Posted 10:12 PM by Gene

Hillary runs for the White House as ‘new Thatcher’

Is SLIME giving to somebody?

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

It's easy to think today's cineastes invented the notion of totally excluding common sense from the movies. I frequently succumb to this notion; it's hard not to. Today shuffling through the worthless LPs at Philadelphia Record Exchange I came across several soundtrack albums that demonstrate conclusively this isn't so. First a double-album including snippets from Words and Music, the noxious biography of Rodgers and Hart that couldn't tell the truth about Larry Hart's life because you couldn't do such things then, and (we now know) Dick Rodgers wouldn't have permitted it anyway. It ends with Mickey Rooney dying by wandering off in the rain. And the tragedy is MGM was sitting on all these wonderful songs! And Mickey and Judy Garland sang "I Wish I Were in Love Again", the best thing they ever did. The mess seems to have been inspired by Warner's Night and Day, with Cary Grant as Cole Porter [!!!!!]; it was so bad even Porter could laugh at it. Perhaps Arthur Freed was thinking of his rapturous first encounter with Shirley Temple when he made it.

Then I happened across four copies of a masterpiece of 26 (!) years ago: a two-disc set of Pennies from Heaven. This is odd, I thought; it's a soundtrack album -- and it's mostly old music! Then I remembered; this was a WUHK by the CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED DENNIS POTTUH, the HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM of TV, based on his mini-series in which people with lousy lives lip-synched to thirties hits, the whole point to make fun of all those stupid wretched songs. Imagine being Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters and having to lip-sync to fifty-year old recordings! Of course it bombed, it bombed because it was a cheat, a pretentious cheat, the kind of movie designed to give people a bad time. I wonder if that's why no one but "African-Americans, gays and upscale whites" crowded into places like the "Zeigfield Theater" to see Singin' in the Rain; who wants to be beat over the head to fourth-rate music?

P. S. Wikipedia tells us Mistuh Pottuh came to believe "'every line that dripped from his pen was a work of genius'", which would definitely put him in the realm of EINSTEIN. He wasn't all bad, however; as he was dying of cancer he called his illness RUPERT, after -- YOU-KNOW-WHO.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

"There'll Always Be an England":

Prince Charles canceled a traditional skiing holiday in a bid to reduce his carbon footprint, his office said Saturday.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

CHEAP CHANNEL did a WATER stunt first.

People can gas about "Darwin Awards" and all that jazz -- they were doing that at Slashdot, a site full of idiot savants -- but this stunt should provoke anger was because of the malevolence at its root, the vague misanthropic hope that something would go catastrophically wrong, the idea of putting people in danger for laughs -- and because it involves BIGMEDIA, and the idiots of MADAVE who back it. That's why one should be angry.

Posted 12:35 PM by Gene

REASON NO. 16,396 WHY MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!: While looking up some numbers on BoxOfficeMojo Goodthings Entertainment subjected us to an ad for an...UPCOMING piece of GENIUS, and here is precisely why you have to drag people to the popcorn restaurants: THERE WAS A CUT EVERY HALF-SECOND! If THAT doesn't say GODAWFUL nothing does. And Little Jeffy thinks He can make big money from the movies? Your stock didn't do too well yesterday despite the news You're buying up 500 more companies. Isn't it time for a spinoff -- or better still a BREAK-UP?

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

Once again the world deludes itself into thinking that TALKTALKTALK will solve the North Korea problem, because the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY has the collective courage of a bowl of WET NOODLES.

Meantime the League of Nations gives millions to Kim to subsidize his fabulous "lifestyle" -- and possibly his NUKES.

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

O.J. Simpson Ordered to Limit Spending

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

Hey DICKIE V! I don't think the DUKIES are quite the ROCKIN' and ROLLIN' and SHAKIN' and BAKIN' CLASS ACT OF PROFESSIONAL COLLEGE SPORT they USED to be!

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

COMSYMPS at BLOOMBERG (!) complain business's wealth isn't going to the workers!

Who cares about the workers? It's LEGENDARY WELCHES and BOB NARDELLIS and KENNYBOYS and MICKEYMOUSE NIXONS and MEAN BUSINESSES and DENNIS KOZLOWSKIS and BERNIE EBBERSES and WALT FORBESES who make the wealth! Their egos work long hard hours to build the corporations that, um, er....

Larry Kudlow can come up with something.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

The beautiful but violent Rio de Janeiro invited the pretty but troubled Naomi Campbell to be its ambassador on Friday, two days after she admitted in a New York court to throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper.

Why wasn't the ASSPRESS on top of this story?

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Having just censored BOB BARKER'S LINE the ASSPRESS flies from LALA to LAS VEGAS to spin THIS breathless thread:

The pageant was aired a combined 20 times on CMT, owned by Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks, and its sister-network VH1, the network said. Although just 3.1 million viewers watched the show live — less than one-third the viewers she last found on ABC — a total of 36 million people saw the show including the replays. Even the traditionalists couldn’t argue with that exposure.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO KATHLEEN! And the ASSPRESS is now one of the FIVE FINALISTS (or however many) for NEUHARTHISM OF THE YEAR! We wanted Bernie Wayne to write a theme song but he wasn't available, so we'll choose something at random from YouTube.

(Via THE MESS, which DIDN'T run a byline)

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

FINALLY -- the moment PINCH has been waiting His entire career for -- HILLARY is COY NO LONGER: SHE'S IN!!!!!

Now can she control her temper?

P. S. How long did she rehearse for her video? And how many people will that back-and-forth of the camera make seasick?

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Loral stock rises on satellite contract

Which seems odd given the Chinese allegedly just destroyed a satellite possibly using technology donated by UNCLE BERNIE SCHWARTZ.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

CHEAP CHANNEL IS HAVING A SALE!

One thing, though: wouldn't it fetch more money if it ADVERTISED on the RADIO?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

CNN: Amanpour Shocked By Radicals

...so says the link in the NEW! IMPROVED!! PEOPLENEWSRAG.COM, but just past the midway point Christiane pretty well concedes why holy cockroaches so often get their way:

Extremists and radicals are very adept at playing the media's game. Even though they are a minority, a small number of them can gather on a corner, hold a protest or demonstration and get a massive amount of media attention and air time. That's because today's mostly tabloid media culture in the UK has sensationalized the "Muslim issue" and focuses only on the extremists, rarely finding the facts, context and texture beneath the surface.

Possibly -- but when you jump with glee pointing at an Osama poster it will attract attention.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Is there a direct correlation between horn honking and bad driving?

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

WOW!!!!! The TWXSTERS are using some of the money they saved from firing magazine types to DOUBLE SENSITIVE ANDERSON'S SALARY!

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

Motorola may be teaching Apple a lesson: that sexy toys may go only so far.

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER is ACTING UP AGAIN!

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

The same courageous, truth-telling SUPERHACKS of the ASSPress, who leave not one classified file untouched in their quest to reveal every last EVIL ACT of our government, keep a SECRET:

Barker said he couldn't understand why he, and his show, have become cult favorites for college students. He talks about the number of young people who ask him to say his salty line from his appearance in the Adam Sandler movie "Happy Gilmore."

"I've been in television 50 years and what am I going to be remembered for?" he said, then repeated his line. [SIC]

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO THE ASSPRESS AND ITS SECRET WRITER!

P. S. on 1/20 at 10:30 a.m.: For the first time (and probably the last) David "PLATINUM" Bianculli does something right. I guess you have to be a stupid drunk teen to find that line funny -- or maybe THE BIONIC GAME-SHOW HOST.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Someone wants to build a huge luxury hotel and condo project in Beverly Hills.

There goes the neighborhood!

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

Excitement at Slashdot:

"Yahoo! News is running an article about a New Jersey home that uses solar power to provide 100% of its energy needs, including fuel for the owner's hydrogen fuel cell-powered automobile...."

And does it look like one great big solar panel?

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

"If I had done as vice president what this vice president has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there," Mondale said.

Thankfully the voters threw you out before he had a chance.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

A nice combo:

Toyota will be a Super Bowl advertiser again this year, Jim Lentz, exec VP of Toyota Motor Sales USA, told Advertising Age. Toyota will showcase its newly remodeled Tundra full-size pickup, he said.

Toyota recalls half million Tundra, Sequoias

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

Ex-Congresspoop Ney gets a richly deserved thirty months for his dreams of avarice.

The sentence was harsher than recommended by prosecutors or Ney's lawyers, Huvelle said, because Ney had violated the trust place on him as a public official. "Both your constituents and the public trusted you to represent them honestly," she said.

Thus should it always be -- especially when a Congresspoop becomes a lobbyist's accessory.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

Going from THE ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY to Rich Little is a comedown.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Michael Agger starts to make a point about cameraphones, but then he remembers this is Stale.com, and he goes on longeurs, and he waxes philosophic. The point can be summed up in one sentence: technology is in the hands of idiots.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

I suggest it is time for someone to foment a feud between THE NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE and THE DONALD. (Links via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in THE UNIVERSE'S GREATEST GROUP BLOG:

Lee Day [John J. Miller]

Today is the 200th anniversary of Robert E. Lee's birth.

Why hasn't a certain kind of con-SER-va-tive moved to make it a FEDERAL HOLIDAY?

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

Marvel Comics Postage Stamps [Jonah Goldberg]

'Nuff said.

01/19 08:21 AM

"'NUFF SAID"? You mean you're not as excited as the day the Postal Disservice issues A HUNDRED STAR WARS STAMPS? Oh, we forgot. You don't trust THE LORD anymore.

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

The Senate somehow passes ethics "reform", despite Sen. Fundrai$er Moneybag$ insisting "THE DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP DOES NOT HAVE TO KILL THIS LEGISLATION!!!!!!!!!!"

Any boob who uses Democrat as an ADJECTIVE clearly has not learned ANY lesson.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

When someone says something will happen, fate may apply the banana peel. Greg Sandow, an ArtsJournal.com blogger, has written three lengthy essays (thus far) on why classical music WILL die -- senescent audiences, nonexistent record buyers, etc., etc., -- and the commenters have been fighting back (politely and informedly) suggesting he is misguided. This is precisely how a blog should work -- with a writer making provocative statements, and an intelligent audience challenging his assertions. Unfortunately most discussions on the Web are merely a matter of who can make the biggest ass of himself.

(Link via Mr. Teachout's blog)

Posted 8:18 PM by Gene

House Dems close the first '100 hours'

They did? We didn't know. And what did they do?

Posted 7:36 PM by Gene

OH oh, SAMMY GLICKMAN'S NEW SECRET-BUT-NOT-TOP-SECRET-RECIPE ALPHABET SOUP is striking a few as distinctly UNCOOKED!

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

ITSHINESFORALL.COM (like dead mackerel in the moonlight?) thinks it has an ENORMOUS scoop because JIMMAH "interceded" on behalf of a KNOWN NAZI KILLER -- and SAM LITTLE confirmed his handwriting!!!!! Alas, the BLOGOSPHERE may not be taking it that strenuously, given the first comment:

And exactly why is this news? Dogs bark.

Posted by: Q at January 18, 2007 3:10 PM

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in America's Greatest Group Blog, a "reader" comforts Jo-NAH about all the wonderful things that have happened under Dubya's watch -- eight of the twelve economic -- and says if Dubya were a "D"....Well, we'd guess if this were 1998 and NRO were liberal some "reader" would have comforted some smug glib editor about all the wonderful economic things that happened under Slick, and added some platitudes about the Cleaning Lady for good measure. But William Jefferson's era was a tawdry, sleazy, worthless time built largely on the greatly depreciating boxes of computerdom, and save for a different president and a slow-grinding war there's little difference, except that the tawdry and sleazy have ossified into outright ennui, and Dubya has no known girlfriends.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

BIG NEWS at NRO from Rick Brookhiser:

Tomorrow I begin a new gig as a Contributor [sic] to Time.

Hasn't he heard of rearranging the deck chairs on -- oh, never mind.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Just what we need, George -- a guvment commission on STEROIDS.

Of course so long as athletes insist on drinking marijuana....

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

We suspect Sen. Hein-TZZZ cares not a hoot about Iran; he just wants to embarrass Republicans. We suspect the military-industrial complex, as is too often the case, would rather we not know.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

We wonder if the public is engaging in an active rebellion against BIGMEDIA. Not in television or the movies, at least not outwardly; visual media have a hypnotic effect, and their Pavlovian fans have no taste. But the news business's badness cannot hypnotize itself away. Nor with recorded sound and its allied art of stench making, radio. The sound biz is hurting because many of its buyers are casual partakers -- and female; and they increasingly resent paying for one song and filler, and not a very good song at that. Moreover we'd bet [C]RAP has done it mighty damage; so much of recorded sound's output is [C]RAP, and people may figure that's all there is to it -- which in a sense, may be right. One of the big secrets of recent years (which those secret-exposers the HACKS naturally won't tell) is that [C]RAP has lost market-share big time. How many ways can one have an attitude reciting slant rhymes like Hitler? We cannot take comfort in the alleged comeback of the classics as it builds from a tiny base; but we would hope conscience and intellect would gain a small foothold with the people, and then improve all of music. Nonetheless we fear the rot is so great it's not only taken the ground out from beneath our culture, but the universe from around it.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Gosh almighty, why would anyone want to drink marijuana?

Pfffffffffffffft!!!!!

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

The Kookiest Klowns in Kongress want to restore the Fairness Doctrine -- so they can hear THEIR SIDE OF THE STORY!

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

By the way, MANKIND'S SEXUAL SAVIOR should keep in mind HE'S ONLY A YEAR YOUNGER THAN ART BUCHWALD WAS.

Any organization that runs press releases like this is guilty of news malpractice -- though we've long kept a wary distance from SLIME's scalpels.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

We are very sorry to see that Art Buchwald has died. He was a very funny man. It might not seem so on the basis of his columns of the last few decades, but back in the mid-sixties he recorded a Capitol album before an audience at Georgetown, and though the material is dated he had an insouciance and a gravelly voice that even today could provoke mirth. I wonder if his real calling wasn't stand-up comedy. His last year shows us a "dying" man can have more fight and joie de vivre than most healthy people, and we are sad he somehow didn't beat the odds a little longer, but his bravery is an example for us all. God bless you, Mr. Buchwald, and we hope you know many smiles.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

NOW, after over ten years in business, eBay gets SERIOUS about FRAUD?!?!?

Methinks they've seen those phishing listings too.

I don't know, though -- aren't "egregious shipping and handling fees" part of the eBay ethic?

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

A fitting conclusion: Not only does SLIME dump Lady Judith's IMPRINT into the garbage, it's withdrawing its new novel The Sex Life of Mickey Mantle.

What will porn "stars" do?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

The WaPosties are printing The Onion...it's in talks with VIACON COMEDY NEWS NETWORK...

Who needs a news business?

(Via Romy, who isn't at all concerned)

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

How will THE NEW! IMPROVED!! PEOPLE NEWSRAG!!! be great with "40 percent" fewer staff?

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

DIMWIT:

Bill O'Reilly said no to interviewing Sacha Baron Cohen in character as Borat, but he's willing to interview Stephen Colbert in character as, well, O'Reilly.

Does anyone in this blithering business NOT talk in character?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

This will cause a MELTDOWN at Slashdot: Intel has only recently put out four-core processors and now it's talking up AN EIGHT-CORE!!!!!!!!!!

All the better to daydream about BAD SCI-FI MOVIES with.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!!'s going to start a GLOBAL WARMING COMMITTEE!

That'll make the auto industry -- JOHN DINGELL mad!

I don't know -- appointing Ed "V-CHIP!" Markey to head it might cause climate problems.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

America's leading rock music enthusiast-Hitler expert says "quality TV" shows are -- DARK!

Perhaps at this point the networks could save some money and ditch the picture. Not that it would matter to the ad-blurbists; they're already BLIND.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Who'd have guessed? JFK's an -- ULTRALIBERAL?!?

Say it isn't so!

I want to know who did to Jack what that nincompoop Jeff Greenfield did with Slick and what Time did with JIMMAH. Who was his media mentor? Who whispered in thousands of news hacks' ears what an unpolluted breath of air he is? Who's running his campaign?

STATE-SENATOR P. S.

- Voted against letting people argue self-defense in court if charged with violating local weapons bans by using a gun in their home. (2004)

- Successfully sponsored law enforcement study of the race of people pulled over for traffic tickets. (2003)

- Unsuccessfully sponsored measure to expunge some criminal records and create an employment grant program for ex-criminals. (2002)

- Voted against making gang members eligible for the death penalty if they kill someone to help their gang. (2001)

But he did vote "to let retired police and military police carry concealed weapons"; then again he may have been running for something.

Do I smell soft-on-crime?

Posted 3:05 PM by Gene

Overboard: Show-Biz Syndication Synergy

All you have to do is watch the evening entertainment shows for a few minutes before a huge headache sets in. Most of what they say is utter nonsense, dressed up in some cases with a small dose of reality.

But their coverage of the Globes was hilarious. “Entertainment Tonight,” owned by Viacom, is busy flogging “Dreamgirls,” a Paramount film every which way. They’ve even named a contest for this new phase. But no one mentions that Viacom also owns Paramount, and the promotion borders on problematic.

At the same time, both "Extra" and "Access Hollywood" are connected to Warner Bros, and NBC. InStyle, the magazine, is also owned by TimeWarner, as is Warner Studios. So those two shows are now bearing the brunt of cross promoting the InStyle party, plus Time Warner’s other interests.

Again, no mention why "Access" and "Extra" have such extraordinary access to the stars. They’re essentially shilling for corporate cousins. Yeow!

And SLIME's as pure as the driven -- SNOW.

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

"How can you merge two mediocre companies and end up with anything but a mediocre company?"

By pretending it's in another business!

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

Another hazard of our times: Not a day goes by without mention of yet another instant hip hot fifteen-minute has-been.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

The most worthless word in English: REFORM.

Reform connotes improvement—"altering for the better … some faulty state of things," as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it—even when the "reforms" won't necessarily improve anything. Everybody who utters the R word is engaging in verbal sleight of hand. For instance, when Sen. John McCain promotes "campaign-finance reform," he's really pushing political censorship. When the Wall Street Journal editorial page demands "tort reform," they're merely advocating new legislative limits on the use of the courts. When the Cato Institute publishes its millionth monograph about "Social Security reform," everybody appreciates that what they're talking about is the repeal of Social Security. Let reformistas use the R word without sanction, and you've all but ceded the argument to them.

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

Alakazam and alakazoom, and SAMMY GLICKMAN changes the ingredients in JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP -- with the SAME OLD BOTULISM!

I guess he's heard about how it smooths wrinkles, or something.

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

OH oh: JFK faces -- SCRUTINY!

Does this mean the long free ride is over?

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

YA GOTTA HAVE A GIMMICK:

Doomsday Clock Now Gauges Climate Change

As SLIME'S gimmick commences the sixth of an infinite number of seasons it seems as though every day reveals a new publicity stunt. If global warming is now the same as nuclear conflagration, why not add pollution? Or "overpopulation"? Or the threat of gray goo? Or the chance of a huge asteroid hit or an invasion of little green men from Mars? The more publicity-happy we become the more the publicity acquires a value much less than zero.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

An SI writer is ticked because some football players lack CLASS?

Had he written about [C]RAPPERS it would have made as much sense.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

GENIUS in the GENIUS AGE OF ENTERTAINMENT:

Cameron Diaz introduced a montage of clips from Martin Scorsese's The Departed. Her big, red mouth slipped around rather much. She lingered on the words taxi and driver with unseemly lubricity. "Is she drunk?" I wondered aloud. "Wasted," ventured the guest. Warren Beatty, receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, promised to make another movie. After watching Scorsese pick up his trophy for directing The Departed, I decided that the movie should be a chamber piece starring Beatty as Nixon and Scorsese as Kissinger, set in the summer of '73.

And BEAUTY:

Reese Witherspoon strode out in severe bangs and a canary-yellow strapless number, and the guest said, "She's so hot!" A few seconds later, having gotten a second, third, and fourth look, the guest had taken a more nuanced view: "She's disgusting!"

And STYLE:

Onward: a viciously suave Sacha Baron Cohen; a depressingly vague Forest Whitaker; Philip Seymour Hoffman wearing a bushy mustache and a neon-blue tie, resembling a walrus dressed as a vice cop from Miami.

The TV AD-BLURBIST of STALE.COM write THIS?!?!?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

The "rightosphere" (as someone named Gladstone must call it) shoots itself in the foot, and Romy and his crew are DANCIN'! DANCIN'! in their bullet-ridden shoes.

We have been skeptical of what SUPERDUPERMEGAGGIGABLOGGERS MUST call MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMM because they have not been honest brokers, and there's too much of the smell of Vietnam to their Iraq; thus, though the hacks may be "honest" about it, and many times right, their sublime aura prevents it from seeming so. Into this breach step the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS, a peanut gallery with a high-tech megaphone, who are SELDOM wrong and who almost NEVER correct themselves. How many times has SAM LITTLE ever said "I'm sorry?" How many fingers does an ant have?

SIX OF ONE....

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLE...



MUTINYMUTINYMUTINY....

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

JFK'S RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!

I'd say ASK NOT but Joe Biden already took that phrase.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

In more TWXSTER news, they're starting to waste big money on THE WEB again!

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The author of An Army of Davids writes about gun-control in THE GOLIATH OF GOLIATHS!

If this doesn't put paid to the notion SUPERDUPERMEGAGGIGABLOGGING is about THE LITTLE GUY, NOTHING will.

Or as Orwell might put it: ALL BLOGGERS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME BLOGGERS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

(Via NRO, which is suitably impressed)

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

We Arab states have destabilized Iraq. Now we're ready to stabilize it!

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Hmmm:

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has hired prominent Iowa Republican Jim Nussle to advise him on his possible presidential run....

Giuliani supports abortion rights and gay rights. Nussle took a strong anti-abortion stance in his campaign and wants a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Yep -- somebody IS running for president!

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

One of the BIG NAMES in TOILET PAPER SPONSORS ROSIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We'll remember that the next time we buy CHARMIN.

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

TREMENDOUS NEWS FROM THE TWXSTERS:

NATPE: TMZ To Launch as Newsmagazine

Get PAT O'BRIEN to emcee it!

P. S. SLIME's airing it! SYNERGY!!!!! (Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

SAVE $30 A MONTH ON YOUR TUITION LOAN BILL!

Another GREAT job, NANCY!!!!!

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

About a month ago we linked to a story derived from a press release noting suspicious activity near one of the news industry's favorite mouths, Paul Dreck. Unfortunately for the thousands of hacks who deem fit to replace any reporting with his patented blend of hyperbole and ooze, LALA finally gave it some prominence, and while we would like to think the most beloved excuse for the hacks to kick up their feet and take the day off this side of LARRY SABATO may have to answer for himself, we must still gird out loins for his tidal wave of exasperating sound bites into the infinite future.

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: JIMMAH II will come around on "energy-conservation" PORK.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

Okay Billy, what did you say? I want to get your words down right: "pricing...controls...drastic...reduction...medical...innovation...." Got it! I'll make these points in my next article, Billy! Glad to do a favor for a great indu -- friend!

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

OOOH, someone at AmSpec's MAD:

I think it's time to start boycotting Drudge for leaking this major plot development of 24 before the show aired.

Ten years of arrant stupidity, ten years of scoops that turned out to be nothing, ten years of press releases, ten years of retractions, ten years of a rep for SPYWARE (although SiteAdvisor SAYS he doesn't hand it out) and NOW we'd boycott him?

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

...[M]any favorites won.... (Home-page squib)

If news hacks could have an awards show, it would be the Golden Globs. The organizers are "jernalists" (although our favorite gossip columnist Rog always makes fun of their provenance), and they give awards to anything and everything, the way the ad-blurbists hand out their adjectives. "What's good for SUMNER" is what's good for news hacks, and what better way to demonstrate their allegiance than on a night full of tin plate?

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

Perhaps Cuba's much vaunted health care system is not quite as good as everyone says.

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

Oh, NO! Someone's bringing back MAKE ME LAUGH!!!!!

Bobby Van died of brain cancer after emceeing that show. Isn't that warning enough?

Laugh Off, featuring unknown comedians competing for the chance to gain national exposure, resulted from major-market station groups "telling us that they are very concerned about the lack of A-level sitcoms coming off the networks," says October Moon [SIC] President Chuck Larsen.

Maybe that should tell YOU something.

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

For what it's worth Reuters is reporting some sort of earthquake has struck around Tokyo, but no one else is reporting it. It is almost 4:00 a.m. there, according to G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's Mickey Mouse clock.

P. S. "Moderate", it says here. (Via the Freep)

Posted 12:24 PM by Gene

Saudis May Ban Letter ‘X’

Does that include EXXONMOBIL?

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

THIS IS NEWS! Every year USAOKAY!!!!! boasts about all the zillions America's SUPERMEGAGMARKETERS waste on "advertising" in the SUPER BOWL! WELL, with all this talk about how much said same corporations are wasting on CEO pay they're starting to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT! In fact they're having so much trouble with "PERCEPTIONS" VIACON NETWORK hasn't sold out the game yet -- and probably won't.

Only in America....

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

The one-time savior of con-ser-va-tism, the NEWT, says "Reagan taught us to have a banner of bold colors, not pale pastels," and then says his party can't govern with just "the base."

What'll it be, NEWT: vitriolic green or pale pastels?

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

In 1,573 WORDS USAOKAY!!!!!, America's Greatest Sales Pitch, plugs another property:

Coming inside from the cold to greet visitors, he grins and excuses himself: "The cold weather has inspired my nether regions."

We suspect that's where Norm Mailer's gotten his inspiration for some time.

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

I must mention this today, on King National Sales Day: Several months ago someone posted some screenshots from the notorious Warner cartoon "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs." This has long been a cause celebre of certain animation phreaks who believe it's been unjustly slandered. One look at these pictures, however, and it is obvious why the TWXSTERS will never make it public again. If this were Amos 'n' Andy we could understand, but these characters are analogues to hook-nosed Jews, or the slanty-eyed Orientals and retarded Indians who graced too many of this studio's masterworks (and we adore Warner cartoons as much as anyone).

AND YET, we recall how the late Gerry "The Poet" Levin shuddered like the last leaf dangling on the winter bough defending his company's right to distribute [C]RAP, and PEOPLE WARNER probably uses more theatrical blood than anyone else in Hollywood. (We further note the TWXSTERS reacquired this property from MOUTH, whose functionaries so nitpickingly censored cartoons for television they took the joy out of them.) We mustn't forget the reason the FCC has had so much trouble with dirty words is that the people doing the censoring have NO COMMON SENSE. At some point we must sit down and decide what is and isn't beyond the pale. As long as we have TWXSTERS and BRENTS and B. S. DEFENDERS, that point recedes further into the distant future.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Almost ten years and Diana's death STILL wends its way through the courts?

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

Of all the Web sites that punish the surfers, Little Malcolm's is at the top of the list. I have already mentioned his torturing click-through features. Today when I tried clicking to close one of those annoying Flash ads I got myself zapped to the Personal Finance section. Plus his magazine site has these irritating commercials with this dork from this investment...HOUSE with the audio programmed to always start ON. Some sites beg for Firefox -- and to be put out of business.

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Philadelphia has a SISTER CITY in Liverpool! Where 36 construction cranes soar into the sky, and all sorts of arts-craftsy projects are underway, and "the city centre population has risen by 21 per cent since 2000", and no one vomits on the sidewalk anymore! Recognizing this is a quasi-travel kind of story (you do NOT get the truth in travel sections), I must ask -- has the rest of Liverpool been similarly Rendellified? Or is it like us -- a new diamond knob on the door of a decrepit outhouse?

(Via the annoying ArtsJournal.com, which also tells us how Mayor Fruits-'n'-Nuts Rendellified Oakland, and you know in a city like Oakland it hasn't done a thing.)

Posted 9:05 PM by Gene

One of the ways the newsrags try to keep themselves alive (aside from frequent transfusions of staffers and the subsequent leeching thereof) is with profoundly stupid features involving lists. And AMERICA'S LEA -- er, the slightly lesser of the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the news has come up with doozy: asking very (and mostly undeservedly) famous middle-aged people to list three things they'll do with "the rest of their lives." It is not clear how much of it is in earnest and how much of it is self-parody. When the figurehead of the sinister Cerberus vulture-cap firm Mr. Quail, Quayil, QUAYLE says what he'll do you can be sure he'll only do speechmaking and lobbying. On the other hand when ONE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST WRITERS, MISTAH KING, quakes at his keyboard suggesting trying Dubya for "crimes against humanity", it is with the total sincerity of an ass; then again when he suggests that American Idol be canceled it is with the total insincerity of an ass. (His friend in li-te-rah-tee-yure MISTAH BOGOSIAN can't wait to "[r]ead The New York Times [SIC] headline US FORCES LEAVE IRAQ TODAY", which might bring on other heds in that paper -- if it can print. We really do think, though, he should "learn to speak Armenian" -- if it will keep him from speaking English.) Thankfully most of them leave aside the political DEEEEEEEEEEEP THINKING and express the desire to do the sorts of things people are supposed to desire to do but that after further thought (or any thought) they really couldn't care less about. (And really we couldn't care less about the likes of Dr. Wimp except to say the sooner such folk exit the public stage the better.) In short, we get bubbleheads speaking mostly in platitudes, which is fine with an automatic editor like JonBoy and his automatic rag.

Now when will people put something on their to-do lists, be they middle-aged or otherwise -- STOP SUBSCRIBING TO STUPID NEWSRAGS?????

Posted 8:33 PM by Gene

Let's see -- the away team won yesterday's NFL playoff day game and the home team took the nightcap. Today the home team won the day game and the away team took the nightcap.

Is there a -- pattern here?

Posted 12:43 PM by Gene

And speaking of Singin' in the Rain, last weekend it did $8,663,380 at 852 theaters. This weekend it did $8,122,000 at 1,907 theaters.

I am not impressed.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

GOOD HEAVENS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
we're certainly remembering a Sabbath Day here, aren't we?
Posted at 12:08 PM

It would help if you remembered a few more every now and then.

Posted 12:38 PM by Gene

The NEW JACK KENNEDY!!!!! (so says Frank Luntz, who established his credentials as an idiot long ago) can't appeal to the same old JE$$Es.

JACK has a lot of work to do.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

The SONS OF -- NEUHARTH start what threatens to be another new regular sales pitch -- INSTANT CLASSIC MOVIES OF THE YEAR! Almost every film on our cri-TIC's list is an AHThouse flick, including one for television, meaning more of the usual. But in a sidebar he whines about the difficulties of determining classic movies with his super-smooth ease:

•Film history is often in the hands of outside forces. In the late 1950s, the now universally beloved Casablanca (1943 Oscar winner) was sometimes called "the best bad movie ever made." But as decades passed, World War II became more romanticized, leads Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman retained their monumental currency in moviegoer memories, and the film came to be seen as the No. 1 advertisement for the "Warner Bros. style." This is why you hear strains of As Time Goes By over the Warner opening logo.

Pardon me, but the last time I saw Casablanca I heard the strains of Max Steiner's Warner fanfare -- unless I was hallucinating.

•The Roger Maris factor. Though John Ford's The Searchers and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho were huge box office hits at the time, the critics patronized them, just as they did to Maris when he broke Babe Ruth's 34-year seasonal home run record in 1961 while hitting only .269 against depleted quality pitching. But guess what? Nobody matched Maris's feat for almost four decades (and the only foreign substance he'd ingested was Wheaties). Sometimes, it takes us a while to appreciate what we've seen.

WHICH IS WHY TODAY'S MOVIE AD-BLURBISTS ANOINT INSTANT CLASSICS. (We won't say what foreign substances most blurbists ingested while ingesting their B. A.s in English and film theory, their textbooks excluded.)

[SIC] Sages have gotten more squirrelly. Though I love the message board on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), it weds smart, even brilliant, opining with imbecilic rants. An underseen masterpiece like Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole rates five pages of chatter, which doesn't sound out of line. But then you see that last year's Beerfest gets 10, American Pie Presents Band Camp gets 11 and The Break-Up (Jen and Vince anticipating true-life history), 37.

You know, at times there really isn't much difference between smart, even brilliant, opining (hint hint) and imbecilic rants -- especially given what's in the next graf:

[SIC] Some new movies are like new cars: Drive them out of the showroom, and there goes the sticker price. This is another way of saying that the Oscar-hyped Dreamgirls — with its mediocre score and distantly photographed musical numbers too often chopped up by cutting — will soon have a blue book value similar to the entire musical oeuvre of Vincente Minnelli. [Which, if I read this correctly, means Our Generation's Singin' in the Rain will still be worth vastly more than, say, An American in Paris -- because Minnelli directed all or part of sixteen musicals.]

And most movie ad-blurbists are USED-CAR DEALERS!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to MIKE!

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

Florida Restaurants Serve Vietnamese Catfish, Call It Grouper

That's all right; news hacks serve lies and call them truth.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

An old, old, OLD hand at the WaPost moans:

Fortunately, the overall death toll in Iraq so far, while high, is still smaller than it was in Vietnam. [By only about, oh, 55,000. Can news hacks count?] But tragically, the most important difference between the two conflicts may be that defeat in Iraq is likely to produce catastrophic consequences for that nation, its neighbors and the United States, too.

And of course Vietnam produced absolutely NO consequences for Southeast Asia, and for us. Honest, we wonder what these hacks daydream about. Winning P-Ulitzer prizes losing wars?

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

And in the International editions, we guess that Hugo may become the next Fidel. Who knew?

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

America's Lead -- er, NEWSRAG does a little politically correct recycling! While our cover deals with all the three-year-olds WE'RE supposedly turning into young jihadists in Iraq, the rest of the world gets our last week's cover story on menopause! And how many of your international subscribers get the rag by Web? Oh well, at least it isn't Annie Leibovitz.

Elsewhere in America's -- oh never mind, we're told that OJ "confessed" in his book! (In a chapter from an "exclusive" source!) Seeing as what national holiday we're celebrating tomorrow we will never forget the hordes of HACKS who excused OJ because he was black and the victims -- well, let's put it this way: if the Lord God had evidence OJ was guilty, the HACKS will always have THEIR evidence otherwise.