Posted 7:31 PM by Gene

Man flying lawn chair lifted by helium balloons

What an achievement! This will rank with Lindbergh but SURE!

AND HE MADE IT TOO! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

We could do worse than follow the achievement of Kent Couch.

Posted 7:01 PM by Gene

Congress can't fix energy problems, Congress can't fix pension problems -- can Congress do anything right? And does Congress think it does anything wrong?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

We've a strong hunch many of the well-heeled news hacks who scream "IT ISN'T SPECULATORS!!!!!" didn't have a clue about subprimes -- or if they did, it was after everyone else. And the same people who didn't have a clue about subprimes didn't have a clue about the dot-com bubble. We suspect the anonymouses at The Econowiz burped "No one can predict a top", like everybody else. Well all right, editors of the retired Bugmeister's favorite rag, maybe it isn't speculators, but one thing we're sure of: news hacks sleeping on the job as usual, not knowing a godforsaken thing.

Posted 12:44 PM by Gene

G-Man, one of show-biz' leading toadies, is EXCITED because sponsors are burning more of our money on cable news -- up 14%!!!!! -- including such public-spirited outfits as ExxonMobil (meaning PC BS with ten-foot-high daisies), yet even he must admit they may be wasting the money -- albeit in a very shrewdly positioned LAST GRAF:

But signs of overexposure already are evident. CNN's Larry King Live recently featured experts who analyzed the body language of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and four guests on Gregory's MSNBC show spent time parsing Obama's iPod musical choices.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

How you look upon Jesse Helms must depend, alas, on where on the political spectrum you are, and how firmly wedded you remain to eighties shibboleths. If you're a liberal he was a Nazi; if you're a con-SER-va-tive he was God's gift to man, even if he was from Dixieland. The truth has a way of defying caricature. He was in some indelible ways a crank (he was, after all, an early TV pundit), and sometimes suffered from guilt by association with the Old South, an association he never exactly severed; but it is hard to imagine Reaganism (or Reagan) without him, as he gave it its essential backbone, and in the final analysis his heart was in the right place (no pun intended), and his right hand over it, and he was clearly a Southern gentleman. That he died on July 4 is most potent symbolism.

(Via CNN)

P. S. at 4:20 P.M.

Former U.S. senator Jesse Helms dies; UNYIELDING SOUTHERNER RELIED ON RACE-BAITING CAMPAIGN TACTICS!!!!! [Unyielding overemphasis added]

1. Still angry after all these years? 2. Layoffs? What layoffs? 3. This version of the hed appears on the BOTTOM of the home page, and in the story -- but not at the TOP of the home page; see no. 2.

We have slightly amended our original post. Obviously lots of people still think the late Sen. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL because of his politics, just as lots of con-ser-va-tives will when Sen. Kennedy goes. Even PINCH shrugged His shoulders and merely called him a "conservative force." Haven't we had enough tantrums?

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

By the way -- whatever happened to Burma/Myanmar?

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

China to use unmanned security drones at Olympics

1. To search out dissidents. 2. Given the Chinese obsession with quality control let's hope these don't cause problems.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Col.'s LALA outpost just laid off 250, meaning we'll see more crock like this. What is happening to the news biz is the wrong thing for the right reason. It's the wrong thing because with less talent means fewer stories; with the cuts in the newshole means shorter stories; with these self-inflicted wounds means fewer resources to go after the stories that must be reported. But it's the right reason because for decades news hacks have spit at the public, insisting their bias was objectivity, and their publicity-mania was in the public interest, and their empire building was for the glory of God. For these righteous behaviors and more the press deserves its problems. We do not delude ourselves, however, that public revulsion necessarily inspired the problems, nor that the business will get a further comeuppance from the vast quality dilution which is already following.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

One more time, despite zero hits:



Even if this is my only post today it must count for something.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

Okay, we just read the plu -- ARTICLE, and it makes the Big P sound more sympathetic than He may deserve. And HE brought up His salary. (We thought WALTER WINCHELL!!!!! and THE ORIGINAL TVNEWSER!!!!! were making things up -- something we'd put past neither of them.) But beholding the two biggest, richest loudmouths in media -- He and the Goddess Oprah -- we think, what will remain of Their enormous influence in twenty-five years? How about a cross between Will Rogers and Alexander Woollcott -- what became of them? (And Rogers deserved better.)

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

This is OUR DAY: CHEAP CHANNEL's running MORE ADS when MORE PEOPLE ARE LISTENING!

Go for it! Chase your remaining listeners away!

FREE EN-TER-PRISE AT WORK! RIGHT, PILLHEAD?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Hey Messiah! Here's a new national anthem for you!

Who wants to sing about Jose anyway?

Posted 3:19 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The oil moguls are now acting as self-serious and self-flagellant as news hacks, meaning we do have a problem, and these idiots won't do a thing.

On second thought, is anything more offensive those who should be deliriously happy playacting grim?

Posted 12:37 PM by Gene

We shouldn't waste our time on this but we wonder if PILLHEAD and His supposed $400 MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! contract aren't loss leaders, especially for some of His affiliates. Pill's employed by CHEAP CHANNEL, and now that it's going private it can pull a fast one without angry shareholders; but its recent drying up of donations from BUDWEISER hints that it may not be selling cars as well as it used to. Moreover the sad tale of Hiram -- Sloan? indicates all that talent may now be so welded into the overhead as to make a full accounting or profit impossible; ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!'s DOG Star went down from the moment it hired -- Stang. And if this out-of-date list from an embittered enemy is correct either his advertisers have deep pockets or shallow sense, and we doubt the former. The only reason that lout Drunken Slob drew so many blue-ribbon suckers is that they didn't listen until it was too late. Moreover we wonder if the Pill deserves His alleged largess given the grand wonders He's bestowed upon Republicans the last ten years -- and especially the last two. By that standard bansheeing idiots like KEITH TANTRUMAN should have hoped He'd be paid double.

And this press rel -- adver -- GROUNDBREAKING NEWS was disclosed by WALTER WINCHELL!!!!! and THE ORIGINAL TVNEWSER!!!!!, meaning its BS reading is off the scale.

P. S.

Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s banks, seeking investors to help finance the U.S. radio company's $17.9 billion leveraged buyout, cut the offering price on some loans, according to people with knowledge of the offering....

The price cut reflects a decline in average actively traded high-yield, high-risk loans....

``The steep discounts suggest the banks are facing considerable losses,'' Dave Novosel, a credit analyst at Gimme Credit Publications Inc. in Chicago wrote in a note today, suggesting the banks may sell the loans at 85 cents on the dollar. ``The only solace for the banks is that the renegotiated deal led to a reduction in the amount of debt needed to complete the LBO.''...

``We expect demand for the new issues to be tepid as the rumored decrease in loan prices is likely indicative of investor interest,'' Novosel wrote in the report.

You don't suppose there's an outside chance AMERICA'S BIGGEST CAR DEALER's heading in the direction of COLONELLAND?

Corrected 3/3/2009 at 6:47 p. m. ZONNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!! didn't hire Hinton -- Stein...but he might have.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

Can't we even get alternative fuels from someone other than the usual heavies?

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

The Bugmeisters finally unleash the brilliant idea they've long threatened: to sell their overpriced Office by subscription!

Which means, if these prices are correct, that Office will be overpriced in a different way.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

It's magic! YouTube attack videos can just (PWOF!) disappear! Like that!

Money will concentrate a senator's mind wonderfully.

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

How apt that the Manhattan condo biz is starting to suffer too -- how especially apt in that so many of these overpriced affairs housed the people who brought on the subprime disaster and other vast and impersonal forces.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

News hacks? Where are you? Staring at your plugs? If this vaccine works against meningitis B it must count as the greatest medical advance since the polio vaccine. Anybody listening?

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Shucks, it looks as if we aren't going to get a respite from genius after all. But we can still hope.

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Somehow we could not help thinking of St. Rachel beholding this terrible story. We wonder if it was a tribute. Certain peace activists somewhere are smirking.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Elsewhere from the former flagship of PEOPLE INC., which seems to be getting skinnier without the help of the gas crunch, we discern some Iranian diplomat ready to make concessions on nukes, which prompts us to ask, 1. Where did he come from? and 2. Is he merely another side to Nukeman's mouth?

Unlike in previous proposals that failed to break the deadlock, Iran would not be required, at least during the preliminary talks, to halt enrichment altogether, as the Bush administration has demanded until now.

Where's The Messiah's Strobe Talbott?

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Another news hack smiles:

But it's also true that Americans are finding options where there seemed to be none. They're ready to change — just waiting for their infrastructure to catch up. They are driving to commuter-rail lines only to find there are no parking spots left. They are running fewer errands and dumping their SUVs. Public-transit use is at a 50-year high. Gas purchases are down 2% to 3%. And all those changes bring secondary, hard-earned benefits.

We want to see how many of these benefits actually appear. Cheaper insurance? With St. Warren running the biz? And why do we suspect traffic will somehow manage to avoid the costs of high gas prices? Less obesity? How did Amanda figure that? And why do we detect more than a shade of smugness to prognosticating like this?

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

Continued excellence in news gathering from the ASSPress:

Poll: Obama beats McCain as barbecue guest

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

Driving Down Real Estate

Will higher commuting costs kill the suburbs?

No, because the minuses of the commute still can't outweigh the pluses of lower crime, better jobs, better schools, better shopping, and green grass. Speculators and Belly Kissers (or rather vast and impersonal forces) can't bring back the cities that guvment hacks and businessclods worked so assiduously to destroy.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The auto biz is becoming an analog of network TV -- you can be first so long as your sales don't decline as fast as number two.

P. S. The Senior Clunker Brother seems to have fended off Toyota by all but giving the product away.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Speaking of stupid, two can play this gag at rating successful movies by Rotten Tomatoes rankings. How many masterworks have gotten 95% plus and earned less than $5 million?

Why must the Sons of Kinsley waste our time like this?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Lifestyles of the Rich and STUPID:

Vin Baker Joins List Of Athlete Home Foreclosures

...It’s Baker’s second foreclosure this year after his restaurant Vinnie’s Saybrook Fish House went under in February. Baker earned $89.9 million throughout his 14-year NBA career, including $13.5 million for the Boston Celtics for the 2003-04 season.

Evander Holyfield stopped the foreclosure proceedings on his 54,000-square foot home, which was supposed to be auctioned today, but other athletes are in trouble.

Latrell Sprewell, who made $96.6 million his NBA career, had his yacht and a house foreclosed on this year.

Dallas Cowboys defensive back “Pacman” Jones--who now just wants to be called Adam--was supposed to have his home sold in an auction on Friday, but it was delayed to July 28. The mortgage default was also with U.S. Bank.

Jose Canseco, who made $45 million throughout his career stopped making payments on his 7,300-square foot mansion in June.

DUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

At $9 per gallon, British driving habits change

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Hey we just burned $150 billion or so on a non-stimulus -- what's $150 billion more to burn?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Another plug from the ASSPress:

The libretto by David Henry Hwang ("M. Butterfly") has all the elements needed for good opera: a love story, a transformation, tragedy and death, not to mention a large dose of melodrama.

And we can be sure THE SCORE STINKS!

I HATE NEWS HACKS!

Posted 2:07 PM by Gene

DICK "ZILLIONS" GRASSO IS VINDICATED!!!!!

On a TECHNICALITY, GEKKO.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

I wonder: Is an attack on Iran more likely now that Ehud has entered the history books?

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

STRIKE! DE FACTO STRIKE! DE FACTO STRIKE LONG, HARD AND BITTERLY!!!!!

Posted 8:20 PM by Gene

Jonathan Karp is as clueless as the industry he seeks to "reform." Indeed forgive our suspicion that he wrote this treatise after an evening reading (or trying to read) the fool Jo-NAH, his face turning beet red and his head swelling to three times normal as he beheld this NAZI EXTREME -- oh, never mind. Discounting this obvious inspiration for his dyspepsia we can see Jonathan has no more an idea about books than anybody else. Publish "works that will last," croons he. Isn't that what the literary end of the business is doing, churning out endless MAs from literature schools -- and isn't that why so much of "literate" fiction is knee-jerkingly ridiculed as dead and dessicated? The biz has always had its hacks, and it has always produced popular trash. Does anyone here remember The Story of Mankind? Heck, does anyone here remember Harold Robbins? That trash now dominates the book biz is in no small part a function of how its excellences have receded into their own little crawl space, and folks as small-minded and platitude-prone as Mr. Karp and his book buddies will only see that their space becomes more confining.

Jonathan Karp is a publisher who understands the value of innovation. In 2002, while an editor at Random House, he came up with the idea of commissioning a sequel to Mario Puzo's The Godfather epic. A national contest was held to select a writer. The winner -- Mark Winegardner, a little-known but critically acclaimed novelist -- came out with the well-received The Godfather Returns in 2004.

Very innovative, Jonathan. (And two-and-a-half stars and no. 38,369 on Amazon.com.)

(Via the "smart" CuteLittlePinkPaper.com)

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

NEWSWEEK Poll: How Smart Are Americans?

Judging from all the people who still subscribe to ZEITGEIST, we're tempted to say NOT VERY.

Posted 6:58 PM by Gene

It's Happening! Manhattan Office Vacancy Grows

You don't say! I wonder what could have brought THAT on?

Posted 6:48 PM by Gene

The newspaper of the future should be a convener of people

No no no no NO, Romy -- newspapers will always be adjourners of people.

Posted 6:46 PM by Gene

If Tiger Stadium had been in a different city it would have been dismantled long ago -- by greedy fans.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

The new fad in the cine-MA: interactive ads!

What happened to rotten eggs?

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

BEAR STEARNS PART DEUX!

Posted 6:33 PM by Gene

While THE MESSIAH questions no one's patriotism, His Disciples question someone's patriotism.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

No! NO!! Soon to be Anheuser-BELGIAN-BRAZILIAN-Busch is cutting its donations to CHEAP CHANNEL!!!!!

TV IS NEXT!

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

IF "half of US gun deaths are suicides", it would behoove professional apologists like John Lott to tell us how more guns make the situation better. It would also behoove the screaming-memmie Brady Center types to tell us how fewer guns make the situation better.

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

Remember that stupid Popeye TV cartoon where everyone calls The Sailorman "Uuuuuuuugly! Uuuuuuuugly!"?



Here is the very definition.

And it's being demolished because, natch, STARCHITECTURE isn't built to last, just to please architecture cri-TICS.

[T]his disaster was created by the best and the brightest. The client was Harvard, or more specifically the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

NUF SAID.

(Via Marty Peretz)

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

The rot extends through all of Africa.

He dined at a lavish luncheon given by his Egyptian hosts, hugged heads of state and other diplomats in the corridors and stayed at the Peninsula Hotel, one of the most luxurious in this Red Sea town. “Mr Mugabe is staying there as a courtesy by the Egyptian Government,” a hotel spokesman said.

CONGRESSPOOPS!

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

And while you were at it, Ehud, why didn't you pay a RANSOM?

“There will be much sadness in Israel, much humiliation considering the celebrations that will be held on the other side.”

TRANSLATION: Hey history! History books! You got a place for little ol' ME?

Posted 7:16 PM by Gene

Okay, American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers, you can stop financing junk TV now -- the median audience age is 50!

Posted 6:31 PM by Gene

The same blithering bankers who lent to every Tom, Dick and Harriet wanting a house are keeping their wallets shut even to businessmen with good credit. These clowns can't be trusted either way.

Posted 4:08 PM by Gene

Which is less credible: hacks screaming of RECORD B. O.!!!!! or Robert Mugabe's "landslide"?

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

McCain meets with evangelist Billy Graham and son

MESSIAH! Your turn!

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

From ONE part of Col.'s empire:

...on AMC — apparently, the new HBO....

From ANOTHER part of Col.'s empire:

In the scene, actor Jeremy Fiske, who plays John in the movie, walks down the sidewalk behind Szantyr and spends an inordinate amount of time looking at her backside. Or, as Szantyr put it: "He notices my backside and kind of like goes gaga at it. That's my big part in this movie. My butt."

Please, PLEASE Col. -- DEFAULT!