Posted 10:09 PM by Gene

This week The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist reaches for its inner Useless News (and its synergy) with the umpteen gazillionth cover on HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN -- but not here, where the topic is Facebook, JonBoy having forgotten he made a pitch for Second Life only a couple of weeks ago. No JonBoy, this will NOT cure St. Warren of His WEBOPHOBIA.

OR:

KAPLAN TOOLS

Use Kaplan’s College Admissions Planner

Subscribe to Kaplan’s College Bound Podcast

Take Kaplan's ACT and SAT Practice Tests

Take a Kaplan Quiz to Help You Decide Where to Apply for College

WE GET THE MESSAGE, ZEITGEIST.

Posted 9:37 PM by Gene

BREAKING NEWS FROM THE MESS:

Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney wins Iowa Republican straw poll

So does that make him the nominee?

Pfffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 7:01 PM by Gene

Democrats Say Leaving Iraq May Take Years

We thought you wanted us outoutOUT of there! in months or weeks -- or maybe yesterday. It's one thing to pander, another to actually be president -- we guess.

Posted 4:37 PM by Gene

When DOW 36,000 typed that idiotic tribute to opera he didn't know the trend of the moment is evidently PCOpera, where the music comes last and the sieg-heil first. ("Rrrrrrrregietheaterrrrrr" -- sounds like a term Bertolt Brrrrecht could have invented.) God knows opera is irrelevant enough to the masses, with its singing wrestlers and tuneless instant masterworks; turning it into a politico-psycho-sexual lecture only digs the grave a little deeper.

But who would have guessed the Met is all that stands between opera and its total devastation?

Posted 4:11 PM by Gene

MORONS: Here in HOT!!!!! Old City (HOW HOT IS IT? I can hear you yell. Well, I'll tell you) someones built a condominium for cars -- a Parkominium, they called it (nyuk nyuk), with space for 280 cars for all the rich young folk in rich young Old City. After selling less than 40 spaces in two years the owners went bankrupt (gee! I wonder why?) and the new owners plan to turn half the space into storage for all the rich young folk in rich young Old City. Next door a whatisit (condo?) went up with bathrooms visible from I-95 and the elevated subway nearby. Not far off three new low-rise condos have sprouted -- well, sort-of; two of them seem to have halted construction (one is a steel frame). South of there another condo appears to be at best half-sold; westward another's still looking for tenants; and northeastward two high-rise condos may be only 20-percent occupied despite being on the market for eighteen months. If condomania helps bring on a recession (or better still, a depression!) and GEKKO KUDLOWS continue to insist REPORTERS caused the bust, let us remember all the fine REALTORS® and their PSYCHOTIC COMPULSION to BUILD CONDOS.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Meantime the great aspiring fictionist Scott (and not Fitzgerald) is still innocent, but perhaps not as innocent as he used to be.

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

The DUHB takes a "satire" by Mr. DilbertCorp seriously, which can only mean two things: 1. Mr. DilbertCorp isn't funny; and 2. Neither is the Duhb.

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

Why must America have a national pastor -- and why must his name be Billy Graham?

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

And only in modern America would a newspaper run continuing coverage of a truly horrendous ghetto hospital, forcing its closure -- and then take the rest of the month off running an egregious press release.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO LALA and SUE!

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

Only in modern America would the masses dream of virtual sex -- and only in America can an ASSPRESS reporter be expected to run a fawning flack sheet touting the development.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to PHIL!

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

"Bushworld" (so Lenny and Co. must call it) is in a crisis because one speechwriter has accused another of pilfering his words!

First off, someone's making a crime of stealing a fistful of hot air. Second, can you remember a phrase of Dubya's? Okay, "Axis of Evil", which he promptly forgot about. And "I---m is a religion of peace." And "Mission Accomplished." Most of his other lines were unintentional. Why anyone would take credit for Bushisms is the sort of dense mystery inscrutable even within the Beltway, and that makes its denizens irrelevant to the rest of the nation, but Lenny and Co. being aroused, we will hear of it for months, with no let-up to the insanity.

We would say the silly season is here but with news hacks it now lasts all year.

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

DEBKA.COM caused a DIRTY-BOMB SCARE in NEW YORK!

Oh, we can see it now: SAM LITTLE at WORLD SECURITY HEADQUARTERS in his den or wherever, busy juggling twelve phones, typing into six computers, speaking with every known SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER on the planet, screaming, "Yes! YES! A DIRTY BOMB's been CONFIRMED in NEW YORK!!! DEBKA's on the case. I'm in CONSTANT CONTACT with them. Yes yes, ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE CONFIRMS THERE'S A DIRTY BOMB IN NEW YORK!!!!!" And SAM promptly translates all this screaming onto his blog. "DIRTY BOMB IN NEW YORK!!!!!!!!!!" And of COURSE it proves to be false, because it's DEBKA, and SAM issues a non-apology in two-point font, and New York's finest MUST ask themselves, "Why did we pay so much attention to these cranks on the Web?"

Of course we're only guessing about SAM; we will NEVER AGAIN click on to his site, and especially not today.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Sotheby's Shares Drop 11% Over Art-Market Concern

Do we need any better proof this market, in some very unsettling ways, may be full of it?

Posted 3:33 PM by Gene

We don't like devoting half our blog to Romy, but honest he produces more jokes than any site this side of The Onion -- and he's funnier too. We're supposed to grieve that Gail has to "rewire her brain" to adjust to mere mortal metro reporting after 25 years of being a bright shiny star of teevee jernalism. Face it Gail, you're lucky to have a column. And what did your 25 years avail us but lots of sound bytes demonstrating you and Bill Carter were the best connected scribblers in the trade? And why didn't you take the logical route -- starting your own site, hooking up with MediaBistro or another industry haven to continue your winning ways? Or did TV Newser demonstrate that, whatever the value of his overrated blog to his career, media reporters are the proverbial dime a dozen?

Gail's plaint and PINCH's campaigning are from the same airless brainless void.

P. S. at 4:41 p. m. Perhaps we are too harsh: if Gail were a friend we wouldn't sound off. But people lose their jobs everyday, and not being on the ins in the world's most important profession affords us a little detachment. Despite her "demotion" Gail probably still makes more than most of her readers. That she gushes that she's going to write lots on gay matters points to why The Daily Babbitt "demoted" her, and why the Strib similarly demoted Lileks: they were talking to themselves. (That the Strib slightly relented and named Lileks "editor" of his own paid-for blog does not change our view.)

And then we read this and our esteem for the biz hardly grows. Mike Riedel turns on a dime! "You'd have to be insane NOT to invest in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN!" Well, all right, maybe he didn't go that far, but his head's still spinning. However risible and irritating it was, the news biz' communal grief over SLIME's impending rape of the Journals was understandable; too many of His hacks don't have to be told to suck up to The Boss. (The original Young Frankenstein is a T-------h C-----y F-x property.) But the problem isn't how the biz will do bad; it's that it is almost predestined to do bad regardless of owner, or politics, or format, or writer. In one of our first posts we said partisan news is bipartisan, and the intervening time has merely hardened our view. The biz' increasing addiction to advertising and marketing speaks for itself. That we can only seem to expect spinning and selling and posturing from news hacks is why we would rather Gail kept her opinions about being "demoted" to herself.

Posted 2:41 PM by Gene

The Newark massacre seems to have been a team effort, as the worst crimes often are.

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

Is this reporting or is this advocacy? This being The Paper of Re-CORD we'll opt for the latter. There's a story here: that a Federal anti-smut project should result in zero prosecutions is at least embarrassing. But this being PINCHDOM we spin it into a waste of money (which to some degree it certainly is) and, far more dastardly still, AN AFFRONT TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT. Campaigning is why we do not trust news hacks, and campaigning is (sorry to repeat myself) one reason why PINCHDOM had to shrink an inch-and-a-half.

[Via MediaBistro; corrected 8/11 ("convictions" for "prosecutions")]

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

iPhone's a hip, hot, sexy CLUNKER?

And The Lord God Steve put His Regal Fist down on His message boards!

Although in fairness some in His Kingdom seem to know what they're doing.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

ANOTHER AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously approves a resolution expanding the U.N. role in Iraq.

And how precisely would the League of Nations be expanding its role? By helping the good guys? It always does.

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve says Friday it will provide liquidity to help financial markets through period of turbulence.

This is Wall Street you're talking to!

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

There's one advantage to getting into a fender-bender with BRITNEY!!!!!: you can always sell the car on eBay.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Anything and everything will get the Howie Hairshirts and their brethren in hand-wringing started. Today Romy frets because The New Yorker (yes, The New Yorker) is cheapening its BRAND by selling a board game -- at that arch-enemy of jernalistic independence TARGET. Really folks, as L'AFFAIRE TARGET demonstrated, the once home of TINA!!!! and the current home of KEN FELATTA needs no help in selling out.

And as for the politics, hasn't anyone told the REDSTATERS (and that term is becoming as intolerable as BRAND) that NEW YORKERS and THE NEW YORKER are SUPERIOR?

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

And in continuing news of the continuing excitement and relevance of $ELIGI$M:

Bonds' Record Blast Gets Small Ratings for ESPN (NYT) [MediaBistro link]

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

Yogi Berra precisely captured the problem with chat rooms and social networks that grow popular: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

HI TEACH!

What's the diff between HI TEACH and HI MOM, NASA?

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

And in another measure of the vibrancy of our culture, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association just had a bunch of second-string players of AMERICA'S CLASSICAL MUSIC celebrate the late Benny Carter's hundredth birthday. Maybe they can get him to write for this SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGAPLATINUM AGE of MUSICALS.

The grand finale, a selection from an album that Carter wrote for Count Basie's band, "Kansas City Suite," found the CHJO doing an uncanny impression of the Basie sound via Carter's hand.

TRANSLATION: A copy of a copy of the original. That's what we get in this AGE OF EDNA.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

That a "largely unprompted, bizarre and profanity-laden rant" is being recruited to sell Coors says that advertising is a largely unprompted, bizarre and profanity-laden rant without the profanity.

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

Now if only the stock market had the faith in itself that the LALATimes has in this SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGAPLATINUM AGE OF MOVIE MUSICALS!!!!!

Just one contrast for starters: Then: Fred and Ginger. Now: EDNA.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO JIMMY!

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

The difference between the stock market and The Little Engine That Could is that the Little Engine talked its way past a hill, where the stock market can talk its way into a depression.

Posted 8:07 PM by Gene

The FBI is back!!!!!

And while you're at it, John, bring back Inspector Erskine.

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 8:05 PM by Gene

Does the Pope know what he's doing?

The more he does things like this the answer may be yes.

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

Maybe if we hadn't run the markets up in a PANIC (or at least certain stocks in the market) we wouldn't be speaking of PANICS.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

In an extremely rare show of courage, our Caspar Milquetoasts of the mortarboard have come out against Britain's academic retards for proposing to boycott Israel. We must wonder, however, how much support there is for the stand among the low-IQ professoriate, given they're still grumbling over WARD, and as Israel is, like certain media tycoons, the source of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL.

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

Way to go Dubya!

Bush touts strong U.S. economy as markets sink

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

Buick, Lexus tie for top spot in vehicle dependability study

Why is a quality car not a quality car when it's made in America?

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: You have to be drunk to remember an ad.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- A city official says police have arrested a juvenile male in the case of three college students killed in a schoolyard.

With no help, we can be sure, from the neighborhood.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

The Feds pay lots and lots for two drugs from an upscale company in an upscale town ("Will Smith and Wayne Gretzky have had homes nearby! And Tiger Woods hosts an annual golf tournament at the tony Sherwood Country Club golf course!"), and now that people are questioning the drugs' safety there's talk of layoffs and other bad things.

It's tough to feel sorry for a "charmed" company whose workers "make an estimated average annual salary of $162,000", a good chunk of it from our tax dollars.

(Exclamation points added)

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Credit worries take new toll

TRANSLATION: Dow up another 300!

Oops! Instant depression!

Posted 8:43 PM by Gene

Blithering holier-than-thou elitist dimwits who blasted SLIME's purchase of Dow Jones because He's "CONSERVATIVE" must consider He's open to ditching the Journals' online subscription fee, which might do more good for the paper than a hundred P-Ulitzer winners.

As I said before, I don't like SLIME, and as a purely business move buying DJ still makes no sense, but his scourges must now admit why he overpaid, and dammit at least He's amenable to a free WSJ.com -- where the holier-than-thous weren't.

Posted 7:15 PM by Gene

The Bugmeister's crew tried not to admit it, but...here come the SPs!

Posted 3:48 PM by Gene

Another dubious clothing (and financial) fad bites the dust.

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

Warning: Picture quality could be compromised

What do they mean? It's their job!

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

The last word on *:

The very flagrancy of this act made it impossible to ignore what had really been going on. And some journalists determined to find out. If you bothered to read beyond the Bonds expose and the circus of congressional hearings in 2005, you would have learned that steroids have been used by baseball players as far back as at least the mid 80s, that by 1991, baseball officials were alarmed enough to add steroids to a list of banned substances sent to all teams, and that even with new testing procedures in place since those hearings, any player who wants to enhance can likely do so with little chance of being caught. But most sportswriters and columnists went back to the safest route: blaming the few, extolling the virtues of the game, finding solace in building up new heroes to replace the fallen ones.

Bonds's real sin, in the end, is in making that so difficult. As he continued his assault on Aaron's record, passing Ruth in the bargain, he was a constant, irritating reminder of the shortcomings of the church of baseball, and especially of its priests in the press. And so he had to be punished. Again and again and again.

Won't we all be relieved when it's finally over.

Who says it's over?

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

WB gears up ' Speed Racer' game

Just one question, TWXSTERS: Which is the movie and which is the game?

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Rev. Graham found another president!

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

If MP3 files are the fast food of music how can we extend the analogy to ASTERISK?

Couldn't resist given the source.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

You mean somebody finally realized sponsoring THE GAMES was an excuse for providing paid two-month vacations to senior execs?

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW:

Edwards finds it tough being the white guy

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Of course one consequence of news hacks becoming SUPERMEN is that when the military says something it's ALWAYS FALSE -- which may be one reason THE DAILY PLA -- THE PAPER OF RE-CORD shrunk by an inch-and-a-half just recently.

Privates with a literary bent excepted.

(Also via the usual Romy, who's busy putting on HIS leotard)

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Meantime the $435 million Superman Museum in Washington will not open on time as the builders are having trouble installing the huge video screens needed to chronicle all the heroic feats of strength.

(Via the usual Romy, who sometimes imagines himself a bird and a plane too)

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Despite all the hooey written about Superman over the years, we'd bet little has been said of Clark Kent's job: a reporter. Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel probably gave him the job simply because the alter ego needed gainful employment (in 1933!), although the turn of the century did see the muckrakers, those crusading exemplars of the Progressive movement; and the notion of little guy as great big hero fit the Rooseveltian ethos (even as we guess it probably had more to do with two grown adolescents daydreaming; they must have been Walter Mittys six years before the fact). Indeed we suspect the occupation was an afterthought, a mere launching pad for his transformations into the Man of Steel. But somehow over the years as the character became more popular the notion of reporter as superhero slowly and insidiously rooted itself in our culture, with the result that the sixties and seventies saw an explosion of news supermen -- the New "Journalists", Woodstein -- and the difference was these guys didn't have to put on leotards to perform their derring-do. Of course all their superhero strength covered up the inner kryptonite of their egos, until they became so loud and bold in their self-regard as to poison the whole news trade, and now we see these heroes for what they are -- guys with glasses who can't write straight, and who retreat in their huge salaries, and their thoughts of being supermen.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

THE CONSPIRACY is outsourcing itself to India, and while outsourcing has done wonders for bigbiz' public esteem unfortunately it can't do anything bad with an industry with a rep already located somewhere near the earth's core.

Moreover, it is hard to imagine THE CONSPIRACY making Bollywood's movies worse, but it will try.

Posted 8:06 AM by Gene

And meantime some of *'s fans show the lesser -- or should we say, the BARRY* side of human nature.

Posted 8:04 AM by Gene

ASTERISK!!!!!

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

I've long thought this the con-SER-va-tive ideal: five or six superrich people like Carlos Slim, and the rest poor -- a banana republican's dream. Of course con-SER-va-tives wouldn't suffer too much, they, like GEKKO KUDLOW and DOW 36,000, having done everything they can to cuddle up to the superrich's philosophy, which too often seems to be the bigger we are the harder the little guy falls. Ah, but that's life -- when you're superrich.

Posted 3:04 PM by Gene

HURRAH FOR HILLARY!!!!! [Rich Lowry]

...for saying at the Kos convention what John McCain has never seemed really to want to understand: lobbyists represent real people and their interests in Washington. [Overemphasis added]

...like the real big-pharma people and the real big-oil people and the real banking people and the real insurance people and the real Wall Street people and the real broadcasting people and the....

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

"12 U.S. SENATORS ARE SPACE ALIENS!"

In 1999, somebody taped that WWN story to a wall in the Senate press gallery, where it amused the press corps, although some scribes griped that the paper had underestimated the number of aliens in the Senate by at least three or four.

Farewell, Weekly World News. Now, alas, we can get our laughable fictions on the Web.

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

Here's another outfit that bulked itself up to produce junk television that's talking of divestitures: the former food operations of ALTRIA MOTIVE.

Why do we need big consumer-products firms? And how can anyone say their main purpose isn't to finance junk television on our dime?

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Why is it when a policeman kills someone in the ghetto hundreds of protesters pop up, but when someone who isn't police is the shootist we hide and yell NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

The industry needs to introduce a new platform that delivers higher quality and more value to consumers than the compact disc, Bronfman said.

The industry needs to start selling MUSIC, Junior.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Hill and JFK say, "We'll boldly reform America's schools -- if the unions will give us permission."

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

OH oh, LEGENDARY WELCH says Mr. "Le Company, C'est Moi" is the best man for Chrysler!

Goodbye, jobs!

By the way, any relation to LEGENDARY -- like John "Amanuensis" Byrne?

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

Two more reasons for scrapping TV: Brainy Baby and Baby Einstein, which use dumbed-down definitions of "brainy" and "Einstein."

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

If commercial ratings are 39 PERCENT LOWER than PROGRAM RATINGS in TIVO HOMES why do the idiot advertisers continue to think they're worth more?

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! MEAN OL' NEWSMEN SAID I SAID WHAT I DIDN'T THINK I SAID I SAID! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

Pvt. Stephen Glass reporting for duty, sir!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

America's unions raise the chant: WE WANT GEPHARDT!

Pffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

McDonald's Hikes Pay in China by 30 Pct.

Um, why not here?

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

RIP TIMESREJECT! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

Frank Rich returns from the dead! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Why am I supposed to know who Fake Steve is and why am I supposed to care?

All this means is a book deal and he can never top himself.

(Via ASSPress)

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Romy further outdoes himself:

Should newspapers run letters that aren't factually accurate?

No. Should newspapers run stories that aren't factually accurate? Oh. They have an excuse. And apparently the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's ombudspoop agrees the letters don't have to be any more accurate than the stories. Great!

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Is it me or is there too much of this "Mission Accomplished" business? Why not a plain old ordinary logo? Why does everything have to be stage-managed? Doesn't even the slightest stage-managing tip the public off that something may not be kosher?

And how do we know The New Team won't be like the same old New Teams from before?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Richardson plans to unveil universal health care plan Tuesday
Also tomorrow, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton plans a "major policy address."

Watch out! Politicians pandering!

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

Today's Romy's day to blow a gasket. FIRST:

J-PROF SEES WSJ LOOKING LIKE USA TODAY IN FIVE YEARS!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

Ten years ago it was entirely black and white, with its "etchings." The USAOKAY!!!!! influence started long before THE FORCE OF EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL. Besides, I thought you guys thought USAOKAY!!!!! had become a GREAT NEWSPAPER -- especially after its NSA STUNT.

SECOND:

MURDOCH'S BUSINESS HAS THE BIGGEST POTENTIAL TO CORRUPT WSJ!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

Or as this j-prof suggests:

The Journal doesn't need a blue-ribbon panel of grandees, each paid $100,000 a year to attend quarterly meetings. It needs a wholly independent newsroom Conflicts Committee consisting of Journal staffers chosen by their peers, who would investigate staff complaints about coverage that they believe was improperly inclined on News Corp.'s behalf -- and who would publish their findings on a public website outside of managerial control.

In other words, it needs a MINNESOTA NEWS COUNCIL. It needs a BODY of OMBUDSPOOPS. It needs all the trappings of ethics fig leaves that make the public despise the biz even more. And pray tell what of other papers that aren't as holy as the JOURNALS, that have managed to corrupt themselves WITHOUT SLIME? Please Eddie, stop with the ethics.

And third, Romy mopes over the celebrity ad (read "interview"), and as he says, it "may be a bankrupted form, 'but it's still worth saving.'" Only a hack would say something bankrupt is worth saving, which may explain why the Vatican of news organizations, with its gods of biznews, could not save Dow Jones.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Rudy and the Religious Nuts: His Strange Free Pass [Front-page link]

And who might these religious nuts be? People we disagree with? I'm sure you could find plenty of religious nuts you agree with. What is it with pundits and their employers that makes them throw these cheap crybaby tantrums?

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

A rag that long ago declared war on its readers declares SLIME has declared "all-out war."

It takes one to know one.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

"The problems started out small, but it has [sic] grown into a tsunami," a financial strategist at Punk, Ziegel & Co., Richard Bove, said. "Over the next few days, large financial institutions are going to have to prove to lenders that their balance sheets are solid."

Banks that will have to calm investors' fears include Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. [Emphasis added]

Banks? Those are banks? Why are these banks? How did they become banks? And if they can become banks can't anyone become banks?

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

And in other news of comebacks real and imagined, the Three-Headed Dog has chosen Robert "Le Company, C'est Moi" Nardelli to run Chrysler, and one must wonder if he knows the auto biz from a two-by-four -- or whether he'll be hit with one first.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

Opening Sentence of the Week:

Don Imus has a cockroach’s knack for survival.

Uh, how apt. Skipping to page 4 (which should prove how over-written many features are, especially in ADAM!!!!!'s newly resurrected award-winning masterpiece) we learn he has zillions of high-mucky-muck friends rooting for him to come back (and no doubt he and they helped engineer this -- article), and we've no doubt cockroach COULD (and probably will) come back, along with his preening coterie of skunk-smelling sycophants -- but there's always a chance he mightn't, leaving him with his settlement with SUMNER, and his alcoholic memories.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Here's the next big shakedo -- means of furthering the noble cause of higher education: franchised universities!

"We identified that that strongest growth of population in 18-year-olds will be in California, Texas and Florida," Papadakis said.

"So we started thinking about how to export our brand to another state." [Emphasis added]

Colleges, Mickey D's -- what's the diff?

Especially after an education.

(Via Chronicle.com)

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

PROGRESS: The Paper of Mencken informs us the heirs and assigns of the "Rrrrrrrrrrrenaissance Man of Rrrrrrrrrrock" are furthering his legacy with note-for-note (or rather, noise-for-noise) performances of his masterworks, meaning our culture's in such a dire state even bad music is in the past.

Whoops! I think we got the wrong Renaissance man!

P. S.

AIDS IS A CIA PLOT!!!!!!!!!! (Michelangelonian overemphasis added)

Further P. S. from this B. S.

"My music," he said, "makes the mind think."

Excluding, it would appear, his.

It would appear also that The Paper of Mencken invented a quote -- we couldn't find any reference to this Renaissance Man in the TWXSTERS' archives, and we couldn't find it in Google. Count us surprised.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Elsewhere from the weird, wacky and wonderful ASSPress, Americ -- the WORLD'S LEADING NEWS ORGANIZATION, more of that heavy movie lifting and straining (especially around the bowels) and Gary admits attendance is up only "1.42 percent"?

And why doesn't he quote PAUL DRECK as he did before? Isn't that a fireable offense at ASSPress?

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

We understand why the Japanese are upset at our a-bombings, or at the minister who called them justified; but what infuriates us is that hacks will use reporting like this, however well-meaning its phrasing, to call themselves "international", much as conglomerates call themselves "international"; and as we said before, "Any big business that calls itself 'international' gives itself carte blanche to commit treason." That goes for bigmedia too.

Posted 12:50 PM by Gene

Four presidential candidates are lined up to visit Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" over the next three weeks as Comedy Central's satirical news review ramps up its "Indecision 2008" coverage.

Which gives America's news hacks permission to ramp down their brains.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Meantime Useless News takes more time out between its Useless college rankings to state 1957 changed America, the sort of thing newsrag hacks will do when they have no lists to produce, and they're in third place and not budging.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

The obvious answer to stunt accidents is, why use stunt men? If CGI can imitate space and ancient history why can't it imitate actors? Indeed with all the awesome new stars like LINDSAY coming up it's the LEAST THE CONSPIRACY can do.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

JonBoy's developed a new twist: He screams THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!! in a heavily ironic way. I wouldn't try gags like that more often Jon -- yes, they elevate you in ST. WARREN's Heaven, but they might decline you in the CIRC. Oh, I forgot. You're subscribed to by three million automatically renewing coffee tables.

Alas, all isn't well on the LAST PAGE of the story:

Look for the next round of debate to center on what Americans are willing to pay and do to stave off the worst of global warming. So far the answer seems to be, not much. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds less than half in favor of requiring high-mileage cars or energy-efficient appliances and buildings.

DAMMIT JonBoy, we're going to have to work harder to reduce our cir -- energy consumption!

That JonBoy realizes there may be a limit to insulting his readers' intelligence is evident in that his irony doesn't front-cover the international editions; these he devotes to all the new ugly buildings going up in Beijing -- a good leadoff for our synergistic GAMES coverage. Presumably the huge poisonous clouds China belches into the air are -- non global-warming producing. They certainly are cover-fawn producing.

This isn't as bad as L'AFFAIRE LEIBOVITZ, but a faint globally-warming smell of cow flatulence is there.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

I was going to type ASTERISK! but I figured thousands of others did the same thing, so we'll wait until BARRY* BREAKS* the RECORD*.

Oh well, may as well do it anyway:

ASTERISK!