Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Now it's increasing FDIC deposit insurance, an idea bruited for days. Fine -- but how much will that cost?

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

Hopeful Glint of the Day:

Even though homeowners have defaulted on sub-prime mortgages, there is a house at the bottom of it all and that has real value.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

In the name of not offending one or two sacrosanct groups the EUUUUUUUUUUU! plans to introduce "virtual strip-searches".

Who wants to bet this is introduced without public notice -- or that some of the scans become public property?

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

MUSIC TO FANFARE THE TOWERING INFERNO BY:



I believe I have found a definitive reason why movies of the MEGAPLATINUM BISKIND AGE were NOT BETTER THAN EVER.

P. S. The poster says he was "spoofing", but I wonder; the cheesy synthesizer seems authentic and it sounds as though from a film soundtrack. And elsewhere (don't mean to get so obsessive-arcane) he posts the notorious 1963 Screen Gems end fanfare (the so-called "Dancing Sticks", with music by Frank DeVol) without a voiceover, and this apparently is authentic.

Posted 3:51 PM by Gene

I guess this means we don't need a bailout!

HA HA HA!

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Jo-NAH's favorite restaurants are decorating their tables with promos -- nothing wrong with that -- but I couldn't help noticing the curious inscription around the circumference:

MCDMNU/08 Spicy Chicken Ops Atlanta dining zone--table cling--phase 3

Count on the Mick to call his seating areas "dining zones". But what got me was the "phase 3." A reason outfits like Moon 'n' Stars are so intransigent is that they think of their "ops" as war zones, engaging in mortal combat to gain that extra share point from the enemy. "Phase 3" made me think of how many thousands of reports this promo's generated, how many middle-manager martinets are humorlessly blundering about the office in Atlanta or wherever to get every last drop of money they can from Chick-Fil-A and KFC and being so caught up in the fog of war they can't see their customers. What with its Bank of America problems the Mick was surely so panicky self-absorbed yesterday the staff must have acted like a McChicken with its head cut off. I would expect no less from such a wonderful organization.

I further thought of "Phase 3" as a mother and child were seated nearby, and the child was playing with an SFX-laden R2D2 toy, no doubt obtained through the Mick's fantastically successful tie-in for a fantastically successful movie. And as the little kid played the SFX I thought LUKE SPIELBERG must have had hours of tantrums getting exactly the right sound into the toy, hectoring untold subordinates and suppliers, even as said SFX went into something made in CHINA from God-knows-what. Mickey D's and LUKE are a marriage made in a galaxy that cannot be a long enough time ago or far enough away.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

Not all the news yesterday was bad. Consider SLIME, whom Forbeslist reports has already lost $2 billion in a year -- four times what He paid for MySpace!

Really Rupe, did you have to spend that much?

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

And in more AARP news:

New York City Opera [SIC] has commissioned composer Philip Glass ("Koyaanisqatsi," "The Hours") to pen an opera about Walt Disney, to be staged in collaboration with Brit legit troupe Improbable.

NUF SAID.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Evidently it is a not-too-well-kept secret that most audiences for the thea-TAH (and as we mentioned before the concert hall) will never pay into Social Security again. As with the decline in recorded...SOUND we can devise all manner of self-exculpating excuses for this, but judging from BRANSON EAST's lineup the thea-TAH does not deserve anything younger than walking corpses among its clients.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives have a new bag: our economy's in a jam because people like Barney gave the housing store away to lots of poor people, which certainly explains all the speculators who flipped houses like waffles, and all the Baby Einsteins on Wall Street and their algorithms.

We may have to add Jeff to our list of colyumnists and when we stopped fully believing them.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Honorary Mayor Mike may as well stay for four more years. It beats running a declining economy.

Posted 6:33 PM by Gene

“I’m going to tell you right now, it’s good.”

Of course he would; do you think he'd say it's another AHThouse bore that will lose money?

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

Alas, this was expected, and inevitable; but we do hope the Sun's proprietors somehow keep at least a remnant online, where it might save itself.

Indeed we'd argue had the Sun had a going Web site when it started it might have at least prolonged its existence, although that might also have meant prolonging its agony.

P. S. At 7:02 p. m. Evidently the Web site is folding too. Oh, well....

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

How noteworthy that the Republicans, who played a considerable part in this financial mess, are blaming Speaker Babs. While it sounds like the easy and cheap way out so typical of the GOP it's credible. Imagine if you will if Henry Clay or John C. Calhoun came back from the dead to push the bill. They were famous for their impassioned oratory. Imagine if a Speaker of the House knew how to speak. Isn't that a little of what the title stands for? Sadly, we know Babs trips over her tongue even on sound bytes, which is why today wasn't the House's gold-medal day.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Yes, "what about" those who would ban books like "The Turner Diaries or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"?

No, being righteous about conservative Judy Blume-banning yahoos isn't always a slam dunk.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Here's betting that, whatever happened today, the House tries again, and passes it. It humiliated itself a bit too much.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

I doubt, however, if the Republic has known a day when so many people would tell our politician-cretins and the banshees on Wall Street ALL to go to hell.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

DOW SUFFERS BIGGEST POINT DROP EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and posted its biggest daily percentage decline since the October 1987 stock market crash....

...when it was at 2200.

I have no sympathy for the people who've said we can talk our way into economic ruin as these are the same people who said NEWS HACKS wrecked the housing biz. Nonetheless the hacks are bloviating with statistical half truths today -- these after all, are the same IDIOTS who view box-office numbers as holy writ -- and if they keep it up maybe they can talk us into ruin.

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

GASP! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!!!!!

Did anyone really expect this piece of -- legislation to pass?

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000GLE UNDER $400!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well maybe if you hadn't blathered about $1000....

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

Has anyone noticed as stocks have gone down so has oil, and vice versa? So if we have the brilliant recovery Dubya has been talked by his advisers into believing we'll have wouldn't oil put the kibosh on it?

So why throw all that money on toxic loans if higher oil eats up the profits?

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

Now, I think would be a good time to make a list of when I stopped fully believing certain colyumnists. I know it's human nature to give people the benefit of the doubt, but most of these eructators have done it for so long as to be impervious to criticism, as their ever increasing salaries attest. So here's the list:

Bob Novak: When I saw him on The McLaughlin Group.

Eleanor Clift: When I saw her on The McLaughlin Group.

George "MB2" Will: When he called Bruce Springsteen a conservative.

Ellen Goodman: When she marked Richard Rodgers's death by saying the Beatles were better.

Frank Rich: When he raved Dreamgirls.

Charles Krauthammer: When he raved Castor Oil.

David "SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX" Broder: When I first saw him posit there was some lovely time when politics weren't so partisan.

John "The Liberally-Biased Libertarian" Stossel: When I noticed he was a spokespoop for the Cato Institute.

Jo-NAH Goldberg: When he called Mickey D's God's gift to man.

Joe "Anonymous" Klein: When he went into fiction, which I date around the summer of '92.

Michael Kinsley: When he started editing Harper's.

More to come.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Obama's margin in the poll is not as large as the advantage Democrat John Kerry had after the first debate in 2004. Then, the poll showed Kerry to have done better than President Bush by 57%-25%.

THIS WILL NOT STOP US FROM RUNNING ELECTIONS.

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

It would a appear the let's-hoodwink-zillionaires-in-the-guise-of-art market has had an unexpected relapse. Possibly these imbeciles were spent out for acquiring all those cadavers. Possibly too they've come to realize, when it comes to "art", they're the greatest fool.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 2:35 PM by Gene

Several years ago we Googled "player arrested" in Google News, and having come across that in going back to our archive to admire what three people a day read unintentionally we decided to Google it again -- and lo and behold we were not disappointed:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Connecticut freshman basketball player Nate Miles has been arrested on charges he violated a restraining order.

According to UConn Police arrest records, Miles was served with a restraining order on Sept. 22, but violated it by placing a phone call to the protected party that day. That person is not named.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Former Nebraska running back Thunder Collins was arrested Wednesday in Omaha, Neb., in connection with the Tuesday slaying of a man.

An arrest warrant issued Wednesday accuses Collins of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. He also faces felony weapons charges.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

University of Kentucky football player Ashton Cobb was arrested Friday on a warrant after his ex-girlfriend said he sent her several threatening text and voicemail messages, according to court records.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A suspended University of Central Oklahoma football player was free from Oklahoma County jail Wednesday after being arrested, accused of raping a 16-year-old girl.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the odd thing is, "player arrested" gets more hits than, say, "executive arrested." Who'da thought?

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

Let us hope our Beltway superiors are managing a cure for the illness, not just for a symptom.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

If there is any consolation to the alleged resolution of this slow-moving economic train wreck it's that it's not just zillionaires getting bailed out, it's all the irresponsible cretins who flipped homes or bought them with no money down and no money, and already it's claimed companies full of hubris, from Lehman to AIG to WaMu, and as I said before, though the greedmeisters are holding the depression gun to our heads, we the people helped load the ammo.

Posted 8:04 PM by Gene

ASIFA, the animation site, has done the impossible: it's made The Flintstones amusing. To do this it's only had to cut out all the dialogue and edit down to 30-second videos highlighting the work of the show's animators, and the defects of all the money saving are still there, but thanks to the judicious snipping (and lots of slapstick) I finally did what I never did before watching the Modern Stone-Age Family -- I laughed.

Posted 3:34 PM by Gene

And for all the rehearsing they still get facts wrong, another reason these joint press conferences are useless.

Posted 3:19 PM by Gene

The U.S. and Russia reached a compromise Friday to lead a new effort to condemn Iran's nuclear program, without introducing any new sanctions.

TRANSLATION: They don't even need wet noodles anymore!

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

I took a million notes during the debate....

And, if I were a man, I'd have chucked 999,999 of them out the window.

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

Joint Press Conference Post of the Day:

They Both Lost

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

While being bored last night we realized why these joint press conferences are useless: they're so well rehearsed, their participants turned into such fighting statistics-spouting thrusting-and-parrying machines and trained to avoid THE GAFFE at all cost, that at the end we're even less sure what they're like as human beings, and as human beings they must govern. But this we will have when news hacks run our elections.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

A great face has died. That is all one can say, and all that needs be said. You needn't even know the man's name to know it. That we do not have great faces anymore is why movies are better than ever. These great faces will be remembered when today's whatisits are forgotten, and beyond. Indeed, not to put too strong an emphasis on it, American movies taught painting and sculpture a thing or two about good looks, and they did them one better with movement and sound. The greatest faces were so blessed of their looks they didn't really have to know how to act, but most of them did, and quite well. That's why the best movies should be remembered, and the best faces too. But still, movies are better than ever.

Posted 10:28 PM by Gene

A draw. The Lord was slightly better on the economy; Boobs was slightly better on foreign affairs and the military. The Lord sounded occasionally condescending; Boobs sounded occasionally weary.

Now for news hacks, pundits and other bloviators to make a winner where one may not exist.

And when Jim finally said goodnight, let me tell you, I was bored.

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

And no, we weren't impressed with SARAH!!!!! before it became the FASHION among con-SER-va-tive pundits to mock her.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

You wonder when Pat Oliphant becomes like Paul Conrad -- angry ALL the time.

Of course being a newspaper cartoonist generally and an EDITORIAL cartoonist in particular he's already, shall we say, antediluvian?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

In the History of The Corner [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

there has never been a time folks have been this nervous about opening bell.

09/26 09:09 AM

In the History of The Corner there has never been a time folks have so exulted in their ignorance.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

SHUCKS, the BOREATHON is ON.

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Mogul's Friend is oblivious again -- now he says fillum cri-TICS should write on...POLITICS.

What about THUMBS®, Mog?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

BULLETIN BUSH TO ADDRESS NATION ON RESCUE PLAN AT 9:35 EASTERN [From SLIME's Cheapie Marketwatch]

Can he get on one knee too?

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Well -- we're a little relieved: Mr. MorganChase has enough money to sponsor SHREK THE THEME PARK!

What credit crisis?

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Count on Forbeslist.com to deliver us another dense maxim:

Leadership is action, not position.
Donald H. McGannon

The past few weeks have proved that very wrong. Leadership is position -- the prone position.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Which reminds us, if ever the time was ripe for a third-party it's now. Problem is, there's no way to organize short-term anger unless you're an anarchist, and the third party has always been a haven for cranks; and there is no preventing a third party from corrupting itself as the Corrupt Old Two have. Happily we will probably not regain much esteem for our governing superiors for a long, long time. We can thank the thoroughgoingly bipartisan efforts of Dubya and Speaker Babs and Whiny Reid for that.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

I have lost a good bit of whatever respect I had for Boobs McKeating. It appears he intends to govern using the AHA! approach, as in "AHA!! Didn't think I could do that!" Problem is the AHA! approach could easily turn into the GOTCHA! approach, and we all know who gets the business end of that instrument.

So we are resigned to The Lord -- and what makes us cringe is that, at least initially, He won't run the government, it will be the moldy Congressional leadership, whose average age approaches 90, and whose philosophy of governing approaches Alzheimer's.

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

We would further note the Republican obsession with business bigness helped create this mess. The GOP imbeciles bequeathed us big banking, and big investing, and big broadcasting, and big pharma, and ever bigger companies of every stripe, assiduously ignoring the old saying, "The bigger they are..." Fortunately when they fall they only fall on us.

By the way, since he's always giving credit where credit is due...PILLHEAD DID IT!

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

If the Credit Immobilier disaster has had any salutary effect it's that it's reinforced our hatred of the Wall Street-Beltway axis, which has returned the favor by being more self-centered and fraudulent than ever. That small banks in the hinterlands seem to be doing quite well points to the effectiveness of distance. The hinterlands will do fine. Of course our superiors can overcome distance to ruin us all, but it is more difficult against a vigilant and sensible public.

Posted 9:55 PM by Gene

JPOD imitates THE THIRD ACT at the MET:

Jen, the situation is actually kind of basic. If a deal isn’t reached by Sunday night, and a bill isn’t signed into law by Sunday night, it is likely we will wake up Monday morning to a market meltdown overseas of a sort THE WORLD HAS NEVERRRRRRRRRRR KNOWN, — and then we will just wait, mute, until the American markets open. Monday will be an interesting test case: We will see just how much poorer the investing class can get in just one day. And then, a second day. And then, a week. AS THE WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLWIND BEGINS ITS REAPINNNNNNNNNNG. (JPOD then stabs himself as the curtain falls.) (Operatic overemphasis added)

We profess to being very worried ourselves, but let us wait until Monday; it may be possible to talk us into deep doo-doo. JPOD is clearly up to it. And let us hold our ears to him, as we frequently should, and as we already hold our nose.

And AMITY professes to UNDERSTAND what is going on, but then we didn't need further proof of her fatuousness -- especially as she never met a BAD CEO she didn't like.

Posted 9:53 PM by Gene

In one of his increasingly rare lucid moments Dubya came to realize that, the WORRRRRULD COMMUNITY having turned its back on the Iran situation, and then having buried its head in the nearest sand, say near Egypt, that this once partner of the Axis of Evil had had enough time to make an Israeli attack counterproductive.

This does not mean such an attack would not be right or just, but since the WORRRRRULD COMMUNITY has decided it can live with a nuclear Iraq it may be irrelevant. And so will we -- until NUKEMAN has visions.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

The economy doesn't need to be led from Washington. It needs to be led from Wall Street and Silicon Valley and from garages and corporate headquarters and farms and stores and laboratories and factories all over America.

Who's been leading it the last twentysome-odd years?

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

Where's Franklin D.?

I guess he's over there near the bookend.

Posted 3:04 PM by Gene

Oh, NO! One of the world's leading alternarags has stopped running 100,000-word stories! No more filler for escort services and REALTORS®!

Not that we'd need it anymore anyway.

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

Who needs Republicans?

Posted 2:52 PM by Gene

A tax on securities transactions. GEKKO KUDLOW will LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHVE that. Also sounds as if there's less reform than meets the jaundiced eye.

Barney stuck in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said -- "This will rank me up there with Lincoln!"

Posted 2:48 PM by Gene

And now, having given the SIV makers and liar-loan dealers a big ten-layered money cake, The Wizard of Oz intends to sweeten it with an interest-rate cut!

Ben, Paul, just throw away the key, will you?

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

Don't forget the "ratings" agencies!

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

And let us guess whose grimy, smelly, greed-infested paws will be all over THIS piece of...legislation.

And the worst part is regal DIMWITS like "Sandy" Dodd are doing their Jack Horner routine for having SAVED AMERICA. Guys, go to your corner -- and STAY there.

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

Indeed ASSPress seems to be on a PR spree today, perhaps figuring people don't want to read about how the government intends to shaft them. But does that really justify insulting our intelligence?

Oh, and so you don't forget:

FREECREDITREPORT.COM!!!!!!!!!!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO DERRIK!

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

THIS IS THE MOST CREATIVE SLATE IN OUR HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some things seem to exist only as excuses so ASSPress hacks like Ryan can write press releases. I count no fewer than five sequels or remakes in the most creative slate in ESPNCORP's history, but neither Ryan nor the peripatetic Mr. Dis -- COOK would ever know better, thinking making a movie with a brand name is genius.

Posted 2:17 PM by Gene

CLOWNS are paying on the installment plan, perhaps a cross-your-fingers ploy that the zillionaires will require only one tranch of bribery.

Who knows what to think about this? Wall Street's crooks are holding a gun of depression to our heads, threatening to shut down the economy. If we don't act we might get depression; if we do act we burn our money. Maybe we can earn it all back, with a small profit; then again, maybe we can't. What a revoltin' development.

And the IMBECILES with the depression weapon may not be too enthralled; the Dow isn't up quite so much as it was. Who'll bet it can close lower?

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Meantime, help is on the way for billionaires and crooks, and the best thing for Dubya is he'll be out of there when all the bad things happen.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

All the humongous fantastical success of whatever that was a few weeks back couldn't keep Little Jeffy from having to put his tail between His legs.

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

Why do I have this horrible feeling more people are watching network TV than last year -- and that the niche-creating DVRs are behind it?

Speaking of, it would appear that for the first time in years the folks at Yum! Brands are tuning in -- or more likely paying a consulting firm to do so.

And in other TEEVEE news -- that is, about its clone industry, and its formerly very-highly-rated spectacle which now resembles the rearranging of deck chairs on the best-pic-TYURE Os-CAR® winner of 1997:

"We respect the tradition of the Oscars, and we're happy to uphold those traditions. But it might be a kick to pay attention to the format and vary it -- to do both. The show should be classy and fun."

Let's see you bring some fun into the best-pic-TYURE nominees.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

A link that says more than it means to:

Z on TV: Lehrer looks ahead to debate

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Newly released court documents show suspected anthrax attacker Bruce Ivins e-mailed himself last year saying he knew who the killer was.

As the saying goes, it takes one to know one.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

And who would ever have thought the Democrats would prove -- relatively speaking -- a model of fiscal sanity?

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

I wonder what prompted Boobs into his incredible feat of strength. Was it nervous advisers suggesting his polls were collapsing as (it is alleged) the economy? Or did Boobs just want to do the "right thing", that instinct to be loved that prompted him to be a regular on Drunken Slob? Whatever, we have had enough uncontrolled spasms for "leadership". We don't want a bunch of superior clowns mashing together a bill like three families combing yesterday's leftovers. We know when we get "leadership" we get preening, and worse, we get pieces of -- legislation. Yet our superiors must help, as the Skid Row wino must drink, because they must know better. It's this kind of mental haze production that caused me to stop posting these last few days (along with the usual three hits). Why continue to torture yourself spitting into a hurricane's gale?

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

Cerberus talking with Daimler to buy 19.9% Chrysler stake

I guess they don't want anyone to share in its destruction.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

BULLETIN BUSH TO ADDRESS NATION ON FINANCIAL CRISIS AT 9 P.M. EASTERN

Yeppir, I guess our economy isn't beating the pants off the Chinese -- but that's what the Treasury's for.

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

Can somebody tell me why we should pay untold tax zillions to investment bankers in honor of their mistakes? And just because St. Warren piously opines it's a good idea does that make it so?

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!

The liberal intelliGHENTsia as usual.

By the way, where was THE GREATEST SATIRICAL NOVELIST OF ALL TIME? Busy collecting dust-jacket blurbs?

(Also via ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

One of the ever declining breed of classical-music writers is trying to create a controversy by saying James Levine, the Boston Symphony's music director, is playing it too safe. We must say it again, in a different way: Who does not want new works in the concert repertoire? And who can listen to them?

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

You look at these pictures and you think, is it any wonder our superiors couldn't lead us out of a thimble?

By the way Mess, when was the last time anyone referred to Democrats as "Democratics"? Is that a new soul group?

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Our favorite PR guy Rog reports the "legendary" Quincy Jones is going to "beg" The Lord for a "Secretary of the Arts"!

If The Messiah agrees to such blatherskite (and we think He doesn't have it in Him not to) one term should be enough -- except we seem incapable of electing one-term presidents.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

Dimitris Loukakis, 44, said he was so concerned about changing eating habits that he had bought a farm to grow traditional crops himself. Sitting at an outdoor cafe by the beach, he and his wife drank iced coffee while their chunky 9-year-old daughter, Maria, nibbled on spinach pie and glumly drank water.

“I’m on a diet; I have to eat less,” Maria piped up, noting that the local school had recently started to teach students about nutrition.

“Some diet,” interjected her father. “We’re trying to keep her off sugar now. If we continue like this, we’re going to become like Americans, and no one wants that.”

Con-SER-va-tives will use something like this as Exhibit A in their campaign against The Paper of Re-CORD, but isn't the world altogether too quickly becoming one world in the worst sense?

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION : Bugmeister's software's become so bloated and buggy the hardware makers are writing their own.

Sure we should go into debt to buy our stock, Bugs?

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

US intelligence preparing grim assessment on Afghanistan's political situation, officials say

And all I had to do was change one word in this hed from LAST YEAR!

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Dubya's $64 zillion question:

If this fails, what -- if anything -- could the government do next?

Posted 3:32 PM by Gene

We can have a depression with inflation! Let's cheer ourselves HOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

Wall Street's frauds have so tied the financial system in knots that no matter what they do, they win.

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

TUBES has friends, lots of friends.

But will those kind of friends get him off the hook?

Posted 12:55 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Even the people who hand out awards may not feel comfortable with a steady diet of mere CRITICAL ACCLAIM.

P. S. Surprise: For all the excellence the show stank.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

AP NEWSALERT!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush says world is watching how United States handles financial crisis . [SIC]

And very closely, we hope.

Posted 6:51 PM by Gene

Paramount Pictures executives congratulated Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Stacey Snider on having announced completion of their deal to leave the studio and form a new entertainment company — though no such announcement had yet been made.

The go-round followed a report on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site saying that the three DreamWorks executives had finally finished their long-anticipated deal to start a new company with backing from Reliance Big Entertainment of India.

Was SLIME showing someone up?

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

An ADMISSION from the BIG C:

GE Expected to Be Added to SEC's No-Short List

HA!

I guess that means its stock CAN'T go down now.

Maybe no-shorting is a dumb idea, even if GEKKO KUDLOW says it.

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

With all these economic plans out there now our superiors seem to be thinking too many cooks can't spoil a broth that's already spoiled.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

When in doubt -- socialize!

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

The looneys are back on Wall Street. Now what?

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

What's the difference between a selling PANIC and a buying PANIC?

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in the ad world, Steve BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLMER clones the other Steve's spokesman and thinks it will sell.

Was XP ME involved in the production -- or strictly MACs?

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

AdAge Nooz of the Day:

AIG Pulls Flight of National Corporate Ads
Campaign's Theme Was 'Strength to Be There'

...The advertising pullback, however, won't affect a direct-mail piece that is getting a lot of internet attention. The postcard that arrived in potential customers' mail early this week had a single sentence on the front: "If disaster strikes, will you have the protection you need?" It was sent from the AIG Private Client Group, which is one of the business units that will continue local advertising efforts. The question on the card was referring to earthquake insurance.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

McCain says he would fire SEC Chairman Chris Cox

Boobs finds a scapegoat!

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

GOP senator: A 'stretch' to say Palin is qualified

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel....

How stupid does the ASSPress think we are?

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

Six of one:

Biden: Paying higher taxes patriotic for wealthy

Half-dozen of the other: GEKKO KUDLOW and every other con-SER-va-tive pundit screaming.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

BREAKING NEWS: White House says President Bush to speak about financial crisis at 10:15 a.m. ET

"Yepper, our economy's still going strong."

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

KRAFT FOODS TO REPLACE AIG IN DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE

TRANSLATION: Junk foods to replace junk bonds!

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

Our beloved guvnor boasts to PRNewswire again:

Governor Rendell Praises House Passage of Dog Law Reforms

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

In Joysey City:

Even before this week's news from Lehman and Merrill, Jersey City businesses were feeling the effects of the credit crisis, said Johnny Leung, owner of Komegashi, a Japanese restaurant five blocks away from the cluster of office buildings that includes Goldman, Lehman and Merrill.

Groups of Goldman employees who used to spend as much as $500 to $600 at a time in Komegashi have trimmed bills to about $50, ordering the $11 ramen special instead of specialty sushi rolls that cost as much as $20 apiece, Leung said.

Black limousines idling curbside in the financial district, once a common sight in the evening, have become scarce. Leung, 44, said half of his lunchtime crowd consists of finance-sector workers, and deliveries to people working late nights have slowed drastically.

When the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE start with their fantasies the little guy gets the ammo.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

The Former Wizard of Oz may be to blame for our financial house of cards even if Zeitgeist says so.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Anyone for a third-rate Internet burglary?

We suspect there are a great many Nixonian liberals tonight.

(Via Swampland)

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

How do you fake giving birth to sextuplets?

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

What is with all these show-biz has-beens (or relatives thereto) getting arrested?

They must be looking for work.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

'60 Minutes' airing McCain, Obama interviews

Who gets the tougher questions?

Isn't that a loaded one.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Perhaps Scuzz did have help planting his anthrax, but we must remember, some of the greatest crimes in history needed no help.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Supreme Court’s Global Influence Is Waning

Even now that we're dealing in "international law"?

The rise of new and sophisticated constitutional courts elsewhere is one reason for the Supreme Court’s fading influence, legal experts said. The new courts are, moreover, generally more liberal that the Rehnquist and Roberts courts and for that reason more inclined to cite one another.

You mean like the WaPo and The Paper of Re-CORD?

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

BRILLIANT: An "inventor" has come up with a pilfer-proof lunch bag. Just two problems, though: it shouldn't be two hard to discern the green splotches are fake (especially now that USAOKAY!!!!!.com's told everybody about this); and at $5 to $7 for a pack of ten the purchaser's already been fleeced of his lunch money.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Morgan Stanley talking merger with Wachovia...WaMu being "auctioned" ("Do I hear...one cent?") -- do these maniacs know what they're doing?

And who can say the resulting superfinanciers won't be just as rotten?

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

That a hard-core Democratic fundraiser thinks the party has veered too far left should give even the screaming meemies pause, however slight.

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz took aim at retired generals working for defense contractors involved in the tanker dispute while also announcing a new career track for unmanned aerial vehicle pilots during his speech Sept. 16 at the Air Force Association's annual conference in Washington D.C.

"I'm speaking of the unfortunate deterioration of the relationship between the Air Force and industry that of late has manifested a hyperbole of insensitivity and a lack of proper communication," he said.

Shucks general, you didn't have to get that mad.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

If we didn't know better we'd say the whole world financial market's falling apart at once.

Way to go EINSTEINS!

Posted 9:36 PM by Gene

The loan, which is for 24 months, is expected to be repaid from the proceeds of the sale of the firm’s assets, the statement said. “The loan is collateralized by all the assets of A.I.G., and of its primary non-regulated subsidiaries, and of its primary non-regulated subsidiaries.”

The contagion seems to be spreading.

Posted 8:58 PM by Gene

AIG ISSUES STATEMENT TO ADDRESS POLICYHOLDER CONCERNS

...In particular, AIG noted its long tradition of service in Asian markets, which are key to AIG's future growth. Founded in Shanghai in 1919, Asia is home to some of AIG's oldest and most valued clients.

Well all right, it's no crime to be a teensy eensy bit nervous.

Posted 6:58 PM by Gene

(This version CORRECTS Corrects [SIC] lead to note comments on race don't accuse GOP of using code language; SUBS headlines.)

Here is why news hacks should go back to the old regime of never admitting to their mistakes: in practice they don't anyway.

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: One Senator with a temper could stop THE CONSPIRACY from selling R movies to minors.

And Josh, we do not appreciate your cloying cutesy-pie writing style, which posits that some in your audience like me are THREE-YEAR-OLDS.

And why shouldn't I take such affronts personally? You hacks seem to take your readers as a personal affront.

P. S. TWO RED-BANDS HERE. NUF SAID, SAMMY GLICK...MAN.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

Brooksy cribs an MB2 column, some hack named Robinson vociferously agrees with it because SARAH!!!!! stinks because she's a conservative Republican, and....

Why must innocent clerks and administrators on Wall Street lose their jobs? Why can't these typing cretins?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

For a time people naively believed falling oil prices would help our economy; but so many MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE did their duty nobody thinks that way anymore.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

And what, pray tell, is a "conservatorship"? Does that make AIG into the CONRAIL of INSURANCE?

ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL ABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOARD!!!!!

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Self-Serving BIGMEDIA Mea-Culpa Alert:

Meanness Appears to Rub Off on Viewers

Well, that's what happens when you have TWO NO-SPIN ZONES RIGHT AND LEFT on the screen, among other pestilences. Happily, we've been fighting back -- by being MEANER toward our BIGMEDIA superiors.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

"We do not take, and I don't take, lightly ever putting the taxpayer on the line to support an institution...."

TRANSLATION: Time to put UNCLE SUCKER on the line -- and for HANK to help HANK!

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

McCain adviser Fiorina says no contender, including McCain, could run a company

Neither could you, CARLY.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Obama Out to Regain Momentum

Financial crisis presents candidate with chance to recover what was lost in excitement over Palin.

Is this a signal that we can help some more, huh guys?

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Speaking of the Cute Little Pink Paper, and speaking of dying rags, it would be nice if Esquire stuck what it seems to do best now -- put flashing lights on its cover.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

I'm glad the ASSPress had time enough to report on this important story, and I'm gladder Yahoo! had the foresight to put it on its home page, but recognizing the retards must be appeased aren't there slightly more important stories to cover, ASS?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Present and former LALATimes workers sue Col. for -- what? Buying a decrepit media company in the teeth of a media recession? Issuing billions in increasingly worthless debt to do so? Expressing frustration with his own stupidity by blasting the help?

Good shot you have there, guys.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Who wants to bet Dubya SPINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNS on a dime and bails out Hank?

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

Cholly will never step aside; corruption is only something that happens with the opposition. And if Jeff wins his House seat count on Speaker Babs to flash the R card.

Is anyone in public life trustworthy? And why is Congress trying for an approval rating of ZERO?

P. S. We thought we heard that Babs was hint-hinting in PRIVATE. Which will it be, Babs: donkey or ass?

Posted 7:53 PM by Gene

Of course the Emmys have to summon "ghosts" from the past. Who watches Mad Men?

Posted 7:40 PM by Gene

If we want to start a panic let's repeat this 50,000 times:

That "run" could accelerate as people realize the FDIC fund has about $50 billion to "insure" about $1 trillion in assets at the nation's financial institutions, says Roubini.

Aren't we in enough of a mess as is?

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

I had not heard of Richard Wright before today. (To be sure, I'd heard of another Richard Wright, however.) An instant excuse may be I didn't have to. That won't wash because if rock were the fount of genius its defenders insist it is we should know of its songwriters, the way pop culture did when the Broadway musical was in vogue. I am a little less likely to be patient when his group was the bees knees to the same sort of anal retentives who think The It's a Wonderful Life of the Nineties the direct successor to Shakespeare. Rock became no fun when it put on airs, and that was about the time of Pink Floyd, and it hasn't been any good since.

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

Here we think The Sun deserves to survive and some AH-CHI-TEC-TYUH cri-TIC has an orgasm over some Lego condo design from the people who brought China the White Elephant in the Bird's Nest. If that outfit keeps running such drool I will start campaigning for it to fold.

Posted 7:16 PM by Gene

Blowing Lehman to smithereens with idiot investing and assisting Damien in his supposed records are two sides of the same loathsome coin.

We suspect too that most at Lehman and Merrill who will have lost their jobs are blameless clerical and administrative types -- certainly not the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE who got their employers in trouble in the first place.

And how many Wall Streeters are burning their money at the auction? It can't be near the money of OURS they've burned. MALEFACTORS OF GREAT WEALTH!

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

I am not a crook! I am merely a Congressman.

PINSTRIPE CHOLLY has finally proved you can serve in Congress too long. With his largess you wonder why his office isn't gold-plated.

Posted 9:47 PM by Gene

The con-CERT HALL joins in the o-pe-RA gag, this time with an LBJ Oratorio, or Tonkin Gulf Concerto, or whatever it's called, and no doubt it was written against DUBYA'S WAR, or for whatever the reason was, and our Paper of Re-CORD writer unintentionally tells us what it's no-doubt like:

The Dallas work serves as a reminder of both the pitfalls and the value of such ventures. Too much relevance can lead to political schlock, like bad Prokofiev, or cornball (if sometimes endearing) hagiography, like Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.”

Obviously this isn't cornball (if sometimes endearing) hagiography; we're still celebrating over having ended the most unjust war in HISTORY. So we'll call it bad Prokofiev and leave it at that.

By the way, have you heard Steve Reich's Daniel Variations? We haven't, but we can imagine: a half hour of dissonant violins at extremely high pitch, rather like five hundred fingernails on blackboards. We need commissions to imagine that?

And here is why classical music is a thing of the past: the great composers looked to the future. Beethoven foresaw a day of liberty; Wagner a day of supermen. All your modern-day composer can look to is the past (and hope he isn't aping it too much), or to foundation grants. This isn't looking anywhere but navelward.

(Name of Steve Reich work corrected 9/15. According to Amazon.com it's approximately 30 minutes -- I got that right without knowing the work! It may not be violins screeching but I'd be surprised if anyone's performing it 200 years from now -- unlike Beethoven and Wagner.)

Posted 9:03 PM by Gene

For all his boldness, Mr. Einhorn is aware of the havoc that bank failures can create. “We would not win if Lehman went down and took the whole financial system with it,” Mr. Einhorn said in an interview in June. “An actual collapse of Lehman — that would not be a good thing.”

So why were you in on it?

Posted 8:57 PM by Gene

"It could be a powerful fit," said Rick Meckler, chief investment officer at LibertyView Capital Management in New York.

A square peg in a round hole can be a powerful fit too.

By the way, what's the "new" company's name? BAM?

Posted 7:33 PM by Gene

Surely this wasn't a joke -- er, was it, Lehman?

Posted 6:59 PM by Gene

At best text messaging causes young people to write stupidly. At its worst it causes accidents. Despite the controversy over what caused the Metrolink catastrophe texting seems altogether too plausible. One minute after pressing send a person may still be preoccupied with texting, and in piloting a train one minute is surely too little time to recover from that.

It also emerges that one reason for the single-trackage on that line is it goes through a tunnel. Why not drill a second tunnel?

Posted 6:57 PM by Gene

We are about to have an experiment on what happens when an investment banker goes bankrupt without government intervention.

And this wasn't the first time Lehman went kerflooey.

P. S.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the financial crisis that began with the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market last year ``is probably a once in a century event'' that will lead to the failure of more firms.

Take a bow, Wizard!

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

Have the TWXSTERS unnecessarily redesigned the Website of their putative flagship to give less exposure to Anonymous?

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Will these "healthy" bankers buying these sick assets make the sick assets any healthier? Or will they make the "healthy" bankers sick?

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

It is obvious news hacks have never heard of reverse psychology; their cheerleading for The Lord and their booing and hissing over Sarah may be a reason THE EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL REPUBLICANS have made this a race.

Posted 12:53 PM by Gene

The only advantage to a big hurricane is that for several days it stopped people from talking about the runaway day-care center called the presidential election. That officially ends tomorrow.

Posted 12:43 PM by Gene

NASA's Star Is Fading, Its Chief Says

I'd say it turned into a black hole when it hitched its jalopy to the Orbiting Jalopy.

Posted 12:34 PM by Gene

Reviewing a book about The Grapes of Wrath Jonathan Yardley (who has discussed the topic before with some irritation) says an "important" novel may not be a good one. It's especially timely given the ghastly suicide of David Foster Wallace, who wrote one famous book (and whom The Paper of Re-CORD tellingly identifies in the hed as a "postmodern writer", not by his name), and from what we can gather it was a modern-day Tristram Shandy with footnotes, and we've discussed the topic before with some irritation. We have also said before that no judge is as stern as posterity, and when books go unread, or read only for their academic value, it may be unjust, but more likely there may be a reason.

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

John le Carré: I nearly left the West

Then a still small voice in him said, hmmm, maybe these awfully nice Soviet people won't let me back out after all.

Posted 9:24 PM by Gene

This makes us smile: In so many words the NYSE has threatened Citadel, the company that gave a new home to Drunken Slob, with delisting. Radio has so pummeled its listeners with bad "music" and loud ads the broadcasters deserve every last ounce of grief; the only disappointment is this isn't CHEAP CHANNEL.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Last night YouTube had me in a full nelson. The Web will occasionally remind you of its omnipresence and your infinitesimalism. There are vast piles of junk to machete through but then there are the little gems, the detritus of culture, that have you begging for more whatever their shortcomings, or YouTube's. Thus I witnessed Marilyn Miller in a largely two-strip-Technicolor excerpt from Warner's Sally, and another two-strip Technicolor excerpt (minus the soundtrack) from Paramount's Glorifying the American Girl, both projects involving the great Ziegfeld (or as NIKKI!!!!! would call him, "Zeigfield"). Watching these and other snippets from that era (including the remarkable "Lock Step" number from the aborted MGM extravaganza The March of Time, which some poster stole from the TWXSTERS) it is clear why the "all-singing-all-dancing" musical was doomed to failure, nearly dragging the Depression-era movie business down into the heap with it: everything is so incorrigibly stagebound (quite literally -- nearly every number has a proscenium arch), and devoid of any traits that would mark it as film; and the astonishing feats of terpsichore just blend one into another into a foggy roar; the rather dullish image and sound exacerbated by the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View don't help. Though I know I'd bore myself watching these films whole they exert a fascination in bits and pieces, and though these people may not always have had faces they had the talent; if only it weren't ahead of the technology -- the exact opposite of our time.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

The scuzz that most likely killed a few people with anthrax left money in his will to Planned Parenthood to needle his family.

You're a liberal. Does that make him a hero in spite of it all?

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

How bad are things in Branson East? The creator of a long-running satirical revue is closing it for good -- because:

“When Broadway becomes too theme-park-like, it makes it difficult, and it just looks like it’s becoming overly commercial the next couple of years.”

And how do you make fun of THEME PARKS?

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Three weeks after -- I've forgotten just what it was, but it was something that proved the Chinese nation INFALLIBLE -- it seems to have gone back to being merely fallible again.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

SARAH!!!!! seems to have cast a SPELL on The Lord -- He can't do ANYTHING right!

Well, wait until the heavily scripted "debates", when His colleagues will attempt to prove He can't do anything wrong, though the patina of omnipotence has definitely worn off.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

There are, however, preventable disasters. Why today would freight and passenger trains share a single track? That kind of cheeseparing practice dates to the earliest days of railroading. Build two tracks, period.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

From early indications this hurricane, though bad, may not be the CATASTROPHE!!!!! the emergency-management incompetents and their partners in falling skies the news hacks predicted. These events irritate us in part because the hacks tend to act as if we can prevent hurricanes (an annoyance compounded by the invariable accompanying surfeit of PC global warming stories), although people might not want to live where they're something of an occupational hazard. As for those riding out the storm, perhaps it's just stubbornness, but could all the Chicken Little surrounding hurricanes have the opposite effect on them? Then again, maybe some folks are just plain stupid.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Speaking of SLIME!!!!!, BizWeek scratches and scratches its head over His new music site -- and count on some rank amateur to get it right:

The problem for record companies is not technology, it is bad music.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

DUBYA!!!!! AIG!!!!!

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

And how many of SLIME's assets are missing from Flashing Esquire's "quote-icle"?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

When Charlie asked uncomfortable questions of The Lord, con-SER-va-tives found it refreshing! When Charlie asks uncomfortable questions of SARAH!!!!!, con-SER-va-tives find him "amazingly condescending, prosecutorial, and -- SNIPPY!" (Snippy overemphasis added)

We won't use that "he-must-be-doing-something-right" gag as network news rarely does, so let's just say when somebody asks uncomfortable questions of partisans it's a Rorschach test -- that both sides fail.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Has IMUSING all this time caused Sarah's v-p pick to go places he shouldn't?

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

B. S. DEFENDER FINDS ANOTHER CLIENT! And boy is it some client -- it's TINA!!!!! But gathering clients for your Web 2.0 firm and blog isn't what it used to be: the bigshots B. S. and Tina love to cultivate won't cooperate! "It's so -- eighties."

Well, you know -- back to the future!

(First link via the usual Romy; second link via LALATimes.com)

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

A physicist has done the math, and says Usain Bolt could have run the 100-meter Olympic final in 9.55 seconds if he had not slowed down to showboat.

"We estimate that he could have finished the race in a time between 9.55 and 9.61," Norwegian physicist Hans Eriksen said Friday in a telephone interview....

Eriksen, a physicist at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo....



TOOT! TOOT! HERE COMES THE SHOWBOAT! PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

NBC: We've sold most of Super Bowl

Big ad bucks for postseason baseball

Face it, even in a recession, schmoozing and showing off never go out of style.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Meantime SARAH!!!!! hits a "speed bump" -- with Charles Gibson and JPOD:

[H]er discomfiture suggested this was perhaps the first moment in her public life that she has ever had to speak extemporaneously on what might be called the intellectual foundations of foreig [SIC] policy. That is bound to be upsetting to people, like many readers of this blog and the entire readership of Commentary magazine, for whom the intellectual foundations of foreign policy are profoundly important, even of overriding importance.

What must they think at NRO, whose FOUNDER thought so much the rest of his staff didn't have to?

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Now NRO's calling Number Two "The Old White-Haired Dude." Fellows, haven't we done enough for Sarah?

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

SARAH'S SON GOES TO WAR -- AND SO DOES SARAH!!!!!

Have we been talking too much about her lately? Oh, but she is running for president.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Meantime the lower half of the ticket has brought in a LOBBYIST to grease Sarah's skids into the White House -- proof that there's not one square inch of the Beltway that doesn't go unscuffed by the dirty footprints of K Street's Guccis.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

Palin on the Bush Doctrine

Palin on ANWR

PALIN WINS!!!!! [Winning overemphasis added]

PALIN FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:43 PM by Gene

"Junk."

There will always be hard-core knee-jerk leftists who will always believe Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were innocent.

That ruse gets harder and harder to defend all the time.

Posted 7:54 PM by Gene

Now Col.'s blaming G000,000,000,000GLE for that error, which means maybe it's time to talk takeover -- if it hasn't in the figurative sense.

Posted 7:48 PM by Gene

Keith Olbermann Says Everything Barack Obama Wants To, But Can't

This on a liberal -- and gay -- Web site?!?

Oh, he calls the NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE's bloviating "ventriloquism" too. It would be more apt, however, to call them both DUMMIES.

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

Aw, c'mon Dubya, go all the way -- BUY LEHMAN!

(Via -- oh well -- PALIN FOR PRESIDENT)

Posted 7:30 PM by Gene

Palin: I'm ready to step in as president

Well, that's why people will vote for you: to step into the White House come inauguration day...



but what about that fellow who's your v-p pick? (I think that's him on the right. I have no idea who the guy on the left is -- must be Sarah's husband.)

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

I had no intention of encroaching on Georgia's sovereignty. S'allright?

Wait! I'm the puppeteer!

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Geez, I think NRO's trying to set an internal Guinness Book record by going one whole week without mentioning -- er, you know.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

On the whole, Comedy Central has been reduced to a wasteland of laughter, a black hole of funny, an ocean of failed humor.

Reduced?!? Given its sordid birth I'd say increased.

(Via tvtattle.com, whatever that is)

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

SaaaaaAAAAAaaaaay, if this speculation proves correct, next year's Os-CARs® could be even more ratings-challenged than this year's!

Way to go, ACADEMY®!

And while you're at it, BRING BACK THE EDWARD R. MURROW OF COMEDY!

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

A conscience of the age is arrested for...breaking a photographer's camera!

That's okay; it'll just make him more HIP.

And at an airport, too -- he certainly chose the right day for that!

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

Reports: No nukes for Russian bombers in Venezuela

TRANSLATION: The puppeteer isn't THAT stupid.

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

Hey Dmitry, our market's tanking. Tell investors we'd love to have their money. S'allright?



S'ALLRIGHT!

P. S. at 1:02 p. m. S'ALLWRONG!

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

A BRILLIANT QUOTE OF THE DAY from FORBESLIST:

Between two evils I like to pick the one I never tried before.
--Mae West

How would she pick between Sarah and The Lord?

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

It's Almost Like I Said The Same Thing [Jonah Goldberg]

But you do, Jo-NAH -- you say the same thing over and over again.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Or we could put something like this on the site. It's better than nothing, people will say. But it's still dangerously close.

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Seven years and it's still a hole in the ground. Of course it speaks to our national psyche, but it's more than that; we hesitate to put something there in no small part because it might uglify the hole - and because we justly think ourselves incapable of anything else. We could put something like



this on the site. The Paper of Re-CORD would call it GENIUS. Whether the people might is another matter.

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

Count on WFMU to come through: today is the RAYMOND SCOTT CENTENNIAL!

Let us celebrate THE MAN WHO MADE CARL STALLING GREAT!

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

The nice thing about being a European is you can endorse The Lord and it won't cost you anything -- and you certainly won't pay for it.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

As holy cockroaches stoop to new lows to recruit human meat, brave women in Iraq take their place alongside our Minutemen, and lead her to a better future.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Can you imagine Sarah or The Lord tackling Medicare and Medicaid, the Tweedledum and Tweedledummer of health care? I can't. Can you?

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Another reason America MUST have television:

So Far, Fall Shows Have Stinky Ratings

And that includes THE CABLE CHANNEL OF THE CENTURY, which now seems to specialize in CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED stinky -- and it may not be so CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED anymore.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

And how long before the press, having made us scream once, gets the wherewithal to make us SCREAM TWICE AT THE SAME TIME?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Spaking of NRO, some twerp is steamed because a DEMOCRAT Party whatisit says "that Sarah Palin's 'primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion.'" Such sleaze, alas, has the tincture of truth -- especially given that John...er, McClune's? primary qualification was stepping aside for Sarah.

These cretins make the Messiah's cult look irreverent.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Of the ten teasers in NRO's Election 2008, five refer to President-Elect Palin. NONE refer to...uh, JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Hmmm, I don't think SLIME'S NEOCON'S "BLOG"'s mentioning whathisname either!

And that other NEOCON's SON isn't paying him much mind either!

By the way, nifty trick, JPOD -- you're back with those annoying subscription appeals, meaning you can't access your "blog" from the home page, meaning you have to go into your history to get it! You ever thought of working for the Bugmeisters?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

We'd say now's the time for ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN to put up or shut up, but we'd say his shareholders have done most of the putting up, so now's the time for ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN to SHUT UP.

(Via AHTSJournal)

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

And while Sarah and The Lord debate lipsticked pigs, do we have any idea how either of the candidates would govern? Or do we really want to know, harboring as we do a pretty pessimistic guess?

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Also via IWantMedia, the Understatement of the Century:

Asked whether the sharp drop in CBS stock would lead him to consider taking the company private, Moonves replied that such a decision was out of his hands.

"Not my call," he said.

Mooner would obviously be better than the comedians SUMNER employs -- including ED AND ERIC.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

How badly is PEOPLE WARNER mismanaged? It couldn't sell its sports teams right!

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

We wonder if big guvment and big business (in this case, big oil) can ever not be in cahoots.

And on a day when the press is testing or nation's sanity with lipsticked pigs, neither of Denver's two newspapers seem to be paying this story much mind, reporting on an awful vehicular homicide instead. (Although that story raises another question: how many ILLEGALS cause driving accidents?)

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

And of course six- and seven-digit media types prove again they're running the game by obsessing over another trivial and alleged faux pas, meaning this will be forgotten a week from now -- and twenty years hence historians will wonder why we didn't commit mass suicide.

Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

Is it me or are con-SER-va-tives becoming as smug about President-Elect Sarah as liberals were over The Lord?

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

We have only one explanation why Jennifer Aniston's face is so famous: she looks like your sister. Or my sister (if I had one), or anybody's sister. Also she's cute for a soon-to-be forty-year-old. But I well remember the authors of an eloquent and unjustly neglected picture-book called The Movies taking Alistair Cooke to task for stating that Mary Pickford was the woman every man wanted for his sister. To which the authors Messrs. Griffith and Mayer responded, she was not: she was the woman every man wanted for himself. Leaving aside Mary Pickford we have come altogether too far when arguably the most visible actress of her generation has gotten that way for qualities other than being desirable.

P. S. I see I said over two years ago she looks like a Valley Girl, which I suppose is still true enough, but I suggest what I just said is now truer.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

This year's taxpayer-wasting Kennedy Center HHonors have named practically all show-biz types, meaning the day will come when they HHonor BRITNEY and LINDSAY, meaning it's time to rename these the Kennedy Center Entertainment HHonors -- and get the taxpayers out of the business of financing schmoozing.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Why Bush Scaled Back the Drawdown
By removing just 8,000 troops from Iraq, the President is acknowledging that the fight there isn't yet won [Home page hed and tease]

You hacks trying to be hopeful again?

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Someone, please slap some sense into Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

With the Zune, Microsoft continues to try to build a better music player. Apple, meanwhile, has built a digital media monopoly. Yes, Mr. Ballmer, you should be familiar with this concept.

What's the difference between the one religious cult and the other, except the one has sex appeal?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

The owner and managers of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant were charged Tuesday with more than 9,000 misdemeanors alleging that they hired minors and in some cases had children younger than 16 handle dangerous equipment such as circular saws, meat grinders and power shears.

Say this in your best Jackie Mason voice: "Hey! That's kosher"?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Dubya! Some more friends of FREE EN-TER-RPISE to help!

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Speaking further of AHTSJournal links, we haven't a clue who Justin Davidson is, but some mystical force has imbued him with the ability to see two look-alike buildings and call them different. It wouldn't be so bad except that more than one of these immortalities usurped thoroughly decent buildings. We hardly know the difference between "Greenberg Farrow’s impressively awful tower" and those superb "new 42nd Street studios" except the one looks like a descendant of a Morse Electrophonic disco stereo, and the other seems to have been designed using business cards. But Justin -- sees things differently. "Most architecture in any age is crap, and today’s crap isn’t as bad as yesterday’s." In other words, crap is better than ever. It's this sort of typing -- we won't guess how many nights this clown stayed awake, unless he has a preternatural ability to type -- that gets bloggers to think, "Gee! I can do it better than this guy!" Unfortunately, most don't work for magazines.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Speaking of links in AHTSJournal, it has come up with two articles that make us hope for a depression. We can't tell the difference between Damien Coons and Jeff Hirst (are those their names?); they're both practical jokers, experts of kitsch, rampant no-talents, and zillionaires. We don't expect the Enronners and Lehman Brothers-style rocket scientists to know the difference between art and and a hole in the ground -- there frequently isn't -- but they've so invested their fortunes into these hacks that the time is long overdue for a comeuppance; but because the comeuppance will most likely involve those they've regally shafted, meaning us, it may hurt us more than Damien and Jeff.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Several months ago we predicted a new ge-NIUS o-pe-RA would "stink." Alas, there is no joy in our vindication. Why? Even the pans were apologetic. B-b-b-but...the film was BRILLIANT! S-s-s-so was the c-c-c-composer! We never expect anything of contemporary o-pe-RA because it exists largely as an excuse to waste foundation money, and as an exercise in PC. More to the point, how can o-pe-RA mu-SIC be good in this age? But the apologies leave us to believe the next time a masterwork isn't flat-out-unendurably BAD as this one surely is it will get raves. All is has to do is come up to the level of, say, A Streetcar Named Desire and it will have scaled Everest; climbing to the level of Nixon in China and it will reach the moon. That is why we expect nothing from o-pe-RA -- nothing but future RAVES.

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

Shucks, I guess we can't hack the cover of Esquire into a Singing Santa.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

THE MESS! says:

BREAKING NEWS: U.S. official tells AP that North Korea's Kim Jong Il may have suffered stroke

This wouldn't be related to Elvis's kidneys, would it?

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

It's official: Our relations with Russia have descended to the level of nyah-nyah-nyah-nyaaaaaaah-nyah.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

Meantime the YOUNUHVERSATEES, parent firms of these minor-league teams, don't want to spend their endowments. Strictly out of prudence they have a very good case for it. Alas, HAHVAHD MUTUAL FUND would indicate they have a very BAD case for it.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Oh dear, oh dear: Professional football's minor league is manning its teams with dummies -- er, "special admits."

Isn't there a better way of winning than picking kids off the street and dumping them back on?

(Via Chronicle.com)

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

The hacks can't seem to agree as to whether what occured in a London courtroom was a conviction of terrorists or an acquittal. If the former it would certainly seem proof enough the holy cockroaches continue up to no good; if the latter it seems some tweaking of the system may be built into the cockroaches' MO, and that British terrorism fighting and jurisprudence may be almost as inept as the Spanish.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

If British supermarkets can gouge their customers while using inflation as an excuse, think of what their American counterparts can do -- and they've been at the game longer.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

ROWLINGCORP won its case, the wrong thing for the right reason.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

It's been five hours since Wilmington, North Carolina went all DTV, and thus far no screaming has been heard.

Then again, maybe people are watching the white noise.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

We feel awfully sorry for you that Mr. Patriots is out for the year, but did you HAVE to put the news in a black-colored box?

And in another kind of dense, here's how PEOPLE WARNER MAGAZINES' FLAGSHIP'S WEB SITE hedded it:

Tom Brady Ends His Football Season

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

This latest indictment involving the RED-STATE SCORPION reminds us why Republicans are not to be trusted. Now's the time for WHINY REID, BABS and THE LORD to banshee and remind us why DEMOCRATS are not to be trusted.

(Via USAOKAY!!!!!.com's On Deadline)

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Both the Chicago Tribune and the Florida Sun-Sentinel are owned by the Tribune Co. [LAST GRAF]

In reporting the six-year-old "news" that United Airlines had gone bankrupt was COL. committing a Freudian slip?

But how to explain -- Bloomberg?!?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

OH oh:

Jury selection begins in O.J. Simpson robbery trial

Anyone care to guess why we say "OH oh"?

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

Palin-McCain up four!

John WHO?

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Getting bailed out is FUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Ooooooh, the ORIGINAL TVNEWSER has a scoop: The Mess is playing musical chairs!

I don't see what difference this makes. The loudmouths will still be there; they'll just be called "analysts", and they'll get just as much in-your-face time. So what?

P. S. at 5:20 p. m. I realize what I wrote doesn't reflect exactly what happened but the fact is this merely means the BLOviators will be out maybe four hours' exposure the rest of the year, while the NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE OF THE LEFT continues his empire building.

Posted 7:13 PM by Gene

Speaking of Mr. Zukor, we wonder if his sainted predecessors helped finance this one.

We should not be surprised.

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. Few industries are more knee-jerk lockstep hard-core think-alike liberal than the ad biz, so we can see why Rance would want to appeal to his readership by saying Army recruiting's gotta be a bad thing because it's luring -- kids, and he uses violence as an excuse. (Heck he's aghast that its promotional videogame is rated T, possibly the first time anyone's taken the botulism-laden alphabet soup of the ESRB seriously.) Okay Rance, the next time we're in a shooting war, God forbid, I'd like to see a sergeant put some ammo in your hands. Maybe our enemies would die laughing at the sight of it.

Meanwhile St. Warren Jr. makes some Army-licensed clothing overseas, which sounds about par for His sand-trap-laden course.

2. First the first time (or maybe not), ADAGE is running fiction -- or at least satire: a story about six marketing experts in a contest to see who can emit the most buzzwords about the GOP's presidential candidate Gov. Palin. It's not especially funny satire, but of that we understand as Rance is in the trade-news biz, not the fiction biz; nonetheless it does show promise. Maybe next time, Rance, you should run a story about six TV executives. Then again, they tend to be funnier in real life.

3. Mark Baynes is the Adolph Zukor of Battle Creek, producing between 300 to 400 commercials a year so he can let the peons know who runs their pocketbooks. Well, Mark seems to have done something -- unintentional: he spent money on the Web for Special K, and it worked well enough that he's cutting back on the thirty-second entertainments. This is most unpatriotic, Mark: Think where Bill and Joe would have been without the Big K! Think where sugared cereals would have been! Or childhood obesity!

Alas, we can imagine.