THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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Wednesday, November 07, 2007
When the EHDYUKAYSHUNAL ESSTABLESHMEANT admits out-of-wedlock births are a problem, they're a problem.
(Via NRO's Phi Beta Cons)
(Via NRO's Phi Beta Cons)
Bank write-offs forecast to top $60bn
See, here's the fun part: these bad assets are but a fraction of the financial world's total; but once the Wall Street Casino gets in its adrenaline-pumping panic mode it can turn any number of billions into pennies.
See, here's the fun part: these bad assets are but a fraction of the financial world's total; but once the Wall Street Casino gets in its adrenaline-pumping panic mode it can turn any number of billions into pennies.
Given the shenanigans in Tulsa it is quite proper for Sen. Grassley to investigate the wealthiest televangelists. No church should hide money grubbing behind a holy veil, but it seems the current generation of fundraisers never heard of Jim Bakker.
We know if we had a following it would quickly grow tired and resentful of our constant praise of show-biz, but having not viewed a prime-time series regularly in nearly forty years (we have an explanation, which will emerge in due course) seeing the YouTube exhumations of old TV commercials we can assure ourselves the medium's stayed bad. Perhaps they're not the highest quality specimens, but as the SONS OF NEUHARTH made a inescapable cliché of the notion that the SUPER BOWL'S ADS are among the GEMS OF CIVILIZATION they surely must be. Heck they're produced by the same people; they've become a proving ground for tomorrow's genius fillum directors. And yet even the best are cheesy and dated, and while some of it owes to the bad transfers and YouTube's unlimiting video limits too much of it owes to the commercials. At least K-Tel's notorious poundings were never intended as high art and deliver the low laughs old pop-culture generates in that annoyingly ironic away, but these artifacts must remind us of the permanence of television's BAD, and how the boob tube, now minus the tube, will nonetheless stay bad forever, which is why we are not the least sympathetic to the striking millionaires.
Onward and upward in political discourse:
Barack Obama complained on Wednesday about an Internet photo that claims the Democratic presidential candidate didn't hold his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.
"This is so irritating," Obama said when asked about the photo in Muscatine, Iowa.
You can say THAT again.
Barack Obama complained on Wednesday about an Internet photo that claims the Democratic presidential candidate didn't hold his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.
"This is so irritating," Obama said when asked about the photo in Muscatine, Iowa.
You can say THAT again.
We did not wish to discuss THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER II, especially this close to the theme park's opening, but we suspect BRANSON EAST's ad-blurbists have a solution to their peculiar conundrum in their hard drives: RAVE!!!!! the show -- and PAN the creator. This way they can blast the $10,000 seats while selling them. More BRILLIANCE from BRANSON EAST!
Clinton, Bob Villa Talk Energy Policy
Had it been the SLICKSTER we could have used a cute pun that involves what people do with hammers, but given it isn't the SLICKSTER we can avoid the double entendre.
Had it been the SLICKSTER we could have used a cute pun that involves what people do with hammers, but given it isn't the SLICKSTER we can avoid the double entendre.
Given how often people scream at their computers is a sound-sensitive mouse such a great idea?
Ohhhh, it's for the handicapped. My thought still stands.
Ohhhh, it's for the handicapped. My thought still stands.
Who endorses who in the primaries will be a distant memory when we face the preordained candidates next November, and heave a sigh.
P. S. at 7:40 p.m. As we were saying about preordained candidates....
P. S. at 7:40 p.m. As we were saying about preordained candidates....
We wonder, however Mr. Samuelson can phrase it, if we can expect a "just" recession, one that would take the air out of the Babbitts and the G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEMANIACS without puncturing the rest of us. Oh well, we can hope.
Laughter on the seven-digits' picket line:
David Mamet found an immediate outlet for his creativity during the Hollywood writers strike.
In a cartoon published Tuesday on the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times, Mamet played the labor dispute for laughs, appearing to lampoon Writers Guild of America strikers.
The cartoon, drawn in a rough scribble, shows two men, each wearing a "WGA on Strike" button. One, with sunglasses and a palm tree-decorated shirt, says: "Whaddaya think, will we end up on the breadline?"
"I don't touch carbohydrates," the other cartoon figure responds.
This industry cannot stop talking to itself -- and its psychotic jabber is starting to infuriate us. Maybe people will grow so annoyed at all the mourning talk the sides will settle. We doubt it -- and we don't want them to.
David Mamet found an immediate outlet for his creativity during the Hollywood writers strike.
In a cartoon published Tuesday on the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times, Mamet played the labor dispute for laughs, appearing to lampoon Writers Guild of America strikers.
The cartoon, drawn in a rough scribble, shows two men, each wearing a "WGA on Strike" button. One, with sunglasses and a palm tree-decorated shirt, says: "Whaddaya think, will we end up on the breadline?"
"I don't touch carbohydrates," the other cartoon figure responds.
This industry cannot stop talking to itself -- and its psychotic jabber is starting to infuriate us. Maybe people will grow so annoyed at all the mourning talk the sides will settle. We doubt it -- and we don't want them to.
Continuing TRAGEDY from the rich persons' walkout:
Strike impacting film marketing
Latenight reruns mean stars can't plug movies
That "impacting" must have caused Sime Silverman to lay an egg in his grave.
Worries have risen that without reviving the WGA talks, the scribes' work stoppage could easily bleed into the middle of next year.
That sounds too optimistic.
Strike impacting film marketing
Latenight reruns mean stars can't plug movies
That "impacting" must have caused Sime Silverman to lay an egg in his grave.
Worries have risen that without reviving the WGA talks, the scribes' work stoppage could easily bleed into the middle of next year.
That sounds too optimistic.
Complaining about loudmouths "fracturing the political discourse" has become almost as tiresome as the loudmouths fracturing the political discourse.
(Also via MediaBistro)
(Also via MediaBistro)
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
The Newsrag of the Zeitgeist evidences an -- understanding of publicity, it being one of America's most exasperating PR organs:
Though we'd like to do more, there's ultimately only so much we can do to punish people for having ideologies we don't approve of. Lavishing attention on every bigot and provocateur is counterproductive. The technique of exposing hatred to sunlight to kill the germs simply doesn't work, especially in the case of celebrities who can easily replace the fans who abhor their hatred with fans who secretly applaud it.
So what will BIGMEDIA and its new friend BIGINTERNET do? Natch: turn into an even BIGGER petri dish to grow MORE GERMS.
Though we'd like to do more, there's ultimately only so much we can do to punish people for having ideologies we don't approve of. Lavishing attention on every bigot and provocateur is counterproductive. The technique of exposing hatred to sunlight to kill the germs simply doesn't work, especially in the case of celebrities who can easily replace the fans who abhor their hatred with fans who secretly applaud it.
So what will BIGMEDIA and its new friend BIGINTERNET do? Natch: turn into an even BIGGER petri dish to grow MORE GERMS.
But many analysts argue that there is nothing underlying the skyrocketing valuations - or, sometimes, that the companies' obscure finances make it impossible to know. And if the Chinese stock market is a bubble, the new billionaires will disappear as quickly as they rose, since much of their wealth was generated by the stock markets, as well as by the Chinese real estate boom and the Chinese economy, the fastest-growing in the world.
I think we've heard this song before.
I think we've heard this song before.
SELIGISM's lords want instant replay -- but Selig doesn't:
"I don't like instant replay because I don't like all the delays."
Yeah -- a five-hour nine inning game, complete with ten minute breaks. You've done pretty well delaying the game, SELIG.
"I don't like instant replay because I don't like all the delays."
Yeah -- a five-hour nine inning game, complete with ten minute breaks. You've done pretty well delaying the game, SELIG.
We could have FORESEEN something like this would happen:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is suing renowned architect Frank Gehry, alleging there are serious design flaws in the Stata Center, a building celebrated for its unconventional walls and radical angles.
The school alleges the center, completed in spring 2004, has persistent leaks, drainage problems and mold growing on its brick exterior. It says accumulations of snow and ice have fallen dangerously from window boxes and other areas of its roofs, blocking emergency exits and causing damage.
What did these eggheads expect with unconventional walls and radical angles? And it doesn't have the advantage of being good-looking.
Nope -- we FORESAW something like this would happen:
Anyone want to guess which comes first -- MIT folks demanding this be torn down, or the thing having to be demolished because it won't stand up?
Oh well, better to be right than popular.
P. S. at 5:10 p.m. HEAVY THINKING in PINCHDOM:
Robert Campbell, an architect who is a critic for the Globe, said it is inevitable that there will be problems in any unconventional building like the Stata Center, which has roofs colliding at different, odd angles.
"It looks like something out of a Disney cartoon," Campbell said.
Like THE THREE LITTLE PIGS?
NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! being what it is we really thought this accused cop killer would remain free forever; that police could nab him in Miami proves there's at least one crime you can't get away with.
Having a prime-time lineup that tilts ever more demonstrably to the left could be risky for General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, which is subject to legislation and regulation far afield of the cable landscape. Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.
“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel’s passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”
Fox News consistently denies any political bias in its programming....
WILL BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP?!?!?
(Via the usual Romy)
“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel’s passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”
Fox News consistently denies any political bias in its programming....
WILL BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP?!?!?
(Via the usual Romy)
2007 is deadliest year for U.S. in Iraq
It's still OUR spin! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
The GRIM milestone.... [Overemphasis added]
WILL YOU STOP LAUGHING?
It's still OUR spin! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
The GRIM milestone.... [Overemphasis added]
WILL YOU STOP LAUGHING?
Monday, November 05, 2007
What is more useless than a vote for "best" blog? Not just because we have as much selection as with presidential candidates -- worse as the same names always come up -- but as Jo-NAH's brilliant post makes clear it's all about ballot-box stuffing. Ever since SAM LITTLE got his maniacs to proclaim him Best Blog West of Japip or wherever it was we have paid no mind to such contests -- and because there's so much to pay no mind to on the Web we're coming to ask whether we shouldn't pay any mind to the Web.
We're sour too because something has recently interfered with our ability to get hits. So much of the Web's traffic patterns are just plain arbitrary.
We're sour too because something has recently interfered with our ability to get hits. So much of the Web's traffic patterns are just plain arbitrary.
Stale.com cannot stop sending out adolescent writers into the world -- Effete Edelstein, that TV ad-blurbist for the Paper of Re-CORD, this guy:
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is not quite the gaming equivalent of the missing reel of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons. But it's close.
Was ever an opening sentence more tiresome? It's so arch it could cross a river. If the Web's emcees want to turn people away from their sites (and if Alexa.com is right -- a very hard to thing to know -- they've succeeded brilliantly in recent months) they'll hire more typists like Chris.
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is not quite the gaming equivalent of the missing reel of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons. But it's close.
Was ever an opening sentence more tiresome? It's so arch it could cross a river. If the Web's emcees want to turn people away from their sites (and if Alexa.com is right -- a very hard to thing to know -- they've succeeded brilliantly in recent months) they'll hire more typists like Chris.
The many faces of Charles Prince:
The Cat that Swallowed the Canary;
Thinking;
Mr. Hyde.
That does it for now. He's outta there anyways.
(Photos restored 9/4/2010; period substituted for semi-colon in fourth graf. I don't believe the second photo is the same but it's from the Reut and will do.)
The Cat that Swallowed the Canary;
Thinking;
Mr. Hyde.
That does it for now. He's outta there anyways.
(Photos restored 9/4/2010; period substituted for semi-colon in fourth graf. I don't believe the second photo is the same but it's from the Reut and will do.)
The WGA represents 12,000 writers — the people who make Jay Leno's jokes laughable and "24's" plotlines implausible.
ERRRRRRRRRR....
ERRRRRRRRRR....
Well look at it this way, Wall Street Casino dealers: the dream hasn't ended in China -- and if it can spawn a $1 TRILLION MARKET CAP COMPANY -- well, just buy more G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE and the other tech outfits! They'll ALWAYS go up.
When does the PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC of WAL-MART get ITS comeuppance?
The Chinese government holds 157.92 billion PetroChina shares indirectly through the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. PetroChina's 4-billion-share sale last week represents about 2.5% of the oil giant's total shares listed there.
About two-thirds of the shares on Shanghai market are held by state entities and classed as inactive.
Is this another variation of the dotcom bubble?
When does the PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC of WAL-MART get ITS comeuppance?
The Chinese government holds 157.92 billion PetroChina shares indirectly through the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. PetroChina's 4-billion-share sale last week represents about 2.5% of the oil giant's total shares listed there.
About two-thirds of the shares on Shanghai market are held by state entities and classed as inactive.
Is this another variation of the dotcom bubble?
Sunday, November 04, 2007
TRANSLATION: Suddenly cast in the role of heavy, eclipsing GM in global sales, making enemies of environmentalists, faced with a spate of recalls, Toyota does what any good American megabusiness does: it puts out POTEMKIN ADS.
With this sort of thinking maybe our guys have a little hope.
Wiser thinking: It's sponsoring Meet the Press, the show that has the kind of audience least likely to be moved by such touchy-feely folderol. Don't these clowns remember how ADM-GE sponsored This Week in its Golden Age? They made one think the two companies had merged. (Which, given their despicable CEOs, they rather had.)
With this sort of thinking maybe our guys have a little hope.
Wiser thinking: It's sponsoring Meet the Press, the show that has the kind of audience least likely to be moved by such touchy-feely folderol. Don't these clowns remember how ADM-GE sponsored This Week in its Golden Age? They made one think the two companies had merged. (Which, given their despicable CEOs, they rather had.)
Every three months (really, these days, every weekend) comes a new cultural sensation that blinds the hacks into thinking it's cured cancer. Back in 1958 it was something at the Met called Vanessa, an opera written by two lovers, Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti, that from the sounds of it was HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM before its time -- i.e., lushly appointed gloom. The ad-blurbists raved, the wuhk won the P-Ulitzer...and it vanished from the earth. Peter G. Davis (good to have his byline back somewhere) blames all those ultra-learned piano bangers practicing what they called twelve-tone, but he gives a hint it might have been more than the dogma of the moment when he says "The Met brought the production back the next season, but few tickets were sold" -- and despite the opera phreaks' rep for reactionism they generally know a good tune when they hear one. Irony is it was designed by Cecil Beaton -- who did My Fair Lady, now a staple of the opera house (and which, for its enduring excellence, is not quite a snug fit there, given the notion of slumming, not to mention the industrial-strength voices doing a musical; but at least you can still hum the tunes leaving the hall). The intervening decades have seen many masterwuhks-- Willie Stark, Nixon in China -- extravagantly praised, only to die in the archives, or in the withered bosoms of those who must program filler among the inevitable Verdi and Puccini. No, the "small repertory of viable American operas" is Porgy and Bess -- and that is it.
P. S. on Willie Stark, which has evidently been staged only twice in 26 years:
The original production was dedicated to the American radio journalist Lowell Thomas.
...co-founder of the religious cult known as CapCities, who did more commercials than any other broadcast newsman until Paul HarVEH came along. How fitting.
P. P. S. on 11/8: Thomas did a prerecorded cameo in the original production, whose music Donal Henahan praised as "a remarkably thin score, in a style that could be heard as a parody of Britten and Menotti. Possibly in an effort to achieve dramatic clarity, he has written a kind of strident, prosaic recitative that tears at the listener's patience - and, no doubt, sears the vocal cords." Could a Paper of Re-CORD reviewer write such nowadays without PINCH calling the police?
P. S. on Willie Stark, which has evidently been staged only twice in 26 years:
The original production was dedicated to the American radio journalist Lowell Thomas.
...co-founder of the religious cult known as CapCities, who did more commercials than any other broadcast newsman until Paul HarVEH came along. How fitting.
P. P. S. on 11/8: Thomas did a prerecorded cameo in the original production, whose music Donal Henahan praised as "a remarkably thin score, in a style that could be heard as a parody of Britten and Menotti. Possibly in an effort to achieve dramatic clarity, he has written a kind of strident, prosaic recitative that tears at the listener's patience - and, no doubt, sears the vocal cords." Could a Paper of Re-CORD reviewer write such nowadays without PINCH calling the police?
The limits of language
Information, on the other hand, is much less generally accessible than words. When the process of determining the facts of a situation has been intentionally corrupted by people in power (whether, let's say, Saddam Hussein had the ability to produce nuclear weapons, or whether a new drug has harmful side effects), there often is no corrective mechanism at hand. Intellectual honesty about the gathering and use of facts and
[SIC]
How Orwellian.
Information, on the other hand, is much less generally accessible than words. When the process of determining the facts of a situation has been intentionally corrupted by people in power (whether, let's say, Saddam Hussein had the ability to produce nuclear weapons, or whether a new drug has harmful side effects), there often is no corrective mechanism at hand. Intellectual honesty about the gathering and use of facts and
[SIC]
How Orwellian.
Someone named Fred Siegel at CommentaryMagazine.com gets to the heart of why Gekko Kudlow is so often full of it:
The aggregates, as Larry Kudlow points out, are looking very good. But people don’t live in the aggregate economy.
The aggregates, as Larry Kudlow points out, are looking very good. But people don’t live in the aggregate economy.
Speaking of Web rankings, I note that Alexa (keeping in mind its flaws) puts FreeRepublic.com at something around 10,000. A few years back it was briefly around 500. Cutting and pasting news stories isn't what it used to be. It is tedium enough to do it for your own blog. Besides, the site does have an aura of...intemperateness. I don't attribute this supposed decline to the alleged surge of the left (its mirror image Democratic Underground hasn't caught up very much); face it, most Web sites have a short shelf life, and a lot of yesterday's favorites are approaching relative senility.
And now we're in one of those polling spasms where a couple of thousands have decided things have suddenly gotten worse. My contempt for polls is beyond words, but because we don't have decent intellectuals or even columnists anymore we must let this flatulent guesswork pass for national thinking.
A nation that produces G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEs and untold addicts is not a good nation.
Just because the Japanese are "abandoning" PCs doesn't mean much; in some ways they're a peculiar people -- after all, they're the ones who come up with beverages with names like Inky Sweat, or whatever they call them. But most people don't need PCs, certainly not to annoy others with ring tones or yak all day or type semi-literately, and while the PC constitutes too much of our economy to be discarded outright what with all the new ephemeral gadgets the future is not necessarily in its direction.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Sorry Jo-NAH, a promo's a promo -- and this is a DOUBLE promo.
What happened to all those 75 million, Mr. B? Did they go bye-bye like Larry's BRAIN?
(Or maybe King Richard just said, since our megazillion-earning interviewer made an ASS of himself I'D better control the VIDEO.)
What happened to all those 75 million, Mr. B? Did they go bye-bye like Larry's BRAIN?
(Or maybe King Richard just said, since our megazillion-earning interviewer made an ASS of himself I'D better control the VIDEO.)
Hey c'mon, JonBoy, isn't this, uh, piling on? Don't you realize the TWXSTERS sold Bloomy for prez? And now you're number two -- a DEFINITE number two! You don't have any right endorsing presidential candidates! Even if you CAN get your dozens of interns to help you write 6,979 WORDS!
Besides, He has His own PR department in The Paper of Re-CORD.
Or,
The president's press secretary Jon Meacham said today....
Is being number two THAT bad? Just remember Avis, you'll feel better.
Or, WHO NEEDS NEWSRAGS?
As I said the other day, the left won't hear of entitlement cuts and the right won't hear of tax increases. How many times must I say SIX OF ONE....
Great: The SEC is sniffing around Citigroup -- and its SIVs.
Why couldn't they have chosen another acronym for those things -- like HOLEs?
Why couldn't they have chosen another acronym for those things -- like HOLEs?
In the continuing saga of Whatever Happened to Instapundit?:
Why are fewer men going to college? [George Leef]
Glenn Harlan Reynolds explores that question in this piece on [SIC] TCSDaily.
Reynolds suggests that the answer may be "that men aren't so much underrepresented in college as women are overrepresented. This is plausible. There probably are too many people going to college in general, and it may be that men — more likely to choose, or at least consider, high-paying but unfeminine alternatives like plumbing, or other, more 'masculine' alternatives like military service — are less likely to wind up in college as an unthinking extension of high school."
I particularly like the phrase "an unthinking extension of high school."
Last year, I suggested pretty much the same thing here.
That's another way of saying you don't need a college diploma to be an Instapundit.
Out of curiosity I also checked the Alexa ranking (for what that's worth) of B. S. DEFENDER. Within the last few months it's fallen below 100,000. He writes about nothing but Web 2.0 anymore. No one wants to read such guff. NUF SAID.
Why are fewer men going to college? [George Leef]
Glenn Harlan Reynolds explores that question in this piece on [SIC] TCSDaily.
Reynolds suggests that the answer may be "that men aren't so much underrepresented in college as women are overrepresented. This is plausible. There probably are too many people going to college in general, and it may be that men — more likely to choose, or at least consider, high-paying but unfeminine alternatives like plumbing, or other, more 'masculine' alternatives like military service — are less likely to wind up in college as an unthinking extension of high school."
I particularly like the phrase "an unthinking extension of high school."
Last year, I suggested pretty much the same thing here.
That's another way of saying you don't need a college diploma to be an Instapundit.
Out of curiosity I also checked the Alexa ranking (for what that's worth) of B. S. DEFENDER. Within the last few months it's fallen below 100,000. He writes about nothing but Web 2.0 anymore. No one wants to read such guff. NUF SAID.
Strange that the Best-Selling President Pervez has declared a state of emergency now; we'd say Pakistan's been in a state of emergency since 1947, and especially since THE @#%$*& "FATHER" OF THE COUNTRY started his nuke biz.
Our intrepid NASA handymen fixed the solar array on the orbiting garage, which means it can rattle around in space for a few more years.
We're not making fun of them, only that our GUVMENT thought it necessary to put a solar-powered garage in orbit.
We're not making fun of them, only that our GUVMENT thought it necessary to put a solar-powered garage in orbit.
In news that seems to have gone unnoticed outside Denver and central Massachusetts, a "banker" jumped to his death yesterday. What was odd about this "banker" is that he "ran" a college and later "ran" a bank. He "ran" both as scams. His life suggests that HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN and finance share something of a soft underbelly.
(Second link via Chronicle.com)
(Second link via Chronicle.com)
Mark my words: these frauds will settle on Monday morning. They will settle because every show-biz news hack wants them to; indeed from their mournful tones they've been praying for the first time in their lives. Of course there are far more of us who want to see them strike, who want their arrogant, incompetent industry to get a big hurtful comeuppance. But both sides already agree in one thing: they're better than their audience. This will unite them to settle -- on Monday morning.
In more news of the MENSA MAN of CRIME:
O.J. Simpson and a memorabilia dealer initially hoped to videotape The Juice's Las Vegas hotel heist and televise the operation to make money, an FBI source said Friday.
Where? On Comedy Central? Or Cartoon Network?
O.J. Simpson and a memorabilia dealer initially hoped to videotape The Juice's Las Vegas hotel heist and televise the operation to make money, an FBI source said Friday.
Where? On Comedy Central? Or Cartoon Network?
Friday, November 02, 2007
Two days ago I ended a 15 month professional affiliation (indirect) with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) -- which is why, during those 15 months, I did not write as a journalist on health care issues (except one passing reference once in a column on something else), because of course that would have been a conflict of interest. But now that my professional affiliation is finished, I feel compelled to say this: Of all the anti-corporate scapegoating that the political left engages in, perhaps the most pernicious is the left's continuing attempt to paint pharmaceutical companies as bad guys. The fact is that, every single year, PhRMA companies vastly improve tens of millions of American lives and flat-out save millions more. Our free market system, and the competitions therein, work well in the pharmaceutical industries to provide the resources for life-saving research while keeping downward pressure on prices that no government program could ever accomplish. And the people I worked with at PhRMA care deeply, in a very personal way, about keeping their industry strong not just because it provides them a paycheck but because of the good that the industry does. PhRMA's senior vice president of communications, Ken Johnson, is clearly motivated largely by a sense of idealism about the industry's life-saving mission -- in part because his longtime boss, PhRMA president and CEO and former U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, had his own life saved from cancer by the medical advances that only a free-market pharmaceutical industry could possibly have developed. PhRMA and conservatives may not always agree, but 90% of the time they will be on the same side, and for all the best reasons. It is an industry worth defending.
Yes, this puppy slobber is DEFINITELY the answer to those COMMIE LIBERALS.
Indeed there is no difference between this and the paroxysm of grief the Beltway suffered when the fraud THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST died. Shut your trap, Armstr...Quin.
Yes, this puppy slobber is DEFINITELY the answer to those COMMIE LIBERALS.
Indeed there is no difference between this and the paroxysm of grief the Beltway suffered when the fraud THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST died. Shut your trap, Armstr...Quin.
Still, the consequences of the decision to describe 9/11 as the beginning of a war rather than a criminal investigation....
It seems the man who wants to establish a "rhetoric beat" has some untouchable rhetoric of his own. Just as the clown Gekko Kudlow tries to change the subject when it comes to the credit bust, so this clown tries to change the subject when it comes to liberals' spinelessness on foreign policy. Maybe Iraq was bad, but that any liberal would limit us to a criminal investigation on 9/11 shows just how vain and cowardly knee-jerks -- of BOTH stripes -- can be.
(Via MediaBistro)
It seems the man who wants to establish a "rhetoric beat" has some untouchable rhetoric of his own. Just as the clown Gekko Kudlow tries to change the subject when it comes to the credit bust, so this clown tries to change the subject when it comes to liberals' spinelessness on foreign policy. Maybe Iraq was bad, but that any liberal would limit us to a criminal investigation on 9/11 shows just how vain and cowardly knee-jerks -- of BOTH stripes -- can be.
(Via MediaBistro)
GEKKO "DICK GRASSO WAS VASTLY UNDERPAID" KUDLOW RULES:
Message to all you worrywarts out there: The U.S. economy remains strong. There is no recession ahead. Goldilocks rules.
I.e., a fairy tale rules.
Message to all you worrywarts out there: The U.S. economy remains strong. There is no recession ahead. Goldilocks rules.
I.e., a fairy tale rules.
President Bush yesterday warned Democrats that if they do not confirm his attorney general nominee, Michael B. Mukasey, the U.S. might have no attorney general for the remainder of his term.
Would anyone notice?
Would anyone notice?
When an "Arab leader" accuses Nukeman of wanting the bomb may we count that as the definitive truth?
CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) SPEAKS AGAIN:
"We -- the news industry -- have come to that fork in the road. We must take bold, decisive steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role in both our economy and democracy, or find ourselves on an ugly path to obscurity...."
Well CURLEY, you know what Yogi Berra said: When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Speaking of money, notice anything about this? Do you think it at least slightly resembles
this?
Of course there's a reason: the bigger and fancier we make our hospitals, the more they need insurance companies and TAXPAYERS, and their expenses grow so fast that the old Taj Mahals have to come down for new ones, and so....
Anyone for a $20 billion hospital?
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Fortunately -- for now -- the imbecile typists are playing down democracy's bludgeoning in the Confederacy, fairly apt on a day Chrysler fired 12,000.
Does it not occur to the tulip growers investing in the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View that maybe their company shares an economy?
Martina Hingis's "retirement" (more like a forced resignation) answers our question about Andy Reid, and the answer is no. Tennis is inundated with the CEO crowd who'll sponsor anything to put one over on their plebe help, and there's no reason to think they'll abandon a sport so good to their egos, though it often has the excitement of watching a large puddle evaporate. As for Martina, she's just another druggie in an industry where it's an increasing exception not to be, either for muscle or pleasure.
Perfect timing by an ALTERNARAG:
In an age of BRITNEY and PARIS shame cannot stick, but we wonder if this isn't the end for Andy Reid. He has shown the world he wasn't much of a father; his sons have returned the favor by proving they weren't much as sons. The drug rot has become so pervasive we do not laugh at stories like this. We especially don't laugh when a brave local policeman lost his life to a thug, just another shooting in the land of Mr. iPhone, a shooting inspired by drug abuse. Meanwhile Andy makes his millions doing what too many coaches could do -- get outcoached by the couch potatoes. Under the circumstances we rather hope the final score on Sunday is Dallas 70-3.
In an age of BRITNEY and PARIS shame cannot stick, but we wonder if this isn't the end for Andy Reid. He has shown the world he wasn't much of a father; his sons have returned the favor by proving they weren't much as sons. The drug rot has become so pervasive we do not laugh at stories like this. We especially don't laugh when a brave local policeman lost his life to a thug, just another shooting in the land of Mr. iPhone, a shooting inspired by drug abuse. Meanwhile Andy makes his millions doing what too many coaches could do -- get outcoached by the couch potatoes. Under the circumstances we rather hope the final score on Sunday is Dallas 70-3.
This was a courageous move. No doubt these officials will be villified as humorless old fogies (and in no small measure by the idiot HACKS who've prolonged this book sales pitch), but they did the right thing. This SUMNER publicity stunt was getting out of hand. Had they approved of putting this half-witted farceur and front for dozens of ghostwriters on the ballot it could have created a groundswell for a fake campaign. Having voted for JIMMAH and John Anderson and Dubya I know what a wasted vote is like. We don't need to formalize the waste. The republic should salute these fine party leaders for going into the teeth of a hurricane-like BIGMEDIA FRAUD, and emerging with their reps burnished.
Motto of the Week:
As a prominent South African told me before I left for Zimbabwe, a surefire sign that you’re in an undemocratic country is the proliferation of presidential pictures.
As a prominent South African told me before I left for Zimbabwe, a surefire sign that you’re in an undemocratic country is the proliferation of presidential pictures.
Oklahoman sales/marketing veep now oversees newsroom
Get REAdyyyyyyyyyy, get reaDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, the WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLD is cominnnnnnnnng to an ENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND!!!!!
Get REAdyyyyyyyyyy, get reaDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, the WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLD is cominnnnnnnnng to an ENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND!!!!!
Top GOP senator: Attorney general nomination 'at risk'
...Sen. Arlen Specter.... [?????]
Okay, the TWXSTERS SAY this Senator wished to remain anonymous, but Mr. O'Specter IS the only one quoted here, and how many Senators like to see their quotes in lights?
...Sen. Arlen Specter.... [?????]
Okay, the TWXSTERS SAY this Senator wished to remain anonymous, but Mr. O'Specter IS the only one quoted here, and how many Senators like to see their quotes in lights?
When we learned BUGMEISTER and ST. WARREN had pooled Their assets for eternal press releases, we knew something fishy was up -- namely, the thought that They could CURE the world's maladies. This, of course, is hubris, and evidently Their hubris is being tested in Africa, where no amount of money seems to stop AIDS. It is preposterous to think science can't stop it -- after all, science is on the verge of making a lot of utopian nightmares possible -- but then again GUVMENT should have comprehensively disproved the idea of wealth as panacea, and maybe AIDS needs something a little less complicated than vaccines -- like teaching teenagers not to sleep together, for starters.
If (as John McLaughlin's former sidekick says) Babs is THE MOST POWERFUL SPEAKER EVER, but she can't get anything done, wouldn't that make her less than most powerful?
We knew this smelled when we saw the hed:
Al Qaeda Hacker Attack Scheduled To Begin November 11th
Yeah. They announce these things in advance. And of course there's a reason this smells:
...reports DEBKAfile....
Meaning SAM LITTLE has already posted a dozen times on this and gotten 200,000 comments.
Al Qaeda Hacker Attack Scheduled To Begin November 11th
Yeah. They announce these things in advance. And of course there's a reason this smells:
...reports DEBKAfile....
Meaning SAM LITTLE has already posted a dozen times on this and gotten 200,000 comments.
The pittance that is a current Social Security payment was intended to maintain the doddering retirees of yore in their accustomed condition of thin gruel and single-car garages. Such chump change will hardly suffice for today's vigorous sexagenarians intent on (among other things) vigorous sex, in places like Paris, St. Bart's, and Phuket.
How can present Social Security allotments be expected to fund our sky-diving, bungee-jumping, hang gliding and white-water rafting, our skiing, golf and scuba excursions, our photo safaris to Africa, bike tours of Tuscany and sojourns at Indian ashrams, our tennis clinics, spa treatments, gym memberships and personal fitness training, our luxury cruises to the Galapagos and Antarctica, the vacation homes in Hilton Head and Vail, the lap pools, Jacuzzis, and clay courts being built thereat and the his and hers Harley Davidsons?
And we haven't even touched on the subject of Social Security's civil union life partner, Medicare. It won't take much sky-diving, bungee-jumping, hang gliding, and white-water rafting before we all require new hips, knees, elbows, back surgery, pacemakers, and steel plates in our heads. And the expense of these will be as nothing compared to the cost of our pharmacological needs. Remember, we are a generation that knows drugs. From about 1967 until John Belushi died, we created a way of life based almost entirely on drugs. And we can do it again. Except this time, instead of us trying to figure out how to pay for the fun by selling each other nickel bags of pot, you the taxpayer will be picking up the tab. And did I mention that we'll expect to be airlifted to the Mayo Clinic every time we have an ache or a pain? Nothing smaller than a Gulfstream G-3, please.
T'aint funny, O'Rourke.
How can present Social Security allotments be expected to fund our sky-diving, bungee-jumping, hang gliding and white-water rafting, our skiing, golf and scuba excursions, our photo safaris to Africa, bike tours of Tuscany and sojourns at Indian ashrams, our tennis clinics, spa treatments, gym memberships and personal fitness training, our luxury cruises to the Galapagos and Antarctica, the vacation homes in Hilton Head and Vail, the lap pools, Jacuzzis, and clay courts being built thereat and the his and hers Harley Davidsons?
And we haven't even touched on the subject of Social Security's civil union life partner, Medicare. It won't take much sky-diving, bungee-jumping, hang gliding, and white-water rafting before we all require new hips, knees, elbows, back surgery, pacemakers, and steel plates in our heads. And the expense of these will be as nothing compared to the cost of our pharmacological needs. Remember, we are a generation that knows drugs. From about 1967 until John Belushi died, we created a way of life based almost entirely on drugs. And we can do it again. Except this time, instead of us trying to figure out how to pay for the fun by selling each other nickel bags of pot, you the taxpayer will be picking up the tab. And did I mention that we'll expect to be airlifted to the Mayo Clinic every time we have an ache or a pain? Nothing smaller than a Gulfstream G-3, please.
T'aint funny, O'Rourke.
Another indication the credit crisis is OVER: Citigroup may have to cut its dividend!
Now that's optimism!
(Updated story here)
Now that's optimism!
(Updated story here)
The latest thing in news-hack CW is that Ron Paul is THE MAN, no doubt because he's a Glibertarian, and Glibertarians are free-market liberals. Let's see how much of a man he is when his candidacy gets single digits in the primaries.
(Never mind either that he seems less a man than something wired by Dr. Frankenstein.)
P. S. It doesn't hurt when some of his more devoted followers push the cause with SPAM.
(Never mind either that he seems less a man than something wired by Dr. Frankenstein.)
P. S. It doesn't hurt when some of his more devoted followers push the cause with SPAM.