Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

This is meaningless. America's broad¢a$ter$ have paid virtually nothing in fines since L'Affaire Janet, and with their vast legal power they'll never have to. We note that DISNEY (so we will call ESPNCORP on embarrassing occasions) uses the words "EMMY AWARD-WINNING", which justifies self-praise, and "CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED", which summons the ad-blurbists as a first line of defense. No wonder they all want jobs on television.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

Super-ultra movie buff BOOBS McKEATING gets an endorsement from SLY -- a STEROID PHREAK!

S&Ls, endorsements from steroid phreaks -- just another day for Boobs. When will his opponents bring up his past?

Posted 8:16 PM by Gene

Boehner: Republicans need to make sacrifices

He is not serious. Watch the guy on C-SPAN, and behold his oily demeanor. He's part of the team that brought his party down in '06, and if there's one thing any Congresspoop won't except it's responsibility, unless the red light's on and the heat's off. To this day too many of his colleagues continue to blame the sea, the sky and the stars for Duke, and SNIDELY WHIPLASH, and Bob "Abe" Ney, and Horny Mark, and the other GOP House villains. John is the sort of master pol who knows how to say enough to make for an inspiriting quote while not having to commit himself to -- gasp! -- reform. And reform is the last thing we should expect from the entrenched, corrupt Congressional Republicans.

Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

Pats' Brady Not Seen in Locker Room Before Practice

TRANSLATION: We fully-expense-account-paid hacks will make the two-week stretch even MORE tedious than ever.

Posted 8:09 PM by Gene

Have Google shares peaked?

Oh, NO! Not a contrary indicator?!?!?

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

Notable Passage from that 2000 NYTimes Endorsement… [Rich Lowry]
…of McCain:

...He broke further with the Republican leadership to oppose Mr. Bush's outsized tax-cut scheme as too weighted toward the wealthy....

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

These imbeciles should NOT talk about the economy. Just a few days ago even GEKKO KUDLOW, who'd gloated all through the MASSACRE RALLY and belched this "recession" biz was leftist news-hack hooey and insisted Goldilocks was still firmly ensconced in the house, finally admitted the bears chased her out. This is one reason the con-SER-va-tive movement is in danger: its uncritical support for big biz and the MEGARICH, and anything that will make them bigger and MEGARICHER -- at the PEOPLES' expense.

Posted 7:39 PM by Gene

Here Citi just got a new CEO and already it's given him a huge bonus!

The Wall Street Casino will never learn.

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

Yoo-hoo! Anybody out there? Wal-Mart may sell hybrids!

Can you imagine what the Big W would do to auto retailing? It's hard to see it sticking with this as the margins are so low; then again it's one of these companies with a bad rep that's trying to make good by becoming PC, and it gives up little by selling unconventional cars. On balance it could be a good thing if it makes hybrids cheaper -- heck if it makes autos cheaper.

(Via Brandweek)

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

We begin to think the main difference between Kwame and OUR EDDIE is that while Eddie leered and spoke of bodacious tatas he would not have been quite so stupid as to exchange text messages with an amour. Then again, maybe EDDIE was just lucky.

Posted 3:13 PM by Gene

Is it possible to believe Vegas's boxes are that much safer than they were twenty-seven years ago?

This is owned by MGM Mirage, figures.

Posted 2:26 PM by Gene

The man who got Papa to say "Read my lips! New taxes" has died. RIP.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Now the Senile Chamber wants in on the stimulus package, as if to say, any mess the House can make, we can make better.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

Bring back Bob Barker!

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

Meg "Mug" Whitman has suddenly become a Republican, and now is suddenly starting to plan to take over after Ah-NULT.

What qualifies Mug to be governor other than she made a lot of money?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

I guess this means the Wall Street Casino dealers can go home to Fairy-Tale Land.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Congressman Kook quits his race because he doesn't want to lose his day job.

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

Lawmakers clinch a deal on tax rebates

Rob from the taxpayer, give to the taxpayer. I like that!

We imagine con-SER-va-tives are fuming -- not because this is stupid, but because it gives money to people who aren't RICH.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

AN EXCELLENT PROSPECT:

“At a certain point, people are not going to turn on the established broadcast networks,” says David Scardino, entertainment specialist at Rubin Postaer & Associates in Santa Monica, Calif. “They will not be looking there for their entertainment. That’s inevitable.”

But it will take more than a labor dispute to break the boob screen's lock on our minds; just breaking them from the network habit isn't enough. We have too many different kinds of bad TV. And that the "heavy TV viewers" seem "most annoyed" by this almost-three-month inconvenience suggests they may be the first to bolt. Then again, if their brethren the ad-blurbists are any sign, they may be the first to forgive.

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

In Indiana:

About 80% of black babies are born to unwed moms

NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Gates identifies bugs in capitalist system

No -- NO -- this is TOO easy.

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

Dustin Hoffman, Cruise's Rain Man co-star, tells PEOPLE: "Tom Cruise is an American and has the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion."

True; and we the little folk, who don't earn the megazillions you do, have a right to make fun of people who jump on couches and KSW.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

If talk radio is in decline this is very good news. Why should zillionaire loudmouths and bullies dictate our politics anymore than the zillionaire TV talking heads at the dinner table? But then if NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!! can be believed the bad news is many of the mindless listeners are now on the Web, where the loudmouths and bullies are more of the grass-roots kind, and the loudmouthing and bullying can be more effective thanks to grass-roots fires.

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

Cuba's Castro Thought He Was Dying

And then he discovered, "I am immortal!"

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

Far be it from us to defend BRIAN ROBBER, but we're starting to wonder if the telecom biz doesn't have a right to limit file-sharing after all. A downloaded movie is not an e-mail, and enough people downloading enough movies (mostly illegally) makes it that much harder to send an e-mail, or surf a Web site. Indeed we may wonder if BitTorrent isn't in some ways a not-too-distant cousin of spam.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

Once again we learn the problem with the recorded...SOUND biz is not the CD's "obsolescence" nor the rampancy of pirates. No, the problem is with the recorded...SOUND, and no amount of format juggling or platform changing will solve it.

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

How many of our athletes at THE GAMES will have to apply for disability?

This may be a non-issue anyway; China has the power to shut down Beijing.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Well, we've found two things to say about that French bank fraud, courtesy of The Econowiz: first, the bank was "named equity-derivatives house of the year by the Banker magazine in 2007." Second, the fraud's scope is proof of the efficiency computers have introduced into finance. Needless to say efficiencies on the upside mean efficiencies on the downside too, which some CFOs have yet to discover.

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

More words of wisdom from Forbeslist.com:

The last man who makes a joke owns it.
--Finley Peter Dunne

We have no idea what that means. If it means anything it's nothing when it comes to blogs, the greatest dispenser of jokes in history -- and with blogs the jokes merely pass from one to another, like rumors, undergoing so many permutations no one ever owns any joke. But Little Malcolm must have thought this profound.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

A man named Terrence Elkes, who apparently did more wheeling and dealing than SUMNER to create the despicable colossus that is THE VIACON TWINS, but was unlucky enough to run it before He took it over, has died, and Geraldine Fabrikant can only think of nine grafs to write about him, which says much about the fame of running media conglomerates, and their permanence.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Hey! We'll give Slick a merit badge for a classy answer to a five-year-old's question, even if he knows a little too well what it's like to be married.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Metro is the newspaper of the future, and the future has largely arrived. We say that with a shudder; doing everything we can to avoid it on our commute, we cannot understand how people can bring themselves to read that sheaf of Bounty unless they have nothing else to read, and if we had nothing else to read we wouldn't read Metro even then. Metro is what all newspapers will be like when they're stripped to the bare bones, or edited by automatons. We can scarcely imagine how the Metros can be more thinly staffed, or how they can be even worse, but it appears we're soon to find out.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

We have not posted much recently as we're tired of getting no response from it, and partly under that influence we've run out of things to say. We opined once before our posts run to seven or eight categories, and we begin to suspect news stories in general can be summed up through seven or eight different archetypes, much like movies or plays. And some stories simply don't lend themselves to the snappy rejoinder, or even informed judgment; what can you say, for instance, about the huge fraud at the French bank, unless you were in on the crime? And then there are the stories beyond tiresome: people spout about Slick and his ex -- er, wife and their machinations as though it were news.

And then there's the Kurt Cobain of film. But at least this affords excuses for rolling the eyes. A dashingly handsome matinée idol? What drug were they on? And now Mort Zuck informs us that Kurt -- er, Heath may have killed himself because of the IMPOSSIBLE DEMANDS of playing THE JOKER in the new BATMAN TENTPOLE. We have it from no less an expert than JACK, one of the GREATEST AC-TORS WHO EVER LIVED, that Heath signed a SUICIDE PACT. (Or something.) That the hacks can turn a TENTPOLE into KING LEAR shows their surfeit of idiocy is never surfeit enough. But just because our age stinks and our culture stinks do you have to type EVERYTHING in 72-point font to make up for it, Mort?

It's official: this story has reached the Presidential primary phase.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

With true courage the Canadians have pulled out of next year's "Durban II".

Maybe the frozen northland isn't so PC after all. Eh?

[Canada's "secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity" Jason] Kenney said his government was left with no choice but to abandon the process, expressing displeasure with Libya elected to chair the gathering, Cuba appointed vice-chair, and Iran named to the organizing committee.

"This (Iran) is a country whose government has publicly expressed its desire to eliminate the only Jewish country in the world," he said.

EH?

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

If you leave your company a shambles -- with losses to be absorbed by lower-level employees, some of whom will be fired, and shareholders -- do you deserve a gold-plated send-off?

Somewhere LEGENDARY WELCH and MEAN BUSINESS are screaming, YES!!!!!

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

Stormin' Norman's endorsin' McCain!

Who's Rudy got? An ex-police commissioner? And no, I don't think God will be good enough, Mitt. (Sorry about that.)

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

Speaking of Hollywood, we've a hunch one big reason Fred campaigned at half-staff was that he didn't want to lick the boots of social conservatives who hate Hollywood.

Well, now you won't have to!

Posted 6:51 PM by Gene

IDIOTS:

MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study

There is not a damned thing Sammy Glickman and the Kingdom of the Eternal Valenti are right about. They're not right about the genius of fillum or the eeeeeeeeeeeevil of file sharing or their stupid box-office stats or how the public looooooooooooooooooves the ratings system or how Jack was a good man. Well, there is one thing they are right about: that Congresspoops are eminently flatterable and bribable, and for that reason we suspect President "Movie Star" McKeating will spend half his time in Sammy's screening room.

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

Once again, there are lots of films that most people haven't seen and don't care about.

You have to be an ultra-insider to make THAT point, Kim.

And not just for the Os-CARS®, we might add.

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

Apple proves to be -- mortal?

Posted 6:44 PM by Gene

Col. Zell waves his flag and prepares to endorse a presidential candidate in LALA!

The last time The Times editorially endorsed a presidential candidate was Richard Nixon in 1972. Through that year, the newspaper's presidential endorsement process was, shall we say, fairly predictable. Whoever was the Republican candidate got the nod in print. The 126-year-old newspaper has never endorsed a Democrat for president.

Well -- there's always a first time!

And a second and a third and a fourth and a...provided you stay in business that long.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Hey! More good news from the Nine Fingers! If they didn't make it clear before -- free en-ter-prise is safe!

Even ENRONS!

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Elsewhere Lenny permits himself a quiet chortle about abortion. There are certain subjects on which news hacks have so long established their bonafides it would be better that they not cover them. The real tragedy is a team of the hacks could put together a lengthy, compassionate and DISINTERESTED study of abortion, and while it might not lead to resolution at least it could foster understanding. Instead the hacks have learned how to pretentiously keep their mouths shut. This is one of the few topics where the much bandied gutting of the newsrooms does the public interest no good, but as we said, news hackery is lobbying, and we should therefore clear our minds of the public-interest cant.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Jernalism is lobbying. If we take the "high-calling" biz out of the equation we see newshackery for what it is: mass browbeating. Alas, people may know too much to be successfully browbeaten. Today Lenny runs a puff-piece for a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is completely over our heads because our excessive exposure to C-SPAN led us to see its members for what they too often are: foot-stompers (like John Lewis) or oily moneygrabbers (like Major Owens) or consciences of the nation (like the late Ms. McKinney); and the floundering of Ron Dellums in Oakland suggests once out of the warmth and coziness of Congress they may be unable to govern. But Lenny must insist these are heroes, and besides, St. Warren's empire seems miraculously immune from deep recessions.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

GOOD: The A-CA-de-MY® does it again: Five ahthouse flicks, only one genuine hit among them -- but the better news is, no one will be around to watch the ceremony.

"Hol-leh-WOOOOOD is in a b-llllllllllllleak MOOOD this yea-eah." May the strike last longer so the mood gets bleaker!

P. S. TRANSLATION: Please -- pretty please -- cave if you must; I want my chance to toady again!

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

Meg "Mug" Whitman's leaving eBay, so I guess this means it's the end as a growth stock.

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Where is the reassurance in panic?

Posted 4:17 PM by Gene

Depravity seems to be Africa's specialty, and it's hard to see it turning away from what it does so well.

Posted 4:14 PM by Gene

Word on Monday that the Bank of China may write off as much as $1 billion in sub-prime related losses only reinforced investors' fears that the the sub-prime fall-out has much further to go--even though investors have already wiped more off the market capitalization of the big banks involved than those banks have written down for sub-prime mortgage related losses.

Yep, when the casino herd wants to start a debacle, nothing can stand in its way. Certainly not common sense -- the casino has never heard of it.

Posted 4:12 PM by Gene

[A] "CEO's recovery."

So that's why people like GEKKO KUDLOW were smiling.

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

Well! Glad to see the rest of the global financial casino didn't take a -- day off.

And shucks, all those idiot speculators of Uncle Sam's still have the power to make the world swoon -- even the Chinese, the only people to outdo us in maniacal speculation.

"Marking down assets" -- would we be in this fix if the casino dealers hadn't mightily marked assets UP?

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

If the strike drags on much longer, there's always the chance that Americans really will destroy their TVs and find new interests. At least that's what a Galveston, Texas, parent suggested in a postcard sent last week to the Writers Guild of America offices in Los Angeles.

"Please stay on strike," the correspondent pleaded. "My daughter went from Cs to straight As!! Strike for the sake of the children!!!!!" [Budget-preserving twenty-first and twenty-second of twenty-three grafs]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!!!!!

Posted 8:51 PM by Gene

Does this annoying press release deserve being upgraded to a news story?

No -- and that's NO LIE.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

And this being Sunday, more of Big Double-A Scribble Time:

1. The ad-agency types and others who want to spendspendspend on TV come hell or low commissions envision a rolling season with more shows and fewer episodes, meaning with luck no series will ever be a hit again.

2. The cowards at Hyundai say they relented about pulling an ad from the SUPER BORE because of "creative" when we all know the real reason was the entire exeuctive staff staging a rebellion if it couldn't have its tickets.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

And in more Big Pharma news, if an industry's rep is "just above Congress and used-car salesmen" -- that's a buy signal, right MB2?

Even better when we invent a disease that may not exist.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A "pro-Israel" policy means giving the store away and hoping it works.

Can one apply pressure [to Israel] and be "pro"? Yes. The Carter Administration pushed and yanked Israel and Egypt toward a full peace agreement -- an agreement that was the greatest American contribution to the security of both countries.

Well, it's certainly contributed billions to Egypt, anyway.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

The SUPERMANNING OF AMERICA continues with home movie theaters. Just one thing, though: will such bells and whistles really move all those unneeded houses?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

What will Cameroon do with "20 shopping carts" of "pens, notepads, coffee mugs and other promotional trinkets" from Biz' favorite biz Big Pharma?

Beats me -- but some hospital outfit in Minnesota sure is making a statement!

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

COL. ZELL BOUGHT DAMAGED GOODS, PART DEUX: His publisher at LALA just fired his editor over "budgeting", I guess meaning we can't turn in as many "rogue" cops as we might otherwise.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

COL. ZELL BOUGHT DAMAGED GOODS: His star colyumnist at LALA, Mr. Lopez, "apologizes" to a police officer he hectored out of his job because he used "excessive force." If this were just one apology, we'd say fine. But the recent history of the news biz is one constant insincere apology, one constant doing wrong only to have to make right in the end. We can do without such apologies from star colyumnists, especially as we have the unfortunate suspicion that only the original colyumn was fully sincere.

Posted 12:24 PM by Gene

Perhaps we are all wrong about Honorary President Mike. Maybe he only makes all these speeches because he loves the sound of his voice, a sound amplified back to him by his uncritical press following. If so this is one of the greatest public displays of self-love in American history.

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

My Biz is My Biz must be thinking of his Big Pharma stocks again:

In ABC's New Hampshire debate, McCain said: "Why shouldn't we be able to reimport drugs from Canada?" A conservative's answer is:

That amounts to importing Canada's price controls, a large step toward a system in which some medicines would be inexpensive but many others -- new pain-relieving, life-extending pharmaceuticals -- would be unavailable. Setting drug prices by government fiat rather than market forces results in huge reductions of funding for research and development of new drugs. McCain's evident aim is to reduce pharmaceutical companies' profits. But if all those profits were subtracted from the nation's health-care bill, the pharmaceutical component of that bill would be reduced only from 10 percent to 8 percent -- and innovation would stop, taking a terrible toll in unnecessary suffering and premature death. When McCain explains that trade-off to voters, he will actually have engaged in straight talk.

And by the time he'll have ended his straight talk, half the voters will feel numb and the other half will think they've been hoodwinked through a better form of lobbying. That Canada has state controls does not justify the mess of our health care system -- and we suspect other than remedies easily copied from Cato and AEI Biz doesn't have a clue. Why should he? He can pay for his health care tens of thousands of times over, through multiple employers.

Columnists are getting as useful as bloggers.