Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

LAST GRAF:

Mohammad Marandi, head of North American studies at Tehran University, said, "All four candidates regard Israel as an apartheid regime, and their position on the nuclear issue is the same, and their stance on rapprochement with U.S. is the same. All are in line with the supreme leader."

Gee thanks, PVT. ZELL, for all those LIBERALS!

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

And speaking of The New Econowiz it's run a heavily ironic six-page non-thinker suggesting -- GASP! maybe The Lord Goddess Oprah is not immortal. When it was an ordinary newsrag it had plenty of time to seek out such an awesome truth; it only appears now because it fits its preening panicking editor's definition of iconoclasm. If these clowns were as on with their insights as they are with hoodwinking us maybe a Zeitgeist wouldn't have had to "rethink" itself, a rethinking done with too little brain cells in any case.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

This is what passes for deep writing among news hacks: the Sun Belt is in real trouble -- or maybe it isn't. You spend five minutes reading only to discover a hack can't make up his mind. Something is askew in the news biz. An already poor product has become demonstrably worse. There are too many shortcuts: "reporting" on The One's theater attendance and reading habits is a way not to have to report on anything; the obsession with that mercifully soon-to-be-forgotten SINGER was an unprecedented labor-saving nuisance. When so many people concentrate on trivia and surfaces -- think The New CW or The New Econowiz -- it is impossible to know what's what. There's no backstop either; hacks who ooh and aah over Huffnpuff's VAST AUDIENCE INCREASE fail to mention its most epochal contribution to news was when its reporter asked some question at a White House presser. And we suspect certain news sites have been intentionally defanged. With mass laziness comes vastly increased mischief; I can't recall so many advertorials passing as news. Having gotten our revenge on newspapers we are now forced to think of seeking revenge on the Webmasters. Happily if the colluders make good on their threat to charge for their worthless idle typing we will get it.

Posted 9:15 PM by Gene

Has anyone noticed how ESPNCORP NETWORK NEWS'S SITE has dumbed down? It can carry stories about falling cats and vigilantes against robbers but honest to God when it's something we might want to know we get slide shows about celebrities with cellulite. We suspect a CONSULTANT is behind this. We suspect also UB IGER.

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

THE NEW MORONS: Being environmentally friendly with a wedding is getting married at the city clerk's office. It is not spending $200,000 on a $100,000 wedding and claiming it's green. That extra $100,000 is a very green waste, in several ways.

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

And hey Bob, there are plenty of opportunities for those who can analyze, manipulate, innovate and create in GUVMENT!

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Say and what about architecture -- BOB?

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

A new definition of the same old RENDELLISM from Bob Reich:

A growing percent of every consumer dollar goes to people who analyze, manipulate, innovate and create. These people are responsible for research and development, design and engineering. Or for high-level sales, marketing and advertising [!!!]. They're composers, writers and producers. They're lawyers, journalists [!!!!!], doctors and management consultants. I call this "symbolic analytic" work because most of it has to do with analyzing, manipulating and communicating through numbers, shapes, words, ideas.

TRANSLATION: We can replace all our manufacturing jobs with a twentieth of the numbers in health care, software and SHOW BIZ. Good luck!

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

A revolt is brewing among the people who gave us the $500 million CEOs and the triple-A ratings and the SIVs. LEGENDARY WELCH is their man. Never mind if He helped bring on the mess by being Him, insuperable Him, insufferable Him -- He's leading a REVOLT!!!!! among people who rail at the system and cave in at once; who, because they can't do right, must be led kicking and screaming into it, knowing full well right is defined by certain "nonpartisans" and could hurt our economy. LEGENDARY is just the leader they need -- all bluff, all platitudes, all about firing people and making themselves rich. Sorry, we already tried that.

And if HENRY HONEST (who is quoting excessively from Him today) has his way, after The Revolution he and his cohorts will ban government regulation of securities and he can sell whatever he wants to at $10,000 a share!

Posted 12:20 PM by Gene

The New Econowiz defends pizza by the slice, meaning JonBoy's experiment can't fail soon enough.

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

His Omnipotence has come up with a new idea: anyone who agrees with him is not partisan, while anyone who disagrees with him his partisan. I like this new politics!

Posted 9:58 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Tiny Terror is foolish enough to launch a war against South Korea. Would we be foolish enough to let him prevail?

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Hey John! John "The-Knee-Jerk-Liberal-Conservative" Stossel! Your dear friends the speculators are BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Speaking of America's Number-One President, con-SER-va-tives are already grumbling about an upcoming visit to Dresden. Yes, con-SER-va-tives can turn any story involving The One into a mellerdrammer worthy of a third-string 19th-century touring company, but yes too, we expect another one of his mealy-mouthed Apologies for America. Because it's coming from so far away means his interns think he can get away with it. Most likely they can, drowning out the noise with his visits to Buchenwald and then to Normandy, although we wouldn't be surprised if he somehow manages to "nuance" them too, in ways the hacks will be careful not to tell us about.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

We are not surprised to learn that one of ST. WARREN'S Assistant Gods says the economy is worse than the CW would have it. No one wants to call this a DEPR -- an economy; they probably didn't do it in 1930. But when our housing market collapses, and our biggest banks are wards of Uncle Sucker, and two of our automakers are nationalized, and the formerly Great Britain goes through the floor, it is a DEPR -- an ECONOMY, even if people aren't hawking apples, and no amount of artificial sweetener can improve that bitter taste. Of course to say The One is making things worse is Republican, but History's Greatest Planner has already decided it is worth it, no matter how worthless all that worth poured down the rathole is. "Mid-2011" sounds about right for housing -- and the economy.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

THE TEEVEE news hacks seem to have contracted a mass case of the sniffles as Jut-Jaw "leaves" his late-night show. These are the same guys who complained his hour was unfunny. Should America go into mass mourning because the WILTED PEACOCK hopes to get "a 2 rating among 18- to 49-year-olds" at 10? But we can expect little from a typist who refers to "Jack PARR" (doltish emphasis added) and gives another soapbox to THE JABBERING QUOTE MACHINE OF SYRACUSE. I want to see THR charge for PR like this.

Posted 4:51 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily -- in SPADES!



And how unsound is ABU DHABI's economy?



That building in the foreground must need that HUGE HVAC system -- and the buildings in back, too! But what are those weird metal rods with the light bulbs? Did they just teleport the two men? And why didn't somebody lay that red carpet better? Or were the light bulbs responsible?



What is wrong with having parks on the GROUND?

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

When will even the most slavishly devoted devotees of our Great Leader become bored doing glorified photo ops?

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

Might as well repeat ourselves: We have our doubts The One's honeymoon is over. We've noted his easy charm and how millions of hacks continue to stick up for him. There are many reasons to be depressed by this presidency (some of which began under the incompetence that was Dubya). All this money headed into the incinerator, a nationalized GM, the socialism that dare not speak its name -- there are reasons to be more than a bit miffed. Perhaps we're sanguine because our time is like a drunken binge, and our bartender is the expert at how to make us feel good. The hangover will come soon enough.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

And in more clever fundraising:

Climate change kills about 315,000 people a year through hunger, sickness, and weather disasters, and the annual death toll is expected to rise to half a million by 2030, a report said today....

"Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide," Kofi Annan, former UN secretary-general and Global Humanitarian Forum president, said in a statement.

And how many millions will you make today, Kofi?

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

And The Daily Kaplan once again reminds us who runs this country, which reminds us of KAPLAN, INC.'s stock price -- OR:

The publisher of [KAPLAN, INC.'s] flagship newspaper said Thursday it was important for the publication to remain a for-profit business in order to maintain its competitive edge.

"It is important for us to be a business," said Katharine Weymouth. "It's what makes us competitive."

You stay competitive, KATIE, because millions of parents think their CHILDREN can be made competitive by CRAMMING FOR THE SAT'S. If you didn't have that convenient cash flow we guess you'd be begging for government funds too. Mark my words, this will happen.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

How far we have come in trusting news hacks: Are the TWXSTERS saying hard-core terrorists can open up without torture because it's so, or are they saying that to confirm their own belief that torture is evil?

When you have to ask fifty questions of a simple story you can't trust hacks in any way.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

If there's one pestilence greater than all the other pestilences of choosing a new digit for the Nine Fingers, it's that every pundit becomes a VOLOKHHEAD.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Another great cause for The One to take head-on:

Report: Homeschooling more widespread

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS still daydream of $90 -- pardon, $270 a share (or whatever it is after the distribution and reverse split).

That day is as vanished as the wealth of BERNIE'S CLIENTS.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



This appears to be THE new fad with STARCHITECTS: buildings as greenhouses. Well what's to prevent bugs and mold and all sorts of not very nice things from thriving along with the greenery? And to moisten all that leafy stuff wouldn't you have to waterproof the whole building to prevent leaks? And what about -- climate control? Will humans thrive in a damp environment as well as plants? Don't ask a STARCHITECT these questions. They exist to design things.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

SURPRISE!!!!!

Lobbying may have exacerbated the financial services bubble--and the consequences of its implosion.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

All this irritating talk about stealth candidates and "questions" over beliefs is a good reason for ELECTING our Nine Fingers. In an election they would be unable to evade their prejudices as they can before the Seniles.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

If only FUUUUUUTBOOOOOOWWWLLL were as boring to Europeans as it is to US, there wouldn't be FUUUUUUTBOOOOOOWWWLLL RIOTS.

Posted 7:40 PM by Gene

When the ASSPress turns to its natural calling as an ad agency and runs commercials about, say, how well some genius has sold on CDs, look on the bright side: think how many hundreds of thousands of times the act's been pirated.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

The man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller has delusions of grandeur and narcissism, a psychologist said today in a pretrial hearing. [Home-page squib]

Why, if he hadn't changed his name he could have gone to Hollywood and changed his name.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

And this just goes to show you can post ten times in forty minutes, to what purpose I do not know.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Another reason not to blog: The New CW says The One's nomination will sail through...and the loony leftists are upset she isn't one of the looniest...I repeat, why are so many stories so full of the obvious?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Call Mark Zuckerberg the $10 billion boy.

The baby-faced genius behind popular social-networking Web site Facebook raised an additional $200 million from a Russian investment firm that puts his company's value at $10 billion.

That's a $5 billion haircut from 18 months ago, prior to the recession, when software giant Microsoft bought a similar stake in the company for $240 million, suggesting Zuckerberg's Internet phenomenon is losing steam.

Oh SLIME, you aren't exactly in a position to razz your fellow social networker.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

The sound of one hand clapping:

The beleaguered radio industry is taking heart from the latest news from Microsoft.

The software giant’s new Zune HD, which was introduced to the public yesterday, will be the first portable media player to carry an HD Radio receiver.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

One other reason I'd rather do something other than blog is lately I've had an obsession with music downloading, of which more later, except to say it is quite excruciating to learn that sometimes the uploaders don't seem to have ears, in one way or another.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

By the way, has anyone noticed that for all the Wall Street Casino's wonders it's been trading in what the dealers call a range for quite a while?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Another reason I'm fed up with blogging is you're faced with stories so bald they are beyond or beneath commenting. Who really believes SLIME'S TALENT SHOW is free from rigging? And why must people go into their incredulous mode when they learn it isn't? And what makes the story worse is that SLIME's property is immune because the reverse Robin Hoods must have their DEMOGRAPHICS. So as with most blogging, you're railing at nothing.

(Via Yahoo!, which is pretty obvious -- and oblivious -- itself)

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Another annoying thing: on the way home I passed scads of young men outside a few neighorhood bars. There's only one reason for it -- they're mad for FUUUTBOOOOWWWLLLL. How did that become a PC sport? How did it become a sport of the "hot" and of urban renewal? How does that molasses-like game have any fans other than the terminally European?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Although I do have several dull observations to make. On the streets near where I work one or two IDIOTS have taken to speeding go-carts at 50 MPH. There's only one reason they do it: to get into an accident. Oh, nobody wants to get into an accident, you say. Like hell. They daydream about doing an Evel Knievel and having their buggies soar fifty feet in the air and crash into twenty cars, and then they dust off their clothes and walk away. It would not occur to them life may not be like that. This wanting to cause a catastrophe finds a place in too many mindsets. The drag racer hasn't lived until he inflicts a few deaths -- but see, it's all right (or as he'd spell it, alright) because it won't happen to him. This is but a variation of what that simple-minded cartoonist Bil Keane termed NOT ME!, and it's at the root of why America's in trouble.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

I'm starting to have the same unformed anger toward blogging that I have toward, say, watching the Congress on C-SPAN. It used to inspire great levity, but the only levitation I get anymore is with my blood pressure. What is our politics but a case of he said-she said? In time the respective bigotries of political partisans are not very amusing. I'm even starting to grow tired of posting pictures from ARCHDaily.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



We can't come up with a clever riposte for this one -- the best we can do is an obese Jaguar (as in automobile) -- but for something like this CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED, or its ilk, is riposte enough.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

When first I heard of how the faithful are trying to revive Polaroid instant film, I thought, awwww, how cute. The more I think of it the more annoyed I get. Clowns are willing to spend (have spent) tens of millions to revive an obsolete technology for the sake of a few cultists. This is that obnoxious tubes-are-warmer argument transposed to the visual realm. Burning money is warmer too. (This also seems to be the fifth time this story has appeared in The Paper of Re-CORD. You have a stake?)

(Via AHTSJournal)

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!! runs a PLUG for guess which 140-CHARACTER FAD (a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO JON!), and one of the commenters suggests why OKAY!!!! has had to remove itself from some hotel rooms:

So how much do these Twitter guys pay USAtoday [sic] to do articles on them every couple of days?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

GM BROKE -- DOW AT 12,000!!!!!!!!!!

Can anyone stop the daydreaming?

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

...[S]he would also be the first Justice with Type 1 diabetes.

We were about to say PILLHEAD...but let it pass. To us, this is no drawback. Nine Fingers are expected to have diseases. Heck Chief Justice Rehnquist ruled with a hole in his throat. And let us not forget the considerable number of Fingers who served without any known brains.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Well, as expected, The One picked one of the Think-Alike Girls. (It hardly mattered which one since they think alike.) Now how much she will Think Alike is the question. I wager a lot.

Posted 8:21 PM by Gene

And to my dear friends who come here to do nothing but gaze at Sophia Loren:



She may a little too well built below the waist but who's not looking?

Posted 8:18 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Those brainy, brainy folks at MIT hired a STARCHITECT to design a building, and it sued when the place leaked. I wonder when CALTECH exacts ITS pounds of legal flesh?

Posted 8:13 PM by Gene

I always make fun of the wet-noodle gang, but North Korea is an impossible either-or. If the world goes on Chamberlaining Tiny Tyrant gets more nukes; if we take military action we might start a world war with Wal-Mart's favorite supplier. The only way out is a united world-united military action, what the Korean War was before Gen. MacArthur essentially made it our war, and neither the League of Nations nor The One will accept that because it's politically incorrect, even though Tiny's army may be a pushover however much of the people's food it robs. So we're stuck with nukes. Thanks, FDR, for founding the League of Nations!

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

Last week there was a spat about MoDo's originality. (Link SIC!) Today we came across Mr. Nobel, and from his typing -- "the party of Rush Limbaugh", "the party’s growing extremism condemns it to seemingly permanent minority status", "blahblahblah" (well, that wasn't in there, but it might as well have been) -- we think we're right to say he phoned it in. (Or Blackberried it, the high-flying pundits not using phones anymore.) We're sure we've said it before, so we'll say it again: Most pundits go in to their papers virtually unedited. We doubt anyone has told off MoDo or Nobel or MB2 or David Gurgle Jr. in decades, if ever. They start off with the huge advantage of minds on autopilot from decades of BIG SALARIES! Any plagiarism, any dopey thinking, any repetition upon repetition upon repetition just zooms into their outlets because no one cares. The Human Fig Leaf can say he's sorry, but that's how it works, and he knows it. When you make SO MUCH MONEY!!!!! typing nobody's going to correct you. So our pundits snooze, while thankfully their outlets LOSE.

P. S. Nobel's mind and expense account were in Abu Dhabi.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

What is REP. RESPECTED X. MARINE but a rolling one-man ethics violation?

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Having treated its audience like children for decades, THE CONSPIRACY decides to aim its TENTPOLES at physical children.

"There's an attraction to having global interest and appeal to as many quadrants as possible, male and female, young and old," said Alan Horn, chairman of Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the "Potter" films. [Emphasis added]

Alan baby, you wouldn't know Casablanca if it hit you on the head with a TENTPOLE.

"Audiences today are looking for family experiences," said Elizabeth Gabler, president of production at Fox 2000 Pictures, which is producing the live-action "Percy Jackson."

And that's why they go to the MOVEES?

"There is a level of trust that families have to have with a movie," said Columbia Pictures co-President Matt Tolmach.

Trust? YOU?

WHO ARE THESE IDIOTS?

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

The Tiny Tyrant claims to have made a test, which prepares the INTERNATIONAL COM-MUN-NI-TY to make good on its ULTIMATE THREAT: A HUNDRED BUCKETS OF WET NOODLES!

The tests, which fulfill a threat made last month, complicate Obama’s efforts to persuade the impoverished country to abandon nuclear weapons development in exchange for economic aid.

Not even points for good behavior?

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

"CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW . . . ABRIDGING FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!!!!!!!!" (First Amendment-defending overemphasis added)

TRANSLATION: CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW PREVENTING MY CLIENTS ON THE SIX-DIGIT LECTURE CIRCUIT FROM SPENDING UMPTEEN ZILLIONS ON DISHONEST AND IRRITATING CAMPAIGN ADS!!!!!!!!!!!

Time to RETIRE, MB2!

I'd say Zephyr Teachout, visiting assistant professor at Duke Law School, can rest assured that she will earn a tenured post at a prestigious law school one day. All she needs to put in her file is today's column by George F. Will, who devotes his entire Sunday space to criticizing a recent law review article by Teachout. What better proof of her merit to a liberal-dominated tenure committee than to be attacked by America's leading conservative newspaper columnist? She couldn't have asked for more.

Uh, I think it backfired, MB.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

Okay, one more post:



See, the architects who get their neuroses plastered over ARCHDaily are capable of attractive, livable things, like this house....



...and then they have their conniptions and give us a "vertical farm" in Manhattan (shouldn't that be in Dubai?)...

...and that's why we're not giving up on ARCHDaily!

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO GET A CREDIT CARD ANYMORE UNLESS YOU'RE RICH!!!!! AND IT'S PART OF A SCHEME BY GEORGE SOROS TO....

Wait a second. We thought the rich were con-SER-va-tives' heroes!

We didn't think we'd have anything to post today, not being in a mood (especially with all our Sophia fans), but we do thank MATT for the opportunity, whoever he is.

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Sigggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, to all of you who don't read my posts, here's another Daily Mail picture of another plus-size beauty-pageant contestant. If you can't beat 'em....

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

I think, though, we've found a HOT NEW FORMAT:



Take THAT, hyperliberals!

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

Happy news:

Q1 Radio Revenue Tumbles 24%

And of course the LOWSY MAYSES are responding with all sorts of format changes and cancellations. (No more Kenny G in Chicago! Shucks!) The problem, however, is not the economy. The problem is an industry that amalgamated into irrelevance, whose very amalgamation allowed it to put advertisers first and the listeners an extremely distant LAST. The LOWSIES are paying a richly-deserved reward, and, to use their parlance, we hope THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING.

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

PERFESSER SHAFER seems a little...nonplussed that the KINGSTER FIBS. Perhaps he would not be so nonplussed -- if so many of his fellow BIGMEDIA types hadn't spent the last three decades making him THE GREATEST INTERVIEWER EVER.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Krauthammer, and the assorted wingnuts he is parroting....

No, we can do better than that, ANONYMOUS:

KRAUTHAMMER, and the ASSORTED WINGNUTS he is PARROTING....

A little more, ANONYMOUS:

KRAUTHAMMER!!!!!!!!!!, AND THE ASSORTED WINGNUTS!!!!!!!!!! HE IS PARROTING!!!!!!!!!!....

THAT'S better.

You don't suppose "CAN ANYONE HERE EDIT THIS RAG?" STENGEL is looking on with a certain envy at JonBoy -- and may want to cut his circ too?

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

How do we know a movie is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD? When it's made by SLIME -- and DA POST!!!!! slams it.

Posted 9:42 PM by Gene

It-Must-Cost-a-Lot-for-All-That-Talent HED OF THE WEEK:

Human touch missing in ‘Terminator’

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

The ECONOMISTS of HARD SCIENCE predict...

Oh, never mind.

Posted 3:28 PM by Gene

This incredible story will stir little interest here but reminds us that what may seem cataclysmic to us can be boring when it happens in another country, which to us is on another planet.

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

The good news: SLIME's talent contest is in decline. The bad news: It's still way ahead of everything else so He can torture us with it forever.

(Via I Want Media)

Posted 3:19 PM by Gene

This is a dreadful story, but we must resist undamming the tear ducts because this murderess ultimately showed worse than the unlove she claims to have endured for herself, and thus did a very selfish act indeed, whatever its criminality.

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

We've done variations on this theme before, but TNR.com just committed self-parody:

Dick Cheney, Simpleton
Posted 02:20 PM | 05.21.09

Now imagine this on the other shoe:

Barack Obama, Demagogue

NRO Wins Best Political Coverage...!

NRO Exclusive -- Democrats Lack Intellectual Integrity...!

When anyone can pull this gag it's a gag not worth pulling. Knee-jerk lockstep thinking and self-congratulation can combine for a pretty bad case of mental heartburn. Newspapers are dying because they pulled this same gag differently. Web sites could die the same death differently too.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

Obama says US prisons tough enough for detainees

Tough enough for CONGRESSPOOPS?

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Sorry, loony-left Democrats, some people still hate Jews.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Is that a snake or a question mark?

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

And what do The One and Warren Gamaliel Harding have in common?

They both used the word normalcy!

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

LEGENDARY WELCH FOR PRESIDENT!

A stopped CEO....

I wonder...does this make him THE WORLD'S WORST PERSON, or is he exempt?

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

The Big V, commenting on SLIME's new tentpole, gives us an idea: Why not call them circuses? They're all about being "[b]igger, longer, and even more chaotically crowded (more stars! more f/x!)". They're certainly not about art, nor about people.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

There are very good reasons news hacks should earn as close to zero as possible. The hacks are after all information dispensers, much like a computer; their facts can be melted down into two sentences or a graph. This is hardly high-paying work. Where hacks attempt to justify themselves is by "adding value", which usually means adding bias or conjecture or snark. These aren't justifications for paying them; indeed they're a good reason to dock them still more pay as they add what we frequently don't want. We know a Mike Royko when we see one. We also know the hordes of idiots who inflict their spin and selling on us, and who definitely deserve to earn zero.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

The hacks who go chuckle chuckle over teen pregnancies (especially teen pregnancies of the daughters of people we can't stand strictly for politics) would do well to read this one, even if it is from PEOPLE.

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

Okay, which is more important, One: people risking death in Obamotors' Tinycars -- or GAIA?

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Jeez, you really think people don't want to be taxed -- even with FDR II as president?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

Ben Frankenstein's former sidekick has given us another reason not to watch television. We're just surprised all those HIP media buyers and other dense reverse Robin Hoods didn't carry him out of the hall on their shoulders -- although from the sounds of it the best mode of transit would have been on a rail.

Ub Iger probably phoned his congratulations.

(Via MediaBistro)

P. S. at 9:18 a. m. SUPERNIKKI!!!!! says this is part of a grand "tradition" of having our superiors knock their own programming while feeling totally smug lording it over us. I stick by my comments.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Here's a solution: The One can hike the price of gas!

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

We probably shouldn't make fun of Obamotors' new Tinycars. We need to save energy for the time the free-market supporting speculators drive the price of oil back up to $150. Hummers were obscene even before John Stossel fell in love with himself. But we wonder: how does the CEO of Obamotors intend to meet his goal? With lots of teeny tiny cars -- and imports from China and India; this looks like a job for -- TATA! Not being owned by the government may free Ford (and foreign car makers) from concentrating on minivehicles. Then again perhaps the CEO is ready to crowd us into half-pint VWs because he was, after all, a professor, and professors know better.

In no small thanks to JONBOY we are close to capitalizing his pronoun again.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Today a Barkenbeit barked at me for no cause which made me again ponder the reasons people get Barkenbeits (i.e., German shepherds, Rottweilers, and their honorary cousins pit bulls): 1. To bite meter readers and postal clerks, 2. To annoy the neighbors in the night, and 3. To maim or kill children. Of course people don't get these -- pets for these reasons, but it works out that way. We'd wager Barkenbeits bite more meter readers and postal clerks than burglars, and they maim more children than they deter murderers. Of course there's no way of proving it, but you figure dogs as mean looking as Barkenbeits aren't there to cuddle with -- and who'd want to cuddle up to the typical Rottweiler? I suppose their fans point to their constant barking as a "deterrent". Auto alarms at 2 a.m. may be a deterrent also -- to what we don't know. And they're even more effective at barking than Barkenbeits.

And their fans have excuses:

In the US, the Rottweiler was the number one breed of dog named in fatal human attacks in 2000, in a report by the CDC^[8]. These reports must be read in the context of the breed's popularity as it was the most popular breed in the United States in the same period.

Oh.

In fairness we've no doubt some of the Barkenbeits are beautiful, friendly dogs. But too many of them are Barkenbeits.

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Oh dear oh dear:

Hamptons Homes Decline Most Since Realtors Kept Records in 1982

How will they ever afford those expensive new microcars?

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

I shouldn't complain: I am happier getting a hundred hits a day than five. But that practically all seem to come from people (I would use the word I have in mind but won't) looking up pictures of Sophia Loren or women in bikinis discourages me. To those few who linger on my blog, please, peruse it for more than the occasional picture of a pretty woman I've posted (and I posted that Sophia Loren photo twenty months ago as part of a post on the idiot SUMNER's "longevity" "secrets"). I may not be the world's greatest blogger, but I do think I deserve better than hits for bikinis.

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

At least one of The One's acolytes understands the holy cockroaches aren't going away anytime soon.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

"[Y]ou need turn off your computer, turn off your phone, look at the people who are near and around you, and decide that humans are the most important things, not the other aspects."

Maybe hypocrite is too strong a word for Mr. Schmidt of G000,000,000,000GLE. Then again, with a market cap still over $125 BILLION, maybe it isn't.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



FLINTSTONES! MEET THE FLINTSTONES!



This should win an award from the BEDROCK INSTITOOT OF ARCHITECTS!

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

For the ninth or tenth time: THE RECESSION IS OVER!!!!!

Posted 12:01 PM by Gene

We don't know who John Gruden is, but we know who TONY KORN is, and it seems the grand experiment has failed, however much TONY may say he fears flying.

Guess: The sports dweeb sites are ecstatic.

P. S. Even though he won a Super Bowl. Shows how ignorant we is.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Whom do you trust: Henry Honest...or THE DONALD?

By a whisker, Henry Honest.

Posted 11:50 AM by Gene

Shucks, Woodster the Perv wins.

Never mess with a -- cult figure.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Great news! THR has hired our favorite PR man Rog!

Take THAT, Variety!

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Magazines are headed for the recycling bin so long as they keep repeating themselves. The New! Improved! Zeitgeist is doomed because it's obvious JonBoy is happy with himself. Meantime SUPERADAM!!!! has unleashed a tiresome story about how wonderful our myriad digital distractions are, underlining two big problems with the magazine feature: 1. It disguises its tiresome thinking in a veneer of trendy iconoclasm, and 2. It takes 10,000 words to do so, which may lead to more reader multitasking. God knows what the solution is to magazines. Three-graf stories won't do. But neither will today's magazines.

(First link via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

• Harvard Crimson Editors Flee Journalism as News Failures Ravage Profession

Gasp! Where will all the effete slanters come from?

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

Say! If the Pakistanis build enough nukes we won't have to worry about Iran!

It can just share.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

The Daily Kaplan introduces its "new" -- blogger Mr. Journolist, but below that on the home page lurks this peculiar link:

Accounting Trick to Be Banned

But as any daily news consumer knows no tricks are banned in the news trade.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

I think after that post this would be an appropriate song to download.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

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

1. CEOs are antsy to get themselves back in Hollywood just as Lord Aubrey wants to stay in the NBA, and it seems they'll do anything to finance their schmoozing -- in this case corporate advertising, the single biggest waste of money since the first ad campaign. But remember, advertising isn't about selling.

Coming on the heels of most of these same companies financing junk TV by insisting they're just as angry as their customers, they've given us another reason to be angrier.

2. Cheerios First in FDA Firing Line. Who's Next?

Whoever sells another cereal as a drug is next. If anything a lot of MadAve's charlatans may feel the Big G didn't go far enough -- it should have sold Cheerios as guaranteeing an after life, or at least letting you live to be 200. Go on MadAve, make more preposterous claims! Make us ANGRIER!

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

Both sides almost intentionally talked past each other, as we'd have expected, but The One did rah-rah for the athletic program, which confirms that Notre Dame is a football factory decorated with puzzling crosses, and that this GE BANCORP appendage did itself a favor.

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

The Main Story [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

on the Drudge Report is driving me nuts. The Vatican has not been silent.

05/17 02:10 PMShare

Hey Ms. Travers! Maybe if you stopped using WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!! to read MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSMMMMMMMMMM stories without getting your hands dirty you wouldn't drive yourself nuts!

That's okay -- you can always drive US nuts for compensation.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

"Mark Oppenheimer, editor of the New Haven Review and director of the Yale Journalism Initiative," reminds us that GRATE.com runs next to no ads.

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

A man -- we will call Him Lord Aubrey of McClendon -- is horrified that peons (well, His shareholders) should be upset that the company for which He acts as CEO entitled Him to a $75 million bonus while its stock went down! You see, $75 million does not go very far these days -- especially when you have an NBA franchise to look after (for which He graciously footed some of His own bills), and a catering service! And ancient maps! The nerve of these serfs to complain. They do not know the responsibility of running an American Corporation! -- into the ground.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

I'm sorry that the Preakness had lousy attendance, but the RENDELLIAN thing to do is make any and every excuse for anti-social behavior so long as said anti-socials are parTYing, and while it is sad attendance went down, if that's what it takes to restore a little civility, so be it.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

Now imagine if THE GREATEST DIRECTOR EVER had to do a picture about David Niven. (Well, maybe if he were Italian.) SLIME's TIMES has extracted from a bio, and we learn what we would already have guessed: he was a bit too popular with the women, and after his wife died in that freak accident he was miserable almost without end. (He also served in the war, and knew too much of it.) Through it all he still comes across as a grand figure, even more so compared to the pygmies, who can do nothing but act, and not very well.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

In 2,000 years it's doubtful we'll leave anything as beautiful and noble on our landscape as the Romans did in France. If we'd had to do an aqueduct it would be reinforced concrete and straight lines.

Posted 11:09 PM by Gene

In his opening piece to the New! Improved!! ZEITGEIST JonBoy mentions all but the ever decreasing numbers. In short, his rag will be as shady as usual.

As we see it, NEWSWEEK's role is to bring you as intellectually satisfying and as visually rich an experience as the great monthlies of old did, whether it was Harold Hayes's Esquire or Willie Morris's Harper's, but on a weekly basis. [Emphasis added]

Hmmm, Zeitgeist as a monthly! There's a thought. Why not bi-monthly or quarterly or semi-annually while you're at it.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Schwarzenegger tries to please the people, but they are anything but

But what -- people?

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

It's a Good Time to Be George W. Bush

Yes, Abe -- OUT OF OFFICE.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

In other obstinance from The Daily Kaplan, MB2 says the "free market" will bring ticket prices down, just as it brought down the cost of oil last year.

IDIOTS!

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

She had nothing to do with Bush's policies on torture, so why is she caught in the middle? [Home-page blurb]

For precisely the reason that when liberals like you find a villain you give it a choke hold like a pit bull. Maybe (maybe) she had nothing to do with Bush's EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL policies, but she has everything to do with her four left feet.

Posted 10:17 PM by Gene

I'd say if this picks up speed there's a pret-ty good chance Ah-NULT can go back to making movies.

I was about to say comedies but we're talking a long-running farce.

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Indications are the Obama administration intends to deal with the illegal drug situation as a public health issue requiring treatment more than enforcement. So, look for vaccinations against drive-by shootings and muggings.

HARDY-HAR-HAR!

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

It's not just ARCHDaily: We have our own bee-you-tee-ful development in the HIP! HOT! Northern Liberties section, and of course the StinkyInky has its own ahkehtektyuh cri-TIC who calls it the cat's meow. Needless to say it looks like a HIP! HOT! version of an East German housing project.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Simon seems to specialize in dorky writing. Oh he can call it ironic or edgy or some other code word, but it's always the same -- it says nothing brashly. Look Sime, if you're going to waste my time oohing and aahing over GODDESS why can't you stop with the table-pounding cutesy snideness and just write a press release?

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

New ZEITGEIST.COM! Same as the old ZEITGEIST.COM -- but "DIFFERENT"!

What's the point, JonBoy?

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

There are limits to one-party government?

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Speaking of angry, we're angry that Dave sells a doughnut-eating ZILLIONAIRE in 1,699 WORDS.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO DAVE!

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

Some of the same businessmen who gave us this wonderful depr -- economy are using MADAVE to tell people they're angry about the economy. Harley-Davidson can get away with it because it sells to a cult. I'm not so sure about the others -- especially when we've been so angry at them.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

"The Task Force played no role in deciding which dealers, or how many dealers, were part of Chrysler's announcement today," the administration said in a statement. "The sacrifices by the dealer community . . . are necessary for this company and the industry to succeed."

Hey One, an angel whispered in your ear that we've got to close hundreds of new-car dealerships. Now you're denying it. You're lucky the hacks are your first line of defense or people might start noticing how big and multifaceted your mouth is.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Some good news from the depr -- ECONOMY:

Mexican Data Say Migration to U.S. Has Plummeted

Or is that bad news because now we'll have to do our own menial labor?

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

GREAT:

Insurance Companies Approved for TARP Money [No formal URL yet]

Will the giveaway ever end?

(Link added 8:41 p. m.)

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



The world's biggest corkscrew -- OR the world's biggest designer ALLEN wrench!

I thought Dubai was broke!

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Sony does not lead in anything. In TVs it's bested by Samsung (and lately by johnny-come-latelys); in portable audio by Stevedom; in games by Nintendo and the BUG and a whole army of geeks; its "entertainment" unit is a synergistic accident, a second-place irrelevance. There is no reason for the Sony premium anymore. Lord Stringer may not realize that, other than through firing people.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

And NO, con-SER-va-tives, Empress Babs is NOT resigning. It's not as if public officials haven't lied before. (Indeed it is more spectacular when they tell the truth, often inadvertently.) But Babs is the equivalent of four left feet and six mouths, and she is smart enough to be a politician and stupid otherwise. She does not deserve to resign just for lying. But what whim of fate decided she deserved her high office?

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

There is something irritating about this stunt -- and something disconcerting. Let's come right out with it: Blue without his voice is a Mafia figurehead. Perhaps THE GREATEST DIRECTOR EVER plans to make another crime masterwork, The Story of an Underboss or something. That might not tell the whole story, but it would be very flattering to THE GREATEST DIRECTOR EVER. Never mind when LEONARDO DEPP opens his mouth and Blue's notes come out there may be a slight disconnect; we're talking such a level of imputed artistic brilliance only the ad-blurbists wouldn't notice; just by being THE GREATEST he'll so comprehensively deke out the cri-TICS the raves will sprout raves. One thing's certain: this masterwork will be as egregiously violent and foulmouthed as Blue's singing was soulful and haunting.

And it's not just a question of who plays Blue. Anybody (we suppose) could play Harry James, or Tommy Dorsey (presuming GREATEST is interested); the underworld characters will be easy as GREATEST will put his ALL into them, and half of Hollywood seems to be Mob character actors. But who plays Ava? Who plays Betty? Who plays Marilyn? Or Bing, or Jack Kennedy, or SAMMY, or the rest of the Rat Pack? GREATEST may paint himself into a corner; if the actors are too much their parts it's caricature; if not it's pointless, and worse, serves to show how one-of-a-kind Blue and company were. But since this IS a MOB picture GREATEST won't worry.

In a dream world this would be near perfect: larger-than-life people in a larger-than-life time. In the best of circumstances GREATEST is using pygmies. And we don't want to live in the dream world of the direc-TOR of TAXI DRIVER. We repeat -- how irritating.

Posted 3:04 PM by Gene

I somehow don't buy this gag that The One's popularity will decline if the economy fails. I wonder whether he and his propaganda machine haven't effectively disconnected the man from his position. Many leaders have maintained office despite being incompetents. The hacks have done too much cheerleading for their anointed one to fail.

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

More ARCHDaily:



Skid Row just won an ahchitectyuh award.

No wonder that PHILISTINE Prince Charles spoke.

Posted 3:45 PM by Gene

AP source: Obama has more than 6 people for court

He needs that many wom -- people to think alike?

And they include the candidate TNR trashed. So much for TNR's power, but then I guess it's neocon.

Posted 2:43 PM by Gene

For now though, it's enough that President Obama seems to be growing in office.

NO con-SER-va-tive should EVER say that.

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

We know how Congress plans to pay for health-care "reform": it won't.

So how does that make this Congress any different?

[T]here's also a truism in Washington that legislation produced quickly is often produced poorly.

Huh? Howzat?

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

As Mr. NeoCon predicted, The One has changed course on those torture photos. With anyone else this would be flip-flopping; with The One, it's LEADERSHIP.

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

Gallup smiles: It has encouraged people to say they'll vote to re-elect The One. NewsMAX!!!!! screams back:

POLL: OBAMA STILL FAILS TO BEAT REAGAN'S NUMBERS!!!!!!!!!! (Beating overemphasis added)

Some days you can't trust anybody.

Posted 11:50 AM by Gene

A new trick for newspaper hackdom -- tax breaks.

Guys, just give them the money. They're getting it sideways now.

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

In my view, the Financial Times’ Chris Flood delivers it straight: Prices are rising because of various types of trading gambles. Flood quotes Mike Wittner, a senior oil analyst at Société Générale saying the following: “Recent price strength is not based on fundamentals, but on financial flows.”

B-b-b-b-but it c-c-can't be sp-sp-speculators! J-J-John St-St-Stossel said they do lots of g-g-good!

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Chrysler LLC’s bankruptcy might take as long as two years, not the two months President Barack Obama suggested as a target, an administration official said.

It is not enough for The Miracle Man to engage in hype; he must engage in reverse hype.

Posted 8:51 PM by Gene

Greenspan Sees ‘Seeds of a Bottoming’ in U.S. Housing

TRANSLATION: The National Association of Real-TORS® paid him to say....

Knock it off, Alan. You've gone from the man behind the curtain to the emperor behind the curtain with no clothes. Besides, someone else invented the term "green shoots".

Posted 6:30 PM by Gene

A big thank you! to HONDA!!!!! and USAOKAY!!!!!.com for putting a VIDEO AD in front of an NTSB animation of that dreadful plane crash in Buffalo.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD (SPECIAL GHOUL EDITION) to HONDA!!!!! and USAOKAY!!!!!

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

Have you ever known a sociopath? Lenny Dykstra is a classic. Why would anyone do business with him? He is the slob of slobs. I can never forget the obscene things he did to chewing tobacco. He and the GREAT SELIG REVOLT OF '94 and Whitey Ashburn's death pretty much put well paid to baseball; THE GREATEST SEASON EVER!!!!! was the last exorbitant spadeful. Somehow he made money with car washes only to become the sort of scamster you'd expect of one who always says "DOOOOOOD": constantly begging for money, constantly shafting people, constantly being sued. How apt he "worked" for Jim "BOOM! BOOM!" Cramer, both apparently eager to learn at the feet of a master. With luck one boast he will share with that other Phitin' Phil Pete Rose someday: jail.

Or to put it another way, DOOOOOOD is SELIGISM's perfect ambassador.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Pope pulled a BARACK in Israel -- meaning he was very, very, very sly about something he didn't want to forthrightly acknowledge.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

I bought a used album from Wherehouse.com. Some dolt affixed mailing labels to both discs of the set, the kind you lick on envelopes, and after mightily removing them they left a gooey mark. Wherehouse.com has no toll-free number, just online customer "service". Its parent is at eighty-one-point-nine cents a share and claims to have a code of ethics, which online-only customer service would seem to negate.

P. S. on 6/21/2009 at 5:28 p. m. I got a refund, so please disregard this thundering.

Posted 3:44 PM by Gene

And if he'd bought this blue diamond Mr. Satirist would still have had enough left over to razz Uncle Joe.

Posted 3:31 PM by Gene

HISTORY'S GREATEST SATIRIST sells a...HOUSE:

[T]he Buckley listing was introduced with a bang last June, when a fete for the couple turned into a coming-out party for the Holmes’ listing, according to The Times. Gift bags included a fact sheet mentioning the $10,077 monthly maintenance fee; guests huffed; Ed Koch left after 10 minutes; The New Criterion’s Roger Kimball offered that the place had been “effaced by the ministrations of the real estate agents.” [HHMPH!]

Then, in October, the Buckleys’ only son, Christopher, whose memoir Losing Mum and Pup was released this month, complained to The Times about the co-op’s “absurdly inflated price.” Ms. Holmes told The Observer that month that Mr. Buckley wasn’t being serious, and added a dig about his Obama endorsement: “It seems to be the popular thing to do now.” [Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!] Another Times article came in December, when Mr. Holmes said the building was looking for a buyer with “quiet money,” though he and his wife had been on a local real estate TV show to introduce the house.

Now the poor boy will have to settle for an absurdly uninflated $18 million, the proper remuneration for telling us in The Daily Beast that his candidate made a lousy president.

Posted 3:01 PM by Gene

SLIME's needless reworking of Marketwatch proves the best sites may not be the prettiest ones. The old Marketwatch was never the prettiest but it was useful. Now SLIME has made it balky and harder to use -- a winkwink and a nudgenudge to get people to subscribe to the JOURNALS, perhaps? If so, SLIME may want to write off more of His assets.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

GREAT CATCH, NOMOTOWN:

General Warranty Services, a Salem, N.H., firm that sells extended warranties to cover car repairs, is close to announcing that it will open a call center in Detroit’s central business district.

A person familiar with talks between the company and city and state officials said the call center could employ 1,000 workers within a year and more in later years.... [Second and third grafs]

The extended-warranty industry has come under considerable criticism from consumer watchdog groups who said the industry is guilty of high-pressure sales tactics and failure to pay claims.

The Better Business Bureau gives General Warranty Services its lowest grade of “F” due to consumer complaints about unwanted sales calls and other issues. [Seventh and eighth grafs]

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

What is this HACK COMEDIENNE but the LIBERAL ANN COULTER? And what is ANN COULTER but a CONSERVATIVE HACK COMEDIENNE?

One thing they demonstrate: knee-jerk lock-step sieg-heil partisans of both sides will gladly endorse the psychoses in their respective ranks.

What is the difference between political psychoses except the other guy should always be shot?

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

NO WINNERS: The ORIGINAL TVNEWSER!!!!! tells us a story about how Chevron tried to spin a 60 Minutes exposé by hiring an ex-CNN newshead to produce its own PR puff piece. ALAR and AUDI should tell us 60 Minutes cannot be trusted; but Chevron is even less trustworthy given its business. The same for the ex-CNN reporter, who conveniently shows that the truth depends on who pays for it -- which in turn says no reporter can be fully trusted because the news is inherently fungible. Even if Chevron is right (extremely doubtful) it's total PR incompetence to think you can counter a network news story with a YouTube factoid (even if the 60 Minutes piece was a factoid too). But this is the same idiot oil company that launched into a fantastic waste of corporate resources painting a smiley face on its behind. No, between SUMNER and CHEVRON, definitely no winners, but one bigger loser.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The ad biz is about to launch 30-second spam.

(Via Henry Honest)

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

White House: Budget deficit to top $1.8 trillion

Time to spend some more money!

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

ED MURROW'S MAKING A DOCUMENTARY!

You know, it wasn't that long ago that Ted Koppel retired. Ted who? And he had Ed's reputation.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

Elsewhere The Daily Kaplan has invented another new cliché, that the fanzoids' obsessions have swamped the tentpoles. The fanzoids swamped the popcorn restaurants in the seventies when Luke Spielberg led their Visigoth charge, so this is nothing new. And it begs the point; since no one but fanzoids will watch these tentpoles it shouldn't concern us adults. Rather, we adults should mourn that when the Visigoths took over the popcorn restaurants they permanently evicted everyone else.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

RUMBLING: Now a professor suggests "replac[ing] life tenure" in the Nine Fingers "with a single, nonrenewable term of 15 or 20 years." Something is broken with the set-it-and-forget-it culture of the Fingers, especially when we have to endure these appointed brainiacs acting as mini-gods. They're not gods, they're justices, and often not very good ones at that.

Meantime E. J. admits that "[t]o pretend that these judicial fights are about anything other than the court's philosophical direction is a form of willful dishonesty", which we will take as definitive from a man very adept at less than the whole truth himself.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

The Iranians are finally freeing our imprisoned national after all this time, meaning saying to the world we're sorry might not have helped.

Posted 7:05 PM by Gene

Today in a very very used book and record store we saw an album cover of a certain stinkbomb authoress at 29. She was cute at 29. Today she is not that far away (ten years precisely) from where Mae West was when she recorded Way Out West. Big boobs may be sexy at 29 but at 63 they may be -- well, matronly -- and her appliances are becoming the moral equivalent of Mae's grunts. Let us not forget Mae ruined Raquel Welch's career just by standing next to her. That was the opposite of sex.

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

The exzzzzzzzzzzzzzciting finish at the Players (Henrik who?) makes us wonder how much longer The Golfing Machine will be a prime force. There are lots of ballwhackers as technically proficient as he, and younger. Showing off the busted knee last year didn't help long haul. Let's not pity TGM for his monopoly on corner-office friends, but now's the time to start looking ahead -- and given its scintillating new personalities The Always-Capitalized TOUR®!!!!! may not want to.

It also hasn't escaped our notice that there've been a lot of not-so-close games in the ATTITUDE LEAGUE playoffs. But then it hardly bothers the show-off CEOs who take up most of the seats and sit on most of the hands. Question: How do you know you're at an NBA game? When it's tied with twenty seconds left -- and there's no crowd noise.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

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

1. Nobody is blaming the KFC disaster on Goddess. She has unleashed a number of disasters lately, starting with the liar James Frey. Yet Her uncritical fans plant more diamonds on Her tiara. When will even they wake up and behold the sanctimonious fraud She is?

And then let us not hold our breaths about Her biggest bet -- Her PRESIDENT.

2. Is The One sure he wants to cut FiatChrysler's ad budget? The MadAve frauds helped hosanna him into office. He's already ticked off the bankers.

3. TRANSLATION: The INBEV-Anheuser-Busch merger isn't working. Despite its stock price going upupUP lately most beer drinkers seem to know INBEV's not an American company, and Bud is no longer an American beer. (Nor does it help that it wasn't that good in the first place.) Tugging at the heartstrings will not tug at the geography.

4. TRANSLATION: Religion gets a high-tech version of Elmer Gantry. He was a marketer too. The MadAve types could spend a whole week making jokes about religious types. Preachers who think they can appease folks with flashy ads may have nothing religious to fall back on. It appears not to be working anyway.

5.

In Times Like These, the Best Bet Is Winning Ugly

KFC lost ugly. Does it win its bet?

6. This should be branded on the forehead of every clown who lives and dies by his computer and his electronic appendages:

A Digital Myth: Technology Doesn't Make Life Easier

As some people in Southern California and Boston have discovered.

7. We've saved the best for last:

Broadcast Upfront Could Be Down as Much as 20%

The bad news is most of it goes to cable, or to replicate junk TV on the Web. But finally perhaps making a profit insulting your viewers is not the sure thing it used to be.

And again: Why should the Dow be at 10,000?

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

It takes Columbia Jernalism Revue 4,215 WORDS to tell us why The Big C is a joke, 4,215 reasons enough why CJR is equally as much from out.

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

One of America's great news hacks huffs and puffs over Dullard's "attitude":

"I take it he won't miss Washington, but my guess is Washington will hardly miss him."

And believe us Bob, if and when you finally decide to retire, we won't miss you either.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

Why We Need Tabloids

For one thing, to do the dirty work respectable rags like The Daily Kaplan won't -- often FOR POLITICAL REASONS.

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

Wealthy Wall Street financiers and other business figures provided crucial support for Mr Obama during the election, backing him over the Republican candidate John McCain as the right leader to rescue the collapsing US economy.

But it is now dawning on many among them that Mr Obama was serious about his campaign trail promises to bring root and branch reform to corporate America - and that they were more than just election rhetoric.

"Now" it is "dawning" on you? NOW?

When were you born?

And what did you expect after what you did?

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

Here's the thing about liberals: they can (occasionally, very occasionally) come out for folks like the middle-aged industrial workers shafted by Big Money. Then they cuddle up to the media-industrial complex or throw tantrums about NAZI CHRISTIAN REPUBLICANS and the ball game's over.

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

ASSPress, having courageously disclosed The One's burger, "reports" an assertion that one in every fifty American children is "homeless." Is this the truth or its this another factoid for lobbying us peons with?

Posted 3:33 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: This guy hasn't the foggiest idea what to do about the cities, meaning RENDELLISM -- building "marginally useful taxpayer-subsidized prestige projects like convention centers, arts complexes, ball parks and arenas" -- now and forever.

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

AND FURTHER ON EXASPERATING: ST. WARREN does a "parody" of an Apple ad, and a curse word is one of the first things out of His mouth. Complain about it and people like the ST.'s minions call you a PRUDE. (It wasn't even labeled "NSFW", which might have helped.) Well lately, ST., we suspect Your STOCK PRICE has caused more than a few shareholders to curse, yet it doesn't seem to have redounded on You. Maybe the time has come.

Oh and YOUR HOLINESS, when are You bringing NON-PARODY ADS back to GRATE.COM? Or are You part of the Political Class?

And no thanks to HENRY HONEST, whose site is fast becoming the TMZ OF BUSINESS.

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

To the extent we can trust any poll:

Seventy-five percent (75%) say that business generally provides better customer service than government. Not surprisingly, the Political Class holds a different view. Just 35% of Americans say that a free market economy is the same as a capitalist economy.

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

I'm supposed to be SHOCKED, SLIME? (SHOCKED! is one of the language's most overused words -- especially in combination with the instant cliché from Casablanca.) Is there any would-be star who's normal? Is anyone normal? The biz you've run into the ground expunged that word decades ago.

That is why such stories go beyond boring -- to irritating, and even excruciating.

(Via The Daily Beast, whose founder's little darling KEN FELATTA made SUMNER a permanent scourge -- and that Methusaleh specializes in the fake outrage too -- and from its description this may be another news practical joke)

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

The use of cell phones, Blackberries, and other such interactive devices while driving ANY vehicle should be banned -- PERIOD.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Oops, maybe the depr -- recession IS OVER!!!!!!!!!!: A sales -- ANALYST says G000,000,000GLE is again on its way to A TRILLION DOLLARS -- well, $200 billion, anyway. The journey to inflated riches begins with the first TOUT.

Knuckleheads like this almost make us wish for a depression.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily is BACK at INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH:



Hey Tommy! I got an idea -- let's play see-saw!

OR:



A memorial for the victim of "The Cask of Amontillado".

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Presumably this scum will be back in the heinous high life when they've reached majority, having learned a few things in the dying England's criminal-"justice" system.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

If this story is accurate The One is choosing among a monochromatic crowd to replace the Dullard. When presidents choose new Fingers why can't they be honest and say they want people who think like they? The One made a strong enough odor when he used the word "empathy", but that was typically two-left-footed sly -- why not come out and make a total stink and say you want your choice to be an ultra-liberal?

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

The One finds a scapegoat for something his coterie authorized.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Jobless Rate Hits 8.9%, but Pace of Losses Is Easing

DOW UP 3,000!!!!!

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Shhhhhh, don't say anything hacks, but the chief yapping Congresspoops seem to have known about our EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL torture.

Promise you'll keep it a secret? We have lots of show-biz plugs to do!

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

We figure if we cared for SELIGISM we might care about this, but one megaplatinum age for the "sport" is enough for us.

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

Here's how BofA gets back into the black: by selling 1.25 BILLION shares of common.

Maybe if you closed down some of those unneeded branches like the one you're opening in our neighborhood to replace another one scarcely a block away....

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

I should not be redundant but CHARGING WON'T WORK. SLIMES think the problem is the "structure". No, OJ's would-be publisher, the problem is the content. What do You offer, SLIME, that's worth paying for? Don't say the Journals; they're free through GOOGLE. And they're not what they used to be, thanks to Your overpaying -- the big reason You're huffing and puffing to charge. Who in his right mind would pay for DA POST? And why should we pay for stories about Your Major Bowes act, or Obama's burgers, or stories on stupid Web sites? And that's ninety percent of the total news hole these days. Yes SLIME -- and COMPANY, the Web is an easier (though not a better) way of getting the news. But that isn't the all of it. If people genuinely liked their papers they might still pay for them despite the inconvenience. What's more, once you start charging, SLIME and COMPANY, your most precious talent will do a vanishing act -- like the vaunted columnists of The Paper of Re-CORD. Remember? And how much pay-worthy talent do you have? I for one would not miss Frank "STROKE!" Rich again -- or David Gurgle Jr. And how do you account for your star writers who frequently blog? And the problem with charging is it's not just news, it's all media. Who wants to reward JUNIOR for his no-talents? And people are running away even from free media; why should JEFF ZUCKS live in luxury picking shows by throwing darts at targets, and hitting their viewers in the behind? You merely exacerbate that situation by charging. The one mass medium not seeing audience declines is the movees, and they have a small but devout (and stupid) following that will pay for anything; the rest of America knows better. Why should the news biz be magically exempt from public exasperation? No, all that happens if you charge is a few free sites rack up the traffic, and the ASSPress, already America's defacto state news organization, tightens its grip. How does that help you?

The only answer to this supposed tragedy -- and let us not underestimate the Democratic Congress's capacity for stupid ideas -- is an Internet content tax, maybe $5 or $10 per subscriber per month, to pay for the news. But we know BIGMEDIA: the money will go straight into profits and only improve content on the margins, if at all. No SLIME and COMPANY, you brought this richly deserved fate upon yourselves -- by gutting the content.

P.. S. Mort Zuck's idea of BINGO has many problems (like opening the door to uncontrolled Web gamb -- GAMING, for one) but it may not be as dorky as it sounds.

Posted 3:49 PM by Gene

SLIME says he'll charge for his rags online.

Good luck -- with the Wall Street Journals' GOOGLE SHUFFLE.

(Via I Want Media)

Posted 2:58 PM by Gene

Ridge not running for Senate

I suppose this means the hacks can dance on their desks again. I might wait a few months before trashing your luxury news suites -- again.

Posted 11:57 AM by Gene

The Renaissance produced The Tempest; our age produces video games with goofy titles (Duke Nukem, a backhanded tribute to John Wayne if ever there was one). The geeks don't seem too unhappy at this long-expected announcement as they're ready to onanize to SUMNER's CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED!!!!! exhumation of Star Trek.

(Second link via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

Which is worse: PILLHEAD rumpheting and thumpheting, or GEN. LEAK TWOFACE calling PILLHEAD an "entertainer" (code for AIRHEAD NAZI)?

Ya got me.

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

A snake in the new financial Garden of Eden -- regulation!!!!!

It wouldn't be driving stock prices up 200 percent for no good reason, naaaaaaaaaaah.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

We keep seeing these stories about how Vlad's Puppet is building up a power base and is for democracy and is really the go-to guy and blahblahblah, which makes us wonder -- does he have a PR office as big as The One's ?

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

Back up to

74,631 GOOGLE NEWS LINKS!!!!!

A BIG CAVEAT: It is obvious many of the stories have nothing to do with the GREAT DAY; many simply use "Obama" or "100" or both. As we said before G000,000,000GLE is an extremely imprecise tool for measuring news content. But given his grand coronation by the press count us suspicious that it continues. We will drop this gag, however -- for now.

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The One is not serious about cutting the budget after all.

Posted 7:05 PM by Gene

Now it's "$16 to $17 billion", or one half of one percent of the budget. Closer, but still no cigar -- yet.

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Enough With the 'Green Shoots!' Time for a New Term

JUMBO GRO!!!!!

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

THIS IS PREPOSTEROUS: back up to

70,390 GOOGLE NEWS LINKS.

(51,747 sort-by-date.)

Are you hacks preparing for 200?!?

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily:



I've got it -- a doctor's office! Stick out your tongue and say AH....

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

For the last twenty-five years our superiors have believed economies can glitz their way to prosperity. The Reagans and Thatchers believed if society created enough investment bankers and other hyperrich parasites who created enough screwloose schemes and paid themselves idiotic sums for said schemes their wealth would trickle down to the little people they wouldn't want to know. The Clintons and Dubyas believed if society spent zillions on a highly-controlled strictly technocratic EHDYUKAYSHUN and created a generation of Dilberts we'd have permanent prosperity through computering. There are variations: the RENDELLISTS believe in spending zillions on health care and EHDYUKAYSHUN and building casinos and convention centers and stadiums and movee studios and hoping the millions put out of work can get menial jobs therein. FDR II believes we can create shiny clouds of non-existent money and spend them to the same effect. But they too believe in glitz. We've had twenty-five years of glitz, and all that fake stardust hasn't amounted to too many specks of dust.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

In the end, he says, this "stunning" trend of young people becoming less religious could lead to America's next great burst of religious innovation.

This can mean two things: 1. More McChurches, more video walls, more pop music, more feel-good "sermons", or, 2. Can someone translate this into an idiom I can understand, please?

Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

If this guy didn't have a famous name, and he weren't HISTORY'S GREATEST SATIRIST largely on the strength of logrolling, would anyone pay attention to him?

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

$35 BILLION for B of A...$15 BILLION for WELLS...why 10,000 for the DOW?

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

So what was the point of stress tests if no stress was allowed?

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

Meantime, don't say anything to the advertisers, but one of our channels is...progressive!

And Phil the Loudmouth says, oh, we PROMISE.

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

CRISIS AT GE BANCORP NETWORK NEWS IN WASHINGTON! Part of a former "NEWSROOM" was CONTAMINATED WITH ASBESTOS!!!!!!!!!!

Hey guys, it's nothing like the news you contaminate us with every day.

(Via MediaBistro)