Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Greed makes strange bedfellows: Wal-Mart and Commie Chinese, unions and -- "'Southerners and conservative Republicans.'"

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Retail Brokers Are Hotter'n [Little Malcolm SIC] Ever

Suckers last again?

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Textbooks are too expensive; so a commission (natch) recommends digital downloads, but since the system's already rigged this can only mean Guinness Book records for expensive downloads.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Cargill, Coca-Cola to develop new sweetener

Translation: 1. Another one with an aftertaste, and 2. Now ethanol's pushing Coke out of the market?!?

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Three pygmy ex-presidents honor Billy Graham for his "personal kindness", which must have been especially powerful with Ike, Nixon -- and Brezhnev.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

A once famous person shakes off oblivion to make a suggestion:

Former longtime "Tonight Show" sidekick Ed McMahon is urging people to donate DVDs for U.S. troops in Iraq, saying movies offer a safe and comforting escape from wartime realities.

Does this guy use Netflix?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

First the scribblers, now the TEECHERRS. What is with Britain's loony leftists and Israel?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

In further news on the immortality of GEEKS:

Dell to eliminate 8,800 jobs

Natch the stock did a KUDLOW (i.e., it went way up after hours).

P. S. How many job cuts in India?

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Some connection:

The honeymooner quarantined with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was identified Thursday as a 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawyer whose new father-in-law is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of TB and other bacteria.

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

Just think: someday the grandkids of this confab's attendees will look goggle-eyed at their grandparents and say:



I never heard of them. Who were these ugly geeks?

Posted 3:30 PM by Gene

THE S&P 500 IS UNDERVALUED BY 45 PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder -- what was the September, 1929 equivalent?

Posted 3:05 PM by Gene

When will people learn: you do not blog about yourself, for that is the least interesting topic in the universe, but it might be just interesting enough to an employer to get you fired. And you do not blog about a trial when you're the defendant -- and especially when the case involves medical malpractice.

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

"Everything the fictitious Springfield is, we're not. We're a clean, close-knit community. There's no pollution, no waste dumps, nobody misbehaving all the time. And we don't want to be made a parody of," Tilberg said.

"And, besides, I don't think taxpayers are interested in us using the time or resources to put this together," he said. "We wouldn't even be promoting our community. We'd be promoting 20th Century Fox's movie."

Not every pol is cheaply opportunistic -- or stupid.

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

We hereby challenge the Journal’s editors to debate the immigration bill in a neutral venue with a moderator of their choosing — two or three of us versus any two or three of them.

Sure you don't mean "four-or-six"?

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

Of course the mail is a source for identity theft. That's how banks send out zillions of unwanted credit-card solicitations and advance checks that crooks can rifle through to get a new identity.

So see, the mail IS to blame!

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

The Movement is not impressed with Sen. Law-and-Order:

"The book on him is he's lazy...."

So was Ronald Reagan. Pfffffffffffffffft!

(Via Spectator.org)

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

For God's sake 350-pound beef slabs collide head-first at 60 MPH and they're not expected to get Alzheimer's?

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

A former financial aid director at Johns Hopkins University who cultivated a national reputation as a stickler for ethics accepted more than $130,000 from eight lending industry companies during her tenure, twice as much money as previously disclosed, according to documents and interviews.

And we wonder why the word "ethics" has such a smell?

"This is no longer the fun and games we have come to know and love."

Isn't that what HYER LERNING is about?

Posted 8:06 AM by Gene

Why so few bomb-safe US military trucks in Iraq?

Ask Rummy. He put them there.

Posted 8:04 AM by Gene

The good news: Cable networks aren't immune from making TV people want to see.

The better news: NBA ratings are way down! ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

Slashdotters are no doubt guffawing because people like them who eat, sleep, and onanize sci-fi all day but somehow manage to type tons of bad prose besides have putatively given a mighty thumbs down to an alleged MySpace of "fanfic". Of course (judging from this) the site had to be launched with two left feet and twenty-five big toes, but there's a simple reason for that: SUMNER HELPED LAUNCH IT.

P. S. Yes, yes, something called "Showtime" and something else called "Simon and Schuster" helped launch it -- but people forget SUMNER has relinquished virtually no control over both His VIACONS since He split them up. Anything done by a SUMNER-controlled operation, we strongly suggest, HE does, and no matter what the company that did it might be called, this farce has SUMNER -- written all over it.

P. P. S. Evidently Slashdotters don't read as someone posted a Yahoo! logo with the summary. Yes, a couple of former Yahoo! executives did the organizing -- but a couple of CURRENT SUMNER properties did the bankrolling.

P. P. P. S. Yes, we suppose we should beamingly exclaim, "Oooh, look at the grown-ups playing Wookiees!" We suppose we should all laugh. DAMMIT, I want Fitzgeralds and Cathers and Mankiewiczes and Coplands and Kerns and Ellingtons making our culture again, not billionaire hacks and their infernal whores.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

The nice thing about our RENDELLIZED cities: they can't have department stores, but they can have department-store museums.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

Whatever their symbolism, stories like this make me sad because so many do struggle just to put food on the table. In America no one should have to go hungry. With pluck and a little common sense, no one has to. And junk food, bad though it is for the health, is better than starving.

And that's one thing about this idiot stock speculation that makes me mad: the money either sits on paper or just VANISHES, as it did during the dot-com bust. It usually doesn't buy anything except a need for Prozac.

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

Two stocks (guess which two) added umpteen zillion dollars in market cap because people will now be able to download fuzzy amateur videos on a sexy device.

One hopes this typical Stale.com conventional devil's advocacy about steakhouses from the very stale Daniel Gross isn't an omen, for we'll all frown when Wall Street wants to laugh, but the money throwers at these marvels of the hour give us pause.

Then again, they haven't been wrong yet. Pffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 3:17 PM by Gene

High-tech in DOW 36,000 territory:

Maintenance in progress...

Our site is currently being updated. Please check back later today

Wednesday May 30 2007 9:15am EST.

It's 3:17 p.m. Do you know where your Web site is?

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

FOOD FIGHT!

At the end of a post where he freaks out over a preposterously inappropriate way of measuring the federal deficit, Andrew Sullivan says this:

I also noticed in my latest letter from the Social Security Administration that, as currently configured, I'll get 76 percent of what I'm due if and when I retire. My bet is that it will turn out to be less than half. The boomers are going to hog all of it for themselves.

Please. Just stop it. Assuming Wikipedia has his age right [!!!!! -- Ed.], Andrew will turn 65 in 2028. Even if we do absolutely nothing, CBO estimates that Social Security will pay out full benefits at least until 2053. Andrew will be 90 years old at that point.

We side with Kevin -- after all, Mr. Mellerdrammer is no doubt well-paid into the system on the strength of what all those elite editors were hoodwinked into believing about him.

Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

Accomodations in the new luxury news suites at The Paper of Re-CORD:

Could it be that editorial-page editor Andrew Rosenthal’s new office is just as big as publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.’s 16th-floor spread?

“Let’s kill that rumor now,” said Mr. Rosenthal. “It’s not. His is a slightly different geometry.”

Mr. Rosenthal was speaking about geometric shapes and sizes by phone on May 28, exactly one week after his staff took residence on the tower’s lucky 13th floor.

With the relocation from 229 West 43rd Street, Mr. Rosenthal was forced to give up his two-room suite that included, most importantly, a private bathroom.

Now: “My office is exactly the same size as [deputy editorial-page editor] Carla Robbins,” Mr. Rosenthal said.

It still sounds pretty good for a five-star hotel.

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

Hey Jim! There's always the House. They can use your incompetence over there.

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

AP BULLETIN!!!!!

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Kobe Bryant says he wants to be traded by the Lakers.

Is even he that important?

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Bugmeister's allegedly sexy new countertop computer will be a snazzy new way of playing casino games.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

Wait a second -- if Mr. Law-and-Order is announcing on July 4 why does he need to announce now?

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Two members of THE CONSPIRACY are in a fight over whose numbers are more credibly dishonest.

This should be refereed by PAUL DRECK. Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

NBC's Co-Chairmen Plan to Play Nice Together

TRANSLATION: War in six months.

Posted 9:54 PM by Gene

Don't anybody say anything, but Toyota feels -- guilty for being

No. 1 WORLDWIDE!!!!!

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Mum's the word!

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

How did that old New Yorker department go -- Stories We Didn't Finish After the First Sentence, or something like that:

“The Sopranos” teems with the mindless commerce and consumption of modern America. [Home-page squib]

Substitute The New Yorker for "'The Sopranos'", "twaddle" for "commerce", "insufferable pretensions" for "consumption" and "high-end media" for "America" and you have a much better sentence -- and one that isn't written by The Greatest Magazine Editor of All Time either.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Perhaps our economically vibrant malaise will go away with new leadership, or a change of scenery. But something fundamental undercuts us. After all, the Roman Empire had a vibrant economy too.

And not everyone has a vibrant economy.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

The only thing about this atrocity is that there'll be no trial.

(Via FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News, which is drooling)

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Look at the backdrop below the flag. Is it me or does it call to mind "Mission Accomplished"?

The question is not if Dubya is dense. The question is how dense.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

It would be something if Fidel Jr. were forced down because people couldn't see their favorite soap operas, but I'm not expecting Fidel Jr. to relinquish anything for fifty years. Fidel Sr. hasn't.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

What do I think? I think after the politicians and the hacks and the Bunsen Honeydews get together we'll permit the impermissible while screaming ETHICS!!!!! often enough to convince us we're doing the right thing. That's what I think.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Let's see if removing Iran from the Axis of Evil solves this one.

Jamshidi said the same charges had been lodged against Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with George Soros' Open Society Institute....

Shucks, I guess that doesn't help either.

(Via Chronicle.com's News Blog)

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

Excellent: We're protected from terrorists by store security guards.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

Just how disastrous was the Dems' capitulation on Iraq? St. Cindy of Sheehan has quit!

The sad thing is no one can hear her blame JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS anymore. Boo-hoo!

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

Home Construction Bust May Last Until 2011, U.S. Builders Say

Nah, it won't hurt the economy, Wall Street says.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

The light-bulb joke of our time: how many meetings does it take to fire a deranged university prof?

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

THE DONALD pulls another one:

Miss USA Rachel Smith, who slipped and fell to the floor during the evening gown competition and was jeered by the Mexican audience during the interview phase, was the contest's fourth runner-up.

Thanks, Trumpster, for your fine contribution to international relations!

Hours before the pageant began, dozens of protesters held a mock ceremony in downtown Mexico City that featured "Miss Marijuana,""Miss Sexual Health,""Miss Human Rights" and other candidates with obscenities written across their sashes. The group yelled "Neither ugly nor beautiful, should a woman be considered an object!"

Oh, shut up.

1999 Miss Teen USA Vanessa Minnillo and "Extra" weekend correspondent Mario Lopez hosted the live, two-hour telecast, broadcast on NBC and Telemundo, expected to be viewed by more than 600 million people in more than 180 countries.

Has THE DONALD bought out the ASSPress?

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

MS. TRAVERS AGAIN:

Time Flies [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Our friends at Powerlineblog.com turned five this weekend.

05/29 12:02 AM

And they don't sound a day over two.

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Political junkies and celebrities climb aboard nearly a dozen politically themed cruises this year. [Home-page squib]

ABANDON SHIP!

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

I think the biz should blacklist any typist who quotes from Perfesser Soundbyte or PAUL DRECK.

First on the list for the latter: SHARON.

Posted 3:53 PM by Gene

The PAPER of Re-CORD comes to an astonishing conclusion:

Even as the industry tries to branch out, though, there is no promise of an answer to a potentially more profound predicament: a creative drought and a corresponding lack of artists who ignite consumers’ interest in buying music.

Nope, I guess it's not just file sharing.

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

ESPN, Electronic Arts Partnership Blurring Line Between Fantasy, Reality

I suspect it would be more apt to say it blurs the line between fantasy and fantasy.

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

The female Gordon Gekko of socialists met her match.

If NOSE weren't the perpetually raised left fist in the air Gekko Kudlow would write her a stirring defense.

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

Speaking of which I've figured out what it is about high-tech firms in general and the likes of G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE in particular: they combine enormous brainpower, enormous wealth and an enormous lack of common sense. Add their enormous proclivity for unethical behavior and you have America in the 21st Century.

And really it's not brainpower but code-writing power, which merely seems the same.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Any big business that calls itself "international" gives itself carte blanche to commit treason.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Reading this review of the latest sop to "women 18 to 34" ("still the most desirable demographic to advertisers", as Tom Shales says) convinces us Unilever's blathering about the mighty power of boomers is just another MadAve fraud. The advertisers must tell us the problem is with young whippersnappers who think their parents fought at Antietam, but it's far more than that; it's the notion of superiority to the audience that has ossified over eighty years of financing bad programs. To call the relationship between the show-biz charlatans and MadAve's highly-paid show-offs and their dopey clients incestuous vastly underestimates the power of corporate sex. We demand honesty, though the word never existed in the MadAve dictionary: what brave soul will stick his middle finger in our collective eye and finally, proudly admit that insulting the public and burning our money on junk "entertainment" is what advertisers were born to do?



By the way Uni, don't pat yourselves on the back about how you've allegedly made older women fashionable; Athena would look good at any age.

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

Yes, Wolfy, all those barging news hacks forced you to employ your girlfriend in a cushy job.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

Little Jeffy will not get out of show-biz. Little Jeffy likes to schmooze. Little Jeffy thinks he can sell high-tech medical devices and jet engines and locomotives with a promise of meeting stars of stupid TV dramas. The people who buy them are smarter. Show-biz is one reason GE BANCORP and REALTY has remained at $35 or so for the last six years. Little Jeffy would be wise to get out of show-biz ASAP.

Posted 8:06 AM by Gene

Let us see if the talks lead to anything besides cringing and second-guessing on our side, and thumpheting triumphalist posturing on theirs.

Posted 8:04 AM by Gene

Charles Nelson Reilly, who was much more talented than his rep as a second banana of inane game shows and a professional gay theater man would suggest, has died. RIP.

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

ThE INCREASING IRRELEVANCE OF AD-BLURBISM: Stale.com's former TV ad-blurbist now seems to spend much of her time watching YouTube and thus commenting on its videos. We're grateful she has so much free time to fill, and the means to make money filling it. As we get older and realize how much time we've wasted we find it more difficult to waste ours with preoccupations like YouTube; writing a blog is a waste of time of its own. Besides, isn't one kind of bad TV enough?

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in SLIME's paper of re-CORD, business maven Peter reports the Postal Disservice may institute a program of paid vanity ZIP Codes, meaning twenty-digit ZIPs and even more mail misdirected.

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

Any public figure who believes 9/11 was a government conspiracy should have the electronic equivalent of tarring and feathering -- and knowing some of these loudmouths even then they'd think themselves peacocks.

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

GREAT NEWS, B. S. DEFENDER:

Heavy TV viewing under 2 is found

About 40 percent of 3-month-olds watch television or videos for an average of 45 minutes a day, or more than five hours a week, according to the first-ever study of the viewing habits of children under the age of 2.

The study, by pediatric researchers at the University of Washington, also found that by age 2, 90 percent of children are watching television for an average of more than 90 minutes a day.



RIGHT ON, right B.S.?

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

Meanwhile, in other laugh-filled reporting, the ASSPress tells us how the festival of effete rotten-egg smells at Cannes is closing with a "comedy":

Though "Days of Darkness" criticizes the isolation and aseptic blandness of modern life, and though the main character's aging mother is dying in a hospital, it is a much lighter film than "Invasions." Arcand says it is the first time he has included elements of slapstick comedy in a movie.

A barrel of -- something, we are sure!

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

U.S. Deaths Near GRIM Memorial Day Mark, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

They're smiling! The hacks are SMILING AGAIN!

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

Sighhhhhhhhhh, the Elizabeth Taylor of our day can't keep herself out of -- publicity.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

A scholar has written a one-volume biography of FDR, and as Jonathan Yardley reminds us in his eloquent review, whatever his foibles, Roosevelt was a man, and after Truman most who followed him didn't even qualify as mice.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

USE YOU CAN NEWS: The Rag of the Zeitgeist talks pain, being very good at inflicting it, meanwhile shunting off some Mustapha Mond of the 21st Century to the for -- International editions. So what's wrong with scientists "playing god" anyway? Isn't science a religion? We may know what other religion is at work in this story -- in the very last graf:

Silver is professor of molecular biology at Princeton University. He is the author of "Challenging Nature." He has no financial ties with any biotech firm.

No, noooooooooooooooo!

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

JUNIOR's reissue label lets some LEGENDARY industry groupie write an occasional "column" (the more occasional the better -- if you know what we mean), and here's one result:

Jay-Z never had the ubiquity of this guy who just died in New Hampshire, not even close. Oh a dense media TOLD US Jay-Z was a worldbeater, but how many people lost their virginity, got pregnant, MASTURBATED to Boston????? [Too-much-of-it-is-bad-for-you overemphasis added]

We didn't, although we must say sometimes we'd want to beat our head against a wall with the umpteenth playback of "More Than a Feeling."

People who worry about the Web destroying our society should breathe easier; with keyboard pounders like Bill Lipshetz or Ben Lipzits or whatever his name is it will self-destruct first.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

The bad news for a man my age: young women can be pretty.

The good news for a man my age: young women can be dense.

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

The BBC’s coverage of business repeatedly breaches the Corporation’s own standards on impartiality, according to an internal report.

Its interviews can be “sycophantic” or overly aggressive, while presenters are guilty of appearing to plug products.

And how would the Beeb differ from most business news hacks in that?

Posted 1:16 PM by Gene

PIRATE TENTPOLE III earned less than TENTPOLE X-3 -- at more popcorn restaurants?

Since knuckleheads like PAUL DRECK and their enablers like USAOKAY!!!!! insist we pay attention to their dubious numbers with their constant HYPERBOLE we'll pay attention to them.

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

Hip is just another name for young retards with money.

"The overall lifestyle that they live is work hard, play harder."

Translation: Wife- (or husband-) beating alcoholic burnouts by 35, or future KennyBoys.

If outfits like LALA will waste our time with typing like this they can't lay off their scribblers fast enough. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to KIMI!

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

FLASH! The new, improved Strib admits the minimum-wage hike is irrelevant!

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

We sympathize with the desire of people around the world to be free; but what, Lord Connery (or whatever they call you), would an "independent" Scotland mean? We know what it would mean; you'd be a defacto colony of the U. K. anyway, and you probably couldn't rustle up enough business to justify yourselves, and no, it is highly unlikely the citizens will want to speak Scottish.

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Surprise: advertising made by the PEEPUL can be more expensive, and counterproductive.

We will have conventional top-down-you-buy-it-or-else advertising twenty years from now, and fifty years from now, and FIVE THOUSAND YEARS FROM NOW.

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

Who says newspapers have no future? They can always be used for insulation.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

There'll be something else. There's ALWAYS something else.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

Surprise from our favorite TV-biz trade site:

Fox Tops Anna Nicole Coverage

Another surprise from our favorite TV-biz trade site:

Report: TV Revs Up 8.2%

The big numbers are buoyed by political money; BIA projects a 1.4% drop in revenue for 2007, followed by a 9.9% rebound in the election year 2008.

@#$%&* ADVERTISING IDIOTS CAN'T STOP SPENDING OUR @#$%&* MONEY!

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

If ever there was proof con-SER-vat-tive talk of movies is self-parody, here it is.

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

"WE SUCK LESS!!!!!"

That's a neat motto for the DOG Star, ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

Public figures' favorite activity (aside from making as much money as possible and shafting the public as much as possible) is eating fillet of sole. The Pope seems prone to this diet. He should know news hacks will especially jump on a pope because religion is a fiction and because their faces turn beet red and their heads swell to three times their normal size at the thought someone hates abortion, or may criticize M----ms. Our leaders love fillet of sole because most have so little sense, and while we believe the Pope has sense, we wonder if his advisers have it, or if he has reached the age where reason simply short-circuits itself -- or if quite possibly he isn't up to his job.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

And speaking of Gods, look who's back -- in the music biz: YAHWEH himself, Mike Ovitz!

He will quickly discover bean counting won't do, and neither will His "talent".

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

SLIME thought He could pull a fast one on TiVo users by running a little over with His PROFIT CENTER. That He had to "apologize" indicates the stunt didn't work as planned -- and then Gods like Him wonder why Their shows have RATINGS LEAKAGE.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Is SLIME's PROFIT CENTER starting to leak viewers?

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

ROMY has discovered another of the bright new stars of JERNALISM who proposes a pledge drive for PINCHCO stock, totally oblivious to the fact that his drive could buy $2 trillion of it and GUESS WHO would still control the company. Why can't these clowns advocate the kind of socialism in JERNALISM they really want?

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

Ms. Babs's House has passed another of the If, And and But Lobby "Reform" Acts, and we're sure K Street is working on the loopholes now.

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

U.S. April new-home sales unexpectedly jump 16%

DOW 50,000!!!!!

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

So what'll it be, Mike: a "silent amnesty" from movement conservatives or a full-throated one from your boss?

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

In other excessive verbiage about pop culture, USAOKAY!!!!! fears in 1,580 WORDS (counting links but not counting the review) that people will hate Pirate Tentpole III because it's worse than the first two, to which we say, the second earned more than the first, and it doesn't matter anyway as the movie phreaks are DEAF, DUMB and, above all, BLIND.

That a publicity broadsheet like USAOKAY!!!!! can admit to this shows just how much our culture stinks and how much the hacks are covering that inconvenient fact up.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Member for member CAIR is the most powerful lobby this side of THE CONSPIRACY.

(Sorry for the FRONTPAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

As Jay Leno begins in his slow-motion "retirement" -- and it must be important for the ASSPress to devote a mere 1,209 words -- it is obvious he will leave no more of a trace than Johnny Carson did, and Johnny had bigger ratings.

Posted 6:56 AM by Gene

The Paper of Re-CORD and one of its most effete snobs launch a frontal assault on Pearl Harbor -- a novel, that is -- presumably because one of its "authors" is NEWT!!!!!!!!!! (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!), but this, alas, obscures the fact that from the sounds of things its two scribbler collaborators deserve it.

Posted 6:53 AM by Gene

More excited activity in the Slashdot realm:

Wireless Axes Confirmed for Guitar Hero III

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

Speaking of publicity, AMERICA'S LEADING MEDIA PROFIT CENTER ends until January.

News hacks all over America are having idiot conferences as to how to expand this profit center. Expand this profit center, morons, and you contract your audience even further.

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

One is astonished Fidel chose to explain his illness at all, for as Communists know, silence is the best publicity.

Posted 3:07 PM by Gene

Yes! THIS is where we should be sending OUR soldiers -- to DARFUR!

Once they get outoutOUT of Iraq!

"I would impose a no-fly zone immediately and I would commit [US] forces to stop the Janjaweed -- NOW!!!!!" [Overemphasis added.]

But first of all let me assert my firm belief that four score and seven years ago...oh, never mind.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Oh, NO! THE WIZARD OF OZ still has the POWER to DESTROY MARKETS!

He MUST sit on the couch for Gekko Kudlow!

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

The courageous House has passed a courageous bill to end gas price gouging!

Speaker Babs, why don't you go back to timetables?

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

Meltdown at Slashdot:

Linux: Is Linux Out of Touch With the Average User?

Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

Iran has not only ignored a U.N. Security Council deadline to stop uranium enrichment activity but expanded it [sic], according to a confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

Time to slap it with ten thousand bowls of wet noodles!

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

Gekko Kudlow's very slightly worried (and happily it's very slightly so it means he's not worried):

Goldilocks is featured prominently this morning in the front-page Wall Street Journal cover story, “Why Market Optimists Say This Bull Has Legs”.

It’s a great article. That said, I always get a little nervous when major publications run these cover stories (Business Week boasts a particularly bad record of calling markets tops with their cover stories).

I’d prefer this to remain the "greatest story never told."

Don't worry, Gek: 5,000 bizrags, 10,000 business news sites and THE BIG C will keep this absolutely HUSH.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

Whoda thunk it: the congressional Democrats have sunk into a morass just as the Republicans did.

TRANSLATION: The Dems are the GOP of the left.

Posted 7:55 PM by Gene

It is now official: the Democrats' joke has ended, and Dubya gets the last laugh.

Posted 6:30 PM by Gene

Well, we'll give Stale.com some brownie points for liking cats too.

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: TENTPOLES are mere packaged goods: they have formulas and ingredients. Change the formula or the ingredients and you lose customers.

There is now officially no reason to go to the movies, regardless of how the ad-blurbists sell them.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Speaking of the Religion Whose Name We Dare Not Speak, another surprise:

'Iran supplies the Taliban'

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

If the lady on the right might cause accidents, the religion of the lady on the left can cause, shall we say, intentional accidents.

Does anyone notice what looks like wedding ring?

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

An ADDAMS FAMILY THEME PARK will open in Branson East!

The Addams Family...Spider-Man...pretty soon Branson East will have almost as many cartoon characters as Disney World!

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Aw Sen, Morals, don't be so coy! You're a Dem -- you're a Re -- what are you?

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

And from the World's Leading Producer of Fantasy, an extraordinary proclamation:

TIME INC.’S SOUTHERN PROGRESS CORPORATION LAUNCHES MAJOR FOOD PORTAL

[SIC]

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 6:27 PM by Gene

Someone named Malchow had to point to the winner of something UK called "the 2007 National Short Story prize" who says our literature has disastrously abandoned comedy for the self-referentially gloomy. We won't quibble with the deadly dullness of modern fiction, desiccated as it is by freeze-drying and vacuum packing in the academy, even if the complaint too often resounds like received opinion in an echo chamber; but the author gives her show away by citing the usual trendy pop-cultural favorites (you know who they are) as a source of comic inspiration and believing that the Web represents a wealth of something beyond logorhhea, and then by further believing it is possible to laugh out loud at writing. Trouble is the movies and television took the printed word's humor away through their ruthless efficiency. What college alumnus didn't slog through Tristram Shandy, the unfunniest book ever to accrue a "hilarious" fame? That she mentions A Confederacy of Dunces further annoys us as there's another book whose comedy comes solely from its reputation. And what is Rabelais in his essence but the inventor of fart jokes? (Just like Chaucer, whose alleged humor was but a bawdy version of Truth or Consequences.) And let us not forget most humor is rooted to its time and place like the sequoia, and transmogrifies into toothpicks. Ask the Artemus Ward Fan Club. One can further imagine the writing clique taking this Stale.com iconoclasm to its withered bosom and mass-producing comic novels every bit as award-winning as their gloom. No, the problem isn't that we can't produce comedy; the problem is we can't produce literature.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Will China eye GE? [Home-page hed]

1. Will LEGENDARY WELCH be the lead banker? 2. Somewhere, He's laughing. 3. It may be Little Jeffy's last shot at getting it past the 30s.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

We are not surprised former earth-shaking show-biz geniuses like GERRY "WHAT? ME CEO?" LEVIN and MICKEYMOUSE NIXON never had a life, as they inflicted their lack of a life upon us. Now, in the modern mode, they're doing a touchy-feely form of self-administered psychotherapy, which merely confirms these swollen heads should have been shrunk beforehand.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

The EDDIE! of the Southwest is IN!

He will soon learn, however, that it isn't enough to make the voters (or the women) feel good.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

In Congress, Plenty of Work Before Recess

Does it have to?

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Prepare to amputate:

As the costs for fixing the state's troubled corrections system rocket higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone -- for the first time the state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in its public universities.

And then we add all the zillions gullible California parents throw at HYER LERNING -- not to mention all the zillions the state's taxpayers finance LOER LERNING with -- and EHDYUKAYSHUN still vastly outspends prisons, no doubt. But it makes a catchy factoid.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Despite campaign promises, both parties are slow and very reluctant to change their bad habits.

TRANSLATION: They both have a good thing going!

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

Economists Foresee Sluggish 2007 Growth

Dow 20,000!!!!!

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

OH oh, SLIME may "walk" from his Dow Jones deal!

Outstanding JERNALISM may yet be SAFE! Pfffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Revenge of the nerds double: thousands of dollars in phone bills from teenagers typing OMG all day.

(Via Slashdot, natch -- where they're celebrating getting their stupid Linux penguin on an Indy car)

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Revenge of the nerds:

On a quiet cul-de-sac in Southernwalk, an upscale Loudoun County neighborhood, the fiber-optic cables beneath the manicured lawns were once a source of technological pride. Now they're a source of headaches.

Seven years ago, the neighborhood's homeowners association, set up by the developer Van Metre Homes, inked an exclusive deal with OpenBand, a small Dulles firm, to provide Internet, cable and phone service to all 1,100 homes. Residents say they are now locked into an expensive, decades-long contract for second-rate services.

This will happen when you're first with the most.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Getting rid of 25% of the Chronicle's newsroom staff is "not just trimming fat, that's an amputation -- that's LOSING A LIMB!!!!!" says Project for Excellence in Journalism director Tom Rosenstiel. [Concerned overemphasis added]

Hey keep campaigning for Democrats and quoting PERFESSER THOMPSON and PAUL DRECK and you'd better prepare to sacrifice a few more limbs.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

AMERICA'S GREATEST EX-PRESIDENT was so taken aback by criticism of his criticism he could only stutter, "I they they were careless" -- at least so the MESS says. Not an apology of course; AMERICA'S GREATEST EX-PREZ need never apologize.

Jimmah must keep his stuttering to himself next time.

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

Hey Rance! RANCE CRAIN!! Since we're giving awards to publishers of junk magazines that are "hot", let's give awards to junk moviemakers who are "hot"? Think we can swing it, Rance?

Further translation: Here's another pile of doo-doo THE WEB foisted on us.

We almost gave Claude a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD but held back because of the reporting. The NEXT time, Claude....

And in other content from America's leading journal of the MadAve hacks, the Three-Headed Dog hasn't even taken possession of Chrysler and already it's allegedly selling more cars! Why did it take a management change to move product -- and what's to make people abandon the brand after the novelty's worn off?

Posted 12:59 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: With the help of incompetent prosecuting attorneys and news hacks flashing the R card this will never go to trial.

Posted 12:39 PM by Gene

The Spanish government, which normally buries its PC head in the sand, arouses itself to a fury because someone may have discovered old gold illegally -- with the British!

We sort of liked it better when you were appeasing militants.

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

Slashdot's geeks are EXCITED over the HUGE BACKLASH to XM's suspensions of its HEROIC GENIUSES!! MILLIONS are canceling their subscriptions! And advertisers are joining in the fight -- like Nashville Coffee -- almost as famous as Folger's! And Adam and Eve -- maker of dildos! And....

Guys, go back to playing with your Star Trek toys and yourselves.

P. S. McAfee Site Advisor hasn't decided whether Nashville Coffee's site is safe. As for Adam and Eve, well, you can guess. Yes, one can be judged by the company he keeps.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

On the other hand, we have a two-for-one now: we voted for Dubya...and got a weak imitation of John Kerry.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Once again: Two for the price of ONE!

When do the hacks start turning this into a virtue?

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

We're FED UP and we won't take tainted imports from China any more!

But there's a catch, as always:

Dead pets and melamine-tainted food notwithstanding, change will prove difficult, policy experts say, in large part because U.S. companies have become so dependent on the Chinese economy that tighter rules on imports stand to harm the U.S. economy, too.

Wal-Mart WINS!

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

The destruction of in loco parentis now extends to personal belongings, to where spoiled college kids can blithely leave behind tons of still usable stuff others would beg for. It's all well and good to smile and insist it's donated to charity, but at best this all says gullible parents are wasting even more of their earnings on creature comforts in an environment that is too often about creature comforts; more to the point, our INSTEETOOTS UV HYER LERNING can tolerate it because, as last month proved, they view people as disposable too.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Blah blah blah blah moon, blah blah blah blah star:

I feel like a traitor to my fellow parents for even saying this. These movies are made in part for me: a socially progressive, irony-friendly Gen Xer with rug rats. I thought Hoodwinked! and most of the Shrek series were hilarious, and God knows I don't want to go back to the days of suffering with my kids through a long, slow pour of Uncle Walt's wholesome syrup. But even if you ultimately reject their messages, old-school fairy tales are part of our cultural vocabulary. There's something a little sad about kids growing up in a culture where their fairy tales come pre-satirized, the skepticism, critique and revision having been done for them by the mama birds of Hollywood. Isn't irony supposed to derive from having something to rebel against? Isn't there a value in learning, for yourself, that life doesn't play out as simply as it does in fairy tales? Is there room for an original, nonparodic fairy story that's earnest without being cloying, that's enlightened without saying wonder is for suckers?

I have often said the biz would be better off without the ad-blurbists, and now I'm thinking it would be better off without show-biz writing of any kind PERIOD. How often have the hacks said that some cultural trend or another is the greatest thing since SUMNER created the universe, and how often have these same scribblers come back two years later to say maybe they shouldn't have said that? It's all revisionism, revisionism whose goal is precisely that of the Kremlin heavy thinkers who airbrushed inconvenient faces from existence, revisionism that would not be necessary if they viewed things with that cold skeptical eye of legend they're supposed to have in the first place.

I HATE NEWS HACKS!!!!!

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

WwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwELL! Look who doesn't like the immigration "reform" bill!

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

I tend to look sourly at we're-in-the-money columns like Gekko Kudlow's for a reason, and now we have a good one: the Dow has gained close to a thousand points during the never-ending MASSACRE RALLY. How great is the nation with three-headed dogs and psychotic shootists, and where the dogs and their humongous wealth creation are somehow supposed to justify our vast cultural and moral rot? As for this supposed leap in manufacturing (and if a left-leaning think tank supports a right-leaning typist, it must be -- right) I'd bet these days it's basically airplanes and Dilbert boxes. And do American-made Toyotas count? And they have to be bigger-ticket items than what we made before. Take all that away and you have next to zero -- or rather the vast sea of goods now produced by the likes of China. I'm no protectionist and realize much of our productive might was destined to leave from the time Sony made its first transistor radio, and nostalgia is not a good foundation for economic policy, so why do I feel some screw is missing somewhere?

Neither, I will confess, does it help when a man like Gekko Kudlow would absolve a person of his failings just because of his wealth.

Posted 2:24 PM by Gene

All we would say for Jimmah's calm and reasoned comment that Dubya's our "worst" president in international relations is it takes one to know one, and we're not sure he'd know.

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

Another excuse for lawsuits -- "cyberchondria"!

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Why not Wolfy's job for The World's Oldest Adolescent? It could be at least as profitable as being Prime Minister.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

We learned how to cuss at Boobs McKeating long before Boobs learned how to cuss at his fellow Sena-TOR.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

The New York Post's scandal-scarred gossip column committed EDITORIAL SUICIDE yesterday when it admitted that Page Six honcho Richard Johnson took cash from a favored celebrity restaurant....

The torrent of allegations came in a signed affadavit.... [Very excited overemphasis and Mort Zuck spells it his own way! SIC added]

We're supposed to be surprised that news hacks take favors? We're supposed to be surprised that SLIME operatives take favors?

When a paper engages in its famous one-upmanship against a paper famous for its own one-upmanship you can be sure it has affidavit material worth hiding.

By the way, we learned the spelling of affidavit from To Tell the Truth.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

You'd think if a government inadvertently poisoned 100 of its people to death we'd hear of it. This is the first I heard of it. I wonder why? Is it because of all the JERNALISTS being fired? Or do you suppose the ones with their jobs intact have the institutional wherewithal not to care less?

It looks like China's getting quite a rep for quality control too -- as if business cares.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

So -- Rummy wants to start a foundation to "provide funds for Americans with experience outside of government to do a stint in public service."

Isn't a little late in the day for public service? Or are we planting the seed corn for future lobbyists?

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

We are sorry to hear the "near-bankrupt" Tweeter is abandoning its naming rights for four formerly CHEAP CHANNEL concert venues, meaning in C----n our Tweeter Center can lure a third overpaying self-bankrupting entertainment company sponsor. Anyone remember Blockbuster (and Sony)?

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

House's Frank Wants Worker Safeguards in Private-Equity Buyouts

TRANSLATION: One three-headed dog attacks another!

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Giuliani losing steam in '08 presidential race

Hey WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!! You don't suppose that's piling on?

Then again, maybe he can catch up!

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

Modern medicine may have saved Lincoln

So let's build a time machine and save him!

(Via Slashdot, who would)

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

"DR." DOBSON WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPS!!!!!!!!!! RUDY!

I don't know Doc, he may claim that as an endorsement.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

In other Congressional P. R., Rep. Human Rights wants to punish Michael Vick for disrespecting the human rights of dogs!

Not to justify that football-hero cretin, but when these bloviating clowns (particularly of the good side) can spend so much time chasing these publicity stunts maybe that means for all their legislative triumphs they have a bit too much time on their hands.

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

Shucks, a Paris of pop and the HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM of pop split.

I don't know that I can take it.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

Gotta linkta Romy again:

Bradlee's "flat-out sick" of hearing bad news about journalism

Well, LEGENDARY Ben, if You hadn't turned mere Clark Kents into SUPERMEN!, and then turned one of Your SUPERMEN loose on JIMMY, maybe we wouldn't have some of the conditions that breed all that BAD NEWS.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

ENOUGH!

IT'S TIME TO IMPEACH GONZALES...

BEFORE HE DOES ANY MORE DAMAGE TO THE LAW!

(Too bad he's not going anywhere.) [Overemphasis added]

Who says only newspapers are irrelevant?

(I had to collect all these @#$%&* heds because Bill and St. Warren make it impossible to do a screenshot unless you know what you're doing.)

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

"I'M MORE UPSET AT REPUBLICANS THAN DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!" [Zillionaire loudmouth overemphasis added]

Wow! Something must have gotten Sean MAD!

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

The Mexicans don't like it.

So maybe it is good?

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Why am I thinking Kerngershwin Hammerstein's latest masterwork will have a disastrous tryout and he'll be saved only by the rave reviews of flacks that are already in their hard drives?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

PEOPLE WARNER's chairman's facing an alleged "fallout" for paying hush money!

Proving once again, as in the House, that ethics are fungible.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOOooooooooooh, Congressman Respected Ex-Marine broke the House rules by threatening a Republican in a non-Kosher way -- and it's coming up for a VOTE!

I think we know what will happen: the Republicans will scream, then the Democrats will scream, then it gets turned down on a party-line vote, then we can make asses of ourselves as usual.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Lady's Man finally quits, after what he supposes is face saving.

Posted 6:40 PM by Gene

Sorry Mike, three talking heads divided by zero is still zero.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Is there symbolism in "Z" visas?

The way whatever-passes-for-Dubya's hundreds of thousands of elves say THIS IS NOT AMNESTY will make con-SER-va-tives happy.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

...a salvo of poop, farts and belches....

Isn't that what all "family" movies are?

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 3:01 PM by Gene

America-Iran Talks to Begin May 28

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

When we have a lame duck for a president and whining crybabies for a Congress the inevitable result is something like immigration "reform."

Fatso Glub-Glub doesn't like it, so maybe it isn't that bad. On the other hand, whatever passes for Dubya agreed to it, so it can't be that good.

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives are astonished that the ninny "presidential candidate" Ron Paul is a racist and anti-Semite?



With THAT face?

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

You're kidding! Brian's tearful explication of THE SHOOTIST may have HURT his ratings?!? You don't say!!!!!

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

After what the lobbyists' tool Trent Lott and the recorded-SOUND conspiracy have done why shouldn't copyrights lack respect?

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

It appears THE GREATEST SEASON IN TELEVISION HISTORY has failed to please the viewers -- worse, it seems to have weaned a few of them off prime-time -- but we should remember the last thing network television is about is pleasing viewers.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

A few of Branson East's theme-park operators are in a tiz because some nose-in-the-airs failed to nominate their ride for teenage girls for a Best Tourist Trap award, arguing such attractions "dumb down" the visitors' experience. They forget that High School "Musical" [sic] has beaten them to it in the hinterlands. Besides, the theme-park operators needn't worry for the long term; crowds who could make hits out of such carny draws as Grease or Spamalot clearly want to see anything.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Harvard Gave President Summers $2 Million Severance

$2 million? He should have gotten $50 million like any mutual fund chief!

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating an agreement to resign, according to unnamed sources quoted by the Associated Press and Reuters and CNN and the Washington Post and ABC News and.... [Certain words added]

Lady's Man's such a popular guy everyone wanted to leak first!

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

Kathy Hilton: Young People May Learn from Paris

That's the problem.

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

The Media Institute's backers include NBC U, Time Warner, News Corp., Viacom, Tribune, and Gannett. The institute commissioned the study but did not pay for it, according to a spokesman. [LAST GRAF]

OhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh, so when a BIGMEDIA trade group COMMISSIONS a "report" that comes to OUR conclusions but doesn't PAY for it we can be SUUUUUUUUUUUUUURE it's fair and impartial. RIGHT?

Have you folks performed a few self-administered extractions in preparation for the tooth fairy?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

AN ASSPRESS EXCLUSIVE:

"Don't Read!! Personall," warns the diary's inside cover. But its author, Anna Nicole Smith, has no hold in death on the remnants of her life.

The public now can discover that she was delighted by rough sex, ecstatic over the prospect of plastic surgery for her breasts, and fearful of a jealous boyfriend. She was careless with spelling, punctuation, and, too often, with her own well-being.

Complaining about her then-lover's carousing, Smith writes that she'll break it off with him if he doesn't stop. Then she amends her stand, according to new diary excerpts released EXCLUSIVELY to The Associated Press.

"We discussed it and he said he wouldn't go out and get drunk no more unless it was with me," Smith wrote in the diaries, which span about a year from early 1991 to 1992. [Crusading overemphasis added]

This is the greatest thing to happen to chick-lit since Opal Mehta!

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

OH oh, somebody FINALLY suggests SLIME waste LESS money by starting His own business newspaper!

And the truth may be starting to dawn on con-SER-va-tives -- ever so slightly:

[Y]es, the Journal Ed Page is the best conservative op/ed page in the world; but that's just the opinion operation. The news guys are further left than the Post (Washington, not New York) or the Times (New York, not Washington).

The only thing is somebody tried competing with the Journals with Investor's Business Daily. Have you heard of it lately?

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

VERY good news from Romy:

Reuters trustees say Thomson deal won't hurt its journalism

TRANSLATION: Militants as usual.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Oop! The cheap partisan hack Timmy couldn't hold his glee!

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

XM suspends a couple of slugs so it can merge.

"We're under the same scrutiny as (National Public Radio) _ [SIC] it doesn't make sense!!!!!" [Overemphasis added]

Who said anything about sense on your salaries?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Dubya's noble ethanol campaign's raising food prices!

The best laid plans of mice....

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

When students get killed one at a time in the ghetto, 27 in a year, in one city, they don't count.

How can the professional racial groups and our drone-like mu-ni-CI-pal leaders sleep through this?

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

A co-owner of a piece of Little Malcolm's "page-view sweatshop" campaigns against air pollution -- in his penthouse!

Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and world-saving.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Yesterday Philthydelphia's voters (some of them), facing a small army of indictable hacks (including two Congresspoops -- pfui!), chose one Michael Nutter as their mayor. This morning he's surely practicing his EDDIE!!!!! THE CITY'S COMIN' BACK!!!!!!!!!! routine before a mirror while his aides take down the names of John Street's friends for -- reference. I hope I'm wrong, but knowing the sorry state of America's mayors in general and Philthydelphia's in particular, I doubt it.

Posted 8:15 PM by Gene

At Hahvahd Mutual Fund's EHDYUKAYSHUNAL STUB, "re-FOHM":

One of the eight new required subject areas -- "societies of the world" -- aims to help students overcome U.S. "parochialism" by "acquainting them with the values, customs and institutions that differ from their own," Harvard said.

Tell prospective Fixers they're parochial.

"This new program is the result of hundreds of hours of lively engagement by the faculty," David Pilbeam, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement.

EIN VOLK, EIN REICH, EIN FACULTY!

Posted 8:12 PM by Gene

In other news from our favorite advertising Web rag, it's a measure of the real vitality of network television that among ESPNCorp Network's new series are Saturday Night College Football and a product placement.

Posted 8:06 PM by Gene

McBurger tries yet again to counter the "stigma" of McJobs:

McDonald's said 30% of franchisees, 50% of corporate staff and 70% of restaurant managers began as crew. Of the top management -- including CEO Jim Skinner -- 40% started behind the counter.

And what percentage of all counter help has graduated? We can't all be CEO of Mickey D's.

While the term "McJobs" was first coined in 1984 by McDonald's as part of a training program for handicapped prospects....

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Maybe Dubya thinks he's standing up to the forces of right by so doggedly defending Cipher and The Lady's Man, but mightn't it ever occur even to him to name replacements that would do him good even if he has to get them approved by the no-goodniks of the Senate?

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

YOOOOOOOOOOhoooooooooo! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanybody out there?

Posted 2:58 PM by Gene

The problem, Perfesser Shafer, is that not only do we get "crap stories" on Mondays, but on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays too.

Or haven't you noticed?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Mixing politics and religion has almost always meant trouble. It ultimately failed for the Rev. Jerry Falwell not because of his vision, which meshed well with the Reagan era, but because of his prickly and combative manner, a manner all too well suited for television, which with that stern basso profundo led to the understandable notion that anything that came out of his mouth was -- to use that awful double entendre -- judgmental, when on the basis of so much he said in recent years he seldom showed good judgment. His chief difference with, say, Billy Graham was a political forthrightness, and a freedom from sucking up, but that hardly made him more palatable. He'll always be remembered for that journey down the waterslide -- and that points to another failure: he took over the PTL Club in an epic power struggle after Jim Bakker's moral turpitude, and pointed fingers and bellowed and allowed it to slide into bankruptcy. Today despite the rehabitation of its buildings its once headquarters is a veritable ghost town, its water park long demolished. That the evangelical movement of the eighties is a shambles now is because in many ways it was a ghost town too.

Now news hacks, try to hold your glee!

P. S. at 5:25 p. m. The Corner hasn't said anything, and the reaction of con-SER-va-tives has been somewhat muted.

P. P. S. on 5/16 at 9:30 a.m.: NRO did run a few squibs before my P. S., so I was wrong; I still submit, however, the reaction of many con-SER-va-tives was (understandably) muted.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

The hacks are going into their fake consecration mode for Bob Barker. Okay, he entertained a lot of people (if you can call what he did entertaining), and he had a following, and he's loopy at 83 (who wouldn't be after doing The Price is Right for 35 years?), but dammit what did he do that was so special except hang around?

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

It wasn't just the title. We submit book reviews have a higher burden of proof for all their logrolling. A front-page review in the Paper of Re-CORD's insert is apt to look like an ad as anything, which may explain its diminished power. We wonder too if people want to read a novel about the office when they already live there. And God knows how many reviewers have called how many "comic" novels HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!! when their humor is at best gentle, as apparently here. That said a better title would have helped; THEN...WE...CAME...TO...THE...END sounds almost willfully clueless. Office Hours sounds old fashioned, and there's a bad low-grade inside-reference joke to it, but it might have helped.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

For the 10,000th time in recent memory, and possibly the two millionth in recorded history, the advertising business has "pledged" to improve its reputation:

The pledge comes after a recent Gallup survey in the U.S. found only 10 percent of those polled rated the ethics of advertisers as "very high" or "high." The advertiser beat the "ever-ridiculed used car salesman" by a single point.

Another U.S. poll asked the public to list the top five areas requiring governmental regulation. Tops was water pollution, followed by toxic waste, air pollution, advertising and nuclear safety.

One problem: four of the five are solvable.

Posted 8:44 PM by Gene

OH oh, now we'll get to learn how much all those greedy professional college coaches earn.

We should -- the football and basketball types are the CEOs of the trade.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Elsewhere the Fords may get out of their business, the very definition of a day late and a dollar short.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

So: the reason DaimlerCorp's "merger" didn't work is that it wasn't merger enough.

That makes sense. Something has to after all that money evaporated.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Christian conservatives pledge support for '08 Thompson bid

Gingrich may get into presidential race

What a delusional race this will be.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

"I'VE SEEN BOB GET 60, 70, 80 MEDIA CALLS IN ONE DAY!!!!!" says the man who hired him at Syracuse, David Rubin, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. "I'VE SEEN HIM IN A HALLWAY ON HIS CELL PHONE FOR HOURS. YOU COULD GO SO FAR AS TO SAY BOB IS THE MOST QUOTED ACADEMIC IN THE UNITED STATES!!!!!!!!!!"

So often has Thompson been quoted, over 17 years at Syracuse, that some news organizations (including The Associated Press) have lately tried consciously NOT to quote him. [Enthusiastic pop-culture-is-king overemphasis added]

But then their colleagues make up the slack by quoting his inane sound bytes even MORE. We'll NEVER be rid of this preening lout.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

ZELIG SELIG reasons in His ossified CW manner that if He starts the Series on a Wednesday and avoids Fridays and Saturdays and ends it in NOVEMBER He'll get BIG BIG AUDIENCES!

Let's see how big the audience gets when He runs and hides from Barry Bonds*.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

The top spokesman for Venezuela's leftist government insisted on Monday that the pope's condemnation of Marxism wasn't directed at President Hugo Chavez, who says he's steering Venezuela toward "21st century socialism."

"We all know that the current pope is characterized as a conservative man, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we must automatically think that any word he utters ... is against Venezuela," Information Minister Willian Lara told state television.

TRANSLATION: Vatican City is a sovereign state.

Meantime the TWXSTERS say the Pope got a lukewarm reception in Brazil, which we attribute to four things: 1. He's old; 2. He's uncharismatic; 3. His predecessor may have traveled once too often; and 4. A goodly chunk of Latin Americans are still nostalgic for a native brand of Communism, as witness Fidel Jr.

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

I had great respect for The American Enterprise and its editor, Karl Zinsmeister, so it was disappointing to read that he may be a "morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human being." Disappointing -- but in the Beltway's context, not surprising.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

Please, please, pretty please, we'll talk with you. You're not an axis of evil, you're an axis of good. Please, please, pretty please!

The state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency yesterday quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying Iran agreed to the talks to ``relieve the pain and suffering of the Iraqi people, support the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and stabilize peace and security in Iraq.''

And we are all extremely grateful. Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

A champion for diversity:

Homogenized movie criticism could lead, I fear, to a further homogenization of the movies. Fewer movie critics means fewer voices shouting against the noise of Hollywood's hype machine, fewer champions for the small, interesting films struggling to break out amid the blockbusters.

What the hell do we have now?

(Via the crusading Romy)

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

We will confess not to have heard of Theodore H. Maiman, but we can say we have heard of the laser, and that the story of its veritable inventor's death seems to have gotten swallowed in the news maw is inexcusable. It is hard to imagine a more multifaceted invention. We can understand though why its inventor would be ignored; scientists are no longer the crusading geniuses of boys' fiction, if they ever were. Indeed there's the problem with modern scientists: they're as indistinguishable as Dilberts. Let us remember him, though, the next time we get our groceries scanned, or put a on a CD or DVD.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

Losing a fortune in poker isn't a crime. Making lousy movies should be.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

What is the difference between a wake and a jazz concert?

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Michael Bloomberg is not only a better mayor of New York than Rudy Giuliani - he'd make a better President, too.

That's the result of a Daily News poll released today that asked the voters who know best - New Yorkers - which man belongs in the White House.

Is Mort Zuck campaigning for something? Maybe he owes him a tax deal.

I can see Zuck writing a slew of those "centrist" editorials in Useless News. Fuhgeddaboutit, Zuck.

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

Well, if the union says it's okay, it must be okay. Plus the Three-Headed Dog is taking on the pension liability. Time will tell if this is a magnificent deal or just another episode in the de-industrialization of America.

Posted 6:31 PM by Gene

Ty Burr has written a book with the self-explanatory title The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together. I've criticized him before -- he can be trendy -- but he's on solid ground here. Here's the thing: Before The Second Coming of Christ anyone could view a movie. Situations and jokes might have zoomed over the kids' heads, but they probably wouldn't be bored, and most likely there'd be little or nothing to harm them, and their parents would still get an adult movie. Now we have no movies for kids and adults, but in their place MARKETING, or movies suitable for no one, or both. A great big thank you again to SECOND COMING!!!!!

By the way, from what I remember, The Seven Samurai would be a pretty good movie for young teens, because it's such a pretty good movie. But why does it have to be so expensive in DVD?

P. S. 21,534. Serves Bertelsmann's boneheads right for printing 100,000 of these. Yoohoo, remainder bins!

(Via a Terry Teachout post on Commentary Magazine's blog)

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Because Cipher is such a good doggie Dubya escaped a big problem.

Don't you just love stirring leadership?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

The sinister vulture-cap firm named for the three-headed dog of the underworld with Dan Quail, Quaal, QUAYLE as a figurehead has evidently won the bidding for Chrysler, which means now the buyers are exposed to daylight, which things that live under rocks may not like.

The company's Web site looks like Enron's after it went broke.

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

A siren call to "the next tech billionaires":

Every Tuesday during the program, Y Combinator hosts a dinner of chili or stew for the start-ups. At this first one, Graham and Livingston distribute gray T shirts emblazoned with one of Graham's pithiest admonitions, MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT. A second, black shirt is bestowed only to start-ups that achieve a "liquidity event"—a purchase by a larger company or an IPO. It reads, I MADE SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT.

No no no no no, the point isn't to MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT, it's to MAKE PEOPLE WANT SOMETHING. That's who we can't live without spam and buggy software and nuisance cell-phones and all other sorts of sexy inconveniences. If high-tech had MADE SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT it wouldn't be high-tech.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Under the recently deceased Jack Valenti -- a past master of media manipulation and a golden-tongued filibusterer of the first order -- the MPAA was always a lobbying arm meant to protect the studios' interests at all costs: the NRA with sprocket holes.

That included creating and defending a ratings system that gives as little hard information as possible while purporting to be a parent's best friend.

The obsequious first rough draft of history is slowly disintegrating.

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

"[I]f you have any recollection at all, I had been in the papers all year."

"Who elected you the PC police chief? Who elected you to anything?"

Advantage: TUI's producer. (Talking Under the Influence, that is.)

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

FBI wary of relying on amateurs [Home-page hed]

NO COMMENT.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

See, when everybody in the press says Harry Truman was a "hero", that starts you believing Harry Truman wasn't a hero, because news hacks don't have heroes, except for people who are villains.

Occasionally, though, the stopped clock can be right.

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Does anyone expect people who wear gold chains for a living to do the right thing? The turnips who have stopped buying CDs recognize it.

A professor of mu-sic must add:

“They’re scared to death that the market for this is going to be hurt,” Gorder said. “The outcry could have an effect on sales. If it raises consciousness among people who have historically bought this music and thought it was OK, well, that’s lost sales. Executives’ bonuses are tied to sales and they don’t want to destroy this market.”

And which way is the market going now?

P. S. A complete, accurate and factual award to the MESS for the following photo caption on the story's first page:

Edgar Bronfman Jr., vice-chairman of Vivendi Universal leaves [SIC] the company headquarters in Paris....

Yes, I do believe he did.

Posted 10:27 PM by Gene

I don't know what to think of Rudy's profile in courage. If he can get people away from the small-minded partisanship that is today's politics, perhaps it will be useful. If it reminds people that abortion is as much a place for opportunism as any topic, and perhaps brings about a change and a meeting of the minds of both sides, perhaps it will be further useful. Alas, Pinch seems to like it, with bodes us no good, and many hacks are dismissing this as campaign strategy, and it seems people aren't budging from their spots on the ground, their feet firmly anchored in cement.

Posted 10:26 PM by Gene

Is there something vaguely obtuse with the wording of this hed?

Haiti Immigrants Angry With Boat Sinking

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

How many people are killed by reckless drivers? How many of them CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGED the WORRRRRRRRRRRRRLD like David Halberstam?

Greg, will you SHUT UP?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

$35 million?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

How could anyone ever ever ever doubt lots of TV is bad for the young -- except unpaid sycophants like B. S. DEFENDER?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

With the comedies, everyone seemed to come forewarned: "It looks pretty funny," Simona Zappas, 14, said of the trailer for "Knocked Up." "But it could have all the good jokes in the trailer."...

Nobody minced words, especially when it came to bad dialogue masquerading as good taglines. After watching the "Fantastic Four" trailer, Adam Voron, 14, grumbled: "If that catchphrase 'I just bought this tux' is supposed to be cool, they're really in trouble."

Most likely the teenagers The Mogul's Friend interviewed have more insight than The Mogul's Friend.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

When the takeover boom ends most likely we won't know -- and we will at the same time.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

They could have used Magic Marker.

Next stop: a calendar?

(Via USAOKAY.com's On Deadline)

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

Murdoch's Bid Places Google-Like Value on Dow Jones

In defense of SLIME, at least he's overpaying for an ASSET.

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

Brown, Aiming to Succeed Blair as U.K. Leader, Promises Humbler Government

That shouldn't be too difficult.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

OOPS: A couple of jerks "crossed the line" -- on SATRADIO?

Stick a fork in it, the merger's done.

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Even if Murdoch offered $1 million per share, there's no precedent for compelling the Bancroft family to sell their shares [Subhed]

SLIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

We laugh at "the Streisand effect" but somehow the controversy over Digg.com is not that funny. There is more than a hint of anarchy here. Now it's a mere code to hack HD-DVDs. Who knows what it could be down the line? This is all about blackmail. For now, we laugh.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

Surprise: the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View decide to be evil.

Because of the voting power of Google's executives, the proposal's defeat was a foregone conclusion. Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin control 66 percent of the votes.

We hope some time in the future these clowns have a PINCH moment.

Posted 6:41 PM by Gene

A neat way of generating some bad publicity for THE WORLD'S LEADING PRODUCER OF FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT: finding out if a certain target-practicer in Virginia bought one of these.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO CARLY!

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

Goody! Lenders manipulated credit scores to get deadbeats to buy houses.

Dow 36,000, Jim?

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me:

I pledge allegiance
To the plan
Of the United State of Pinch
And to the banana republic for which He stands,
One autocracy,
Under Pinch,
Incorrigible,
With tyranny and injustice for --
Everyone but Pinch.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

Perfect timing:

There's a whole cottage industry of apocalyptic financial 'journalism'. Jerry Bowyer on Dow 13,300: the losers. [Home-page subhed]

Back in 1999 there was a whole cottage industry of DOW 100,000!!!!! jernalism. Jim Glassman helped build the cottage. It crumpled like the pigs' house of straw. Never mind, he'll always find a better straw.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

We like the Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang of the Congress too. But anger may lose effectiveness when (as many Beltway types do) people can view it as a mere character trait. And it isn't clear that Bang's indiscriminate venting gets things done. Well, it hasn't hurt his permanent reelection.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Speaking of TENTPOLES, looks like Spidey may now do $40 million. Yeah yeah yeah, the PAUL DRECKS will eruct, $200 MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But they eructed over DVC too as it waned. This may not bode well for this RECORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! summer. If people can run out screaming from one EVENT, they can run out screaming from OTHERS. This is reverse Pavlovism.

Some will say show-biz has always been about events. True -- it's been that way since before Quo Vadis? But at least the biz gave something for people to remember; it wasn't a mere excuse for a mass night out, urged upon them by hundreds of thousands of publicists. If every other mass medium can decline so can the movies -- and now it has the reason that it can CLONE the same overproduced movie hundreds of times. The face may change, but the FAKE remains the same.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

A memorial as meaningful as yellow ribbons, leading to the fantasyland of "healing."

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Which has more smoke -- cigarettes...or the new abracadabra Sammy Glickman's about to add to his ALPHABET SOUP?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Finally! The MASSACRE RALLY comes to a halt.

Remember it if Wall Street treats us to a depression.