECAUSE SHE POSTS HER FAVORITE SENATORS' SPEECHES IN ALL CAPS!!!!!

OR DO HER FAVORITE SENATORS TALK LIKE THAT WHEN THEY'RE ON THE FLOOR?

Elsewhere in America's Preeminent Con-SER-va-tive Web Site:

In the U.S.A., a conservative approach to high culture—to art, music, and literature—equals The New Criterion.

And in the U.S.A., a conservative approach to low culture equals -- never mind.

P. S. at 5:11 p.m.: Has MS. TRAVERS ever thought of starting a blog for the Republican Party?

When a con-ser-va-tive writer, or a liberal writer, or a tabloid paper, or anyone with an axe to grind, uses the word OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!, a switch clicks off. Really, some words lose their meaning when some writers use them, even when an outrage happens, perhaps because language can always become an outrage.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

It would be healthy to say "so what?" whenever another overpaid superopinionated publicity-seeking ultramouth leaves the air, but too many of us have learned how not to say it.

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

THE MASSACRE RALLY IS BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

We want ouw way! An' if we don't get ouw way we'll have 5,000 mowe votes and we'll SCWEAM an' CWY until WE GET OUW WAY! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

The good news: ratings for all the top shows are falling.

The bad news: The Reverse Robin Hoods of MadAve will burn more of our money on Hollywood schmoozing than EVER!

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Poll: Muslims only partially support Al Qaeda's agenda

Well! That's a relief.

But a closer look at attitudes in Egypt and Pakistan, two of the countries surveyed, reveals a more nuanced perspective that also welcomes democracy and freedom of religion.

So they're nuanced about wanting a caliphate where infidels get their heads lopped off! That's a relief too!

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

America's Greatest Ex-Presidential Candidate poses a question:

Who was the real loser of '72?

Uh, you really want the answer?

Which is not entirely true, of course -- thanks to the rout of two years later a few millions in Southeast Asia were real losers too.

Want to get America's Greatest Ex-Presidential Candidate to shut his mouth? Say "Killing Fields"!

And yes, Nixon was a loser too -- just a different kind.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Jo-NAH, in his FrankRichian-con-SER-va-tive way, talks sense:

I think the strategic conceit of creating new buzzwords and jargon to protect bureaucrats, consultants and ideologues is one of the more fascinating constants of the human condition (I think Vaclav Havel wrote a play on this and Orwell was obviously a hero in the battle against this sort of thing.). If you don't know the lingo, you're on the outside. But often the only thing that justifies you're outsider status is your ignorance of the lingo. Intellectuals, obviously, are the greatest culprits when it comes to using words as bouncers (I wrote a column about it here a long time ago)...

...and then at the last second shoots himself in the foot:

...but as we move deeper into the New Economy, it's only going to get worse.

...and someone notices:

Update: From a reader:

Subject: pot, kettle?

"but as we move deeper into the New Economy..."

Loved the disquisition on the hubris of buzzwords, but
isn't "New Economy" a hollow buzz phrase too?

Jo-NAH! B. S. DEFENDER! This buzzword's for YOU!

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

Important product safety information from the ASSPress:

The following recall has been announced:

-About 13,800 Coby-brand USB/MP3/CD boomboxes because they could start a fire if the off switch is not firmly in position while the unit is plugged into an electrical outlet. The company has received 18 reports of boxes overheating and causing minor property damage. Details: by phone at 800-524-9219; by Web at http://www.cobyusa.com/ or http://www.cpsc.gov . [sic]

Nothing against Coby or the purchasers, but part of us has wanted to see a few boomboxes self-destruct -- and now a manufacturer has rather obliged.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Hardy har har: Any whiny showoffy tantrum Dems can pull the GOPS can too!

America is run by screaming crybabies.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

One last word [we hope] on you-know-what -- which, while we will say it doesn't differ much from what we'd said before, and to little exposure, is still mightily worth posting:

[S]urrender may be the keyword here. What, for instance, is this dismal rush to lower the national colors all the damned time? At times of real crisis and genuine emergency, such as the assault on our society that was mounted almost six years ago, some emotion could be pardoned. But even then, the signs of sickliness and foolishness were incipient (as in Billy Graham's disgusting sermon at the National Cathedral where he spoke of the victims being "called into eternity"). If we did this every time, the flag would spend its entire time drooping. One should express a decent sympathy for the families and friends of the murdered, a decent sympathy that ought to be accompanied by a decent reticence. Because Virginia Tech—alas for poor humanity—was a calamity with no implications beyond itself. In the meantime, and in expectation of rather stiffer challenges to our composure, we might practice nailing the colors to the mast rather than engaging in a permanent dress rehearsal for masochism and the lachrymose.

P. S. THE NEW YORKER couldn't resist: SMOKED MOZZARELLA COMES THROUGH -- with TACO TALK!!!!! (See the URL)

We will not read it. We would hope this time he came through with some sauce, so he can be laughed out of the profession -- or more likely, so America's Most Overrated Editor can nominate him for 15 National Magazine Awards.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Surprise: Toyota's No. 1.

What will GM do about it? Go to No. 4, we'd guess.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

The MESS becomes the latest site to IMPROVE itself, its headlines smaller and with their blue font harder to read. Every time we see a Web site "improve" it's bad news. What's wrong with staying the same for a few months?

Sorry, "editor", Ctrl+F5 (or as you must put it, "control-F5") does nothing. Neither does increasiong the font sizes, which renders the site even harder to read.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

In the wake of last week's head-bashing mea culpas, a question: Whose death has gotten more coverage -- Boris Yeltsin's or David Halberstam's?

The hacks are breaking their own records for self-absorption.

Posted 11:57 AM by Gene

Oooooh, PINCH's peasants are mad: they'd withheld 42 percent of their votes from His directors slate!

The Sulzberger and Ochs families own Class B shares, which allow them to appoint nine of the company's 13 directors. Class A shareholders voted on the remaining four today.

So there!

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

Who would have thought this: Lucy Van Pelt has enemies -- and one of them is the aw-shucks folksy charmin' Bob Schieffer!

To which we say, Bob should have thought about it before he quit his prior job.

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

We keep hearing the housing-market bust won't hurt anybody, and maybe it won't, but heck all that unsold ticky-tacky has to do something.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

Apparently the terrible death of David Halberstam in a car accident has caused another of those collective nervous breakdowns in the news biz. We can see the masses of six-figures calling him "legendary" -- they don't know better. Likewise we can see Anthony Lewis calling him the greatest JERNALIST of his generation; judging from his declining op-eds he didn't know better. But when everybody praises somebody in that knee-jerk lockstep style something's up, and it can flatten even the most meritorious of reputations. And it seems Halberstam ENDED AN UNJUST WAR. This, of course, is the sort of daydreaming news hacks do when they're not telling the truth, or else making their big salaries. Whether one news hack ENDED the war is doubtful, and of course it would never occur to the hacks to ask themselves if it was the right thing, they always being right. That said we are not terribly familiar with Halberstam; our judgment is of an exceptionally diligent reporter who was long-winded, very long-winded, and often those qualities that might raise suspicions in the peons raise the hallelujahs in the news hacks. Certainly the man was curious, an attribute to be greatly encouraged in every reporter. He died on his way to work, which was fitting, and we fervently hope it wasn't a drunken driver.

Posted 8:37 PM by Gene

"So, what's the mood on campus?"

We've come to the point at which murderous psychopaths and TV news executives are of the same mind when it comes to human tragedy: It's a branding opportunity.

"Students in general will also be declining all requests and contact from the media," the statement says.

NO COMMENT.

Thank you again, Romy!

P. S.

News » Nation ▪ Virginia Tech Shootings ▪ States ▪ Lotteries [Links above a story of another multiple murder]

▪ MORONS.

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

SUMNER suspends two more of His employees for engaging in Match-Game-style infant "humor" ("flied lice", "hot, Asian, spicy").

At this rate He may want to suspend His entire empire. It's deserving enough. Who needs them anyway?

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

Well, for selling horse racing, I guess this beats broken-down horses and bums with cigars.

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

Aw -- SHUCKS, the MASSACRE RALLY ends (temporarily, anyway).

We have a few sarcastic comments but we'll keep them to ourselves.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

WE HAVE NOT LOST IN IRAQ!!!!!!!!!! -- but it wouldn't be such a bad idea!

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

The only two questions to ask of these online presidential debates are 1. Just how irrelevant can presidential debates become? and 2. Which will be softer -- marshmallows or Charlie Rose's questions?

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

Another sport -- figure skating -- signs a no-rights-fee deal with a network.

One would like to think this presages more such deals, but CEOs in luxury suites tell us better.

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

Everybody's favorite martyred TV columnist Gail says Lucy Van Pelt may QUIT after the 2008 election!

$15 million a year says nada.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

From Cho to Harry Reid, it was not a good week for self-control, chuckle chuckle. [Front-page subhed; last two words added]

YOU SAID IT, R. EMMETT!!!!!

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

EVIL EXTREME-RIGHT NAZI RACIST HOMOPHOBIC THEOCRATIC CHRISTIAN....

Yep, "'Bill Moyers Journal' Back on PBS."

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

BRING BACK THE ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY!

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

We are sorry to hear Boris Yeltsin has died. He had the guts and fearlessness to take down the Soviet establishment. It will be his black mark, however, that his drunkenness so robbed him of will and even basic competence that he couldn't follow through, with the result the world is now stuck with Belly Kisser, and a new authoritarian Russian state for as far as the eye can see.

(Link at 10:05 a.m.)

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

More good news for those of us who can't stand news hacks: online ad revenues are slowing!

GOOD!

Comprenez-vous, Wall Street Journals?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

"VT Stay Strong—Media Stay Away."

WE DIDN'T THINK YOU HEARD THAT!!!!!

But as such stories have gained in national stature, the network newscasts have lost their sense of proportion. In the Virginia shooting, 33 people died (including the shooter). By last Thursday, the nightly newscasts had accorded these killings 180 minutes of airtime—exceeding an entire week's worth of coverage of an Indonesian tsunami (156 min). On Tuesday, the story accounted for 96% of the combined news hole.

This is what happens when cynics pull their we're-part-of-the-people gag. That accounts for much of the excess; the empty-one-upmanship accounts for the rest.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Why do we think "Loser" Reid would be as hopelessly lost as Dubya, if not more so?

Posted 8:37 PM by Gene

A conservative and a socialist will runoff for France's presidency.

Why do we suspect there's less difference here than meets the eye?

Posted 8:21 PM by Gene

OBESITY FEAR FRENZY GRIPS FOOD INDUSTRY!!!!!!!!!! [Frenzied overemphasis added]



Maybe if we hadn't done this sort of thing for oh, sixty years....

Even critic Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, acknowledges that changes to advertising won't solve the obesity problem. But he told a recent Kaiser Family Foundation panel "advertising is a target ... one I think that we can address and move forward with quickly."

Heck -- it worked!

Posted 1:01 PM by Gene

Microscopic progress: even the boom-booms agree psychos shouldn't have guns.

Posted 12:43 PM by Gene

Some small sliver of hope: reinstating in loco parentis in some form. But since the HACKS keep telling us it's a CONSERVATIVE thing, and since the Dubyas with their welters of well-meaning laws have pretty much eviscerated it, we should just go back to wailing and moaning and gnashing our teeth.

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

Now Zimbabwe can see end of the road for its 'brutal old man'

I wouldn't hold my breath -- that's what they keep saying about Fidel.

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

In the LALALand of the east, a preacher:

He doesn't preach about helping the poor or aligning society with Christian values. Rather, he teaches that sin and the devil don't exist, and that his followers already are spiritually perfect.

How does that differ from, say, SUMNER, or your top editors and academics?

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

Um, does anyone other than DEVINS and DICK CORLISSES need convincing this isn't a SUPERMEGAPLATINUM AGE OF FILLUM?

How revoltin': the immortal Barbara Stanwyck would be 100 this year. Why can't she be 21 again?

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

University of Texas * University of Iowa * Paducah * Columbine * Red Lake * Amish Country * Virginia Tech . . .

Amidst the veritable cosmic waves of drivel over this Moebius strip of a subject, no one has raised the question: Can America live with this violence? Who will be the first to say yes? Who will defend our culture of death? Who will say that death is tolerable compared to the alternatives? Who will say we cannot control ourselves, therefore we must accept death as the consequence?

Not ONE writer has had the guts to face this topic squarely, choosing instead the "cold", meaningless platitudes of fake compassion, and the flailing for solace where none exists.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

Common sense in the Beltway -- for the first time in ages:

Bush defers to comedian at annual roast
In wake of Va. Tech, president says it’s best that Rich Little do the jokes

To be sure, we'd have chosen someone other than Rich to do the jokes, but then again, given our druthers, we'd have chosen someone other than Dubya to be the president.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Mall is a four-letter word. Such is the word's appeal that even in LALALand, one big splotch of suburban sprawl, Babbitts have to disguise the malls into a make-believe world of yesterday, the yesterday (and cities) they helped obliterate by building so many of their needless, faceless MALLS.

Posted 10:00 PM by Gene

The World's Oldest Adolescent is a two-timing, double-dealing, both-sides-of-his-mouth-orating cynic?

Goooooooooooooooooooooooosh!!!!!

Posted 9:41 PM by Gene

David von Drehle, in a very fine article that could NOT have run in Zeitgeist -- we're surprised it ran in PEOPLE NEWSRAG given ER -- was not just writing about the psycho:

A generation ago, the social critic Christopher Lasch diagnosed narcissism as the signal disorder of contemporary American culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing toward the infant stage. You don't have to buy Freud's explanation or Lasch's indictment, however, to see an immediate danger in the way we examine the lives of mass killers. Earnestly and honestly, detectives and journalists dig up apparent clues and weave them into a sort of explanation. In the days after Columbine, for example, Harris and Klebold emerged as alienated misfits in the jock culture of their suburban high school. We learned about their morbid taste in music and their violent video games. Largely missing, though, was the proper frame around the picture: the extreme narcissism that licensed these boys, in their minds, to murder their teachers and classmates.

Something similar is now going on with Cho, whose florid writings and videos were an almanac of gripes. "I'm so lonely," he moped to a teacher, failing to mention that he often refused to answer even when people said hello. Of course he was lonely.

In Holocaust studies, there is a school of thought that says to explain is to forgive. I won't go that far. But we must stop explaining killers on their terms. Minus the clear context of narcissism, the biographical details of these men can begin to look like a plausible chain of cause and effect--especially to other narcissists. And they don't need any more encouragement.

Posted 9:27 PM by Gene

The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist engages in the print equivalent of the brisk rubbing of hands -- we wouldn't expect anything else with the synergistic partner of....well, it makes PEOPLE NEWSRAG look distinguished -- but an earlier "Web exclusive" says it all:

• The Sensitive Art of Marketing After a Tragedy

Sensitive?

P. S. Before that Zeitgeist's vice-president and show-biz publicity chief had this to say -- which we thankfully missed, lest it make us angry:

If you were looking to build a case for the sheer pointlessness of 24-hour cable-news networks, Monday afternoon’s coverage of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech would’ve been a great place to start.

And how pray tell, Devin, did the rest of your biz avoid pointlessness? Or did it?

It’s a sly commentary on the surreality of movie violence—but viewed from another, more alarmist, perspective, one could just as easily bash it for glorifying bloodshed.

Editor-pleasin' DEVIN wins a NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD -- and is an instant finalist for our annual honors! Go for it! We know you have adjectives and Machiavellianism to spare!

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

Eenie weenie teeny tiny:

British Airways cut a cameo by Richard Branson from its in-flight version of the latest James Bond film and blurred out the tail fin of a Virgin Atlantic plane seen in the movie.

We couldn't care less about Richard Branson, or British Airways, or James Bond, so why does this strike us as so typical of the little eenie-weenie-teeny-tiny vendettas big businessmen have that make them so popular with their customers?

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

I feel pretty, oh so pretty....

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration said Friday it had stopped construction on a new execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison, a project whose secrecy angered Democratic lawmakers when they learned of it just last week.

Why do we harbor the suspicion Ah-NULT would not execute even the most deserving thug just to look good for the media?

Schwarzenegger Lets MTV 'Pimp' His Ride

We can only hope Jo-NAH runs no more elbow thrusts for Ah-NULT for president.

Posted 4:15 PM by Gene

RUN, DON'T WALK, TO THE LOCAL CINEPLEX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!! overemphasis added]

You wonder whether we'd better served by rumor than by the mix of bromides, salesmanship and flat-out BS that makes up the news biz. We can't do enough to put these frauds like GanNETt out of business.

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

Rice is an executive disaster waiting to happen at State. Taking bets here: Next big "scandal" comes from State. Anybody?

Why not? It's as good a place as any.

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

An afternoon ride on a swamp buggy could cost one man tens of thousands of dollars after it caught fire -- and set off a blaze that has charred more than 38,000 acres of drought-parched Everglades since Monday.

At what point does setting an example become bureaucratic overkill?

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

Microsoft Wants To Double The Number Of PCs In The World By 2015

And then maybe BUGMEISTER can donate His foundation money to the League of Nations to clean up the mess.

He'll get it coming AND going!

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Was the emoting of the ANDERSONS and the BRIANS acting? We must ask. These jerks never lose an opportunity to show they can pull one on the public, and besides, their adrenalin rush comes from one-upmanship, from beating the competition for no better reason than beating the competition. We all know only ratings and money matter to the jerks, but they can't show their private ego because -- well, it would be unseemly. So when these golden opportunities for tin platitudes come along they copiously cry the crocodile tears, which should never prevent us from viewing them all as the coldest-blooded of reptiles.

And besides -- they're members of AN ACTORS' UNION.

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

We wonder why The New Yorker's geniuses haven't yet said something pretentious about the massacre. Maybe they figure they've been beaten to it -- in spades. But never underestimate the power of li-te-ra-ry EXCELLENCE.

Posted 12:20 PM by Gene

An odd juxtaposition from ASSPress:

Head of China's State-Backed Church Dies

...followed by:

Fidel Castro Meets With Chinese Official

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

Now Dubya has formed a commission.

Will someone tell these bozos all these result in are reports nobody reads?

Posted 7:56 PM by Gene

And the House COMMIES are up to more no-good:

Democrats Target Tax Break for ConocoPhillips, Tyson

This "tax break for producing alternative energy" (peeeee-U!) was manufactured by Roy "The Gay Divorcée" Blunt, so obviously petulant Dems want to get back at him. But we should remember whenever Congresspoops pass pieces of -- legislation that give tax breaks for dubious causes they're merely getting back at the people.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

PRESS RELEASE OF THE WEEK:

The New York Times is Featured on ``Jeopardy!'' Week of April 23!!!!! [PINCHIAN overemphasis added]

We would pose our own JEOPARDY!!!!!!!!!!-style question but PINCH has all the answers.

(Via -- who else? Romy)

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

FDR -- er, JOE BIDEN SPEAKS:

"I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what's gone down at Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn't happen accidentally, all these things," he said.

ASK NOT -- oh. That's Obama's line.

(Via Hotline On Call)

Posted 6:30 PM by Gene

OH oh, The Big V says The Big 3 (Spidey, that is) is "stuck in a rut" and "giv[es] off the faint odor of running on fumes."

Heck THE CONSPIRACY's been flying for decades without fuel.

Not to worry; we suspect we'll be hearing from those press ag -- REPORTERS flying on their own fumes quoting PAUL DRECK and citing ALL-TIME RECORD...you get the idea.

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

We have a hunch the MASSACRE RALLY (up 350 points for the week) will last a long, long time, and the longer it gets the most embarrassed Wall Street should get.

There's just one problem: Wall Street does not get embarrassed.

Posted 6:17 PM by Gene

The family of the evil gunman deserves compassion, too, for they were also among his victims.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives go back to the fetal position: Now the COMMIE House has passed Barney's idea that shareholders should have a say in the CEO's salaries!

This has to be the WORST day for FREE EN-TER-PRISE since DICK GRASSO was persecuted!

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

• On the Scene: Time for us to leave [Home-page hed]

Better still if you hadn't arrived.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

Especially when abortion is involved, I fully expect biased articles in places like the New York Times. But I’m still surprised to find how widespread the bias is.

This article by Jess Bravin in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is a prime example....

The Wall Street Journal’s readers are entitled to better than this.

Considering you have two knee-jerk papers which think they can sell for $500 a year online, and which flaunt and scorn their P-Ulitzers depending on their respective party lines, I believe their readers aren't.

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

One aspect that clearly irritated many of NBC’s competitors was the impression of the logo “NBC News,” which the network burned into every image from the material.

Something does get news hacks mad!

(Via the usual Romy)

P. S. CNN's idiots have "banned" the video, no doubt because it's yesterday's news, and besides, there's the LOGO.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

BULLETIN DOW INDUSTRIALS SURGE BY TRIPLE DIGITS TO TOP 12,900 FOR FIRST TIME

THE MASSACRE RALLY CONTINUES!!!!!

Frauds.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Rules should have barred weapon purchase

Woulda, shoulda, coulda -- yes, I believe we've found another reason the hacks should shut up.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less.

Ordinarily this would be laugh-out-loud colyumnist-self-parody funny but the more we encounter zillionaire pundits writing like this the less likely we are to laugh.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

The latest excuse is, if we don't do it, someone else will.

Look at it this way: If you don't lose circulation and ratings and revenues, someone else will.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

'President Obama? Meet Secretary Zakaria'

President Obama? Meet Press Secretary Friedman!

When does Jonny Hairshirt graduate to the grand position of blather his mentor Howie Hairshirt occupies?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 7:55 PM by Gene

Just how well is Vista doing?

Dell is bringing XP back.

(Via Slashdot)

Posted 7:28 PM by Gene

Virginia's governor has appointed a commission starring Der Homeland's first boss Der Tom Ridge, and which will do as much good as a certain other commission -- or most other commissions.

Meantime the people seem to be letting news hacks all over America have it over their new hero, which means we're stuck with BRIAN's and CAPUT's images, which will define the obscenity forever, but whose blatant overexposure, with justice, will dig more ground from underneath the news biz. (It must be serious when GREG co-authors it.)

Or as BRIAN and CAPUT said, GIVE ME FIVE!!!!!

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

It's official: the sanctimonious Dalai Lamas of Mountain View are becoming the BUGMEISTERS of search, and with any luck they'll extend the @#$%&* MASSACRE RALLY tomorrow.

OBSESSIVELY TRADING MORONS.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

One of Old Rotgut's reluctantly former friends tells us:

Josh Tyrangiel, the with-it whiz kid who is going to save Time from dead tree hell, tells me that we will soon (-ish) be adding video to the Swamp.

TRANSLATION: ER's adding more bells and whistles, and with any luck the site will be so noisy with bells and whistles you won't hear the content.

Look at it this way, Gawk: when PEOPLE NEWSRAG folds it'll save a few forests.

P. S. I would like to know why I'm not as good as these TWXSTER millionaires. If I churned out as much CW as they I should have negative hits.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

We would like to think we can write, and we'd like to think we have a good blog. We labor under no illusions, however; most of what hits we've gotten since March 1st have been from Next Blog, and we doubt if anybody has bookmarked us, or has been kind enough to link to us in a way that would get us some more hits. We hope someday somebody notices us, and likes us, but after over four years the indifference can still be excruciating.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Marvel is turning Spider-Man into a Branson East theme park.

That the folks at Marvel seem to think this is something new is the mark of a rank amateur.

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

Another of the RED-STATE SCORPION's lackeys is about to twist slowly, slowly in the wind!

Posted 2:39 PM by Gene

So much for THAT ratings ploy.

When does GE BANCORP AND REALTY pay?

Time for that SPINOFF, Little Jeffy?

(Via the ethically debating Romy)

Posted 12:24 PM by Gene

Psychiatrist: Showing Video Is 'Social Catastrophe'

If he'd realized CHARLIE (CHARLES) GIBSON'S NUMBER ONE in the RATINGS....

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

Va. Tech Awarding Degrees to Victims

It's the least (or perhaps we should say the most) it can do.

Posted 11:57 AM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives assume the fetal position: the loony-left Senate has given the FDA power to REGULATE DRUG ADS!

Well who told SLEAZEBALL GUMBO's employers to turn America into a chemical fountain of youth?

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

We figured it wouldn't be long: the news schmucks are now talking
ETHICS.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

After THE MASSACRE RALLY Wall Street's frauds deserve a comeuppance.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

Given this piece too I'm starting to wonder if the rudiments of a revolt against knee-jerk partisanship may be assembling -- but then we thought the same thing after 9/11. There is, nonetheless, a limit to how many times hyperpartisans can call us stupid.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

From an extraordinary piece by Sacha Zimmerman on TNR.com:

Suddenly, the utilitarian approach to gun control supersedes reality. Yet it is too easy to blame external elements--elements we could perhaps change. Not that gun control isn't a worthy issue, but 32 innocents didn't die only because there are too many guns in the world; they died because Cho decided to kill them. And if the cause wasn't too many guns, then there were plenty of other influences--and plenty of other sources for reporters to harangue: the violence-in-media people, the psychoanalysts, the criminal profilers, and the pharmaceutical companies (Cho was taking an antidepressant). But these are just aspects of this melancholy crisis; they're quite different than the cruel ambition to kill. It is that wicked impulse we should be trying to figure out.

Just one problem: only God knows who has that wicked impulse -- and who has a direct line with God?

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Public protests against the sharia brigade? In Turkey -- and Pakistan?

Maybe the Muslim world has more common sense than we ordinarily think.

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

As the story fades to yet another memory of ANDERSON remuneratively crying the hacks' obsession with their hero's ethnicity will persevere. WHY? If he'd been green with yellow polkadots and chartreuse stripes or an inhabitant of Neptune he would have been evil. Do we ascribe evil to every race or ethnic group because of a psycho's background?

Yes, the hacks must shut up, and keep up for the future dreaming of this week's profits.

They'll need it. (Link via the usual Romy)

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

All the Big Three networks had primetime newsmagazine specials focused on the Virginia Tech shootings last night, and collectively they drew 24.7 million viewers across two timeslots.

1. Don't some people know how to get their news? 2. 24.7 million may be a lot, but considering our population's 300 million you have to wonder how many deliberately tuned out because they'd already heard the story -- and because they knew how the TV do's would overplay it.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Now that the story is over and we can go back to being hermetically sealed we can concentrate on the more important things -- like SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX being astonished:

Some said the "jokes" were just part of his exaggerated way of speaking, so they didn't take them seriously. Others said they found him a savvy, insightful interviewer, and they appreciated the time he gave them to express their thoughts. And some were honest enough to say that they valued his big audience, especially when they were promoting their books.

These are weak excuses for journalists' participation in this continuing offense to civility. Jokes are not jokes when they wound and humiliate. The claim that Imus's slanders were the price they had to pay in return for his providing a forum for their ideas doesn't wash. Big-name newspaper, magazine and TV journalists have no trouble finding places where they can voice their thoughts.

WwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwWELL! Considering that's it's been umpteen years since Howie Hairshirt and the CLODS at The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist started blabbing with Old Scotch Fumes it does seem odd that The Great Bloviator should only now be harrumphing about it. Amazing how this schlemiel finds the truth after all the rest of America has found it.

And for this they pay the big bucks, and lay off people.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 8:07 PM by Gene

Someday the world will know in its full flavor the strange and incredible story of Kitty Carlisle Hart. The granddaughter of Shreveport's first Jewish mayor (!), she was born to -- to put it politely -- a scheming social climber of a mother, and after her physician-husband named Conn died when Kitty was ten she squired her to Europe to marry royalty and spend most of the time in singing lessons. With the Crash it was back to the states for an expedient in show-biz; Kitty looked through a phone directory and found her stage name Carlisle -- as did her mother. Several Broadway shows followed, and soon Kitty was off to Paramount opposite Bing Crosby and introducing "June in January" and "Love in Bloom", and then to MGM with the Marx Brothers and the unlikely A Night at the Opera. A decade of marking time followed -- radio, nightclubs, one last bad movie, and who knows what had she not made her great catch: the brilliant (and bisexual) playwright and director (and psychiatrists' slave) Moss Hart, whom she married in 1946 not for love but because it seemed a good thing at the time. (Among other hobbies Hart liked having nude swimming parties with his "friends." They stopped after the wedding. She was aghast at having to share his bed.) It worked: the couple begat four children and were inseparable until Hart's untimely death at all of 57 in 1961. Most important, it gave her entrée into the great New York social scene, where the natural grace and poise and charm that somehow came from all that time puppy-dogging an imperious mother found a tremendous outlet, and part of it she displayed most famously as a panelist on To Tell the Truth. A life like Mrs. Hart's is unthinkable now, least in part for the opportunites she wouldn't have -- she saw Caruso, and knew Toscanini and his daughters, and dated George Gershwin, and was close to such society bigwigs as Phyllis (Mrs. Bennett) Cerf and Irene (Mrs David O.) Selznick and Dorothy (Mrs. Richard) Rodgers, forces of nature in their own right. You do not rub against all that stardust without a little of it sparkling you, and if her public persona was the real thing -- and we don't doubt it -- Kitty Carlisle Hart had it in galaxies. Here is another reminder of what we have lost, which is far more than we can ever hope to reclaim.

P. S. Most of these facts came from Steven Bach's bio of Hart, a not-bad source for such information.

(First posted at 5:37 p.m.; I moved it several times for obvious reasons, and also corrected Moss Hart's age; grammatically corrected 2/16/2008)

Posted 8:02 PM by Gene

And as the hacks tell the truth with one eye on the Nielsens they seem to have missed this significant little bit of headline: the Dems have all but abandoned a date-certain for Iraqi withdrawal. We can assume it wasn't the goodness of the hearts but the lack of their votes that propelled it.

(Via WeeklyStandard.com)

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

The ASSPress is CONCERNED because the NRA has portrayed Honorary Mayor Mike as an OCTOPUS -- which the ASSPress, with its long tradition of public service, reminds us is -- ANTI-SEMITIC!!!!!

From Our Town fakery to goosing our ratings to telling the public how to think. Yep, the news biz is back to normal. It never left it.

Posted 7:02 PM by Gene

[W]e are sensitive to how this will be seen by those affected and we know we are in effect airing the words of a murderer here tonight....

If ol' LEGENDARY WELCH were still running GE BANCORP they'd have to hospitalize him for laughing.

N'est-ce pas?

Posted 6:33 PM by Gene

Well, not all of the news from BIGMEDIA is bad: the recorded -- sound biz is having what Variety likens to "a stock-market crash." What we cannot understand is why public media abandonment is only in recorded -- sound and newspapers. Why hasn't the public abandoned television? Or the movies? When will the rest of BIGMEDIA finally see a groundswell of our anger? That the floor is collapsing under the weight of all those golden chains is nonetheless not good news for our superiors, however unjustly the agony is spread.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH:

"Yet, in writing he could communicate. You've seen the plays. They're not good writing. But they are at least a form of communication. And in his responses to the other students' plays, he could be quite articulate. If writing is the only way you can communicate with the wider world, then I guess being an English major makes sense."

Majoring in firearms would have made just as much sense.

This seems to be the only story to report the hideous agony of the victims.

P. S. In fairness, the hacks who edit the front pages did not give our psycho all the publicity that was coming to him, but we must remember this was only the first day.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

One of the world's great news organizations gets AN EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!!!!!

This psycho will NEVER be out of our sight! Every appearance is like a reward for him! As the fool megazillionaire Brian asks, WHY?????

P. S.



This is how the news biz makes up for all the grand exposure it gives a psycho.

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

We must confess we could not stifle a smile at all those CEOs and other high-mucky mucks acting like walking cartoons or colicky two-year-olds, furiously banging on their Blackberrys to get them to work, jumping up and down and screaming, and never questioning why they need such superior technology in the first place.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

We're surprised that self-serving tub thumper John Lott hasn't made himself a nuisance these last few days, but we can think of one reason not to allow concealed weapons on campuses:

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

Which again raises the question: why are so many anti-abortionists against gun control -- and why are so many gun-control supporters FOR ABORTION?

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

No! NO!!!!! Reactionary Nazi Nine Fingers have ruled the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban is CONSTITUTIONAL!!!!!!!!!!

We MUST elect DEMOCRATS who'll make sure these BIGOTED, FASCIST -- er, you had too much coffee?

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

Now, given all of that, it's easy to come back and say that cable channels over-hype and sensationalize everything about the tragedy, that the coverage is excessive and unfiltered and shoddy. The answer to that is simple: Well of course. That's the nature of this particular beast. Always has been. And if you look at it from strictly a business perspective, what would you change? Flooding the zone, as they say, is what everybody does. If you're not in that game, then your ratings are down. And if your ratings are down, you're out of a job. So there's little incentive for news directors at these cable channels to reinvent the wheel.

WHEW! WE DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE A THING!

Most important is the notion that all the reporters and anchors on camera should be better schooled in crises reporting. Don't sensationalize or speculate. Don't talk about things you don't know because then you're just talking in circles on air. And even though channels employ the "news wheel" philosophy of constant updates, use discretion. Walking us through the story from the start every 10 minutes doesn't help anything. In short, don't waste airtime talking about nothing if you know nothing. Get someone on the street or in the studio. And if the story stalls -- as they all do, even temporarily -- then don't resist the urge to cut away to something different (even though that goes against your gut, history and self-preservation instincts). You can always come back.

Having just had a hack tell them their MO is perfect, we can be sure the cable news jerks will take this very seriously -- and then do things THE EXACT OPPOSITE WAY AS ALWAYS.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Perhaps the reason the national conversations always sputter out is that they start off too ambitious. Rather than tackling America's fundamental problems, we could start by talking about how we should talk.

Jo-NAH successfully invents another reason why we do not need newspaper colyumnists.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

A LAUGH: SUMNER's going to replace Jack Daniel's Fog with the plagiarist Mike Barnicle!

These nappy-headed -- I DIDN'T SAY IT!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Viewer interest in the ongoing story was high. Fox News averaged 2.7 million viewers in primetime Monday night, a 44% increase over its first-quarter average in primetime. CNN had 2.4 million viewers, a 182% increase, and MSNBC had 796,000, a 46% increase over its first-quarter average, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Don't some people know how to get their news?

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Jack Shafer is becoming to JERNALISM what Mary was to typhoid.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Honorary Mayor Mike will become the first presidential candidate to campaign on gun control. Just one problem: gun control will have the same effect on psychos as barricades and ID cards. This is why it will never pass, not just the despicable NRA.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

And as we ready to worship death again, officials in HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN prepare to install more barricades and make better ID cards, never ready for the threat within.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Here is why (for me at least) the Continuing Saga of Virginia Tech has so quickly become such an extreme vexation: the reek of the most hypocritical sanctimony. Editoralists and Dubyas stand like talking wax dolls emitting their platitudes as if in a coma. This awful tragedy blahblahblah...the sanctity of life blahblahblah....Like hell! Death is a national religion. Don't want a baby? Abort it! Hate somebody? Shoot him! We all know death is funny in the popcorn restaurants. These brave students blahblahblah...then why are the hacks spending two thirds of the news hole detailing what the killer had for breakfasts? This infernal politicospeak is a rotted fig leaf for our national rot. Either we're for death or we're not. And if we're against death, we surely haven't proved it.

Soon enough we'll forget this story too, and it will be safe to worship death again.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

One reason I've avoided SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS for awhile:

LOTS OF PEOPLE WANT ME TO SAY MORE about the Virginia Tech shootings, but I don't have a lot more to say at the moment, particularly as it's still unclear exactly what happened.. [SIC]

So why the hell do you BLOG?

Plus many of his entries have to do with GUN CONTROL (predictably GLIBERTARIAN, we'd guess), so there's less than zero reason to follow him.

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

OH oh, Romy's shaking at his superexpensive computer -- the peons are complaining the hacks are overdoing it!

The problem may be demonstrated with an equation:

[(H/I) / D] * C = T

in which H is the horror factor, I is the amount of information available, D is the likelihood of future developments, C (for GUESS WHICH CABLE NEWS NETWORK) is the amount of air time and column inches available (this being close to infinity and getting closer), and T is the tedium factor. Yesterday's obscenity had a very high horror quotient and a very low information quotient, a quotient rendered lower because of so few firsthand accounts and those (student e-mails, mainly) demonstrating that most collegians just cannot write, dousing the interest. With the almost infinite airtime available the hacks were duly sworn to have to ANDERSONIZE the thing, and so the tedium quotient must approach a record. Repeating a story might be justified IF further developments were available, but they weren't, and especially as the very few remaining further developments were already quite obvious (the "loner" factor for one) there was little news, and even greater tedium.

This extremely high tedium (and irritation) factor compounds itself as the biz still thinks we all get our news by shlumpfing into a cozy chair and reading the evening paper. It is now possible to be informed anytime, but the ANDERSONIZERS assume some people are totally oblivious to the news, which seems an increasingly dubious assumption (heck, that famous question, "Where were you on December 7, 1941?" assumes the news spread pretty fast even then, so this notion has probably been obsolete for at least six decades); plus the nightly-news geriatrics are deigned somehow holy despite being less than ten percent of us. This justifies the whack-on-the-brain repetition as much as need to obsessively fill an excessive news hole. That the dolt "Prime-Time" Fahri uses "SYMBOLISM" as an excuse all but confirms THE NEWS BIZ IS BROKE AND IT WON'T CHANGE BECAUSE IT'S TOO FAT AND UGLY AND PROFITABLE.

I hate to discuss such an awful story so clinically, but dammit these reporting idiots have brains harder than reinforced concrete -- and IQs to MATCH.

One other thing: is it possible so many of these fired reporters Romy & Company always cry over are the JERNALISTIC equivalent of unneeded middle managers turning out too many unneeded reports?

P. S. Has anyone noticed Stale.com has hardly done a thing on this? Doesn't it lend itself to snarky devil's-advocate irony?

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

...a loner....

We really, really, REALLY need one million news hacks to report this.

Posted 12:31 PM by Gene

`Radical' Frank Calms Corporate Fears as He Pushes House Agenda

TRANSLATION: He knows on which side his money is buttered.