Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

While we worry about eighty-something caucasian females with water bottles at our airports, the Afghans at least have their heads screwed on right:

In Kabul, the burial of a suicide bomber occurs at a secret time in a secret place, the forgettable end to what most here consider an unforgivable act.

You don't suppose our new friends the Iranians are behind these unforgivable acts, could you now?

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

America's leading health experts, who moonlight as movie ad-blurbists, have not given their expected unanimous thumbs-up to Fatso's latest muckraking. One wonders if it had to do with the noble and righteous campaign contributions of Mistuh Den-BEH and Mistuh Lahr-SON. (Indeed Mistuh Den-BEH seems to have engaged in -- a little self-CENSORSHIP?) To see a story like this, therefore, is somewhat disconcerting, as we don't expect it.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Oh, now it's the ESKIMOS. It has all their earmarks.

The British political establishment must resemble a pretzel. How can it do anything without being -- judgmental?

Perhaps if one of the parties was smoking....

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

Someone (we know not who) fires a sidekick of a virtual radio host named for the late Harold Stein [sp?], and DA POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! reports on it.

While this is not the equivalent of PEOPLE WARNER and its profit center Larry, it's in the same boat.

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Hot, dry, windy — is this the time for fireworks? [Home-page hed]

You bet!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

Face it, our atom-bombing of Japan will never be politically correct.

And why does USAOKAY!!!!!.com peg this under "Life in Iraq, Iraq Casualties"?

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

Excuses, excuses:

What has tilted Jones, already suspended for the upcoming NFL season because of his off-the-field troubles, to the edge of career suicide?

"Money," said Tony Douglas, Jones' youth football coach at Sandtown Park in southwest Atlanta. "It seems like it all stems from money. I mean, he had nothing growing up — nothing — and suddenly there's millions of dollars. I think it's been hard for him to handle."

Give me millions of dollars and I might not find it too hard to handle.

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

Our beloved and happily outgoing may-ER got himself an iPHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, but one of the locals wasn't that impressed:

He left his spot around 11:30 a.m., soon after a 22-year-old man sporting a mohawk asked him, "How can you sit here with 200 murders in the city already?"

The mayor replied: "I'm doing my job."

Sitting on his duff, waiting for a gadget -- doing his job indeed.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

When your name is associated with words like "financial meltdown" it might be best if you didn't blog.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Last night the House of Ill Repute had the guts to turn down the Fairness Doctrine Redux -- and the Dems had an instant excuse:

Democrats admitted that while they had some concern about the issue of balance in talk radio, there were no plans to resurrect the fairness doctrine and that Republicans were simply pandering to conservative talk-show hosts.

And who do you pander to?

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Lisa Nowak's attorney Donald Lykkebak scolded the media today for treating his client's case as entertainment.

When your client is alleged to have worn adult diapers how can you not?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Somebody finally has the guts to attack the pablum that goes for sacred music these days. If you want a real reason why such music stinks, you can do no better than two names: Ralph Carmichael and Debby Boone.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Apparently the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS are in a triumphalist mood again for "killing" the amnesty bill, but I wouldn't pat my back too hard; credit really goes to Dubya and Whiny Reid, for writing and pushing a piece of -- wonderful legislation.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

America's WORST Magazine, Reader's Digest (yes, Reader's Digest) is about to put ads on its back cover, and...

Publisher Eva Dillon said that extensive research was done about the back cover and, though they believed readers would have a strong negative reaction, readers actually didn't seem to care one way or another.

That wouldn't reflect on your rag, would it? Naaaah.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Surprise: The Brits are looking for three men who are -- BUDDHISTS!

Possible let's-see-if-we-can-spin-this-story hook: The bombs were similar to those used by "insurgents" in Iraq. Ta-DA!!!!! DUBYA'S TO BLAME!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

Looks like our friends the Eskimos, Buddhists, etc., etc., have been at it twice today.

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

And what if your two-hour-plus Carol Burnett sketch isn't a smash hit, KERNGERSHWIN?

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

Honorary Mayor Mike's making annoying phone calls to the plebes to run for president!

Will you run, Honorary, or shut up?

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

Democracy was never in the cards for Hong Kong. Who needs democracy when we have communist capitalism?

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Looks like our friends the Eskimos, or the Tutsis, or the Hindus, or the Buddhists are up to their old tricks again.

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

Wrestler altered his Wikipedia entry (!) due to "his wife's death", and he may have been drunk at the time.

With Vince's boys one can't discount the notion this was a stunt gone horribly wrong, but I doubt it, as it sounds like a case of OJ boasting.

The noxious stench of this case gets stronger.

(Link changed from earlier citation of Yahoo! News story)

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Now that Larry and a certain recidivist have made asses of themselves definitively, we can go on to plug the living daylights out of a future recidivist.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Bald eagle comes off the endangered list; Defense Department takes credit

I thought they only killed things!

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Rumbling on the Right

Chuck Hagel's antiwar stance could make him a serious Republican candidate for the White House in 2008. But it's causing him headaches back home.

As well it should, being he's Honorary Mayor Mike's likely VEEP.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

But con-SER-va-tives will demonstrate their own intransigence; the Nine Fingers' split decision to knock down a part of anti-trust law limiting price collusion inevitably smells of the right's hero-worship of the rich, whatever the legal gobbledygook justifying it. Fortunately on a Nine Finger's salary he doesn't have to worry about prices, much.

Today should be the last day for Supreme Court opinions this term.

Thank GOD!

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

One of the things a Democratic president is sure to do is to make racial preference kosher again -- meaning, of course, making unfairness in the name of pandering kosher again.

Or perhaps we shouldn't say kosher, given how Democrats love Israel these days.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Live and learn II:

Report: Alcohol Companies Stingy With Responsibility Ad Dollars

What marketer spends money to unmarket his product -- especially to those in the prime liquor-guzzling age?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

The fight to fight the new Fairness Doctrine is on!

Not that it has much of chance, as B&C says, but the Dems are in a censoring mood.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Yes, it would seem that banishment from the medical biz would be a proper punishment for Wrestler's "docs", but I wouldn't count on it. One thing's sure: there are too many types who'd have given drugs to Elvis.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

There is, of course, an answer to the righteous and noble walkout today by the JOURNALSISTS: a riot of Dow Jones shareholders when the Bancrofts turn SLIME down.

Don't do it, Bannies!

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Live and learn: Don't ever talk to yourself while on the phone with an automated customer service system or you'll cause it to reset.

Who invented such systems? Eavesdroppers?

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

The Wall Street Journal's long tradition of independence, which has been the hallmark of our news coverage for decades, is threatened today by a force of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. [Words and emphasis added]

You've got me thinking SLIME can't fire some of you FAST ENOUGH.

Posted 1:17 PM by Gene

For the second time, why was this necessary?

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Morality is a private and costly luxury.
--Henry Adams

Do you suppose there's a reason this appeared on your Web site today, Little Malcolm? Hinthint?

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Say, if Dow 36,000 hasn't come up with a solution to the immigration problem: birth control! See, Mexicans are having fewer babies, and all throughout Latin America "[b]etter education and improved job opportunities for women" -- not to mention liberalized abortion -- are causing people to have fewer babies, meaning far fewer millions to stampede our borders looking for work! Which means amnesty's okay after all!

Why doesn't Dow go back to counting the points to his 36,000?

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

Dubya and Belly Kisser are confabbing at Papa's digs, meaning nothing will get done.

Well, one thing: Papa can boast about it in all the speeches he makes.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

Stupid zillionaire interviewer interviews stupid ex-con celebrity interviewee. Writer for same company that employs stupid zillionaire interviewer makes fun of stupid zillonaire inteviewer and stupid ex-con celebrity interviewee.

SYNERGY!

Posted 8:53 PM by Gene

Wrestler's son was mentally retarded -- another reason to treat him to a chokehold.

Sounds more and more too as though wrestler was a steroid junkie, which of course justifies treating your mentally retarded son to a chokehold.

If Vince McMahon had blown up pro wrestling along with his car the world would have saluted him.

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

Concerned about a "lack of production" pulling in donations toward the 2008 Republican National Convention, Gov. Tim Pawlenty and his allies hoped an intimate appeal to high-level business executives at the stately governor's mansion would shake loose more cash.

"We're looking for each Fortune 500 company headquartered in Minnesota to give at least $1 million; and some of you will be able to be far more generous than that," read Pawlenty's talking points for the June 6 meeting.

Leaders of companies outside that elite club got a pitch for $250,000 to $500,000 contributions, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press under a government records request.

Aw shucks, you're a piker, Gov. If The Great Alaskan Boar and Sen. Train to Nowhere had been there they could have lined the Twin Cities' streets with GOLD.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Isn't it a little late in the day to get upset that we tried to poison Fidel? For one thing, look what a great job he's done with Cuba.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Someone named Andrew Keen has written a book, and he sighs:

“It’s creating an increasingly inane and trivialized culture....One imaginary dystopia is that in 25 or 50 years, there will be no mainstream media. There’s nothing inevitable about Hollywood. There’s nothing inevitable about the music industry. The replacement for mainstream media is Twitter, it’s YouTube, it’s Wikipedia … If you read it on the Internet, it likely isn’t true.”

Valid enough, yet we must confess the culture couldn't have devalued itself without the past fifty years of decline, and if the Web churns out tons of "increasingly inane and trivialized culture" it's only a broader reflection of the top-down culture around it. The sci-fi phreaks, the horror-porn ghouls, the rock and TV-series worshippers, the schlock-cult obsessive compulsives and anal retentives -- none of these would have been if the boys way up there hadn't churned out the stuff for years -- and a gotten a public increasingly distant from standards and taste to like it.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

We wonder why Dubya continues to push this. Is it his own personal Profile in Courage? Has something in him convinced him that this must be his Statement for History, much as Gerald Ford convinced himself with Tricky Dick? Is it cheap politics? Is he doing it just because he doesn't know any better?

Who'll wager it's the last one?

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Why are all Indian customer-"service" reps specifically trained to say OW-kay?

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

A big day at a LEGENDARY ad-trade journal:

Geico's Big Spending Pays Off, Study Says

Does that include all those thousands of mailings I trash because ST. WARREN doesn't know I don't own a car?

U.S. Ad-Spending Growth Slows Way Down

Which still means that nearly $300 BILLION of OUR money is being burned on crappy TV and junk rags.

Time Inc. Hopes to Prove Value of Its Brands Online

If it put out decent rags it wouldn't have to worry about its "BRANDS."

GM's 'Transformers' Tie-In Extends Beyond Big Screen

TRANSLATION: Now we REALLY get to schmooze!

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

In rummaging through a story on ASSPress's site we came across this:

President Vladimir Putin said Thursday no one should try to make Russia feel guilty about the Great Purge of 1937, saying it may have been one of the most notorious episodes of the Stalin era but "in other countries even worse things happened."...

Speaking with the teachers, Putin suggested the United States' use of atomic weapons against Japan at the end of World War II was worse than the abuses of Stalin. He also cited the U.S. bombing campaign and use the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

We also came across this:

Kremlin Powers May Be Split After Putin

...which suggests the faint hopeful possibility that Belly Kisser's successors won't be quite the law-abiding tyrants he is -- unless, of course, he becomes President for Life in a manufactured crisis.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

Our favorite cable-news entertainer DOES IT AGAIN:

Larry King Calls Ringo 'George'

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

We see Stale.com's been rooting around the recycle bin looking for another writer.

Really guys, if you're looking for someone with "blogspot.com" in his url, there's always me. Fat chance.

Lately, I've had action heroes on the brain: John McClane, Indiana Jones, Republicans.

Of course, the heroic comportment of the Bush administration and the Republican candidates shares something fundamental with the heroism of our big-screen tough-guys: it is totally fictional.

TRANSLATION: The ACTION-MOVIE JO-NAH of the LEFT! DOWN WITH JO-NAHS!

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

We would take rioting in Iran seriously except it's happened before, and the holy cockroaches have survived. Wouldn't it be ironic, though, if this former member of the Axis of Evil came down due to gas rationing.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

ALL HAIL THE NEW INCOMPETENT!

(Via ASSPress)

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

DA: Wrestler's Son May Have Died in Chokehold

I don't care if he had "roid rage." What earthly excuse is there for this?

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Another potential MASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTERWUHK for Branson East:

One of the hits of last summer’s New York Intl. Fringe Festival, the musical political satire “Walmartopia,” will have a commercial run, opening Sept. 3 at Off Broadway’s Minetta Lane Theater.

With a book by Catherine Capellaro and music and lyrics by Andrew Rohn, the show skewers the world’s largest company via the vicissitudes of a single mom and Wal-Mart employee, who speaks out against working conditions and ends up transported with her daughter to 2036, when Wal-Mart rules the planet.

George S. Kaufman once said satire is what closes on Saturday night. In the modern Branson East what closes Saturday night actually closed ten years ago.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

"The Bancrofts are about to make a pact with -- THE DEVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!" [Overemphasis added]

If you idiots want to accelerate your decline you will keep talking about this force of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL, you will keep talking after you've subjected us to PARIS for only the last ten years, you will keep talking after The Mess of all people disclosed your CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, you will keep talking because otherwise YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

...a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll...

A PINCH/SUMNER POLL....

These guys still think they win all the time. Sorry. Now you win only 98 percent of the time.

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

In the fourth (or sixth, or whatever) installment of "ROAD to EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL: How the Vice-President Became America's Dictator", we see the Ruthless One...rewriting environmental laws -- to help his friends!!!!!

"Leaving No Tracks" indeed. We see no place for reader comments or Technorati. Sorta like in the old days. Shrewd, Lenny!

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Half-a-dozen of the other tells six of one where it can go.

Posted 7:06 PM by Gene

One reason I don't follow $eligi$m is that the current crop of announcers sounds as if it trained with the sound off for thirty years. Harry Kalas reminds us of when people still cared for the game, and the announcers. That so many no longer care for the sport of asterisks is because they may no longer care for the announcers.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips refuse to sign Venezuela deals

Who would have thought BIG OIL would show more spunk than the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View, or Mr. Human Rights?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

More of that famous un-CW Stale.com insight:

Are Polls Undercounting Ron Paul's Supporters? [Home-page tease]

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Happily people at The New Yorker, which had only eleven (yes, eleven) staffers give money to Democrats, show some independence by supporting an independent.

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

This doesn't even qualify as daydreaming. Sally forgets a man who views himself as the ultimate lobbyist will not give up his post or his perks, and if Dubya won't fire AG Cipher what is the chance of him parting from his marionettist? Yes, just because an author has a BIG NAME doesn't guarantee he won't have little sense.

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

King Richard, Baba Wawa, Bob Kerrey and the head of the CFR say: Honorary Mayor Mike for Prez!

Okay, what did he promise them?

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

OOOOOoooooh, an MP quits the Tories for Labour -- because they "stand for nothing"?

1. Someone finally noticed; and 2. What's the difference?

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The willfully ignorant ad spending will merely follow the garbage onto the Web -- assuming the willfully ignorant advertisers are willing to break their budgets into a million pieces.

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

How many saw this story and assumed it was a joke? And when we assume a possible suicide-double-murder is a joke does that say that our media betters have gone too far with their mind games?

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Meh-hee-co's police chiefs would take the right side in the drug war?

Heaven forfend!

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

Earlier from the ASSPress:

A jockey who kicked his horse in the stomach before a race was suspended for 30 days and fined $1,000 by Philadelphia Park officials on Monday.

A simple question: Why didn't the horse kick back?

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

ASSPress Hed of the Year:

World Awaits Paris Hilton's Return

You're sure about that?

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

What is the difference between FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS and PNN? They're both third-rate news outfits. They both created huge gobs of air time to fill so they could fill it in the worst way, with the video version of navel staring. They both have the most risible personalities -- Larry the Softball, the No-Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Spin Zone. They've both given the word pundit a bad name. They're both obsessed with celebrities to the point it's damaged their reputations -- such as they ever had. They've both been run by respective partisan charlatans -- Rick Kaplan, Roger Ailes. They both were founded and owned by zillionaire bullies -- MOUTH, SLIME. So what's the difference?

There is no difference, except that FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS is biased in an unacceptable way, and PNN is biased in an acceptable way. Really Scott, we don't want to hear these pinhead debates about the pinhead cable news networks.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

One wants to feel sorry for the union workers who are about to lose a big pot of layoff gold, and then you remember Johnny Cash and "One Piece at a Time", and you think, this sort of largesse never made sense.

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

Compact Disc's Outlook Worsens

...and no, despite the best hopes of news hacks, who want to believe, downloads aren't substituting:

Greenfield and Smaldon said they expect U.S. unit sales of digital music to grow 28% in 2008, slowing from projected growth of 47% this year. However, rapid growth in digital sales will still fall short of making up for the decline in CD sales.

As a result, the Pali analysts expect total U.S. unit sales of recorded music to decline about 9% in both 2007 and 2008. [Emphasis added]

This is all one word: [C]RAP. [C]RAP has come to define the recorded-sound biz in the public imagination, and the public doesn't want to imagine. And [C]RAP has no melody, and where there is no melody, there is no music. The other pop...SOUND jean-RUHS follow in line; words like alternative, industrial, grunge, punk -- they're just another word for tuneless. There is nothing new to listen to. This is excellent news in the short run as it will put many of the disgorgers of this sonic bilge water out of business. It is a calamity as far as the ear can hear.

Posted 4:45 PM by Gene

We get it too: Some SENIOR CLUNKER BROTHER execs paid gazillions to Tiger, Kelly and Jimmy so they wouldn't stop boasting, or humiliating their subordinates -- and also so they wouldn't have to spend time and money thinking up cars people will BUY. Sorry G. WE GET IT TOO.

P. S. to Jerry "Sieg Heil" Yang on 7/13/2008 at 8:00 p.m.: Hey Jerr, why can I pull up THIS one?

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

And in Branson East, Mr. Sorkin, the creator of the brilliant smash hit EINSTEIN, and backed by Luke Spielberg, is ready to do a play about who lost television.

If EINSTEIN was a lecture this will be a Ph.D. program.

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

Another upcoming masterwork: the folks at ESPNCorp Animation are so confident about their latest computer animation morale's going through the floor!

Haven't they remade Toy Story once too often?

And has Jim Hill (whoever he is) written too many words?

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 1:16 PM by Gene

Brett Ratner to direct 'Playboy'
Filmmaker set for bio on Hugh Hefner

1. A whitewash; 2. A PC whitewash; 3. A CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED PC whitewash; 4. An ACADEMY AWARD®-WINNING CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED PC whitewash.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

One of Hollywood's most beloved professional airheads apologizes to the Peruvians for her trés chic diplomatic blunder -- but then she probably thought it meant "one from column A and one from column B" in Chinese.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

The Nine Fingers rule against bong hits on T-shirts in high schools!

Where would we be without 'em? (The Nine Fingers, that is.)

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

The dry-cleaner case struck a new low for frivolous lawsuits, which won't prevent others from aiming lower.

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

I'm not sure which is worse: that Alzheimer's can happen to your parents or that Alzheimer's can happen to you.

Then again, when Alzheimer's strikes a parent it does strike you.

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

Whew! Good news for George "My Business is My Business" Will: The Nine Fingers say big business and big labor can now sic us with more irritating advocacy ads at election time. Hail the Mighty Broad¢a$ter$!

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

Does it make sense for Honorary Mayor Mike to tick off one of his constituencies so early in his campaign?

Pffh-hh-hh!

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

NewYork.com has given us an idea: we should subject all big newspaper stories to MS Word AutoSummarize. (We barely knew it existed.) Then we too could no doubt say, "Don't worry: The full version doesn't contain anything new about the guy, either."

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

I'd guess I've bought CDs from perhaps a dozen shops (brick-and-mortar or Web) that have gone out of business. Music retailing is so afflicted by low margins it's hard to see how anyone can make money except on sheer force of volume, and the big-box chains sell their goods as loss leaders. Now comes word that Footlight.com is closing. I'd just started purchasing from them -- they've had pretty decent sales -- and they were good for the kind of specialty recordings impossible to find elsewhere (and that probably should be): foreign cast albums and soundtracks and vocalists. While my checking account is happy no one else can be at the disappearance of sellers who've given recorded music some semblance of diversity, and each Footlight.com that closes condemns us to a future of pablum, sold out of a box, one way or another.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Cigarette media spending totaled just $56 million in 2005, down 94% from its 1985 peak of $932 million, according to an Ad Age DataCenter analysis of Federal Trade Commission data. There's still plenty of marketing spending behind the products: The FTC said cigarette makers in 2005 spent $13.1 billion on U.S. "advertising and promotions" -- but the vast majority of that went to in-store trade and consumer price-promotion offers. [Emphasis added]

And cigarettes still sell, in spite of all, proving the utter waste of money that is advertising.

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

Here is a reason why the next time some suggests that graffiti is AHT, he should be greeted with the verbal equivalent of a punch in the nose.

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

And as PAUL DRECK prays for next weekend to be better -- and his prayer will probably be answered, as he prays to...well, we won't guess to whom he prays, but we think his god may reside under the earth's crust -- another Big V hack points to the future of fillum, whatever future that is:

There's no longer any question whether special effects can be made more realistic: The issue is whether disposable actors can be trained to play better with bluescreens.

We're not sure what our scribbler means by "disposable actors", but we think he means flesh-and-blood types. But then the whole biz is heading toward a time when flesh-and-blood actors will be superfluous, an apt future for a business that has pretty well become superfluous, blue screens or no.

The premise for these fights hasn't moved beyond 1925's "The Lost World"....

TRANSLATION: SUMNER'S MADE AN 82-YEAR-OLD CGI MOVIE!

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

Tony Blair says he has handed control of Britain's governing Labour party to Gordon Brown.

WATCH THE DOOR ON THE...never mind.

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

Gore Vidal gets into a lawsuit-threatening frenzy over a play and his late long-distance strictly-correspondence "lover" sexy Timmy McVeigh, which would be good for a laugh except that INTELLECTUALS will fall in love with anything.

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

The Jeanne d'Arc of Prison and LARRY KING -- a marriage made somewhere beneath Hell.

"Paris will not be paid a dime for the interview," Us Weekly magazine quoted a CNN source as saying.

TRANSLATION: PEOPLE WARNER'S PAYING FOR IT -- SOMEHOW.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

The real question is, how can Hamas have peace with Israel and annihilate it at the same time? This is a question Hamas may want to refuse to answer.

Meantime, will PEOPLE WARNER ever stop churning out STROBE TALBOTTS?

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Has any rag ever managed to put out as many scribblers who sound as coyly cloyingly alike as The Paper of Re-CORD has? Today Chris puts his fist in the air for "rock" in musicals, conceding that it hasn't very often worked, and further conceding, "My immersion in contemporary rock and pop ended some time ago now...." So you're as much an old fogey as the expense accounters! Honest Chris, has anyone really cared what goes on the Branson East stage so long as we have bodies in the seats? Elsewhere Denny worships a porno -- an aht-house ac-TRESS (pardon us; ac-TOR, ac-TOR, always thus in the PINCHIAN precincts) whose oeuvre includes "storm[ing] a strip-club stage, pet Rottweiler in tow, and proceed[ing] to entwine tongues with the slobbering dog." Really, you couldn't make up The Paper of Re-CORD if you tried -- and PINCH has been trying since before JAYSON.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

The man who did such a masterful job exterminating Kurds has gotten his rich reward.

Of course that isn't nearly as many deaths as EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL DUBYA has...is there any reasoning with people like that?

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

LIAR LIAR BROCK'S ON FIRE may want to explain why, if America's become so gung-ho ultra-lib...PROGRESSIVE why AMNESTY has fired up the right in the grass roots. Oh, we know, it's all those NAZIS on talk radio. They'll do whatever they say. THAT'S the explanation. As if you don't have your PINCHIAN sycophants.

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Addressing the 50th anniversary convention of his own denomination, the United Church of Christ, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois said Saturday that the religious right had “hijacked” faith and divided the country by exploiting issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and school prayer.

But Mr. Obama said that religion has a rightful role to play in American politics, and he praised people of faith who he said are now using their influence to try to unite Americans against problems like poverty, AIDS, the health care crisis and the violence in Darfur.

TRANSLATION: 1. We should ignore conservative moral issues in favor of feel-good liberal topics where we can platitudinize to our heart's content; 2. We want the left to do what the right is doing. What cynicism. We hardly expected this from JFK Lincoln. Or didn't we?