Posted 9:12 PM by Gene

And we would tell these toadies at Kaplan Interactive that, as we've said before, the Wall Street Casino has virtually priced its parent's media division at ZERO -- and that INCLUDES its non-educational Web sites -- and just because something appears on the Web doesn't make it any good...although with some sites it goes without saying.

It further goes without saying any Web site Jonny Hairshirt praises is by definition no good.

Posted 9:05 PM by Gene

Oh hell, if we can post that gaseous preener JonBoy we can post that photo. We've seen much worse elsewhere.

Posted 8:58 PM by Gene

JonBoy thinks he can avoid a huge circulation decline by aping that other rag's gimmicks like its Most Influential 100 (or whatever they call it). Unfortunately that other rag already put a campaign poster on its cover, but we can never remind ourselves too many times The One IS a great president.

Oh, he hasn't taken the oath of office yet? ZEIT! Down to a million-six you go!

It is a fact, too, that one day Obama's power will fade, as will that wielded by the others on our list.

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle! But Zeitgeist's (and that other rag's) ability to toady to the flavor of the month will never fade -- which is why it, and its partners in crime, cannot go out of business fast enough.

Posted 8:42 PM by Gene

One of the great guilty pleasures of DailyMail.co.uk is to look at all these would-be female stars we've never heard of before (and never will again) being caught in uncomfortable -- positions. While part of us would like to post the picture of this immortal entertainer part of us also doesn't want to be affixed to the more notorious avenues, so we'll skip it. That said, we suspect her behind is cuter than her act.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

And speaking of Masters of the Universe, did anyone notice when Bernie came out of hiding the other day his faint Mona Lisa smile?

Posted 6:17 PM by Gene

Over at City Journal some Walt has a seizure over the Republic Windows action, largely because the union behind it is LEFTIST.

Unfortunately con-SER-va-tives seem to believe that our slow-moving ecomomic debacle came from the stars. Or to put it another way, the Lehmans and Madoffs have done THEIR job.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

The ASSPress gives out a nice little $mas gift to Vivendi and Electronic Arts -- who rather need it. (Of course we don't need it, but we is never the point with news.) These guitar games are little more than a variation on the old player piano, which had to be fed rolls; instead of gathering themselves around the machine for a sing along the would-be geniuses prod their instruments before a monitor, and feed the games progressively expensive downloads. Yes the games are a lot sexier than a player piano but it's the same old platform. And its half-uncle karaoke has never lost its rep as a kind of bar joke, an electronic voice box for people who can't sing. The games have too much money behind them to be fads but we wonder whether people will still sing along in five years. That the ASSPressian must breathlessly intone that one of the games goes for a thousand above list through Amazon.com answers the question.

So would the share prices of ATVI, ERTS -- and VIAB.

Posted 2:07 PM by Gene

On its second day of mourning for a GREAT AMERICAN, a question: Why doesn't Kaplan, Inc. link to its media properties on its HOME PAGE?

P. S.



Can Kaplan, Inc.'s media division make the same claim?

I wonder too if St. Warren could fill us in on how much of that is GOVERNMENT?

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

The Picower Foundation, whose founder once invested with Ivan Boesky....

Some people will never learn.

Posted 1:48 PM by Gene

Just When Democrats Have Shed Their Elitist Stigma, Along Comes Caroline Kennedy

When?

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE!

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

Everybody says what a great guy Clint is -- the greatest director of all time, and the greatest actor too; who'd have known the star of those hammer-on-anvil detective films would be such a progressive? But only among the news hacks can earning $13,000 a screen at six popcorn ahthouses for the first weekend on your latest smash be considered good news. Clearly ordinary people don't think Clint a greater talent than, say, Michelangelo; but among the people who make and admire terrific films with zero crowd-pleasing appeal he is -- GOD.

But then BERNIE was GOD too -- and look where that got him AND his church.

P. S. on 12/21 at 5:45 p. m. Scratched out because BoxOffice.com's listings for "limited releases" are confusing -- and wrong. Better to attend a seance with PAUL DRECK.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

Ford Will Need Help, Too

NOW you're telling us.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Tufts University....

And if the SEC isn't out nabbing the bad guys maybe that's because its employees are preoccupied with other things.

Posted 2:27 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: When Republicans engage in institutional corruption, it isn't institutional.

PETE, we'll have to come up with a nickname for YOU TOO.

Posted 2:26 PM by Gene

And another Hollywood excretion does what it's supposed to:

The familiar Carrey routine may have suited a young man, but he's 46 now, and standing next to the 28-year-old Deschanel, he looks every minute of it. Moreover, the movie places his character, Carl, within a group of friends in which everyone is no more than 35, implying that Carl is supposed to be in his early 30s. A 46-year-old man doesn't normally register as Methuselah, but present him as though he were 32 and give him a 28-year-old girlfriend (who looks 23), and things get awkward.

On top of that, have him act in a way that, in real life, would probably scare women, not seduce them, and a funny (as in strange) thing starts to happen in the audience: Arm hair stands up. Skin tingles and crawls. People sink into their seats. They feel their facial muscles tightening. They are wincing. Wincing and cringing.

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

ZEITGEIST is worried: the recession threatens compulsive shoppers.

Hey JonBoy! Maybe you could get a few of those pirates like the one in YOUR EXCLUSIVE to point some guns their way!

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

Dave Obey says we're about to fall into "a massive, massive hole" -- and what better way to stave off that threat than to fill the hole with MONEY!

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

Burglars hit Paris Hilton's home, take $2 million in jewelry

ROGER AILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

MOGUL'S FRIEND DOES IT AGAIN:

...a terrific film with zero crowd-pleasing appeal....

Hey MOG! Have your friends at VIACON put THAT one on the ads.

This utter IDIOT does not realize that the movie-excretion biz makes movies for people like the AD-BLURBISTS and him -- and that's one reason the industry's dying despite its bloom of health.

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

Thank you, Mr. President

When can we taxpayers join in?

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

Well, maybe the Three-Headed Dog is serious about Chrysler; it's handed over a stake to labor and creditors, plus it's eliminated its marketing fiefdom. But we must yet see if imminent death has concentrated the automakers' minds enough.

Posted 12:59 PM by Gene

Bernie's scam went back to the disco years, and with 4,000 alleged clients and Fed patsies he sure would have had the wherewithal to boogie.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

And in a stirring review from the other bible of entertainment, we learn that here in our home town of Philthydelphia someone has concocted an OUTSTANDING musical about the Cherry Sisters, which would seem like an oxymoron but always remember there are lots of oxymorons in show-biz -- and it has this Bartlett's-immortal line: "I'm a Cherry with a cherry/I will be no man's wife", which makes us think somewhere W. C. Fields is regretting his line.

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

A Senate seat is a f*@king valuable thing, you don't just give it away for nothing. [HOME PAGE ONLY]

Leon, you make us pine for the day when intellectuals used big words.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

In more inspiring news of the sweeping originality of show-biz, some hacks are making a BUCK ROGERS TENTPOLE (and being "a darker take" should definitely excuse it), and GSN has ordered up 40 SONY-produced episodes of THE NEWLYWED GAME, which makes us extremely eager to note that a media-industry maven is predicting A THREE-YEAR ADVERTISING DEPRESSION -- and while we would say the longer the better except these folks can take it out on us, we will not entirely abstain from the notion.

(Third link via IWantMedia)

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

ELIOT "BORN-AGAIN" SPITZER! PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

(Via The Daily Beast)

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

1. The automakers can do as they please; 2. If they can't repay the loans -- NO PROBLEM! WE WILL!

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

And as the entire Kaplan empire mourns, rare wisdom from Ben Brantley, surveying the wreckage of a dud of a revival of Pal Joey:

Frankness dates fast.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

The Daily Kaplan loses its most famous source, and it expects us to mourn.

There is no honor among reporters.

P. S. The glory days ended with JANET COOKE.

Kaplan Inc. down over 13 yesterday.

Posted 7:59 PM by Gene

Not likely, but still anyone want to wager in this newly prosperous age trading stamps make a comeback?

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

Somebody tell Seeking Alpha that maybe Smashing Pumpkins is quitting albums because albums stink, and albums stink because music stinks, and music stinks because MOST OF THE ACTS STINK.

Somebody also tell Seeking Alpha (and the off-limits Pali Research, whoever that is) that because digital singles sales are up 25 percent and album sales up down 22 percent does not mean music sales are up three percent -- the very clever implication here.

Amazing too that it's taken fifty years for music "lovers" to realize most pop-album tracks are filler.

Posted 7:03 PM by Gene

Does Being Jewish Make You a Flight Risk?

Whew! For a second I thought we were speaking of you-know-who.

Posted 6:54 PM by Gene

These lists of Bernie's victims are starting to resemble the lists of passengers aboard the Titanic.

THE IRS! (Well, sort of.)

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

There were benefits to missing the sparsely viewed Second Coming of Seligism in October -- like missing an F-bomb.

Daddy, what's a Phillie?

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

Oh, The One was also speaking of the markets!



This looks like a job for SUPERGEKKO!!!!!

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

When does one of the Big Boys get implicated with Bernie?

And don't forget, this is insider trading, the sort of thing Bernie supposedly did so well while forming his Ponzi scheme.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

Daddy, what's a "jazz critic"?

I see Daddy answering with, "You don't want to know, son."

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

We wandered into B. S. DEFENDER by unfortunate accident, and we see he's perfected the art of consulting by saying nothing.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

We have resisted talking of Caroline because nothing we could say wouldn't be tiresome or beyond the point, but we see she lunched with REV. AL!!!!!, meaning Camelot may have quotas.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

It is one thing to ask for "adult supervision" of our politics, but if the last several decades are proof the nurseries have been in charge. Let us hope this changes, but we less-than-eagerly await the first Democratic colic.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

Maybe OPEC should keep announcing production cuts!

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Playing Bridge
With the next White House and Congress poised to push through an ambitious infrastructure-spending plan, what should conservatives be ready to do?

Complain to no effect, as usual.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Banks will dig the ground out from under these needed changes in credit card regulation by prompting the sort of "unintended consequences" which they gloat at preparing to implement, like higher fees and lower credit limits.

Unfortunately, a Republican may not run things for a while.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Nestlé's Purina unit is financing a SLIME FILM, so we can say His outfit went to the DOGS to make a DOG.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

AP NEWSALERT!!!!!

CHICAGO (AP) -- Obama says "there needs to be a shift in ethics on Wall Street."

And most likely his worshipers in the press didn't even ask about THAT.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: With any luck Russia goes broke, which means Vlad will have to play with his puppet all by himself.

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

The Saudis gave to the Slickster. Who knew?

The only practical effect of this disclosure is that when Slick ever meets THE FIXER he can say he has more money.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

This is the fad of the future for Wall Street: reverse stock splits. We get reverse stock splits with badly managed or obsolete companies. There seem to be more of those. Sirius, Unisys and Rite Aid are pretty poor stuff, and one must wonder if reverse splits will help them. Figuratively they're on the pink sheets whatever their price.

Posted 3:00 PM by Gene

ROLEX!

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

You know, we might not have had this "credit vertigo" if the Wall Street Casino had kept its feet on the ground.

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

The One's forces have announced the program for his accession: Aretha Franklin will sing, and John Williams will premiere some stentorian piece of musical buncombe, and Rick Warren will premiere his act as the new Billy Graham. Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma will be there, and so will a poet. Well, it could have been worse.

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Iraqi Shoe-Tosser a Hero to Some of His Journo Colleagues

Yes, we imagine he would be, GREG.

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Why should GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT's The Morning Plug boast of its EXCLUSIVE AD for a dying newsrag's cover publicity stunt when ROG announced it eight days ago?

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Long distillers -- and MICKEY D!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

And if this isn't a little scary:

"There will be a lot more Madoffs discovered," says Edward Seidle, founder of Benchmark Financial Services, which specializes in investigations of pension fraud and money management abuses. "It will no longer be impolite to ask for the documents, sit down, and figure out whether the manager is for real."

(Via Bloomy)

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

And in more celebrity con-man news:

Madoff Enjoyed $50 Pedicures, 9.8 Handicap, Boat Called ‘Bull’

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

Eric Roth, author of the movie masterwork Forrest Gump!

These Hollywood bozos always like to think they're better than their RETARDED clients who'll swallow their anything whole -- but how many times have they been well-publicized victims of financial scams?

Sorry Eric -- STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

At General Electric’s annual investor outlook meeting, held in the same studio where GE unit NBC [sic] films [sic] the show Saturday Night Live....

NO COMMENT.

Posted 8:52 PM by Gene

Whassa matta, Bernie? Broke?

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

How about a bailout of the ART MARKET?

And here's an apt eulogy:

One of the emotions that has driven its boom is the narcissistic belief of the rich in the greatness of the age in which they are living. They thought they were buying masterpieces. But like the Dutch merchants and their tulips, the obsession of the new rich with contemporary art is likely to be remembered as the epitome of the vanity and folly of the age. The bulbs are still in the ground but the spades are poised.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily)

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

Soembody alert Ms. "He's-Not-Scum-He's-A-Republican" -- MORE good news!

Breaking: Major sustainable-food foundation collapses
The Fair Food Foundation crumbles under weight of the Madoff Ponzi scheme [Emphasis added]

This is what happens to -- DEMOCRATS!!!!!

Mark my words -- within a week one of the con-SER-va-tive sites will run a totally fatuous essay explaining why this scum's financial collapse was a VICTORY.

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

Well, there's one booming business in Palm Beach: pawn shops.

T'ain't funny, McGee.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Picture of the Day, from WFMU.org's Beware of the Blog. Indeed!

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Coming just behind OJ's long-overdue imprisonment, these two stories prove that the murderer may run, but it is ever more difficult for him to hide.

And count on the ASSPress to provide a deep head-scratching of its own:

What [John Walsh's crusade] also did, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, is make children and adults alike exponentially more afraid.

"He ended up really producing a generation of cautious and afraid kids who view all adults and strangers as a threat to them and it made parents extremely paranoid about the safety of their children," Moran said.

Assuming you're right, PERFESSER (and we decreasingly assume that in a man with a degree behind his name -- like the people who invented CDOs and SIVs and who declared BERNIE safe), what would YOU do in THIS day and age?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

New York subways risky for drunks

A new study shows that nearly half of those who died accidentally in subways tested positive for alcohol consumption.

And our own internal survey suggests maybe ninety percent of those lived there.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

"Our job is to hold him to account," Whitaker said, adding that he thinks "we're going to have to get tougher."

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter followed up: "We need the Sam Donaldsons of the world."

Which showy breast beating surely does not involve the story below it on Politico's home page:

ASNE proposes name change; remove 'newspapers'

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Johnson Controls Inc., one of the auto industry's biggest parts makers, handed in its 2009 outlook Tuesday. It was not pretty.

The company predicted only 9.3 million cars and light trucks will be sold in the United States next year. That's down from 16 million in 2007 and about half of the nearly 18 million cars sold in the go-go year 1999....

How bad will it get? If U.S. car sales drop to 9 million vehicles next year, it will be the first time -- with the exception of the World War II years -- the number of cars sent to the scrap yard will top the number of new cars sold.

Economists call it auto deflation.

I call it a depr -- DEEP RECESSION.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

HARDY HAR HAR:

The arrest of New York money manager Bernard Madoff claims one of the most active supporters of criminal justice reform in the U.S.

The Manhattan-based JEHT Foundation (pronounced ‘Jet’) said yesterday that it stopped making grants and will close in January. In 2006 alone, it gave away $26.4 million, according to its most recent publicly available tax return.

“They are one of the best progressive foundations around,” said New York lawyer William Zabel, a partner with Schulte Roth & Zabel and a director of the foundation. “There are so many sad stories out there, but this is one of the worst.”

TRANSLATION: A victory for con-SER-va-tives, despite the defeat for con-SER-va-tism.

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

I'm a knee-jerk conservative, E. J., and I know what to do!

And I'm a knee-jerk liberal, Ramesh, and I know what to do!

But are you sure this constant pointless head-butting without a helmet is really a meeting of the minds?

Just so long as the readers feel our pain.

Posted 2:33 PM by Gene

Okay, Fed -- now what?

Posted 12:34 PM by Gene

Repeat after me: Bernie was vermin...and a
DEMOCRAT!!!!!

One more like this and we'll have to find you a nickname.

Posted 12:30 PM by Gene

Why is it when news hacks do think pieces on bad behavior they often sound like excuses?

Hope YOU didn't know anybody who invested in BERNIE, Andy.

Posted 12:21 PM by Gene

Well here's some good news for us spoilsports:

"Mamma Mia!" Becomes Highest-Grossing Film Ever Released in the U.K.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

As was widely trumpeted, Detroit's newspapers are scaling back drastically. The good news is they're innovating. (Pfffffffffffffft!) The newspaper biz is in dire shape and will likely get worse, and that is no good for even the most press-contemptuous of us (although in Detroit it's magnified by the genius of our auto makers). But it can't get better being just a Web service, nor by disseminating more of the drivel it dispenses now.

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Madoff boasted to regulators about profits

From whom? For what?

Accused money manager also advised government on scam artists

He was the expert.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

No keyboards in the future?
A survey predicts that by 2012 keyboards will become "quaint relics."

Just like paper!

Posted 9:03 PM by Gene

Another unbiased, non-partisan news hack discloses his party affiliation.

I give Jay two years before boredom sets in, then it's on to a high profile job at a think tank. It's surely not back to a newsrag -- if such a creature still exists.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

In the three months since Lehman people have second guessed the thing until they've keeled over from exhaustion, but is it possible this depr -- DEEP RECESSION was going to happen anyway, and that Lehman is only an excuse for the Wall Street Casino's fatal flaws?

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Hasbro Films has dropped its suit against the makers of Scrabulous and can now control the universe with its upcoming rendition of MONOPOLY.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Which is funnier?

"National Lampoon" Inc. engaging in stock manipulation? or

The Golfing Machine perfunctorily apologizing to Wrong-Way for his caddy?

There's surely humor in both jokes. "National Lampoon" must be the eighth or ninth version of the one-hit wonder that has lasted this long only because someone thinks the declining proceeds of Animal House must be worth something, anything; its successive owners invented the term "penny stock" before anyone knew what it was. It's in the same league as porno stocks only the sex is simulated. As for TGM and Wrong-Way, it is quite obvious they despise each other, especially after that amusing tale at the U. S. Open; but then they have plenty to be despicable about, TGM being an efficient, soulless, RICH piece of automation (at least before it broke down); Wrong-Way for being an absolute ninny with no discernible sense of humor. Really those two guys deserve each other -- and golf deserves them...and golf deserves fewer sponsors for being the Madoff's favorite.

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

And now, as last posted two years ago, another of my chestnuts roasting on an open fire too long:

WHY ARE POP CHRISTMAS SONGS INTOLERABLE?

The standard explanations won't do -- that the Christmas season's one long shopping spree, and the platitudes of the songs are the platitudes of corrupt businessmen; that they're overexposed and inescapable, especially now with FOREGROUND MUZAK. Certainly the notion of America enveloped in DOOM and GLOOM and ENNUI won't do; Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg wrote their very sour takes on Christmas in the late fifties, before our favorite assassination. No, the best explanation is that the songs are FLAT-OUT BAD. Christ was born to provide fodder for Lawrence Welk. Consider that none of the truly top Broadway songwriters ever wrote a hit Christmas tune -- save Irving Berlin; the holiday perfectly fit a lyrical style that at its worst echoes a rhyming dictionary ("Where the treetops glisten,/And children listen,/Stand beside her,/And guide her," etc., etc., etc.). The songs also brought out the most crass in the record industry as it entered its fat years in the fifties, a time when Mitch Miller thought it cute to have Ol' Blue sing a duet with a dog. You can't think of Meredith Willson's utterly corny "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" without the cute pizzicato strings and the cute flutes and the cute xylophone and Johnny Mathis with a two-second reverb and a clothespin on his larynx. (When Willson wrote his Christmas musical Here's Love twelve years later his depleted inspiration made him re-use it, proof that the holiday does not bring out the best in musicians.) Even the very few good Christmas tunes suffer from guilt by association. Arthur Fiedler turned Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride" into an exciting, bracing mini-tone poem, but everywhere else Mitchell Parish's lyrics kick in, with their fakery of farmers and pumpkin pie and Currier and Ives, and it's back to the land of hack arrangements by Ralph Carmichael and the ooohing and aaahing of the angelic chorus. "The Christmas Song" (not great, but pretty good) marks the beginning of Nat "King" Cole's transformation from a jazzman of the first rank to an automatic molasses dispenser. Elvis, who frequently performed bad songs at half-mast, was the perfect pop Christmas singer, oozing the drivel out like a particularly unctuous undertaker soothing a dead body's relative, or a relative's dead body. And let us not forget the KIDDIE TUNES written for television though it didn't yet exist, sound-alike songs like "Frosty the Snowman" (you can hear the songwriters cutting a deal on the tune) and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," whose title character originated at a now-defunct department-store chain (Montgomery Ward). One of the great mysteries of popular music is how Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots survived a piece of junk like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to write the immortal "You Go To My Head"; by rights their next tune should have been written by Bob Merrill. (Look up the tune in ASCAP's ACE directory and you find a veritable army of the tiresome acts that buried it: the Ames Brothers, Brenda Lee, Ray Conniff, Liberace, Guy Lombardo, the Mills Brothers -- and yes, I include Bruce.) While it is true that familiarity breeds contempt, the contempt starts early when those familiar notes in your brain are so contemptible.

P. S. There are exceptions: something like "The Chipmunks' Christmas Song" is cheesy, but nostalgic fun. And I have a weakness for Sing Along's seminal renditions (can I type for Stale.com or what?) as The Gang knew perfectly just how corny it was, and didn't try to escape it. But when ACTS must add MELISMAS to the "traditional" songs they ensure they're unlistenable too.

P. P. S. at 1:38 today: I wasn't quite right about "the top Broadway songwriters"; I should have mentioned the superb Jule Styne, who alas with the equally superb Sammy Cahn wrote two top $MA$ nuisances, but the first came before Styne went to Broadway, and the second went to Ol' Blue, with no thought of it being a nuisance.

Posted 1:27 PM by Gene

If I get $100 million in compensation, the thinking goes, it is because 'I deserve it.' There is no discussion of the role of circumstance, luck or market failure. It is the type of thinking that has resulted in literally hundreds of billions of dollars being transferred away from organizational resources and into the personal bank accounts of CEOs, and is now bringing capitalism to its knees....

[T]o effect a real change in the outlook of America's execs, we'll need to instill in the next generation of business leaders a sense of social purpose and broader understanding of their role as custodians of society's economic resources, rather than the very limited Friedmanist view that the selfish pursuit of maximizing profits leads to the best of all possible worlds.

FORBESLIST.COM?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

Though he takes the usual time to remind the rabble that I, Christopher Hitchens, wear my atheism on my sleeve, and thus refer to Christ as the Dear Leader, it would be far more apt to give the distinction to Santa Claus, with the elves, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer serving as his Politburo.

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

Christie's is having a SALE!

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

And this from the British Socialist Worker Online:

Bernard Madoff: a Wall Street crook

But aren't they all?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

It figures:

Madoff touted 'advanced technology' to his clients/victims

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

And we should resist the temptation to laugh (I haven't) when we realize the slime Madoff left human wreckage behind, something we haven't heard too much off midst all the sexy names.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Walter Noel’s Fairfield Greenwich Group would have collected about $135 million in fees this year for peddling Bernard Madoff’s investing acumen to clients from South America, the Middle East and Asia.

TRANSLATON: The sucke...investors should get something back, however minuscule -- if the lawyers' fees don't get there first.

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

Is California too unwieldy to govern?

Is AMERICA too unwieldy to govern?

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

More good news: We're holding our noses at Wall Street, and now finally we sense the reek from the gambl -- GAMING biz. If the depr -- deep recession does us any good it will be to shrink the industry and loosen its tentacles from our pockets.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Which is less green: Shrek or the box office after Ben's review?

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT's affiliates sound not too thrilled at being stuck with Jut-Jaw in prime time for three to five years. They have to deal with his jokes.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

Elie Wiesel's foundation, a charity started by LUKE SPIELBERG...

How does anyone trust anyone after this?

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

The bad news: More people listen to radio than suspected.

The GOOD news: More people listen to less radio than suspected.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

MORT ZUCK!

Posted 10:35 PM by Gene

Reading this latest boneheaded LALA commentary on how to "fix" the Os-CAR®s (and we thought being boneheaded on the boneheaded Os-CAR®s was Mogul's Friend's property! Wrong as usual), we ask, Pvt. Zell, why didn't you declare CHAPTER 7?

Posted 6:51 PM by Gene

We have NOT forgotten Sen. Laut. Indeed the sad thing about this story is that most of the victims were Jewish -- or perhaps we should say "Jewish", as so many Jews are religious in name only (I'm half-Jewish myself) -- and if they were not observant (I'd guess many of them leaned for) they still have enough of the old ethnic identification to stick with a fellow Jew. This disaster has done far more damage than a covey of perfessers screaming for disinvestment.

Posted 6:41 PM by Gene

A former record producer shows off his advanced degrees by saying holiday music stinks in as many words as possible, and as vaguely as possible, meaning SLIME'S NEW! IMPROVED!! JOURNALS!!! may not be as good as the Romys say.

(Via ArtsJournal, which MUST link to these things)

Posted 3:56 PM by Gene

These last several days I've been overcome by another of those songs that will not leave my head. This one is called "My Heart Goes Crazy", and it has a strange CV: the GREAT Burke and Van Heusen wrote it for a 1946 Rank Organisation extravaganza called London Town; despite featuring the 13-year-old Petula Clark it bombed at the box office (nor did it do better stateside seven years later under that song's title); somebody sang it VERY flat. About two months after its release The Modernaires recorded it, with a surprisingly powerful orchestra led by Mitchell Ayres, who accompanied too much glop for Perry Como. Hardly anyone remembers The Modernaires now -- that was Glenn Miller's vocal group. After his death it might have had more success had Columbia's A&R folk hadn't stuck it with some...rank novelty tunes. We can be stupid and say these folks channeled the future Blue Eyes but he is there; then again Alec Wilder wrote that every one of Van Heusen's songs has the unmistakable sound of a pretty good jazz rhythm section. In short, it is a superb track, but because it's from 62 years ago no one would know. Compare it to that whatisit singing on the soundtrack album and you easily behold how a hit song can become tomorrow's archives. I can't stop thinking of it as the title tune to some sort of retro Jayne Mansfield - Frank Tashlin dumb-blonde farce that would have the moviegoers floating out on air, just my latest hopeless daydream.

Posted 3:05 PM by Gene

We will assume Dubya's bodyguards knew what was in those shoes.

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

Irwin Kellner -- chief economist of Cheapie Marketwatch!

Now that is embarrassing.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

Jenny is auditioning for MS. TRAVERS's place in the Web. She's even MORE excited today because the SCUM MADOFF donated to DEMOCRATS. That he was SCUM does NOT seem to enter into her equation. Red-Light Schumer's far, FAR worse. Why? Because he overlooked the SCUM for MONEY. Wait a second. Scum's only a criminal because he donated to DEMOCRATS. If he'd donated to that buffoon Mitch we'd stay smugly silent. Why should we get all hot-and-bothered over campaign donations?

Jenny, when was your last vacation?

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Shucks, here's very bad news: Prince "$10 Million" Alwaleed has lost $4 billion. Geez, Princie, all you have to do is shut off your spigot and you get it back!

Or do you?

Who told you to invest in Citigroup, even with our largesse?

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

Oops! I think JonBoy's courage has evaporated! Maybe he got second thoughts on having launched that nuclear option. He's about to call this whistle blower who gave The Paper of Re-CORD a story a hero but then says, in the LAST SENTENCE:

Sometimes the thinnest of lines separates the criminal from the hero.

And sometimes the thinnest of lines separates fact from fiction -- as we know too well from Hitler's diaries, toilet-bound Korans and ZEITGEIST.

Hey Jonny! Work hard enough and you may not HAVE to cut the rate base!