Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

Friday, August 31, 2007


Wal-Mart had good reasons for ditching layaway. Some of its customers have good reason to be scornful.

We hope G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE will be to high-tech what Wal-Mart has become in retailing.


Have we replaced mere mass media with a supermedia state in G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE?

We think we now know why "Do No Evil" doesn't work anymore -- it's an ex post facto public apology.

(Via IWantMedia)


A remarkable article on the avalanche of public apologies boils their hoodwinkery down to the core:

The apology, it turns out, isn't a renewable resource. And with some crimes, "I'm sorry" doesn't make things right.

"People say, 'How do I know if he's sincere,' " Martin said, speaking about public apologies in general. "Well, you don't. It takes time to redeem oneself. And if the transgression is bad enough, it may never be possible."


At least it should never be, in fantasy life. We don't doubt The Drunken Slob of the Air (mentioned prominently here) can come back, though he doesn't deserve to. But the Sol Hurok of Dog-Fighting shouldn't. Neither should Foot Tapper. That we can even think they might shows that too many public figures, like government, like Corporate America, have no sense of shame, and they know how to use it.


Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida were indicted Friday for carrying explosive materials across states lines and one of them was charged with teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.

I suppose they wouldn't be Christians, would they.

Isn't this the same skool that had some prof from the Religion of Peace who taught the Brotherhood of Man, or something? Nah, I don't think so.


Speaking of -- well, say what you will, Pete Seeger is a musician -- I see masses of upper-class snobs brandishing press credentials in one hand and mallets and two-by-fours in the other.

Could it be -- yes! The hacks are going to spend all November SELLING BRITNEY'S NEW "ALBUM"!


CHEAP CHANNEL sells KEYWORDS!

Here are some for you: "NOISE." "JUNK." "GREEDY." "ANNOYING."


This Is Not A Bailout

Repeat after me: This is not a bailout. Again: This is not a bailout. Again....


AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush expresses confidence that America's economy can "weather any turbulence" during what he calls a period of transition in financial markets.

Well! We are quite comforted in your reassurance, DUBYA!

So's the Jack Valenti of Mortgages.


Dubya wants to shell out tax dollars to aid



MR. SUNLAMP?!?


In media tyranny news, CNN and Reuters are splitting up (we didn't know they were married), which makes us wonder what could have come between two organizations so like-minded they share half a brain; and GE BANCORP NETWORK is having a tantrum with The Lord God Steve, which makes us wonder how many people really pay to see junky shows on 2.5-inch screens.


Colleges Rewrite Playbook on Recruiting Ads
Stanford, UCLA TV Ads Showcase Innovation, Humor


Don't tell me, let me guess: YOUNUHVERSATEES are about to use their tuition and taxpayer largesse to produce EDGY commercials, which will finance all sorts of CRAPPY TELEVISION -- in short, they're ready to join THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS!


Reid Open to Compromise

...so long as we're outOUTOUT! of Iraq yesterday!


Dubya creates his own S&L bill!

Wehell, I guess we...hit the jackpot -- again!

Thursday, August 30, 2007


Our Unintended Hed of the Week:

Larry Craig: A Democratic No-Fly Zone


Maybe it would have been better if Foot Tapper had been careful with his.


Thompson to announce presidential candidacy

Gosh, it only took what, a year-and-a-half?

Republican's official entry into race to come Sept. 6 via webcast

Law, why must you candidates be so coy? You already announced it!


Let me put it this way now: What Shakespeare is to the theater, Bergman is to cinema....

[S]ome benighted or uninformed souls think of him as merely a gloomy Scandinavian with no sense of humor. Wrong.
A Lesson in Love and the brilliant elevator episode in Waiting Women are sheer comedy at its best; Smiles of a Summer Night, a great film, is serious comedy, and so even better. No less important is that, like Shakespeare, Bergman had bright moments in his darkest films, as dark ones in his lighter ones. And he never shied away from the great, tragic truths.

With all due respect, Mr. Simon, this is the worst possible defense for Bergman. We admit to ignorance of him, but we do know a little of Shakespeare, and when he attempted comedy it was uproariously unfunny. Who would laugh at a Shakespeare line without the stage prompting? One of his most annoying characters is Touchstone, who reminds us of an Elizabethan-era Mork. Likewise the infernal musicians who step on the coincidences in Romeo and Juliet; why couldn't they shut up and play -- or better still, shut up? And yes, we know all about the drunken lardbucket Falstaff. George Abbott thought highly enough of Shake that when he adapted The Comedy of Errors into the musical The Boys from Syracuse (Rodgers and Hart's tunes were far wittier than anything Shake ever did) he quoted all of one line -- and immediately had another character exclaim, "Shakespeare!" No, for our money, Shake's most amusing ditties are the mad scene in Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida, which contains the laughingest affair this side of Bogie and Betty in To Have and Have Not, and those insult contests involving Thersites, who invented the character of Oscar Levant. Please, we have enough critically-acclaimed "comedy."


Dirty money, dirty blogs -- this campaign's developed a rank odor rather early, hasn't it?


Speaking of Gekko, he's blown a gasket because the Feds have wasted so many gazillions on New Orleans. But as we said before, a no-tax zone would be a government bailout of its own. Either way it's money wasted, or in crooks' pockets. What could we do?


"There may be no interest on the political side in doing something," Alarcon said. "They may be comfortable with a de facto abolition of capital punishment."

Let's have the death penalty -- or let's not.


Everybody in New York is up in arms about the last will and testament of Leona Helmsley, the deeply unpleasant hotelier notorious for her vicious s [SIC] treatment of her employees.

THIS in NRO -- home of the great hero-worshiper of wealth GEKKO KUDLOW?!?!?


Here's a new category for The New Yorker (yes, The New Yorker): Stories We Did Not Read After the Byline:

Countrywide Feels the Heat
Embattled CEO Angelo Mozilo answers critics who claim the lender helped bring on the housing crisis
by Maria Bartiromo


Oh, mustn't forget:
®


In their obits on Richard Jewell how many hacks wrote of their biz' part in his frame-up in the PASSIVE voice?


There'll always be a New Yorker (yes, The New Yorker):

The portmanteau title of the new Showtime series “Californication,” in case you hadn’t noticed, contains a reference to a certain act, an act that is performed by two parties, but the act that the show itself calls to mind is the solitary and less fruitful act of autoerotic asphyxiation… [Home-page squib]

Which reminds us as always of another New Yorker department at the bottom of columns: Stories We Didn't Read Beyond the First Paragraph, or however it went. But then we haven't read THE UNIVERSE'S GREATEST MAGAZINE in a while.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007


Speaking of Herb Alpert, today after work I frequented my local A&P -- Super Fresh to shop for breakfasts when the foreground Muzak played "For All We Know", which soon brought back memories of a minor argument I had with my late brother. I was big on stereo magazines then (I loved reel-to-reel tape decks) and one of their typists, I think for Stereo Review (!), somebody named Semels or something, blasted Close to You with the whole length and breadth of the middle-America stereotype; every Carpenters fan voted for Nixon, pined for Tricia, wore a flag on his sleeve, and had no taste. The act was the a-Lawrence a-Welk of soft-rock pablum. It sounded plausible to a politically amoebic thirteen-year old. My brother responded in so many words, "Their music is good!" Fast forward to now and you can't think of the Carpenters without beholding Karen's untimely and ungodly death, which alone makes their tunes poignant, and sometimes a bit eerie; if they sounded a bit androidal and Karen had a few too many cute tics (like her fake Brrritish vowels) they nonetheless made touching music, perhaps no more so than this tune, the last decent song to win the Os-CAR®, from some sort of movie sitcom. If it's white bread it leaves a pleasant and haunting aftertaste, haunting enough to make us yearn for the past. If I have moved ahead in music to know there is more than one tune of this title I have not moved that far ahead of my yearnings.




I think I discovered what killed off pop music for grownups. Last week WFMU.org's blog posted 99 imitation-Tijuana Brass MP3s*. One cannot fathom why so many thought they could make money with pale imitations except for the profound success of the real thing. But the unofficial A&M fan site lists 287 fake TJB albums; God knows how many remain uncounted (at least one appears among these MP3s -- a Pickwick kiddie record). Worse it defines of bad music. There's a group called the Mariachi Brass with the drug-addled Chet Baker playing a pathetic flugelhorn; they recorded the Dating Game theme for Chuck Barris. There's the idiot Modernaires singing doggerel lyrics to instrumentals -- hard to believe this act made such memorable music with Glenn Miller. There's Peter Nero with a supremely arch "Spanish Flea" that makes Liberace into the paragon of good taste. The "comic" acts are the worst; they need a laugh track. Like Al Tijuana and his Jewish Brass, the misbegotten brainchild of Bob Booker and George Foster, who had success with gentle ethnic humor and brought in Lou Jacobi to provide drippy commentary to some studio fender benders of mariachi and klezmer. What was the point? To make fun of Herb Alpert's background? Or The Frivolous Five, a supposed group of elderly ladies, playing flat, very flat, intentionally flat, unfunnily flat; their cover art was the worst on record (no pun intended) until the rock era. (Their album was produced by one Bob Halley, author of a couple of minor pop hits who recorded -- Tony Conigliaro! He doesn't mention the Five in his Web site.) Coming atop the prodigious bossa nova fad so many bad albums wiped the slate clean of adults they made the victory of rock complete, defeating our culture.

*It actually posted 100 MP3s, and the hundredth is most interesting: a Union 76 jingle by the real Herb and the TJB, demonstrating he wasn't exactly blameless in his overexposure.


The man indicted, convicted and sentenced by NEWS HACKS as the Atlanta Olympic bomber, Richard Jewell, has died.

His name will live on as a reminder of JERNALISTIC ROT.


Having just been in their ALL-TIME BOX-OFFICE RECORD mode, hacks like Tourette, Tureen, whatever, turn on a dime and go into their IMMORTAL OSCAR®-WINNING GENIUS mode.

Same old phonies to me.


Yes, it is fall in Hollywood, and the Oscar race is on.

Yes, it is all year, and the upsucking never ends.

An ACADEMY AWARD®-WINNING NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to TOULOUSE!


A GREG clone says:

THE PRESS MUST TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING -- EVEN IF IT MEANS TELLING ONLY ONE SIDE OF THE STORY!!!!!!!!!!


But isn't that the news biz' traditional M. O. -- and mightn't it help explain why, on the MediaBistro home page that links to your leg-raising, there's also a link (right above yours) to a story on why newspapers are selling their real estate?


Roberto Goizueta, the late, legendary Chief Executive Officer [SIC] of Coca-Cola Co., fueled a 39- fold surge in the company's stock by relying on its flagship brand: Coke.

Roberto Goizueta introduced New Coke and laid a big fat egg because his sense of smell and taste buds were deadened by years of the smoking that killed him -- and eons after that 39-fold surge he will be remembered only for New Coke.

When can we get these HACK MORONS to stop calling CEOs LEGENDARY?!?!?


Even Jo-NAH calls Sleepy Gonzales a "feckless figurehead"!

And when the Frank Rich of the right says it, it must be so.


The problem is, the Big C has always been about people showing off -- be they JIM BOOM! BOOM! CRAMERS or LEGENDARY WELCHES or this preening coterie of faces. That people can take it seriously proves that "business news" can justify any farce.

(Via MediaBistro)


"This is a first!"

We imagine it is -- the first time The Rolling Stones, sponsored by Geritol, have gotten a bad review. Handing out free tickets to ad-blurbists will do this.

"Superdrunk!"

What's wrong with reliving the glory days? Pfffffffffffffffft!

Tuesday, August 28, 2007


Hed of the Week:

A&P Sues Brothers Over Vegetable Video

OR:

Two New Jersey brothers sacked from their grocery jobs for filming a gangsta rap parody at the store now face a defamation lawsuit from their former employer.

A&P claims the video by Mark and Matthew D'Avella motivated at least one "disgusted and distressed" customer to boycott the supermarket because of the video's "repulsive acts."...

The brothers -- styling themselves as a group called Fresh Beets -- stand with bananas suggestively hanging out of their pants at one point. One pretends to urinate on some greens.

The rap's refrain is a rhyming couplet: "It's all about the produce produce, we don't like to kid/It's the lower middle portion of the food pyramid."

The rap never mentions the food chain, but A&P said several lines were "disparaging and disgusting," including, "it ain't safe in our produce paradise." The song also uses an obscenity to describe cut fruit.


You kidding? This is a brilliant career move!


TRANSLATION: Free Republic's favorite "musician" may not be family-friendly.

"My reaction is he's a singer, not a politician, so shut up," said Agnes Steffens of Sioux Falls, SD.

A wise word to those -- talents of all persuasions.

(Via USAOKAY.com's On Deadline)


Md. is richest state, census figures show

Three guesses.

And just how rich would it be without our first guess?


We should have known better than to be led by ESPNCorp Network News; Foot Tapper merely threw a tantrum. He is as proud as, say, The Great Alaskan Boar, and he wouldn't resign even if convicted.


Castro Votes for Clinton-Obama Ticket

Now that's an endorsement!

Castro's only reference to U.S. President George W. Bush in his latest essay was to say that he "needed fraud" to win Florida's electoral college votes and the presidency in the fiercely contested election in 2000.

Sounds like our kind of Democrat!

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


Gonzales's Exit Gives Democrats Advantage in White House Probes

Is this, pray tell, the same advantage they had in ending the war in Iraq?


BREAKING NEWS FROM ESPNCORP NETWORK NEWS.COM:

SEN. LARRY CRAIG'S, R-IDAHO, OFFICE SCHEDULES NEWS CONFERENCE FOR THIS AFTERNOON -- DEVELOPING... [DOUBLE SIC!]

I think Foot Tapper's outta here.


GENIUS IN ADVERTISING: HP launches a "$300 million campaign" to remind people of its nose-bleed prices in printer cartridges.

When H-P reported results for its fiscal third-quarter on Aug. 16, the printing and imaging group was responsible for $6.8 billion, or about 27%, of the company's total revenue for the period.

This made it the company's second-largest business unit in terms of revenue. But the printing division saw revenue grow only 8% from the same period last year - the lowest growth rate among H-P's business groups. Earnings from the group contributed 43% to the company's total pre-tax bottom line compared to 51% in the same period last year.


The rabble couldn't possibly be getting wise, could it?


Now! At my HIP! HEP!! HOT!!! neighborhood Mickey D's -- the Fun Times Back-to-School Sticker Pack! With all sorts of neat stickers! Like "My Stuff"! "Great Job!" "WOW!" "Cool Fact"! "Keep Out"! (These bozos never think, do they.) "You Rock"! (With a profile of Ronny, who somehow puts me more in mind of Pat Boone.) "All right!" "HA!" "haha!" (sic) "I'm here!" "Printed in Argentina"! Well, that's not a sticker -- can't make it into one -- but the thought's kinda nice. By the way -- what's that six-inch (15cm) adhesive ruler for?

Also at my HIP! HEP!! HOT!!! Mickey D's, the help added to the recent renovation by decorating the floor around the soda machine and behind the counter with flattened corrugated boxes. HIP!

P. S. If I were fool enough to call the Mick's customer service line I'd hear, "Well, McDonald's is an international company, and...." MUST I repeat myself?

P. P. S. Is it me or is it the Mick's policy to no longer use trays for eat-in orders? At least it adds to the "40% post-consumer content" in its BAGS.


Considering how few watched the Miss Teen USA Pageant an awful lot of people are talking about Miss South Carolina.

And considering what she said it would have been in her interests and ours if as few people had paid attention.


Ignorance of the law is no defense -- but if you're Yahoo!, Chinese law is defense against your ignorance.

"FREE SPEECH RIGHTS AS WE UNDERSTAND THEM IN THE UNITED STATES ARE NOT THE LAW IN CHINA!!" Yahoo said, "EVERY SOVEREIGN NATION HAS A RIGHT TO REGULATE SPEECH WITHIN ITS BORDERS!!!!!" [Foreign-affairs-savvy overemphasis added]

Better say it again: "Any big business that calls itself 'international' gives itself carte blanche to commit treason."


Gonzales leaves a legacy that is meant to endure

What in God's name does this mean? We've had cronies and incompetents in high places before. Sleepy Gonzales won't be the last to share both traits. That "legacy" was cast in bronze from the beginning of our republic.


'Is He Dead?' sets cast
1898 Mark Twain comedy recently unearthed


Knowing some of Twain's writing they may have to rebury it.


Breaking news from THE MESS!

Report: Taliban to release 19 South Korean hostages held in Afghanistan.

Well! The world stands eternally grateful. And as we always ask at times like these -- how much did it cost?


Considering this was one of the top stories today in our Daily Babbitt now would be a good time for someone with deep pockets to plaster billboards all over our area with this question: "Who needs the daily paper?"

Monday, August 27, 2007


"$4 billion." "$75 million." When the news hacks start speaking in numbers about their show-biz faves we really should grab at our wallets. The hack loves to boast of his numbers because he thinks they confer credibility to his favorites; just his very reporting of them makes them instantly credible. Remember Wacko Jacko's "billion-dollar" deal? Remember all the hundreds of millions Horace, er, Stein allegedly got from the DOG Star? If we could total all the billions who've allegedly watched the Olympics, the Super Bore, the World Cup and the Oscars® in all the press releases thereon and turn them into dollars we'd wallow in permanent billionairedom. But then if each such press release were a flight to a distant solar system we could send every news hack there.


SLICK OPRAH!

OPRAH SLICK!


I think we've found an interview that will top Larry King.


In more proof of the EARTH-STRADDLING MEGAOMNIPOTENCE OF THE WEB'S WALTER WINCHELL -- and that SUPERADAM!!!!! is full of it:


Re: Alberto - Monday, August 27, 2007 @ 9:39:35 AM

Here is it, 9:35 a.m., and Drudge still hasn't mentioned Gonzales.

Posted By: Wlady

Where was Breitbart?


And elsewhere on the home page of the WaPost, our Understatement of the Month:

Va. Tech Shooter Had Disorder


To promote its freshman Monday-night computer-geek show, Chuck, NBC dispatched the premiere to iTunes, Yahoo, Amazon.com and cable operators.

If that wasn’t enough, it plastered show images on popcorn bags and cardboard cutouts in theaters and inserted pop-up ads of the show’s fictional “Buy More” stores in Rolling Stone.

NBC is also wrapping New York’s Times Square subway shuttle with
Chuck graphics, giving out preview DVDs at Circuit City and launching a new customizable Web site designed to mock the desktop of the show’s titular character, with e-mail, photos, games and videos and music from the series.

And who wants to bet it still bombs?


Acer To Acquire Gateway For $710 Million

TRANSLATION: We're getting closer to two or three companies in the PC biz, if we aren't there already.


EXCITEMENT AT SLASHDOT!!!!!

Steven Weintraub writes
"Susan Sarandon talks about the Wachowski Brothers Speed Racer movie and confirms the revolutionary way the brothers are making the film — the entire frame will be in focus LIKE A CARTOON!!!!!!!!!!" [Wile E. Coyote-hand-rubbing overemphasis added]
WOW!!!!!!!!!! When does Slash become the official year-round site of COMIC-CON?


The thumb is to the blatherskite Roger what the trademark is to Money Honey®. By throwing this tantrum Rog has taken care of the goodwill he built up during his dreadful illness, and he further reminds us what an industry sycophant he is, and that he'll make more unjustified millions for plastering his name above the title.

P. S. at 11:33 a. m. Now the blatherskite has e-mailed ROMY pleading his readers' understanding. Oh yes Rog, we understand -- what a DOLLAR SIGN is.

By the way Rog, now that you've trademarked THUMBS® does that mean we have to pay you for our use of them?


Sleepy Gonzales quits!

May we agree he should probably never have been hired?

Sunday, August 26, 2007


The maddening thing about today's news biz is that everything has to be expressed in boldface. Thus as if answering the table-pounding hyperbole of the Web's fifth-rate WALTER WINCHELL impersonator MATT the HIP! HEP! HOT! ADAM!!!!!!!!!!'s rag proclaims him "THE WALTER CRONKITE OF HIS ERA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" when the truth is he hasn't broken a big story in ages, and the only people who swear by him are the knee-jerks at con-SER-va-tive sites like NRO, who must consult him before they can determine if a story is legitimate. I haven't consulted WALTER!!!!!!!!!! in ages, and I'm no less well informed. (Indeed I'd say I'm better informed because I avoid his mind-bending biases and his penchant for screaming PR.) That so many use him as an excuse for the bad jernalism of our time indicates that maybe they haven't done enough introspection.

P. S. To the extent Alexa.com can be trusted -- and the big if is that it's a self-selecting sample -- WALTER!!!!! pulls in fewer hits than the sites breathless ADAM!!!!! insists he bests.


Thompson Says He Likes His Position

And what would that be, sir?


The fine art of debate in sports:

After the game, Myers got into a shouting match with a reporter and had to be restrained by teammate Pat Burrell.

When Myers was asked about the two home runs, he said they were really "just pop ups."

A reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer questioned whether Myers really thought they were pop ups, and Myers got angry.

"You're not even a beat reporter, you're a fill-in, you don't know anything about baseball," said Myers, who then called the reporter "retarded."

The Inquirer reporter asked if Myers could spell retarded, and Myers stood up. Burrell then restrained Myers, and Myers refused to speak any further.


Good for him -- because then he would have had to spell "retarded."

Saturday, August 25, 2007


A warning for the Jack Valenti of Mortgages:

Is tanning addictive?
New studies suggest that people can become obsessed with sunbathing.


Sort of like second mortgages, n'est-ce pas?


It's historical fact that some of America's most brilliant and cutting-edgiest stand-up comedians made liberal use of words and phrases commonly considered verboten. Lenny Bruce was a martyr to free speech, and among those following in his footsteps was the brilliant, madcap Sam Kinison, the comedy equivalent of the first man to walk on the moon -- or maybe relieve himself on it. But the best of the shock comics always had a counterbalancing social relevance. In their hands, obscenity was an artist's tool, masterfully utilized.

Okay Tom, so why is Bob Saget such a dork?


And in further entertainments of the rich and sexy:

THE risqué stage show at The Box early yesterday morning was canceled when dozens of police officers raided the Chrystie Street club and randomly searched some patrons for drugs.

Cameron Diaz, Jay-Z and Cuba Gooding Jr. were among the few who were able to flee during the "classic shutdown," doormen and security men told Page Six.

Diaz's current fling, John Mayer, was spotted holding court a few blocks away at the Bowery Hotel during the chaos....

The 1 a.m. raid forced the club to cancel its second show of the night, a revue featuring scantily clad showgirls, a gender-bending singer and a dancing dwarf.

Friday, August 24, 2007


Bush to Commemorate Katrina Anniversary

...with another apology?

No! Another apology tour!


I like this: Useless News thinks it's cornered the field on disreputable college rankings, so of course its success spawned rank imitators -- like The Washington Monthly, whose own Useless News ratings are damaged by their own crotchets (like how many alumni joined the Peace Corps? In 2007? Puh-LEASE!). No matter how well intended college rankings will always be unreliable because they rank the unrankable.

(Via Stale.com)


There may need to be a PBS ombudsman just for Moyers

OUTSTANDING idea!

P. S. Hey Romy, you provided a defective link on that story about the Twin Cities news swamped by the bridge disaster. Do you need an ombudspoop too?




Sumner -- er...



Sumner -- jeez...



SUMNER reveals His BEAUTY SECRET!

(Via IWantMedia)


NBC is reviving classic competitive series American Gladiators....

Here's proposing we put every hack who uses "classic" in this manner in the middle of an arena -- with a very hungry lion.

And somehow somebody remembered "classic" but not the definite article.


Dancing with glee at Slashdot: Bugmeister's ditching a Web site that poopoos Linux!

I wouldn't dance too hard though. How many people run Linux -- and how many of them aren't geeks?


Boogie Everynight Television is purportedly trying to get its viewers to read a book, and a LALA hack accidentally approximates the truth:

The coarse language is bleeped out when it is broadcast on BET, which is part of Viacom, the owner of CBS, which earlier this year fired shock jock Don Imus for using what he called hip-hop-flavored humor in his comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Viacon does NOT own CBS. (It used to, though.) SUMNER does. SUMNER owns Viacon AND CBS through four classes of stock. Get it?



SUMNER.


News hacks are busily and showily scratching their heads today wondering why Mother Teresa had doubts. Religious people aren't supposed to have doubts. They're supposed to know everything! Thus the defensive reasoning of people who don't have doubts and do know everything -- and don't even have to go in a church! I'd say Mother Teresa was a little more human than most news hacks.

Thursday, August 23, 2007


For a problem that so many have repeatedly said is of little import an awful lot of people are asking somebody to do something.

And the something, often enough, involves Uncle Sucker.
We're not going to be Amity or Andrew Mellon about it but why does our Uncle have to bail out every doofus who made a stupid investment or got in over his head? Or does the present crisis involve so many doofuses that our Uncle may have no choice?


National NAACP head says Vick must be held responsible

The only reason we won't accuse this grand old organization of speaking with forked tongue is because it's using at least two mouths.


Here's a news-hack let's-prop-our-feet-on-the-desk-and-have-some-cheery-nostalgia moment: George Wallace's would-be assassin is being released. After Arthur Bremer shot Wallace in 1972 it quickly emerged from his "diaries" that he was a fan of A Clockwork Orange and what he called "that good old ultra-violence." At least one liberal JERNALISM REVUE or political rag quoted him approvingly. Alas for the hacks, Wallace continued to serve as governor. Moreover

[his son] told [the Mobile Press-Register] that the shooting had a "purifying" effect on his father, who became more religious and sought forgiveness for his support for segregation. The shooting also shortened his life, his son said.

Alas for us, things like Wallace's shooting and the smug relief of news hacks that followed had more like a poisoning effect, the first step in our complete detestation of politics in general and the JERNALISM racket in particular.


Meantime the idiotic Manhattan real-estate boom has hit a sudden patch of brains. Again, is all this soothing talk about Countrywide on purpose?


On-WARD Slash-DOT sollllllllldierrrrrrrrrrrs:

An anonymous reader notes an article up at IEEE Spectrum outlining the history and dangers of the accelerating tendency of music producers to increase the loudness and reduce the dynamic range of CDs.
"The loudness war, what many audiophiles refer to as an assault on music (and ears), has been an open secret of the recording industry for nearly the past two decades and has garnered more attention in recent years as CDs have pushed the limits of loudness thanks to advances in digital technology. The 'war' refers to the competition among record companies to make louder and louder albums by compressing the dynamic range. But the loudness war could be doing more than simply pumping up the volume and angering aficionados — it could be responsible for halting technological advances in sound quality for years to come... From the mid 1980s to now, the average loudness of CDs increased by a factor of 10, and the peaks of songs are now one-tenth of what they used to be."
I haven't the foggiest idea what the geeks are up to now, but it sounds like another of their tiresome defenses of vinyl, and is it really that important that the junk they feed into their ears all day is (gadzooks!) compressed? Compressed or no, it's still JUNK.

P. S. The kind of CDs most likely to be compressed are the same ones most likely to be augmented with ROOTKITS.


Sen. Barack Obama's sexiest fan respects the presidential candidate more than ever now that he has knocked her Web video, "I Got a Crush on Obama."But [SIC] "Obama Girl"actually [SIC] may vote for Hillary Clinton.

People wouldn't pay attention to these publicity mongers but for the hacks' obsession to constantly fill their space with the most mind-numbing content possible. We would bet the imbeciles have devoted more space to YouTube "campaigning" stunts than to the issues. That's okay; so long as we can make the public so uninformed that we justify our existence all the more.


There is a ci-ne-ma fes-TEE-val in Toronto, and the ahteests are hanging their heads to around their navels, which they're staring at intensely:

“The world has changed, and the kind of films coming out have changed to a certain degree,” said Barry Avrich, a member of the festival’s governing board, speaking of the lineup in a telephone interview. “I think the festival is recognizing its role as a communicator.”

TRANSLATION: We're here to hector the public, and salve our consciences. Not one work of AHT in this glorious fes-TEE-val will live without the help of the crrrri-TICS -- and half the crrrri-TICal STAHF of THE PAPER OF RE-CORD is there already.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007


In more grinding of the teeth over JERNALISTIC ETHICS, the whole TV "news" profession is in a royal snit because SLIME is airing a "reality" show in which a mannequin anchors a local broadcast. That mannequins male and female have anchored the local news for some time seems not to have occurred to our latter-day Murrows. But then for these imbeciles to claim what they extrude nightly is "news", of course, is as credible as the "news" they extrude.


College kids stopped dressing up a long time ago. It's no accident that standards went down the tubes at the same time decent clothing did. Needless to say our perennially brightest generation would bristle at a dress code, but it would be much nicer, say, to see the young ladies in a pleasing contouring dress than in their flab-exhibiting much-too-low-to-the-waist shmatas.

And given that some of the youngsters at Illinois State's College of Business are actually for this, there's hope.


And speaking of blatant PR:

Vick Charges Shouldn't Result in NFL Lifetime Ban, NAACP Says


Who said anything about a lifetime ban? Possibly this doddering irrelevant organization did so first to pump up its morale. No one has proposed a lifetime ban on anybody. For one thing, no one's been sentenced yet. Let's give the legal system a chance first, crusading clods.

How did this go from a shameful crime against animals to another R-Card game?


Clinton the favorite neighbor for older set

Well, here's a new way to measure the popularity of presidential candidates: Which candidate would you most like as a next-door neighbor?

ERA Real Estate asked that question as part of its fourth annual survey of people 50 and older across the country....


Why did you waste my time, O Lord God Pinch?


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYBODY OUT THERE?


Figures Forbeslist would find the good in Leona.

Why hasn't GEKKO KUDLOW written a eulogy?


YouTube Videos to Have 'Overlay' Ads

Now G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE can pay for Its copyright infringements!


MORE CALAMITOUS NEWS IN THE J-TRADE: Mort Zuck is axing our favorite TV ad-blurbist David "PLATINUM" Bianculli because he wanted more PLATINUM, and now (as a suitably anonymous "source" says) "[t]hey'll probably replace him with some blogger who sits around in his pajamas" -- and who may write better.


Oh goody:

The reality is that, for Paulson and the Treasury Department, there are relatively few tools that would allow this or any administration to manage the ups and downs of financial markets, according to economists and economic policymakers of both parties.

Does that mean we're no better off than the last time Wall Street's tricksters plunged us into a depression?


Today is Romy's day: 1. He copies an "EXCLUSIVE!!!!!" saying our city's lead Fred Flintstone and ESPN presence Mr. Smith has been STRIPPED of his column and now has to do lousy sports reporting -- because the Philadelphia Daily Babbitt's executive editor figured he wasn't getting enough for his MONEY! Well we think we know Steve's response: Da-da-DUT! Da-da-DUT!

And in more tragic news, the AMERICAN JERNALISM REVIEW is leaking dough, despite a staff of one, which will come when you try to say how wonderful your business is while pretending not to.

P. S. at 5:25 p. m. Now the COLUMBIA JERNALISM REVIEW is boasting of a surplus, meaning even self-righteousness can't get in the way of one-upmanship.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007




Almost a year ago I sneered about "the supremely hermetic group that combines the two deadly traits of musical 'eclecticism' and obsessive record collecting" so inescapable in pop cultyure, and on the Web. So I must confess these last two days I've been glued to WFMU.org's blog, and if any psychobabblers wish to claim the Internet an addiction they must point their keyboards here. As a fount of show-biz trivia and obscurities seeking it is unmatched. I have just spent the last half hour scanning this astonishing essay on Hanna-Barbera Records, a small but hyperactive outfit from the mid-sixties owned by those notorious kings of limited animation; it defined eclectic long before the term could be soiled by cultists, recording everything from kiddie albums to soundtracks to surf to jazz to soul; yet despite CBS Records distribution it seems to have gone almost unnoticed at the time, and Bill and Joe did not know what they were doing, and with rare exceptions its stuff is fodder for Goldmine maniacs and YouTube phreaks.

Which underlines an inescapable fact about these pop-cultist sites, vastly pleasing though the best are (and WFMU.org is indisputably the best): they engage in industrial-strength copyright infringement. Yet it's obvious the microscopic following for most of what's infringed can't justify commercial redistribution; merely to revive such material puts it in the red. But this detritus can't remain safely stowed underground; it is part of our national heritage. Our media superiors should look upon such occasional innocent stealing as flattery. More to the matter, when it comes to control of their property, they aren't losing; they've already lost.

P. S. He does get Hoyt Curtin's name wrong, though. Does that make me a geek too?


The unprecedentedly exciting field of presidential candidates is making unprecedented gaffes, and

[i]t is happening so often, "you'd think it's deliberate!" quipped G. Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania.

Given who's running, we do.


IF PELOSI PERSISTS IN HER IMPERIOUS, MEAN-SPIRITED, AND MYOPIC THINKING IN DISREGARD OF HER OATH TO SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION, MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE SHOULD REPLACE HER WITH MAJORITY LEADER STENY HOYER, D-MD!!!!!!!!!! [Angry overemphasis added]

This being Stale.com
we figured this might be satire, or at least its patented heavy-handed irony, but alas, it isn't. The clock took impeachment off the table far more readily than Speaker Babs, and so did the fear of being a one-term speaker. Even the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL RASPUTIN could not have dreamed that up.


EXCITING NEWS:

The deadline for SAE International's inaugural Commercial Vehicle Excellence in Media Awards is fast approaching -- only 10 days away! Entries need to be received by Aug. 31, 2007.

Get those facts 'n' figures rolling!




Our Daily Babbitt is selling its Tower of Babble, and

[t]he company also is soliciting in the memorandum ideas for where to put the 950 journalists, ad people, executives, computer technicians, clerks and others who now work in the building, company officials said.

We could say something, but instead, we mourn at what the news biz has become, for the Tower of Babble (along with its neighborhood) was a warren of activity; it is hard not to see Ring Lardners and Damon Runyons clattering away on their typewriters and screaming into their telephones, and an impenetrable haze of cigar smoke and words permeating everything, and the boss running the city's politics from upstairs -- but now it is oh so sedate, upper-class, and omnipotently right, which is why newspapers are downsizing, and abandoning such symbolic edifices.

The Babbitt who owns the Daily Babbitt thinks he can turn it into condos, meaning he probably will not become an ambassador anytime soon.

(Via the usual Romy)


ANOTHER AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

CHICAGO (AP) -- Tribune Co. shareholders have given their approval - as expected - to an $8.2 billion buyout of the media conglomerate. The deal still requires financing, however.

Good luck! Pffh-hh-hh!


The U.S. Must Act in Darfur--RIGHT NOW! [Home-page link; overemphasis added]

So let's pull ALL our soldiers out of Iraq, and then....

Fortunately TNR's editors don't mention in Iraq. We should do something about Darfur, although truth be told if we had to send our soldiers where we should do good we'd need a draft ten times over. But you know with liberals and Darfur there's a quid pro quo. There has to be, when we can do so much good in Darfur and are doing so much evil in Iraq.


Elsewhere in one of America's leading export industries:

Good taste is the first fatality in this gonzo thrill-seeker....

Since when has a movie had GOOD TASTE?


China says car ban has improved air quality [Home-page squib]

So let's do our part for global warming and make it permanent!

Pffffffffffffffffffffft!


AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

A top Iranian judiciary official says the detained Iranian-U.S. academic Haleh Esfandiari will be released from prison on bail within hours.

Now what are they up to?


"Idiot savants brought to industrial proportion" have helped screw up the Wall Street casino lately.

We smile at their hubris.


"It became increasingly transparent that many of the highly sophisticated quant funds employed similar investment approaches and held similar core holdings," Thomson Financial wrote in an analysis of the role of the 25 largest quant funds in the market meltdown. "This resulted in the funds selling similar long stocks and covering similar short positions."

Surprise: the casino has a herd mentality. What does one expect of bulls?

Monday, August 20, 2007


The only difference between Leona Helmsley and Anna is real estate, pills, and ugly.


Pamela Larsen, 41, a mother of two young girls, in Mt. Hood, Ore., gets a stomachache every time she looks up at the volcano nearby: the glaciers at its peak have definitely been receding over the years. As the mountainside gets browner and browner — evidence of climate change — the knot in Larsen's gut tightens.

Psychologists now have a name for Larsen's condition: eco-anxiety, the overwhelming and sometimes debilitating concern for the worsening state of the environment.


1. Is this our way of getting back at the Newsrag of the Zeitgeist? 2. Does this mirror the condition in which news hacks fear for their jobs because they must inundate us with THE TRUTH about subjects like global warming?


Economic reforms and soaring rates of home ownership have coined a new moniker for the tribe of youth struggling to pay off home loans in traditionally debt-wary China: "fang nu," or "house slaves".

Don't tell me -- they have a problem too?


It looks as though our friends in Mountain View have turned off our access to Next Blog. Honest, we're tired of playing Pavlov, looking for hits. There's no joy in blogging if your only hits are mechanical.


On further news of sciENCE, we're no defenders of broadcasters, but we wonder if sometimes the doctors scream too much. At least these obese people showed some spirit in wanting to lose weight, and if ESPNCorp is to be believed (difficult, to be sure), they mostly succeeded. And on obesity the doctors' screaming has not prevented us from marching in reverse -- or rather lazing in reverse in a La-Z-Boy.

Sunday, August 19, 2007


Gee Whiz! Romney's slang is stuck in the '50s
The face that Mitt Romney presents for public consumption could be right out of "Father Knows Best" or "Leave it to Beaver." (Today's Globe)


And what pray tell, o blithering Pinchians, you of the Devil-inspired profession that insists on mating words like raunchy and sweet, is wrong with that? Why does it offend your consciences so?


Analysis: Who's the Dems [SIC] Goldilocks?

You mean which one gets chased out of the house by the three bears?

By that standard mightn't they all be eligible?

News hacks have ZERO sense.


OUR EINSTEIN CRIME OF THE MONTH:

Two employees at a Chinese bank dream of getting rich quick. The only two with the keys to the vault, they steal a few thousand dollars to see whether anyone notices. No one does. So they take more. In the course of a month, they walk away with $6.6 million.

Instead of running away with their mountains of cash, the two do something seemingly illogical.

They buy lottery tickets.


Oops! Another masterpiece slides Friday-to-Saturday -- and this the GREATEST COMING-OF-AGE COMEDY OF ALL TIME! What will PAUL DRECK do? Break wind as usual.


I smell...an ETHICS SCANDAL!

Where's Romy when you need him?


We will not call Amity the Ann Coulter of economics but dammit she tries. In her latest scribble she suggests something entirely near and dear to her heart: that GUVMENT, and ONLY GUVMENT, caused the Great Depression.

Well then who brought on the Crash? Was GUVMENT investing in stocks? Did it decide it wanted to take profits? And if it was all GUVMENT's fault what prompted GUVMENT to do what it did in the first place? And Ben and his theorizing -- does that make him a socialist crank?

I HATE knee-jerks of any stripe, and Amity/Ann is at the top of the list.


Comforting: our current Wizard of Oz is "a self-described Great Depression buff." Let's hope he hasn't learned the wrong lesson.

[H]e theorized that ``the financial crisis of 1930-33 affected the macroeconomy by reducing the quality of certain financial services, primarily credit intermediation.''

Translation: Many commercial banks, considered efficient at allocating credit (they have a knack for differentiating ``good'' from ``bad'' credits), failed. The ones that remained solvent wanted to hold liquid assets or, if they were willing to make loans, charged a higher rate of interest....

``It was reported that the extraordinary rate of default on residential mortgages forced banks and life insurance companies to 'practically stop making mortgage loans, except for renewals,''' Bernanke said, citing the work of the late economist A.G. Hart.

Sound familiar?


NO COMMENT.


Elsewhere in the land of the upraised arm midst the potted palms and the Poland Spring, the Daily Babbitt is attempting to make another LEGENDARY WELCH out of that guy here who wants to franchise his university. What makes newspapers do favors? Why is their first goal to anoint people who seem to share their extremely narrow world view as friends?

At the same time, Drexel has yet to crack the top 100 on U.S. News & World Report's college rankings. It placed 108 this year, far below its fifth-ranked neighbor, the University of Pennsylvania.

This is worse than a shame; it is a -- disaster!

When's the IPO, Taki?

Saturday, August 18, 2007


"We've got to have a president in the White House who sets bold targets and sets broad goals and isn't intimidated by the barriers and the roadblocks and isn't driven by those who already have an investment in the status quo — somebody who can overcome the lobby-driven, divisive politics that characterizes this issue," Obama told about 300 people.

TRANSLATION: JFK LINCOLN hasn't the foggiest idea what to do about our energy mess -- and no more than Dubya does, but he can talk a good Second Inaugural.


Do the clerks at your nearby CVSWalgreenRongAid spend far more time talking among themselves than paying attention to their customers?


Ugly new buildings are going up in Khartoum too.

St. Warren and the Chinese deke out the forces of right.

Friday, August 17, 2007


Any doubts that Thompson will soon enter the race were erased the moment he cuddled a baby pig and gawked at a cow carved out of butter.

Yep, Law-'n'-Order's running. Pfffffffffffffffft!


As it happens, my last day on Swampland will be my last day as president of People For the American Way. I’m stepping down after eight years to become President Emeritus. You can read my announcement here.

Shucks Ralph, what will day care centers all over America do?


In America, we have our own politics of fools.

It appears, Jo-NAH, you've painted a big black-and-white bull's-eye on your behind.


And now, of course, the Wall Street casino is having second thoughts about whether it should have shot up five percent in two days.


Why is it good news for stocks to go up five percent in two days?


You the best man, Anonymous?

That goes without saying.


ER must get these folk to interact; they'd be funnier than The Corner. Unfortunately, they're fiefdoms.


If people walked as much as dogs do there'd be no obesity.

Thursday, August 16, 2007




Diana has died!


iPhone presents a "steep learning curve" to businesspoops!

1. Wait a second. Does the iPhone need instructions? Does anything The Lord God Steve wills from his protean brain need instructions? You're just too stupid to use it! 2. Of course it has a steep learning curve. Businesspoops have a steep learning curve.


Sen. TUBES says a local paper's trying to "ASSASSINATE" him!

You've done a pretty good job aiming that mouth at your own foot, TUBES. You aiming higher?

You've created me as the senator-for-life!!!!!!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

I don't think the hacks built that Frankenstein monster, TUBES.


And in Little Malcolm's neighborhood on E!:

Who needs celebrities to put on a celebrity-driven talk show? Not Chelsea Handler, whose producers must spend all day surfing gossip blogs and looking at viral video so this husky-voiced comedienne and her three F-list panelists of the day can spend eight or so minutes chatting about the latest Hollywood weirdness. Roseanne Barr urinating? Blogging while drunk? Britney Spears' latest "uh-oh"? All get their moments in the spotlight on "Chelsea Lately" in a freewheeling roundup that breezily moves from topic to topic to topic. You have time to catch your breath only when the show breaks for a few words from the sponsors.

Who are "Hotels.com, Cold Stone Creamery, Nike, Subway and Suave"!

Where's P'n'G and the Clunker Brothers?


Historical study suggests DJIA should be at 14K

Bargain hunters! GEKKO KUDLOW!!!!!


ST. WARREN JFK LINCOLN!

"I think his stock in Nebraska goes up from here," said Omaha businessman Harley Schrager, who co-hosted the event with Buffett and others.

SOMEBODY's stock better go up, Your Sainthood.


FLASH!

Hollywood Blamed For Scientific Ignorance


Just burnishing our record, I'd say.


Oops: The chief cheerleader -- er, executive editor of the Seattle YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! -- er, TIMES sticks his foot deeper in his mouth:

But if we allowed our news meetings to evolve into a liberal latte klatch, I have no doubt that a pathological case of group-think would soon set in.

WOULD?!?


Yet another big mortgage company is in trouble -- and here's a reassuring thought:

Homeowners who make their monthly mortgage payments to Countrywide should not be affected by the company's troubles, experts said.

However, the turmoil could spook depositors at Countrywide Bank, an Alexandria, Va.-based savings and loan that has grown dramatically since Countrywide Financial bought it in 2000. Nearly 40% of the bank's $57.7 billion in deposits were not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as of March 31, according to the FDIC website.


How far does the rot extend?


And speaking of Forbeslist, its tone-deaf proprietor takes a sudden interest in things [C]RAP, creating yet ANOTHER list -- and we think we know why:

Forbes and E! Entertainment teamed up for a one-hour special about the list, which will premiere on Saturday, Aug. 18, at 6 p.m. ET. The E! special features exclusive interviews with Big Boi, Lil Jon, T.I., Swizz Beats and Scott Storch. Check your local listings. [LAST GRAF]

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO LITTLE MALC!


Elsewhere in CloudCuckooLand, Mr. My Business is My Business daydreams of a time when men like the Great Big Financier with the Great Big Sexy Carbuncled Nose could singlehandedly cure America's economic problems at four in the morning, conveniently neglecting that 1907 was toward the tag end of Teddy's run -- you know, the communist who uttered that obscenity about "malefactors of great wealth." A certain con-SER-va-tive's idea of a hero is the Jay Gould and Jim Fisk (or KennyBoy, or Rigas) who can get away with anything, presumably because said con-SER-va-tive would be lucky enough to be in his inner circle, making millions like Mr. My Business, writing with quill pens and smoking big fat cigars, maybe 20 of them, or whatever effete snobs smoke. His idea of a great leader is Andrew Mellon, who happily did nothing during his term in office -- indeed he did so much of nothing that he left the job in 1932 with nearly every fourth person unemployed and his reputation in tatters. Ah, but we must NEVER let government solve ANY problem, must we, Mr. My Business!

P. S.


"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more normal life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."

Good idea, Biz. Shall we try it again?

Home
Site Meter eXTReMe Tracker