Posted 2:32 PM by Gene

While the subprime market whirled toward disaster, The Street was up to its old tricks:

On March 1, a Wall Street analyst at Bear Stearns wrote an upbeat report on a company that specializes in making mortgages to cash-poor homebuyers. The company, New Century Financial, had already disclosed that a growing number of borrowers were defaulting, and its stock, at around $15, had lost half its value in three weeks. [Actually, two "analysts."]

What happened next seems all too familiar to investors who bought technology stocks in 2000 at the breathless urging of Wall Street analysts. Last week, New Century said it would stop making loans and needed emergency financing to survive. The stock collapsed to $3.21. [FIRST TWO GRAFS]

Why not be upbeat? The Street can go right smack into the business for itself! Including Bear Stearns!

“The regulators are trying to figure out how to work around it, but the Hill is going to be in for one big surprise,” said Josh Rosner, a managing director at Graham-Fisher & Company, an independent investment research firm in New York, and an expert on mortgage securities. “This is far more dramatic than what led to Sarbanes-Oxley,” he added, referring to the legislation that followed the WorldCom and Enron scandals, “both in conflicts and in terms of absolute economic impact.”

That would be an achievement. Or would it?

Meanwhile, back on March 1:

If New Century is forced to sell itself or liquidate, the stock could still be worth $10 to $11, according to Coren and Nannizzi.

That's a bargain.

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

Even as vast hordes of unaccompanied kids make it into another R movie, one of THE CONSPIRACY's mouthpieces is worried:

The ultimate fear is that watchdog groups and Washington lawmakers could try to exert political pressure on the industry -- precisely the reason Valenti started the system in the 1960s.

And, of course, there is always the worry that the ratings system will somehow make its way into the 2008 election campaigns.

Pray, brother -- pray!

And of course the biz continues to daydream about The Gene Siskel Memorial Arthouse Rating:

As one studio exec puts it, "There really needs to be a good, commercial movie that can break through the tide. The problem is, most of the NC-17 films have been niche or arthouse. It's unclear whether the problem is the rating or the movie."

How about both?

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll says 55 percent of those surveyed consider honesty, integrity and other values of character the most important qualities they look for in a presidential candidate.

Just one-third look first to candidates' stances on issues; even fewer focus foremost on leadership traits, experience or intelligence.

On that character point, it would seem all the candidates are in trouble (except possibly Abe "JFK" Lincoln, who lives in a world of his own); on intelligence, well, we knew that all along. Look at some of the presidents we've elected.

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

Will James Brown ever be buried?

The hacks would no doubt follow this except that Brown was black, male, and not pretty.

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

Subprime Defaults Are `Beginning of Wave,' Bies Says

Wave or tsunami?

Posted 11:43 AM by Gene

And speaking of censorship, B. S. DEFENDER lightly weighs in on blogging "ethics":

"The problem is the advertisers are trying to buy a blogger's voice, and once they've bought it they own it," said Jeff Jarvis....

The answer, of course, is to do what he and his formerly fellow TWXSTERS do: insinuate themselves onto the hand that feeds them. Hacks with the PEOPLE WARNER mentality never take bribes. They don't have to.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

Two would-be Glibertarians quote Volokhead and say the answer to filth on the air is "freeing up more airwaves", thus leading to more filth.

Is the Glibertarians' cluelessness intentional?

Really Little Malcolm should stick to his headline-gathering idiot lists.

Posted 11:29 AM by Gene

Another news Web site "improves", following USAOKAY!!!!!'s idiot example and ditching heds in favor of blogs and comments. If newspaper Web sites become glorified blogs what then is the point of newspapers even running Web sites?

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

Well here's a switch: the extremists will be running Northern Ireland.

Good luck!

Posted 11:17 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the land of the marble temples surrounded by a swamp of smelly rot, the locals seem agitated that some con-SER-va-tive court (oh, we'll think of a way) declared their gun-control law unconstitutional. Naturally con-SER-va-tives are doing the kind of Scottish fandango or whatever they'd be doing if Sen. O'Spector hadn't done it first, and liberals are whining and gnashing their teeth over the loss of life that wouldn't matter if this were abortion. We would surmise given the moral excellence of DC it will hardly matter if it has a gun law or no, for not a single elected official there has a clue over crime, nor (given its leadership heritage) may necessarily want one.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Whatever happened to Lord Koppel? Oh, he just made a documentary. And he came up with the brilliant idea that we'll be fighting the War on Terror for awhile. People stopped talking about Johnny Carson when he quit. Johnny who?

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

No. 1. How many unaccompanied under-17s? and No. 2. They'll be screaming for the exits today.

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

If Devin, who could not be paid to insult show-biz, and who will someday become one of its brightest lights alongside Paul Attanasio and Ben Stein, says a sitcom is bad, it must be BAD.

Posted 8:57 PM by Gene

How did GE BANCORP AND REALTY get into the subprime mess?

I haven't the foggiest idea.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Bill O'Reilly's Web Site Taken Down By DoS Attack

KEITH DID IT!!!!!

Just kidding. But we suspect THE NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE won't be.

Paul Ferguson, a network architect with TrendMicro Inc., a Cupertino, Calif.-based security company, says this is a wake-up call for Web sites with a political bent, much like O'Reilly's. As the upcoming presidential election heats up, more and more candidates, pundits and every-day bloggers are taking to the Net to weigh in. That, says Ferguson, will draw a new wave of attacks.

Great: dueling hackers!

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

Gov. Eliot Spitzer is considering scrapping a $1.8 billion expansion of New York City’s convention center in favor of a bigger design.

OH oh, are we about to have a new wave of white ele -- er, convention-center building?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

"I would like to see this campaign conducted on past record and ambition for the future," McCain told reporters after a fundraising luncheon in Charlotte, N.C. "I would hope that gossip - or, quote, 'family issues' - would not enter into this campaign."

TRANSLATION: This campaign will hit a new low of profitable mudslinging.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

I used to think the USAOKAY!!!!! approach would cure some of the ills of newshackery. After all, few save P-Ulitzer judges want to read 50,000 words on the snail darter. There is something to be said for the pithy. But maybe not too much. When I see a blurb like this on WaPost.com:

● E.J. Dionne Jr.: Who's Hyperpartisan?

I know a pithy answer: NOT ME! Or at least not my side. That's why I won't click on the link. But then too many colyumnists can be read in three words or less, and sometimes zero.

Posted 12:16 PM by Gene

In IWantMedia links, SLIME surpasses SUMNER!

Hey, SLIME's in the Web fantasy biz.

And the ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY has "apologized" to SUMNER for making a richly-earned derogatory remark. So much for TRUTHINESS, or whatever he wants to call it. TRANSLATION: Eric made the remark the way Ms. Jackson bared her boob.

P. S. Last words for Web 2.0:

I now spend most of my time fending off the same type of spam that used to litter my dial-up AOL account, while ignoring endless ads for the True singles service. The random, out-of-the-blue friend request, one can bet, will soon reveal itself to be a proposition for lesbian Web-cam sex or a mortgage refi.

...and Web 3.0, and Web 4.0, and....

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

THEIR OLD TRICKS: The Dems will take all that money we'll save ending an IMMORAL, UNJUST, AND EEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL WAR and POUR it onto every HYER-EHDYUKAYSHUNAL factory in America until every campus SMOTHERS in dough, not that any learning will occur, but that's never the point.

[T]he House of Representatives Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher Education, Competitiveness and Lifelong Learning....

Couldn't we add the hereafter?

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

NOW people are sick of [C]RAP?!?!?

I guess we can afford to run this since we're not in the record biz anymore.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

When in doubt, reorganize, which is what Coca-Cola has just done. Reorganization is another way of saying people may no longer love your product as much.

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

"The new New Republic"!

We sorta liked the old one better.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

The president spreads the gospel of ethanol to a converted Brazil, and the ASSPress is angry:

Demonstrators upset with Bush's visit here worry that the president and his biofuels buddy, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, really have visions of an OPEC-like cartel on ethanol. [Impartial ASSPress emphasis added]

Dubya has visions of anything?

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

No wonder people don't mind ads at the movies anymore -- they're better than the movies!

That or there are more blind people in our midsts than we may wish to admit.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

You may recall a few months ago Bugmeister sent out a patch to fix computers for Congress's NEW! IMPROVED! Daylight Saving Time coming up -- but didn't send it out as a "critical" patch while insisting the NEW! IMPROVED! IE7 was. Now, no small thanks to Bug's synergistically tiny thinking, people are rushing around fixing their computers at the last minute and thanking the God He runs twenty-seven universes.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!

P. S. at 6:35 p. m.:

Electronic Data Systems Corp. made a promise to users of the 3.5 million desktop computers the company manages for clients: You won't miss the Monday morning meeting.

Wouldn't alarm clocks do?

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

It appears con-SER-va-tives, taking a few pages out of the liberal playbook, are speaking in one voice demanding that whatever-it-is's pardon. Even if this was a politically-motivated prosecution (and we were too bored to know or care) there may be such things as politically-motivated pardons -- such as Slick specialized in. Hasn't our ju-di-cial pro-cess already been tainted enough with hack politics?

And the squirm-provoking truth is, even if this was politically motivated, for him to have been convicted on four of five counts shows he must have been guilty of something.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

The Hemingway of his generation issues a collection of his newspaper immortalities, and uses the occasion to get even:

The dates were crucial, lest some worn-out old whore like Jonathan Yardley over at the Washington Post use the opportunity to gratuitously insult the author's work ethic.

Let me guess who wrote a pan. Now even granting that Pete may be God's literary gift to man that he'd take the time to write this ode makes me wonder if he wonders. And in this age of cultural genius, he has a right to wonder.

Especially when his critically-acclaimed award winner about a trout or whatever is 93,506 on Amazon.com and The Sun Also Rises is 1,573 is in one of its editions, conceding as we do these numbers aren't worth that much.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

Well, if India has any trouble, it can always move itself to the U. S. We have the "infrastructure"!

Better yet -- China!

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

OooooOOOOOoooooh:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group. [With "Dr." WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP Dobson!]

I'm still more conservative than Rudy!

"There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them," he said in the interview. "I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I'm ... not proud of."

What? Humility?

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

Well, that's one way to look at it, Reid:

Giuliani beats them all as far as terror expertise is concerned -- married three times.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

“We seem to be dealing with an awful lot of people who have zero conflict-resolution skills,” Chief Magnus said.

We seem to.

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

Rudy has -- opponents?

Like, we didn't know!

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

FLASH! One of America's best-paid news hacks stumbles upon...news:

Clinton Embraces Platitudes

(Home-page hed)

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Kerngershwin Hammerstein's latest immortal masterwork is suffering from tragic casting problems -- people would rather do sitcoms (!) -- but not to worry, Kern and Co. won't gouge the suc...customers this time:

"There will be orchestra seats at $120," this person said.

Just don't tell them they're in the last row of the balcony.

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in the land of happy smiley diverse animation:

Steve Jobs Challenged to Drop Copy Protection for Pixar Films

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Annoying: Culver City, California, former home of the late lamented MGM, goes from industry to a bunch of trendy bars and art lofts.

Perhaps Rendellism can work in LALALand, where there are enough millionaire artistes, but why do we think this won't work, and why do chafe under the notion that the hard workers of our industrial past are being replaced by glorified parasites?

When an artsy-fartsy bar "serve[s] as a sort of anchor for the neighborhood" the whole ship's adrift.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Using civic pride as an excuse SLIME will have sixteen towns compete for His movie to get free publicity and the best taxpayer shakedown.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

ESPNCorp's TV network, sporting the Brent Seal of Approval, has ordered up a sitcom based on a TV commercial.

With justice it will last as long as most commercials.

In other news from the Mickey's Platinum Hoard ESPNCorp Family Animation is planning to make the most PC motion picture ever, perhaps as atonement for Song of the South.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Meantime the "father of Hezbollah" has "defected" and is spilling the beans for our folks, which would make Dems and news hacks unhappy if they couldn't exercise their sacred privilege to ignore it.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

Clever! The Dems get us OUTOUTOUT! before the presidential election, and insert a clause that gives Dubya an out. Plus it moves our soldiers into Afghanistan so we appear to be doing something. Plus the loony leftists love it. Let's see the profiles in courage on this one.

P. S. This is going nowhere. (Via, alas, The Corner)

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

Bad news for geeks everywhere: Mr. Dilbert has given up on his Bugmeister for President campaign.

Now Bug will have to content himself with running twenty-seven universes as normal.

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

In further news on the war on terrorism:

A former U.S. Navy sailor has been charged with allegedly passing military secrets about U.S. Navy movements through waters in the Middle East to al Qaeda-related Web sites during the spring of 2001, just months after the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen.

Hassan Abujihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall....

NUF SAID.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

For once Slashdot's torpid moderators post something worthwhile, the first real breakthrough in fighting terrorism, an improved autopilot system.

We cannot, of course, discount the holy cockroaches' evil, or their craftiness, but this would seem more effective than paying union members zillions to frisk 80-year-olds.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

BREAKING NEWS!

SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE FOUND ON WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS; BOMB-DETECTING ROBOT DEPLOYED [SIC]

Let me guess: they blow it up and it turns out to be a box of Nabisco Shredded Wheat or something.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

1,056 words and all we can say is that New Mexico's lieutenant governor is annoyed by Bill Richardson's table manners?

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Vote for Belly Kisser -- or he'll make your belly ache!

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

One time we dreamed of being a famous writer for all the famous people we'd meet, and especially the pretty women. That might have worked in the twenties, or Hollywood's golden age; but the bloom's off that rose because it seems all the famous people of our time can't read. We further suspect if most of what passes for the show-biz talent of the time tried to carry on a conversation, and especially the pretty women, it wouldn't go beyond significant others and sex. Certainly with our musical genius it couldn't even progress to songwriters as we doubt even today's hottest singers know who writes their tunes, except if they sue them for taking credit. Heck at least Gypsy Rose Lee tried to be an intellectual, and got zinged for it by Larry Hart, a double badge of honor. Really, it would be nice if the world had never heard of melisma.

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Windy City will pay for THE GAMES long, long, LONG after Mayor Daley transfers his residence to a cryonic chamber.

Posted 6:53 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in DA POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, the greatest lihterahteeste of our time, Mistah King, unburdens himself:

Despite massive success, you've been criticized for years by the so-called "literary elite." Does that bother you?

It doesn't bother me. [Buries face in hands sarcastically] It bothers me if I feel like they get it wrong. It bothers me if it's a critic who doesn't have any grounding in the sort of thing I do. If some critic came along that had no understanding of popular fiction and said this is wrong and that is wrong, I'd feel the same way if a second-year algebra student came along and started to critique a college calculus proof. I'd say, "Sit down, get your facts straight, then come back and see me." That's one of the reasons why in the New York Times they have a critic who handles popular fiction, Janet Maslin, and one who handles literary fiction, Michiko Kakutani. And when Kakutani gets into popular fiction, she just seems lost. She doesn't really know what she's doing.

TRANSLATION: It bothers him.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

Rick "FOB" Kaplan's coming to Katie's rescue!

Let Lucy be Lucy!

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

This would seem like bad news:

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) has hired a top defense attorney to handle the pending ethics investigation into allegations that he pressured a federal prosecutor to bring indictments against New Mexico Democrats on the eve of the 2006 elections.

Lee Blalack, who recently represented former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), who is now serving time in prison for bribery and other offenses....

Should I go on? Nah, I don't think so.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Iran urged to take nuclear ‘timeout’

And then the refs of the "international community" turn their backs, again, and Iran kneels down and wins.

Really I think we can use a better analogy than sports.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

This story shows the thorough incontinence of the news biz (and yes I use the word incontinence in that sense). The more these imbeciles complain about how shallow and bubbleheaded their business has become, the more shallow and bubbleheaded their reporting becomes, the more it's geared to PR and financial gain and insulting us. But the news biz can't shut up because the profit-center notion has so thoroughly poisoned it, and because there's no fallback position, the business having rid itself of even the thought of excellence and intelligence and public duty.

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

Pundits keep saying this boring trial hardly anyone followed will have a profound effect on the news. I doubt it. Politicians and reporters will still schmooze, and much of public governance will still flow through anonymous sources and leaks.

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

The smoky haze coming from the Beltway is con-SER-va-tives fuming again:

Senate panel to examine credit card fees

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

Boobs McKeating "starred" in a movie...Rudy ran the entertainment capitol of the world...you sure you want these guys as prez, Republicans?

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

News the world has anxiously awaited:

Brosnan to Sing Opposite Streep in Mamma Mia! Film

Didn't ABBA do a song about Waterloo?

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

Jonny Hairshirt has another brilliant idea -- and his editors put it better than he does, which is why I quote from the home page:

Jon Friedman says the media should avert its eyes and Ann Coulter will go away — or at least quit being rewarded for incendiaries lobbed at 9/11 widows, welfare recipients and the likes of John Edwards.

I rate the chance of this about the same as the chance of Hell freezing over.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

A good way to start the merger:

Daimler, GM discuss sharing SUV costs: WSJ

Yes! Let's build precisely vehicles people have been avoiding in droves!

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Speaking of LALA, our Big Web Site Hed of the Day:

- Mega Millions (lottery results): 16, 22, etc.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

"PEOPLE WHO HAVE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGIES IN THE HOME STILL LOOOOOVE GOING TO THE MOVIES," Glickman said, "AND ACTUALLY SEE AN AVERAGE OF THREE MORE MOVIES PER YEAR THAN THOSE WITH FEWER HOME THEATER TECHNOLOGIES!!!!!" [Enthusiastic overemphasis added]

Here in a nutshell (in this case inhabited by a nut) is why PR doesn't work anymore. People don't want to hear that New Coke tastes better than the old. Moreover they know New Coke tastes pretty bad. But the whole notion of Classic PR is to yell at people that things are better -- and we the yellers know better -- and we know MUCH BETTER THAN YOU. What annoys one more than getting talked down to? Effective PR concedes public anger and tries to meet it halfway. SAMMY GLICKMAN, we can be sure, could not care less about the public if the Lord God (or even the Lord God SUMNER) told him to.

Of course news hacks share the blame too by running press releases as "NEWS."

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Who would have guessed?

In The Halo Effect ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers, Phil Rosenzweig tears into some of the most popular business books of recent years, including the bestsellers In Search of Excellence and Good to Great. Along the way, he argues that many of the pat principles bandied about in the business world are based on misguided thinking and flimsy research.

While there are plenty of books that promise the keys to business success, Rosenzweig advises managers to retain a healthy dose of skepticism when reading them. "Some of the biggest business blockbusters of recent years contain not one or two, but several delusions," he writes. "For all their claims of scientific rigor, for all their lengthy descriptions of apparently solid and careful research, they operate mainly at the level of storytelling. They offer tales of inspiration that we find comforting and satisfying, but they're based on shaky thinking."...

Most management books, he says, focus on the question, "What leads to high performance?" But he asks a different question: "Why is it so hard to understand high performance?" To get at the answer, The Halo Effect focuses on nine "delusions" that Rosenzweig claims wrongly influence business thinking--including one for which the book is named, the halo effect. A company's performance creates a halo, either good or bad, that influences the way the firm is perceived, he notes. When a company is performing well--sales are brisk, the stock is rising--people are quick to conclude that the firm has visionary leaders, a superb strategy and a corporate culture that brings out the best in employees. When performance goes down, the company's leaders are suddenly seen as arrogant, their strategy is perceived to be too risky and the corporate culture is stifling.

"In fact, many things we commonly claim drive company performance are simply attributes based on prior performance," Rosenzweig writes.

Here's a stat I'd like to know: how many billions have would-be LEGENDARY WELCHES wasted on Tom Peters & Co.?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

What is wrong with this headline?

Iraqi Forces Kill Seven Terrorists, Arrest 117 More in Baghdad

We know what's wrong: they're not terrorists -- they're insurgents, or militants -- or as many in the biz would want to call them, freedom fighters.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

You have been warned, national nannies: The Starbucks of fast food is rolling out a bigger burger!

Now how can the help ruin this one?

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Underage-Drinking Report Calls for Voluntary Alcohol Ad Cutbacks

I have a better idea: force the people in the alcohol trade to hire the agencies that did Red and Abe and the gopher. That should cut alcohol consumption among the young but good.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

A flashing warning light in Branson East for The World's Leading Family Entertainment Company: People are demanding refunds because Mary Poppins can't fly! Tarzan may slip from his vine by Labor Day! And now comes a theme park with Plexiglas sets! "[A]s one agent put it, the prevailing attitude seems to be, 'You approach a new Disney show with trepidation.'"

ESPNCorp is fallible?

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

The Dems are egging Dubya on to veto money for Iraq by tacking all sorts of pork onto it.

This, in the Beltway, passes for a sense of humor.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

[T]here are not enough votes in either the House or the Senate to override a veto by President Bush. [Sixth graf]

TRANSLATION: Once again the Democratic Congress bounces up and down, and yells and screams, and treats its courage like a whoopee cushion.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Happily when not demanding Cheney resign news hacks can press on with their hobby:

MEGA MILLIONS LOTTERY JACKPOT NOW RECORD $370 MILLION!!!!!!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

...of treating their readers as three-year-olds.

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, has been plunged into controversy after one of its most prolific contributors and editors, a professor of religion with advanced degrees in theology and canon law, was exposed as a 24-year-old community college drop-out.

The Lord only knows how many Wikipedia entries have been written by assorted dropouts, geeks, nerds and ne'er-do-wells. But then any organization whose combined entries for every sci-fi movie ever made no doubt vastly outnumber such arcane matters as presidents and playwrights would of course be a refuge for GET A LIFES!

How apt too: The New Yorker (yes, The New Yorker) and its celebrated fact checkers fell for the guy, which doesn't say too much for them either.

P. S. Nothing yet in Slashdot, another refuge for GET A LIFES! They may be too embarrassed to post it.

P. P. S. More here.

Posted 3:50 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Looks like Lucy Van Pelt is stuck with the denture-adhesive and incontinence-aid crowd.

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 3:27 PM by Gene

More ultra-partisan demagoguing:

JUSTICE DEMANDS THAT BUSH ISSUE A PARDON AND LOWER THE CURTAIN ON AN EMBARRASSING DRAMA THAT SHOULDN’T HAVE LASTED BEYOND ITS OPENING ACT!!!!!!!!!!

CHENEY SHOULD RESIGN!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, shut up.

Hmmm...someone at AmSpec thinks whoever it was was guilty of whatever it was?

P. S. The ASSPress also says Cheney should resign, which definitively says he won't.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

News hacks never stop pratfalling over the truth. Thus with Kurt Vidal's novel, of whose author they say not-so-between-the-lines:

But the merely decorative celebrity cameos—bluff, bearded Walt Whitman, with an "epicene" male friend, and Charles Darwin, who loudly and repeatedly breaks wind—make clear that "Heyday" is infotainment for readers Andersen must consider clueless.

As befits its boyish spirit, the book is squirmy about emotion but delighted by excitingly showy constructs....It may well be Mr. Andersen’s point that “Heyday” anticipates a future casualness about such connections, and an emphasis on self-involvement and ambition at the expense of anything deeper.

That's Kurt Vidal, all right.

(Via Stale.com)

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

I suppose it won't be long before the hacks do their Ein-Volk-Ein-Reich-Ein-Media routine and call this guy a reactionary, but he has a point: smokers could inhale more to get the same fix, and they'd probably get more of the wonderful chemicals in their system to kill themselves. I'm guessing regulating nicotine is a done deal.

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton told the nation's leading gay rights group in an unpublicized speech that she wants a partnership with gays if elected president....

Asked twice at a Monday campaign stop in Iowa why she did not publicize her speech to the group, Clinton said: "You'll have to ask my campaign."

THE BUCK STOPS...uh, have you seen any bucks floating around here lately?

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As usual, both sides go to hell.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

60 Minutes did a hit piece on our soldiers in Iraq. And how do we know? Because HANNITY says so!

Let us put it this way: Hannity and 60 occupy a level of credibility somewhere between the ground and the earth's core.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

As predicted, the hyperliberals are going YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

A recorded...sound producer organized a huge Ponzi scheme?

Good heavens, how this shakes my faith in my fellow humans!

P. S.

A forty-eight-year-old megamogul with a net worth topping $1 BILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rolling Stone is another magazine that should NEVER be trusted.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!!'s Super Bowl AdMeter poll doesn't mean anything?!?!?

Why does the fate of the world hang on it?

Posted 7:31 PM by Gene

A hopeful sign: ugly buildings can grow in Africa too.

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

We should be astonished that The World's Formerly Leading Newsrag did a favor for a clie -- for The Lord God Steve?

We can sum up eight well-reported pages thus: People Newsrag is from 1923. Most of its readers aren't. Mirrors and cute writing ain't enough.

Right here, right now, sitting on a butcher-block table, bathed in the sunlight that pours in through spyproof frosted-glass windows, is� [SIC] repeat after Steve Jobs now� [SIC] the quintessence of computational coolness, the most fabulous desktop machine that you or anyone anywhere has ever seen.

O.K., maybe that's overstating it somewhat. Maybe that's overstating it a lot.

Overstatements like this have thoroughly disqualified People Newsrag from deserving an audience, save of coffee tables.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

MS. TRAVERS! MORE EXCITING NEWS! Comedy Central's site for the press runs heds in ALL CAPS!

As SUMNER said when He bought Blockbuster, I think we've hit the jackpot!

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

Score one for the Bug: Symantec, maker of critically-acclaimed security software, concedes computer users may not need it with Vista.

Amazon.com customers breathe a sigh of relief despite hyperventilating.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

The discoverer of ERAGON says of the Anna glut:

Like the Don Henley song says, crap is king. We are merely here to serve.

Let's see you say that as disgusted readers gradually put your biz out of biz.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 2:39 PM by Gene

And speaking of tone-deaf:

This Week in Liberal Judicial Activism—Week of March 5 [Ed Whelan]

Mar. 6[,] 1857 —Chief Justice Taney’s ruling in Dred Scott marks the Supreme Court’s first use of the modern liberal judicial activist’s favorite tool—“substantive due process”—to invalidate a statute. In striking down the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territories, Taney nakedly asserts: “[A]n act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty and property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offense against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.”

You mean Roger Taney has something in common with TEDDY?

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

MS. TRAVERS! EXCITING NEWS!

'South Park' to Release First-Ever High Definition Episode, 'Good Times With Weapons' Exclusively on Xbox 360 on Tuesday, March 6

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

Jo-NAHism strikes a television masterpiece:

Although [Friday Night Lights] has won rave reviews from critics, the show has drawn some penalty flags from fans who are unimpressed with the scenes of staged gridiron action.

Each week brings a new round of Thursday-morning quarterbacking, as fans take to the Internet to dissect the faux-football footage from the previous night’s show.

Some fumbles are continuity issues, such as when a shot of the scoreboard shows the fictional Dillon Panthers up by 10 points while the team is leading by only four and preparing to run a play that—surprise!—results in a touchdown.

But some fans have been moved to question the wisdom of Panthers coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), who recently had the team run a trick play while leading late in the game—a no-no in the football world.

"I don’t understand why Coach even called this play," one viewer griped at Televisionwithoutpity.com, which has a forum devoted to FNL’s accuracy on and off the field.

GET A LIFE!

Posted 2:12 PM by Gene

Time Warner Says TMZ.com is Profitable [IWantMedia link]

Are Moon-'n'-Stars-'n'-Company taking the same attitude toward the Web they've taken toward television?

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

With tears streaming down its face, the ASSPress delivers a eulogy:

“John Belushi, deep down, was a stable guy who knew who he was, had a lot of confidence, wasn’t superficial but with no great internal trouble,” Colby said. “I think that what happened to him was largely due to fame. For a year and a half, he was as big as Elvis.”

Colby is working on a biography of Chris Farley, a later-generation “Saturday Night Live” star who was a drug-overdose victim in 1997, also at age 33. Director Landis had an unsettling encounter with Farley some six months before, in which Farley declared his admiration for “Animal House” and his desire to emulate Belushi.

“I found myself saying, ‘You know, Chris, John is not the best role model. John is dead,”’ Landis recalled.

(Farley’s family runs the Chris Farley Foundation to educate young people about the dangers of substance abuse and how to avoid peer pressure.)

We don't know where to begin. We would say if this immortal comic genius is so goshdarn influential why does the ASSPress have to run this eulogy? Of course we could also say something about role models, of whom Belushi, Farley and Mr. Twilight Zone would not seem to qualify. We could further say there was a time geniuses like Bluto (or is that Elvis?) were allowed to fade away, but because showbiz can't see the forest for the trees and the hacks can't see the trees for the leaves, they get to live forever.

We could further say the peer pressure that got millions laughing at an undying comic master is the same peer pressure that sent a few of his fans to the same place the undying comic master now is.

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

Bill Gates, chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp., sold 4 million shares of the software giant's stock over the last three days of February, bringing his total sales for the month to 20 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Maybe He knows about Vista too?

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

A late-breaking correction from the ASSPress:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Kill the 9th paragraph of the AP-Steroid-Raid story. Gary Brandwein pleaded not guilty.

A new version of the story will be filed.

The AP

Will do!

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

If this isn't an unfunny joke. Gray-DON gets a pliable hack to run a press release for a gimmick to goose circ -- and he gets Annie Leibovitz to take a picture of it. It's a PR stunt from BC, the sort of lamebrained thing Dr. Evil did for THE CONSPIRACY, but because it's Gray-DON, people will buy it.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

I guess The Writer Formerly Called Anonymous must have gotten a royalty statement.

Yes there are stereotypical right-wingers. There are also stereotypical pundits.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

The preening, the nailbiting, the lobbying, the boasting: the race for the P-Ulitzers begins today! What newspapers will win the coveted -- oh, never mind.

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

Oh, no! Beckham can't bend it!

Do the owners of the LA Galaxy have anything to do with subprime loans?

Posted 6:33 AM by Gene

Who knew GMAC was into subprime -- and who knew a three-headed dog of the underworld would get stuck with bad loans?

Was this Dan Quail -- Quayl -- QUAYLE's idea?

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

This is a swift, rich, thrilling voyage, an adventure of the highest order, but it’s also—for us—a literary excavation that puts Wikipedia to deep shame.

Wikipedia...did Kurt blurb his own book?

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Elsewhere The Bible of Advertising catches Moon-'n'-Stars telling a -- fib?

P&G's executives have a habit of making powerful speeches chronicling the decline of traditional marketing. But its brands still have a habit of loading up on gross ratings points like no one else, and generally outspend their rivals in measured media by margins of two-to-one or more.

It all leads some competitors to wonder aloud if Mr. Stengel and his boss, Chairman-CEO A.G. Lafley, aren't engaging in a bit of disinformation each time they make new pronouncements on the future of marketing.

Sure -- disinformation to complement their highly-financed JUNK.

But Messrs. Stengel and Lafley also get paid to anticipate what's going to work in the future. So while no other marketer in any major sector has a bigger spending edge on its rivals, P&G also has far more to lose than anyone else from the marketing model's decline.

You mean there's a chance people might see through the -- fib?

P. S. From the hard-to-find Moon-'n'-Stars Worldwide Business Conduct Manual, pg. 3:

• We always try to do the right thing (Core Values)
• We will show respect for all individuals (Principles)

So why do you spend so much of OUR @#$%^& MONEY financing @#$%^& JUNK TELEVISION?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

Another demonstration of the genius of advertising:

It's been a year since the first Red T-shirts hit Gap shelves in London, and a parade of celebrity-splashed events has followed: Steven Spielberg smiling down from billboards in San Francisco; Christy Turlington striking a yoga pose in a New Yorker ad; Bono cruising Chicago's Michigan Avenue with Oprah Winfrey, eagerly snapping up Red products; Chris Rock appearing in Motorola TV spots ("Use Red, nobody's dead"); and the Red room at the Grammy Awards. So you'd expect the money raised to be, well, big, right? Maybe $50 million, or even $100 million.

Try again: The tally raised worldwide is $18 million.

Red, Abe and the Gopher -- advertising WORKS!

"There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it," he said. "It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes."

But isn't that what it's all about?

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

I don't see why this is news. Other than for screaming tirades the NAACP has been irrelevant for some time as it spends its whole existence daydreaming of the golden years. The real power lies with the demagogues of the Congressional Black Caucus -- and with those public leaders who are progressing very nicely thank you without resorting to the R-card or vitriol.

I had hoped to include the famous Julian Bond-Republicans-Nazis example but every site referencing this tantrum was conservative. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

We wonder how many horrific crimes don't benefit from press coverage because the victims don't happen to be attractive.

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

In his own odd way Merle Haggard has his finger on the problem:

"The days of originality and the things that made country music country music are not being played now," Haggard said during a recent phone interview from his Northern California home. "The originality went away when they tried to play rock 'n' roll. I think that's what caused it to go down in the big cities."

Of course we could say pretty much the same about any music genre. This is not a good time for music, however the ad-blurbists spin it.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

At the screening I attended, the audience laughed during serious moments and gasped during supposedly funny ones. These are not good signs.

Yep, that picture was the only good thing about that picture.

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

This lobbying disguised as an editorial is a bold statement why BIGMEDIA is hazardous to our cultural and mental health, why TRIBCO has not been able to sell itself, and why it deserves every last bit of financial grief it can get.

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

China to Increase Its Military Budget

Isn't its whole GDP its military budget?

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

Does Rudy have a -- dysfunctional family?

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

Here is what B. S. DEFENDER means about the new improved "democratic" SuperWeb: some movie hack has adapted a "graphic novel" -- and he has his head fleetingly turned to all the "obsessive-compulsive comic fans" who don't want him to deviate one drop of ink from whatever it's about. Such nonsense is only exacerbated by the B. S. notion that the public knows, but too often the public isn't speaking; it's only the ignorant, or borderline psychotics.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: All these "specialty" wuhks getting "pulled under" by the weakness of DVD sales form the MP3.com of fillum. Who has the time for this many masterpieces?

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

SNIDELY WHIPLASH FOR PRESIDENT!

AND DENNIS THE MENACE FOR VICE!

Well actually, Snidely's pretty good at the vice too. No wonder they gave a standing O to Tarzana.

But some conservatives are not yet ready to forgive Mr. DeLay for saying, during the spending spree after Hurricane Katrina, that the money should be added to the deficit because Republicans had pared the budget down so well already.

Yes, he could be convicted and imprisoned and they'd forgive him for that.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

U.S. forces near Sunday's bombing later deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire. [FIFTEENTH GRAF; emphasis added]

TRANSLATION: The ASSPress takes a preemptive action against those who would accuse it of backing the forces of good. That the ASSPress must run such a disclaimer shows neither it nor its peripatetic "stringers" can be trusted to tell the whole and impartial truth in stories involving "militants."