Posted 7:17 PM by Gene

Well, The Paper of Re-CORD admits idiot Democratic officeholders strongly urged Fannie Mae go for the gold of junk mortgages -- but is it wise to point the finger just at one party this late in the game?

Elsewhere we are told to mourn "the end of an era." The $tupid$ will inevitably be back, with the usual excess, and plunge us into another mess. One thing, though: how much will this sordid age link itself to Ronald Reagan, who made so many of its wonders possible -- and whose brilliant management helped destroy the S&Ls?

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

How...ironic: Among the items O. J. tried retrieving with armed robbery was a picture (not this one) of him posing with J. Edgar Hoover. (That's Larry Csonka on the right.)

Why didn't he try for a role on The FBI?

Or maybe in it?

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

In addition to devising junk architecture, the Asians are devising junk art.

Fortunately, it isn't selling -- for now.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

One more thing, and in this case I'll admit it's one thing too many: I have a long relationship with the StinkyInky and Bruce, and it's based on a one-night stand. Twenty-eight years ago -- God, it was that long? -- some columnist named Stefano or DeMano or DiBruno wrote a, shall we say, tribute. This columnist was famous for his cheesy shticks, exclaiming endlessly about proper nouns ending in "-rama" (i.e., Cinerama, Aquarama, etc.), mince (don't ask), his hatred of cats, and the obsolete characters who still disgraced the comics pages (of the Daily Nooz), like the figure-eight-faced mouthless Henry and Nancy with the spiky Afro, characters he called relentlessly unfunny as relentlessly as they were unfunny. Well, one night twenty-eight years ago this columnist named Stefano or DeMano or DiBruno briefly abandoned his shticks as he'd had...an epiphany. He was at a Bruce concert at the soon-to-be-demolished Wachovia (!!!!!) Spectrum* -- and it was the night John Lennon was...ASSASSINATED, or thereabouts (might as well use the word he'd have used), and suddenly Stefano or DeMano or DiBruno fell prostrate on the ground that had known so many great concerts, or perhaps merely on the seats in front of him, and through the endless tears told his readers HE HAD SEEN GOD, and HE WAS THE BOSS. It was the sort of self-conscious treacle the likes of which I'd never beheld before; but again this was 1980, a year of great newspaper offenses to the public, and Stefano or DeMano or DiBruno was equal to the challenge. The StinkyInky didn't win as many P-Ulitzers thereafter, and soon enough it would degenerate into the jernalistic backwater it was under The Ambassador, and for decades before; yet Bruce endures, because he had a fan club, a fan club run by people who got their tickets for nothing, and paid with priceless flattery.

The last I saw of Stefano or DeMano or DiBruno he was scribbling a few grafs for our free daily sanitation workers' favorite, and they didn't have the old stupid fire and silly pizzazz. Seeing God comes once in a lifetime.

And that I recall this horse manure from twenty-eight years ago shows that despite all one's hope for the palliative effects of superior writing, a thousand good essays can't undo the damage of one very bad one.

*Soon to be demolished if ED (and no doubt EDDIE) can arrange the financing for the super-duper entertainment complex destined to replace it, that is. My advice guys: call Wells Fargo -- or CITIGROUP.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

If there's someone I'd LOVE to be today, it's...Lance Ito.

P. S.

Mr Galanter told waiting journalists how his client was dealing with the verdict.

"He's extremely upset, extremely emotional, but it is something that was expected," he said.

1. YOU SAID IT. 2. Hey Juice, look at it this way: you had 13 years of freedom -- years your non-victims will never get back.

P. P. S.

O.J. Simpson may not have the chance to attend the college graduations of his children, Sydney and Justin Simpson, after all.

Like, I'm upset.

P. P. P. S.

A weary and somber Simpson released a heavy sigh as the charges were read by the clerk in Clark County District Court.

Hey Juice! You should have pulled that gag in The Towering Inferno! You could have put out the fire!

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

As the whole universe knows by now the man the once Lord Koppel (he who all but proclaimed OJ innocent because he was...well, you know) enthroned as THE CON-SCIENCE OF MU-SICK is having a revival meeting for The Lord on our Parkway (as well as a few gigs at some temples where the money-changers congregate), and certainly we would have no intention of going, even if Yahweh Himself appeared in the skies above City Hall proclaiming, "Ask and ye shall have CHANGE!", for Bruce is six years shy of Social Security, and he hasn't had a hit since The Messiah knows when, and really, there should be a law forbidding singers of a certain age from performing in jeans.

And then I came across this line in Lana Turner's entry in imdb.com:

Campaigned for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1944 presidential election.



Yep, I'd be rushing to the Parkway right now!

By the way, we know all about change and City Hall, though some of the vagrants have mysteriously gone into hiding lately.

P. S. on 1/17/2009 at 3:27 p. m. Apparently it was just a radio appearance. (See here)

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

Looks as though A CONSERVATIVE SATIRE is a flat-out BOMB, and it couldn't have helped that the immortal Mr. Zucker withheld it from the ad-blurbists, much like the makers of any SAW (his reasoning, given to an ever-understanding Mogul's Friend, that they're knee-jerk liberal, which is true, but which does underestimate their capacity for revisionism). But we'd guess it's not just the Zeitgeist; we'd like to think the public can smell when it's being condescended to a veritable mile off, and we'd further guess Mr. Zucker wasn't merely condescending, he was full-bore hectoring.

Even if we agree, for the purposes of Zucker's argument, that a substantial majority of film critics are politically liberal (as we might agree that a substantial majority of leading Wall Street investors are Republican).... [Link added]

And that's from 2006; if anything it's probably more lopsided now. Mogul's Friend is dense as usual.

P. S. I just saw the (P-U!) trailer. When we're making two-left-footed fun of Michael Moore it says we're aiming a peashooter at a target that's flown a thousand miles away -- and the darned thing won't fire.

Vivendi should stick to [C]RAP.

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

An argument for Yahoo! going bust: Today on its home page it leads off with a press release about some former radio personality getting married. It leads off because its commercial calculus assumes we its turnips would be interested, and media behemoths like Yahoo! love to talk down to us. Indeed we've decided that Yahoo! now runs as many press releases as USAOKAY!!!!!, which in Sunnyvale they'd think is a compliment. (That Yahoo! hasn't started an Investigative Unit that would prove Boobs's adultery and The Messiah's innocence from Bill Ayers is beyond us.) We would note, however, that YHOO last split in 2004, and unless some extraplanetary financier comes into the picture it is highly unlikely it will ever split again, except perhaps in reverse.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

Several months after all but screaming that Boobs McKeating was AN ADULTERER!!!!!, The Paper of Re-CORD decides The Messiah and Bill "The '60s Bomber" Ayers "weren't close."

If this is true, we don't know, although we suspect it might be; first off, it's The Paper of Record reporting it, and because it's The Paper of Re-CORD reporting it, and it's political, we don't believe it. Second, because The Paper of Re-CORD called Boobs AN ADULTERER!!!!!, and vaguely apologized through the side of Its mouth, we wouldn't believe it.

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

HA HA HA! OJ's found guilty of mur -- ROBBERY!

Justice is served, after a fashion.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

High court returns next week

Did you have to remind us?

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

Barack Obama supporter Jane Pauley said when she talks about her pick for president, her blood pressure decreases and the worry lines on her face disappear.

When does He get the lame to walk and the blind to see?

JANE FOR PRESS SECRETARY!

(Via ShowBizData. Brent says eight people showed up for one of her rallies. Wait until she's press secretary.)

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

How apt: The House passes the giveaway -- and the stock market goes down. DIMWITS, it's for YOU.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

Is it me or is Politico.com quickly becoming the Web repository of CW it wasn't supposed to be? Or maybe it was?

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Happily there is Tyler Perry, the modern-day Louis Mayer of B pictures and labor disputes.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Another ad-blurbist daydreams:

Film buffs may see a silver lining in America's current financial crisis: After all, the Great Depression produced some of the best movies in Hollywood history.

I don't believe Eddie Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, Mae Clarke, Paul Muni, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ernst Lubitsch, Busby Berkeley, the Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, Mae West, Frank Capra, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart are currently alive, nor may Shirley Temple be five years old.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

Toyota uses 0% financing!

The sun rises in the west!

Desperate times demand desperate measures.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

When hack conservatives say SARAH!!!!! WON!!!!!, and blunderbuss knee-jerk liberals like Anonymous say Four-Score WON!!!!!, I know who loses: US.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

This building and one next to it in Hell's Kitchen went for $36.6 million in August, which certainly doesn't explain why meat markets in Kansas can't get credit in October.

Meantime The Cute Little Pink Paper informs us that while Manhattan condo sales went down, prices went up, which suggests fantasies may still rule in FinanceLand.

Posted 8:11 AM by Gene

If any leading Republican had guts, a thoroughly disprovable notion, he'd repudiate PILLHEAD. He'd call him out for what He is: a heartburn-provoking gas from the past, the standard bearer for discredited figures like VEEP BIG-OIL and SNIDELY WHIPLASH, a mischief maker who (if we can take Him at His word) will have helped elect The Messiah. To be sure His successors portend even worse, with the same surfeit of ham-handed partisanship and complete witlessness; but the only hope for the party is to make a clean break with those who brought it the DUKES while robbing it thoroughly of its dukes.

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

I'd guess in the next election SUMNER's "comedy" boys will stage a sanctioned joint press conference. This would be worse than what we have now: we'd get factoids and half-truths with a smile. The candidates will be so eager to prove they can laugh they will turn these affairs into even greater farces. But the hacks will be satisfied because, after all, "comedy" "news" is HIP (never mind if it's far more conventional news than comedy).

Posted 9:15 PM by Gene

Well, I was right on the first and sort of wrong on the second -- I think SARAH!!!!! got in a dig at the MC -- but I've already decided not to pursue this joint press conference any further. It's not the candidates speaking, it's their armies of advisers; and the morons staging these things don't mind because they think two teams of handlers talking over each other and down to the public is DEMOCRACY. "Debates" are a good in and of themselves, even if the proxies so snow us over with their empty talking points and dubious "facts" we know less of the candidates than we did; but even as we know less with each new joint press conference the organizers grow ever more proud of themselves.

That the people speaking their respective staffers' words are 1. a pompous blowhard and 2. a grating airhead is another matter, but others can write millions of words on the subject better than I -- and they will.

I was bored the last time; I'd be bored this time, and I have better things to do -- like getting my sleep naturally.

Posted 8:05 PM by Gene

How the brass asses in the Pentagon procure fake spare electronic parts from YOU-KNOW-WHO:

Mariya Hakimuddin owns IT Enterprise, a company she runs with her mother out of a modest one-story house in Bakersfield, Calif. Rosebushes line the street, and a basketball hoop hangs in the driveway. Hakimuddin, who is in her 40s, says she has no college education. She began brokering military chips four years ago, after friends told her about the expanding trade. Since 2004 she has won Pentagon contracts worth a total of $2.7 million, records show. The military has acquired microchips and other parts from IT Enterprise for use in radar on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the antisubmarine combat system of Spruance-class destroyers.

Hakimuddin says she knows little about the parts she has bought and sold. She started her business by signing up on the Internet for a government supplier code. After the Defense Dept. approved her application, with no inspection, she began scanning online military procurement requests. She plugged part codes into Google (GOOG) and found Web sites offering low prices. Then she ordered parts and had them shipped directly to military depots. "I wouldn't know what [the parts] were before I'd order them," she says, standing near her front door. "I didn't even know what the parts were for."

The Navy's Ernst became concerned about IT Enterprise in March 2007. His team found a suspicious transistor—a basic type of microchip—supplied by the firm for use in the AV-8B Harrier, a Marine Corps fighter jet. The transistor, which turned up during an inspection of a military depot in Cherry Point, N.C., was supposed to contain lead in its solder joints, but didn't. That defect could cause solders to crack and the flight control system to fail, Ernst explains. When a member of the team telephoned IT Enterprise in Bakersfield, he heard children chattering in the background, Ernst recalls. "It was the 'Aha!' moment for me on counterfeit parts," he says.

Unknown to Ernst, a separate Defense inquiry later found that at least five shipments from IT Enterprise since 2004 had contained counterfeit microcircuits, including those intended for the USS Ronald Reagan, according to Pentagon records. During her interview with BusinessWeek, Hakimuddin denied any wrongdoing and blamed her suppliers, but she wouldn't name them. [She learned quickly! --ED.] In January the Defense Dept. banned IT Enterprise, Hakimuddin, and her mother, Lubaina Nooruddin, from supplying the military for three years.

The Hakimuddins weren't deterred. A month after Mariya was barred, her husband, Mukerram, received his own supplier code, using the same home address with a new company name, Mil Enterprise. This time the Pentagon caught on more quickly, banning Mukerram for three years as well. He couldn't be reached for comment. People familiar with the matter say the Defense Criminal Investigative Service is looking into IT Enterprise.

THAT's an understatement.

Posted 7:53 PM by Gene

Here's betting: 1. Gwen does not mention THE CONTROVERSY in her open; 2. SARAH!!!!! does so by leading off in a crass PILLHEADIAN fashion; 3. Four-Score makes no obvious gaffes; 4. News hacks declare Four-Score the winner whether he gaffes or not.

I may tune in for the first half-hour or so and that's it.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

We're of two minds here: We don't feel all that sorry for the companies that recently tried to make food unaffordable, but the way the basket cases on Wall Street have driven down their stocks indicates they see a future of farmers dumping milk, and that isn't healthy either.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Boobs concedes the election in Michigan. Do I see news hacks dancing on their desks again?

The way Boobs is campaigning these partisan scribblers could revive Dance Fever.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Slate.com gives off another of those patented Kinsleyisms that is supposed to cutely explain something but leaves it even more opaque than before, and the reader more annoyed.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

We don't like commenting on stories when Yahoo! beats us to it, but for the TWXSTERS to make a CGI TENTPOLE of YOGI BEAR and SONY and GE BANCORP to revive THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY bespeaks a deep cultural recession far worse in its way than our mere economic one.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

I'm thinking one reason a DEPRESSION!!!!! is less likely is because a lot of our industries didn't exist 75 years ago. Then it was basically automobiles and agriculture, and both went kerflooey. We don't need them quite as much (although it would have been nice if the LEGENDARY WELCHES now so thoroughly repudiated hadn't done their best de-manufacturing us, pardon the nonce word). Also health care and its near-twin GUVMENT have grown huger. This isn't to say all those JUNIOR EINSTEINS of Wall Street haven't done their best assiduously working on a plan to ruin the economy with their equations and arcane domino knockdowns, but, for what it's worth, perhaps the country has grown too big to fail. We can hope so.

Posted 3:21 PM by Gene

The buffoon WHINY REID makes a comment and adds to our economic misery.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

Style often trumps substance in debates
Issues? What issues? Viewers often judge on appearances, gut reactions

Hey, heavy thinkers of the luxury news suites! We thought YOUR joint press conferences were supposed to prevent that!

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

That THE GREAT ALASKAN BOAR may win a dismissal does not make him any less corrupt.

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

A "modern-day Aphrodite"?

How about a modern-day golden calf?

And not as good looking.

We shouldn't give time and space to such raw publicity stunts but we suspect a few of those non-speculating on the TED SPREAD may be drooling over this.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

Firing a radio reporter for wearing a MESSIAH T-shirt goes too far -- and at any rate doesn't touch the heart of the matter: you may fire reporters but you can't fire their biases.

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Pay TV channels would be nothing without their movies -- and as it is they're nothing with their movies.

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

How many financial whizzes are NON-SPECULATING on the TED SPREAD the way they NON-SPECULATED in OIL?

We repeat what we said several months ago: this latest Wall Street psychosis will pass, but not before doing a lot of damage -- a lot more than the price of oil did.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

A university is investigating after video evidence of Nazi style initiation ceremonies at its sports club came to light.

The University of Gloucestershire is trying to trace students filmed marching with plastic bags covering their faces, drinking, while under the instruction of a student dressed as a Nazi guard.

In chain-gang formation the students - who can be seen parading up a residential street with supermarket bags over their heads while drinking - line up and begin vomiting as another student in Nazi uniform barks orders.

Infants will be infants.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Unusually high stakes in vice presidential debate

TRANSLATION: Another bore.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A credit crisis is just like a stock-market crisis, only we can ruin the economy differently.

Posted 8:51 PM by Gene

The contest between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama is far from over. [Fifth graf]

How many stories have we read about polls in which the same news hacks who are trying to influence the election act hypocritically as though they aren't?

Posted 8:42 PM by Gene

After one spectacular failure, the $700 billion financial industry bailout found a second life Wednesday, speeding toward passage in the Senate and gaining ground in the House, where conservative opposition seemed to soften.

For GOD'S SAKE, ASSPressians, ninety Democrats voted NAY too.

Isn't there enough blame to go around without turning this into another tiny whiny partisan ideological tantrum?

Posted 6:30 PM by Gene

JUXTAPOSITION OF THE MONTH:

Wall Street & Congress

THE EDITORS: Fannie and Freddie were definitely the biggest players, and the Democrats’ “anything goes” mentality allowed their worst excesses to go unregulated, unsupervised, and undisciplined.“There She Goes, Speaker ‘Anything Goes’” 10/01 7:00 AM

JONAH GOLDBERG: Are Dems ever to blame? “Accountability” 10/01 7:20 AM

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

"I don't see it so much as a political statement, more as an entertainment thing."

And since we hacks LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUVE entertainment it shouldn't be too difficult to see concerts with our favorites campaigning as an entertainment thing -- heck we've already seen the election as an entertainment thing -- and thus we can kill the proverbial two birds with one stone: we can talk of two types of genius.

And as for tightrope walking, you walk a three-foot wide rope three feet above a safety net four feet above a hundred king-sized mattresses.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

One of Mr. Neocon's gang says deposit insurance should be "unlimited", meaning either con-SER-va-tives are looking for another way to bolster rampant speculation, or the Enronning MCI-Worldcomming liar-loaning free en-ter-prise jig truly is up.

Posted 4:45 PM by Gene

Moon 'n' Stars's boss has his staff write an op-ed in which he supports THE BAILOUT, though he or his staff will admit his company is "largely unaffected" by the credit crunch, just as CEOs are largely unaffected.

We've said it before LAF, we'll say it again -- just triple what you spend on junk television and THAT will boost the economy!

Posted 2:58 PM by Gene

SUPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!! finally notices on September 30 what I noticed NINE MONTHS AGO!

Posted 2:27 PM by Gene

I HATE the word "closure" -- it smells of psychobabble and the news suite -- but at least we have the beginning of what would be called that here.

Posted 2:17 PM by Gene

The Lifestyles of the Rich and MESSIAH-Supporting:

Sharon Stone has so overreacted to her 8-year-old son's health issues that she suggested he get a Botox treatment for his smelly feet, according to the judge in the actress's custody case.

AND:

In Superior Court papers, the judge also said Stone "delegates many of her parenting responsibilities to third parties" and has "simply refused" to participate in counseling unless her "schedule is accommodated and her demands are met."

Yep, smells like Hollywood to me!

Posted 2:15 PM by Gene

RI storeowner apologizes for asking for ID card

Why should he? CVS always asks for MY ID -- and it's HQ'd in Rhode Island too.

Posted 2:12 PM by Gene

Bollywood goes dark as 100,000 actors, crew strike

We can dream, can't we?

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

If GE BANCORP weren't a financial-services firm would Little Jeffy have to RUSHRUSHRUSH to get His new sugar daddy St. Warren to buy His stock?

P. S. at 4:50 p.m.

Buffett has plenty of cash lying around -- he said he likes to keep a minimum of $10 billion in cash on hand at Berkshire Hathaway -- so this is a perfect time for him to Hoover up plenty of stocks that likely will rebound.

But then news hacks don't know what a Freudian slip is.

P. P. S. at 4:58 p.m. TRANSLATION: LEGENDARY WELCH built a financial house of cards.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

POLITICO.COM PRESENTS: THE INSTANT CLICHÉ!

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Now it's increasing FDIC deposit insurance, an idea bruited for days. Fine -- but how much will that cost?

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

Hopeful Glint of the Day:

Even though homeowners have defaulted on sub-prime mortgages, there is a house at the bottom of it all and that has real value.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

In the name of not offending one or two sacrosanct groups the EUUUUUUUUUUU! plans to introduce "virtual strip-searches".

Who wants to bet this is introduced without public notice -- or that some of the scans become public property?

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

MUSIC TO FANFARE THE TOWERING INFERNO BY:



I believe I have found a definitive reason why movies of the MEGAPLATINUM BISKIND AGE were NOT BETTER THAN EVER.

P. S. The poster says he was "spoofing", but I wonder; the cheesy synthesizer seems authentic and it sounds as though from a film soundtrack. And elsewhere (don't mean to get so obsessive-arcane) he posts the notorious 1963 Screen Gems end fanfare (the so-called "Dancing Sticks", with music by Frank DeVol) without a voiceover, and this apparently is authentic.

Posted 3:51 PM by Gene

I guess this means we don't need a bailout!

HA HA HA!

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Jo-NAH's favorite restaurants are decorating their tables with promos -- nothing wrong with that -- but I couldn't help noticing the curious inscription around the circumference:

MCDMNU/08 Spicy Chicken Ops Atlanta dining zone--table cling--phase 3

Count on the Mick to call his seating areas "dining zones". But what got me was the "phase 3." A reason outfits like Moon 'n' Stars are so intransigent is that they think of their "ops" as war zones, engaging in mortal combat to gain that extra share point from the enemy. "Phase 3" made me think of how many thousands of reports this promo's generated, how many middle-manager martinets are humorlessly blundering about the office in Atlanta or wherever to get every last drop of money they can from Chick-Fil-A and KFC and being so caught up in the fog of war they can't see their customers. What with its Bank of America problems the Mick was surely so panicky self-absorbed yesterday the staff must have acted like a McChicken with its head cut off. I would expect no less from such a wonderful organization.

I further thought of "Phase 3" as a mother and child were seated nearby, and the child was playing with an SFX-laden R2D2 toy, no doubt obtained through the Mick's fantastically successful tie-in for a fantastically successful movie. And as the little kid played the SFX I thought LUKE SPIELBERG must have had hours of tantrums getting exactly the right sound into the toy, hectoring untold subordinates and suppliers, even as said SFX went into something made in CHINA from God-knows-what. Mickey D's and LUKE are a marriage made in a galaxy that cannot be a long enough time ago or far enough away.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

Not all the news yesterday was bad. Consider SLIME, whom Forbeslist reports has already lost $2 billion in a year -- four times what He paid for MySpace!

Really Rupe, did you have to spend that much?

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

And in more AARP news:

New York City Opera [SIC] has commissioned composer Philip Glass ("Koyaanisqatsi," "The Hours") to pen an opera about Walt Disney, to be staged in collaboration with Brit legit troupe Improbable.

NUF SAID.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Evidently it is a not-too-well-kept secret that most audiences for the thea-TAH (and as we mentioned before the concert hall) will never pay into Social Security again. As with the decline in recorded...SOUND we can devise all manner of self-exculpating excuses for this, but judging from BRANSON EAST's lineup the thea-TAH does not deserve anything younger than walking corpses among its clients.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives have a new bag: our economy's in a jam because people like Barney gave the housing store away to lots of poor people, which certainly explains all the speculators who flipped houses like waffles, and all the Baby Einsteins on Wall Street and their algorithms.

We may have to add Jeff to our list of colyumnists and when we stopped fully believing them.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Honorary Mayor Mike may as well stay for four more years. It beats running a declining economy.

Posted 6:33 PM by Gene

“I’m going to tell you right now, it’s good.”

Of course he would; do you think he'd say it's another AHThouse bore that will lose money?

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

Alas, this was expected, and inevitable; but we do hope the Sun's proprietors somehow keep at least a remnant online, where it might save itself.

Indeed we'd argue had the Sun had a going Web site when it started it might have at least prolonged its existence, although that might also have meant prolonging its agony.

P. S. At 7:02 p. m. Evidently the Web site is folding too. Oh, well....

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

How noteworthy that the Republicans, who played a considerable part in this financial mess, are blaming Speaker Babs. While it sounds like the easy and cheap way out so typical of the GOP it's credible. Imagine if you will if Henry Clay or John C. Calhoun came back from the dead to push the bill. They were famous for their impassioned oratory. Imagine if a Speaker of the House knew how to speak. Isn't that a little of what the title stands for? Sadly, we know Babs trips over her tongue even on sound bytes, which is why today wasn't the House's gold-medal day.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Yes, "what about" those who would ban books like "The Turner Diaries or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"?

No, being righteous about conservative Judy Blume-banning yahoos isn't always a slam dunk.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Here's betting that, whatever happened today, the House tries again, and passes it. It humiliated itself a bit too much.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

I doubt, however, if the Republic has known a day when so many people would tell our politician-cretins and the banshees on Wall Street ALL to go to hell.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

DOW SUFFERS BIGGEST POINT DROP EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and posted its biggest daily percentage decline since the October 1987 stock market crash....

...when it was at 2200.

I have no sympathy for the people who've said we can talk our way into economic ruin as these are the same people who said NEWS HACKS wrecked the housing biz. Nonetheless the hacks are bloviating with statistical half truths today -- these after all, are the same IDIOTS who view box-office numbers as holy writ -- and if they keep it up maybe they can talk us into ruin.

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

GASP! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!!!!!

Did anyone really expect this piece of -- legislation to pass?

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000GLE UNDER $400!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well maybe if you hadn't blathered about $1000....

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

Has anyone noticed as stocks have gone down so has oil, and vice versa? So if we have the brilliant recovery Dubya has been talked by his advisers into believing we'll have wouldn't oil put the kibosh on it?

So why throw all that money on toxic loans if higher oil eats up the profits?

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

Now, I think would be a good time to make a list of when I stopped fully believing certain colyumnists. I know it's human nature to give people the benefit of the doubt, but most of these eructators have done it for so long as to be impervious to criticism, as their ever increasing salaries attest. So here's the list:

Bob Novak: When I saw him on The McLaughlin Group.

Eleanor Clift: When I saw her on The McLaughlin Group.

George "MB2" Will: When he called Bruce Springsteen a conservative.

Ellen Goodman: When she marked Richard Rodgers's death by saying the Beatles were better.

Frank Rich: When he raved Dreamgirls.

Charles Krauthammer: When he raved Castor Oil.

David "SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX" Broder: When I first saw him posit there was some lovely time when politics weren't so partisan.

John "The Liberally-Biased Libertarian" Stossel: When I noticed he was a spokespoop for the Cato Institute.

Jo-NAH Goldberg: When he called Mickey D's God's gift to man.

Joe "Anonymous" Klein: When he went into fiction, which I date around the summer of '92.

Michael Kinsley: When he started editing Harper's.

More to come.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Obama's margin in the poll is not as large as the advantage Democrat John Kerry had after the first debate in 2004. Then, the poll showed Kerry to have done better than President Bush by 57%-25%.

THIS WILL NOT STOP US FROM RUNNING ELECTIONS.

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

It would a appear the let's-hoodwink-zillionaires-in-the-guise-of-art market has had an unexpected relapse. Possibly these imbeciles were spent out for acquiring all those cadavers. Possibly too they've come to realize, when it comes to "art", they're the greatest fool.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 2:35 PM by Gene

Several years ago we Googled "player arrested" in Google News, and having come across that in going back to our archive to admire what three people a day read unintentionally we decided to Google it again -- and lo and behold we were not disappointed:

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Connecticut freshman basketball player Nate Miles has been arrested on charges he violated a restraining order.

According to UConn Police arrest records, Miles was served with a restraining order on Sept. 22, but violated it by placing a phone call to the protected party that day. That person is not named.

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Former Nebraska running back Thunder Collins was arrested Wednesday in Omaha, Neb., in connection with the Tuesday slaying of a man.

An arrest warrant issued Wednesday accuses Collins of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. He also faces felony weapons charges.

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University of Kentucky football player Ashton Cobb was arrested Friday on a warrant after his ex-girlfriend said he sent her several threatening text and voicemail messages, according to court records.

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A suspended University of Central Oklahoma football player was free from Oklahoma County jail Wednesday after being arrested, accused of raping a 16-year-old girl.

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And the odd thing is, "player arrested" gets more hits than, say, "executive arrested." Who'da thought?

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

Let us hope our Beltway superiors are managing a cure for the illness, not just for a symptom.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

If there is any consolation to the alleged resolution of this slow-moving economic train wreck it's that it's not just zillionaires getting bailed out, it's all the irresponsible cretins who flipped homes or bought them with no money down and no money, and already it's claimed companies full of hubris, from Lehman to AIG to WaMu, and as I said before, though the greedmeisters are holding the depression gun to our heads, we the people helped load the ammo.