Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

“Anything based on human endeavor and certainly any business that involves risk-taking, you’re going to have problems from time to time,” he said. “We will run our business in a way where our credibility and our reputation as an institution with the public and with our regulators will be an asset of the company and not a liability.”

TRANSLATION: ANYTHING...GOES!

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

SLIME declares WAR on HONORARY MAYOR MIKE!

Why? We thought he'd taken a liking to Democrats.

Posted 1:20 PM by Gene

We must concede when one types off the top of one's head one is prone to CW, and the notion of auto workers making $70 an hour may be such; but even with the layoffs of recent years GM remains an unwieldy assortment of fiefdoms with far too much duplication. There are huge costs somewhere, even if they aren't paid to the workers. How many of its marques would it have to ditch to make itself good again? Why does it need multiple divisions making the same product? This isn't 1958 anymore.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

4-to-3 advance/decline on the NYSE. His appointment wasn't that good.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

"I don't know about the white picket fence," Dupré said. "I want someone that will love me," she said, "someone that will think that all my imperfections make me perfect -- someone, when I fall, they'll be right there, telling me to get back up, it's going to be OK. I want a best friend."

Ashley at least has learned something, which we suspect is far more than we'll ever say for a certain former governor.

Posted 3:19 PM by Gene

Well! This guy Geithner must be good if he caused the Dow to go up 258 points!!!!!

And THE EDDIE OF THE WEST will take over as Commecre Secretary, and even there it may be impossible to hear him. Whatever happened to Secretary Kellogg's?

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

Congratulations to INBEV-Anheuser-Busch and Kaplan Inc. for AN ESPECIALLY ANNOYING POP-UP AD on STALE.COM!

BRING BACK TOENAIL FUNGUS!

Posted 11:59 AM by Gene

The question is, in Somalia who are the bad guys and who are the badder guys?

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

We are absolutely certain that clunking out that old Star Trek war horse AGAIN has NOTHING to do with VIACON (which owns the Paramount movie studio) selling near its lows -- or CBS (which owns the Paramount TV studio -- brilliant thinking, SUMNER) being BELOW $5.

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

Hey guy! Why didn't you just wave the money around and say "Thank you! Thank you!"?

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

I guess our sugar daddies the Saudis weren't enough as Vikram's now trying to sell the dam thing. These bozos almost make us wish bankers had never left the land of Scrooge.

HANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNK!!!!!

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

We certainly hope the attorney general is not seriously ill and has a speedy recovery. This graf from The Weekly Standard's blog is instructional, however:

As is its wont, the Left blogosphere went to work wishing ill upon the imperiled official, although their behavior has improved somewhat since conservative blogs and O'Reilly started pointing out every death wish thread they concoct. At Daily Kos, the diary writer and one commenter were mocked for offering prayers for Mukasey, "The equivalent of urinating on a cold sparkplug...How have your prayers been working out for you over the past eight years? Got a constitution? A rule of law? Got a decent job?" This guy "questions the timing." Democratic Underground offers more mockery for prayer and calls him a "3rd reich henchman."

But why must it be just "CONSERVATIVE BLOGS AND O'REILLY"?

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Tsk tsk, The One breaks another pledge to the throng:

President-elect Barack Obama will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks, two people who have advised the Obama transition team on this issue say.

Breaking all these promises -- how can The One ever hope to govern?

(Via USAOKAY!!!!!)

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Another of TNR's crack interns pulls a fast one. Yes, the Democrats may not seek to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine. That doesn't mean they couldn't "backdoor" it -- or other dubious...legislation. The Republicans did it. Indeed the point isn't the Fairness Doctrine but what screwy things Madame Speaker Defarge could do with as little public notice as possible. And She will do them -- just as the late Realtor Denny did.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

It is a measure of the Wall Street Casino's recent accomplishments when this is considered a monumental achievement:

Dell shares back above $10

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

The old Time magazine was Ike's and Jimmy Carter's flack sheet. People is Brangelina's flack sheet. Time didn't have to pay Ike and Jimmy. PEOPLE WARNER is at a post-AOL-merger low. NUF SAID.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:38 PM by Gene

Graffiti triggers crime, littering, study shows

ART does THIS?!?!?

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

We don't see what this gets Subway's CEO (somehow "I KNOW MICHAEL PHELPS AND YOU DON'T!!!!!" doesn't have a ring to it), but with that face the company could have chosen a slightly better spokespoop.

By the way, do Subway hoagies really look like that?

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Assuming Wagoner pulls the ripcord....

Out pops a GOLDEN PARACHUTE, no doubt.

And a man who's served half his life at GM, Isn't that the problem?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Doom, DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM: PaperofRe-CORDCo has CUT ITS DIVIDEND by 75%!!!!!

This WILL NOT HELP, so long as it regards its readers as nuisances, and the truth as an ever-changing thing that tilts conveniently leftward.

And it didn't help; the shares aren't budging after hours.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Is the 'Twilight' hype overblown?

Increasingly BIGMEDIA outfits like Yahoo! go into defensive postures when they sell something too hard -- but perhaps they wouldn't have to if their primary businesses weren't SPINNING AND SELLING.

(Oh and by the way, Jerry "HUMAN RIGHTS" Yang, we hope you have a nice retirement -- uh, demotion -- uh, we hope we don't hear of you again!)

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

The Democrats are now demanding a "survival plan." What the hell does that mean? It means the Democrats will hear not one word about cutting onerous pension costs or ridiculous wages -- the two things that (other than booting the stupid intransigent management "teams") can save the Big Three right now.

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Kaplan Inc. (down 23 right now) says chicken eggs have rights and milk may be unethical. (Peter Singer, as the Zeitgeist home page DOESN'T tell us.)

Okay, YOUR SOMEWHAT IMPOVERISHED HOLINESS ST. WARREN, let's see You give up Your BURGERS!

P. S. Truth in advertising from THE MESS:

Newsweek: Animal rights go mainstream

OR: Kaplan Inc. DOWN 28.50 (but unfortunately up 11.71 after hours -- presumably because it's hired a guy who helped Amazon.com perfect 1-Click).

Nor, alas, has the truth helped BUGDOM, which has sunk to a richly-deserved 11-YEAR-LOW -- or GE BANCORP, which is looking ever more BANKIER.

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

The luxury airl -- AUTO biz was all set for a bailout, and now WHINY REID says there's no bailout yet, so the Congresspoops must have heard from their very pleased constituents.

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

Con-SERRRRR-va-tives! Here's something The One could do that would make you VERY angry: ban fast food ads!

Well who held a gun to Ray Kroc's head and forced him to create Ronnie McD?

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

NEW CHANGE! SAME OLD INGREDIENTS!

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

It's official: the Big Three lost whatever little respect they had yesterday.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

When the hacks use the word "brand" in a story on our standing in the world, one should run away screaming.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

Vladimir Putin plans TV phone-in

So don't ask any tough questions!

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Our sugar daddies the Saudis come to Citi's rescue!

Who needs Hank?

Posted 9:29 PM by Gene

Before I forget: As I headed toward the El stop on the way home I noticed a big scrap of a PSA from one of the CHEAP CHANNEL billboards I mentioned not too long ago flat on the sidewalk in front of a store. Wouldn't it be better just to take these eyesores down than to thus thumb your nose at a run-down neighborhood? And how many other CHEAP CHANNEL nuisances get this treatment? I'd be looking very carefully at your DEBT, sons of LOWSY MAYS.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

The petty tyrant Rep. Waxman seems about to win his campaign against Rep. Dingell the Michigan Fossil, and while we'd find it disheartening for such a tantrum thrower and would-be villain to get any advantage reading this AdAge story tells us if he can make MadAve and its dependents squirm for a few years that may not be entirely a bad thing.

And we do not use the term "villain" lightly, for one of Waxman's predecessors as chairman of the so-called House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was Dan Burton, who also threw tantrums and aspired to be a villain. We don't know whether it's that committee or just being a Congresspoop. We suspect it's the latter.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Two heds today on Reuters' home page -- not that far from each other:

Clump of dark matter may loom near solar system

Berkshire Hathaway drops over 12 pct

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Huckabee won't rule out 2012 run for president

The world awaits you! Pfffffffffffffffft!

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

Yikes! Dow at 6,400 in a month!

Charts predict it!

Whatever you say -- Big C.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

NO, Dave, country music is NOT going liberal. Unfortunately it may not be going good either, as he hints; even its most ardent defenders must admit it's been soft-rock (or rather "adult-contempo", or rather contempto) with an accent for decades, augmented by "obnoxious power chords". If pop music stinks and won't get better, what hope is there for the pop music of the South?

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

BREAKING NEWS!

Tom Daschle to Be Next Health and Human Services Secretary

It's Old Democrats' Home with The One!

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

And in more news of RENDELLISM from its cradle, the people who manage the Musical Mausoleum -- er, the Quonset Hut on Broad -- er, The Place His Royal Highness Elton Opened -- YOU KNOW, now, seven years after it's opened, they have BUYER'S REGRET and want to "rethink" the place -- only they don't have the money.

Why not just tear it down and start over? That's the plan in the back of your heads anyway.

(Via the usual AhtsJournal)

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

But for the flukes of fate, every self-important bozo in the Beltway would have been an investment banker.

I guess it's too late now.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Britney Spears Calls Her Life Worse Than a Jail Sentence

So why do WE feel incarcerated?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

We got BAD NEWS, Sean: if those cars keep piling up at Long Beach Toyota may have to zap you with its ad again!

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

"I was majoring in football."

America's YOUNUHVERSUHTEES must decide: are they in education or are they in ATHUHLETICS? And if they're in ATHUHLETICS why not make their teams wholly-owned for-profit ventures and share the spoils with the students they'd otherwise exploit -- or neglect?

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!!! We keep building cars and we can't STOP!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX says Hillary should stay on the Hill, where she could be the GREATEST SENATOR OF ALL TIME -- after TEDDY.

If S. retired would anyone outside Kaplan Inc. notice?

Posted 9:41 PM by Gene

RENDELLISM: Classic RENDELLISTS think AHT will save the world -- or at least their urban precincts. So the town fathers of Manchester built this starburst. And one can see the excitement -- in this photo anyway it's a truly stunning thing. (It's not so hot looking, however, in the day.) But RENDELLISTS being what they are they never figured that a 180-TON SCULPTURE might develop crotchets, especially in -- how do we say this? -- WEATHER. And something like this was NOT going to defy physics. With so many pieces falling off the citizens should count themselves lucky nobody got impaled by a muse. And of course it was WAY over budget. Now Manchester has reached a settlement with the AHTIST, which will not change the fact that the town fathers were alone responsible in putting aside their sense to get their city in the papers -- and their brainstorm will most likely have to be demolished anyway. That is the DOWNSIDE of RENDELLISM, a downside as costly as Taj Mahal stadiums and white-elephant convention centers -- even if it is sexier.

(Times link via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

And what will the geeks do with THEIR supercomputers?

Of course -- play the usual first-person shooters!

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Imagine if MM decided to give up films at 28. Now imagine Nicole giving them up. Do I hear the mass stifling of yawns?

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

In light of what this dimwit LORD wrote, and especially given that stupid list of his, we may ask if the "prosperity" of the last twenty-five years was a chimera. It seems to have had three or four spurts: first the obsessive buying and merging of the decade of Milken, then the idolatry of the BUGMEISTER and His cohorts, than the Web fad, then the housing psychosis. What did these get us aside from big CEO pay and lots of debt? No accident during all this time America largely de-industrialized and gamb -- GAMING was a boom biz. The only people who gained were JIM CRAMERS, and now they're screaming of DEPRESSION!!! and trying to hide their money-burning tracks. That so much of it centered too on the hero worship of GREENSPANS and KENNYBOYS underlines the hole in its money-making soul.

Con-SER-va-tives seem to have this hugely justified if unspoken notion they may not come back because so much of their movement expounded on the joys of greed, neutralizing its railing at the moral and social excesses of the time by splurging on excesses of its own. If so, they need only look for the dollar signs no longer in their eyes.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Spitzer prostitute sits down for TV interview

This hed is ripe for a salacious retort but we're a family-friendly waste of typing.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Big Three automakers beg for $25 billion lifeline

Again -- rewrite!

Big Three automakers beg

When there's little difference between the Big Three and a vagrant you have to wonder if they're worth saving.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Here's one for our KOLLEDGES -- not to mention our cities:

Johns Hopkins U. Unveils Gunshot-Detection System

Which should be as effective as Virginia Tech's psycho-detection system.

We understand the impulse at work here, but these Rube Goldbergs go up against common sense, and the constant evolution of the human psyche.

And besides, what good does it do if it takes a half hour for the campus security to respond to the detected gunshots?

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Now say the following at the top of your lungs -- with a Southern accent: "Honest to God, I'm NOT a Republican!"

You've just imitated a Blue Dog appeasing Speaker Babs!

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Oh dear oh dear, what with its connection to -- money golf has become a very -- unfashionable sport.

We'll see how CEOs react when THE GOLFING MACHINE comes back.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

P-p-p-p-please p-p-p-p-pirates, d-d-don't h-h-h-h-hijack our sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-ships!

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

Hey LEGENDARY! Why don't YOU try to fix GM?

Wassa matta? Your LEGACY crumbling around you?

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

MIT plans to fix movee storytelling. Didn't Luke Spielberg introduce enough cyborgs into the biz?

Arguably, the movies are as entertaining as ever. With a little help from holiday comedies like “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey and “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler, the domestic motion picture box office appears poised to match last year’s gross revenues of $9.7 billion, a record.

Rewrite!

With the domestic motion picture box office poised to match last year’s gross revenues of $9.7 billion, a record, the movies are as entertaining as ever.

Do some people type too fast?

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

Well, if Hillary does turn it down, all those conflicts of interest will have come in handy.

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

Jeez, who'da guessed -- watches are not investment vehicles...unless you make them?

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Whew! Sen. Morals can still talk to Drunken Slob.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

Speaking of money, two...ECONOMISTS say people are coming back to the movees -- and THAT MEANS THE ECONOMY'S COMING BACK!!!!!

And some people like banging their heads against walls, which is the same thing.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

Bush trying again to ease holiday flight delays

GoodBYE, Dubya!

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Someone named Lord responds to the TWXSTERS' knee-jerkery by listing all the marvels RONALD REAGAN introduced when HE freed the economy:

Microsoft, Blockbuster, Dell computers, Apple computers, the DVD, the VCR, the iPod, cell phones, Martha Stewart Living, Fox News, Amazon.com, talk radio, Harpo productions (Oprah Winfrey's empire of TV: films, books and a magazine) and DreamWorks studios (Steven Spielberg).

Every last item on this list is related, directly or indirectly, to SHOW-BIZ. (I'm not sure I'd have listed that perennially near-bankrupt video retailer, LORD.) Not ONE involves manufacturing (unless you call offshoring box-construction manufacturing). Yes he could have included biotech, but how much has that helped the economy? Surely some biotech stalwarts didn't require tax dollars. And he should have listed the Wall Street Casino's new products. It didn't need outside inspiration to invent monkey wrenches. The fact is GREENSPAN'S MONEY-MAKING MACHINE BLEW UP in con-SER-va-tives' faces -- and they're still in denial.

And yes, a New New Deal may not help. But NEITHER WILL RONALD REAGAN.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

All those conflicts of interest may keep Hillary from Foggy Bottom -- but they sure have earned Slick a LOT of money!

I'm surprised the hacks haven't acclaimed him America's Greatest Ex-President now that Jimmah's a molecule.

Posted 10:13 PM by Gene

Speaking of the Fountainebleau, the Daily Mail's making a big thing about how one of Victoria's models has to have her secret belly button airbrushed in -- but that's just a minor freak of nature, unlike, say, USAOKAY!!!!!, which is a MAJOR FREAK OF NEWS.

Posted 9:55 PM by Gene

There are times when USAOKAY!!!!! SCREAMS BS. You know it would because its founder the great SOB ALLEN was a BS-er nonpareil. So of course when we read THIS AD FOR VICTORIA'S SECRET touting how Miami Beach's revered Fountainebleau was renovated for "$1 billion" we knew something was up, so we Googled it -- you see, GannNETtoids don't know that Google's a VERB; heck some of them don't know what Google IS -- and if THIS report can be believed the renovation cost $500 million -- hardly chump change -- but then you figure it's opening in this economy, and in an area savaged by the mortgage catastrophe, and heck even MOODY's wonders whether the owners will make very much (including those emirs of Dubai, who must be EVERYWHERE money can be burned).

In the end, however, the GanNETtoids were BS-ing as only they can, and so...A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO ANNETTE!

Hey ALLEN! BS your way out of $7.52 a share -- close to a 25-YEAR LOW!

And a special NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to TRAVIS of the ASSPress for HIS press release!

Posted 8:31 PM by Gene

Speaking of Philthydelphia, our hacks are crying in their non-alcoholic beer as the Iggles' season is "over"; they lost yesterday (well, tied, against a 1-8 team, which is just as bad) and they have absolutely no shot. Well, they still have a winning record, if barely. Six straight wins and they're in the playoffs; heck 5-1 would do. Unlikely, perhaps; but most news hacks never took math. And very strange things can happen in football, as Iggles fans should know.

Not that I care either way; I'd be happy not to have another championship season in my backyard.

Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

U.S. Senator Questions Whether College Presidents Should Serve on Corporate Boards

Our answer is no -- but that's how they build up their connections.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

When even Democrats can suggest GM won't get its money without conditions, you've got trouble right there in Motor City.

Meantime we assume WHINY REID won't offer any. Spend away!

And Moody's (pffh-hh-hh!) emotes:

``Even with the benefit of the U.S. government's $25 billion guaranteed-loan program, we think GM's liquidity profile will continue to erode in 2009,'' the analysts wrote. Detroit-based GM had its rating cut to SGL-4 from SGL-2.

Heear that, WHINY? Spend away!

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

SEC takes on Mark Cuban

Will Dan Blather report?

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

I'm getting this impression the hacks are starting to obsess over their cousins the comedians' inability to josh at The One, possibly because not only do many of their mutual brigade find him perfect, but it's another means of showing you're not a knee-jerk left-wing idiot, even if you are. Really fellas, why should you worry if no one jokes about him -- for reasons in the PC Code you've helped enforce? There'll ALWAYS be Republicans.

And who knows? Sometimes they may even deserve it.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

A Moon 'n' Stars factotum complains about social networking:

"What in heaven's name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?"

We would remind Ted that for decades MNS has been a leader in soap operas, where increasingly the topics are stronger than breaking up with your girlfriend -- yet somehow MNS found the money to produce them even as sensitive viewers had their qualms. We'd agree sponsoring social networks is too big a risk for consumer products firms, who can find their message bumping up against anything; but we really think a rep for a company that has financed MORE JUNK TELEVISION THAN POSSIBLY ANYONE ELSE should not open his mouth about it.

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

Let's see the League of Nations cower as pirates commandeer supertankers.

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

Does this mean Boobs McKeating reverts to his old tricks of being an honorary Democrat?

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

Possibly regulation may not have had anything to do with our economic mess -- but given Phil "WHINING" Gramm's campaign contributions we can guess he helped grease its skids for some very rich reasons.

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Which is worse: Jake twisting the knife in the backs of the proprietors of a Web site he most likely doesn't read, or Jo-NAH denying in so many words his site was GUNG-HO for SARAH!!!!!?

We will defend Jo-NAH from the charge of touting a party line; but we cannot deny he and some of his colleagues occasionally act as though they have no sense.

(First link via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

ECSTASY AT SLASHDOT:

Entertainment: 75 Comics That Are Being Made Into Films

The list is from DENNIS PUBLISHING (i.e., MAXIMCORP), which makes us hope it's a casualty of Britain's economic debacle.

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

Do we really need to know European "intellectuals" are pursuing yet another high-toned fad, that however high-toned the fad they are still full of it, and that they will revert to full-throated anti-Americanism at the first opportunity?

These are the descendants of the heavy thinkers who gave us Communism and fascism, the two philosophical movements that nearly destroyed the world. They should not talk.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Sony joins the babysitting brigade as 1. The biz hasn't made movies for adults in decades, 2. The biz wouldn't make movies for adults if it knew how, 3. There aren't that many stupid teens, and 4. Evening day care is profitable.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Eventually the MESS will begin, even as NEWS HACKS say it NEVER WILL.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Has Citigroup just started laying off?

Rather, has the banking biz just started laying off?

Posted 6:55 PM by Gene

We can't forget this: CNN tells us of a handsome and determined 11-year-old Afghan girl named Banafsha who alternately spends her days in school dreaming to be a teacher and on the street begging for bread for her family. We must not forget the Banafshas as we prepare to change course in Afghanistan, for ultimately they must have it in their power to make their nation any better, and after the horror of the last seven years we must not abandon them.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Ya gotta like this: 2-8 this season, 9-36 overall, and the CEO of Syracuse's football factory still makes $1.1 million a year! (Or will until his firing kicks in.)

Yep, HYER LURNING needs a financial comeuppance of its own.

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

The good news: Russia's gotten socked in its national wallet.

The bad news: It may have extorted enough in oil prices to keep going for awhile, if only as a sickly shadow of the superpower Vlad and his puppet Dmitry think it is.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

And in other economic news: BloomyLite reports Goldman Sachs's top execs will do without bonuses this year, for which we're EVER grateful. Also to learn that consumer prices may have fallen the most in sixty years in October is slightly sickening, but we can chalk a lot of this up to the end of non-speculation in oil, and after seeing so many prices at the grocery increase we're not exactly in a mood to want a little inflation, though we may know in the backs of our heads we may not want too much deflation.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

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

1. We always harp on how much money advertisers spend to prove their superiority to their customers, to finance crappy television and to boast for weeks that I WAS AT THE SUPER BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!, but given our chance we'd rather the Big Three stayed in business than see them die. And we really don't think they will, though the surgery will be distasteful.

2. Happily, not everyone's dreams of total public domination have turned to dust. What, for instance, do "Lysol, Airwick, Finish, Mucinex, Veet and French's mustard" have in common? A parent that spends zillions financing junk television -- and its bosses don't seem to know what the Internet is! Way to go Reckitt Benckiser! You prove not everyone in consumer products wants to abandon the Big Shmooze.

3. Meantime the TOTAL NINNIES in the American Society of Magazine Editors (think DAVID "RATIONAL" REMNICK! Think JON "ALL MY BEST FRIENDS ARE CONSERVATIVE" MEACHAM! Think SUPERADAM!!!!!) continue to throw a tantrum about how their turnips can't distinguish between their EDITORIAL and their ADVERTISING when THEY only have THEMSELVES to blame for churning out hackwork that too often resembles ADVERTORIALS.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

A Hartford suburb has endeavored to create something of a downtown, with some success -- but it took a lot of...BONDS -- and this comes up in the seventeenth graf:

Hartford Hospital invested a significant stake in Blue Back, too, leasing parts of three floors of office space for a regional wellness center, where patients can use the New York Sports Club, in the same building, for rehabilitation.

Having sold the bonds they lease a lot of space to a non-profit. This does not sound like a recipe for long-term growth. Despite the ease with which well-meaning urban renewal projects can bankrupt us the time has come not just to invent downtowns but to renew them, and not merely for upscale childless young couples and gays, but for the vast diversity of people who used to live in them. It wouldn't hurt if some of the BABBITTS who overbuilt our nation into economic disaster might spend a few days in the restaurants there.

(Revised at 5:58 p. m.; I misread the story)

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

JPOD's crew is upset:

People [i.e., the usual overhyped right-wing blogs] are talking about a Times of London story claiming that Barack Obama will base his Middle East foreign policy on the Saudi peace initiative. The Times publishes a “scoop” of this nature on a regular basis, and they are almost always written by someone named Uzi Mahnaimi, the Times‘ Israel correspondent. The problem with Mahnaimi is that he’s not a journalist. He’s a fiction writer. Very little of what he writes turns out to be true. He is well known for this.

From the SLIME who brought us PAGE SIX....

But I'm sure JPOD wouldn't mention THAT.

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

We wonder when people start paying attention to the thumbs-downs on TINA!!!!!'s Cheat Sheet. Here are two from today:

15. Lost Beatle Song Surfaces

55% thumbs-down.

16. Mirren Brothel Role

56% thumbs-down.

As we noted before the thumbs-down tend to go mostly to press releases. Plus Dave Barry is plugging that vanity zillionaire-writers' band The Rock Bottom Remainders and he gets an unflattering 41 percent. I think TINA!!!!! is on to something.

Posted 12:53 PM by Gene

Now BizWeek's saying nothing happened at the G-20.

Is that an excuse for the Wall Street Casino to go bonkers on the down side tomorrow?

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

Henry Kissinger said Hillary Clinton, frontrunner to be the next U.S. Secretary of State, would be an ``outstanding'' appointment to the post.

Now what is he up to? An "advisor" post?

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

See, now movies aren't just movies -- they have to tell us something. And Susan, being a leading GanNETtoid publicist, knows she can't get away with PR merely by saying how wonderful movies are, good and proper though it is; no, her PR is more subtle: she has to cite three perfessers AND Leonard Maltin (not to mention two direc-TORs and an ac-TOR) to convince us modern Christmas movies possess a profound wisdom on the "dysfunctionality" of American life. In short, she has to cite ex-PERTS to confirm how wonderful movies are for whatever reasons she wants.

I'd rather read Andy "SELLER" Seiler plugging Showgirls. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO SUE!