Posted 8:58 PM by Gene

The great First Amendment defenders of television, who are ripping the envelope while denying they're even opening it, refuse to speak to news hacks about their courage.

STRIKE! STRIKE! PLEASE @#$%&* STRIKE!

No scripted series has been the top Nielsen draw since the end of “Friends” [i.e., in May, 2004]. Ratings for returning series are down by double digits across the board this fall.

STRIKE! STRIKE! PLEASE @#$%&*-&^#*@% STRIKE!!!!!

Most likely these mutual imbeciles will settle in three days. We do have a hopeful precedent, however: the Musicians Union's recording bans of the forties over "mechanical rights" lasted a combined three years-plus.

STRIKE! STRIKE! PLEASE @#$%!^-*&!^#$-@*$:#& STRIKE!!!!!

Posted 8:42 PM by Gene

We will not try to fathom this fad any more than we could hula hoops, but those who think they can outlaw ticket scalping may be wasting their time. A hot market for some sensational no-talent (just what we need: a new Britney) combined with the Web makes policing these things impossible. What do four attorneys general propose -- price controls? We're no con-SER-va-tive Gekko Kudlovians but this sort of fist shaking is as useless as controlling gas prices. Better the AGs set their sights on real things -- like crime.

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

I guess the Israelis did the wrong thing AGAIN, but then if the Israelis made a nice potion that permanently put all evil thoughts out of its (and our) enemies' heads that would be the wrong thing AGAIN too.

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

The same Bunsen Honeydew scientist types who are absolutely CERTAIN man is causing global warming, or maybe not, now say annual physicals aren't necessary, which makes us wonder how many people can still hold science as a lower case god's word.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

The rapidly obsoleting Kodak withdraws from sponsorship of THE GAMES, a tacit admission that beyond buying LUXURY SUITES high-profile sports sponsorships can't help a company's business, especially when it's in decline.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Elsewhere:

In technology, dominant companies look invincible for years until they are unseated by the next wave of previously unforeseen innovation. I.B.M. ruled the mainframe era and Microsoft the personal computer boom. Google has emerged as a power of the Internet economy.

One high-tech tyranny supplanted by another high-tech tyranny supplanted by another high-tech tyranny supplanted by a...why can't this vicious circle be broken?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Pondering CEO salaries, a Paper of Re-CORD colyumnist invents an excuse:

Baseball players also make outsize salaries, as do actors and rock stars. You could easily make the argument that their pay is also socially corrosive — part of the growing gap between rich and poor — and even unfair given how little teachers make by comparison. But even many of the same people who think C.E.O.’s are paid too much don’t take the same position about these other highly paid professions.

Why not? The reason, I’m convinced, is that we feel confident that they are being paid what the market says they’re worth.

And I'm convinced given the recent fiscal performance of certain actors and rock stars that they are paid too much. Likewise I'm convinced most sports fans are not happy with their charges' ransoms and are less apt to shrug them off as they hear stories of dog-fighting impresarios and steroid abusers. So why should we hold CEOs any different -- unless of course we're news hacks, having largely invented and supported their cult?

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYBODY OUT THERE?

Posted 2:33 PM by Gene

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP:

It's interesting about the Nobel Peace Prize -- unlike the quirky and PC-conscious prize for Literature, or the quasi-Nobel "medal" in economics -- that its list of winners holds up very, very well under historical scrutiny.

We will trust Jim to know this -- he's the type who seems to know everything -- although for the life of us we have heard of only five of the medal winners from before 1950; most of them sound like diplomats with starched collars and thick whiskers; we note Neville Chamberlain's half-brother is on the list. (We do not count the many years "Reserved" won the prize, presumably because there wasn't much peace to be had those years.) In the main it is still a good-intentions prize, as is summed up by the awards that don't hold up that well -- like Menachem and Anwar, whose peace is the peace of two nations standing with their backs against each other, or Kofi Annan, whose award was -- richly deserved. (Then there's the kooky triumvirate of '94.) How Woodrow Wilson's name holds up given all the wars that followed him is debatable. There are two or three true heroes in the bunch: the award for Andrei Sakharov was perhaps the Dynamite Prize's sole instance of real courage. Possibly the only man on the list who brought true peace was Gen. Marshall, aptly honored for his plan, which saved Western Europe. A TNR tantrum thrower can sneer that "ACCORDING TO CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO, THE NOBEL PRIZE HAS BECOME THE 'LEFT-WING MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD', WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!", but we would challenge even the most reasonable liberal to find a modern movement conservative in the recent bunch, if he could.

Posted 1:27 PM by Gene

Last night we spoke of the fakery of the "CSR fraud." How apt that a leading spokespoop for ethical business behavior fudged her curriculum vitae -- and got the heavy thinkers of the Dynamite Good Intentions Awards to endorse her.

When it comes to big business why should we fully trust anybody?

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Some officials came away from a 30-team Major League Baseball conference call held mid-day Friday with the understanding that the forthcoming Mitchell report would include many names; names which have so far not been disclosed publicly; and the names of well-known players.

According to those familiar with the conference call, Tom Carlucci, a lawyer for MLB, told the team representatives on the conference call that the report is going to be "salacious."

SELIGISM IS HOTTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Yes, I am getting more than a little tired hearing how Sparky SUFFERED.

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

It would appear from the latest B. O. guesses that not only should the TWXSTERS no longer cast women in leads, they shouldn't cast Rosie's Nephew. The name is box-office poison; whatever the quality of the movies people think of him as a tub-thumper; there must be a two-by-four ready to strike in every of his movies, regardless of how political. A political entertainer will ultimately appeal only to those who agree with him, which may leave a vast portion of the audience out.

We might also recommend to THE CONSPIRACY it no longer cast undertalented comedians in leads. When will our superiors learn: a couple of hits does not mean a career -- especially when an ac-TOR looks and sounds like anybody, as is the norm these days?

Down 24% from Friday a year ago! The slump continues!

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

Wall Street frets over profits

...ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

We think Che would approve.

(And we might approve too but for Che. There is no accounting for what girl-watchers watch.)

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

But his own role as commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal leaves him vulnerable to criticism that he is shifting the blame from himself to the administration that ultimately replaced him and declined to nominate him for a fourth star, forcing his retirement. [Fifth graf]

NUF SAID.

Posted 11:51 PM by Gene

While searching for information as to why the chemical operations of Atlantic Richfield Company left our city -- well, this will take some explaining, so let's start from the beginning: Atlantic Richfield was a big refining company created by the merger of our local Atlantic Refining and LA's Richfield Petroleum, and several other firms along the way. It had a big chemical operation. When the companies merged they moved corporate HQ out west but the chemical unit remained here. For years it was run by somebody named Sorgenti, who probably more than any other local businesshack of the time boasted about what a wonderful city this was and how proud he was to be here and all the social organizations he was involved in and...and then all of a sudden he announced with great "sorrow" he was moving the chemical unit to Newtown Square, no doubt to be nearer his golf game, and in one stroke his rep went out the window. That ARCO later left the biz altogether (indeed its successor Lyondell, an ARCO spinoff, is being acquired by a Dutch firm -- and Lyondell now employs only 180 in what is now a research facility there; its former numbers were far greater) , and that the parent exists solely as a brand name, long ago swallowed up by the cute flowery mismanagement of BP, does not make the recollection any sweeter.

Anyway, while searching for the information we never found (and in the process rummaging through sites specializing in the CSR fraud, PC in a three-piece suit, not to mention MICKEY D's CSR "blog") we happened upon this 1971 piece from Time about all the companies that ran screaming out of the cities, which only a hard-core conservative or GEKKO KUDLOW could read without grimacing. One graf struck us promptly:

Executives of companies that have taken the suburban leap insist that it was worthwhile. Management morale and office productivity rise, they say, and frequently costs are cut or checked. Donald M. Kendall, president of PepsiCo Inc., points to an annual saving of $1,500,000 on space alone at the company's new headquarters in suburban Purchase, N.Y. At American Can Co., which moved a year ago to a 180-acre office campus in Greenwich, Conn., Vice President Melvin M. Nield says: "On every count it has worked better than we expected." "This is an easier way to operate a business," says Kendrick R. Wilson, chairman of Avco, which moved to Greenwich in 1969. "I'm putting in at least an hour a day more at work, and two hours' less commuting. What I like best is that when the end of the day comes, I can look out the window and think — and not have to worry about that damned train schedule or traffic on the throughway."

It offers no succor that two of the three companies now exist in the great office park in the sky (not to mention "Borden, Eastern Air Lines, Grolier...Uniroyal...General Telephone & Electronics Corp....Stauffer Chemical...Pan American," etc., etc., etc.), nor that Messrs. Kendall, Nield and Wilson may be perpetually blasting out of sand traps somewhere in purgatory; their actions remain an open wound, indeed they were at the heart of the deindustrialization of America, and no amount of PR about being greener than AL GORE will change that.

The location of expanding office activities may well be a key determinant of the nation's urban condition — municipal solvency, racial harmony, environmental amenity and economic efficiency — for the rest of the century.

One seldom accuses a newsrag of perspicacity, but 36 years later the cities remain unwell, and while a lot of the credit goes to JE$$ES we can never underrate all these folks who broke the golden rule and declared they were no longer their brother's keeper.

P. S. That ARCO history mentions Thornton Bradshaw. Anyone remember him? He ran ARCO and appeared on lots of TV image ads. He later ran RCA and sold the company to LEGENDARY WELCH. He seems to have been a responsible, forthright CEO. Now, like the 95 handicappers of the past, forgotten.

P. P. S.

Stauffer Chemical exhibits a particularly convoluted story, indicative of the pace of mergers and acquisitions during the 1980’s. Cheseborough-Ponds purchased Stauffer in 1984, and was in turn acquired by Unilever in 1987. Unilever did not want to retain Stauffer and sold it to ICI in 1987. ICI kept the Agricultural Group, sold the Inorganic Chemicals Group to Rhone-Poulenc and sold the Specialty Chemical Group to Akzo-Nobel, who now operates the Dobbs Ferry facility. By 1988, the Stauffer Corporate Engineering staff had been reduced from 300 to 25 and the Research Process Development staff had been reduced from 60 to 25.

What did all this needless merging and merging and merging give us except pink slips and Henry Kravises and a strong China? (For what it's worth we note the Poulenc in Rhone-Poulenc, a French drug and chemical giant long gone, was Francis Poulenc's family, another factoid impossible to locate on the superefficient Web.)

Posted 9:47 PM by Gene

We have not commented on this idiotic tempest over a certain 12-year-old because it reeks of what one TNR writer has called "meaningless kabuki", this almost ritual war dance between ultrapartisans, who must always find something to scream at. I'm not sure I appreciate the constant expansion of entitlements; the Frosts are not as innocent as they might have led people to think. But the knee-jerk lockstep nature of the attack proves that among conservatives, as among liberals, there is only one true way, which, if followed, will always lead the wrong way.

Posted 9:41 PM by Gene

How do you parse something like this?

Sales growth at Mountain View, California-based Google slowed to 58 percent in the second quarter from 77 percent a year earlier.

Well, see, the sales growth is slowing, but in relative terms the company is selling more than before, so even as sales growth continues to slow the amount it sells will still continue to grow, therefore the company continues to get bigger, therefore it is worth $4,000 a share.

``It's heavily dependent on a particular segment of the business to make money,'' said Kevin Landis, who manages $700 million as chief investment officer of Firsthand Capital Management in San Jose, California. He said he hasn't added to his Google holdings since early last year in part because of the company's reliance on search-related ads. ``It's scary if that ever started to go wrong.''

Who says things will ever go wrong?

Yes, in Wall Street they use incense and beads.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Here's a way FREE ENTERPRISE could stick it to the taxpayers: by forcing them to pay for repairs on their "INFRASTRUCTURE."

Fortunately one feisty lady (and a few Congresspoops) got CSX to behave otherwise.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

I discovered through our StinkyInky's chief fillum ad-blurbist that NIKKI!!!!! quoted some TWXSTER who said "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." This may sound racistsexisthomophobic, but consider the sorts of women who would star in today's movies: Meryl "Os-CAR®" Streep, Glenn "Melonhead" Close, Jodie Foster -- yes, it fills the cockles of the typists' hearts when they do their "serious" (i.e., mellerdramatic) roles, but unfortunately men count among the S&M phreaks in the popcorn restaurants; do they really want to spend two hours with those faces? Especially when we consider MMs and Jane Russells once starred in them. Movies must be different from real life, and today's female ac-TORS are no different than what you'd find any day on any street. And we'd wager the women wouldn't mind seeing good-looking types either -- and some days they have it worse than the men (as witness that Truman impersonator Seymour Malcolm Horace -- whatshisname?).

P. S. Read NIKKI!!!!!'s post -- then NOTE THE URL. Another case of her temper getting before her SPELLING.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

If the Nine Fingers act like politicians -- and given the talk here of their bellicose posturing they seem to -- shouldn't we treat them as politicians? Shouldn't we elect them to office, and throw the bums out when they grow too much in love with the sound of their own 70-page opinions?

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Ex-Sen. Law-'n'-Order made money for a hedge fund -- and himself too?

Jeez? What will these presidential candidates think up next?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Time Warner May Be Eyeing NBC Universal [IWantMedia link]

$90 a share...NOT!

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

And speaking of druggies (and press releases):

• Thompson's widow hopes book corrects 'Gonzo' image

That would be sort of like calling Jack the Ripper a warm-hearted guy.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

How many have died in the name of the Dutch's blithering "tolerance"?

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

When science becomes a mere matter of my politics versus your politics, the whole notion of empirical truth goes out the window -- which may be what both sides in the global warming tantrum want.

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

This STUPID -- "mother" has managed to knock The Man Who Will Stop Global Warming off the top slots -- even at CBSNews.com! -- so I guess He isn't running for President of the World.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

The ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY sells his book. Sorry Eric, we have enough comedians running.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

Again this Republican mouthpiece tries to create an impression where one may not exist; on the other hand, the Democrats being infested with Eustace Tilleys, we would not be surprised they'd try to vaccinate themselves from -- NASCAR.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Any hack who tries to goose attendance for a movie by using the dread word "cult", and then goes on to quote PAUL DRECK!!!!!, is a press agent.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to CHRIS!

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Scientists have done more than Al Gore

Yes, but did they win an Os-CAR®?

And yes, it went to a League of Nations "BODY" first, so maybe those Norwegian eggheads thought, briefly.

VERY briefly:

As Geir Lundestad, Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee wrote a few years back, the selections of the committee reflect “Norwegian definitions of the broader, Western values of an idealist, the often slightly left-of-center kind, but rarely so far left that the choices were not acceptable to Western liberal-internationalist opinion in general.”

Unless, of course, we're dealing with such true champions of peace as YASSIR ARAFAT.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

For years, big business gave the public the back of its hand dismissing public complaints with the broadest stroke of caveat emptor. Now, facing mice, the elephant screams -- first with cough and cold "remedies" for infants, and now with CONAgra's pot pies. If big business once went too far in one direction mightn't it be going too far in the other?

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

DISASTER:

IT'S a small thing, but slightly ominous nonetheless: Tickets for this Saturday evening's performance of "Young Frankenstein" are being sold by some brokers for less than their face value.

They're by no means the best seats, being way at the back of the orchestra in the cavernous Hilton Theatre. But what was originally priced at $121.25 has now fallen to as low as $79.

MEL!!!!! BUY SOME TICKETS!!!!! THEY'RE A BARGAIN!!!!!

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

This is troublesome: GM is going to roll out its new Chevrolet Malibu with a Web "roadblock" -- troublesome because it implies this outfit thinks it can do on the Web what it did with junk television. We've seen the car's "pre-launch" site, and the vehicle's impressive enough (though the site is hardly what'd you call "intuitive"), but we wonder if all this fire power will merely remind people car companies advertise too much, American car companies in particular.

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

Now Slick schemes his REVENGE.

Don't worry Slick, you should win it within the next five years, we reason, if you grease enough skids.

By the way, does anybody remember ANOTHER veep who won the Dynamite Good Intentions Award? Didn't think so.

And his record sounds like the Web Inventor's.

Posted 8:05 AM by Gene

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany extends deployment of 3,000 troops and six reconnaisance jets in Afghanistan for another year with a overwhelming vote in the lower house of parliament.

Somebody knows up from down.

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

Shucks, here we were, Dalai Lamadom to $1000, VMWare and Blackberryco to $300, all right with the world, and some IDIOT had to say Baidu.com's revenues would be "slightly lower."

We must fire such sourpusses and remember, with tech, there's never a bad time to BUY!

Posted 6:17 PM by Gene

OooooOOOOOoooooh, St. JoePa got MAD!

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Great: eBay's getting into social networking.

This is Skype with an edge.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

The time has come for the apologists of juvenile massacres (especially among the high-end bloggers) to SHUT UP.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives have been chattering about The Internet's Inventor winning the Dynamite Good Intentions Award. We wouldn't be surprised; the knee jerks of that Norwegian coterie have not missed a chance to poke a big green thumb in our faces. Whether it's good for the surviving rep of a man who made war far deadlier is an open question. Certainly if Doris Lessing's reaction can be believed they've lost their cachet, having declined into the rote honoring of Bunsen Honeydews and PC Buttinskys. We're not even sure (as the con-SER-va-tive CW seems to go) that it would help Web win the White House; he'd expose again all the flaws that cost him 2000: the condescending SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHS, the whiny impatience, the tendency to bloggerize his enemies (i.e., to make them the source of all EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL). Given how both Web and Hill have sizable flaws in equal measure we suspect for Democrats the PC virtues of electing the first woman president will far overshadow the need to feel sorry for someone.

One thing's clear: the news-hack campaigning would begin in EARNEST -- almost as earnest as The Internet's Inventor.

P. S. The organizers of this Dynamite memorial are making noises Mr. Dynamite's gilt guilt might finance a CLIMATE PRIZE, which would be the moral equivalent of Rigoberta Menchú and JIMMAH EVERY YEAR.

(Corrected at 5:45 p.m. to reflect the fact that it takes two separate organizations to honor Bunsen Honeydews and PC Buttinskys.)

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Getting back to $120 MILLION, we wonder if this gag doesn't signal defeat. THE MAN has proclaimed His recording career moribund, and must therefore engage in another stunt (with a stuntlike price tag). But unconventional methods probably won't work; only a big prosperous recording biz can push the annoyances of tomorrow, and prolong yesterday's. To be sure JUNIOR has shown no inclination other than a slow decline into bankruptcy; but depending on CHEAP CHANNEL -- JR. and homemade pressings would be a risk in the best of times; for a "singer" with more than His share of enemies THE MAN stands in danger of something worse: public indifference.

Posted 3:30 PM by Gene

Who would advertise on a bisexual dating show?

Would you believe the U.S. Army Reserve?

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, we would believe it.

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

Saturn's Moon: 300 Below Zero and Drizzle

It is hard to think of the universe, or even of a distant moon on a distant planet, and not feel humble.

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

We have reluctantly decided to pay attention once again to the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS for the simple reason it is hard to top their risibility. MICHELLE!!!!! has erupted in a Hades-like firestorm because G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE (I hate bringing its name up so often) has CENSORED!!!!! AN ANTI-MOVEON.ORG AD!!!!!!!!!! (Interestingly, the article is slugged "Commentary.") One does not wish to defend a FUTURE TRILLION MARKET CAP!!!!! company, but it did cite trademark infringement, and remembering as we do how THE BLOGGERS OF THE MILLENNIUM!!!!! helped sell T-shirts with a blatant copy of Pepsi's logo we would suspect the accusation is true -- and what is more, one is not a NAME BRAND BLOGGER without a dollop of the SELF-PITYING VICTIM pleading for his rights. And if EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL MOVEON.ORG is using a trademark to SILENCE ITS CRITICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, six of one.

And alas, MICHELLE!!!!! (and SAM LITTLE!!!!!), a R in a circle does appear next to MoveOn.org's name.

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

Today is Romy's day! We have too often -- WAY too often -- blasted the news trade's Our Town MO, so of course when the Boston hacks found two "heroic" firemen were drunk or drugged there was an inevitable backlash, perhaps because people have been primed for the treacle, as if it were a Constitutional right. In fairness they could hardly jackhammer firemen, who take risks few people do, including the hacks who always boast how many have died pursuing the profession; but perhaps the scribblers wouldn't be in such a pretty predicament if one of their specialties weren't the empty-calorie puff piece.

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

When BOOM BOOM!s start talking like this the end is visible. It may not be now, it may not be soon, but just as the eternal upwardness of the housing mania ended in foreclosures, so the eternal upwardness of G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEMANIA will end with people screaming and demanding BOOM BOOM!'s head, just as they cursed the Henry "HONEST!" Blodgets proclaiming an Internet Garden of Eden before.

And now there's the VMWare mania on top of it. Since when has the idiot Wall Street Casino relied on seances?

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

Now Romy hides under his desk -- again:

Ad agency president makes offer for Albuquerque Tribune

He's found the one type who's WORSE than a conservative!

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

The moguls are scared of "Zeigfield" Finke?

She's on their side!

Look, I'm not powerful, and no one is scared of me.

Typical false modesty from THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE MOGUL.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

Here's another excuse for The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers to produce junk TV -- its ads reduce the public's sensitivity to price gouging!

Posted 10:36 AM by Gene

Texas A&M takes it to the next level -- with a "for-pay newsletter" to boosters from its football coach!

Well, took it.

And his "longtime personal assistant" wrote it! The two-point conversion is good!

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

That noisy squeak you hear is Romy -- and his big fan Hendrik -- shaking their heads in fierce disgust:

Worse than the front page was the editorial page. Earlier this year the Sun-Times announced it was rebranding itself as progressive. But no seriously progressive newspaper (or seriously conservative newspaper for that matter) would have done what the Sun-Times did—take Obama to task for disavowing phony patriotism.

The problem is, a seriously progressive paper can't be that serious when it might seriously impinge on its...circulation.

Meantime Romy fumes that nobody will take a principled stand and pull an F-bomb on the Web. Uh, what Internet have you been surfing, Rom?

And in a related raising of the white flag, from the Frisco Hearsties:

What compromise has meant in other cities is that the angry residents realize and admit that there is a need for homeless counseling and services. But it also means that homeless advocates have to accept that there has to be some kind of an enforcement ordinance that allows police to get people engaging in reprehensible behavior off the street.

There goes a central pillar of liberalism!

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Another reason to propose flying the flag upside-down out of protocol: the never ending disaster of street racing.

It has grown so bad in Southern Cal the authorities are trying to stop it by enforcing pollution and noise-control laws. Well, something's better than nothing.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: When our side does stupid things like calling for academic boycotts of Israel, remain silent. When a "conservative" like TARZANA does it -- SCREEEEEEEEEEEEAM!!!!!

A transcript, provided by Media Matters, follows.

Now we know where GREG gets his story ideas.

(Also via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

Speaking of Goodthings, who'll finance all those stadium overruns?

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Little Jeffy sells Goodthings Entertainment after the Games!

Goodbye Goodthings! It was nice knowing your zig-zagging profits!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

Punctuation Marks of the Day:

Trade gap "shrinks" to $57.6 billion

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

A 14-year-old student who opened fire at his high school, wounding four people before killing himself, had a history of mental problems and was known for cussing at teachers and bickering with students.

ASTONISHING!

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

The South Korean government urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday to visit Pyongyang as a "political boosting measure" to an international deal requiring North Korea to disable its main nuclear facilities by year"s [sic] end.

Hell, have Dubya go there! Have him explain in his best dyslexic prose, "The Axis of Evil is no more!"

Or something.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

In Venezuela, uncertainty spurs a middle-class exodus

That's all right; they're all CIA SPIES.

Right Hugo?

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

ALL HAIL THE NEW KING! ALL HAIL KING GAMAL!

Wait! Didn't Egypt get rid of the monarchy? I guess not since the THUG took over.

Let's see, the THUG is 79, his son the king-in-waiting is 43 -- that means he should serve for 36 years...unless some itchy trigger fingers get an idea.

Most Egyptians call Gamal "Jimmy."

As in -- nah, it can't be.

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in Big V flackery, remember the number -- $120 million. This is sure to be repeated only 15,000 times between now and the end of the weekend.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Oh oh, Regis and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? are coming back -- and they're calling it Million-Dollar Password!

No, it's not the biz' fault it always serves up the same old same old.

CBS alternative topper Ghen Maynard called "Password" one of "THE ALL-TIME CLASSIC GAMESHOWS" and said the net was PSYCHED to land "THE EVER-ENTHUSIASTIC" PHILBIN as host. [Ever-enthusiastic overemphasis added]

Ah, where would we be without public-relations outlets like the Big V?

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Although Ms. Lessing holds fiercely political views, she is unlikely to be as controversial as the previous two winners, Orhan Pamuk and Harold Pinter, whose views on current political situations led commentators to suspect that the Swedish Academy was choosing its winners in part for nonliterary reasons.

Yeah, sure. Just like Alf Nobel started the DYNAMITE MEMORIAL PRIZES to sell explosives.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Henry "HONEST!" Blodget says "Google could someday top $2,000 a share"!!!!!

"NAME ONE COMPANY THAT IS BETTER POSITIONED THAN GOOGLE TO ONE DAY HAVE A $1 TRILLION MARKET CAPITALIZATION!!!!!!!!!!" wrote Blodget in an Oct. 2 post on Silicon Alley Insider, a tech business blog. [Honest overemphasis added]

And if Hank says it can go to a trillion, it'll go to a trillion!

Right?

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

As if we needed to be reminded:

Witnesses to the aftermath of the crash which killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed have described how photographers were “on the car” taking photos of the wreckage and did not try to help its dying occupants.

How much the crusading news gathering of SLIME had to do with Di's death must always be mere conjecture, but in a real sense, He was there.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

When Michelle Malkin attacks [Home-page squib]

Some Keith O or Brock or Kos or other crybaby will attack back, the whole shootin' match leaving the corpses of many brains in their wake.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Reading this press release reminds us how the deals are often far better than the movies -- and if we had to guess, having successfully surmised four years ago Ah-NULT would run, we will further surmise Ah-NULT will star, and commence a months-long ethically hand-wringing publicity stunt.

Posted 4:51 PM by Gene

We did not wish to comment on this continuing saga as we've spoken up too many times already, but we think KERNGERSHWIN is in a fix -- with the ad-blurbists. If Mr. Fifteen-Year Smash gives him a rave it will reflect on his biz' self-interest. If he gives him a pan it will reflect on all the people who want to see KERN fail. Then again the tourist guides are of little use, given some of the traps they've kept alive with their recommendations; but of course to most people Branson East is of little use, except when they want to waste money on parking and sit in a stationary roller coaster, and call it entertainment; and the saps are prepared to waste a great deal of money. Avoiding the upcoming strike of the men who run the rides won't hurt.

He's still getting mileage out of jokes about "knockers," for heaven's sake.

Him, Bobby Vinton in Branson -- what's the diff?

Posted 3:09 PM by Gene

Our favorite PR man Rog demonstrates his sense of humor:

My favorite line, I think, in this film, is when one character says of another: “He’s playing the species card.”

HARDY HAR HAR!

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

Label Moves Up Spears CD Release Date

Which should once again prove the old maxim that any publicity is good publicity.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

ANOTHER BULLETIN!

AT LEAST THREE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SHOT AT A CLEVELAND HIGH SCHOOL, ABC NEWS AFFILIATE WEWS TV REPORTS

Let me guess -- it's NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! territory.

All the students are poor under federal poverty guidelines.

HOW DID I KNOW?

Oh, the shootist is dead. Would he have been snitched otherwise?

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

BULLETIN!!!!!

S&P 500 SET TO POST FIRST DROP IN PROFITS SINCE '02: THOMSON

DOW 20,000!!!!!

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

Odds of being struck by lightning in a given year (reported deaths + injuries): 1/700,000

III. High-Level.

1. Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars ($25,000). Five (5) prizes are available. Each winner will receive a check in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000). Odds of winning approximately 1 in 111,422,360.

Isn't being another permanently up stock enough for you, Mickey D?

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

Clinton Cites Her Resilience

She had to be to be married to that...oh, never mind.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Iraq coalition withering as Britain pulls out, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! [Editorial opinion added, as if]

News industry withering as turnips stop paying, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

The same industry that put untold thousands of homeowners into default is now going to help get them out of default.

I am SO touched, Dubya.

HOPE NOW [SIC!!!!!] -- is that like WHIP INFLATION NOW?

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

Juxtaposition of the Day:

UAW goes on strike at Chrysler

Job fair under way at State Fairgrounds

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

FORBESLIST KNOCKS COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIST -- POLLS?!?!?

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

Why would news hacks suddenly campaign for someone for mayor -- unless they were looking for an in?

Especially when this rag admits nobody knows Joe's politics -- or even if he has any.

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

Corporate America racked by uncertainty

Uncertainty? The only uncertainty is how high stocks can go!

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

Someone has written an apt eulogy for the oeuvre of Philip Glass:

In two words, it's boring.

And some high-school and college kids "laughed" at one of the brilliant arias, which shows even they may know more than some o-pe-ra crrri-TICS.

(Links via ArtsJournal)

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

And how does America's Biggest Excuse to Fill Huge Gobs of Air Time with People Bloviating sell an upcoming planet-saving documentary special? By holding a party!

“Just as yoga has become trendy, being green has become trendy too,” said one guest--who asked not to be named!—as his drink threatened to spill over the lip of his Martini glass. "I mean, you don’t see any ugly shoes or moo-moos around do you?”

At PEOPLE WARNER? Never!

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

Now BRIAN ROSS!!!!! says our electronic tentacles to the holy cockroaches haven't been cut, which can only prove that William Goldman's dictum applies to them: namely, nobody knows anything.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Since Romy almost asks for it, we've done a clever juxtaposition of two of his heds:

Newspapers still have very good profit margins, but...

"The Brethren" made it tougher to cover US Supreme Court

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

American movies didn’t wait for Angelina Jolie and Michael Moore to develop a social conscience. One of the sobering lessons of the new anthology from the National Film Preservation Foundation, “Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film 1900-1934,” is that the pictures of the early 20th century were in many ways more open to the social and political world: people struggle to make a living, fight against disadvantages and prejudices and are confronted with confounding moral choices on a daily basis.

Words like "social conscience" are bound at first to make a Paper or Re-CORD skimmer do a slow burn as he steels himself for the inevitable PINCHIAN punchline, but then we go on:

None of the work here — the third in the “Treasures From American Film Archives” series, which began in 2000 — reflects the eerie, almost complete disengagement from social reality reflected in a contemporary film like this summer’s hit comedy “Knocked Up.” There is no recourse to cute circumlocutions like “smashmortion” in “Where Are My Children?,” a 1916 feature in which a stodgy district attorney (Tyrone Power Sr.) discovers that his wife and her society friends have become addicted to easy abortions (they prefer reclining on sofas and devouring bonbons to rearing children), even as he prosecutes a doctor who has dared to distribute birth control literature among the poor. (“Where Are My Children?” was directed by Lois Weber, one of several female filmmakers who prospered in the early silent period.)

When the infantile hero of “Knocked Up” decides to reform and become a responsible parent, he manages to land a job, sign a lease on a fabulous apartment and conjure up roomfuls of furniture on credit — all during a single montage sequence. This despite being an undocumented alien (a Canadian!) with a drug habit but no college degree or work experience.

For all the ad-blurbists' idiot babbling, this piece makes painfully clear movies used to be far more adult than they are now, even as they've become adult in the porno sense only.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

You tore down our posters!

You post fake pictures on your site!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Again, the NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONES and KEITH Os of political discourse make a reservation for a very hot afterlife.

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

Someone has the gumption to admit the EDWARD R. MURROW and ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY together draw 2.6 MILLION viewers -- a fraction of the total network nightly-news audience. (And it's probably a lot less than that as both of their news shows must share a good bit of their audience.) What makes them so godforsakenly important except they have the ear of their fellow news hacks and those the news hacks deem with-it, and they can sell books ghosted by twenty writers?

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

Rudy can't seem to keep his private...business straight.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

We're not importing as many containers from China as we used to!

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE AT $150,000 A SHARE!

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

We figured SUPERADAM!!!!!!!!!! would say something trendy and meaningless about the AHT world. After all, you never know when your bosses might start an AHT magazine -- or at least a supplement.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE, MUTINY MUTINY MUTINY:

Is Huffington a "liberal den mother" or a robber baron?

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

EditorandPublisher.com is plugging a new bio of Charles Schulz, complete with this telling detail:

-- When Lynn Johnston told Schulz that Farley the dog would die in "For Better or for Worse," Schulz threatened to have Snoopy hit by a truck if Johnston went though with the plan. So the Universal Press Syndicate creator kept the timing of Farley's death a secret from "Sparky," as Schulz was known to friends and family.

Even though the hacks are already turning Schulz into...Beethoven -- he suffered mightily, they must tell us, while churning out an alleged billion in merchandise a year -- you still have to like the guy.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Before we start talking of the "dynastification of American politics", Econowiz, we should remember Papa was overthrown by Slick; that Slick won a second term thanks to the inept campaigning of Sen. Viagra; that Dubya won a second term thanks to a strong protest vote against Sen. Hein-TZZZ; and that Hillary's been campaigning for president since before 1992. As to dynasties, the Adamses had one; that pretty well ended when John Quincy Adams lost to Andrew Jackson. So did the Roosevelts; but that ended with FDR's death, and despite the help from machine politics his successor Harry Truman was probably as true an outsider as ever was. The Kennedys', of course, was horribly mutilated by assassinations; even so it still had the "vigah", but the second generation was too involved in personal self-destruction to further it. Given the strong odor of the Bush name and the thin Clinton bloodline it is unlikely more of their heirs will win high office. Of course we should worry about ossifying dynasties, but we should worry more about an ossifying nation.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

• USC: The cracks has been showing [Home-page squib]

Is someone at LALA a USC grad -- or a UCLA?

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

Besides, given how many cooks spoiled this broth they shouldn't have any problem with it.

And to make things worse we have dueling spins: the WaPost blames the White House; some little paper called the Sun blames news hacks. Why must people use stories like this to score their microscopic political points?

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers

Wait a second! Isn't spying on terrorists wrong?

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Hey Dick! We thought your former boss took care of AIDS.

On March 20th, 2007 he appeared on The Colbert Report to mediate in what Stephen Colbert (or rather, his television alter-ego) saw as Willie Nelson infringing on his ice cream flavor time. Mr. Holbrooke was the 'ambassador on call' and after a short mediation process the two parties agreed to taste each other's Ben and Jerry's ice cream to make amends. He subsequently sang "On the Road Again" in a trio with Colbert and Nelson.

Another genius for the ages.

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

N.H. voters warming to Hillary Clinton

Yep, it's over.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

OH, oh, the networks' days are numbered: Jerry Jones has taken over the committee to run NFL Network!

Take THAT!

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

The physics prize was awarded for a discovery with an everyday application — you may be using it now. [Yahoo! home-page squib]

Okay -- they helped make hard drives more dense. We suspect few people know how. It is already difficult enough to explain the Dynamite Memorial science prizes. When does it become impossible?

The Li-te-rah-teeyure and Good Intentions awards long ago entered that realm.

Posted 8:33 PM by Gene

On the sad day a former Olympic sprinter returned her five medals, we looked into Amazon.com and found precisely five books on this once phenomenon, all hagiographies, all full of baloney-hype, four going used for as little as a penny (before shipping), none of the reviews later than 2004, with their own haunting traces of her fans:

This book was amazing to read...i'm such a huge fan of hers because she reminds me of me. this book by far is the best book written about her. Since she wrote it, i know it's the truth. every question i had about her was answered in this book. she is probably my biggest sports hero.

"Looks like she won't need to become an electrical engineer after all", said an Amazon.com review of one. It might not have been such a bad idea.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

I'd like some clown like Dow 36,000 or GEKKO KUDLOW to make a case we're living in an age of permanent prosperity. Of course it would seem idiotic on the face of it, but after all Dow 36,000 did write that book -- indeed it was one of the biggest statements since the Great De, er, the Roaring Twenties of limitless investment growth, and the combined market cap of Dalai Lamadom and Stevedom is $340 billion -- so something permanent must be going on, some eternal economic fountain of youth that guarantees stocks will never go down again. I am convinced many in the Wall Street Casino think we're living in an age of permanent prosperity. I want to know why.

Which brings up a question: why don't Dalai Lamadom and Stevedom merge? Together they could be the first TRILLION-DOLLAR MARKET CAP COMPANY! When that day comes America will have completed its relocation to CloudCuckooLand.

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

The Alfred E. Neumans are out in force: G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE is only $90 BILLION in market cap from THE BUGMEISTERS!

Now, if the Dalai Lamas' annual revenues are what, $13 billion, and the BUG's are $51 billion, that means that when the Miracle of Mountain View reaches that level it will have a market cap of about $750 BILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We suspect a big WHOOPS will come first -- as it did with the BUGMEISTERS.

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: College perfessers are still knee-jerk liberal, only that blur you see is knee-jerk perfessers trying not-so-hard not to jerk their knees once they feel the urge to jerk them, and especially when seen in public jerking their knees while being SURVEYED.

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

Ang Lee Says He's Shy, Socially Awkward

For God's sake, ASSPress, what is the point of such a press release? Is it to convince us a cri-TIC-ally-coddled director is jes' like us? Is it to convince us that a man who produces art-porn is as full of fear as a boy on his first date? Is it to convince us that ASSPress pays too much money to too many hacks to produce too much folderol?

I think it's the last, myself.

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

"N. Z. Bear" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

is looking for work.

10/08 11:56 AM

YOU SAID IT, MS. TRAVERS.

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

When the culture is effectively out of the public's control we will have problems like rampant teen drinking. That it can happen in what the StinkyInky alleges is a town with "top-rated public schools and shopping district" (sic) means nothing; or rather, having top-rated public schools and shopping district means if anything the kids can get away with more.

Even after the last death, some students mourned Gibson by gathering at a house and drinking hours after his funeral.

Confronting things like this I wonder if the American flag should fly upside down as a matter of protocol.

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the magical kingdom of Romy, Roger Ailes, one of those who helped assure ALL PARIS ALL THE TIME, makes a startling admission:

I'M THE ONE WHO PUT MARIA BARTIROMO ON THE AIR!!!!!!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

Certainly you don't have to jump up and down and wave your arms while saying that, Rog. She might get you for trademark infringement. And a true believer named Hendrik, with his incandescent smile only slightly less attractive than the bikini-clad model in the ad next to him, grasps at his daily straws:

Where do you go every day on the Web?

I go to Talking Points Memo several times a day—the main site and its offshoots. That's the set of sites I go to by far the most. TPM feels like home; ideologically and politically it's a perfect fit for me. I can rely on it to draw my attention to anything that's of major interest to me in the world of public affairs. I go to two of the Atlantic blogs, namely Sullivan and Yglesias. Slightly less often I go to Romenesko and Crooks & Liars and Wolcott and Fallows; and Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly. The American Prospect I go to almost daily. The Plank, the New Republic's group blog. Steve Clemons' Washington Note. Glenn Greenwald is someone I go to a lot. I check out Kos now and then to take the temperature of the teeming liberal masses.

TRANSLATION: I'm the effete liberal analog of those yahoos who listen to nothing but PILLHEAD. Now we know why The New Yorker is always so full of -- itself.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: PEOPLE WARNER is preparing to do what is should have done decades ago -- UNMERGE.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

And this story about a disastrous formula change in an aerosol grout shows why we need serious news -- but even the best serious news isn't sexy, and what's more, even it is tainted by the self-importance of the profession, a self-importance that only seems to grow with each new ANNA or PARIS.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

Romy links to an article about how to improve sports news (as if that's possible with all the screaming millionaires) -- and he may not have wanted to, judging from the first two grafs:

On the day Paris Hilton was released from jail, I watched something that was both predictably depressing and depressingly predictable: Three national news channels -- MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News -- were simultaneously running segments that expressed outrage over the amount of TV coverage Paris Hilton was receiving.

I do not need to explain why this is idiotic, as this is the kind of modern idiocy every American understands completely. In a way, it actually seems more ridiculous to waste energy complaining about it. And if that is indeed the case -- if it is now a waste of time to feel disenchanted about inane media coverage that reflexively criticizes itself for inanity -- it probably means it's too late for the conventional news media to ever be good again. It's entirely possible that the mainstream coverage of current news events has become too splintered and too misdirected to ever recover its value; it probably can't be saved, and we just need to accept that reality and find alternative means for learning about the world.

A-MEN, brother.

Recognizing, as it is, that a better way is hardly likely.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Here JFK Lincoln hires a moneywhiz -- and even the sympathetic WaPo must admit, in the 45TH of 47 GRAFS:

The impact of the latest numbers remains unclear. Clinton has used that successful quarter to solidify her position as the front-runner -- a move that could persuade fence-sitting donors to get on board and produce an even more bountiful fourth quarter.

Who in his right mind who isn't a billionaire would give to any presidential campaign? The money merely goes to billionaire broadcasters and to sleazy consultants to concoct lies.

Posted 10:18 PM by Gene

Speaking of LALA, the hacks can talk up Mick Geritol until the Social Security checks come home, but sorry, from the time the big-band era ended at a place like the Hollywood Palladium it was strictly downhill.

Doesn't this photo just scream of elegance?

Posted 10:17 PM by Gene

Hollywood reaped record box-office revenue of more than $4 billion this summer. But one month into the fall moviegoing season, domestic receipts are off 6% from last year's pace and attendance has dropped 10%.

GOOD!

"Reviews can be important for an R-rated comedy because all the hilarious moments can't be shown in any of the marketing materials."

WE WOULD RATHER PRINT THE TRUTH THAN STAY IN BUSINESS!

What is the difference between these preening public-be-damned monomaniacs?

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Clinton takes lead in Iowa poll

It's over already?

Posted 4:46 PM by Gene

Ooooooops! People seem finally to have realized bottled water comes in plastic bottles.

Posted 4:37 PM by Gene

Why did ASSPRESS have to remind us? It's time for the annual DYNAMITE MEMORIAL AWARDS.

Posted 4:32 PM by Gene

Speaking of street festivals, there was another in Center City Philthydelphia, the second in two weeks (last week's was Oktoberfest in September), a gay-lez thing, complete with its own version of THE NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE and KEITH O as some religious types threw a tantrum over "lifestyles" while some of the lifestylers drowned them out with electronic noisemakers, and I wished they both went to the land of no return.

Posted 4:02 PM by Gene

Today out of nostalgia I paid a Web visit to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I lived too long. Once it was a center of productive industry; today, like most towns, it's a quarantine for poor people. (The surrounding county has become a smiley-faced sprawl of office malls and house-flipping, and awful crimes that indicate the quiet ways of the native "Dutchmen" passed into history long ago.) To overcome its uselessness the locals have flung several hundred millions on make-work RENDELLIUMS, first a ball park (with naming rights sold to a publisher that started in Lancaster and moved out of town) and now an attempt to make a convention center out of a defunct department store, apparently (and suitably) over budget. Part of the scheme is a Marriott, the town fathers forgetting that in another spasm of urban renewal they built a Hilton (!) that sits underused several blocks north, next to a gaping urban-renewal hole the town fathers sometimes fill with infernal street fests.

Lancaster faces a peculiar American conundrum: There is no true reason for being for America's cities any longer, LEGENDARY WELCHES and JE$$Es having taken care of them in equal and equally malevolent measure. Why do RENDELLS continue to believe that casinos, ball parks, convention halls, "the AHTS" and street festivals are the equivalent of industry? Why do they persist in building their debt-laden white elephants? Why must they always milk the taxpayers dry with their corrupt and worthless schemes?

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

Research mixing human and animal eggs and sperm has garnered considerable ethical concern and been banned in several countries.

Oh dammit stop talking ethics! You Bunsen Honeydews talk ethics the way news hacks talk ethics. You're going to do what you're going to do, and if the future resembles a bad sci-fi novel, well, not our problem.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

Maybe all the Richie Riches on Wall Street who are fueling the "whew-we're-glad-that's-over" stock market rally can finance a few people who are losing their homes to foreclosures.

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

So -- Emerson College has graduated all these fine comedians.

How many snide remarks about the audience's intelligence did it graduate too?