Posted 8:44 PM by Gene

Keating, currently the life insurance industry's top lobbyist in Washington....

[F]ormer Sen. John Breaux, now a high-priced Washington lobbyist....

Wouldn't it be better to elect these clowns as lobbyists?

Posted 8:23 PM by Gene

The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist is in a games-playing mood this week! On our front cover: homeless vets from the War on Terror. We will not ascribe any duplicity to this because we owe our veterans everything, and their treatment should always be above politics, but even with the most careful reporting you still have to wonder. In the Europe and Latin American editions: a CFR high muckamuck opines the League of Nations' new boss is "doomed to fail" -- because of the League of Nations (an odd admission as one would think criticizing the League is a con-SER-va-tive thing; although part of it does seem to be our fault, thank God*). Amazingly (or perhaps not so amazingly) this isn't on the Asian edition's cover, which we reserve for Japan's prime minister and his woes (Japan and Korea -- well, never mind). It might be profitable for our hacks to report once in a while on things like this to which most readers can profess ignorance, instead of focusing their microscopic attention on Anna's mouldering corpse. We do hope though despite the brave words from the rag's show-biz PR boss Devin about "12-year-olds" that we will eventually get a cover plug in. Never soon enough, Devin!

*Although truth to tell it is our fault, in part; we founded the place.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

Speaking of censorship, our state legislative poops have apparently found a new favorite lobby: the video-games'.

Come on, Scott, you know what a resolution is. Raise the white flag and surrender.

Posted 6:49 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: We all want to censor someone, but when someone wants to censor us we cry "free speech." This is often why accusations of censorship meet with plugged ears, including the worthy cases.

By the way, it may not have been so wise to quote from Thomas Jefferson, who had more than a few censorious thoughts about the press himself.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 6:33 PM by Gene

Proof of immortality in Arlington:

"To our amazement, to our total astonishment, all that astounding business success was less important than one poll," Krivkovich wrote. "They wanted us to make them famous; we did that in spades. ... But the TV ads did not make the top 10 in the USA Today poll--a poll that everyone knows doesn't mirror results (see the continuing Bud sales decline for one!)--they just told us they will do a creative review.

"Wait a minute we said, what about the incredible growth that is going on, the shares, the revenue, the awareness, the two best internet sites ever, the massive buzz, etc, etc. What about all of that? That's huge. `Yes,' they responded, `but [Cramer-Krasselt] didn't get the top ten in the USA Today poll.' Hold on ... we crushed every possible business metrics/barometer for success. Out of all the metrics and polls, it's all about this one? You have to be ... kidding, right!? `No, that's it. It's because of the poll.' That was about the extent of the conversation."

Is any further evidence needed that USAOKAY!!!!! and some of its most slavish followers are full of it?

But then again -- the client is part-owned by GanNETt.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

John Hancock, Paul Revere and Samuel Adams pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor so some idiot British firm could stage a ghoulish contest that would have had hundreds rooting among their crypts.

The reverse Robin Hoods on MadAve have a new official motto: "No Sense!™"

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

I wish I knew why we're so eager to abandon -- treat our children to technology. This notion that infants should watch television is probably not that much worse than the notion that infants should bang on keyboards, but every second spent letting boxes raise our kids is one less for flesh-and-blood parents to do it. And that boxes don't have bad days is hardly an excuse.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Public organizations may brim with delusions of catharsis when they apologize for their role in slavery ("The resolution does not carry the weight of law but sends an important symbolic message, supporters said." Why must the ASSPress always resemble state media?), but one fears they set the stage for 1. Demands for ever more politically correct public speech and 2. Demands for reparations. Those who think slavery apologies are wholesome or of no real consequence may want to ponder that, but they won't because the symbolic step is always the easiest.

Posted 12:21 PM by Gene

Do we really have to go through another presidential campaign watching the NYT's Adam Nagourney get spun?

Do we really have to go through another presidential campaign watching pundits and SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS become obsessed with trivia?

And of course Jo-NAH says Mick "is just good at punditry. He really, really is." Meaning if you have a name on the Web you can coast forever.

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

Morgan Stanley paid $35 million to Neal Shear, the co-head of trading, making him the firm's second highest-paid manager in 2006 after Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Mack.

Stories like this almost make one wish for a recession.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

The owner of People Weekly and TMZ.com and the leading waste of bandwidth in cable news insists a certain overexposed celebrity be given a chance to recover.

Does any media empire run more mea-culpas than PEOPLE WARNER?

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

No, you're NOT going to get $95 a share for CHEAP CHANNEL again!

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT!

Yes, I think we can see why Boobs McKeating's laughing.

I'm sure all the con-SER-va-tive pundits are drooling over Ah-NULT in the Senate. I don't know; he could become Sen. O'Spector with an accent.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

Barney Frank, who would have made a good center square on The Hollywood Squares, and who would have bluffed all the time, insists there is such a thing as honest graft:

Asked whether banking interests feel obligated to give to Democrats when he asks them for contributions, Frank answered: "Obligated? No. Incentivized? Yes." Frank said, however, that those donating "understand, and others do, too, that there are no guarantees of my doing what they want, or even my being pleasant."

TRANSLATION: The hell with pleasantries, I'm getting what's coming to me!

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

I see con-SER-va-tives quaking and fuming: the Feds have shaken down Univision for not producing enough kiddie programming. We may wonder if such mandates do any good; most likely the LBO clowns buying the outfit will merely tweak the schedule. Besides it's a tiny price to pay for such a big purchase. Indeed if the Feds had to fine braodcasters for not living up to their obligations they'd own the whole business.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

AMERICANS UNDERESTIMATE IRAQ DEATH TOLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

So says an ASSPress poll.

Amazing about these news hacks: they give us the platitudes, and the Our Town routine, and tell us how wonderful we are, and then try to manipulate us through public opinion polls, and when they think we're stupid conduct polls to prove our stupidity, platitudes notwithstanding. Okay, lots of people have died in Iraq, but does that mean the public is stupid?

Which raises a question: What makes the hacks think all these bells and whistles they're adding to their Web sites in a panic will make us respect them any better?

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

U.N. Chief Meets With Waldheim

Now why would any idiot do a thing like that?

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

This is not good news: TNR's going bi-weekly. It's sad that its "new configuration of owners" feels there isn't enough content to justify weekly publication, and TNR was better able to justify it than many other weeklies. (And no, "doubling" the number of pages does not hide the circ decline.) They can't say they've been pouring resources into the Web as TNR's site is a fraction of NR's. (They do say they're "redesigning" the site with -- more videos.) Still we must remember TNR is not just a political rag, and we further recall how The New Leader folded, and an act like this says that if magazines become irrelevant the publishers will have to apportion themselves some blame first.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Still more hopelessly naive and unwittingly venal people believe show-biz can change its tawdry ways through "education."



Day is done, gone the sun....

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Our Juxtaposition of the Week on IWantMedia:

Videos Have Net Bursting at the Seams
Chicago Tribune
YouTube video clips that Internet users send to friends gobble up large chunks of bandwidth and may cause the Internet to crash, according to some telecom industry professionals. A recent report from Deloitte raises the possibility that Internet demand will exceed capacity this year.

Happily there may be a solution, as suggested in the post following:

YouTube to 'Lose Popularity' After Google Filters Content
San Jose Mercury News
Under pressure from media companies, Google plans to start filtering videos on YouTube for copyrighted materials, using technology from the firm Audible Magic. Google's move, however, is expected drive away much of YouTube's audience to non-filtered video-sharing sites.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

The League of Nations may reward Hosni the Thug for imprisoning a blogger by holding an Internet forum there.

Why not? Perhaps it could have its Human Rights Farce help organize it.

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

St. Warren of Buffett owns part of an oil company that does business in -- Sudan?

Horrors!

Posted 4:46 PM by Gene

A lin-guist at the Uni-VUH-sity of Cali-FOH-nia at...BUHK-ley gasifies:

With Iraq, "the antiwar movement has been much more careful. You never see attacks on the troops. I think the Democrats have actually been aggressive in responding to that, saying, `We don't want American lives lost in this pointless war.' Which is not what was happening in Vietnam, where the left reacted to the war as Western imperialism," Nunberg said.

Meantime the idiot pollster Frank Luntz breaks wind for the 517th time this week, with a "pullout quote" (?!?):

The best counter-punch for anti-war Democrats seeking to blunt attacks that they don't `support the troops': "`You support them by bringing them home.' That's probably the best line they have at this point," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist.

If Orwell taught us anything, it's that politicians (and their helpers, be they lin-guists or pollsters) will always use the language to lie.

By the way, Clatch, why do you refer to your wire service as KRT?

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

Another big-name muscle-flexing Hollywood insider thinks she knows everything:

Everyone seems to suspect that the movie he or she dislikes most will win.

Say Kim, when was the last time you saw a movie you liked?

If only the uncertainty made for real excitement.

That's okay -- five million hacks and ten million bloggers can make it up.

By the way, Kim, when was the last time you watched a movie, as opposed to pontificating over one?

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

AP: Senior aide says ex-Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack to quit presidential bid.

Tom who?

No wonder he quit his bid.

Sorry Tom, Jimmah comes once a century, thank God.

Posted 8:50 PM by Gene

INDESCRIBABLE TRAGEDY IN BRANSON EAST: As expected, The Greatest Musical of All Time is closing -- nine years before The Paper of Re-CORD predicted it would. ASSPress is spinning it as a triumph, but face it, without The Boys it hardly ever drew standing room, and the "hoary" jokes grew hoarier and hoarier -- even the show's greatest publicist Mr. Heilpern admitted how the dense Japanese tourists didn't laugh at the swishy gay jokes. We suspect the film-version bomb didn't sell many seats. Now, having earned a probably inflated "$1 billion" for the likes of CHEAP CHANNEL (whose name is amazingly missing from the list of backers -- well all right, it's called "Live Nation"), The Greatest Musical can join The Black Crook as a "huge" hit that became a worthless historical relic.

Thankfully a musical sitcom will be replacing this particular theme park, and will probably also run six years, but we would not be surprised if the Branson East "critical" community is slightly more on guard this time. Then again we would not be surprised if it isn't.

P. S. In other movie news, Rog says another Branson East theme park is going up, based on a certain Margaret Mitchell novel. "'Gone with the Wind' has somehow avoided being turned into a musical all these many years", he confidently exults, not knowing someone else already did it -- for the Japanese. It never left Japan.

CORRECTION on 3/18/2007 at 6:40 p.m.: The show, called Scarlett, and written by Harold Rome, played in London in 1972 and Los Angeles in 1973, but didn't do well in either town.

Posted 8:36 PM by Gene

AP NEWS ALERT!

Officials say Senate Democrats are drafting legislation to limit the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq.

And which friends of yours would these "officials" be?

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

Another magazine makes another list:

The airline originally came in at No. 4 on our list--J.D. Power surveyed customers in early 2006--and it has a history of great service. But in the wake of such a massive operational meltdown, we decided to take a wait-and-see approach this year before naming it one of our Customer Service Champs.

That would seem the -- prudent thing.

Posted 6:50 PM by Gene

The Greeley Tribune has agreed to end a years-old practice of copying stories from competing newspapers and falsely labeling them as Associated Press stories, the newspaper’s publisher said today.

“That’s clearly a very bad journalism practice,” said Steve Weaver, the Tribune’s publisher.

And how does that differ from what most news hacks do? Or the ASSPress?

Or bloggers?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

One further wonders if we can ever trust politicians to be doctors -- especially doctors with bulging wallets.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

Water trouble in the Desert Southwest:

The Colorado River Basin is more prone to drought than had been thought, a panel of experts reported yesterday, and as the climate warms and the population in the region grows, pressure on water supplies will become greater....

The panel, organized by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Science, noted that the water allocation agreement for the basin, the Colorado River Compact, was negotiated in 1922 based on river flow records dating to the 1890s, when gauging stations were established. The agreement assumed that the annual river flow was 16.4 million acre feet — enough to cover 16.4 million acres to a depth of one foot.

But for some time, the panel said, researchers have known that the early 20th century was unusually wet and that 15 million acre feet was a more accurate estimate of the flow. Recent studies based on tree rings put the figure lower still — as low as 13 million acre feet — and suggest that “drought episodes are a recurrent and integral feature of the region’s climate.”

Because trees grow more when it is wet, scientists use tree ring size as an indicator of water abundance. The report says the federal Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies requested the panel’s review in the wake of the new findings.

So to get an answer about climate we have to ask more questions, each question merely leading to new questions. So "the early 20th century was unusually wet." Why was that? Did that have anything to do with man and climate change? Scientists use tree rings to measure these things. How can we be sure things like tree rings are that reliable? And note that we only have definitive measurements from the Colorado Basin from "the 1890s." What of the eons before that? Dread global warming will make things worse, we're happily assured. But why couldn't global warming bring on heavy rains? It's allegedly done it elsewhere. It's "caused" frigid weather in many areas. We're getting to the point where global warming is a catchall scapegoat for unusual weather, when unusual is often the norm in weather (thus saith the first cliché of weather reporting).

Why do we suspect for all its hardware (satellites! Doppler radar!!) in many ways meteorology is one of the least advanced of the sciences? And how can we trust people who are essentially the theologians for throbbing-bunyon TV weathermen, performing a function just one step removed from politics?

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

Speaking of ultraliberal, somebody at an ultraliberal Web site ties himself into inextricable knots making satire (or so we think) about the right terms for blacks, Hispanics, and other politically correct groups -- which would be a laugh if these same ultraliberals hadn't twisted themselves into inextricable knots devising these terms in the first place.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily)

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

The Big O shows fits and starts of thinking:

Anderson Cooper: "...He is the only person who has not been informed that he is a marketing experiment." [We could say something about this guy's salary, but we'll let it pass.]

Glenn Beck: "A wolf in sheep's clothing. A very dangerously bigoted guy who's selling himself as a pragmatic philosopher. I don't think he sees his own bigotry. There's something about him that suggests one night he will say something that costs him his career in television."

Nancy Grace: "Anybody who would embellish the story of their own fiance's murder should spend that hour a day not on television but in a psychiatrist's chair. Really."

And now the brain clicks loudly shut as he goes back to being the ultraliberal No-Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Zone.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Another watermark for high-tech:

90% Of E-mail Will Be Spam By Year End

A flood of spam coming out of China and South Korea is fueling a 30% jump in spam levels in just the past week.

We don't know if this is one of those "scare" stats, but judging from my old Netscape account that figure might be low.

Jim "Boom! Boom!" Cramer can appreciate it this: a quarter of all spam is alleged to be financial-scam related. I smell the Big C!

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Another triumph for The World's Oldest Adolescent: equal pay at Wimbledon.

We would frown that this is another bit of PC business until we realize that men earn oceans more money than women in all sport. We suspect the coma that is professional tennis is virtually the only sport where "equality" obtains. What can the righteous news hacks do about that?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

The Every Child a Dilbert Act may not be working out quite as intended. Of course we can't fully trust test scores or grades, as the former are fickle as public opinion polls, and the latter are subject to inflation, but somehow -- and don't tell us where we absorbed this notion -- we doubt that teaching to the test is necessarily teaching to learn. And then comes this "surprising" statistic:

More students live in homes where adults have a college degree — 47% in 2005, compared to only 41% in 1992.

But then what goes on in college, and in most colleges, is hardly education.

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

AP NEWS ALERT!

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.N. nuclear chief says Iran has refused to suspend its enrichment of uranium as demanded by the U.N. Security Council.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

Number 2 on the PaperofRe-Cord.com's Most E-Mailed list:

Recipe: Italian Meatballs

Which follows

A Grandchild of Italy Cracks the Spaghetti Code

Hey who knew Pinch was Italiano?

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

Hosni the Thug has put a blogger in jail for four years because he didn't like him.

Let's see how the normally over-loquacious world of the loudmouths responds to this injustice.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

Still more late-breaking need-to-know news from the ASSPress:

Males stand further away when talking to other males in the virtual world of Second Life and are less likely to keep eye contact, according to a study that shows at least one aspect of human behavior carries over into the virtual realm.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Paris in racial insult video
PARIS Hilton caught on tape using the word "n-gger" and calling another girl a "public school b-tch".

Sighhhhhhhhh, there goes SLIME's girlfriend, acting above her class again.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Pat yourself on the back, Honorary Mayor Mike:

It's official: New York City is nation's tax capital

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

Another masterwork from The Conspiracy:

Gimmicky numerology plus Jim Carrey minus narrative coherence equals "The Number 23," a visually and psychologically murky thriller that, given its hero's paranoid obsession with the titular number, plays like a very grungy episode of "Sesame Street."

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

Gates: Windows Vista Has Had 'Incredible Reception!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' (Overemphasis added)

Hey Bugmeister! When do you go into your humanitarian sunset?

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

Still more late-breaking need-to-know news from the ASSPress:

A man says he broke into an apartment with a cavalry sword because he thought he heard a woman being raped, but the sound actually was from a pornographic movie his upstairs neighbor was watching.

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Entertainment Highlights in History

...and none of them before 1957, so we can add the ASSPressians to the "don't know much about history" list.

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

Better news: GE BANCORP AND REALTY's putting ads in buses!

With all the money it could make annoying the living daylights out of people why would Little Jeffy even think of a spinoff?

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

GE BANCORP AND REALTY asks:

'Are You Too Gringo?'

WE BRING PC TO LIFE!!!!!

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

A Democratic Party strategist said: “This is the final proof of President Bush’s complete international isolation. He cannot now even count on the support of America’s closest ally, having put the -- special relationship with your nation under such strain that it is now a breaking point, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!” (Overemphasis and last word added)

Yep, I guess they do want to see us lose.

I guess also I fell for Adolescent's line.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Zimbabwe, the world's fastest shrinking economy [!], will nationalize diamond mining in an attempt to arrest the slump that began when President Robert Mugabe's government started seizing white-owned farms seven years ago.

Good luck!

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

The WaPost reports on Sandy Burglar's burglary?

We thought that was a right-wing psychosis!

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

And the latest breaking news (which seems to have broken over two hours ago) is that The World's Oldest Adolescent is withdrawing some unneeded soldiers from Iraq, which of course our hacks are inevitably spinning as a victory for their side -- never mind the British forces are a fraction of ours.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

I've said it before, I'll say it again: if news hacks spent as much time and energy in needed reporting as on inflicting private tragedies on us, we wouldn't have somebody yelling and screaming for papers to "hire hire hire!!!!!"

And natch the lead story on Miami.com is -- you-know-who and her mother.

(Greg-link via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS, many of them still angry that their stock won't ever sell for $90 a share again, commission an interview with the outgoing savior of Goodthings Entertainment Mr. Wright, who says what their unhappy ears have longed to hear: that People Warner and Goodthings would make "a great combination"!



The same sort of thing Steve 'n' Gerry said eight years ago.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

So -- which equivocating anti-abortionist is more anti-abortion?

Posted 3:25 PM by Gene

Unrelated:

TV news treats Anna Nicole as though she were Princess Di

"Good Morning America" calls hiccuping girl's home 57 times

Definitely unrelated.

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

Mandated use of fluorescent bulbs (and that's what it is) may be a necessary idea, but how much of the savings will be smothered by increasingly energy-hogging computers?

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

Just how stupid can the news biz get? TNR has started an Os-CAR® blog!

OR: Liberal bloggers can be just as dumb about movies as con-SER-va-tives.

Posted 12:51 PM by Gene

The forward march of tolerance in the Islamic world:

A Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil.

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

SIX OF ONE: Democrats want felons and illegals to vote to boost their counts.

HALF-A-DOZEN OF THE OTHER: Republicans institute voter ID programs to hold down Democratic counts.

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

The Supreme Court threw out a $79.5 million punitive damages award to a smoker's widow Tuesday, a boon to businesses seeking stricter limits on big-dollar jury verdicts.

The 5-4 ruling was a victory for Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA, which contested an Oregon Supreme Court decision upholding the verdict.

Conservatives did it!

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

The chimera of productivity:

Despite numerous 'advances' in both technology and technique, it would appear the creation of software takes just as long today as it did many years ago. There is no sign that any of the numerous expensive tools or the many heavily documented 'new' development methods have had the slightest impact. That is a sobering thought....

[I]t is hard to see that Vista is a worthwhile result for the efforts of thousands of developers. If we have failed to increase productivity significantly over several decades, does it really make sense to devote such a huge resource to a mere operating system?

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

Corn Farms Replace New York Lofts as Hottest Property

Bubble!

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

THE GREATEST THREAT TO WORLD PEACE IS FOR ISRAEL TO BOMB IRAN'S NUCLEAR FACILITIES!!!!!

When that Paramount exec at Variety makes it the centerpiece of a column, you know Bionic 'Do must have said something.

(Via -- alas -- NRO)

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

The Labour Party has a Republican problem.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Goodthings Entertainment coms up with a brilliant idea for -- monetizing its properties:

"Dame Chocolate" follows the usual conventions of Latin melodrama. A father loses his daughter, moves to the U.S. from Mexico and starts a successful chocolate business. Years later and terminally ill, he is reunited with his poor, estranged daughter and heiress.

Derek Gordon, Clorox's VP-marketing, described the novela as "passion and romance and love of chocolate." Not to mention cleaning products.

Worked with script writers
Rodrigo Figueroa Reyes, Fire's president and executive creative director, worked with Telemundo's novela writers to help them identify where in the script it made sense to include four Clorox products: wipes, liquid bleach, Glad plastic bags and Pine-Sol.

"We have script approval," Mr. Gordon said, adding: "Our content fits very organically. We don't want to be disruptive."

In one Clorox moment, the heroine returns from Mexico carrying a Mayan flower crucial to the secret chocolate-making formula the bad guys are after. Only Glad plastic bags can preserve the flower's freshness.

This is the sort of thing S. J. Perelman foresaw in some of his tiresome New Yorker pieces. His estate should sue.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

"A lot of teenagers think they are indestructible, and many teenagers are into these cheap thrills. So, what causes a 16-year-old to pick up an AK-47 and shoot it into a group of people? No sane adult would do that," said Johnson.

"When you look at a youngster whose cognitive development is not there," Johnson added, "and they associate this with something they've seen on television or in the movies, it's little wonder at times that they behave the way that they do...."

And nothing will change until companies like ESPNCorp stop flouting their responsibilities, which will be never.

Posted 8:54 PM by Gene

I suppose we should have heard by now of the concert pianist who recorded dozens of albums by other concert pianists but this is classical, and we have other musical geniuses to deal with.

And that the respected review rag Gramophone could rave them says something about where most reviews of any kind can go.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily)

Posted 8:27 PM by Gene

“The dog probably saved their lives” by lying across them during the cold night, said Erik Brom, a member of the Portland Mountain Rescue team.

Good doggie!

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Money is moving from spec residential building to spec commercial building, meaning another wave of unneeded malls and office parks, and more properties that take forever to fill.

(NOTE: My indefinite ban on caps does not apply the headings.)

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

A brother of the mayor of Philadelphia was arrested Monday on outstanding traffic warrants, authorities said.

T. Milton Street, who says he is running for his brother's office, was arrested at a 7-Eleven in this Philadelphia suburb, said police Lt. Howard Mann.

One of the warrants, from Moorestown, carries a $2,500 penalty and the second, from nearby Pennsauken, carries a $750 fine, Mann said. He did not have details about the violations.

But see, they happened in another town.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday the war in Iraq has been mismanaged for years and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will be remembered as one of the worst in history.

And what mash notes did he toss his way when things went well?

Who says this is boring?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Looking back on my earliest posts -- yes, I finally switched over to the "new" Blogger, which is a darned sight better than the old; but why couldn't the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View have done this three years ago? -- I see once upon a time I did not use caps. I'm so ashamed it's my present practice I've decided to ditch it, for now; a blogger who uses caps uses a crutch, and given my lack of hits I need all the feet I can get, just so long as they don't wind up in my mouth.

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

Two hits today. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanybody out there?!?!?

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

Oops! Nukeman's stiffing his good buddy-buddies the Russians over delays in building his reactor?

There is no honor among -- the international community.

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

CONSPIRACY!!!!!

Accuracy in Media has released a new report examining charges that a former Carter Administration official is behind a sinister campaign to create a North American Union that will submerge American sovereignty in a trilateral entity consisting of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The report is available at http://www.aim.org.

Let's think about it for a second: a merger of two politically correct nations with their sugar daddy. Hasn't this been happening for a while?

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

Another hack provides another blazing excuse for his fellow hacks not doing their jobs right. Need one remind anybody of the spate of trivial stories "pounded into the ground" in the summer of 2001?

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

Breathless insight from our local newspaper monopoly:

BASEBALL DEFENSE is not a lost or dying art as it is fashionable to claim. Each of the minimum of 27 outs it takes to win a game requires the baseball to be caught at least once.

I know, I know, it sounds worse out of context, but that's how it appears on the home page.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

Britney’s bald head: Cry for help?

Why does it sound like a LAUGH?

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

Advice from a "trusted" "e-friend" of Jo-NAH's about the latest box-office smash:

Don't go see this- [SIC] it is such megacrap, it makes the FF look like Spiderman [SIC]. So bad, so boring.

We wonder what Jo-NAH would think -- after all, isn't every CGI movie Spider-Man?

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

So Zogby did another poll that shows the Arabs love us. Ho-hum.

We really need BIGMEDIA to do what it calls "blogs"?

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

I think we've found the next Ben Brantley!!!!!

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

And what will be our answer? As it always is -- to sink more money into DER HOMELAND, money we'd more productively dump into an incinerator.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Pakistan is a haven for terrorists and intends to do nothing about it because its best-selling prez doesn't want to die.

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

Misery loves companies -- and creates a CHEAP CHANNEL of SATRADIO!

LOWSY MAYS is smiling.

According to the source, XM Chairman Gary Parsons will retain that title in the combined entity, with Karmazin likely taking the CEO role.

Let's see how long THAT lasts.

Posted 10:42 PM by Gene

Speaking of Toyota, TRANSLATION: The next WAL-MART?

Hey con-SER-va-tives! Here's another cause to clasp to your withered bosoms!

[T]he Detroit Free Press recently obtained an internal report by Seiichi Sudo, president of North American Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing, that outlined potential societal and governmental hazards from, among other things, the carmaker's use of foreign-made parts and its relative lack of minority suppliers here. [Link added]

Definitely!

But hey -- there are always RECALLS to look forward to.

Posted 10:28 PM by Gene

I guess this is what the hacks HAVE to call a CLASSIC, but you must wonder what NASCAR and its fans would be like without CRASHES.

Toyota's best was apologetic Michael at 30TH, for what that's worth.

Posted 10:13 PM by Gene

Well, it's official: DaimlerCorp's trying to sell its American stub for -- $14 BILLION? That seems a bit much for a cast-off.

And one of the bidders may be Hyundai, which will REALLY help with its rep.

Posted 10:13 PM by Gene

Another of the late Gene "Thumbs-UP!!!!!" Siskel's replacements gets five "cri-TICS" together to discuss the Os-CARS®, and how apt that he leads with the cri-TIC for The Onion (?), as the whole thing is an exercise in CW comedy.

Posted 10:10 PM by Gene

"Mug" Whitman punches herself in the eye again, and no longer seems to care, as the shiner's permanent.

(Via SLIME, who HAD to tell us)

Posted 2:14 PM by Gene

Well -- here we think the TWXSTERS have done a good deed, only to discover one of ER's henchmen ran a piece of...PR entitled

Has Jim Carrey Flipped Out?

whose sole purpose is to plug a property (and why is it the hacks increasingly resort to ironic titles with negative connotations to hed their show-biz press releases? Are they wise to us, or are they merely trying to be more synergistic and insulting?) -- and of COURSE it's a PEOPLE WARNER property, so...

Despite the good reporting on pilfering priests, we retract our praise and bestow a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to JOEL!

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

THE troubled EMI music group is examining a radical plan to borrow £1 billion against its prized publishing business, which manages the rights to more than 1m songs.

Didn't Wacko Jacko do the same thing?

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

If ever any area deserved gridlock, it's the area that epitomizes it -- The BELTWAY. The situation's so bad it led "a spokesman for AAA's Mid-Atlantic motor club" to poetically opine:

"Even the politicians can't solve the problem, because they can't agree on how to solve the problem. We're a first-class city with Third World infrastructure."

No, we can do better: you're a FOURTH-WORLD city with a FIRST-WORLD EGO with a Third-World infrastructure.

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

Notwithstanding the presence of a skunk word like ETHICIST, we can see where sports imbue an ETHIC of cheating. How many CEOs and Congresspoops like to flex their muscles about how they were big in this sport and that in college? How many of them believe in the noxious old LOMBARDIAN belch, "Winning isn't everything -- it's the only thing"? And how many of them manage to avoid living behind bars because their cheating gave them the knowledge to rig the system?

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

Meantime Useless News fills up its Web site with a Worst Presidents poll (sigggghhhhhhhhhhh), and Number Eight is a not-so-tacit admission of these parlor games' frequent stupidity:

Alas, poor [William Henry] Harrison. That the ninth president makes any list at all is an act of scholarly injustice. The Virginian's greatest claim to fame was defeating the Shawnees in 1811 at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Delivering the longest inaugural address in U.S. history, he came down with pneumonia that made his 30-day presidency the shortest in U.S. history. Death would seem sufficient punishment for long-windedness; historians are guilty of piling on.

PILE ON!

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

This was inevitable: a convention of YouTube Trekkies.

When does DEVIN say YouTube's better than TV?

(Via the inevitable Slashdot)

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

Now we won't give the TWXSTERS the benefit of the doubt -- after all, they pioneered the notion of insulting your reader's intelligence -- but dammit they somehow managed to find something newsworthy that could go in a rag, without resorting to a show-biz-press release or a service feature: a story on priests who steal from their parishes. Why would you rather run the ass DEVIN, JonBoy?

But as in the sex-abuse crisis, many are asking, Where are the bishops?

Where they usually are: a.) In their churches or b.) With their heads buried in the sand, which are both the same thing.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

On the cover of THE WORLD'S LEADING NEWSR -- you know: "Men and Depression." That means we must be LOSING everywhere else in the world! Let's see:

Nope -- "Exclusive access" to THE WORLD'S OLDEST ADOLESCENT! JonBoy has perfected the art of being a newsrag editor: he obviously thought an interview with this once-"brilliant" world leader turned miscreant would bore the American Gothic readers in the heartland (wherever that is), so he bores us with another SERVICE feature! I think JonBoy would give us ALL BRITNEY ALL THE TIME! if he thought it could pay. God knows enough editors do.

Well, there's one saving grace -- we make him look like DUBYA on the cover!

Elsewhere in our xenophobic edition -- let me guess -- TV IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!! Am I right?

It's our leading PR executive Devin...

RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's dangerous to make broad generalizations about TV versus film without sounding as though you're comparing apples and tubas....

But hey, tubas are delicious! A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD to DEVIN!

Figures Tuba Man would rhapsodize over Lost -- as its audience is plunging through the floor, perhaps in part because of the GENIUS that made it ONE OF THE GREATEST SHOWS OF ALL TIME.

Soon it'll be summertime, and the annual march of the sequels will resume. "Spider-Man 3." "Shrek 3." The third "Pirates of the Caribbean." The fourth "Die Hard." The fifth "Harry Potter."

If that list excites you, there's probably a simple explanation: you're 12.

Or A NEWSRAG PR EXECUTIVE -- as we'll find out when you inflict us with AT LEAST ONE COVER STORY. We'll be WAITING.