Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

Meantime we've only had our twenty-seventh debate and Hillary's won in a landslide.

These typists will NOT let US decide.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

52% of Americans support military strike against Iran

Which means roughly that 80% of REPUBLICANS are for it and 80% of DEMOCRATS are against it, and 80% of MODERATES can't make up their minds.

Let's stop playing games with numbers. It may be necessary to do this, but it would not be wise without broader support, to say the least.

Well, close enough, but not surprising.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

The Hollywood Stenographer calls Mr. Nothing's computerized masterwork "cerebral."

Does that mean he has to think extra hard to be unfunny?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Why we need global think tanks:

The International Energy Agency, the western countries’ energy watchdog, has warned that crude oil inventories declines showed the market needed more supplies.

Brilliant think-tanking!

P. S.



The countries in blue are members of this brilliant organization's parent. Most of the other nations will eventually rule the planet.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Russia moves to cut elections oversight in ex-Soviet states

Jeez, Belly Kisser, if you're going to run a totalitarian oilocracy stop dancing -- do it NOW.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

The Big Double-A Scribble must have a TV editor, and he must give ideas to our consumer-products betters how they can waste OUR money. To wit:

If you're looking for reliable entertainment that brings a wide audience, then "Criminal Minds" is a good bet, though the show's reliance on dark violence and oddball criminals could give pause to more conservative marketers. [Emphasis added]

But consider the preceding graf:

Top "Criminal Minds" sponsors last season included telecom giants Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Cingular and AT&T Wireless; Home Depot; and, interestingly enough, sleeping medications such as Rozerem and Lunesta. Does that mean people who watch "Criminal Minds" are insomniacs who love home-repair and talking on the phone?

Perhaps it merely means BIGPHONE is trying to further mistify already addled customers into juggling their gouge-alike cell services. And we are not surprised ABE AND THE GOPHER have found another toilet to pour their money down. That said, if these are the principal sponsors that gives us slight cause for hope as not EVERY member of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers believes GOOD TASTE IS CENSORSHIP.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

"[T]hey're not a model of intelligent management."

That would be putting it mildly, David Stern.

But then consider who owns the Knicks and you don't have to be a model of intelligent management.

Posted 2:29 PM by Gene

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGWHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

THE CREDIT CRISIS HAS ENDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OOPS! STOCKS ARE GOING DOWN?!?!? CUT IT ANOTHER HUNDRED POINTS! TWO HUNDRED!!!!!

Nope! BOINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGNGNGNGNGNGNGNGNG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can we have some of that happy juice you're guzzling?

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A comedian is selling a movie and a book. He ends up selling a movie and two books. Don't we have enough selling?

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

Miller (or rather that South African brewer) is putting out a lower-calorie beer, which thankfully it will not call Miller Lite Lite.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

The Fantasy and Profanity League may hold off. This strike will be settled in three days, if it happens at all.

P. S. at 2:35 p. m. It sez here the FPL may strike Friday. The sooner, the better -- and the LONGER!

(Revised as I'd already posted on SUMNER'S COMEDY CENTRAL NEWS NETWORK -- about a dozen dozen times)

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

The Three-Headed Dog withdraws from a big leveraged buyout because of "the continuation of poor conditions in the debt markets."

DOW UP 500!

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

This should make con-SER-va-tives happy: Sarko's getting a big pay raise!

Now does he deserve it?

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Another GEKKO KUDLOW HALL OF FAME.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

Spain's idea of justice:

Prosecutors were seeking sentences of up to 38,976 years each for the eight lead defendants -- 30 years for each of the people killed in the attacks, 18 years for each of the wounded, plus more time for other terrorism-related charges. But the most time any can spend in jail is 40 years. Spain has no death penalty or life imprisonment.

We suspect the CHICKENS are happy for it; at least the holy cockroaches know they're SORRY.

Posted 7:55 PM by Gene

Robert Goulet was born in the wrong time. Had he been born thirty years earlier he might have occupied the same noble place as John Raitt (you know -- BONNIE'S FATHER), but he started off too late with Camelot -- he and Ed Sullivan saved that show -- and despite that strong and virile baritone he too readily became The Voice of Easy Listening (especially as he recorded for Columbia, a label with too many such voices), and even his dashing looks may have counted against him as he became a second-string TV star and later Mr. Vegas, a particular burden when his career careened past self-parody. But it is hard not to hear "If Ever I Would Leave You" (ideally from the cast album, in that majestic Robert Russell Bennett - Philip Lang orchestration, not his later recordings) in the mind's ear and think, in the brief time before he became something else he was something else.

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

There are nine personal vehicles per thousand eligible drivers in China and eleven for every thousand Indians, compared with 1,148 for every thousand Americans....Were China and India to increase their rates of car ownership to the point where per-capita oil consumption reached just half of American levels, the two countries would burn through a hundred million additional barrels a day. (Currently, total global oil use is eighty-six million barrels a day.) Were they to match U.S. consumption levels, they would require an extra two hundred million barrels a day.

End America's gas addiction! Sell a car to China!

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

The deposed monarch of Merrill Lynch walks away with $161.5 MILLION!

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRY KUDLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

And when Gabby insisted they buy a corset to "lift everything up" and make the dress look better, Cirenza drew the line again. No corsets. Not now. Whether Gabby knows it or not, her mother thought, a corset is the last thing an 11-year-old needs. [Last graf]

When I read (or rather skim; I know such things by heart) stories like this I think of Tom Wolfe's brilliant line (I've quoted it before) about how the high mucky-mucks of Yale reacted when a granite block clunked next to its fine Beaux-Arts art museum: "They took it -- like a MAN." We have to take young teens as sluts-in-training like a man because (said this before too) we don't control the culture, SLIME and SUMNER do, and their tentacles are so vast as to smother discontent at the source -- although God knows the public's been trying. And then the hacks help out with their ein-volk-ein-reich-ein-NEWS-BIZ philosophy, a considerable part of which is to fling every damning word at people who believe the human race should have morals (PRUDE, HYPOCRITE, CHRISTIAN, ETC., ETC., ETC.). Besides look who's its PROFIT CENTERS. To be sure our STATEMEDIA are an argument for revolution, but they so pacify us we can't even respond with a whimper.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Gordon Bethune, former CEO of Continental Airlines, once commented on reductions in the quality of service that "You can take so much cheese off the pizza that nobody will eat it."

And while you're at it get rid of the peanuts too!

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

This might be the way around Useless News's corrupt college rankings: for every school to swallow hard and put its own stats online. It might be the only way.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

[L]eaving SI for ESPN the so-called mag is like leaving The Four Seasons to check into a Hampton Inn.

Just one problem with that Romy-approved analogy: Under King Richard's management the Four Seasons has turned scruffy while Bristol's Hampton Inn has added thousands of four-star rooms.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

U.S. spent $43.5B on intel in 2007

Of which, thankfully, the amount wasted is classified.

Posted 2:29 PM by Gene

G. I. JOE JOINS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS!

Well, he may.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

Heroically surging Mike Huckabee has a PC con-SER-va-tive playlist!

The CORNER typists will masticate this for DAYS!

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

Don't go near ROMY. He's in a SOUR mood today because "most news orgs ignored weekend war protests." Never mind that most times when there's been a war protest it's been the opposite of ignored. It makes us think that if, say, 100,000 attended an anti-abortion rally in Washington Romy's friends would be smilingly ignoring that. The consolation prize is the next time there's an anti-war rally maybe Romy's friends will be moved by this piteous plaint to over-cover it.

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's selling cell phones!!!!!

GET OUT THE STRAITJACKETS!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

We have quagmires like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because 1. Too many people MUST drink water from plastic bottles instead of taps, and 2. Too many of these people say, "Duh, I'll just throw it in the street, duhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," where it washes into sewers and out to sea. Great thinking on both parts.

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

Remember how we gave the store away in consumer electronics and white goods? Well look what's happened to the company that can't make up its mind what its name is, Matsushita Electric Industrial...er, Panasonic:

Costs for a massive cell-phone battery recall helped depress profit for the second fiscal quarter 17 percent at Matsushita....

Last month, a fire broke out in a Matsushita plant in Osaka that makes lithium-ion batteries. The company is investigating the cause of the fire. Repairing the plant will cost 2 billion yen ($17.4 million), and the plant will resume part of its operations Nov. 1, Matsushita said.

Matsushita also recently replaced faulty parts in driers, massage chairs, microwaves, refrigerators and other products, adding to such extra expenses, it said.

With that kind of "quality control" how can such a company stay in business without pushing products mindlessly out the door -- the way OURS did?

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Well, maybe Chrysler CAN come back: Its CEO the former terror of Home Depot suggests his company will spend less on advertising, meaning it will now have to sell its cars, and not relying on the pitch for a crutch. This can only be good news -- for Chrysler, its dealers and suppliers...and our sanity.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Mogul's Friend, who knows how insufferable Hollywood's producing bigwigs are from years of fawning over them, tells us the members of the Fantasy and Profanity League pull one mean trick by managing to be even more insufferable.

STRIKE! STRIKE HARD! STRIKE LONG! STRIKE COSTLY!

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

The bad news: SELIGFEST's ratings were up.

The good news:

The four-game series averaged 17.1 million total viewers, 8 percent better than last year’s all-time low 15.8 million, and a 10.6 household rating and 18 share, 5 percent better than last year’s St. Louis Cardinals-Detroit Tigers matchup.

That’s nowhere near the 15.8 household rating that Boston’s 2004 victory over the Cardinals averaged, and in fact it ranks second-worst among all Series since Nielsen began measurements in 1968.

More good news: SLIME will have to dish out millions in "makegoods." But we wouldn't have SELIGISM without all those CEOs saying, "I WAS AT THE WORLD SERIES AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!"

Posted 7:01 AM by Gene

Another European bank has huge losses related to Babbitts. Wall Street smiles.

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Meantime New York's Sun has a brilliant idea:

Like a New Sound? Invest in the Band

Wouldn't that be kinda like investing in subprimes?

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

EXCELSIOR: Count on USAOKAY!!!!! to get excited: instead of fillum soundtracks being greatest-hits anthologies, they're now solo albums, complete with the inevitable filler.

Of course we've never heard of any of these geniuses, and after their mind-boggling work on these masterpieces we doubt we ever will again.

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

For God's sake, SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX, if the entitlements problem is that bad -- and we have no doubt it could become very bad -- there are two alternatives: raise taxes or cut benefits. The Republicans will never hear of the former and the Democrats will never hear of the latter. All that remains is posturing.

Posted 9:16 PM by Gene

Impossible to see how the Democrats could top the Republicans, but they have -- not only can they run a do-nothing Congress, they do nothing in secret!

Now when do they get indicted?

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

MEDICAL SPIN:

Infant mortality strongly correlates with low birth weight and preterm births, both of which are likelier among teen mothers. And the U.S. has nearly three times Canada’s rate of teen births, and about seven times Japan’s and Sweden’s. If you break down infant mortality rates in the U.S. even further, by race, you find that both “the pre-term infant mortality rate and the teen birth rate are considerably higher for blacks than for whites.” This means that America’s diverse ethnic mix plays against it in comparisons with more homogeneous countries. Once you factor in America’s high rate of low-weight births, an interesting statistic emerges: “If in Canada the distribution of births by birth weight was the same as in the U.S., their infant mortality rate would rise to 7.06.” Conversely, if the U.S. had Canada’s distribution of low-weight births, its infant mortality rate would drop to 5.4.

This is an outrage. What this guy named Howard (any relation to you-know-who?) says in so many words is if we massage the numbers we don't need socialized health care. I don't want socialized health care either, but dammit we should be ashamed at all the babies born out of what used to be called wedlock, and that they aren't entitled to better treatment. This kind of verbal legerdemain can only convince people we need more government health supervision, something that will help neither the poor nor the preemies.

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

Somebody painted a Hitler moustache on Jo-NAH's book on Amazon.com.

That's okay; he can respond with 500 Star Trek posts on THE CORNER.

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

EBAY'S AUCTION OF THE YEAR!!!!!

(Via Spiegel International)

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

Mark the date: January 3! That's when Hillary's coronated!

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Want to market your brand better? Then tell a story. That's the top finding from an intensive three-year study titled On the Road to a New Effectiveness Model released this month.

Don't these clowns tell enough fairy tales?

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

Schwarzenegger: Pot 'Not a Drug'

Ah-NULT! Will you STOP jumping up and down and waving your hands and yelling and whistling and impressing the hacks with what a great guy you are?

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Okay, Chief Nine-Fingers! Now's your chance to come out for BIG OIL!

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

SARKO GETS MAD!

But can he govern?

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

A SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER calls for a BOYCOTT of TNR'S ADVERTISERS!!!!!

America's academic publishers are quaking in their boots.

Wait a second! Aren't the John Templeton Foundation and the Hoover Institution con-SER-va-tive?

(Via MS. TRAVERS)

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

SUPERADAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wins the DOUBLE-A SCRIBBLE RAGMAN OF THE YEAR AWARD, confirming he runs a BAD OVERRATED RAG.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

This is a Halloween costume?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Elsewhere the Big V tells us Moammar is making a movie! He calls it Years of Torment.

WE KNOW.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

All this mammoth PR -- the threat to drape our StinkyInky headquarters with an ad -- and all THE GREATEST SITCOM COMEDIAN IN HISTORY comes up with is AMIABLE?!?!?

P. S.

For one night only, Jerry Seinfeld will host a late-night talk show for Fox, according to Variety. It should make for a good drinking game: one shot for every mention of Bee Movie!

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Hoooooooooooooo-hummmmmmmmmmmmm, now the franchise is worth $4 billion, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

P. S. at 10:15 a.m. And of course SELIGISM once again shows its might in the ratings! Pffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 10:40 PM by Gene

The professional press scolds are back to wagging the righteous finger at news hacks for covering a horse race, meaning we've already gotten more horse-race coverage than ever, and we aren't even in 2008 yet.

Posted 8:15 PM by Gene

Okay, we admit Hummers can do some good. So why not sell them to government agencies -- instead of the money-burning clowns who use them to wave a middle finger?

Elsewhere in the Big Double-A Scribble, the lia -- ad agencies are in a tiz because "rock stars" are "overwhelming" the product pitches with their genius. First off, we will not repeat the name CHEVY CHASE again. Second, what happened to JINGLES?

"Listen, it's sensitive business," said Peter Greco, senior VP-executive music producer at WPP Group's Y&R Advertising. "They are using our media dollars to gain exposure."

I am now convinced media bigwigs attend an oratory school where they learn how to make pretentious excuses for their job failings. And it's not Churchill they're learning.

Posted 8:04 PM by Gene

Our astronauts have found "metal shavings inside a joint" to a solar panel on the Space Station.

With every new disclosure comes another reason the ISS was a total boondoggle.

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

While idly searching Footlight Records' site (which has had a reprieve since its closing notice, for which we and other record nuts are grateful), scanning the foreign-soundtrack albums for the ultra-cheesy seventies crime potboilers whose covers are far sexier (and perforce far better) than the movies ever could be, we came across an excerpt from this French cinema masterwork: Michael Kael Contre la World News Company, based on an alleged TV news satire on Ca-NAL PLEW and starring Victoria Principal (who judging from her face must have been desperate for a job) and the bulbous shrimp Mickey Rooney (a long way from the PTL Club) and the former Mr. Barbra Streisand impersonating an actor. The disco font in the poster art leaves little guessing who World News Company is; in truth this is one "satire" that makes CNN look good. As the AllMovie gang describes it:

Christophe Smith made his directorial debut with this media satire, set on December 14, 1999, about a TV news network in cahoots with Washington on Operation Crazy Guru -- a plan to get a U.S. president re-elected for a third term.

Pause for a second. The agents of these three American has-beens were so hungry to let their clients make asses of themselves they forgot one minor detail: the Twenty-Second Amendment. Ah, but what's a little piece of scrap paper when you're making a farce? Not intentionally, it would seem. Then again, by THE CONSPIRACY's standards, this is hyperrealism. (Then again, ask these maroons what the Twenty-Second Amendment is and they'd say it ended Prohibition.)

Just one question: Why is that phone bleeding?

(We steeled ourselves up for the video. Awful is a compliment. Where to begin? The cheap opening sets suggesting a third-string French public-affairs program and an ad hoc telemarketing center, complete with laptops [?]; Babs's ex seated in front of a creased wall-map from National Geographic, with a hurriedly printed name plate on his desk [we think even MOUTH OF THE SOUTH would have been classier]; two of the -- principals climbing up a stopped escalator so the camera could track them...and we presume Tammy's friend's voice box was an attempt to find the rollicking humor in cancer. Obviously Messieur Smith must have had great faith in Dolby to render him intelligible. [And it doesn't even sound like a voice-box. Stupide!] But as we said, this is hyperrealism. The American dimwits were dubbed for the French audience which at least would have rendered their sailor-cussing romantic.)

(Update on 1/19/2008 at 6:40 p.m.; I forced myself to look at the video again and evidently the escalator was moving, but the monitors are maybe five inches thick, which made me think of laptops; it still looks like an ad hoc telemarketing center, and the clip is still and expulsion of hydrogen sulfide.)

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

If all the big clothing retailers had to give up on sweatshops how much clothing would they have left to sell?

(Via Cheapie Marketwatch)

Posted 2:58 PM by Gene

"Look at the sales numbers for the old guys, Paul Simon, Neil Young, McCartney. They're not setting the world on fire," Azoff says. "The labels look at the Eagles and say 'maybe it'll sell a million and a half,' and relative to what those records cost to make and market, they don't want to make the investment. I talked to the labels prior to making the Wal-Mart deal, and I asked how much marketing money they had. Three million. Wal-Mart spent 40 million on Garth. Reaching our fans and inspiring them to buy the album, that's what it's about."

TRANSLATION: Albums by the Geritol Geezers are big-loss-leading sinkholes -- only being big as the Wal may cover up the holes.

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

In China, there are plans for a coal-fired power plant to go on line nearly every week.

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

Posted 2:12 PM by Gene

We have no need or desire to join in the social-networking craze. The minuscule pluses -- the very remote chance of meeting an attractive woman, say -- are more than outweighed by the minuses of spam and being harassed by strangers, not to mention identity fraud. Does anyone in this age have the guts to say, "None of your business"?

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

Perhaps no one can tell people where to live, but it appears no one will be telling fires where to go anytime soon.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: LALALAND has been RENDELLIZED too, being more reliant on the parasitism of show-biz than ever, and if there's a Fantasy and Profanity League strike (please strike!) a lot more "little guys" will get hurt, which will make people very sad, especially the little guys who make Forbeslist.

"TESTING TESTING, mike on? Oh. Look what happened during the baseball strike," said former Warner Bros. Chairman and Dodgers CEO Bob Daly, now retired, who is no stranger to labor disputes. "Attendance was down and didn't come back right away."

In this case, he added: "The average person doesn't pick sides. They just say, 'Why can't I watch "Law & Order" and "Desperate Housewives?" ' " [WORDS ADDED]

Do these frauds ALWAYS speak for public consumption? And why must hacks like Claudia and Dick act as human megaphones?

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

It appears Merrill Lynch's CEO is getting the ax for proposing a merger. We don't understand this -- isn't merging and merging what the Wall Street Casino is about? That he led his company to go hog wild with SUBPRIMES seems almost an afterthought, or grounds for denying it.

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

The Catholic Church, like many others, paid a tremendous price for being trendy. We're leery of anecdotal evidence from a con-SER-va-tive paper but if young people really are coming back to the Latin Mass it's a sign that the old-fogy virtues never completely died, and that new up-to-date things cannot offer comparable solace, being so adrift from tradition.

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

"[W]e're bludgeoning our audience."...

"...[I]n the little free time I have, why would I want to go to a theater and feel bad?"

WILL YOU BLITHERING IMBECILES SHUT UP?!?!? NOTHING MAKES YOU HAPPIER THAN BLUDGEONING US AND MAKING US FEEL BAD!!!!!

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: If Iran builds nukes -- so what? Just so long as MoveOn.org stays our friend.

Yes, we're not especially fond of Veep Big-Oil, but you don't give us much choice, do you.

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

Jonathan Yardley, who usually has far more sense, unwittingly confirms the liberal's definiton of "bi-partisan." At best it means the squishy middle, easily led into our foolishness; at worst it means an infestation of copperheads. We do not like the screaming that passes for politics these days, but we've a hunch this well-paid talking head Mr. Brownstein would only be satisfied with "bi-partisanship" that confirms his prejudices. We would not be craven enough to ever say we're "bi-partisan" in endorsing certain policies. The problem is civility passed out of politics when it became synonymous with weakness, or toadying, and we need weakness and toadying just as much as we need the screaming, and these days we get all three.

Posted 6:15 AM by Gene

Sometimes we are mind-bendingly overburdened with information. Most of the information, we know, is valueless or ephemeral, but with more and more Web sites providing more and more information, and with more and more of that information sheer trivia, it becomes a greater chore to keep up with it. This press release is a prize example. Did the ASSPress really have to take a political poll about Halloween? How vital is a demographic breakdown of candy-giving? Does the world really need to know some people have qualms about their children's safety receiving it? We seek a beachhead of knowledge and drown in mere dubious facts, and even after we've died of information overload public disservices like the ASSPress pour more of them over our carcasses.

Posted 10:50 PM by Gene

What will SUMNER -- er, THEY think up next?

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYBODY OUT THERE?!?!?

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives will laugh hyenically, but Mr. Demme's JIMMAH treatise was a flat-out B. O. catastrophe -- or as one fan site acidly put it, this masterwork is "just as unpopular as [Carter] was in the late 1970’s when the US was gripped by 'stagflation.'" If the $2,268 number is correct that comes to maybe 300 people who saw it last night, in seven theaters. How humileratin'. For whom was this film made? As usual THE CONSPIRACY can provide no answers. The target liberal crowd wouldn't see it; a lot of them are Jews. Neither would Democrats; despite the warm glow from the Dynamite Memorial Good Intentions Prize a lot of them would rather he didn't exist. So why was it made? As a tax loss? We wonder how much of our money the fillum biz absconds with in the name of vanity. Whatever the reason, this is a thorough repudiation of such earnest lectures (even the ad-blurbists had to admit to it), and the Greatest Ex-President in World History, which will not prevent them or HIM from pounding away at our bigoted selves.

P. S. THE IT'S A SONY!!!!! OFFICIAL WEB SITE has TWO DIFFERENT JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP RATINGS. Isn't this proof that fig leaf is now completely eaten away?

Posted 3:30 PM by Gene

We'd bet someone in Mountain View's thousands-strong PR or legal office called up McLean and asked for a favor, knowing how easily USAOKAY!!!!! grants favors, and also knowing that the company had just been walloped with bad PR.

USAOKAY!!!!! obliged.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO JEFF!

Posted 1:27 PM by Gene

From the August, 1964 issue of American Heritage, PILLHEAD -- in 1840, in the guise of one Charles Ogle, a W-HIG Representative from Pennsylvania, solemnizing the "imperial" living space of DEMOCRAT president Martin Van Buren, before the House:

And now … let us enter [the] palace, and survey its spacious courts, its gorgeous banqueting halls, its sumptuous drawing rooms, its glittering and dazzling saloons, with all their magnificent and sumptuous array of gold and silver, crimson and orange, blue and violet, screens of Ionic columns, marble mantels, with Italian black and gold fronts, gilt eagle cornices, rich cut glass and gilt chandeliers, suspended by beautiful Grecian chains, gilt eaglehead candelabras.…

I cannot forbear … to read you a description of the great banqueting hall, commonly called the “East Room” … [Reads from the United States Telegraph, which he terms “the Court Journal of the day”]. … who can deny that this room, intended for the comfort of our democratic Chief Magistrate, is adorned with regal splendor far above any of the grand saloons at Buckingham Palace, Carlton House, or Windsor Castle? … Brilliant and princely, however, as the East Room had been fitted up by the late President, it was destined to have its … powers of attraction increased, by the exquisite taste of its present occupant. … The former [wall] paper was a “fine lemon color” … but Mr. Van Buren had doubtless been apprized, either by one of his sons, who at the time was on most familiar intercourse with, if not a resident at, the Court of St. James, or, perhaps, by a more formal communication through the Lord High Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household, that wall-paper of the “lemon color” had, during the progress of the last year, become unfashionable. … Hence, Mr. Van Buren … issued his royal mandate on the first day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, that the “paper of the lemon color, with a rich cloth border,” should be forthwith taken off the broad walls of the Eastern room, and that “a rich, chaste, and beautiful paper” should be substituted. … Sir, EVERY PLAIN REPUBLICAN will now find a set of chairs in that splendid and royal saloon, which took the round sum of SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS of the PEOPLE’S CASH to pay for. … Martin Van Buren -- plain, republican hardhanded-democratic-locofoco Martin Van Buren—has it now garnished with gold framed mirrors “as big as a barn-door,” to behold his plain republican self in.

Having paid our respects to the “East Room,” let us … take a view of what is, at the present day, called the “BLUE ELLIPTICAL SALOON.” … This apartment … in its beautiful shape, rich French furniture, showy drapery, costly gilded ornaments, and general arrangements … has frequently been pronounced, in the judgment of the best connoisseurs, the choicest room of the palace. … furnished very much after the style of the most brilliant drawingrooms at the Tuilleries. … Mr. Van Buren … expended, in “improving” the furniture of that room, during the first ten months of his presidency, the sum of $1,805.55 of the PEOPLE’S CASH.…

Suppose, sir, after you shall have returned to the charming prairies of Illinois, some plain, honest, republican “Sucker” should inquire what use a real genuine hard-handed locofoco democrat like Mr. Van Buren can have for silk covered pillows, footstools and TABOURETS in the “Blue Elliptical Saloon?” How would you reply to that honest Sucker’s interrogatory? Wouldn’t you acknowledge yourself fairly stumped? But suppose he would ask what sort of animals these TABOURETS, or TABBY-CATS, are? … I should like to hear the honest opinions not only of the plain, republican “Suckers,” but also of the “Hoosiers,” of the “Wolverines,” and of the “Buckeyes,” about these tabbycats....

The author of the surrounding piece, Gerald Carson, notes:

The day after the speech was delivered, Levi Lincoln, a Whig colleague of Ogle, apologized to the House of Representatives for the low blow and cited official documents to show that less money had been spent for the upkeep of the Executive Mansion during Van Buren’s term than during that of any previous occupant. Ogle’s real purpose was in fact evident in his suggestion, made with mock anxiety, that the appropriation under discussion might be used to buy Van Buren a throne and crown.

Although the Washington Globe could refer at the time to “the … unscrupulous falsehoods of that dirtiest of all Federal tools, Ogle,” the lesson was not lost upon succeeding administrations. The question did not come up in the Presidency of Van Buren’s successor, William Henry Harrison, since the latter died within a month after taking office, but in Tyler’s time caution still prevailed: the newspapers called the White House “the public shabby house.”

Which proves two things: 1. There was never a VALHALLA of polite public discourse in the Congress, SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX, and 2. The PILLHEAD of 1840 didn't need 10,000 radio stations.

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

How does that old song go again? Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. ...

Here's a prime example of why people made a fuss over JPOD: Most writing on show-biz is hagiography, and the "study" of "pop-culture" is a way of justifying it. No, I do NOT want more beating-writing on the dead horse of rock, or the post-1967 masterpieces of film, or the like, and especially not in intellectual jernals, if the only point is for the beater-writers to flatter themselves; it's merely AIN'T IT COOL NEWS with "CLASS".

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

UAW Members OK 4-Year Deal With Chrysler

Time for America to cross her fingers again.

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

Putting The Last Supper in HD on the Web pretty well confirms the truth in THE MASTER's line: "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see."

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

It does not escape our notice that among the investment tools that prompted the apparently and thoroughly quashed credit crisis were "structured investment vehicles" -- or SIVs. These "instruments" allowed big banks and brokerages to load up on inferior debt and make tons of money trading it all over the place (as best as we can understand it -- and we doubt many behind these tools can understand them either). That such clever tools have such an apt name suggests that, regardless of the success of the permanently upward stocks (now joined once again by the BUGMEISTERS, who seem completely oblivious to STEVEDOM's market share), they could sneak up on us and bite us in the behind.

But then we never heard of subprime mortgages before the Babbitts made them trendy either.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

If SUMNER is such a genius why did he set up a succession problem that could persist for years after his death -- that is, assuming he's mortal?

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Romy mourns as a Jacksonville ad-blurbist says goodbye to his readers -- and his friends. (No, his friends aren't his readers; his friends are some of the brilliant movies he's seen in recent years.)

We understand, on a surface level, why firing or reassigning movie ad-blurbists might be a bad thing. After all, the argument goes, the news product needs a diversity of opinions, and the ad-blurbists help provide diversity. The problem is few hacks think more alike than ad-blurbists, and when they do or can think it's through that patented oily smarmy know-it-all high-IQ cheerleading that at its worst is the verbal equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. So firing or reassigning one "cri-TIC" will not prevent the hundreds, nay, the THOUSANDS of others from thinking alike, not the untold tens of thousands MORE of WEB typists practicing THEIR movie "cri-ti-CI-sm" by locking their step with the most prominent of the effete snobs. We say it again; this biz needs not more ad-blurbists, but fewer -- and that won't stop the mind-numbing conformity, or the continued destruction of the film trade by platitude.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

The BIG GM invents an INNOVATIVE NEW WAY to justify spending BILLIONS ON JUNK TELEVISION:

FOX AND CHEVROLET HAVE TEAMED up during the World Series on a newfangled way to air the often indistinguishable billboards where announcers read a "brought to you by" message as a company logo is overlaid on screen.

Instead of the logo's usual placement, Chevy hopes to differentiate itself by placing a logo for its Malibu sedan on a sign held up by a fan in the stands--be it a Red Sox backer at Fenway Park or a Rockies supporter in Denver. The camera then appears to zero in live on the excited fan as the announcer reads the standard sponsor message--with a catch.

While the read by announcer Joe Buck is live, the billboard shot was constructed beforehand, and is "plausibly live." Several days before game one, Chevy--which conceived the concept with agency Publicis' GM Planworks--gathered a group of 50 fans in Fenway and simulated a game-like situation.

It then shot the Sox fan holding up a sign that might normally read "Will you marry me Manny?" or "With Beckett, Boston is K-Ville," then digitally inserted the Malibu plug later. The film was then delivered to Fox, which slotted it in during the broadcast.

The tactic will be used by Chevy in as many Series games as are played with different versions for each, such as a pair of Rockies fans in game three.

Game one marked the first time Fox had tried such legerdemain. Fox and other networks have tried various creative ways to break the monotony that accompanies a series of on-screen billboards; for example, Fox has shown a giant Budweiser sign at Fenway with Buck commenting on it.

Chevrolet is a sponsor of the Series broadcasts on Fox--running multiple spots in game one, including two in one pod.

JUST SO LONG AS I DON'T HAVE TO WATCH THE @#$%&* ADS!!!!!, said every senior GM marketing and advertising exec, residing comfortably in a luxury box.

(Via MediaBuyerPlanner)

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

KING RICHARD ABDICATES!

ALL HAIL THE NEW...KING!

(Via Cheapie Marketwatch)

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

Point is, if I know about Commentary's record of popcult coverage, shouldn't its contributors and donors have more of a clue instead of treating young Pod as if he were the lucky sperm club's tribute to Roger Ebert? Any essay he commissions about pop culture can't be worse than the magazine's usual emission, a slander at a great president and an even better ex. [LAST ELEVEN WORDS ADDED]

We don't like JPOD. We don't like YOU EITHER. TWO WRONGS....

(Via TWO "BLOGS", one of whose typists burps, "Intelligent writing is intelligent writing." So why can't these fools write intelligently for once?)

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

Citius! (Cough-cough!) Altius! (Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag!) FORTIUS! (HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK HACK HACK!)

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

Jonny Hairshirt defends his MENTOR.

SHUT UP, Jonny.

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: America's HYER ED system churns out too many Dilberts who end up working outside Dubya's cherished math and science realms.

[E]mphasizing math and science education over humanities and social sciences may not be the best prescription for the U.S.

But wasn't Dubya's math-and-science obsession in part an answer to all the advanced-degree burger-flippers in those "disciplines"?

Perhaps we should focus on creating demand for the many scientists and engineers we graduate.

In other words, let's start up some GUVMENT employment programs for Dilberts. Noooooooo thank you.

(Via the Dilbertland that is Slashdot)

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

We have spoken before of the SUPERMANNING of America, and of one of the most notorious examples in the bar/bat mitzvah, whose only purpose is ostentation. How apt that scum who defrauded us of millions selling defective body armor for our soldiers paid $10 million for one, complete with "performances by Aerosmith, 50 Cent, Tom Petty, Kenny G and the Eagles." Jewish religious leaders should "put the foot down firmly", but for one problem: for the most part, Judaism isn't a religion anymore.

We see also that GUVMENT played a big role in closing a fine old Polish Catholic church in Detroit, meaning even when GUVMENT's role is positive, it can be negative.

(First link via Daily Intelligencer)

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the fillum trade Granola calls the new JIMMAH flick "over-simplistic", which we would liken to a miracle except that PINCH IS one.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

News hacks want the film business to "grow up" (and we know what that means), but these typing maniacs are thoroughly oblivious to the economic damage their CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED and allegedly grown-up movies have recently done to the popcorn restaurants, and now one of their crew wants the biz to be more "honest" in selling its fare to the unaccompanied under-17 crowd. If THE CONSPIRACY is already deaf to the public its regiments of apologists in the news biz add the extra added protection of EAR PLUGS.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: SUMNER thought He had a cute little publicity stunt, but ever since these pesky little flies started buzzing around campaign-finance laws He's assigned His army of lawyers to try to cover His behind.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Judging from this comprehensive account of Hill's birthday fundraiser her administration should be at least as decadent as her significant other's, although she won't have to worry about philandering -- we think.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

The holy cockroaches get mad at THEIR propaganda outlet?

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

We suspect Casey's namesake wanted to put The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Obey on the cover, and then realized if he did that his print rag wouldn't need staples anymore.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

There is no end to the loyalty SLIME's subordinates have for Him. We do not know why; He is not handsome (except in the mirror), nor very likeable, nor a deep thinker. We can only imagine His wage slaves think of Him as a Henry Luce, a visionary and thus an object of veneration; but then Henry Luce wasn't a very good man either, and more to the point, he didn't have SLIME's assets to be visionary with. So when Peter "reports" SLIME's social networking site's worth $65 BILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (current SLIMECORP market cap: $67.8 BILLION), we can only count it one more favor among the many favors His hacks have done for Him, for no apparent reason other than to remind SLIME they're alive.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

Hed of the DAY: a glowing tribute to Sen. Law 'n' Order:

Run, Lazy, Run!

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Shhh, don't say anything, BUT:

Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable-television company, fell the most in five years in Nasdaq trading after adding fewer phone and Internet subscribers than analysts estimated amid a slump in home sales....

Comcast shares fell $2.57, or 11 percent, to a 15-month low of $21.28 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The decline was the biggest since August 2002. The shares have dropped 25 percent this year.

Charter Communications Inc. shares fell 58 cents, or 23 percent, to $1.97. Time Warner Cable shares dropped $2.71, or 8.5 percent to $29.30 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and Cablevision Systems shares lost $1.42, or 4.6 percent, to $29.40.

And don't tell NEWBIGMEDIA's new friends either!

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Since President Bush took office, real after-tax per capita personal income has increased more than 12.5 percent -- an average of $3,750 per person. More than 30 percent of the country's net worth has been added since the president's 2003 tax cuts.

Real wages have increased 2.2 percent during the 12 months ending in August 2007. This is much higher than the average growth rate during the '90s, and translates into an extra $1,266 for a two wage-earner family.

Exports have increased over 14.8 percent during the 12 months ending in July 2007, and the trade deficit has been reduced by $8.3 billion.

Real GDP grew at a strong 3.8 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2007. The U.S. economy is in its sixth year of sustained economic growth, averaging 2.7 percent a year since the turnaround in 2001 blahblahblah....

What I have come to detest about con-SER-va-tives is they believe economic growth can excuse the moral and social failings that make it seem we're moving backwards. A nation can be very prosperous and unhappy, and ours has economic growth and a hole in the middle -- no small thanks to the cipher who brought on all this economic growth.

Two professors, John ["BANG! BANG!"] Lott, economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Kevin A. Hassett, the Institute's director of economic policy studies, looked at newspaper articles on the economy. They wrote, "We found that newspaper headlines reporting economic news on unemployment, gross domestic product (GDP), retail sales and durable goods tended to be much more frequently negative when a Republican was in the White House...."

TRANSLATION: It's BIGMEDIA'S FAULT -- precisely what con-SER-va-tives say is behind our HOUSING BUST. CRETIN.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

From a reader:

all [SIC] day at the Corner with no mention of the Battle of Agincourt?

All day at the Corner with no mention of Star Trek, Star Wars, THE GREATEST TV COMEDY OF ALL TIME, con-SER-va-tive movies, grossout comedies, etc., etc., etc.,?!?!?

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

EARTH IS REACHING THE POINT OF NO RETURN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! says MAJOR UN environment report [Overemphasis added]

We know the answer: Have the League of Nations engage in a coup of the worst offenders to stop them from gassing -- except of course China, Russia, India, and other nations that are PC or need to grow otherwise.

Little Jeffy and The Web's Inventor can pout until their faces turn green but such melodrama is why no one can take the weather alarmists seriously.

P. S. Remember -- this IS SLIME.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

BUGMEISTERDOM IS THE NEW APPLE!

When will these idiots at the Wall Street Casino stop lulling themselves to happiness with their new wives' tales?

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

THE FUTURE OF THE NEWS: Our Daily Babbitt assigns someone who probably just graduated from either the IVEE LEEG or an internship to type 1,588 WORDS of -- this, and these clowns must ask why we won't pay for it?

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: "The Couch Jumper" is about to lay three straight eggs.

And when an ultra-CW show-biz steno like Kim says it, and RottenTomatoes.com gives His first film a 40, they're understating it.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The winds shift direction and make Ah-NULT a genius. Before the hacks can complain about why people hate them they may want to redirect the gaze inward at this kind of superficial partisan reporting. And we recall praising this hack for something he'd written. I guess the pressures to produce filler for the Web site were too great.

And LALA says the number of evacuees from the fire zones was most likely exaggerated, as if news hacks never roar ahead of themselves.

Plus Ah-NULT may have to raise taxes to meet his state's increasing borrowing needs, which will probably elicit more superficial partisan baloney from the TWXSTERS.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

US announces Iran sanctions

And here we thought Dubya had already perfected the meaningless gesture....

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

Please, please, we don't care who wins, just let this be a four-game blowout! Please, please!

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

Is the Democratic Party big enough for a Clinton wing and a Pelosi wing? [Home-page squib]

Since when has it not been able to fly on one wing?

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the world of synergy, Ub Iger says "JUMP!" And the obedient dogs of The Hollywood Stenographer ask, "How high"?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

We've said it ONCE, we've said it A THOUSAND TIMES: just because movie ad-blurbists say a film's a masterpiece doesn't mean it's ANY GOOD. We submit the popcorn-restaurant-frequenting S&M phreaks are now wise to their way of thinking, and know EXACTLY what a "CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED" MOVIE entails, and they will NOT go to see something they can already imagine in their heads. Moreover the number of "adults" among the phreaks is now close to ZERO. So long as the movie business insists it's NOT OUR PROBLEM there will BE a problem.

"...I have these nightmares that this is the way it's going to be forever."

So long as you "INDEPENDENT" movie excreters keep thinking as you've thought for the last forty years we can hope your nightmares persist.

"A frequent moviegoer is defined as someone who goes to one movie every three to four months."

And YOU had absolutely NOTHING to do with THAT.

"It is certainly getting harder and harder to successfully market a film if at the end you're left with a sinking feeling in your stomach."

Does somebody CUE these people when they're going to be interviewed for these navel-staring self-serving press releases?

(Via the occasionally exasperating ArtsJournal)

Posted 8:12 PM by Gene

What's THIS doing on ASSPRESS.COM?

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

We must confess we're a little concerned too about JPOD running Commentary. Not for the "nepotism" angle, but for a nepotism that's worse, his slavish devotion to his Boss SLIME and his willingness to say stupid trendy things about pop culture to be in with Him. Our consolation is he wouldn't be the first one; the rag's music critic Mr. Teachout has said a few stupid things about the theater too. Perhaps JPOD will overcome his limitations and make a zestier journal -- at least, we can hope so.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

An ASTONISHING ADMISSION from MS. TRAVERS:

Baghdad Diarist [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
We're hearing from The New Republic that the Drudge story isn't the damning evidence it suggests to be ... stay tuned.

UPDATE: An editor there e-mails: "Go to the story and click on the link that he claims is to Beauchamp’s confession. It’s not there. The only Beauchamp document is one were he acknowledged receiving some other memo. Nothing even close to a confession there." At the moment I can't access any of the documents that are flagged in that "Developing" story....

10/24 03:47 PM

The source of all con-SER-va-tive NEWS WISDOM is FALLIBLE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

House Hits 1,000 Votes Mark

Does Speaker Babs get to throw a big party at our expense?

Maybe she can stick it on the Capitol dome, sort of like MICKEY D'S.

During the 1950s there were usually fewer than 100 votes a year.

BRING BACK THE FIFTIES!

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

A TEECHER-EHDYUKAYSHUN UHKREDDETOR has dropped demands its new charges be SOCIALLY JUST.

What shall the Republic DO?

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Our impotent female mirror image of the General all but admits her grand peace conference will be a failure.

By the way -- we note there are always a lot of protests at Congressional hearings. Do Democratic Congresspoops know about these in advance? Do they give the protesters just enough leeway in recognition of who now overruns the party, and then do the scowling these-despicable-hooligans gag for the cameras? We just ask.

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

In BellyKisserLand, a mass murderer is convicted -- odd for a nation that perfected the sport.

Posted 4:45 PM by Gene

The Deep-Thinking Hitler Expert Ron has evidently started a contest: Who can write "The Worst Celebrity Profile Ever"? This could be a non-stop contest with entries every day -- every hour from the Hearsties, SI, PEOPLE WARNER -- why they ought contribute a fund to finance weekly top prizes! We think D. Herbert Lipson, publisher of AMERICA'S SECOND MOST OVERRATED CITY RAG, should be one of the judges, at least. A further suggestion: they should be named THE BILL ZEHME MEMORIAL SUCK-UP PRIZES, for the greatest fanny kisser this side of LARRY KING.

As someone admittedly guilty of having done a few of these (as anyone who read my probing, incisive chat with Christina Aguilera in the April 2003 issue of Marie Claire can attest)....

Heck you deserve a prize too!

Here you think news hacks can't get any more self-servingly mea-culpaing exasperating and they prove you wrong.

Posted 4:42 PM by Gene

THE BUGMEISTERS START ANOTHER BUBBLE!

Significantly, SLIMECORP is down in after-hours, on light volume. Those folks have heard it all before.

P. S.

“We are now stepping outside what is typically a business decision,” said Rob Enderle, the founder of the strategy concern Enderle Group. “This was almost personal. I wouldn’t want to be the executive that’s on the losing side at either firm.”

Nonetheless it should be fun to see SOMEBODY fired -- as we hope SOMEBODY is.

Oh -- and does it ever occur to anyone that given the BUGMEISTER's sterling rep He may cost His new daydream business?

REMEMBER ZUNE!

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

Intel's CEO "sounds off":

On the sky-high valuations for Internet companies:

"As a board member of Google, part of me likes that. But when you hear of a Facebook valuation at $15 billion, you wonder how you monetize that. There are a few apps [on Facebook] that have a lot of stickiness, and there's nothing after that.…If Google launches a site tomorrow, what happens to their valuation? The interesting thing about social networks is that one friend leaves and the others follow."

A board member of the Great Eternal Wealth Machine of Mountain View and he says this?

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

WE CAN'T STOP IT!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

...Property losses could reach $42 billion.

Keep building expensive homes against natural tinder boxes....

Southern California economy losing $45 million a day.

California's gross state product in 2005 was OVER $1.5 TRILLION. You WILL survive this. [Link via Wikipedia]

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Juxtaposition of the Day:

AP: More Iraqi Civilians Dead After U.S. Action

Backing Coming Off: 3 Newspapers Won't Endorse for President in 2008

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

"There WAS a war going on that week, and attempted terror attacks in London," says Chase.

"But these people were talking about onion rings."

Not I, Mr. Greatest Artistic Achievement of All Time.

And what was that?

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

UP-TO-THE-MINUTE BULL: A bunch of indistinguishable news hacks (or even indistinguishable IVEE-LEEG-EHDYUKATED news hacks) will NOT make themselves less indistinguishable by creating "BRANDS."

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

"YF" insiders say they're bracing for mixed notices at best. Even Mel Brooks has publicly said he doesn't expect to win many Tonys, since he won them all for "The Producers."

Who needs awards in $2,000-A-TICKET BRANSON EAST?

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and SPORTS-SCRIBBLING.

And how many will ESPNCORP lay off during the length of this GENIUS's contract?

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Hey Little Jeffy! Here's an idea for Your GREEN IS UNIVERSAL WEEK:

Even if we could stop adding to greenhouse gases tomorrow, the earth would continue warming for decades — and remain hot for centuries. We would still face the threat of water from melting glaciers lapping at our doorsteps.

What can be done? One idea is to counteract warming by tossing small particles into the stratosphere (above where jets fly). This strategy may sound far-fetched, but it has the potential to cool the earth within months.

Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines that erupted in 1991, showed how it works. The eruption resulted in sulfate particles in the stratosphere that reflected the sun’s rays back to space, and as a consequence the earth briefly cooled.

If we could pour a five-gallon bucket’s worth of sulfate particles per second into the stratosphere, it might be enough to keep the earth from warming for 50 years. Tossing twice as much up there could protect us into the next century.

A 1992 report from the National Academy of Sciences suggests that naval artillery, rockets and aircraft exhaust could all be used to send the particles up. The least expensive option might be to use a fire hose suspended from a series of balloons. Scientists have yet to analyze the engineering involved, but the hurdles appear surmountable.

Seeding the stratosphere might not work perfectly. But it would be cheap and easy enough and is worth investigating.

And how many other problems might this cause? That's worth investigating too -- unless you're LITTLE JEFFY.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Merrill Lynch, the nation's largest broker, reported a loss Wednesday for the third quarter and said the its write downs for bad mortgage loans and related securities was almost $8 billion, well above the firm's own previous estimate from just a few weeks ago.

DOW 25,000!

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If you've hummed along, tapped your feet, or even danced in your seat while watching "Purple Rain," "Saturday Night Fever" or "Trainspotting," you're not alone.

The soundtracks from those movies have been named among the 50 greatest by the editors of Vanity Fair magazine. The full list will be revealed next month in a one-time Conde Nast magazine, Movies Rock, for subscribers of its 14 titles.

"Purple Rain" topped the chart even though it was described as "perhaps the best badly acted film ever," editors at Vanity Fair said, while "Trainspotting" came in at No. 7 and "Saturday Night Fever" was eighth.

TRANSLATION: Well, that's why I have editors. God knows I don't read my -- our magazines. God knows they aren't worth reading. Buy Gray knows how to schmooze, and that's the important thing. Heck we could print two hundred pages of s--- among the ads and they'd buy it. (Sigghhhhhhh) I guess we do.

FURTHER TRANSLATION: Well, if this is what it takes to get that job in Hollywood....

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO AL REUT!

Posted 8:02 PM by Gene

BRIAN ROBBER's crew admits it was doing things that might help THE CONSPIRACY, but says it wasn't doing them to help THE CONSPIRACY.

Posted 7:34 PM by Gene

Now our StinkyInky is talking up a soccer stadium in deprived Chester. What is with these boondoggle-endorsing Babbitts?

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

A "legislator" making a stupid remark, people banging their feet over a stupid remark, a party-line vote against censuring a "legislator" for making a stupid remark, a "legislator" apologizing for making a stupid remark...

Congress in action as usual.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

PRESS RELEASE OF THE YEAR! (Cut and pasted in full)

NBC Universal's 'Green Is Universal' Initiative Includes More Than 150 Hours of Green-Themed Content

Ongoing Plans to Create Cleaner Operations Worldwide
Funding Awarded to Environmentally-Focused Organizations

NEW YORK, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- NBC Universal announced details for
more than 150 hours of environmentally themed content encompassing all of
NBCU's divisions across multiple platforms for the week of Nov. 4 - 10.
Additionally, the company took further steps to green its own operations
worldwide, and for the first time, will award funds from the NBC Universal
Foundation to three environmentally-focused organizations. The
announcements, part of NBC Universal's ongoing "Green Is Universal"
initiative, were made by Jeff Zucker, President and CEO, NBC Universal and
Lauren Zalaznick, Chairman, NBC Universal Green Council and President,
Bravo Media.

"The environment has become both a corporate and cultural issue," said
Zucker. "As a leading media and entertainment company, NBC Universal has a responsibility, both in our own operations and in driving awareness. Green
is good for the world and the bottom line."

"Starting with this launch week of programming, the ongoing 'Green Is
Universal' initiative will help reach hundreds of millions of NBCU's
consumers, raising awareness, entertaining and ultimately, driving
results," said Zalaznick. "This week reinforces NBCU's continued commitment
to help raise environmental awareness through what we do in front of the
cameras and behind the scenes, in our offices, and in how we interact with
the community."

Separate related announcements are being made today by NBC
Entertainment, NBC Universal Entertainment Cable, the Sundance Channel,
Universal Parks and the Telemundo Network. Highlights of the company's
efforts are listed below.

NBC Universal's corporate commitment to green its own operations
worldwide continues to grow with its recently announced creation of a new
West Coast News Headquarters and Content Center. The Center will be a
leading example of sustainable design, construction and transit-oriented
development under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED(R) rating system.
NBC Universal will seek LEED Silver certification for new construction for
the Center and will target LEED for existing buildings for its ongoing
operations. Completed in May 2007, the Universal Studios lot installed its
first solar energy system, the largest in the industry. Located on
approximately 2.5 acres of hillside property, NBC Universal's long-term
goal is to secure an increasing portion of its power from solar or wind
generators.

In 2007, a different car service was introduced in New York, resulting
in a 75 percent air pollution improvement over the old service and will be
further improved by yearend when 25 percent of the fleet is replaced by
Hybrid vehicles. Additionally, NBC Universal is in the process of deploying
multi- functional office machines to enable employees to scan and e-mail
documents, thus eliminating the need for multiple devices and reducing
paper use.

NBC Universal's office supplier now provides paper with 34 percent
recycled content. This equates to 145,000 gallons of water saved, 400 trees
saved and 81,000 KWH conserved, or the equivalent of providing electricity
to seven homes a year.

NBC Universal has been measuring greenhouse gas emissions since 2004
and in the coming months, the company has committed to conducting Energy
Conservation Surveys ("eco audit") that will identify and prioritize
additional internal environmental improvements. The company will work with
GreenOrder, a sustainability strategy firm to provide an independent,
quantitative analysis and verification of its environmental footprint.

Separately, the NBC Universal Foundation, which supports non-profit
organizations that concentrate on strengthening public secondary education,
has selected one national and two local environmentally-focused
organizations to receive grants to promote environmental education and help
employees get directly engaged in environmental efforts in their
communities. They are the Student Conservation Association
(http://www.thesca.org); New York Restoration Project (http://www.nyrp.org) and the Los
Angeles Conservation Corps (http://www.lacorps.org).

"The More You Know," NBC Universal's award-winning public service
campaign, will debut brand new environmentally-themed spots to be broadcast
across all platforms. The messages will focus on global warming, pollution
and recycling as well as provide viewers with ways to make a difference.
Participating NBCU talent include: Molly Sims, Josh Duhamel and James
Lesure ("Las Vegas"); Noah Gray-Cabey ("Heroes"); Christopher Meloni ("Law
& Order: SVU"); Ann Curry ("Today"); Jesse Martin and Jeremy Sisto ("Law &
Order"); Linda Cardellini ("ER"); Donald Faison ("Scrubs"); Tim Gunn
("Project Runway" and "Guide To Style," Bravo); Jeffrey Donovan ("Burn
Notice," USA); Tricia Helfer ("Battlestar Galactica," Sci-Fi); Maria
Celeste ("Al Rojo Vivo con Celeste," Telemundo).

The company will launch a digital home for NBC Universal's "Green Is
Universal" initiative -- http://www.GreenIsUniversal.com -- to bring an
environmental perspective to its networks, platforms, audiences and
communities. Kicking-off on Nov. 4 with seven days of
environmentally-themed programming, GreenIsUniversal.com will live on with
green tips, green clips, and a fast- paced blog covering everything at NBC
Universal, and beyond.

Highlights of the company's 150 hours of green-themed content for the
week of Nov. 4-10 include:

NBC Sports kicks-off "Green Is Universal" on Nov. 4 during the "Sunday
Night Football" game between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles.
NBC's "Football Night in America" host Bob Costas will explain the
programming effort on NBC during the NFL studio show as NBC Universal's
networks simultaneously turn their respective network logos green at 8 p.m.
ET. The broadcast also will feature additional announcements about "Green
Is Universal," as well as incorporate the themes throughout its broadcast
on Sunday night.

The following Saturday, Nov. 10, the Air Force vs. Notre Dame college
football game will feature the University of Notre Dame's students' and
professors' research for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2), from the emissions
of power plants, which could ultimately contribute to reversing the effects
of global warming.

Highlighted by the "Today" show's "Ends of the Earth" trip (see
separate release), NBC News will dedicate programming across many of its
platforms as part of the Initiative. "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams"
will feature a five-part green series -- dedicating each night to a single
topic: water, wind, grass, bio-fuels, nuclear, and how to "green your
house." NBC News' Environmental Correspondent, Anne Thompson, will
contribute to this series.

MSNBC will broadcast green-themed segments and programming all week,
including an emphasis on the politics of Green on "Super Tuesday," Nov. 6.
Throughout the week, the channel's "best and worst weather in America"
segments will focus on how environmental changes affect weather.

MSNBC.com will kick off its green series with special stories and
interactive features, including user-generated content showing what it's
like to be green in America. The FirstPerson eco-gallery will feature
videos and photos from consumers across the nation illustrating what
they're doing to help the environment. MSNBC.com will also feature
interactive slideshows, original stories, and video on a range of
environmental issues.

MSNBC.com's interactive features include "Warming World," a gateway
into compelling video, slideshows and stories about climate change around
the world. Consumers can also log on and learn about carbon trading, see
how the greenhouse effect happens, discover interesting engineering ideas
to cool the Earth, check out the greenest and meanest cars, and find out
about new and environmentally-friendly commuting options.

CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, will focus on investing
opportunities in the rapidly expanding and dynamic green movement covering
what Wall Street, venture capital firms and corporations are doing in such
areas as clean technology, alternative energy, and sustainability,
providing information for investors. In addition, CNBC will have
"conversations" with CEOs of top companies that are making a business in
the green space; large investors; environmental trailblazers in both the
private and government sectors; economic experts, as well as those who
question the business value of green. On Nov. 7, CNBC will report from the
Pacific Growth Equities 2007 Clean Technology & Industrial Growth
Conference in San Francisco; on Nov. 8, CNBC's housing reporter Diana Olick
will report from Chicago and the Green Build Conference and Expo. That
night, the network will broadcast a special green edition of CNBC's "The
Big Idea with Donny Deutsch" at 10 p.m. ET.

From the first and largest community of women online, iVillage's iGo
Green channel (http://www.ivillage.com/green) helps moms make the green lifestyle
work for them by featuring a wide variety and depth of green content, from
organic Thanksgiving ideas to eco-friendly gifts. In addition, iVillage's
gURL.com will feature a recycling game and Astrology.com will feature Green
Scopes. Every day, new green content will be featured both on
iVillage.com's main page and on its iGo Green channel, including
opportunities to give green within iVillage Cares, with click-to-donate
links for a variety of causes.

On November 1, iVillage.com will launch the iVillage Forest,
(http://www.ivillageforest.com), a virtual wintertime forest where visitors can
help offset the 32 million trees that are cut down each December for
holiday decorating. For each $5 donation, a virtual tree is planted in the
iVillage Forest and a live tree is planted by The Conservation Fund
(http://www.conservationfund.org).

The NBC Owned-and-Operated Stations will incorporate extensive
environmentally- themed stories throughout their newscasts and display
green logos and graphics on air. In addition, the group will run a
half-hour special on "Going Green at Any Age!" (check local listings). The
stations' Going Green websites will also have a green theme and will
provide calculators that can determine an individual's impact on the earth
according to carbon, water and energy use. Users can also download widgets
to get regional and national environmental news as well as the latest local
headlines sent to their desktops. Many of the stations will also continue
to partner with local organizations to promote green awareness in their
communities.

NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution's "Access Hollywood"
will report on Hollywood celebrities making an environmental difference,
with additional green interviews posted online at
(http://www.accesshollywood.com). On the Nov. 6 edition of "The Martha Stewart
Show," (check local listings) naturalist, media personality and author
David Mizejewski of the National Wildlife Federation, joins Stewart with
several creepy-crawly friends to help educate her viewers on the growing
importance of involving children in green activities and encouraging them
to spend more time outdoors. "Lyons and Bailes Reel Talk" will highlight Al
Gore's Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" on the November
10-11 episodes. Additionally, "The Jerry Springer Show," "Maury," "The
Steve Wilkos Show," "The Chris Matthews Show," "The Wall Street Journal
Report with Maria Bartiromo," "Your Total Health" and "Lyons & Bailes" are
all participating in the effort.

Universal Pictures will prominently promote "Green Is Universal" on
http://www.universalpictures.com with a lead editorial placement and banner at the
bottom of the page. Universal Pictures also will send its more than 400,000
newsletter subscribers information on the "Green Is Universal" initiative,
and GetOnBoardNow.org will be updated with current content. Universal
Pictures will run the "Green Is Universal" PSA's as a post-roll on their
online trailers during this programming week and as ads in theater lobbies.

About NBC Universal
NBC Universal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment
companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment,
news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May, 2004 through the
combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns
and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a
premier motion picture company, significant television production
operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme
parks. NBC Universal is 80% owned by General Electric and 20% owned by
Vivendi.

SOURCE NBC Universal

WELL YOU DON'T HAVE TO BOAST ABOUT IT!

P. S. This is tied in to creating a PERSONALITY CULT OF LITTLE JEFFY on last May's second anniverary of His ditching LEGENDARY'S GOODTHINGS CAMPAIGN. Pffffffffffffft!

(First link via PEOPLENEWSRAG.com's Tuned In)

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

What would make PINCH happier: that His stock went up today -- or that a state court invalidated the death penalty of a mass killer?

We think we know.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

OH oh -- also in the CloudCuckooLand of Finance:

The number of personal bankruptcy filings in New York City shot up nearly 70% in the past year.

I don't know what's worse: the people who want to start a depression or the ones who want to start a depression with sugar coating.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Oops! The Wall Street Casino dealers chopped a few dollars off GAA's market cap!

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Day is done, gone the sun....

Howard Stern, who joined Sirius Satellite Radio in January 2006, has the highest-cuming channel on satellite radio, according to the report. Howard 100, the channel devoted almost entirely to his weekday show and rebroadcasts of that show, has a cume of 1.225 million.

We don't know what "cume" means; no doubt it's shorthand for quintuple- and sextuple-counting. Looking down further (hard to do given R&R's screwy pop-ups) we see Stone's Channel 100 (they definitely got his name wrong) has an "average quarter-hour audience of 96,700" (emphasis added). This, FRIENDS (to use a PILLHEADISM), isn't even a fraction of the 900 million listeners Stang (I'm thinking that's his name) got in his prime. If I were a DOG-Star shareholder I'd be screaming for ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN's head -- although more likely I'd have sold the stock eons ago.

What's especially irritating is this may be the first reliable head count of Strong's (yes! THAT'S his name!) listeners in the nearly two years he's broadcast into the satradio void -- and with the CHEAP CHANNELS coming back with digital it is now certain this idiocy is history -- if the Web isn't making both moot.

Posted 3:40 PM by Gene

Report: Click fraud is back on the rise

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE AT $200,000 A SHARE!!!!!

Posted 3:20 PM by Gene

A Record Year for Layoffs in Finance

So why does GAA (GOOGLEAPPLEAMAZON) have a combined market cap of $420 BILLION?????

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

You can't make money with amateur videos of "skateboarding dogs"?

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE CAN!

Or at least its fairy godmothers think so.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

Trudeau: `Doonesbury' Doesn't Get Easier

Especially when you lost your sense of humor twenty years ago.

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

More genius in advertising:

A new Nielsen study finds that only 10% of the most likely candidates for mobile advertising -- those using mobile devices for more than just talk, such as accessing the internet, sending text messages, playing video games or buying ringtones -- responded to ads on their mobile phones. Eleven percent viewed the ads and did not respond, and a whopping 79% did not even view the ad.

TRANSLATION: G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE at $80,000 A SHARE!!!!!

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

ANNOYING:

After yesterday's open house, tonight's gala, and the launch this week of the theater's first production, Being Alive, Garonzik and board president E. Gerald Riesenbach will turn back to raising the $10 million needed to reach the project's $30 million goal ($25 million for construction, $5 million to establish an endowment).

So far the biggest donations are $5 million from the state and $3 million from the city. [Twenty-first and twenty-second of TWENTY-FOUR GRAFS]

TRANSLATION: We have a state subsidized 365-seat play-with-itself thea-TAH. FURTHER TRANSLATION: It's named for a tax deduction for BRIAN ROBBER. If we're going to have the state in show-biz let's go whole hog and DO IT.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

It's official: the Internet has made ordering tickets for high-profile events impossible.

If we were SELIG, or THE MAN WHO USED TO WALK ON WATER, or one of the many rapacious managers of the has-beens who rule the "concert" trade, or KERNGERSHWIN, we might not be beaming so broadly. If sexy tickets merely go to the fastest highest-paying scalpers more people will give up buying them, and the audience for such affairs will dry up. Perhaps as Forbeslist implies the masochists will always pay nosebleed prices, and the Super Bowl will always have its live audience, thanks to greedy CEOs, but the recorded...SOUND biz isn't making geniuses the way it used to. More important, these things aren't so hot on TELEVISION, where they're mostly free, and you get a better seat (better still with big-screen HD), and you don't have to pay for parking or $50 concessions. Is a blowout worth $1000?

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

And then there's GM. While it is nominally encouraging to hear it's fended off Toyota (slightly) there comes word it's thrown money at THE SHAKESPEARE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, and Edna has the HOTS, and suddenly we lose our zeal to see the auto industry recover. We should remember, though, BILL doesn't build the cars.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Forgive us for believing Americans once had a guileless, uncynical optimism. We weren't always made of marshmallows. The can-do attitude that formed a republic and settled the West was part of American industry. American industry declined when it lost that spark. It will be tough to rekindle it, but inspiriting it is to hear that Chrysler's dealers believe the company can come back, and will sacrifice to help achieve it. So long as they redouble the effort to build good popular cars and stop throwing money at Hollywood we'll be believers.

Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

Oprah Winfrey school at centre of probe into 'sexual misconduct'

The best laid plans of multi-billion-dollar genetically-engineered supermice....

Posted 2:14 PM by Gene

More excellent service from the airline biz:

If you spot two pieces of luggage in your yard, call Delta Airlines.

A Delta flight operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines was forced to circle back to Midway Airport shortly after takeoff Sunday because a cargo door was improperly secured and two bags fell out, Delta communications director Maria Schnabel said.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

SLOPPY: The Monitor says our "public discourse" has reached a "new low", linking to a 1998 opinion piece to prove it, and it quotes from Romy's think tank in the fourth graf, and it goes on to cite "a spokesman for Media Matters" and "[t]he CONSERVATIVE media watchdog group Accuracy in Media." (Hint hint?)

This alone should be argument against it (not to mention that there has scarcely been a time since Thomas Paine without blaggards, and at least he could write) but we're tired of always having to turn down the volume on these loudmouths, and we don't even have a volume control.