Posted 8:00 PM by Gene

Tah-tah!

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

Great, an "ironic", "open" way of screwing the public with PR.

Face it, there is no such thing as good publicity.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 6:17 PM by Gene

Here's a story of another crime that is immune to an apology, though its perpetrators tried.

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

Fatso! Meet Brian DePalma!

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

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)

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 3:33 PM by Gene

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"!

Posted 3:31 PM by Gene

To his great credit Pete Seeger graciously recognizes he was wrong about Stalin. If only he had spoken out when it might have helped.

Posted 3:07 PM by Gene

CHEAP CHANNEL sells KEYWORDS!

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

Posted 3:02 PM by Gene

This Is Not A Bailout

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

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Liz Taylor's ex (as this ASSPress dispatch aptly notes in the second graf) is not seeking permanent appointment, meaning maybe he can pull a Profile in Courage on Iraq.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

Dubya wants to shell out tax dollars to aid



MR. SUNLAMP?!?

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

TNT -- All Law and Order, All the Time!

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooops!

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Aw go on, Katsuaki, be arrogant! Knock GM down -- and stomp on it!

We may wonder who won the war.

(Via Brandweek)

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

"Seeing as broad a range of work as possible, in as many locations as possible, is invaluable for any critic, but is there a danger of seeing too much?"

The answer is a resounding YES, as we behold from the daily barrage of raves from AD-BLURBISTS.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

Oh NO! ESPNCorp may get out of the BRANSON EAST THEME PARK BIZ!

What will America's capitol of price gouging DO?

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

Again, the world cries; again, Britain gets to feel sorry for herself, the only thing she's good at anymore.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

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!

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Reid Open to Compromise

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

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Dubya creates his own S&L bill!

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

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

The NFL is "changing" its logo, and if we know Corporate America it only cost $50 million -- paid for by our tax...advertising dollars.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Shucks, B. S. DEFENDER, Dell is back.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

The officer who arrested Sen. Larry Craig in a police undercover operation at an airport men's room accused the senator of lying to him during an interrogation afterward, according to an audio tape of the arrest.

Lying? That's his Senatorial privilege!

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

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!

Posted 12:42 PM by Gene

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."

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

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

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

"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.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

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?!?!?

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Some of Honorary Mayor Mike's friends in the Hamptons show off their POWER TOOLS!

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

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:
®

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Another fairy tale comes true in MadAve's dreamland: spend millions on a product placement and -- people recall your ads better! Whether they buy the product is, of course, irrelevant as we can boast of our Hollywood friends for years.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

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

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

At USAOKAY!!!!!, plugs are akin to obsessive-compulsive disorder: the show-biz typists can't and WON'T stop PLUGGING.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to SUE!

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

SP1!

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 3:54 PM by Gene

DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-DA DUT! DUT!

Posted 3:52 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

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!

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

OOOOOoooooh, Sen. Overcomb frizzles his hair!

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

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?!?!?

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Manhattan needs lots of new ugly skyscrapers like they're building in Dubai and Beijing (and LONDON) to survive!

(Do you have to do this to us, ArtsJournal?)

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The hacks will deliver another two-by-four WHAP on our heads for the Lord God Steve on September 5.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

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

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

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

In a fitting coda, the Queen of Mean left $12 million to her dog, which can only mean she hoped in the afterlife they could share a few fire hydrants together.

GEKKO KUDLOW is STILL crushed.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

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)

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

"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!

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

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!

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Keith O'Reilly (or should we call him Bill Olbermann -- six of one) had to "water down" his NOBLE TRUTHS for a pre-game show -- and it didn't pay off!

Back to screaming in a corner.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

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)

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Ooooh, a Singapore video distributor is going after people who pirate the animated adventures of characters with big faces, big eyes, shiny hair, tiny noses, and teeny-tiny mouths, and who move and talk at 6 fps.

Throw the book at 'em!

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Md. is richest state, census figures show

Three guesses.

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

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 2:27 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

Ex-Astronaut May Use Insanity Defense

Truly.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

Hill gets an official union label of approval!

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

A Border Patrol chief yesterday apologized for saying the agency's mission is stopping terrorists, not illegal aliens or drug smugglers, a stance that outraged congressional lawmakers.

How was he to know?

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Someone like Larry Craig is reason enough not to frequent men's rooms.

Senator says his guilty plea was mistake

No Larry, I think tapping your foot was the mistake.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

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."

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

CBS, Washington Post web sites to share election content

There's a difference?

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

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

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

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

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?"

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

"$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.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

SLICK ♥ OPRAH!

OPRAH ♥ SLICK!

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

Posted 12:59 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

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

Va. Tech Shooter Had Disorder

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

Turkey's presidential election proves that Muslim political parties can be moderate and liberal. [Home-page squib]

Yes -- but can they be Muslim?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Did you know Windows Genuine Advantage had an "outage" this weekend?

Whew! I'm glad my Windows is genuine!

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

Question: If somebody defaces a Jackson Pollock how would anyone know?

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

The Jack Valenti of Mortgages did a very crafty job trying to help screw up the economy, didn't He!

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

No! NO!! DREADFUL news for America's willfully ignorant advertisers: the drop in TV ratings is not due to the RATINGS!

WORSE: The decline may be greatest among the heaviest viewers -- meaning even THEY'RE fed up!

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

I WILL RETURN TO MY OFFICE! I WILL TEACH MY CLASSES!! TENURE IS A PROFESSOR'S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT!!!!!

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Josh thinks he's clever -- he quotes PAUL DRECK three times without quoting him!

Sorry, pal -- you win a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD ANYWAY!

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Dare we read between the lines and hope that, synergistic hed notwithstanding, THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER II may not be going quite as planned?

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

Sleepy Gonzales quits!

May we agree he should probably never have been hired?

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 1:01 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Feds are turning the $100 bill into one of those fake-looking 3-D holograms that sings and dances as you move it.

Why do we need paper currency anymore?

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

Thompson Says He Likes His Position

And what would that be, sir?

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

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."

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

Goshdarnit, Mr. My Business is My Business discovers Sarko may not be, like him, a principled conservative.

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

So somebody using the name Fidel Castro is writing "essays." What does that prove?

Posted 9:15 PM by Gene

The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist spends 14 pages and 6,985 words to tell us we can't find you-know-who and haven't had a good lead in five years, so forgive us for thinking it's 14 pages and 6,985 words of nothing.

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

Someday Fidel may die, but that doesn't mean Perez Hilton knows anything.

Posted 12:23 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

Do today's natural disasters seems that much worse because we know so much more about them?

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

Who does not take a certain glee in the messy divorces of the rich and sexy?

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

Shucks, "Sys Admin Magazine Ceases Publication", and even the geeks don't care.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

Angelo Mozilo is the Jack Valenti of Mortgages.

And no, except in Washington, that is definitely NOT a compliment.

Somebody had better tell Angie to lay off the sun lamp; his face might bring on global warming.

P. s. at 12:08 P.M. Looks as if the Jack Valenti of Mortgages may have outsmarted himself.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Bush to Commemorate Katrina Anniversary

...with another apology?

No! Another apology tour!

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

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)

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

Sumner -- er...



Sumner -- jeez...



SUMNER reveals His BEAUTY SECRET!

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

Even before his guilty "plea", one could say Michael Vick's career, if not over, has been chewed up by dogs.

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

Horny Mark may think he's protecting himself from the Feds by citing "Congressional privilege" (we thought that applied to pork projects), but all he's done is bring his name back from the oblivion it deserved, and reawaken suspicions. (We would have said "arouse" but -- get the drift?)

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in England, too!

Yep, I think you're in worse shape than we thought.

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

Home Depot's wholesaling its wholesale unit!

Let's guess the cause! Nah.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

Meantime the government says new home sales "rose" 2.8 percent, but because it's a guess and the margin of error is so high it means they didn't rise 2.8 percent.

P. S. at 1:55 p.m. Which has not prevented the Wall Street casino's dealers from fantasizing.

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

"House Prices Look Even More Overvalued than [sic] We Thought."

NOW you tell us.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

Meantime going on six years and there are still other Osama-created eyesores in lower Manhattan. It's not all puny little government bean counters. Do we have zero pride in ourselves?

We must.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Incompetence does not seem word enough to describe what's going on re the Deutsche Bank hulk.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

The ASSPress proves you don't need to be Perfesser Thompson to BE Perfesser Thompson!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD and a FREE BIG MAC to ASHLEY!

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

For the umpteenth time, who cares who wrote Dubya's "speeches"?

Especially as most were not speeches or writing.

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Somebody is high-tech super-expensively NUTS.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 3:00 PM by Gene

Outstanding U.S. commercial paper fell 4.23 percent, the biggest weekly drop in almost seven years, as investors fled asset-backed debt and opted for the safety of Treasuries.

Is this supposed to be good news?

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

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

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

England's going down the rathole of history and its PM is "shocked" by a vicious crime?



And here come the flowers -- just like Di.

(Via BloomyLite)

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

Let's hope this sudden Wall Street rah-rah for Countrywide is genuine and not a fanny-covering prelude to the usual sucker punch that takes our economy down for the count.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Speaking of stunts, we'd bet Bill Murray's little tour in a golf cart was probably funnier than most of his movies.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Well at least Jerome Bettis faked an injury (so he says) rather than fake playing, as so many professional athuhletes do.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

The easy part in global warming is the platitudinizing. Whether these noble endeavors will ever get as far as the illegalization of smoking (!) depends on how much pain governments can inflict on the peasants for a noble cause, and how many politicians lose their jobs as a result.

TRANSLATION: This is more hot air and cow flatulence.

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

Wait! Walter Jones? He's one of the good guys! He's a man every Republican should be -- for opposing the war! And reaching out to the other side!* And he's "paying the price" for it? No! It can't be! Such a Profile in Courage?

*And Congresspoop Kook IS the other side.

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

A North American political superstate is almost inevitable, seeing how the Europeans have formed one -- and Russia and China seem prone to do likewise.

Whether EU-style overregulations are palatable is another question.

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

Okay, birdbrains of your neighborhood, on the count of three, everyone give the chant -- one, two, three:

NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYBODY OUT THERE?

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

Figures Forbeslist would find the good in Leona.

Why hasn't GEKKO KUDLOW written a eulogy?

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

Harvard endowment has 7-year best, hits $34.9b

And it's not public yet?

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

We were going to use a picture of Lenny Dykstra chewing tobacco or maybe a hideous oral cancer lesion to celebrate Marlboro's new snuff, but we decided against it.

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

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!

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

If the people who write the foreground Muzak for Branson East's attractions are so enamored of Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers, Porter, Arlen et al, why can't they make better foreground Muzak?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

One can't help thinking Noo Yawk's authorities blew a fuse over that awful Ground Zero fire because of their own negligence.

If this is homicide there's guilt enough on both sides.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

It may be a bent saber, but Belly Kisser is rattling it.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 3:33 PM by Gene

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!

Posted 3:11 PM by Gene

Report: CIA Director Unprepared for al-Qaeda Threat

Wasn't that his job?

Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

In other relocations, one of professional college football's leading franchises (and home of recidivists) is leaving a decrepit city-run stadium, and the "university" president professes to be sad -- and no, we will not again quote Liberace's line.

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

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)

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

Despite this being the BEEB (or given its performance lately, the FEEB), it does remind us why we refer to the GREATEST MEDIA BARON OF ALL as SLIME.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

We are glad to see the Orbiting Jalopy landed safely, which still makes us think it's gone up often enough.

Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

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!

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

That eBay co-founder who put his guilt -- er, GILT into movie harangues is about to unleash one about JIMMAH.

HOLD YOUR NOSES!!!!!

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

• 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!

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

"We will certainly surpass $4 billion and probably be around $4.1 billion. I also think we will be at 600 million tickets sold, which we haven't seen in a few years."

When we saw this squib in ArtsJournal, how did we know without clicking on the link the I was the ever-irritating PAUL DRECK?

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

"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?

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

What is with these meek and mild Congresspoops? First that professional Milquetoast Mr. Shays annoys a member of the Hill police, and now Mr. Filner shoves an airline worker? Have they got their inner man going?

Or are they merely better than the people as usual?

(Via USAOKAY!!!!!.com's On Deadline, which quotes from Congresspoop Filner's Web site:

"Bob is a fearless fighter and always insists that the needs of the people must come first."

Especially when a people wants his luggage!)

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Does hi-def DVD really need THE CONSPIRACY's help to be irrelevant?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

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

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

So the housing bust won't affect banks, huh GEKKO KUDLOW?

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Does anyone expect the same consumer-products firms that finance anything and everything media to give a damn about the Chinese?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Why does every damned scientist yearn to be Mustapha Mond?

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

One of the GREATEST PLAYWRIGHTS in the HISTORY of the UNIVERSE showed love and care for his fourth child.

We would be surprised if this hurts his rep.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily)

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

JFK LINCOLN sez, "I don't know what I'm doing -- which must mean I know what I'm doing!"

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

I smell...an ETHICS SCANDAL!

Where's Romy when you need him?

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

For firefighters, the blaze in the former Deutsche Bank office building added to a tragic toll, taking the lives of two members of a firehouse that had lost 11 in the World Trade Center disaster. [Emphasis added]

News hacks don't have to be told to sieg heil to sieg heil, and that's why their business is unreformable.

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

"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.

Posted 4:41 PM by Gene

So the Wall Street casino went into denial over the subprime disaster. May we say not the first time?

Posted 4:38 PM by Gene

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

Posted 12:47 PM by Gene

Let us not underestimate the Russians' ability to rebuild their military on fumes.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Ugly new buildings are going up in Khartoum too.

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

Posted 8:29 PM by Gene

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!

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

Translation: Congressman Kook talks to himself in mirrors -- and his mirrors are named "Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert" -- which is why he may lose the election...for Congress.

Posted 2:53 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 2:07 PM by Gene

The real estate bust would not have happened if people hadn't been completely stupid -- if they hadn't treated housing like hamburgers, and mortgages like credit cards, and money as something to be shredded, or burned.

And now that people seem to realize that McMansions are -- permanent, the problems are getting worse.

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

Oh DEAR, Michael Wolff wrote a -- "book proposal" -- in VANITY FAIR?!?

Heavens! I think he just lost his virginity.

(Via the always credulous Romy)

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

Now that we can measure radio ratings electronically we're finding not as many listen to commercials as we thought. Somehow, people are surprised.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

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

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

Johnson & Johnson diabetes test kits...

Is there anything the Chinese can't counterfeit?

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

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

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

The NPCPCAA wants to give its Division I football athuhlete-"students" five years' eligibility.

Just pay 'em, Myles, just pay 'em!

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

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.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Try telling that to 240 at Bear Stearns.

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Try telling that to Countrywide Bank's customers.

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

FLASH! The Feds lower the discount rate half-a-percent! Stocks go up a zillion points!

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Few people outside his family or a few stragglers will care to read the story of THE GREATEST DEFENSE SECRETARY EVER.

And even they may pass.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

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

Posted 9:28 PM by Gene

"You never know how long a standard will last," he said. "But it was a solid, good standard and still is."

With hundreds upon hundreds of them in our collection, we must agree with Pieter Kramer, head of the Philips unit that invented the CD -- it is a solid, good standard.

Posted 9:26 PM by Gene

As if the census isn't fraught with politics enough, how about a PC one in 2010 -- with no raids on illegals?

Is America made of squoosh or what?

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

Say you're not so bad whichever one you are.

Have we carried this thing with perfection too far?

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

1. Curt Schilling was an ass to challenge * to a lawsuit. 2. * is an ass, period.

Or rather an ass, ASTERISK.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Diana has died!

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Now we can have another idiot rally!

Posted 3:05 PM by Gene

Say, here's a great idea: let's have CHINA finance OUR mortgage problems!

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

All that hand-wringing and Jose Padilla was guilty anyway.

Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

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?

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

More eksullents in the book biz:

Harper Entertainment To Publish Victoria Beckham's Style Guide in U.S.

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

Historical study suggests DJIA should be at 14K

Bargain hunters! GEKKO KUDLOW!!!!!

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

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.

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

FLASH!

Hollywood Blamed For Scientific Ignorance

Just burnishing our record, I'd say.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

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?!?

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

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?

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

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!

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

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?