Posted 9:39 PM by Gene

"I think that Muslims should raise their voice against such actions. They should forge a coalition to fight such phenomena, because it harms them and damages their image," said Ali Abdel Muhsen, 22, a Muslim engineering student in the West Bank city of Nablus.

When?

Muslims and Arabs must confront the violence "that is taking place in our name and in the name of our (Islamic) tenets," wrote Khaled al-Jenfawi, a columnist for Kuwait's Al-Seyassah daily.

"Unfortunately, we have yet to see a distinguished popular condemnation in the traditional Arab or Muslim communities that strongly rejects what is happening in the name of Islam or Arab nationalism," wrote al-Jenfawi.

Once more: When?

Posted 9:00 PM by Gene

Deccan Mujahideen email threatens Delhi

Anybody for hiding under the desk this time?

Posted 7:36 PM by Gene

The GRAWF further wastes our time with this scribble about England's alleged promiscuity. That our gorge rises to new heights with each such typing indicates that newsrooms and societies move ever farther apart; that newsrooms cannot report on society nor offer helpful cures; that the news hack has become so insistent in creating crises for Jack Shafer to fume over that we stop caring about anything. Even stories that should anger us like the Mumbai gunman craze can't stir us out of our torpor, being over-reported and under-reported at once. News has become such a ubiquitous drone and its acquisition among Web surfers such a compulsion that it's fast approaching uselessness.

Posted 7:16 PM by Gene

And speaking of advertising, if it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

Ad Nauseam: Repetition of TV Spots Risks Driving Consumers Away

Consumers Bugged by Many Ads

How many times have Rance's boys pulled this gag, blasting the biz' awful product though his readers never make anything else? Too many generations of adpersons have heeded the advice of George Washington Hill -- ANNOY 'EM AND YOU SELL 'EM!!!!! -- for anyone to do ads different. Yet last night I contemplated what was arguably the perfect commercial for the Polaroid Swinger. And thinking now I can see why perfect commercials have become as impossible as good pop tunes. The exact same cultural rot acts on both.

And when today's George Washington Hills talk of social networks it only means they'll engage in more repetition, and more screaming, and more flailing.

And in other typical full-of-it, Rance's legions try to convince us PEOPLE INC.'s putative flagship is popular among the young. So is anorexia, if we're to judge from its skinniness.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

Two pontifications on show-biz from The Paper of Re-CORD; First we learn (I learn) the NFL and the makers of a Spider-Man tentpole have used Irving Berlin tunes, which I suppose makes him "relevant"; but all it does is to highlight how irrelevant modern pop music is as Berlin and his contemporaries seemed to have mined all the good musical ideas, making them forever, and all today's geniuses have are chords, and beats, and dross. (No accident that even in this economy the musical based on his film musical based on his film musical got walloped by the critics; but the tunes may be good enough to save a show that isn't worth saving.)

Meantime another writer works himself into a frenzy at yet another autumn of GENIUS from the movee biz. And if there's anyone who can't see posterity it's your fillum writer. Heck he doesn't know where the tip of his nose is. That won't prevent him from advertising.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

The Dwarf Stalin of North Korea supposedly made a public appearance yesterday, but no pictures were disseminated, nor do we have any idea where he appeared, so reading this story is the kind of complete waste of time that makes surfing for news ever less pleasant than a dentist's drill.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

And why pray tell should we listen to ShopperTrak except that it has an in with newsmen every year after Black Friday, thus getting its fees in the news outlets?

ShopperTrak measures foot traffic in shopping centers and malls using more than 50,000 video devices.

And from this they know how much people spent? These guys should be working for The (RET.) Gang. Who knows? Maybe they do.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Speaking of cheating, MB2 insists a new New Deal won't work. So who does he bring in as his first witness? AMITY -- who believes a new New Deal won't work not because it would be wasteful, or incompetent, but because it would be GOVERNMENT, and further because in FREE EN-TER-PRISE lies the source of all wisdom, as the wise men of Citi and AIG would tell us, if only they were unshackled.

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

Gosh! Cheating -- in WEB GAMBLING?!? Knock me over with a sparrow feather.

P. S.

Steve Kroft, Ira Rosen and Sumi Aggarwal of "60 Minutes" and special correspondent Gary Wise contributed to this report.

Maybe if ST. WARREN cut us in on His BRIDGE proceeds we might not have to outsource our reporting, hmmm?

P. P. S. This story was first plugged four days ago on CBS GEEKS...er, CNET. Fresh news!

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

And if our new president wants to create a jobs program we suggest he start an agency that would burrow through all the paperwork needed to clear government appointees of conflicts of interest. It would employ in the thousands.

And once it started investigating its employees' conflicts it could hire thousands more.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

India's government has "a Harvard-educated MBA and an eminent lawyer" as its new home minister -- you know, its Color-Code Man, the guy who's supposed to prevent against people being bombed en masse, and who's replacing a guy who eminently deserved to resign -- but this, we fear, is a little like our UNCLE SUCKER asking The (RET.) Gang for advice, albeit without the consulting fees.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

The (RET.) Gang -- you know, all those former generals who gas on cable "news" what we should do in hot spots, who endlessly swami about what's next, and are wrong 90 percent of the time -- have a nifty deal: they use their TV incompetence to sell consulting jobs to UNCLE SUCKER, who of course wouldn't know better anyway.

Here is an overwhelming argument against watching cable "news", even as a source of comedy. And here is an overwhelming argument against The (RET.) Gang, who really ought to SHUT UP.

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

"I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."

I like your language, Mr. Defense Minister -- not despicable, not detestable, not condemnable, but gory. We hope no Pakistanis have been smiling these last few days, but your choice of words does not rule out the possibility.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

Those who think the comedian and Mr. Potato Head look-alike Chris can't win in Pennsylvania should remember two words: Al Franken.

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

Victor Davis Hanson, the original Mr. Mission Accomplished, whines that The One is instituting a Trojan Horse government. This is very much possible with the screamers in his party. Of course one could say the Republicans did the same thing by bringing in all sorts of their own miscreants under the banner of God. If The One is as brilliant as his defenders say he is he won't be so Machiavellian -- he has little enough time to be unblemished.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

In the ever smaller world in which people are willing to call a spade a spade, a few have acquired the guts to call the Indian forces' response to the attacks by its rightful name: sheer, unmitigated incompetence.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

In obsessing whether they should speak of TERRORISTS, MILITANTS, EXTREMISTS OR GUNMEN the ever reliable HACKS seem not to have informed us whether anyone in this bold, brave operation survived. (And when they speak of boldness and braveness among scum they give the whole show away.)

P. S. at 11:48 a. m. One, it says here.

By the way, Col., please explain the URL. "Shooting"? Aren't we REALLY going as bit too far being nonjudgmental?

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

This makes us fume: the SONS of LEGENDARY WELCH, who destroyed every last manufacturing job in America so they could earn 2,000 times their average demoralized help -- now they're thinking of adding manufacturing jobs here?!?

Hey guys! Why don't you scout for factories -- in your corporate jets? Be sure to charge it to us while you're at it -- and the factories too.

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

Is there actually a chance that JUG EARS, the man who was a savior long before Barack, is having SUMNER trouble? Is there a chance he could actually go broke?

Why are we hoping so?

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

We must confess our president-elect has defied many expectations and has proved a bit more malleable than we'd have expected from a man of his party, with its table pounders and its appetite for revenge. We surely hope he can be tough and competent. We can also hope the loudmouths keep theirs shut for a while, knowing nonetheless that is beyond their capacity.

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

And now the Pakistanis rushrushrush to help, which they might not do if, whatever their protestations, they weren't de-facto implicated too.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Now that it appears residents of DI-land have been implicated in the Mumbai attacks, the British authorities can go back to sticking their heads up their behinds when it comes to fighting the rot within their 98-pound-weakling nation's ranks.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Baby Jonny Hairshirt once again proves he's like the guest for a party who shows up two days late.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

Ed Sullivan died in 1974. Please Rosie, let him rest.

Caveat: Brian Lowry.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

To be a devoted follower of a colyumnist means being a self-deluding masochist. I gave up on Anonymous well before his best-selling non-fiction novel, but many people haven't in the forlorn hope that a discredited scribbler can somehow render himself at least a little less discredited. Yesterday's pundit is no better than yesterday's leftovers left out of the refrigerator too long.

(Via Contentions)

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Okay, you want "epics" back. I want "classic" movies back. We're not getting classic movies back because the business forgot how to make a good picture eons ago, and making "big" pictures means making big bad pictures. We have enough of the small kind.

I hate when publicists decide they must think in their papers.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Experts again flaunt their hopeless ignorance. The Indians are not yet a first-rate power and we shouldn't expect them to know everything, the way we do.

Posted 3:49 PM by Gene

And the thing is the holy cockroaches were supposedly out to kill evil Westerners, but if accounts thus far are to be believed they seem to have killed mostly Indians.

The only hopeful note is that even as they kill innocents holy cockroaches ultimately kill off themselves.

Posted 3:37 PM by Gene

The soap opera has outlived its usefulness, but one cannot guess what would replace it. Perhaps broadcasters should simply auction the space for infomercials, as they would anyway. Or maybe they could start making local programming, an impossibility as they never met a local show that wasn't a PROFIT CENTER (read, a video police blotter) they ever liked.

And a profound comment from the deanette [sic] of the biz:

I think that to represent life, in all its varieties, one needs various age groups.

Much obliged, Agnes Nixon. Try telling that to people who would exterminate everyone over 49.

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

The good news is the credit malaise has dried up financing for the movees.

The bad news is...gosh, we can't think of any bad news.

But look at it this way: with "5,000 films submitted to Sundance last year" there'll be a tremendous need for video preservation. Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!

(Via the usual AhtsJournal)

Posted 12:23 PM by Gene

We hate to harp on something that means zilch to most people -- in this case, BRANSON EAST -- but it occurred to us today that there are three types of what used to be called "theater": the first is the hundred-seat in-the-round where ac-TORS scream of their alienation, or that hosts intimate revues of why women can't get laid, usually featuring women who can't for a reason. Well-meaning types who think they are supporting AHT sell out the joints and lavish them with bird-cage-liner-bound raves. The second are the garages, the 1500-seaters in the big cities, many of which were movie houses, elaborately reinforced and wired and featuring the latest hydraulic lifts to service the never ending traffic jam of the buses and trucks unloading Legally Blonde or WICKED for the five-thousandth time for blue-rinse types who think by being indiscriminate they're being discriminating. And then there's BRANSON EAST. Not one tier has much to do with any other except to confirm the notion of theater being a means to justify spending $50 on valet parking.

We mention this because of the upcoming Spider-Man theme park. We'd argue one of the many reasons KERNGERSHWIN HAMMERSTEIN's masterpiece failed (aside from the obvious one that it smelled like Pepe LePew in heat) was that it played in too small of a park. Oh yes, it was said the HHilton was a barn; but perhaps today's theaters aren't barn-like enough -- seat 3,000 and ELVIS! Sillerman wouldn't have had to lift his leg and ask for $450. Since BRANSON EAST no longer has any connection to art why not build bigger theme parks? We can't imagine where the Real-TORS called Shuberts would find the room but since they're staging glorified rock concerts without the concert they can always justify it. Heck we're sure in this downturn HONORARY MAYOR MIKE could easily find them the money. And BRANSON EAST is all about money; God knows actually entertaining people went out the window long ago.

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

Yes, I think these people who couldn't report on a terr...mili...GUNMAN's act if it happened to them would be better off live-blogging Thanksgiving.

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

At the top of their game news hacks will spend more time splitting hairs than telling facts. The events in India have forced us again to confront their industry's tap dance around the word "terrorist." We know of how some hacks say one man's terrorist blahblahblah, but in their insistence not to "cause offense" (and usually only to their friends) they have turned MILITANT into exactly the same kind of code-term they insist TERRORIST is, and in so doing have shielded themselves further from having to tell the truth. Why can't these morons relay the news in a way that transcends their obsession for playing favorites?

A new "solution" may be "gunmen"; but that doesn't work either as it turns these thugs into apolitical Al Capones who just like to play with their toys. When did this invisible brick wall come down between news hacks and the truth?

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

We see the Senior Clunker Brother may ditch Pontiac and Saturn. As we said before, having five divisions make the same car may have been good marketing for 1958 but surely it was absurd even then. We further note Buick seems off the table, if so rather shrewd given its relative aura of quality and some of Pontiac's big hits like the Aztek. Face it, Pontiac is still the marque of the Firebird, which was merely its Camaro, which was a very sporty low-riding version of the Chevy Vega. Saturn is another and more melancholy thing: Clunker launched it as a "whole new car company" and merely created a second Oldsmobile. As for Saab -- what would prompt Clunker top buy a third-rate automaker that was destined to stay there?

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

We keep hearing that the holy cockroaches are "decimated", and then something like this pops up. Recognizing that this may be another manifestation of the love affair between India and Pakistan it is nonetheless foolhardy ever to let your defenses down, in more than one sense.

Closer to home Brian assures us the FBI's source was "reliable", which usually means nothing would have happened (and he all but confirms this in the fifth graf). A very strong ditto, however.

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

US banks will incur about $44 billion in write-downs and loss provisions in the fourth quarter, offsetting most of the money being pumped into banks from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a well-known analyst said.

Capital injections from the government through TARP will not spur meaningful growth for the industry, Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney said in a note titled, "Gobble Gobble."

NUF SAID.

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

We must comment on "The Chairman" because our favorite Branson East columnist does so. Reading between the lines it is obvious he wasn't a warm and fuzzy guy. You couldn't be running an organization with Shubert in its name. And the Shuberts weren't warm and fuzzy guys. Back when the play biz was producing O'Neills and Gerswhins it didn't matter; they ran the trains on time. Now their heirs are real-estate men, SUMNERS without so much goodwill, and they've gone from being terrors to mere anachronisms much as Branson East serves no purpose but to give people a weekend off. Bringing back tyrants will not bring show-biz back -- SLIME proves that notion. But something is missing. Maybe the tyrants knew something.

Posted 6:55 PM by Gene

Lieberman: Obama 'about perfect' in Cabinet picks

WHEW! I can be a Democrat again.

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

It is bad enough when Forbeslist makes another list. It is worse when it makes another list about SHOW-BIZ. It is worse still when the SHOW-BIZ subject is something barely worth writing about. It is WORST when an ANONYMOUS writer INSISTS on using DISINTERESTED-MEANING-UNINTERESTED.

LITTLE MALCOLM! BONO! SELL TO THE RUSSIANS! They'll give such language abuse what it deserves!

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

Several years ago Jonathan Yardley, a writer we trust, said MM would go away. Today she and some FBI memos make The Daily Kaplan's home page, and she'll remain in the public consciousness long after certain professional nudists spend their days doing to their brown spots what THE MAN does to his biceps.

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

We shouldn't give this the proverbial time of day, but some downscale British rag has leased itself to some actress engaged in a publicity stunt for a noble cause (complete with stupid pun), and The Gahhhhdian ooohs and aaahs over the stunt (complete with picture), both forgetting that it doesn't take much talent to doff your clothes, even if you've worked for PEOPLE WARNER.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Who knew David Gurgle Jr. could repeat himself?

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

LIFE INSURERS!!!!!

When someone writes the history of this dreadful time he will have to credit Dubya and the idiot in Treasury as having abandoned all continence, just to appear to be solving a panic that may be unsolvable.

TRILLIONS IN BONDS!!!!! [Overemphasis added]

ONE! YOUR TURN!

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

When The Daily Kaplan broke the Hillary news we didn't realize we were going straight CW. We called her "strong", neglectful of her very chameleon-like nature -- or rather a nature crossing a chameleon with a Cheshire cat. We were thinking more of Maggie, who was a Hillary of the right minus a lecherous husband. Chris, who tries a little too hard sometimes to be the iconoclast, does make a good case against her, for what she was; but unless your name is Henry the K or Gen. Fogbound a secretary of state may not have that much latitude to be devious.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Speaking of TheCuteLittlePinkPaper.com, here's another rag that does the PEOPLE INC. with cover subjects when it has to.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Lord Koppel is very very sorry he ever gave up NIGHTLIGHT.

We would advise against hiring him, Littler Jeffy, unless you want to put your audience to sleep. Then again, it might not be so bad as some of them have made You and Your stock littler lately.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Most recent presidents are semi-literates (or worse) who have to read a book to show off, and then bring the author unmerited fame.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

AdAge churns up some consultants and makes a disaster out of what should be a PR molehill. We suspect most people ordinarily couldn't care less, but big biz wouldn't find itself in perpetual crisis mode if it weren't for CEOs' desire to show off. That desire, we suggest, is also at the heart of the unrolling financial calamity; what Court Jester Prince wouldn't want to show off his ill-gotten profits -- especially if it could get his MARKETING plastered all over a BALLPARK?

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: Last year's Os-CARS® tanked because it was a battle of two extremely self-indulgent AHTHOUSE flicks. This year's Os-CARS® may tank because everybody claims to know the winner.

And our favorite PR man ROG calls it "a merely good film", which qualifies it inordinately.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Obama Pledges to Find, Slash Wasteful Spending

Have we heard this one -- before?

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

No! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! SUMNER may have to sell His popcorn restaurants -- and that "may not be enough"!

Ken Felatta mourns. We smile.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

Dubya, in his last magnanimous act before receding into obscurity for good, has pardoned fourteen, including this one:

_Daniel [SIC] Figh Pue III of Conroe, Texas, convicted of illegal treatment, storage and disposal of a hazardous waste without a permit.

We figure with that name and that crime there must be a familial connection to Dubya somewhere.

Posted 6:46 PM by Gene

Flash! Forbeslist.com's just put out a listicle of "The Worst States for Business"...and it ranks ALASKA 48th -- and LOUSIANA 49th! (Forbeslist says not their fault. Suuuuuuuuure!)

This looks like a job for BUTTMEN!

Posted 6:39 PM by Gene

No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! The Senior Clunker Brother, home of Rick "Fly Me" Wagoner, is DUMPING THE GOLFING MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can hear con-SER-va-tives now, saying how He'll get a foreign car maker blahblahblah. Before TGM gets a new sponsor the new sponsor should know how He helped sell BUICKS.

Thank GOD that OUR money will still support BANK SPORTS SPONSORSHIPS! AMEN!!!!!

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

Report: Wall Street puts 225,000 NY jobs at risk

And how many of them are necessary?

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

There are two kinds of intellectual experts: (a) overeducated fools, and (b) experts who agree with me.

And I found an overeducated fool who agrees with me (i.e., a BUTTMAN INSTITUTE wonk who says ACORN and PO' PEOPLE caused the credit disaster).

Add a third kind of intellectual expert: a would-be intellectual expert who is a fool educated or otherwise.

The most effective and appropriate form of business regulation is regulation by profit and loss.

As we saw when Lehman went broke.

P. S. from Joe Queenan:

The dark side of flattery, according to P. J. O’Rourke, is attracting a fan base you may not want. Once described as “the funniest writer in America” by Time and The Wall Street Journal, O’Rourke suspects that this raised his profile among libertarians, who for some reason think of themselves as a pack of wild cutups.

“There’s a nutty side to libertarians, starting with the Big Girl, Ayn Rand, and going straight through Alan Greenspan,” O’Rourke told me over the phone. “When I go to Cato Institute functions, there’s always a group of guys who look like they cut their own hair and get their mothers to dress them, with lots of buttons about legalizing heroin and demanding a return to the gold standard. The institute has tried to weed them out over the years, but they still turn up at the bigger events. As soon as I see them coming toward me, my heart sinks.” [Emphasis added]

(VIA NRO)

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

Say! If the Wall Street Casino's going great guns now, think of how high it can go when Uncle Sucker pays off MORE mismanaged banks!

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

Another hero of SUPERADAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! seems to be biting the dust, and not a moment too soon:

This has not been an easy couple of months for Hammerstein. In October, the club narrowly avoided losing its liquor license after objections from members of Community Board 3. The collapse of Wall Street has certainly had an effect on his business; as much as Hammerstein likes to say that The Box is not made for bankers, there is only a certain number of New Yorkers willing to put down $1,000 just to sit at a table. The Box is losing another kind of customer, too; just last week, Moby, an investor in The Box and the kind of client Hammerstein very much likes to say the place is for, said in an interview that he no longer goes often, because the acts have gotten too much even for him. And most worrisome to Hammerstein, perhaps, are the recent allegations against him by two former employees of drug use and sexual misconduct.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

Richardson Would be Bold at Commerce

TRANSLATION: Hey Bill! You need a spokesman?

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

HA HA HA! The BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH comes to the POPCORN RESTAURANTS! HA HA HA!!!!!

And the best part is, the owners think their teenage USHERS can handle it! HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago....

The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.

More, MORE, they're still not SATISFIED!

Posted 7:55 PM by Gene

And speaking of show-biz, reading the ninth graf of this review we think producers should take a very prominent place in the joke about screwing in a light bulb.

Posted 7:37 PM by Gene

Gee whiz aw shucks, I guess The One's cabinet won't be as bipartisan as the HACKS said it would be.

Indeed, a look back at the modern American presidency reflects a pattern of tokenism when it comes to appointing members of the opposite party.

And nearly always those appointed have either been on the outs with their own party or tapped for second-tier posts.

And how many of those who wrote otherwise were born yesterday?

Posted 7:28 PM by Gene

Open up the incinerator again! Here comes more tax money -- marked CITIGROUP!

Posted 7:27 PM by Gene

Amanpour to Lead Daily Show on CNN

We COULD say something but will merely let The Paper of Re-CORD's hed writers speak for themselves.

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

No! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! KERNGERSHWIN HAMMERSTEIN'S MONSTROUS MASTERPIECE IS CLOSING without even 500 PERFS on the books!

Best stay in hiding for a while, KERN. We know your BOX OFFICE STATS were.

And remember KERN -- blame the economy. It's always easier than blaming yourself.

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS posit that if employment doesn't come back after the current whatchamacallit it will be because of "something called misallocation of human capital. It's a fancy term for the idea that in the past few decades the U.S. may have been producing too many MBAs and not enough RNs."

Aw that can't be, GEKKO KUDLOW, after all the money we made?!?

Posted 7:06 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time, and boy is it full of it today:

1. Rance is trying to start a controversy by saying The Aquatic Geek is selling the wrong product, being a big Mickey D fan. Hey Rance, if someone handed you $10 million (or whatever it would cost to take Crain Communications off your hands), would you turn it down?

Of course, Crain's worth more than $10 million. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

2. And the company being based in Chicago it has to break wind yet again about the Wonders of The One. This time Rance must tell us he'll send professional college football and the Olympics to heaven. Rancey Boy, do even your readers believe this?

3. Next Rancey tells us "In-store Displays Are More Effective Than Price Cuts", but then his readers don't get a commission on price cuts.

4. And finally, we are supposed to mourn all the magazines that went out of biz this year, in what threatens to be a continuing feature. All we can say, Rance, is that not one of these titles was necessary, and no one will miss them -- not even, we dare say, the salary drones who produced them.

Posted 1:17 PM by Gene

There is no keeping liberals' mouths shut: they want a WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL in one form or another, and by God (or rather, by Obama) they'll get it.

Posted 11:17 AM by Gene

We have just learned, from not clicking on a link in the great PR machine Yahoo! (we thought "HUMAN RIGHTS" YANG left!), that the KEITH ZERO of the right (or is that the NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN etc. ZONE of the right -- who can tell?) went nuclear over underdressed women and video-game marketing. We suspect a SLIME profit center is the last who should speak on the matter -- especially one who said HE WAS NOT CORPORATELY RELATED TO OJ'S BOOK!!!!!!!!!! (And God knows how often the ad ran in SLIMEDOM -- possibly almost as many times as the NO-SPINMEISTER makes in DOLLARS.) Keep talking, SPIN, and the date for your movement's revival (assuming you're more than a POTEMKIN CONSERVATIVE, that is) recedes further into the future.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

Speaking of which, we are sorry RENDELLISM's inventor got passed over for the Commerce job -- he'd have been a natural touting trade advantages that don't exist -- but his Western counterpart is an unequaled fount of HI MOM! moments, and if this photo is typical he intends to have a lot of fun doing nothing.

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

One reason we can't shake RENDELLISM is its PR-laden addiction to movees. Several years back some BIIIIIIG movee star promised to build a studio in South Philadelphia which would bring in much-need jobs for janitors and waiters and the like, and naturally we haven't heard of it since. Such success does not prevent struggling towns like Plymouth, Mass. from engaging in pipe dreams and wasting untold TAX moneys on municipal preening. We would like to return to Plymouth in, say, five years, when half the officials proposing this boondoggle get kicked out and the resulting white elephants rot in the Plymouth sun. Best to stick with fake Pilgrims.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives will insist to their dying days they had nothing to do with the mortgage catastrophe, but the movement's one traditional hallmark -- prudence -- got swept away in their desire to help the hyperrich and stick it to the government. So regulators became palsy-walsies of the regulated, and looked the other way as the Mozilos cleaned out the government kitties. The devotion to big business and the superwealthy is why the con-SER-va-tives' climb back will be a long and painful one.

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

“Anything based on human endeavor and certainly any business that involves risk-taking, you’re going to have problems from time to time,” he said. “We will run our business in a way where our credibility and our reputation as an institution with the public and with our regulators will be an asset of the company and not a liability.”

TRANSLATION: ANYTHING...GOES!

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

SLIME declares WAR on HONORARY MAYOR MIKE!

Why? We thought he'd taken a liking to Democrats.

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

We must concede when one types off the top of one's head one is prone to CW, and the notion of auto workers making $70 an hour may be such; but even with the layoffs of recent years GM remains an unwieldy assortment of fiefdoms with far too much duplication. There are huge costs somewhere, even if they aren't paid to the workers. How many of its marques would it have to ditch to make itself good again? Why does it need multiple divisions making the same product? This isn't 1958 anymore.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

4-to-3 advance/decline on the NYSE. His appointment wasn't that good.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

"I don't know about the white picket fence," Dupré said. "I want someone that will love me," she said, "someone that will think that all my imperfections make me perfect -- someone, when I fall, they'll be right there, telling me to get back up, it's going to be OK. I want a best friend."

Ashley at least has learned something, which we suspect is far more than we'll ever say for a certain former governor.

Posted 3:19 PM by Gene

Well! This guy Geithner must be good if he caused the Dow to go up 258 points!!!!!

And THE EDDIE OF THE WEST will take over as Commecre Secretary, and even there it may be impossible to hear him. Whatever happened to Secretary Kellogg's?

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

Congratulations to INBEV-Anheuser-Busch and Kaplan Inc. for AN ESPECIALLY ANNOYING POP-UP AD on STALE.COM!

BRING BACK TOENAIL FUNGUS!

Posted 11:59 AM by Gene

The question is, in Somalia who are the bad guys and who are the badder guys?

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

We are absolutely certain that clunking out that old Star Trek war horse AGAIN has NOTHING to do with VIACON (which owns the Paramount movie studio) selling near its lows -- or CBS (which owns the Paramount TV studio -- brilliant thinking, SUMNER) being BELOW $5.

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

Hey guy! Why didn't you just wave the money around and say "Thank you! Thank you!"?

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

I guess our sugar daddies the Saudis weren't enough as Vikram's now trying to sell the dam thing. These bozos almost make us wish bankers had never left the land of Scrooge.

HANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNK!!!!!

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

We certainly hope the attorney general is not seriously ill and has a speedy recovery. This graf from The Weekly Standard's blog is instructional, however:

As is its wont, the Left blogosphere went to work wishing ill upon the imperiled official, although their behavior has improved somewhat since conservative blogs and O'Reilly started pointing out every death wish thread they concoct. At Daily Kos, the diary writer and one commenter were mocked for offering prayers for Mukasey, "The equivalent of urinating on a cold sparkplug...How have your prayers been working out for you over the past eight years? Got a constitution? A rule of law? Got a decent job?" This guy "questions the timing." Democratic Underground offers more mockery for prayer and calls him a "3rd reich henchman."

But why must it be just "CONSERVATIVE BLOGS AND O'REILLY"?

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Tsk tsk, The One breaks another pledge to the throng:

President-elect Barack Obama will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks, two people who have advised the Obama transition team on this issue say.

Breaking all these promises -- how can The One ever hope to govern?

(Via USAOKAY!!!!!)

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Another of TNR's crack interns pulls a fast one. Yes, the Democrats may not seek to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine. That doesn't mean they couldn't "backdoor" it -- or other dubious...legislation. The Republicans did it. Indeed the point isn't the Fairness Doctrine but what screwy things Madame Speaker Defarge could do with as little public notice as possible. And She will do them -- just as the late Realtor Denny did.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

It is a measure of the Wall Street Casino's recent accomplishments when this is considered a monumental achievement:

Dell shares back above $10

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

The old Time magazine was Ike's and Jimmy Carter's flack sheet. People is Brangelina's flack sheet. Time didn't have to pay Ike and Jimmy. PEOPLE WARNER is at a post-AOL-merger low. NUF SAID.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:38 PM by Gene

Graffiti triggers crime, littering, study shows

ART does THIS?!?!?

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

We don't see what this gets Subway's CEO (somehow "I KNOW MICHAEL PHELPS AND YOU DON'T!!!!!" doesn't have a ring to it), but with that face the company could have chosen a slightly better spokespoop.

By the way, do Subway hoagies really look like that?

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Assuming Wagoner pulls the ripcord....

Out pops a GOLDEN PARACHUTE, no doubt.

And a man who's served half his life at GM, Isn't that the problem?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Doom, DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM: PaperofRe-CORDCo has CUT ITS DIVIDEND by 75%!!!!!

This WILL NOT HELP, so long as it regards its readers as nuisances, and the truth as an ever-changing thing that tilts conveniently leftward.

And it didn't help; the shares aren't budging after hours.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Is the 'Twilight' hype overblown?

Increasingly BIGMEDIA outfits like Yahoo! go into defensive postures when they sell something too hard -- but perhaps they wouldn't have to if their primary businesses weren't SPINNING AND SELLING.

(Oh and by the way, Jerry "HUMAN RIGHTS" Yang, we hope you have a nice retirement -- uh, demotion -- uh, we hope we don't hear of you again!)

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

The Democrats are now demanding a "survival plan." What the hell does that mean? It means the Democrats will hear not one word about cutting onerous pension costs or ridiculous wages -- the two things that (other than booting the stupid intransigent management "teams") can save the Big Three right now.

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Kaplan Inc. (down 23 right now) says chicken eggs have rights and milk may be unethical. (Peter Singer, as the Zeitgeist home page DOESN'T tell us.)

Okay, YOUR SOMEWHAT IMPOVERISHED HOLINESS ST. WARREN, let's see You give up Your BURGERS!

P. S. Truth in advertising from THE MESS:

Newsweek: Animal rights go mainstream

OR: Kaplan Inc. DOWN 28.50 (but unfortunately up 11.71 after hours -- presumably because it's hired a guy who helped Amazon.com perfect 1-Click).

Nor, alas, has the truth helped BUGDOM, which has sunk to a richly-deserved 11-YEAR-LOW -- or GE BANCORP, which is looking ever more BANKIER.

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

The luxury airl -- AUTO biz was all set for a bailout, and now WHINY REID says there's no bailout yet, so the Congresspoops must have heard from their very pleased constituents.

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

Con-SERRRRR-va-tives! Here's something The One could do that would make you VERY angry: ban fast food ads!

Well who held a gun to Ray Kroc's head and forced him to create Ronnie McD?

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

NEW CHANGE! SAME OLD INGREDIENTS!

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

It's official: the Big Three lost whatever little respect they had yesterday.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

When the hacks use the word "brand" in a story on our standing in the world, one should run away screaming.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

Vladimir Putin plans TV phone-in

So don't ask any tough questions!

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Our sugar daddies the Saudis come to Citi's rescue!

Who needs Hank?

Posted 9:29 PM by Gene

Before I forget: As I headed toward the El stop on the way home I noticed a big scrap of a PSA from one of the CHEAP CHANNEL billboards I mentioned not too long ago flat on the sidewalk in front of a store. Wouldn't it be better just to take these eyesores down than to thus thumb your nose at a run-down neighborhood? And how many other CHEAP CHANNEL nuisances get this treatment? I'd be looking very carefully at your DEBT, sons of LOWSY MAYS.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

The petty tyrant Rep. Waxman seems about to win his campaign against Rep. Dingell the Michigan Fossil, and while we'd find it disheartening for such a tantrum thrower and would-be villain to get any advantage reading this AdAge story tells us if he can make MadAve and its dependents squirm for a few years that may not be entirely a bad thing.

And we do not use the term "villain" lightly, for one of Waxman's predecessors as chairman of the so-called House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was Dan Burton, who also threw tantrums and aspired to be a villain. We don't know whether it's that committee or just being a Congresspoop. We suspect it's the latter.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Two heds today on Reuters' home page -- not that far from each other:

Clump of dark matter may loom near solar system

Berkshire Hathaway drops over 12 pct

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Huckabee won't rule out 2012 run for president

The world awaits you! Pfffffffffffffffft!

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

Yikes! Dow at 6,400 in a month!

Charts predict it!

Whatever you say -- Big C.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

NO, Dave, country music is NOT going liberal. Unfortunately it may not be going good either, as he hints; even its most ardent defenders must admit it's been soft-rock (or rather "adult-contempo", or rather contempto) with an accent for decades, augmented by "obnoxious power chords". If pop music stinks and won't get better, what hope is there for the pop music of the South?

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

BREAKING NEWS!

Tom Daschle to Be Next Health and Human Services Secretary

It's Old Democrats' Home with The One!

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

And in more news of RENDELLISM from its cradle, the people who manage the Musical Mausoleum -- er, the Quonset Hut on Broad -- er, The Place His Royal Highness Elton Opened -- YOU KNOW, now, seven years after it's opened, they have BUYER'S REGRET and want to "rethink" the place -- only they don't have the money.

Why not just tear it down and start over? That's the plan in the back of your heads anyway.

(Via the usual AhtsJournal)

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

But for the flukes of fate, every self-important bozo in the Beltway would have been an investment banker.

I guess it's too late now.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Britney Spears Calls Her Life Worse Than a Jail Sentence

So why do WE feel incarcerated?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

We got BAD NEWS, Sean: if those cars keep piling up at Long Beach Toyota may have to zap you with its ad again!

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

"I was majoring in football."

America's YOUNUHVERSUHTEES must decide: are they in education or are they in ATHUHLETICS? And if they're in ATHUHLETICS why not make their teams wholly-owned for-profit ventures and share the spoils with the students they'd otherwise exploit -- or neglect?

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!!! We keep building cars and we can't STOP!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX says Hillary should stay on the Hill, where she could be the GREATEST SENATOR OF ALL TIME -- after TEDDY.

If S. retired would anyone outside Kaplan Inc. notice?

Posted 9:41 PM by Gene

RENDELLISM: Classic RENDELLISTS think AHT will save the world -- or at least their urban precincts. So the town fathers of Manchester built this starburst. And one can see the excitement -- in this photo anyway it's a truly stunning thing. (It's not so hot looking, however, in the day.) But RENDELLISTS being what they are they never figured that a 180-TON SCULPTURE might develop crotchets, especially in -- how do we say this? -- WEATHER. And something like this was NOT going to defy physics. With so many pieces falling off the citizens should count themselves lucky nobody got impaled by a muse. And of course it was WAY over budget. Now Manchester has reached a settlement with the AHTIST, which will not change the fact that the town fathers were alone responsible in putting aside their sense to get their city in the papers -- and their brainstorm will most likely have to be demolished anyway. That is the DOWNSIDE of RENDELLISM, a downside as costly as Taj Mahal stadiums and white-elephant convention centers -- even if it is sexier.

(Times link via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

And what will the geeks do with THEIR supercomputers?

Of course -- play the usual first-person shooters!

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Imagine if MM decided to give up films at 28. Now imagine Nicole giving them up. Do I hear the mass stifling of yawns?

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

In light of what this dimwit LORD wrote, and especially given that stupid list of his, we may ask if the "prosperity" of the last twenty-five years was a chimera. It seems to have had three or four spurts: first the obsessive buying and merging of the decade of Milken, then the idolatry of the BUGMEISTER and His cohorts, than the Web fad, then the housing psychosis. What did these get us aside from big CEO pay and lots of debt? No accident during all this time America largely de-industrialized and gamb -- GAMING was a boom biz. The only people who gained were JIM CRAMERS, and now they're screaming of DEPRESSION!!! and trying to hide their money-burning tracks. That so much of it centered too on the hero worship of GREENSPANS and KENNYBOYS underlines the hole in its money-making soul.

Con-SER-va-tives seem to have this hugely justified if unspoken notion they may not come back because so much of their movement expounded on the joys of greed, neutralizing its railing at the moral and social excesses of the time by splurging on excesses of its own. If so, they need only look for the dollar signs no longer in their eyes.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Spitzer prostitute sits down for TV interview

This hed is ripe for a salacious retort but we're a family-friendly waste of typing.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Big Three automakers beg for $25 billion lifeline

Again -- rewrite!

Big Three automakers beg

When there's little difference between the Big Three and a vagrant you have to wonder if they're worth saving.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Here's one for our KOLLEDGES -- not to mention our cities:

Johns Hopkins U. Unveils Gunshot-Detection System

Which should be as effective as Virginia Tech's psycho-detection system.

We understand the impulse at work here, but these Rube Goldbergs go up against common sense, and the constant evolution of the human psyche.

And besides, what good does it do if it takes a half hour for the campus security to respond to the detected gunshots?

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Now say the following at the top of your lungs -- with a Southern accent: "Honest to God, I'm NOT a Republican!"

You've just imitated a Blue Dog appeasing Speaker Babs!

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Oh dear oh dear, what with its connection to -- money golf has become a very -- unfashionable sport.

We'll see how CEOs react when THE GOLFING MACHINE comes back.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

P-p-p-p-please p-p-p-p-pirates, d-d-don't h-h-h-h-hijack our sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-ships!

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

Hey LEGENDARY! Why don't YOU try to fix GM?

Wassa matta? Your LEGACY crumbling around you?

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

MIT plans to fix movee storytelling. Didn't Luke Spielberg introduce enough cyborgs into the biz?

Arguably, the movies are as entertaining as ever. With a little help from holiday comedies like “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey and “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler, the domestic motion picture box office appears poised to match last year’s gross revenues of $9.7 billion, a record.

Rewrite!

With the domestic motion picture box office poised to match last year’s gross revenues of $9.7 billion, a record, the movies are as entertaining as ever.

Do some people type too fast?

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

Well, if Hillary does turn it down, all those conflicts of interest will have come in handy.

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

Jeez, who'da guessed -- watches are not investment vehicles...unless you make them?

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Whew! Sen. Morals can still talk to Drunken Slob.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

Speaking of money, two...ECONOMISTS say people are coming back to the movees -- and THAT MEANS THE ECONOMY'S COMING BACK!!!!!

And some people like banging their heads against walls, which is the same thing.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

Bush trying again to ease holiday flight delays

GoodBYE, Dubya!

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Someone named Lord responds to the TWXSTERS' knee-jerkery by listing all the marvels RONALD REAGAN introduced when HE freed the economy:

Microsoft, Blockbuster, Dell computers, Apple computers, the DVD, the VCR, the iPod, cell phones, Martha Stewart Living, Fox News, Amazon.com, talk radio, Harpo productions (Oprah Winfrey's empire of TV: films, books and a magazine) and DreamWorks studios (Steven Spielberg).

Every last item on this list is related, directly or indirectly, to SHOW-BIZ. (I'm not sure I'd have listed that perennially near-bankrupt video retailer, LORD.) Not ONE involves manufacturing (unless you call offshoring box-construction manufacturing). Yes he could have included biotech, but how much has that helped the economy? Surely some biotech stalwarts didn't require tax dollars. And he should have listed the Wall Street Casino's new products. It didn't need outside inspiration to invent monkey wrenches. The fact is GREENSPAN'S MONEY-MAKING MACHINE BLEW UP in con-SER-va-tives' faces -- and they're still in denial.

And yes, a New New Deal may not help. But NEITHER WILL RONALD REAGAN.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

All those conflicts of interest may keep Hillary from Foggy Bottom -- but they sure have earned Slick a LOT of money!

I'm surprised the hacks haven't acclaimed him America's Greatest Ex-President now that Jimmah's a molecule.

Posted 10:13 PM by Gene

Speaking of the Fountainebleau, the Daily Mail's making a big thing about how one of Victoria's models has to have her secret belly button airbrushed in -- but that's just a minor freak of nature, unlike, say, USAOKAY!!!!!, which is a MAJOR FREAK OF NEWS.

Posted 9:55 PM by Gene

There are times when USAOKAY!!!!! SCREAMS BS. You know it would because its founder the great SOB ALLEN was a BS-er nonpareil. So of course when we read THIS AD FOR VICTORIA'S SECRET touting how Miami Beach's revered Fountainebleau was renovated for "$1 billion" we knew something was up, so we Googled it -- you see, GannNETtoids don't know that Google's a VERB; heck some of them don't know what Google IS -- and if THIS report can be believed the renovation cost $500 million -- hardly chump change -- but then you figure it's opening in this economy, and in an area savaged by the mortgage catastrophe, and heck even MOODY's wonders whether the owners will make very much (including those emirs of Dubai, who must be EVERYWHERE money can be burned).

In the end, however, the GanNETtoids were BS-ing as only they can, and so...A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO ANNETTE!

Hey ALLEN! BS your way out of $7.52 a share -- close to a 25-YEAR LOW!

And a special NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to TRAVIS of the ASSPress for HIS press release!

Posted 8:31 PM by Gene

Speaking of Philthydelphia, our hacks are crying in their non-alcoholic beer as the Iggles' season is "over"; they lost yesterday (well, tied, against a 1-8 team, which is just as bad) and they have absolutely no shot. Well, they still have a winning record, if barely. Six straight wins and they're in the playoffs; heck 5-1 would do. Unlikely, perhaps; but most news hacks never took math. And very strange things can happen in football, as Iggles fans should know.

Not that I care either way; I'd be happy not to have another championship season in my backyard.

Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

U.S. Senator Questions Whether College Presidents Should Serve on Corporate Boards

Our answer is no -- but that's how they build up their connections.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

When even Democrats can suggest GM won't get its money without conditions, you've got trouble right there in Motor City.

Meantime we assume WHINY REID won't offer any. Spend away!

And Moody's (pffh-hh-hh!) emotes:

``Even with the benefit of the U.S. government's $25 billion guaranteed-loan program, we think GM's liquidity profile will continue to erode in 2009,'' the analysts wrote. Detroit-based GM had its rating cut to SGL-4 from SGL-2.

Heear that, WHINY? Spend away!

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

SEC takes on Mark Cuban

Will Dan Blather report?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

I'm getting this impression the hacks are starting to obsess over their cousins the comedians' inability to josh at The One, possibly because not only do many of their mutual brigade find him perfect, but it's another means of showing you're not a knee-jerk left-wing idiot, even if you are. Really fellas, why should you worry if no one jokes about him -- for reasons in the PC Code you've helped enforce? There'll ALWAYS be Republicans.

And who knows? Sometimes they may even deserve it.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

A Moon 'n' Stars factotum complains about social networking:

"What in heaven's name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?"

We would remind Ted that for decades MNS has been a leader in soap operas, where increasingly the topics are stronger than breaking up with your girlfriend -- yet somehow MNS found the money to produce them even as sensitive viewers had their qualms. We'd agree sponsoring social networks is too big a risk for consumer products firms, who can find their message bumping up against anything; but we really think a rep for a company that has financed MORE JUNK TELEVISION THAN POSSIBLY ANYONE ELSE should not open his mouth about it.

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

Let's see the League of Nations cower as pirates commandeer supertankers.

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

Does this mean Boobs McKeating reverts to his old tricks of being an honorary Democrat?

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

Possibly regulation may not have had anything to do with our economic mess -- but given Phil "WHINING" Gramm's campaign contributions we can guess he helped grease its skids for some very rich reasons.

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Which is worse: Jake twisting the knife in the backs of the proprietors of a Web site he most likely doesn't read, or Jo-NAH denying in so many words his site was GUNG-HO for SARAH!!!!!?

We will defend Jo-NAH from the charge of touting a party line; but we cannot deny he and some of his colleagues occasionally act as though they have no sense.

(First link via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

ECSTASY AT SLASHDOT:

Entertainment: 75 Comics That Are Being Made Into Films

The list is from DENNIS PUBLISHING (i.e., MAXIMCORP), which makes us hope it's a casualty of Britain's economic debacle.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

Do we really need to know European "intellectuals" are pursuing yet another high-toned fad, that however high-toned the fad they are still full of it, and that they will revert to full-throated anti-Americanism at the first opportunity?

These are the descendants of the heavy thinkers who gave us Communism and fascism, the two philosophical movements that nearly destroyed the world. They should not talk.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Sony joins the babysitting brigade as 1. The biz hasn't made movies for adults in decades, 2. The biz wouldn't make movies for adults if it knew how, 3. There aren't that many stupid teens, and 4. Evening day care is profitable.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Eventually the MESS will begin, even as NEWS HACKS say it NEVER WILL.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Has Citigroup just started laying off?

Rather, has the banking biz just started laying off?

Posted 6:55 PM by Gene

We can't forget this: CNN tells us of a handsome and determined 11-year-old Afghan girl named Banafsha who alternately spends her days in school dreaming to be a teacher and on the street begging for bread for her family. We must not forget the Banafshas as we prepare to change course in Afghanistan, for ultimately they must have it in their power to make their nation any better, and after the horror of the last seven years we must not abandon them.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Ya gotta like this: 2-8 this season, 9-36 overall, and the CEO of Syracuse's football factory still makes $1.1 million a year! (Or will until his firing kicks in.)

Yep, HYER LURNING needs a financial comeuppance of its own.

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

The good news: Russia's gotten socked in its national wallet.

The bad news: It may have extorted enough in oil prices to keep going for awhile, if only as a sickly shadow of the superpower Vlad and his puppet Dmitry think it is.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

And in other economic news: BloomyLite reports Goldman Sachs's top execs will do without bonuses this year, for which we're EVER grateful. Also to learn that consumer prices may have fallen the most in sixty years in October is slightly sickening, but we can chalk a lot of this up to the end of non-speculation in oil, and after seeing so many prices at the grocery increase we're not exactly in a mood to want a little inflation, though we may know in the backs of our heads we may not want too much deflation.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

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

1. We always harp on how much money advertisers spend to prove their superiority to their customers, to finance crappy television and to boast for weeks that I WAS AT THE SUPER BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!, but given our chance we'd rather the Big Three stayed in business than see them die. And we really don't think they will, though the surgery will be distasteful.

2. Happily, not everyone's dreams of total public domination have turned to dust. What, for instance, do "Lysol, Airwick, Finish, Mucinex, Veet and French's mustard" have in common? A parent that spends zillions financing junk television -- and its bosses don't seem to know what the Internet is! Way to go Reckitt Benckiser! You prove not everyone in consumer products wants to abandon the Big Shmooze.

3. Meantime the TOTAL NINNIES in the American Society of Magazine Editors (think DAVID "RATIONAL" REMNICK! Think JON "ALL MY BEST FRIENDS ARE CONSERVATIVE" MEACHAM! Think SUPERADAM!!!!!) continue to throw a tantrum about how their turnips can't distinguish between their EDITORIAL and their ADVERTISING when THEY only have THEMSELVES to blame for churning out hackwork that too often resembles ADVERTORIALS.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

A Hartford suburb has endeavored to create something of a downtown, with some success -- but it took a lot of...BONDS -- and this comes up in the seventeenth graf:

Hartford Hospital invested a significant stake in Blue Back, too, leasing parts of three floors of office space for a regional wellness center, where patients can use the New York Sports Club, in the same building, for rehabilitation.

Having sold the bonds they lease a lot of space to a non-profit. This does not sound like a recipe for long-term growth. Despite the ease with which well-meaning urban renewal projects can bankrupt us the time has come not just to invent downtowns but to renew them, and not merely for upscale childless young couples and gays, but for the vast diversity of people who used to live in them. It wouldn't hurt if some of the BABBITTS who overbuilt our nation into economic disaster might spend a few days in the restaurants there.

(Revised at 5:58 p. m.; I misread the story)

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

JPOD's crew is upset:

People [i.e., the usual overhyped right-wing blogs] are talking about a Times of London story claiming that Barack Obama will base his Middle East foreign policy on the Saudi peace initiative. The Times publishes a “scoop” of this nature on a regular basis, and they are almost always written by someone named Uzi Mahnaimi, the Times‘ Israel correspondent. The problem with Mahnaimi is that he’s not a journalist. He’s a fiction writer. Very little of what he writes turns out to be true. He is well known for this.

From the SLIME who brought us PAGE SIX....

But I'm sure JPOD wouldn't mention THAT.

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

We wonder when people start paying attention to the thumbs-downs on TINA!!!!!'s Cheat Sheet. Here are two from today:

15. Lost Beatle Song Surfaces

55% thumbs-down.

16. Mirren Brothel Role

56% thumbs-down.

As we noted before the thumbs-down tend to go mostly to press releases. Plus Dave Barry is plugging that vanity zillionaire-writers' band The Rock Bottom Remainders and he gets an unflattering 41 percent. I think TINA!!!!! is on to something.

Posted 12:53 PM by Gene

Now BizWeek's saying nothing happened at the G-20.

Is that an excuse for the Wall Street Casino to go bonkers on the down side tomorrow?

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

Henry Kissinger said Hillary Clinton, frontrunner to be the next U.S. Secretary of State, would be an ``outstanding'' appointment to the post.

Now what is he up to? An "advisor" post?

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

See, now movies aren't just movies -- they have to tell us something. And Susan, being a leading GanNETtoid publicist, knows she can't get away with PR merely by saying how wonderful movies are, good and proper though it is; no, her PR is more subtle: she has to cite three perfessers AND Leonard Maltin (not to mention two direc-TORs and an ac-TOR) to convince us modern Christmas movies possess a profound wisdom on the "dysfunctionality" of American life. In short, she has to cite ex-PERTS to confirm how wonderful movies are for whatever reasons she wants.

I'd rather read Andy "SELLER" Seiler plugging Showgirls. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO SUE!

Posted 10:25 PM by Gene

His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons. The time stamps provided a window into how much he was sleeping on a given night, with messages often being sent to staff members at 1 a.m. or as late as 3 a.m. if he was working on an important speech.

Another P-Ulitzer for The Paper of Re-CORD!

Posted 10:18 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The G-20 have set up a financial League of Nations.

Good luck!

And no "protectionist measures" for twelve months. That's a relief!

Posted 9:49 PM by Gene

Despite the rise in bankruptcies, academics and lawyers say they believe that many others have been discouraged from filing because of the 2005 bankruptcy law.

Ms. Warren, the Harvard law professor, said many borrowers had been left with the mistaken impression that they could no longer file. And, she argued, “the widespread perception that bankruptcy is not available to help families makes this economic crisis worse.”

I wonder what a certain mouth said back in 2005:

The reason we -- Congress passed bankruptcy reform was that all these DEADBEATS were goosing the system so they could avoid paying ANYTHING -- irresponsible people who'd rather hire a lawyer than get a job and WORK, blahblahblah.

This is the last time we imagine what a certain mouth said. It's redundant, and He keeps saying these things anyway.

Posted 9:33 PM by Gene

Well, the news hacks have gone back into radio silence. And how do we know? Well, for one thing, ASSPress just ran this press release for Ricoh.

CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!), you and your cohorts always brag about what stalwart defenders you are of the right to know. So why is it since The One was elected you've run more press releases for Ricohs than stories about the president-elect that might tell us something?

Heck you're not even saying anything about the G-20 -- and we'd think you would as it's one last chance to give Dubya a sharp elbow in the midsection.

Posted 9:10 PM by Gene

Obama’s 250 Tough Calls
He should not be stampeded into appeasing his global constituencies on Guantánamo Bay.

ZEITGEIST?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

Former Lobbyist Named Biden’s Chief of Staff

We may wonder if there is such a thing as a former lobbyist.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

Kaplan Inc.'s chief customer-service rep makes a sad admission:

Thousands of conservatives and even some moderates have complained during my more than three-year term that The Post is too liberal; many have stopped subscribing, including more than 900 in the past four weeks.

It pains me to see lost subscribers and revenue, especially when newspapers are shrinking. Conservative complaints can be wrong: The mainstream media were not to blame for John McCain's loss; Barack Obama's more effective campaign and the financial crisis were.

But some of the conservatives' complaints about a liberal tilt are valid. Journalism naturally draws liberals; we like to change the world. I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo.

Posted 4:36 PM by Gene

Count on Mr. "Can Anyone Here Run This Mag?" Stengel to come through a couple of weeks late, but...

WE WIN!!!!!



By the way, that's real CUTE, TWXSTERS, but is it any wonder newsrags are becoming irrelevant faster than you can say LITERARY DIGEST?

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

AP NEWSALERT!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bush at economic summit: US could have gone into depression worse than Great Depression.

NOW he tells us.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

How apt: A man who has earned the world's adoration for mangling standards will sing at the birthday bash of The Man who Would Never Be King.

It is the third celebration in a week for the prince, who turned 60 on Friday.

That's enough to make you want to strangle...somebody, but the Prince is too much the gentleman for that.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

...the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee...

CUEING PILLHEAD!

...and NOW we have these LOONY LEFTISTS the QUAKERS trying to tell America's CEOs how much they should make! Time to raise the RED FLAG as we go SOCIALIST, friends -- and the WHITE FLAG OF SURRENDER as we destroy our FREE-ENTERPRISE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!

It is very unfortunate that most of those raising a stink over CEO pay seem to be left of center, but that says con-SER-va-tives grew so smug over time with their GREENSPAN MONEY-MAKING MACHINE as to lose all sense of perspective. For this and other reasons con-SER-va-tive complaints about The One do not resonate, however valid.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

The difference between the subprime catastrophe and fiction is that most fiction doesn't make money -- but then most subprimes were fiction, and they made money, for a while.

Posted 6:57 PM by Gene

TRAGEDY IN TALLAHASSEE: The LEGENDARY Bobby Bowden suspends five of his indentured servants for being -- a little too MUCH football players.

This is the third time this season Bowden has had to suspend a receiver, as both Reed and Surrency have missed games. Surrency was suspended for the Georgia Tech game for an undisclosed violation of team rules, and Reed was suspended for the game against Virginia Tech for violating the school's academic attendance policy.

Quite a team you have there, Bobby!

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Today, after the opening of THE GREATEST IMPORTED THEME PARK IN BRANSON EAST HISTORY, we remember that 46 years ago this coming January Oliver! opened. It was already a West End hit (and later an even bigger hit in the movies), and listening to the immortal Broadway-cast album (recorded when the show was touring in LA -- RCA wasn't stupid), it is clear why it has endured: its score is rollicking and eloquent and memorable...and fun -- and definitely NOT "serviceable". (Its only weaknesses are the big ballad for Eydie Gormé and that the show falls apart at the end, no small thanks to Mr. Dickens.) People can make fun of DickensLite but I'd guess this score captures his spirit better than most adaptations, except maybe the '35 David Copperfield. Sadly Lionel Bart wrote only one other hit afterwards, but people will still be singing his one truly great work long after ROCK-IT MAN!'s immortality has employed its last roustabout.

And ROG, it wasn't so smart to compare this to KERNGERSHWIN HAMMERSTEIN, because His show closed nine years before it was supposed to -- and at least it CHANGED THE FACE OF BRANSON EAST. Pffffffffffffffffffft!

P. S. For what it's worth a West End revival commences in December, although we can't see Mr. Bean as Fagin.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

In a way this news of a Jewish social service agency in New York closing its doors is sad, but it reminds us of the untold numbers of Jews who went through Ellis Island, and fortified America's backbone, and gave a lilt to her culture.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Teaching and coaching are separate worlds, and coaching track at an elite liberal-arts school and being a football factory CEO are definitely separate worlds, but let us not get too cynical, as the history of professional college sport once had men who could teach and coach.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives are excited because someone's challenging BANEhead Boehner for the House leadership, but if the years under the late Realtor Denny should have taught people anything it's that House GOP is a dictionary definition of "status quo".

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Isn't Goldie a little old to be playing the dumb blonde?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

And speaking of money, in that capitol of moolah burning, Branson East:

A few can see a silver lining to a harsher economic climate in that it may force producers to rethink the economics of the Rialto in general after several years of bounty.

"We've done so well for so long, we're all a little spoiled," says McCollum. "Hopefully [sic], people will get smarter about how they produce."

TRANSLATION: Don't worry, theme-park owners, there'll always be rich people who'll want to put their vanity in lights.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: HANK hung a sign on the Treasury's door saying "FREE MONEY!", and now America's mayors want theirs.

Posted 3:44 PM by Gene

At about 6:00 p.m. yesterday I posted on Hillary at Foggy Bottom, not that long after The Daily Kaplan. At 2:10 today one of Kaplan's writers posts on Hillary, and goshdarnit, if he doesn't say the same things I said -- in a lot more words.

It is SO frustrating to get three hits a day, but I suppose it's for a reason.

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

Once again, Sleazeball Gumbo thinks he can counter public hatred of Big Pharma by running an AD.

I don't think he realizes neither Republicans nor QUINS rule the roost anymore.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

Could all these people have wasted their time posting Facebook profiles?

Or did their interns merely roll their eyes?

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Perhaps, the Fed could merge Citi and AIG. There must be come cost savings in that.

T'AIN'T FUNNY, McGEE.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Va. Tech alert system fails in first use

TRANSLATION: Psychopath early-warning systems are bound to fail in ANY use.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Speaking of comedians, how many remaindered books can $8.5 million buy?

SLIME, I think you'd have been better off with OJ. He's a comedian.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

We're surprised the hacks haven't found a virtue in The One's escaping the ridicule of comedians; after all, mightn't he be so good as to escape ridicule?

Posted 10:31 PM by Gene

An "auto czar" -- will that prove any more effective than the "oversight" over the Great Financial Giveaway?

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

Stupid is: Rahm the Enforcer apologized to an Arab activist group for the stupid thing his father said.

...as stupid does: The activist group is headed by Mary Rose Oakar, who was a bit singed by the House Post Office scandal.

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

We've briefly broken radio silence: It sez here The One could appoint Hillary as his secretary of state. Why?

There's increasing chatter in political circles that the Obama camp is not overly happy with the usual suspects for secretary of state these days and that the field might be expanding somewhat beyond Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and maybe former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

There's a plus in Hillary in that role -- strength. There's a minus in that too: meddling from a CO-PRESIDENT.

But those four names wouldn't impress us either, even if The One promised Sen. Hein-TZZZ. Three of them are known prima donnas. That we don't need in a Secretary of State. This is where choosing the best person would benefit us, but alas, too many things will force The One from choosing that person.

Like Daily Kos, whose infants must be furious.