Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Another epidemic of bullets, in Detroit. You wonder there aren't more of those, unless they're so common even the locals have given up.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



What is utterly strange is that this Shanghai building collapsed practically in one piece. We wonder how many more rush-rush jobs litter the Chinese landscape, where substandard construction is almost a source of national pride.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Where's The U.N. On Iran?

Largely Useless, Even Harmful

You don't suppose Forbeslist.com could have meant this front-page juxtaposition, do you?

Posted 3:20 PM by Gene

Hatch makes case for fed intervention in college football

See Al? You're up against tough competition already.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

We wouldn't celebrate too much, Al. You're going to have to tie yourself up into a hundred knots to prevent yourself from becoming the Entertainer in the Senate.

Besides, there are just as many there who are professional comedians.

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

We have this sneaky feeling news-hack organizations employ consultants who use popularity scores to see if something gets in the paper. If it's not popular, it's not in.

So the TWXSTERS, whose former putative flagship rag just ran a promotion (broken liink! HA HA HA!), may have been reluctant to run this story on North Korea -- not unexpected, except we don't expect the hacks to run serious topics anymore.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

With the synergy and money of history's greatest story ringing in their ears most of the hacks forgot to tell us that the Nine Fingers threw out any effort to sue OUR FRIENDS the Saudis for 9/11. Perhaps just as well; THEY SAY they're on our side, and THEY SAY they're deeply sorry for it; but whether THEY would have SAID these things before 9/11 is something OUR FRIENDS may never SAY.

Posted 9:00 PM by Gene

PS: re: licensing pop music: Journey's music is a lot cheaper to license than the Beatles as well. Something the writer should have mentioned in an article about licensing music, esp if arguing its alleged cultural significance.

Once again a mere reader proves he and his cohorts may not be as stupid as news hacks make them out to be.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD -- TO CHRIS "WILLIES" WILLMAN!

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Posthumous salesmanship!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO EDNA AND TONY!

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Don't pick it up, junior!



Isn't that one of those wooden thingies you use to flatten dough or something?

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Here's a good reason for The Left-Wing Dick Cheney to RUSH!!!!! Judge Identity's nomination through.

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years

The right sentence by man's laws, perhaps, but still not the right sentence by God's laws.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

Dubai considering 2020 Olympics, World Expo bid

TRANSLATION: All those ugly buildings might still be vacant then.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

How apt: A fast-food joint is advertising at fast-food movies.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Collectively, the three specials attracted 18.5 million total viewers, according to Nielsen fast nationals data.

And if you add in the CABLE NEWS NUISANCES, it STILL means OVER 280 MILLION AMERICANS DIDN'T CARE ENOUGH TO TUNE IN.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

SYDNEY -- British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's new character has a thing for Australia's wonkish prime minister.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO THE ASSPRESS!

That's spelled J-U-X-T-A-P-O-S-I-T-I-O-N.

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

A hopeful sign: CNN.com's two flavors (we would like to think shamed into doing it, but shame was expunged from PEOPLE WARNER before it was born) are headlining Iran again. We will never, however, forget the last three days of SYNERGY, of MARKETING, of TOTAL CONTEMPT for the public. That stench will never go away.

Posted 9:35 PM by Gene

People are telling Michael Jackson jokes, and someone has to spoil the fun:

I can appreciate the wit, the craft, the subversion of these jibes and you could perhaps read them as affectionate markers of people’s abiding interest in the man. But they also make me feel faintly nauseous. Just as Jackson’s sudden demise says a lot about his poor bodily health, so the alacrity with which bystanders to his pitiful end have rushed to get their gags out says a good deal about the sickly state of our moral sense.

Who has more moral sense: the people almost forced to tell Wacko jokes because the psychotic saturation media coverage impinges on their sanity; or greedmeisters like JEFF BEZOS reminding people on His home page to give to Sony Music's favorite charity? Who has more moral sense: the people fed up with the saturation coverage, or the people who originate it?

I wouldn't tell such jokes, but I understand why others might.

Posted 6:54 PM by Gene

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

The ASSPress must remind us again in so many words that it is not reporting from Iran. Neither we'd gather is any other news organization. We understand no responsible news agency should put its employees in danger; but this mushy disclaimer attempts to excuse what has become a total abdication of duty, an impotence that benefits tyrants, and it especially grates given the marketing orgy of the last two days. When will we rise up against the news hacks?

As for the third-hand contents, need we be reminded NUKEMAN has won -- and that our All-Seeing President will probably never directly challenge him again?

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

ANOTHER PHONY APOLOGY FROM ANOTHER HOWIE HAIRSHIRT.

IDIOT, IF YOU CLOWNS DID YOUR WORK RIGHT YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TO ISSUE THESE PHONY APOLOGIES.

Sorry for the all-caps -- it's the mark of a crank -- but dammit the news biz is all about all-caps some days.

Posted 2:52 PM by Gene

The director of Michael Jackson’s comeback concerts, Kenny Ortega, has said the show must go on -- even if the King of Pop no longer can.

Although plans are not yet confirmed, Ortega -- the choreographer and director behind such hits as “Dirty Dancing,” “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour” -- is seeking to create a tribute to the singer using some of the choreography, costuming, musical staging and films Jackson engineered for his 50-date “This Is It” concert run at London’s O2 Arena.

TRANSLATION: I WANT WHAT'S MINE!

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

Another thorny question from Grate.com:



Well, you could use another building.

WHY MUST THE WHOLE JERNALISTIC WORLD WRITE LIKE INTERNS?

OR:



KAPLAN, INC.! ST. WARREN OF BUFFETT!! CLOSE GRATE.COM!!! NOW!!!!

OR:

S&P Cuts Washington Post Ratings On Publishing Worries

WORSE:

The company's Kaplan education business, which insulates it from the travails of the media industry, also struggled, suffering a 76% profit drop.

CLOSE GRATE.COM!!!!! NOW!!!!!

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

“His business mind was fascinating,” Thornton said in an interview. “We’d go to meetings with bankers and Wall Street people and once I explained the language to him, he totally got it. There was no formal education there, but his natural knack was off the charts.”

Okay, Ivan, why is the estate allegedly hundreds of millions in debt?

God, there must be a ton of embarrassing statements and think pieces on the Web today. If only I could track them all down! I'd have a terminal case of the willies.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

The LEGENDARY biz has-been Louis Gerstner says when it came to the auto biz His Omnipotence "ask[ed] the arsonist to run the fire department"!

Well, see, His Omnipotence believes in -- redemption. If a man has the right spirit and the right attitude he can redeem himself, no many how many fires he's set, or how many people he has killed, or what kind of regime he runs. By faith in Oba -- oh, never mind.

Oh by the way, he's very gung-ho otherwise. Why use that line then, Louie? Can't these LEGENDARY ex-CEOs stay retired? Why must they always run their yaps like LEGENDARY WELCH?

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

These Congressschmucks should either announce boldly to the world that they're proud to give our money away for nothing or stop doing it. Since they won't stop doing it they should embrace their schmuckery proudly. We suspect in private they do.

A looming $5.5 trillion federal deficit by the end of 2013 may force Congress to challenge tax laws benefiting restaurant chains, racecar track builders and a London-based liquor company. But if history is any guide, taxpayers may find more hidden expenses in financial rescue legislation yet to come.

If history is any guide we'll yet be the second coming of the Holy Roman Empire.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

Not to prolong another topic but can anyone these last few days recall a picture of Farrah as sex symbol not baring her teeth? I think I know why: when she didn't she had a glum, dour look, like the pictures of her late in life. It was either teeth or glum. That famed pin-up shows a slight innocence but I wonder if she was capable of the come-hither look like the best of them. But to do that you have to be an actress, and as I said wonder if she was. But she proved celebrities can die with dignity, and in setting her example she burnished her name.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

And speaking of the news biz' immortal reputation (and speaking of dense hacks like Bob Bianco), in the last several days two Web sites have posted songs from Ed McMahon. Picture a dog-food salesman singing of love. NUF SAID.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

In other unimportant news, five more banks have failed.

Is an invisible hand applying herbicide to the green shoots? Or were they green in the mind only?

(Via The Business Insider)

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

We really hate to write anymore about this topic, but that's all there is: USAOKAY!!!!! has embarrassed itself before, with a screaming front page for John John, and if that doesn't look bad after ten years nothing does.

And that front page for the now risible Diana from SLIME's News of the World looks pretty laugh-provoking too (although in its day it was understandable, as the British had little left but the fake pretensions of fake royalty).

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

The scum Madoff doesn't have $170 billion to forfeit, and he doesn't have the time left to serve in prison. All wish to see this muck severely punished; but when does this chugging quest for a draconian sentence become tawdry, useless symbolism, as he and his crime are beyond mortal punishment?

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Back to an affair which our great-great-great-great granchildren will talk about: it increasingly appears this wasn't a suicide but more a Judy Garland -- although in that sense it was slow-motion suicide.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

In unimportant matters, two men who have served a combined, what? 70 years in Congress and intend to serve at least 200 years more rammed their carbon tax through the House, and already the peanut gallery has broken out in applause (we might save some of the clapping, John) -- and it is a measure of how thoroughly broken the news system is we doubt there is a single hack who can explain this bill properly. To be sure 1,200 pages defies comprehension, but someone must be wonk enough to digest it, and explain it. One day we'll wake up with a big fat monster in our bed (not this, perhaps, but something), and it will be there because the hacks, so obsessed with saving themselves and their infernal superiority, and so intent on talking down to their retarded audience, didn't have the guts to remove it from the bed when it was just a monster egg.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

DIMWIT:

"People have really taken to the idea that they're not just passive consumers of news anymore," says Aaron Smith, a researcher with the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "They're 'nodes' in the news environments themselves, and can now contribute their own thoughts on what the issue of the day is."

As we said Thursday, they may be "nodes" (cute to reduce human beings to mere techy widgets -- double-dimwit), but the system is one great big iron fist beating us into submission, as Iran has proved; and this increasing un-newslike "news" has been pushed hard by BIGMEDIA -- PEOPLE WARNER first reported it. All this demonstrates is that the Internet machine may have a zillion cogs, but often the power to get the cogs moving comes from on top.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Marilyn Manson is a genius; after all, he's just like "van Gogh" and "Kafka" -- and we should liken Wacko to Marilyn Manson.

This isn't what Liz (who IS she and where in God's name did she come from?) wanted to say, but it says it all too aptly.

This column alone is an argument for a temporary public moratorium on news consumption.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

The TWXSTERS of CNN are up to their old tricks, plastering you-know-which-gloved one all over the home page while reserving a special minor section for "CNN's Iran coverage" (TRANSLATION: We couldn't report the news if Ernie Pyle and St. Edward of Murrow returned from the dead; besides, we have to do this to prove we have a conscience, even when we think about money -- which is all the time). This is the exact same unwholesome gag the FRAUDS OF USAOKAY!!!!! pulled on their front page yesterday.

Who trusts The World's Most Trusted Network?

Unfortunately PEOPLE WARNER stock hasn't suffered lately -- the one-for-three reverse split has helped -- but we can hope.

(Strange: Look up that phrase and all sorts of far-left sites adhere to it. But isn't that what it once called itself -- and what in its heart of missing hearts it still calls itself?)

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

White House Drafts Executive Order to Allow Indefinite Detention of Terror Suspects

Wehell, there he goes again.

Posted 2:46 PM by Gene

Now: Paternity problems over Wacko's kids.

Who'd have guessed PEOPLE would do a better job than a piece of doggie doo like USAOKAY!!!!!?

Don't get us wrong: Given all the talk of GENIUS and GREATNESS the total story is getting VASTLY OVERPLAYED. Its newsworthy elements -- and there are newsworthy elements -- are getting underplayed.

Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

We spoke of refunds yesterday. Well! Some of the sucke -- fans might not get their money back.

AEG Live. Why didn't it call itself AIG Live? You don't suppose the goofy British government could bail it out?

A few isolated hacks are doing a better job with this than the usual MadAves of the newsroom.

P. S.

[F]ans who bought tickets on the second-hand market through websites such as eBay are likely to lose out. Thousands of tickets appeared on auction site [sic] with price tags of up to £1,300.

HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

The buzz is you’d like to be chairman of the Fed when Ben Bernanke’s term ends. Do you want that job?

MONEY HONEY® proves yet again she may be America's most overrated JERNALIST.

Posted 2:14 PM by Gene

A domestic-violence czar!

And how many czars is that, O Omnipotent Chief Czar?

(Via Politics Daily -- from the same people who bring you TMZ!)

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

NO, GANNETT, YOU'RE NOT GOING BACK TO $90.



And NO, PVT. ZELL, YOU'RE NOT GETTING YOUR MONEY BACK.

P. S. at 6:40 p. m. Note what appears between the ads in USAOKAY!!!!!

I'm thinking of a eight-letter plural Yiddish word that rhymes with lucks, or a eight-letter compound American word that rhymes with crass and bowls.

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

And how little of the cost for this new Michigan research center are YOU paying, Very Little Jeffy?

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

An Uplifting Obit [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Betty Allen, R.I.P.

06/26 10:54 AMShare

[Link SIC]

Thanks, MS. TRAVERS. Uplifting!

P. S. I know, I know, it was from the prior post, I've done it too, but I'm not the HONORARY EDITOR of the WORLD'S GREATEST GROUP BLOG.

Here's a correct link.

P. S. at 11:45 p. m. She changed the link.

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

SNE down twenty-three cents. Oh and thanks AMAZON.COM for the opportunis -- the memorial. Don't you have anything better to do with Your zillions, Lord Jeffrey of Bezos?

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

And speaking of THE NATION'S -- er, PAPER, another CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT:

MCLEAN, Va., June 26, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----USA TODAY and the National Milk Mustache "got milk?(R)" campaign named 25 scholar athletes to the 12th annual Scholar Athlete Milk Mustache of the Year (SAMMY) Award.

The 25 outstanding high school athletes will be awarded a $7,500 college scholarship, attend a SAMMY 2009 weekend June 26-28 at the Walt Disney World Complex in Orlando, Fla. with their parents and/or guardians and will be pictured in a special congratulatory "got milk?(R)" mustache ad in USA TODAY on June 26.

"USA TODAY congratulates the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) for creating and funding the SAMMY program and for recognizing young people across the United States who are top performers in the classroom, in their respective sports, communities and also include milk as part of their daily routine," said Susan Lavington, senior vice president of marketing for USA TODAY.

The 2009 SAMMY winners are:

-- Heather Lee Adams - Boise, Idaho
-- Laura Bellamy - Duluth, Minn.
-- Hannah Connealy - Whitman, Neb.
-- Lindsay Danielson - Osceola, Wis.
-- Jacquelyn Davis - League City, Texas
-- Summer Joy Dupler - Beverly Hills, Fla.
-- Elliot Toy Feng - Albuquerque, N.M.
-- Devin Guillory - Baton Rouge, La.
-- Lauren Gustafson - Columbus, Ind.
-- Arthur Stewart Kerr - Lake Forest, Ill.
-- Skyler Lashley - Lingle, Wyo.
-- Alex Lendrum - Phoenix, Ariz.
-- Amundam (Moonie) Mancho - Budd Lake, N.J.
-- Libby Marden - Overland Park, Kan.
-- Matt Mulligan - Durango, Colo.
-- Brandon Parker - Las Vegas, Nev.
-- Christian Roehmer - Mt. Pleasant, Mich.
-- Andrea Schaefer - Enterprise, Ore.
-- Rachel L. Schneider - Sanford, Maine
-- Shari' Nicole Thomas - Steubenville, Ohio
-- Clara R. Tsao - Moraga, Calif.
-- Caroline Weaver - South Burlington, Vt.
-- Rachel Elizabeth Wein - Perryville, Md.
-- Ge "Andy" Zhang - Marietta, Ga.

-- Inar Zhang - Mercer Island, Wash.

[SIC!]

The team of 25 was selected by a panel of judges from nearly 55,000 students nominated by teachers, coaches, principals, guidance counselors, athletic directors, parents and relatives. Judges considered academic performance, athletic excellence, leadership, community service and milk experience essay.

For more information on these winners, see the Friday, June 26, edition of USA TODAY or log on to www.USATODAY.com, Facebook at www.facebook.com/usatoday or Twitter at www.twitter.com/usatmedialounge.

Education partners for the SAMMY 2009 award program include: the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Sport and Physical Education, the American School Counselor Association and the National School Public Relations Association.

Body By Milk(R) is part of the National Milk Mustache "got milk?(R)" Campaign, a multi-faceted education program focused on the health benefits of milk. The campaign is managed by the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) in Washington, D.C., which is funded by the nation's milk processors, who are committed to increasing fluid milk consumption. Lowe New York is the creative agency for the National Milk Mustache "got milk?(R)" Campaign.

USA TODAY was founded in 1982 with a mission to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make the USA truly one nation. Through its flagship newspaper and popular Web site, USA TODAY engages the national conversation and connects readers online through social media applications. USA TODAY, the nation's top-selling newspaper with a total average daily circulation of more than 2.1 million, and USATODAY.com, an award-winning newspaper Web site which launched in 1995, reach a combined 5.8 million readers daily. The USA TODAY news and information brand also includes: USA TODAY Education, USA TODAY LIVE, USA TODAY Mobile, Open Air magazine and USA TODAY Sports Weekly. USA TODAY is owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI).

SOURCE USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com

[Emphasis and link added]

Our congratulatons to the winners -- and NO THANKS TO USAOKAY!!!!!!!!!!

(Via G000,000,000GLE Finance)

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

And speaking of Romy, here's a new name to remember: Harvey Levin. Now why couldn't the rest of the biz show his moxie?

P. S. If LALA is correct TMZ must have broken the news seconds before I clicked on the story. Talk about lucky! No more ratholes here!

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

"The cover price of a newspaper acknowledges that news has a value, a price worth paying" [Romy link]

Another topic for today. We pay for many things that have little value. Think of our taxes. How much of them goes to schemes and frauds? Or think of name-brand consumer goods. How much of their price goes to profit margins and advertising fiefdoms? Before the allegedly sudden news biz' collapse it was extremely profitable; today, despite debt-connected losses in the billions and whole companies going broke, it is still profitable. Just because we pay for something doesn't mean it has value; and every day the value of newsgathering approaches what we pay for it on the Web -- zero.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

Why did it have to be a CONSERVATIVE? Why did it have to be Jo-NAH?

And Jo-NAH isn't off the hook; he was one of the first to lift ST. TIMOTHY into the heavens.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

The much vaunted 140-CHARACTER FAD's search function failed last night. Back to the drawing board!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

Close: it may be linked to "painkilling drugs." I think the odds this was a suicide just went up.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Now would be a good time to talk of the hacks' use of the various forms of the first-person plural. It is more than justified in speaking of our commonalities: our country, our soldiers, our president; on the local level it's justified too: our mayor, our schools, and the sports teams too. Where the hacks seem most enthusiastic in using it is to obliterate differences in taste while pushing conformity, especially in show-biz matters. This is the good ol' USAOKAY!!!!! first-person plural. We loved Farrah Fawcett. We loved Michael Jackson. Maybe you did; maybe I didn't. (And the people "we" usually love most people couldn't care less about.) This is a variation of that hoary Our Town gag to get us thinking these high-earning effete show-biz-crazy snobs are just like us. No -- you're JUST LIKE YOU. Please respect our differences and try not to paper over them with your egregious use of the first-person plural.

Today it must be all over the place; I intend to find out as little as possible.

P. S. I've mentioned Our Town before in this sense, as though to denigrate it. Don't get me wrong; it's one of the most profound and moving plays ever written. But good things can always be put to bad uses.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

Hadn't thought about this: the estate. That should keep lawyers happy for years.

Posted 9:21 PM by Gene

And as the hacks prepare yet again to narcotize their victims comes this thoroughly dispiriting account of how the Internet can help the bad guys. It might seem odd at first but consider: the Web, though zillions of flash points, is one body, easily controlled by those with the tools. Nokia and Siemens supposedly gave the bad guys some tools (although now they say they didn't, chuckle chuckle). The cretins at Cisco Systems and G000,000,000GLE and Yahoo! helped the Chinese government silence dissidents. With every passing day the Web, for all its velvet-glove warm fuzzies, looks ever more like a worldwide iron fist.

Posted 8:01 PM by Gene

How surprising: G000,000,000GLE makes big money from scams that tout making money through G000,000,000GLE when the only outfit making money off G000,000,000GLE is G000,000,000GLE with all the ads and hits for the scams.

"Do no evil" went out the window a LONG time ago.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

More need-to-know news from the people who seem to be underreporting everything -- even the stuff you'd think they'd make money from:

Among the attractions that first lady Michelle Obama has planned for the 2,000 guests expected at this evening's Hawaiian-themed congressional picnic on the White House lawn: a "dunk tank" that will allow contestants to take a shot at plunging various members of President Obama's staff into the drink -- including White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

TRANSLATION: I think we won't hear about Iran again until NUKEMAN makes another speech -- and probably not then.

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

If the Nine Fingers hadn't ruled that a strip search of a thirteen-year-old girl wasn't unConstitutional I'd say the time would have come for them to get new fingers.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

STUNNING NEWS, however you look at it. Jacko was the largest larger than life fool there was. We suppose the apologists the rock mu-SICK cri-TICKS (who will be CRAWLING out of the woodworks these next few days like the last infestation of termites) will excuse him for his GENIUS, which consisted largely of a beat and his (to put it politely) androgyny; but there is no getting over his incessant weirdness, and there is no overcoming the fact that this guilty child molester was "proved" innocent.

P. S. What are the chances he took his own life? Not exactly microscopic, I'd say. If so it's a wonder it didn't happen sooner.

P. P. S. at 6:07 p. m. The more I think of it the more utterly the word tragedy applies to his life -- if anything it's an understatement. Jacko went from being the clean-faced clean-living boy-king of Motown to a rancid joke. Several people especially deserve the credit for this, and we know who they are.

P. P. P. S. at 6:14 p. m. The TMZ story was dated 5:20. So far only DA POST!!!!! and SFGate are mentioning this, and they appear to be only parroting the news. Nothing from the AUGUST BODIES who've underreported on His Omnipotence custard eating.

TMZ now says Jacko dead at the scene.

6:25 p. m. THE MESS says LALA confirms. LALA confirms.

6:36 p. m. 1. UCLA Medical Center must be a war zone. How many news choppers can fit in the air space? 2. Some major weirdness is probably already breaking out on the Web, one way or another. 3. I can't imagine the logistics of refunding all those people for all those concerts. I'd guess the promoters are insured but you wonder how long it will take.

6:43 p. m. ROGER's likening him to MM and Elvis, which, in some ways, may not be that flattering a comparison.

6:48 p. m. AP finally at 6:34 -- about 70 minutes after TMZ, and almost an hour after I found it.

If you think the hacks have served up a solid diet of tripe these last few months -- wait for the next few days. People are drooling wallpaper and special sections. No, GanNETt, it won't get your stock above $4.00. I'd say the cable "news" nuisances are already unwatchable but that's par for their sand-trap-riddled course.

6:58 p. m. I feel for the family, which has already been through enough for twenty lifetimes. What will they do? That jackinapes "Col." "Tom" "Parker" turned Elvis's funeral into a backwater circus -- but most people didn't know about the drugs. Jacko's hangers-on and the bloodsucking media could turn it into fifty rings. My advice: mourn quietly and privately -- the leeches will be out wherever you go, and best to starve them.

7:07 p. m. Let's hope there's no Thomas Noguchi to screw up the autopsy.

7:17 p. m. Sometime tomorrow, somebody -- I'm predicting GRATE.com, or Salon, or one of Romy's permalinks -- will wail portentously: "Did WE kill Michael Jackson? Did we break his heart with our constant ridicule?" Well, we must paraphrase an old saying of Euripides: "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad" -- mad being in an ironical sense, but the gods who rule over us being thoroughly unironical; and the gods of bigmedia are nothing if not playing a mind game, whose purpose is to drive us all mad.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media. (From the Yahoo! News home page)

Look, we know you guys have your limits, but you managed to STOP AN UNJUST WAR, didn't you? If you can STOP AN UNJUST WAR you can certainly find out what's going on in Iran, instead of reporting on His Omnipotence's eating habits, or spending as much of the news hole as possible ridiculing Gov. Sanford SOLELY because he's a CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN.

Oh, you don't have time to report the news! Very well. The TWXSTERS' rathole TMZ says Jacko's all but dying after a heart attack, so you can distract us with that for the next two weeks.

Posted 2:46 PM by Gene

Farrah Fawcett was never quite my cup of tea, despite her popularity in my youth -- overcoiffed, overtoothed, her eyes a bit too close together -- and I doubt she was ever much of an actress (except maybe for those roles designed to erase the stereotype of the pin-up airhead, which could never quite be erased); but she died with as much dignity and grace as a celebrity in a paparazzi age can, and she should be remembered kindly just for that.

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

Computer-engineered mass groupthink and machines with "free will" -- with any luck, the human race will have killed itself before these whiz-bang fantasies become real; the only question is whether man or the machines will do the killing.

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

IT'S NOW OFFICIALLY A ROCK-'EM, SOCK-'EM SUMMER! SOURCES TELL ME THAT PARAMOUNT'S TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN TODAY HAS SHATTERED THE WEDNESDAY OPENING RECORD SET BY HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX!!!!! [Rock-'em, sock-'em overemphasis added]

Hey $UPERNIKKI! Why didn't you sell to SUMNER?!?

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

Shucks, James Dickeyson seems a little...disappointed that Iran is conforming to the views of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL "right-wing American pundits".

Into each life a little rain must fall -- but could someone please stop the deluge at ZEITGEIST?

Posted 7:00 AM by Gene

Will recent events make NUKEMAN a pariah?



The WORRRRULD COMMU-NI-TY has answered the question.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

For those of you looking for Sophia, here's a picture from VanityFair.com (how could you guess?) of professional surfers instead.

We have not gazed at all the pictures but we rather hope none of these healthy specimens bears a tattoo. What woman in her right mind at that age would boast of a purple-blue blob on her skin -- especially one as well-toned as these?

(Originally posted at 5:00 p. m.; switched to preserve place of honor)

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

The Os-CAR® people have doubled the number of BEST-PICTYURE nominees.

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

Stories like the idiot Gov. Sanford's would have SHOCKED!!!!! people once. I react to them with a low-grade disdain. We expect our ruling superiors to flout the laws of God and man, and thanks to their charmed circumstances to get the second chances they don't deserve; we further know most of the guilty parties believe they did nothing wrong. (It is also a BI-PARTISAN pestilence despite the intense efforts of the hacks.) Moreover, whatever their own brains tell them, folks like these are not very bright. Besides, people who can't lay off their zippers won't lay off our wallets. The best for cretins like the Gov. and Sen. Ensign to do is to fade away like the old soldier, which can only mean their idiot lights will still shine their unwanted beams on the public.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

That coverage of the Iran revolt has degenerated into news hack buzzwords means it's effectively over.

Posted 3:28 PM by Gene

Hey GOP! I've got a new motto:

Republicans -- We ARE Sexier!

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

Now that the crisis is over can the CABLE NEWS NITWITS go back to doing what they did before?

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

The precipitous decline of network-TV ratings might have one other good effect --- it might put TV ad-blurbists like BOB out of business.

BOB! ED McMAHON DID NOT CURE CANCER!!!!!

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

I certainly wouldn't expect this from Zeitgeist.com, not from JonBoy, definitely not from America's Top PR Man Devin, but there is something to the piece. No, I don't want to see Neda die either. And icons can be deceiving. Look at the Napalm Girl (mentioned here), whom hacks of a certain age conjure every night in their sleep. Their P-Ulitzer-winning victory over our side in Vietnam led to hundreds of thousands of non-napalm dead. Already people may think of Neda's death as just another videogame. That may serve the holy cockroaches. We know well enough from THE CONSPIRACY what happens when people get shot. Yes, there's something pornographic about this obsession with making her an episode of CSI. At the risk of conjuring a Congressional cliché, let us not remember how Neda died, but how she lived.

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

Here we thought South Carolina's governor had merely taken a long hike when it turns out he hiked to another continent! That improves on the idea: Ruling superiors, hike out of America!

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Professional college basketball will never get its comeuppance because it, like certain banks, is too big to fail.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: After $UPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s $tunning $ale The Wax is either jealous or ready to sell herself. We both, however, should pay attention to a key sentence in your story:

The individual knowledgeable about the purchase price said it would be paid out over several years.

So -- it could be $14 million or not. It could be a sale like a chunk of Facebook, or AOL. Remember when G000,000,000GLE bought a piece of AOL?

Why do we pay so much attention to these loudmouths?

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

And here were [SIC!] on in June 2009, and they're just now dealing with this issue of missing appraisals and income-verification docs. When a bank gets to be the size of Citigroup, it should have exemplar [SIC!] standars [SIC!].

Eye agre!

Posted 9:25 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Iranians come up with their version of a Congressional ethics committee or a newspaper ombudsman.

Posted 7:31 PM by Gene

From the voice of LALA, exciting news of penal rehabilitation:

Phil Spector will be allowed jam sessions with fellow prisoners

And furthermore...

...[O]ften a mumble with an occasional burst of profanity.... (From the home-page blurb)

...an apt eulogy for our 37th president.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives have made a big thing of Gov. Sanford's woody trek. We say he has set an outstanding example. We would like to see more of our elected superiors take long, long, LONG hikes, the longer the better.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

BUSHISM!



NO, OBAMAISM!

What's the diff?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

Why shouldn't people pay to access news Web sites on iPhones? These same people text while driving. Let them pay for it.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Alas, when His Omnipotence can finally be egged into saying what happened in Iran may not have been decent, we can only assume this latest Internet fad is over.

We hope we are wrong.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Speaking of ads, there's little to say of you-know-who's sidekick except to say he sold beer, dog food and suspicious magazine contests, and no small thanks to all that selling he came across as somewhat shady, but he was in the right place at the right time, and he defended his spot an exceptionally long time, long enough to qualify one as "LEGENDARY".

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

When a ten-watt ad-biz brightlight lectures his peers on drug ads (without naming names, of course), we know the outcome: more offensive drug ads financing more offensive shows.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily DEUX!



"Carboard Cloud", it says here. What if those were 10,000-ton clouds?

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Where's the rest of the plane?

Oh! It's a church? I'd love to see this one fly.

Posted 2:45 PM by Gene

What the heck does a movie ad-blurbist know about economics?

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: What we hacks have done for His Omnipotence we can do for HIS CABINET.

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

Oh, and remember when said occupant at said address made a speech at a football factory with crosses? Now Catholic EHDYUKAYTORS are busy scratching their heads at how to anticipate the next gas expulsion and PR embarrassment, which means they'll draft a text, and make some more speeches, and in the end the Catholic Church will still run athletic complexes with crosses.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

The Paper of Re-CORD may be slightly queasy reporting on a certain fellow at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but it has no qualms selling us the latest 'n' greatest from HASBRO FILMS!

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO DAVE ITZKOFF!

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

Seeking Alpha MUST link to a blogger who obsessively follows the financial news from 1930.

Where's HITLER?

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

You know, Real-TORS®, there must have been an easier and cheaper way to build haunted houses.

But why make them 50 stories tall?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



$3 million Porta-Potties!

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

"I bet a ton of people would have wanted a book full of content they can already get for free online. You know, like that best-selling IMDB book." Oops!

You may find it funny now, Joe, but let's see what happens five years after the merry-go-round breaks down.

(Via The Business Insider, which is also good at useless links)

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Bob Gibbs, the uber-editor who hands out the assignments to the hacks to report on flies and custard, has now told his underlings to say we'll reach ten percent unemployment "within the next few months".

I would not have said that, Bob -- out of your mouth it means next month.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Why do we think a small legion of hangers-on will follow the slime Bernie into jail?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

A hed to launch a thousand jokes:

The Best Advice Warren Buffett Ever Gave Bill Gates

How about:

Bill, read The Economist. It'll make you look smart.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

The deaths of young protesters in Iran is a heart-wrenching thing, but gruesome videos alone can't bring down the tyrants. The protesters have to stand for something. It appears now all they stand for is that an election was rigged, and a few of their companions horribly lost their lives. We know Iran's various presidential "candidates" stood pretty much united in building nukes. Are the protesters willing to make a clean break from the Holy Stone-Age all-seers and Nukeman? Are they willing to reclaim their great civilization? Or is this just a romantic fling for the young, and a hope for an easier version of Yayaism? How serious they are will determine whether their movement is just another Internet fad. People of conscience everywhere should be on their side -- and in the end, they have to show the courage too.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Obama, 47, and his aides haven’t answered directly when asked whether the president has completely broken the habit since winning the White House.

TRANSLATION: His Omnipotence will puff away long after his regulatory regime starts to resemble Prohibition.

What's the difference between a liberal smoker and a conservative one? The liberal can swat flies and eat custard.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Speaking of beggars LEGENDARY WELCH is selling an online MBA, which means he's trying to perfect old P. T. Barnum's maxim. Or to paraphrase that other quotemaster Mencken, you can't go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people -- especially when they think they can improve upon it.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

Speaking of reeducation, Romy's bosses have launched a well-hidden series about how the top brass at Scientology could use a little clear. That topic, one fears, has become what His Omnipotence is -- something the hacks don't want to talk about, basically because they're chicken. It shouldn't take much courage to know if these chest-thumpers have also been knocking a few heads on the side, but stories about flies and custard say that even in such fundamentals the hacks don't want to do right.

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

GEORGE SOROS!!!!!!!!!! must have disbursed a small fortune lately (and you can be sure but for the chance to put His NAZI RIGHT!!!!! enemies into concentration camps He'd make the unrepentant Scrooge look like Andrew Carnegie building a few libraries), for the last few weeks I've encountered Greenpeace robots on street corners. To me they're glorified beggars. The vagrant goes searching for change; so do these robots. Actually the robots are worse because they're as perky as the emcees of the CBS Evening News and the morning plugfests, and at the end of the day I really don't want to smile. They do; hence they remind me of a beggar I shall call Mr. Stump, who had a face redecorated by a butcher, and who'd use his stump and his crutches to opportunistically block the sidewalk. When the robots start moving they're programmed to look you in the eye and follow your every move so you can't get by them. The irony is their bosses would have been TOBACCO LOBBYISTS in a more honest time. If GEORGE!!!!! is going to waste His money why can't He build a few American reeducation centers?

(See post of 8/11/2009.)

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

Does His Omnipotence admitting maybe the Iranian government isn't so great qualify as an apology?

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



America's first permanent mayor, who has already had extensive consultations with doctors regarding the cryonic chamber, is bidding still more for THE GAMES. We would not want to bet against this cubbyhole being demolished as either a. it becomes a convenient place for sexual assaults or b. because it will fall under the high-maintenance weight of its "geometric complexities" (for which the project is no doubt substantially over budget -- but hey, that's what THE STIMULUS is for).

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

An update of a past post: Wherehouse.com did refund me for my album, so I take back what I said.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Last night I had another struggle with my belief that we're living in an age of cultural GENIUS. Going back over past entries and suddenly yearning to revisit the APTour -- you know, those sappy self-pitying droners who appeal inordinately to teenage girls -- I went on their site to be confronted with the ever-damned nuisance of some audio starting up whether you wanted it to or not. I was instantly confronted by some GENIUSES who named their act for a state, a definite article attached (they probably don't know it's a state, or that equipped with a definite article it helped instigate a war, and they might further not know as they came from another state, which they might not know is a state either); hearing the chordal progressions and angst I could clearly say that though I don't know much about modern musical GENIUS and had never heard of these greats before (nor ever again I trust) I'd heard their tune a million times over. Going onto Amazon.com I saw some happily anonymous blurb writer boasted that thanks to the Web 600 people!!!!! turned out for their debut!!!!! The album was at around 12,800, meaning it probably sells three or four copies a week if that, either to people who ran into the APTour site and LIKED it, or who didn't know better, or most likely both.

Part of the aforementioned GOD's genius was knowing most people hate pop albums because they're mostly filler. Filler is nothing new in music; symphonies have too much of it. But filler by Bruckner is apt to be more filling than an excuse for the seventh contractually-obligated song on a CD. Ol' Blue is to blame. When you sang as he could loading up albums with Gershwins and Van Heusens you don't need to worry of filler. But not every songwriter is a Gershwin or Van Heusen, and the geniuses of our time defiantly boast to the world that they are NOT, meaning even their masterworks' lead tunes sound like filler. Pop cannot come back for too many reasons, but when anybody can record an album, and anybody thinks he can copy some fifth hand chordal progressions and whine on top about a girlfriend, and further thinks the resulting mess worthy of leading off an album, it is a big reason.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

I am tired of hearing about GOD's liver. Of course everyone wishes Him a complete recovery. But is GOD more deserving of a transplant than someone else, especially given this GOD is not a very likable GOD? Or does humanity hang in the balance for His producing vastly overpriced gadgets? We wonder.

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

LATEST NEWS!!!!!

Obama and daughters snack on frozen custard

WILL YOU IDIOTS REPORT OR SHUT UP?

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Analysis confirms Internet clampdown in Iran

You don't suppose our friends at companies like Cisco Systems are indirectly helping out, do you?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

When the big boys of sport egg their "fans" on into rioting, it's never the big boys who get hurt. It's the little people.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

I wonder -- does our Professor-in-Chief still remain diffident after a reported 150 dead?

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

We note in passing yesterday's news that the future Nine Finger has dropped her membership in that all-women's club, which is rather like some would-be president dropping out of Augusta National -- the symbol is impotent because the residue may remain.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

The SUPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!! brigade is making a great wingding over SUMNER firing two VIAC -- er, "Paramount" executives, which rather reminds us of Aldonza's line in Man of La Mancha: "One pair of arms is like another" -- thus with one pair of studio execs. We hate using Dilbert-like buzz words but for all the talk of Mr. Jesus Christ and MICKEYMOUSE NIXON and the late Mr. Warner Bros. and the loudmouth producer who wrote that memoir and other such flashes no one in moviedom has had -- vision since the furriers' sons, and they had the vision because they started Hollywood from scratch. The industry is now so old as to have passed into America's industrial nursing home, and all these screamers do is change the IVs on the patient to feed it zillions, and it still turns out the same zombies, and we're supposed to care? Hollywood alone is evidence we need a revolution more than Iran.

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

Ricky Barnes, Lucas Glover, Mike Weir, Azuma Yano...

Yep, those CEOs had better pray for The Golfing Machine again!

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

More outstanding investigative coverage from THE NEW CW:

Obama's top 10 quips from last night

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

Another typical modern fistfight: The Former Jesus Christ of Show-Biz alleges that The Greatest Musician of All Time hoarded concert tickets. Whom does one root for? A man who's produced vast piles of junk "entertainments" or a man who got far because a couple of organization men put his mug on their newsrags at the same time? There's enough megalomania here to make us root against both.

Posted 11:43 AM by Gene

Whether Iran's people succeed or not, they deserve a far better government than the stone-age tantrum-throwing nuke-hoarding tyranny they have. Perhaps deep in their withered souls even the holy prunes who misrule the country realize that.

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

The nose-in-the-airs running the U. S. Golf Associa-TION who wouldn't let people use their first round passes have changed their minds, which shows even CEOs can get bad customer service.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

You know, if we had umpteen gazillion dollars we might buy Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House, even if it meant letting in the slobs once a year.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The ideal Paper of Re-CORD readers got caught.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

In more news of sports scammers, DA POST!!!!! reports on some "golf-resort developer" who swindled hockey players out of zillions and spent it on parties with PR0N "stars" and Roger Steroid and Pete Rose (they go together) -- but the real news is

Only baseball greats got to attend -- the hockey players were not invited to the revelry, a source said.

Maybe the sport hasn't come back yet.

And in other norts spews the man who did so many obscene things to chewing tobacco at the plate is down to his last pouch. We knew a guy like Nails, only he wasn't "worth" zillions, and jail is too kind for such a bum.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

Can we agree this Neo-Nazi was slime and be done with it?

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

Everybody's favorite demoted TV nooz colyumnist GAIL has an exclusive! She says that UNCLE HHHHHWWWWWALT is "gravely ill"!

With HHHHHWWWWWALT at 92, Gail, it might not be THAT exclusive.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

The "god"-appointed winner of Iran's elections likened his opponents to a losing football team, which in that part of the world we'd imagine would be an insult.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

SUH ALLEN is ARRESTED!

Will he have to give up his title?

Posted 7:27 PM by Gene

"They're very angry, and they are worried. And they are wondering who's looking out for them," Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said of his constituents.

Not even FLY-KARATEING SUPERMAN?

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

We must say it's easy to think of commercial pilots as being baby sitters for their jets, but at their finest they display a courage and a skill that few in any other fields can evidence. Such was the case today.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Brrrrrrr, this building is turning blue!

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

Who are you kidding, Tina? Being "leered at" by WOODSTER THE PERV is to you Manhattan types a badge of honor.

But then so was investing with BERNIE.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

We can be sure most of those who sponsor Mr. Top-Ten List don't know, which is all right with people like Les and SUMNER; after all, a little fairy tells them to deposit their gold droppings on his head -- but then customer service hears a few complaints, and those CONSUMERIST obsessive-compulsives who write to the boss. Really, if Top-Ten hadn't made stupid joke tricks, and then apologized for them, would anyone really care about him?

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

The One doesn't know a doggone thing about health care, but he's still "wonderful".

So saith his once personal doctor.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

And at some point that dimwit Howie Hairshirt will have to decide: The Daily Kaplan OR CABLE NUISANCE NETWORK.

We know he's decided -- for the BIG BUCKS. How long can KAPLAN, INC. go on paying this Caspar Milquetoasty apologist for his fellow moneymakers?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

The news hack IDIOTS have spent the better part of the last several days obsessing over His Omnipotence and THE FLY -- so it figures one of their number would run THIS press release:

PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly

In another time we would laugh this off. Instead we are very angry. The cable hacks' outrageous laziness in covering the Iran revolt, coupled with the total ideologically inspired non-coverage of The One, means the hacks have completely abandoned their responsibilities -- but not their pretensions. So long as they insist on reporting as little as they can we their turnips must continue to put as many hacks out of work as we can.

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

Among the many important things Congress must pursue: whether the smiling dolt Sammy Sosa lied under oath.

Why didn't you Congressfools pursue it when you first knew it?

Posted 7:37 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Rotterdam, we have a problem....

AND:



AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!! The wall's having a nervous breakdown!

(And this for the "Taiwan Center for Disease Control Complex". Better cure that WALL first.)

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

“But although academicians were the Americans most conversant with European affairs, few engaged in public anti-Nazi protest. As many working and lower-middle-class Americans marched in the streets and struggled to organize a nationwide boycott of German goods and services, American universities maintained amicable relations with the Third Reich, sending their students to study at Nazified universities while welcoming Nazi exchange students to their own campuses. American’s most distinguished university presidents willingly crossed the Atlantic in ships flying the swastika flag, openly defying the anti-Nazi boycott, to the benefit of the Third Reich’s economy. By warmly receiving Nazi diplomats and propagandists on campus, they helped Nazi Germany present itself to the American public as a civilized nation, unfairly maligned in the press.”

And now the descendants of said eggheads are celebrating Nazism again. How apt.

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

Hey GCI at $3.83! What's the diff between His Omnipotence's excessively measured words about Iran and the late unlamented Ambassador Kirkpatrick's belches of sile -- QUIET diplomacy?

Posted 11:57 AM by Gene

S&P Cuts U.S. Banks, Citing Regulation, Volatility

Are these clowns still hiding something? Or is this in preparation of the much-vaunted commercial real-estate shoe waiting to drop?

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

Now, I SUPPOSE if you work for PEOPLE WARNER you could call these guys HOT!!!!!!!!! -- after all, you never know when they may work for you -- but then we think of someone like this...



... and we really do think the TWXSTERS should replace their contacts, or something.

And as we've said before, if the women have it bad -- think of the MEN.

And of course this sort of thing has not an iota to do with SUPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!! breathlessly intoning about THE COMING BOX OFFICE DISASTER!!!!!!!!!! we mentioned over a week ago.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



What is with STARCHITECTS that they must design "buildings" that look like badly-sorted decks of cards?



The $5 million hillbilly house!



No! NO! They're not really going to build THAT!!!!!

Posted 3:01 PM by Gene

MySpace to cut 30 percent of work force

TRANSLATION: SLIME believed all those flacks who called him a visionary.

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

Because our guy does what the other guy did, and the other guy was a Republican, we can keep the lid on it, although one may ask how long this won't percolate when even THE MESS can demand to know who's visiting His Omnipotence.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

And yesterday some doctors booed His Omnipotence -- well, for one line -- meaning omnipotence may not be what it used to be.

(Via -- alas -- Jenni-FER, who probably thinks they booed his whole speech)

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

You're His Omnipotence. You want to speak to a constituency in your pocket. But you don't want to cross a picket line to do so. Result: You look like a wavering coward. Thankfully the news hacks will stay in your pocket so you needn't worry.

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

Hockey is allegedly BACK!!!!!!!!!!, proof some people can be talked into believing anything.

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

Long before rock mu-SIC cri-TICS, there was Professor John Alden Carpenter. And who was Prof. Carpenter? He was a highbrow American com-PO-ser whose WUHKS included "The Birthday of the Infanta, a ballet-pantomime produced...by the Chicago Opera Company", and other enduring excellences. Well, back in 1924 The Etude, a very popular, long defunct serious-music magazine, "assembled a 'Musical World Court' to determine who were the greatest composers and what their finest compositions". The results were surely predictable even for their day -- Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, Mozart (Die Meistersinger was rated the greatest by nine more of these eminences than Beethoven's Ninth, which came in fifth; Beethoven's Fifth came in third). But Prof. Carpenter must have been quite an iconoclast. Number three on his list was a masterwuhk called..."Everybody Step" -- a song by Irving Berlin! What inspires us is that this song came from Berlin's first Music Box Revue, a repository of more inane lyrics than any show before Stephen Schwartz. Leafing through Berlin's collected lyrics we find this poetry in the "Patter":

There's the instep and the doorstep,
There's the one-, two-, three- and the four-step,
My step and your step,
Steeping up the stepladder,
There's the left step and the right step,
There's the heavy step and the light step,
There's the fatal step and the stepbrother,
And the watch-your-step and the stepmother....

People make fun of The Chords and The Monotones (unjustly) but honest their work is divine art next to this (as with countless other earlier rock acts). But then this show begins with a stork descending onto the Music Box Theater's stage with a girl who turns out to be the Music Box -- the Revue, that is -- and she has in her hands "the plot", which she "deposits" into the music box (i.e., a music box in the Music Box), whereupon "nine BURGLARS" (sic) come in to snatch it and sell it to Ziegfeld, or possibly Charles Dillingham (both of whom died broke). After this the girl (who has been fortunately asleep through the BURGLARS) awakes and says it wasn't much of a plot, whereupon the Music Box Revue winds up the music box in the Music Box Revue in the Music Box and unleashes "Eight Little Notes":

Eight little notes are we,
Useful as we can be.
You know and we know
What do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do
Mean to a melody.
Eight little notes can't fail
When they are placed on sale....

as evidently they failed too seldom for Irving at this stage. But even he tops himself: he ascends to the great height of satire with his "Dining Out Scene", in which a young couple eat their dinner at a restaurant to the accompaniment of oversized oysters ("Someone awoke us and now we are cross --/Soon we'll be covered with red catsup sauce"), a chicken ("[I]n a minute I lost my head"), a mushroom and a cauliflower ("We were canned! We were canned!"), a French pastry, and a cheap cigar. Then comes -- the CHECK. And the TIPS.

Tip, tip, tip tip --
Don't forget the little
Tip, tip, tip, tip,
Never let the little
Tip
Slip
Out of your grip.
It's a total loss,
But you've got to come across
With the
Tip, tip, tip, tip.
To the bottom of your pocket
Take a dip;
Hear us holler, "Please change a dollar!"
And give us a little
Tip, tip, tip, tip.

It's enough to make one give up eating.

This is also the show that unleashed "Say It with Music" on the populace -- one of those treacly Berlin ballads so unaccountably popular the fans did not notice a last superb bit of lyric-writing:

...A melody mellow/Played on a cello....

It is impossible to behold that lyric without imagining a Jerry Colonna lookalike with a big prop moustache lugging a double-bass on stage and strumming aimlessly on it while lavishly embellishing the words at the top of his lungs again and again until he collapses in a heap of laughter. And unaccountably popular the whole first Music Box Revue shebang was; it ran 440 performances, a lifetime in the days before Branson East and Lord Lloud Wubbish.

We write this with deep regret. Berlin, needless to say, was one of the great songwriters; but he really didn't get started until about the time he met Fred and Ginger at RKO, and his true greatness didn't last all that long -- it ended with Easter Parade fifteen years later -- but it encompassed Annie Get Your Gun, a perfect score. Now to get back to Prof. Carpenter: He reveled in inanities long before the first rock cri-TIC. He demonstrated reverse snobbery before anyone invented the term. For that reason, and that reason alone, we must christen him the GODFATHER OF ROCK MU-SIC CRI-TICS, whose pioneering act eighty-five years ago says too well the decline of American culture was written in the stars, and it began long before the MLA and the deconstructionists.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Hats off to the BASKETBALL CHAMPIONS OF UNTOLD UNIVERSES, who've given people a reason to wish them back in MINNESOTA.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Global Web Means Your 'Fart Jokes' Can Be Heard Out of Context

Especially troublesome if you're in the AD BIZ, where those are the only jokes you know.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

I have not posted today because I simply had nothing to post on. I may post less in the coming weeks; yesterday I lopped nearly a thousand words off my never-to-be-published manuscript, meaning less than a thousand fewer words to be rejected. But still I march on, as I've marched for 25 years, hoping against hope to someday be published, knowing even if I am published I'll get a trifle for all the effort and grief.

I'll say this: blogging has helped me say things more pithily. This would seem preposterous given how many bloggers have won fame with giga-word posts. That I predicted THE 140-CHARACTER FAD's approach means zilch; brevity and jumble go well together. I think I can write, but I am getting tired of writing for no one, and for nothing. Now to see if I can make it pay.

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

Latest: You're Invited to Join Chris Ruddy, Larry Kudlow, Steve Forbes, Ron Paul, and Others at Freedom Fest

Is there any way of doing a return to sender?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

ANNOYING: Some wri-TER typed a re-vue of two bios of Gypsy Rose Lee. The first offense: Likening her to CherMadonnaBritney. The prime difference (other than that Gypsy Rose appears to have been a real woman, not merely technically female) is that, if this typist is true, she did it on her own, whereas that infernal triumvirate could not have done it without press agents, most of whom work out of newsrooms. The second offense (and not her fault): Most likely both books appeared because of -- let us clear the throat: BENJAMIN BRITTEN, W. H. AUDEN, PETER PEARS, ROLLLLLLLLL THE EYYYYYYYYYYYYES; when in fact the people lived at that famed Brooklyn boarding house not because of their damned SEXUALITY, but because it was a gathering ground for lively folk in the arts, and it insults the memory of Britten and others (especially he, a great composer) to reduce everything down to such microscopic trifles. We can be sure Gypsy and her cohorts would have had none of it.

One thing (as we'd expect) our au-THOR doesn't tell us: whether Gypsy wrote her own books. We know The G-String Murders was ghosted, and her epochal memoirs largely so. But we don't expect au-THORS to tell us such. Here is a demonstration why KAPLAN, INC. was thoroughly right in closing its Book Revue. (This typing appears under the "Book World" banner. Nuf said.)

And that we may not have the foggiest idea who Gypsy was (other than the title character of some MUSICAL) ties in all too well to the death of jazz. Once we had a grand urban culture. Gypsy was part of it. So was jazz. Now it's bus-'n'-truck companies and holes in the wall for budding MP3-inspired GENIUS.

P. S. Where is Jonathan Yardley?

P. P. S. at 7:20 p. m. A Google is hardly conclusive (and much of the evidence goes back to the hardly-definitive WIKIPEDIA), but Gypsy may not have ghosted her first novel after all; and evidently she wrote her memoirs on her own.

Posted 4:33 PM by Gene

Let us say, first, there is a slight element of hope in what VEEP BIG-OIL says. Let us also say there is a slight element of the partisan in what THIS FORMER CONGRESSPOOP says. They would BOTH do well to SHUT UP.

Posted 4:23 PM by Gene

And the CW numskulls at POLITICO still wear their black armbands for ST. TIMOTHY.

It's official: America's hobby is navel staring.

Posted 4:18 PM by Gene

How many times must people remind us that jazz is dead without having the guts to say it?

(Via the usual prevaricating AHTSJournal)

Posted 12:42 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Iranians are more intransigent than ever so we'll continue to talk to them anyway.

This is the equivalent of a nation banging its head against a wall.

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

And how can we forget THIS ONE?



(Though we suspect it wouldn't bother the CULT OF AYN either -- it's just a flag.)

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

SLAVES TO SOME DEFUNCT ECONOMIST: "REASON".com tries to counter the lockstep thinking of the TWXSTERS' putative flaghsip with lockstep thinking of its own (drugs aren't bad, porn isn't bad, blahblahblah), which reminds me of a quote I posted before from P. J. O'Rourke, via Joe Queenan:

Once described as “the funniest writer in America” by Time and The Wall Street Journal, O’Rourke suspects that this raised his profile among libertarians, who for some reason think of themselves as a pack of wild cutups.

“There’s a nutty side to libertarians, starting with the Big Girl, Ayn Rand, and going straight through Alan Greenspan,” O’Rourke told me over the phone. “When I go to Cato Institute functions, there’s always a group of guys who look like they cut their own hair and get their mothers to dress them, with lots of buttons about legalizing heroin and demanding a return to the gold standard. The institute has tried to weed them out over the years, but they still turn up at the bigger events. As soon as I see them coming toward me, my heart sinks.” [Emphasis again added]

I might further add that even that former WIZARD OF OZ believes Milty Friedman is a god no longer.

P. S.



Though I'd flashed by the article somewhere and paid it no mind because I already knew its contents by heart I clicked on it through a ZEITGEIST.com link, meaning we won't ever criticize ITS dubious covers. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO JEFF, RADLEY AND JONBOY!

Posted 1:11 PM by Gene

With Sort-Of God and crew telling us how much of their stimulus might go into the wrong hands why didn't they just announce a bailout for white-collar criminals? They've bailed out everything else.

And we can guess how much news coverage will go into these scams, and how much into CLOUD FORMATIONS.

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

Which reminds us of how the hacks have taken yet another vacation from reporting on Sort-Of by running thousands and thousands of stories about the battle between two tired late-night comedians. When tens of millions watched Johnny Carson few if any news hacks noticed. Now that these zillionaires have a combined audience of maybe seven million a night the hacks go overboard. That fewer people watch them than ever says enough, but not enough to news hacks, who must say anything.

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Which came first, the quotemeisters or the story?

The story quoting THE INFERNAL PERFESSER THOMPSON, and this being POLITICO, we know the answer.

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

IMBECILE: Paul is RILED UP!!!!! that the ASSPRESS is giving away content from FOUR COMMIE ORGANIZATIONS. And where does he get that idea? FROM CONSERVATIVE PRESSURE GROUPS!

IDIOT!

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

The obvious thing is to write tons of paragraphs on the symbolism of the Red Wings' loss, but all it says to me is yet another boring sporting "event" passed by with few people watching, and we'll leave it at that.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

I hate to drone on this story as I all but predicted it, but between something like this and the non-reporting on FDR we have a couple of pretty good reasons why the Glob's hacks deserved their 23-percent pay cut, and why, with luck, PINCH will have to give His paper away, or better yet, CLOSE IT.

It is also further proof the hacks do favors, and for that reason alone cannot be trusted.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

Do the hacks not realize that by not reporting on Sort-Of they create an invisible presidency? How are we served by that, o P-Ulitzer winners?

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

Ho-hum, another rigged election.

The problem with this "democracy" business is that lately "democracy" has come to the aid of a lot of tyrants. What is the point of an election that's already decided? Why not be a tyrant the old-fashioned way?

Posted 8:47 PM by Gene

If the Hartford Courant can report on Sandy "Mozilo" Dodd's Irish cottage why can't the news hacks break their veritable blackout on SUPERMAN?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Somebody built a king-size shoebox on stilts to provide shade for the car!

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

Let me guess: Instead of throwing 200 buckets of wet noodles on the North Koreans, it's 200 buckets of uncooked noodles!

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Forbeslist looks on the bright side of the...ECONOMY:

Financial blogger and investment adviser Barry Ritholtz singles out a few more goods that are going cheap: boats, jewelry, Picassos and Monets, second homes. "Make a list of the favorite things that you want, and put in a low-ball offer, and tell people the offer is good for six months," he says. "Your spending habits should be countercyclical; You don't buy, buy, buy when the economy is great."

Gotta get that Picasso right now!

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

The peculiar case of Congresspoop Laura's house is but an expression of what these frauds would do literally that they only now do figuratively.

And we must say they're doing a pretty good job figuratively too.

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

In another measure of how brilliantly our crusading First Amendment defenders are doing their jobs, they have pretty well squooshed reports (mostly, alas, from CONSERVATIVES) suggesting Sort-Of is having his peons read the Miranda warning to terrorists, and no one seems to know how true that is. Why do we need to know? It's just news.

Look! Up in the sky! It's cloud formations!

Or is it YOUR SUPERMAN?