Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

A $1 million "floor" for Bionic's -- second "memoir", and...

Mr. Phelps has already published a memoir, Michael Phelps: Beneath the Surface, written with Sports Illustrated veteran scribe Brian Cazeneuve. That title came out in 2005 and sold only 9,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70% of the market.

“No books by great Olympians have done well, except for Greg Louganis’,” said an insider who decided not to bid on the new memoir.

Bids through the ceiling!

Posted 12:23 PM by Gene

It appears from yesterday's USAOKAY!!!!! (which I just saw) the hacks have hit upon a new MO: the newspaper front page as smiley-face. Since we cannot report on things political and societal without reverting to our DEFAULT MODE we must report on things that (we think) will make our readers smile -- which not-so-coincidentally happen to be the things that make US smile. The Bionic Swimmer is wonderful, Woodster the Perv's latest masterwork is wonderful -- everything having to do with US is wonderful. They think that by putting a smiley face on the front page they'll get back the thousands of workers who've been fired because for decades we were better than our readers. But the approach merely affirms that however idiotically he grins a news hack remains as smilingly trustworthy as a used-car salesman, that USAOKAY!!!!! is stuffing for hotel rooms, and that the best use for newspapers remains in litter boxes and bird cages.

And having just been to the NEWSEUM's site and seen all the front-pages that look nearly like USAOKAY!!!!! without plagiarism I can safely say there will be thousands more firings.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

Speaking of A. O.:

...NBC's thrilling, gorgeous Beijing Olympics....

God am I glad Tom Shales doesn't write regularly anymore.

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

Bob Ney is out of prison, and if we know the Beltway within five years he can be smug again.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

If there's one proof of our loss of cultural diversity it's in the continuing near-death experience of the drive-in movie house. Such venues were perfect for certain features -- the bloated CinemaScope spectacles of the fifties, sci-fi, second-string animations, Don Knotts comedies. They united families. With (as A. O. has to have told us) movies being BETTER THAN EVER!!!!! one can't imagine a suitable flick for a drive-in anymore, and that nearly as much as development may explain why it all but died off -- but a few stirring specimens do seem to remain, testimony that there is sometimes truth to nostalgia.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Lewis LapHAM, the tiny former ediTOR of something called Harper's, has thrown a muddled tantrum over ST. TIMOTHY. Harpers.org is a virtually dead site and the screed isn't online, but we'd guess given the prominence of Ronald Reagan's name here it has to do with the ST. being some sort of Republican (never mind He was a Democrat). But the ST. was a toady -- a man does not attend DR. EVIL's funeral without being one -- and the excess of His now forgotten last rites attested to it, yet when a shrimp like this says it no one believes him. Since he raises another name we'll put it in far fewer words: ST. TIMOTHY was Charlie Rose with an attitude.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Highmark Inc. and Independence Blue Cross would pay their top executives as much as $4.2 million more if they were allowed to merge.

Hey! I think we found a new PAHTNER for the GAMES!

Posted 9:17 PM by Gene

THE PEOPLE -- well, er, the FANS --- are REBELLING AGAINST PEOPLE WARNER'S MOVING THE TENTPOLE!!!!!

Marchons, MARCHONS...so MS. ROWLINGCORP can double Her fortune.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

TNR insists The Lord and His disciples made a wonderful wonderful compromise on abortion, as we shall see when He starts choosing Nine-Fingers, and when BigMedia act as His enforcers.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Awwwwwwww, Mogul's Friend loses one of his best because his live-action cartoon fantasies weren't good enough (for SUMNER, presumably).

[I]t can't be a good sign for Paramount when someone with Rich's savvy and creativity as a marketer is so eager to bail out of his job.

It can't be a good sign when professional toadies like Mogul's Friend hail as irreplaceable geniuses men who market live-action cartoon fantasies.

Posted 2:12 PM by Gene

Best-Seller Pervez ISN'T resigning yet despite the best efforts of his opponents and news hacks to make it so. If Will Rogers were alive today would he still say "All I know is what I read in the papers"?

(Which is sometimes emended as, "...and that's an alibi for my ignorance.")

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

Downie's leadership at WP similar to that of a good mob boss

Uh, Romy....

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

The Pack offered Brett his own blog!

And most likely he wouldn't have had to write it.

Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

...fake ethnic groups....

The Lord would NEVER hear of it.

Posted 12:52 PM by Gene

If this is correct, more than twice as many Britons do coke as partake Sundays of the British Vicarage and Tea-Time Club!

Sharia, here we come!

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

We will give the Bionic Swimmer the benefit of the doubt and say he's real, nevertheless reserving our right to object. One reason the slavish devotion to the CURE FOR CANCER rankles us is that so much of the CURE is tainted by drugs. The other day we got the story of one of those East German machines who had to change his/her sex because he/she took too many steroids. That the authorities seem not to have found egregious doping acts thus far may just mean they're slinking under the radar. The one hope for sports is for fans to maintain their credulousness at all costs, as SELIGISM's millionaire seat-license buyers have done, never letting truth or common sense impinge on their fun.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Life is decisions, and some of us make better ones than others. Having six bodies would make life easier; if we were a large business we are sure we would have the decision to be quite wealthy. Even with mass firings a news organization can still make good decisions -- in theory it should make better ones because fewer staff should mean fewer opportunities for mischief or drivel. GanNETt doesn't know better, nor it appears does its rank-and-file; despite its having laid off three percent of its workers our NEUHARTHIAN ROCK AD-BLURBIST EDNA still finds the time to write some asinine filler about three of her favorites. The news biz' decision, then, to continue to serve up tripe is theirs. The decision to pass up this unsavory daily repast is OURS.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Finally, after ten weeks or thereabouts, the "Get Smart" memorial on I-95 has come down. Now maybe PEOPLE WARNER can reserve the space for its upcoming ROWLINGCORP TENTPOLE -- for ALL NEXT YEAR.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

'Where was God?' ask refugees from Georgia war

Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope-fervently do we pray-that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God will that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

JPOD THINKS:

Lieberman will have to pledge not to seek the presidency, and to make the point that he is a man of his word.

Er, Pod, how old is BOOBS McKEATING? And if Veep Morals becomes -- er, well, you-know-what, should he step down?

And does President Morals become a DEMOCRAT again?

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Stupid question: What if it decides to get cloudy over the Desert Southwest?

You know, global warming and all that?

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS, with might and main, move their ROWLINGCORP TENTPOLE from Thanksgiving to next summer -- and look who doesn't know:

Last-minute move comes as Daniel Radcliffe appears on the cover of Entertainment Weekly's Fall movie preview this week. [Emphasis added]

They're INSULTING YOUR creation, B. S. DEFENDER! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! HA HA HA!

WHAT HAPPENED TO SYNERGY?!?!?

PEOPLE INC. SHOULD SECEDE FROM PEOPLE WARNER!!!!!

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

OH oh, maybe it's NOT symbolic!

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

OH oh:

Clinton name to be placed in Democratic nomination at convention

Messiah -- PRAY!

P. S. at 2:17 p.m. Aw SHUCKS, it's "symbolic."

For all those votes that's a lot of symbolism.

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Perhaps it was too much to expect Our Friends the Saudis to have to pay for 9/11, but if they are not legally culpable they are morally so.

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

Judge lets Detroit mayor travel to Dem convention

Thankfully no one will watch the thing so no one will notice.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

The Former Wizard of Oz, who blew up the housing bubble, now says these Dubya bailouts are BAD?!?!?

Has anyone told him people don't believe him anymore?

(Via Cheapie Marketwatch)

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

We don't know which is worse: that a professor would ask for sexual bribes from his students -- or that the students would pay them.

Miller created the Heartland Poll in 1988, conducted by the University of Iowa Social Science Institute, as a unique political opinion poll to gather data from Iowans and residents in six surrounding states during election years.

(Insert sound of eyeballs rolling here)

(First link via Chronicle.com)

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Why do I get the impression reading this that, bionic swimmers notwithstanding, THE CURE FOR CANCER has been an enormous fizzle, saved only by the armies of uncritical (and mostly female) viewers watching on GE BANCORP NETWORK?

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

I guess this means SO many people bought SO many houses at SUCH inflated prices the bubble's still huge.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!! The Mogul's Friend says his pal Dan at Warners has SO MANY MOVIES he doesn't know what to DO with all of them!

While we have a few environmentally or medically unsound suggestions our best advice is just send them out on DVD, where no one can notice.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

The foreign ministers of the 27 EU countries interrupted their holidays for an emergency session on the Caucasus crisis today in Brussels.

Did the world notice?

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Home in Chicago, Obama can be regular guy, sort of

I'm sure Mike Royko could appreciate that.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

We may have to start to wonder when the DOLANS!!!!! take over the REST of COLONELDOM.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

TV ratings are tanking and advertisers are fleeing [?????], but NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker has a plan to reinvent television. [Home-page blurb]

I know -- he'll have THE GAMES ALL YEAR!

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Doofus finally does something, but only after having non-acted himself into a corner.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Assuming Gen. Fogbound endorses The Lord (and we wouldn't assume that much with Mr. NeoCon), it may not mean a lot because 1. The Lord already has Gen. McClellan, 2. The Lord already has -- oh, never mind, 3. It's payback, and 4. Nobody watches the infomercials anymore.

Posted 2:48 PM by Gene

Iranian minister's Oxford degree apparently fake

How many of NUKEMAN's nukemen....

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

And for the first time, Mickey D's distributes a coupon ONLINE. Caveats: It's doing so because ITS CEO IS TAKING A THREE-MONTH PAID VACATION, and its corporate-rep score is -24.1. (!!!!!)

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

In terms of buzz, General Electric (parent of NBC Universal) is so far the big winner, posting the largest overall increase over the last month. Its score rose from 9.4 for the month before the games to 14.4 for the week leading into the games. GE's reputation was 33.3, compared with the 15.5 average for the overall appliance [SIC!!!!!] sector.

Johnson & Johnson's ad campaign has its brand soaring, earning it a reputation score of 65.2, compared to the overall drug sector's 7.1.

DAMMIT RANCE, WILL YOU STOP GIVING CEOs AN EXCUSE TO TAKE THREE-MONTH PAID VACATIONS?

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

In the old days if people had panned LUKE SPIELBERG's museum pieces the fanboys would have cried. They laugh now.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

And a certain move-MENT con-SER-va-tive -- in this case Quin, friend of BIG PHARMA -- believes what America needs is still more redistribution of wealth...the con-SER-va-tive kind.

Here is one reason why, if The Lord is having trouble polling higher, so is BOOBS McKEATING.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

In his own way our current attorney general must admit Sleepy Gonzales was just like his boss -- an incompetent glad-handing ass.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Speaking of the CURE, this is either our sour grapes or their cheating, and at the CURE it's the proverbial six of one.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Speaking of smog, we figure there are two reasons so many of the events at the CURE FOR CANCER have been sellouts: 1. Nobody's interested in yoga and table tennis, and 2. The Chinese Politburo. "How's our attendance in archery?" "Thirty percent." "Sold out!"

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

Now, having spent his crisis time admiring the backsides of beach volleyball players, Dubya concocts an excuse: that the Russians were afraid of being punished by US!

Hey Dubya, if your opposite number the Puppet of Russia can call his putative counterpart in Georgia a "bastard", why can't you just tell the truth -- the Russkies won? Or are you so intent on your long overdue retirement the days go by as in a Chinese smog?

If Dubya isn't our worst president (and the "author" Bob Byrd's known every one of them since Washington, and is just as senile) he's getting there.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

Gory, vulgar and wickedly funny. [Cablevision home-page blurb]

When we read five-word above-the-title ads like this we know, regardless of what CONSERVATIVE columnists [Romian emphasis added] might beg us to believe, why we want more news hacks to lose their jobs in general, and why we want show-biz ad-blurbists in particular to lose them. If all you're going to do is spin and sell, yell at us and condescend to us and look for high-profile high-salaried jobs, why should we feel any sympathy for you?

And there won't be as many nonideological stories - about crimes or zoning or state spending - until what was once a solvable problem festers, unreported, into a front-page disaster.

Forgive us for thinking we've done pretty well on that score with you clowns on the job.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

But then who needs Vlad when we have a few select Georgians:

"What would you have us do? How can we live like this? We are afraid. We will stay in the forests until this war is over."

This...is London!

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

The former Mr. Sharon Stone takes credit for helping bring down the Soviet Union!

Are you sure we should boast now, Former?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Of course America is weak. Would a nation "ruled" by Dubya be otherwise?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Oooh, I think somebody's MAD:

The Obama and Bush Do-Nothing Strategy on Georgia

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Thankfully China wants to be loved responsibly. Pffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: They won't make money with show-biz news this time either, but it'll make them feel good.

And we remember Inside.com; it was a decent site -- while it lasted.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

NO COMMENT:

Burger King Corp. said Tuesday it has parted ways with an employee who was recorded taking a soapy bath in the restaurant's utility sink. The nearly four-minute video, which was posted Thursday on MySpace.com, shows the unidentified employee taking the bath to celebrate his birthday.

The worker, who refers to himself as "Mr. Unstable," appears to be naked.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

And elsewhere in Synergistic Stale.com, we learn China "just wants to be loved."



Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Just like a panda.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Hey Sons 'o' Michael! If GE BANCORP's coverage of THE GAMES is so sappy why is it the last two days when I've run into this gag you've run ADS from YOU-KNOW-WHO?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

I think we can install our people in Georgia, Dmitry. S'allright?



S'ALLRIGHT!

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

CVS, which already resembles a government bureaucracy, is about to get bigger.

Can you imagine one national drug-store chain? I can. (And so can CVS's shareholders.)

P. S. A sad thing is for years its Moreno Valley, California store was big in model railroading. (!) Just think how a CEO like Tom Ryan would react to that.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

%strytype(ContentType:Spot Development; ContentElement:FullStory; Breaking:True;%)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says military operations must stop in Georgia.

No WONDER that isn't an AP NEWSALERT!

Posted 12:16 PM by Gene

The more we learn of the IMMORTAL opening for the CURE FOR CANCER the more we learn how mortal it was. First we learned some Communist apparatchick replaced a girl singer because she wasn't attractive enough -- and now we learn someone projected a BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!!!!!!!!! during the finale.

If this cures cancer I'd hate to think what it could do for other diseases.

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

The CURE FOR CANCER has -- EMPTY SEATS?

Couldn't the organizers have bused in some pliable Chinese -- or some relatives of all those CEOs out there?

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

We win! WE WIN!!!!!

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

To their credit, Russian investors didn't like it.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Meantime the Gods and Goddesses of sport confirm technology and drugs have rendered all those "records" meaningless.

What is so especially annoying about this latest CURE FOR CANCER is that today sports occupies the same place culture did 75 years ago. At least you could hum a hit tune from a Broadway musical. Try humming a breast stroke. Except for chokes and Willie Mays catches great plays are one like another; the most memorable moments in sport were audio ones like the farewells of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, the former with that echo and the latter with his cancer. Sports hacks use words like "CLASSIC!!!!!" the way ad-blurbists use "CLASSIC!!!!!" in trying to apply an aura of immortality (and synergy) to them. But adjectives won't make great catches leaps dives more memorable, and they only tell us that where it should count, in the arts, you can't remember a doggone thing anymore. And however artistic "great moments in sport" may be, sports are not art.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

It is now obvious Belly Kisser wants to take over Georgia, and if there is nothing the "civilized" world could do about it in the best of times, it is not the best of times when that world is led by a man who palsy-walsies with him while doing photo ops with beach-volleyball players.

Posted 2:31 PM by Gene

PR BS: Little Jeffy says He's earned $700 MILLION from His globe-trotting telegenic schmoozing. To which we ask three questions: 1. Isn't it business it would have picked up anyway? 2. How much of it is due to GE BANCORP being "international"? And 3. $700 million is WHAT PERCENT of $176.7 BILLION?

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

U.S., allies keep up pressure on Russia to end attacks in Georgia

We would certainly like to know how. Little Georgia is not worth us going to war over, but Belly Kisser, just like NUKEMAN, has us over a barrel, forcing us to wring our hands and utter mindless platitudes in place of action. It reminds us all too well of what the lunkheaded Ike didn't do in '56. Of course he wasn't going to risk Armageddon over that strategically dubious parcel of land called Hungary, but his practical silence was a victory for the Soviets. That the Hungarians ultimately won their freedom does not make Ike's silence look golden. To be sure the Georgians may not be risking their freedom here, but for Belly Kisser to smile at our predicament makes us realize that we have molten piles of Jell-O where our leaders should be, and that the future belongs to tyrannies like the Russians', or the GAMES' latest friends.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

Although the event as a whole received rapturous reviews abroad, that has not been entirely the case at home. Some internet comments were hostile, saying that while it looked stunning the contents were vacuous.

It is excessively irksome to have to feel it your civic or patriotic duty to do something of no value. A case in point is doing my duty for GE BANCORP and the Lords of Lausanne. We will not pay attention to these GAMES again after they've ended, nor to most of the sports highlighted, and I do not want to watch television for the sake of watching it. And the sheer heavy load of forgettable sports makes following this event a true burden. The Chinese Internet users following the slightly faked opening were definitely on to something -- and not just about the opening.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

As it appears neither Steen nor PEOPLE WARNER has any intention of suspending their memorial tribute to "Get Smart", we will no longer note the presence of their billboard until the parties consent to remove it -- if they remove it.

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

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

1. If not for buzzwords ad-agencies and their ilk would be out of business, much as we might wish. Petey plugs into their buzzy zeitgeist by saying The Messiah is an upscale marketer. (Talk about preaching to the converted; 95 percent of the people in this scam are His Disciples already.) Just like Stevedom and the iPhone, says Petey. It would never occur to Petey that maybe He is another iPhone: flashy, of currently limited connectivity, uselessly programmable, relatively expensive, and something to show off. (The only difference is the iPhone is the product of a God, whereas the Messiah IS God.) More damningly Petey says young people are marketing slaves, the sort of condescension that means worse TV and more of the target crowd tuning out.

2. Ad Skipping? Just Wait. It's Going to Get Worse

We are tempted to retort with, "Ad Spending? Just Wait. It's Going to Get Better" but with a survey stating "85% of DVR owners are currently skipping at least three-quarters of ads" at some point even advertisers must reconsider how they burn their money. At least they should. Shouldn't they?

3. Somebody tell the TWXSTERS, again, content or no, distribution or no, YOU WON'T BE WORTH $90 A SHARE WHEN THE MESSIAH HAS RETURNED TO EARTH TEN TIMES.

4. Indeed the Big Four are so needlessly desperate they're increasingly inflicting TV ads outside the house, which shows so little faith in how their sugar daddies will continue to shell out for their expensive treats.

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Should the president be Internet savvy?

Given Dubya's experience with the Internets and the Google the answer is no.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

Secretary of Spin George Clooney said today....