Posted 11:28 PM by Gene

Does anyone here remember Dick Martin (on the right)? Oh yes, part of a comedy team with Dan Rowan (on the left), who went from Vegas to Laugh-In, an aggressively unfunny Hellzapoppin-style series famed for its stupid catchphrases (i.e., "Sock it to me", which turned the benighted Judy Carne into a national punching bag) and for introducing such supposed immortals as Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin (and such genuinely talented types as Arte Johnson [center], who spent too much of the rest of his career in voiceovers), and for electing their friend Tricky Dick president. He died tonight, twenty years after his partner, and to think that he was 86 makes us cringe at how much older we've grown.

Posted 3:26 PM by Gene

It would appear that, despite THE EXHUMATION OF INDIANA JONES or whatever it's called, this will be another down weekend for the popcorn restaurants, which means if it keeps up we'll get myriad excuses from PAUL DRECK and company. First excuse: the economy. We thought your biz was recession-proof! Second excuse: the price of popcorn. Since when have people blanched at $10 Hershey bars? Third excuse: the marketing isn't working. You mean spending three-fourth's of a movie's budget on advertising may not be enough? We'll skip over the fourth, fifth and sixth excuses for the seventh excuse, issued so very apologetically: maybe the movies aren't that good. Aren't you forgetting? The warm bodies you hold in such contempt are supposed to see ANYTHING.

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

Touching charity:

The U.N.'s lead food aid agency said yesterday it has raised the money to cover an emergency funding shortfall due to soaring world food and fuel prices, thanks in large part to a last-minute $500 million donation from Saudi Arabia.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

If THE GREATEST ACTOR-TURNED-DIRECTOR OF ALL TIME and Woodster the Perv keep making movies for Cannes it might be "underwhelming".

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

Devin may have died of natural causes, such as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and the couple then made bad decisions about what to do with his body.

Dammit, whatever the bad decisions, you don't put a dead child's body in a freezer.

Yes, let's change the national motto from "In God We Trust" to "Stupid Is as Stupid Does."

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

Upon second thought we believe The Messiah's appointment of Linda "What Bias?" Douglass as His campaign spokesman is a brilliant thing; she can readily coordinate the Word of ...uh, the message with her fellow news hacks. If God's every decision is as brilliant as this one maybe He'll be a good president after all.

Posted 6:29 PM by Gene

Well, one could thing will come from all this Cramerizing -- an end to showoffy, unnecessary corporate junketing.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Can Indoor Tanning's Rays Kill?



If they don't the strange case of the JACK VALENTI of MORTGAGES says they may fry your brains.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

"We really in this last election - when I say we, the Democrats -- I think pushed it as far as we can, the envelope. Didn't say it, but we implied it -- that we, if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war,” Kanjorski said in the video.

“Now anybody who is a good student of government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts -- and people ate it up."

Since when has any pol paid the price for double-crossing his constituents?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Creating a P & G of beers may not win the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

The Messiah will become president for the same reason SUPER CHICKEN! and TONY! came into office -- the voters are just tired, and they figure, let's try something new, let's try anything new, even if the new would come across from a Bernie Sanders as another furious crackpot tantrum. But we can't go on being tired and hope our successive leaders won't be. We've had twenty years of tired.

So God will waltz into Havana, and Tehran, and Pyongyang, and people will ooh and aah, and after His two terms are up we'll be tired again, and we'll get another incompetent who won't undo the damage, as we're almost immune to incompetence.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Stupid is as stupid does is just another way of saying anybody can be president.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

And the little boys on Wall Street haven't stopped playing their games. The difference between today's Malefactors of Great Wealth and yesterday's is you could fit a thousand of today's on a carbuncle of J. Pierpont Morgan's nose.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

We wonder at what point trading in things like commodities acquires the same moral reek as trading in tobacco stocks. Tobacco companies deal in pain and death. So do the Cramermaniacs. They live in their own small super-rich Gekko Kudlowish worlds where the Golden Rule is a Commie plot. To be sure, however, we cannot trust the idiots in the Insane Asylum on Capitol Hill to fix this fix. Democrats want conservation but not exploration. Republicans want exploration and not conservation. Democrats believe in regulating the markets to within an inch of their lives. Republicans believe in no regulation. Democrats and Republicans believe in throwing our money at the Lobbyists' Plaything of the Moment. The respective knee-jerk lockstep sieg-heil KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!ing only points to more conflict, and means a solution, if a solution there is, is impossible, even if one were possible in the first place.

The only true solution, perhaps, to use Bill Bennett's well-worn gag, is shame. The thing is, you don't shame Cramermaniacs.

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

Every time I read some typist suggesting Honorary Mayor Mike for a more important job, I think, what's in it for you?

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

DWIGHTS and pension funds and Cramermaniacs are determined to bring the world economy to a halt. You can't really fault American Airlines then for sticking a first-piece-of-checked-baggage charge on its price. The airline biz doesn't give a damn what it does; heck we wonder that, being so indifferent, it still manages to fly planes.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

The Burmese/Myanmarese scum figures heck, enough people have died, we can let them in.

Posted 7:46 PM by Gene

Spoiler alert! When a movie studio warns the press against spoilers but puts out a trailer that's full of them, what's a critic to do? [Home-page tease]

When a writer for a dying newsrag, owned by a confused and decaying media conglomerate that owns a movie studio that warns the press against spoilers but puts out a trailer that's full of them for the masterpiece it's selling, goes ahead and writes about the trailer that's full of spoilers, what's a reader to do?

What he already does -- SCREAM...and throw his computer out the window.

A REVERSE-SYNERGY SEE-HOW-MUCH-WE-CAN-TAKE-IT NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO JAMIE...JAMES!

Sorry for that convoluted sentence but these TWXSTERS think up something new every DAY.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Three great heds from Romy:

Canadian Geographic prints "green" issue on wheat paper (Romy link)

Did someone have to starve somewhere?

AND:

"We're very aware of our inexperience with newspapers" (Romy link)

Yes but we've very aware of your experience with the turnips you call CABLE SUBSCRIBERS, Chuck.

AND:

Record boss wants liberal bias complaints taken seriously

One down, one-thousand-four hundred odd to go.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

It is becoming increasingly obvious the one main difference between this and Waco is that at least there wasn't a homicidal maniac with explosives involved. That and this clan dressed better.

And if we recall properly Janet Hero -- Nero -- RENO was out to "protect the children" too.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Effete Edelstein's joints creak as he raises his nose:

Even though he has moved on, Spielberg can still bring off Saturday-matinee cliffhangers, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a lot more energized than the limp Last Crusade — which was his attempt to atone (as if he needed to) for making Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom too intense, too scary, too good. (Temple of Doom brought outcries from bluestocking critics and helped give birth to the PG-13 rating.)

Would somebody tell this clown and his FRIEND Dick Corliss and all the other movie ad-blurbists who deserve to lose their jobs that their biz' Porky's routine isn't funny anymore?

P. S. Wanna bet the ethics-intense Paper of Re-CORD never tells us how much Frank makes from his gig with the TWXSTERS?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

The bad news: Teddy can't come to our graduation.

The TERRIFIC news: WE GET THE MESSIAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

McCain rejects, denounces Hagee

Shucks, I guess we can't quite pull a SIX-OF-ONE, but with THE LORD running we're sure as he -- HEAVEN gonna try.

Posted 1:17 PM by Gene

HUD nominee promises to work hard

If we know his distant predecessor the MAYOR he may have to work hard just to get Dubya to recognize him.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

AP NEWSALERT!!!!!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top Democrat signals support to promote Gen. Petraeus [SIC]

Well thanks a lot!

P. S. Why did it used to be AP NEWS ALERT and now it's AP NEWSALERT?

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

McCain Pastor: Islam Is a 'Conspiracy of Spiritual Evil'

We thought Linda Douglass worked for...oh, never mind.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

UBS AG said Thursday that it would raise $15.5 billion in a rights issue at a 31 percent discount below the current share price.

Wouldn't this mean 1. UBS's shares are considerably overpriced, and 2. The Great Credit Crunch isn't (WHEW!) over yet?

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

The new CW is The Messiah's problems with whites are overstated because most of the bigots live in Appalachia.

Come on, clowns! At least Linda Douglass showed some honesty! JERNALISTS FOR THE LORD!

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Figures:

Hug a Geek [John Derbyshire]
Sunday is Geek Pride Day. Don't forget to buy a card for the geek you love, preferably one (one card, not one geek … although …) with lots of imbedded microelectronics.

NO COMMENT.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The GOP needs a good dose of PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

The equivalent of almost 100 children a week ended up in hospital because of their drinking in 2006/7, according to data from the National Health Service.

The figures also found, overall, number of people admitted to wards in England due to their drinking has doubled in just over a decade.

Hey Jihadists! The UK is yours for the taking!

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

This glitch merely delays the inevitable wading in dough, but it further demonstrates why Congress is beneath contempt.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

What was once unofficial now becomes official: The Paper of Re-CORD is the Paper of HBO.

And for all the smug talk of ethics we have one less reason to trust it.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Few answers as taxpayers await checks

Here's a question: How's Dubya's Giveaway going to help when the T. Boone Pickenses have already eaten it up?

The best-laid plans of mice....

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

We are sorry to hear that Jessica Alba has married, but we are happy to know she isn't that talented.

"She [used to feel] it would be okay to wait until after the baby was born to get married," the source continues. "But her traditional side must have really kicked in."

So she got married after already grown big with child! Tra-di-TIONNNNNNN -- TRADITION!

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Cyclone-hit Myanmar seeks $11 bln in aid -ASEAN

TRANSLATION: Burma/Myanmar's military scum will pass the luxury onto their great-great-great-great grandchildren.

ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan also said a Myanmar cabinet minister told him that French oil giant Total SA was willing to transfer aid and equipment from French and U.S. Navy ships waiting in waters near the former Burma.

OOOH! The CORRUPTION! The SMELL! The DOUGH!!!!!

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Obama Didn't Always Think Iran Was a "Tiny" Country the Didn't Pose a "Serious Threat to Us" [Andy McCarthy] [SIC!!!!!]

I make mistakes too, but I'm ever more convinced if I made as many as the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS I could have have a lot of hits too.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

1. Most California puhblik skools are rated excellent. 2. Most students in California puhblik skools do worse as they get older.

Aren't two things like that almost fated to be mated?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

We know that Hillary has LOST the nomination, but since the polls show most Democrats want her to fight on, why not? And PILLHEADS who think a long fight will help their "cause" may have another think coming.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

With all due respect to Sen. Kennedy, whose illness we hope is not as severe as everyone seems to say, and that we further hope might even heal itself better with a dose of Kennedy vigah, when Congresspoops RUSH pieces of -- legislation they usually RUSH their most cherished law of all: the Law of Unintended Consequences. But Congresspoops never stop to think of their actions because they can't think.

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

Moody's Probes Ratings After Report Computer Bug Gave Aaa Grades to CPDOs

CPDOs, C-3POs -- hey, it's only money! Right?

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Pension funds are speculating too?!?!?

I guess that means a pretty nice retirement for their charges -- if they can afford it.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

SUDDENLY, NEW CREATIVITY IN AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATRE!!!!! (ArtsJournal link; creative overemphasis added)

Which you can flush down the toilet!

And one of Branson East's leading nonprofits is a shill for the card more tourists use to pay for their theme-park rides than any other. "I'll never stop paying my Visa." Don't! And never stop paying WITH Visa® -- the Official Card of Branson East™!

Yep, I think it is flushable.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Michael Eisner Sees Web's Future in Storytelling

I see ESPNCORP's past in MICKEYMOUSE NIXON, which is why I'm not too keen on its present or future either.

And the sad thing is, he could have told the ultimate tall tale -- he was one of HISTORY'S GREAT CEOs -- but even the hacks found out.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

At this point, Mick, I see no difference between you and Jonny Alter, except you're both very big in MMMMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMMMM, and both very full of it.

Alter more or less has write about it or have a pretty damn good excuse why not. [SIC!!!!!]

Say maybe if I could wrote the way you do Mick I could making the big bucks too!

And this in a post hedded "Obama Gaffe-O-The-Day." [SIC] How about "Mickey Gaffe Every Day"?

Posted 3:50 PM by Gene

Congresspoops do the public still another favor:

U.S. House passes bill to sue OPEC over oil prices

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Which raises a question: Does award-winning starchitecture fight fire fighting?

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

Congresspoops do the public another favor:

House belatedly supports Frank Sinatra Day

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

CW of the moment is that Boobs McKeating won't look good on HD.

Another instance of hacks doing their hard-working best to seek truth, justice, and the American way -- and they didn't even need a printing press or paper.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

SaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaay, if DWIGHTS keep driving the price of oil up and up, they may have to do their speculating in a cave!

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Iran may spark nuclear weapons race

REALLY?!?

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Oh, Rep. Schmuck has decided not to seek reelection, but he likes the job too much to resign outright.

Good luck, Congresspoop -- and get lost!

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

More outstanding news gathering:

Associated Press
Stocks head to higher open after PPI report
By JOE BEL BRUNO 05.20.08, 8:44 AM ET

NEW YORK - Wall Street is heading for a lower opening after the Labor Department issued a report suggesting inflation on the wholesale level continues to pressure the economy.

[SIC!!!!!]

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

Where Have Balance and Civility in the Media Gone? (HuffPo) (MediaBistro link)

NO COMMENT.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

This morning we were thinking of all the news hacks who have jobs who don't deserve them. We were thinking of their constant excuses for poor behavior -- like Sharon's, positing (or rather, depositing) that these folks are busy fighting for truth, justice and the American way and thus have carte blanche to be news hacks. We got to thinking of all the mistakes they make omitting and committing, how set they are in their ways, how many of them make fabulous sums for parroting the conventional wisdom, how they spend less time exposing corruption than plugging Harrison Ford, and we thought again, this business deserves to be punished, and punished hard.

We thought these thoughts again when an ArtsJournal link got to us to this 1,743-word blah about "serious" music. It wasn't long ago that Prof. Shafer rightly blasted the hacks for goosesteppingly admiring some zillion-dollar collage fabricator, and here we must have another waste of time that skirts the obvious -- namely, that today's serious music is no good, it's no good for reasons beyond the comprehension of a music critic, that no amount of adjectives will make it better, and though Mark Swed is a decent writer this informs us yet again that cultural hacks strive too hard to be tastemakers, and strive too little to have taste.

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

Top weather experts: Global warming means fewer hurricanes (Home-page link)

TRANSLATION: Al "Internet" Nobel will find another excuse -- and PILLHEAD has another excuse NOT to CLOSE HIS TRAP.

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

MAKE NO MISTAKE; WE ARE EVISCERATING THE HEART OF THE INSTITUTIONS THAT ACT AS OUR WATCHDOGS TO REPUBLI -- POWER!!!!! (Watchdog-growling overemphasis and extra word added)

Oh, SHUT UP, Sharon. You folks started your own eviscerating and YOU'LL NEVER FESS UP.

(Via a very mournful Romy)

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

ETHANOL claims another victim: THE POPCORN RESTAURANTS!

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

Would you use an elevator in the New York subway?

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

The last taboo remains taboo.

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

New Watergate book says John Dean ordered break-in

So?

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

In other absurd PR from Asia:

Hello Kitty is named Japan tourism ambassador



We give the edge to Hello Kitty.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

The nice thing about Burma/Myanmar finally staging a PR period of mourning is that it will have plenty more people to mourn over.

By the way -- would we have had our PR period of mourning if China hadn't gone first?

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

I'm not sure camoflauge beer cans are such a good idea -- given the aim of some hunters.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

LUKE SPIELBERG OUTDO THEMSELVES [SIC]:

Instead of the breathless action of previous films, though, this one gets draggy and repetitive in the middle, with Indy and Co. traipsing through various tombs, searching by torchlight for clues to the origin of the mysterious and powerful Crystal Skull of Akator. (What the thing is, or what it does, doesn't really matter. It is the MacGuffin, as they say. But it does look eerily like Larry King.)



Crystal? DIAMOND!

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Two things our local Daily Babbitt talks up to no end: real estate and thea-TAH. Despite one of our local houses being dark for months and an attempt to renovate another on hold for several more years the Bab can boast of our "booming theater scene" and all the tourist guides and roustabouts we export to Branson East's theme parks. It isn't enough for guvment "leaders" to talk up the AHTS to the detriment of better industry; the idiot hacks must join in the ruse, condemning untold numbers to wage-slave jobs -- in the city proper AND the thea-TAH community.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Someone wants to revive Queen for a Day, which sounds almost quaint as The Goddess Oprah is queen every day.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

As a rule we do not link to stories of Howie Hairshirt's, as he's the world's busiest and richest media apologist, but we couldn't help linking to this one as two arrogant deafening mouthpieces of two huge despicable media corporations have intensified a feud that can only make people more resentful of their bosses SLIME and Little Jeffy, regardless of how much it may boost said loudmouths' king's-ransom-like earnings.

Certainly it won't lose SLIME His Godhood, but if it can lose those two mouthpieces their jobs it would be quite welcome. We doubt it.

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

As THE CONSPIRACY has a short and deep slump, it alerts us again as to why it might get longer:

[Harvey Whiner] said screenwriters working on the stalled project over the years have sometimes tried to add bombast to the tale, like putting in battle sequences with 10,000 solders.

Sorta like all the bombast for THIS WEEK'S HIT.

The Weinstein name has been attached to award-winning films....

Someone's going to have to lecture Angela: CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED. That means they're good.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

US military apologises after soldier uses Koran for target practice in Iraq

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG for any soldier to do this -- but you wonder why, to extirpate the crime, the hacks have yet to commit an equal and opposite WRONG, WRONG, WRONG as they always do, unless it's still early.

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

It is as likely America's Panhandler will get Arabs to agree to reform as he was to get his "friends" the Saudis to contribute to that little tin cup of his marked "Oil".

After a showy celebration of America’s close ties with Israel....

You running for something, Pinch?

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: 1. Who wants to make a bet Boobs as president is a regular with Drunken Slob? 2. Would Harry Truman have done this? Why can't our leaders have dignity? Why must they always have to demonstrate a "sense of humor"?

Because Washington is built by slaves and con men.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

Growing Up Bipolar (Home-page link)

Zeitgeist wouldn't know -- it grew up MONOPOLAR.

We're not making fun of the mentally ill but dammit JonBoy and his millionaires force us to pay very close attention.

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

China suspends Olympic torch relay in mourning

So -- China isn't quite Burma/Myanmar.

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Washington was built largely by slaves and con men. (Sub-hed)

It still is.