Posted 9:32 PM by Gene

So much for the Bloomies improving that rag:

BusinessWeek brings on Charlie Rose as columnist

Who can slobber more: Charlie or ER?

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

Mike has thrown a foot-stomping tantrum over junk books, saying junk books are all books. We would guess some people do not write junk books. I certainly haven't intended to write one. But however the chest beater he is he is right for the top of the "non-fiction" market. Still it annoys us Mike can get so much air when we said this about a year ago:

The latest fad in the publishing biz is to hope for zillionaires to run "quality" boutique imprints. This is but another showy false front for what it really wants: All The Lord Goddess Oprah All the Time, pulling her daily malevolent stunts, selling out of every last piece of garbage she can tout in the name of some vague PC notion of self-improvement. The book biz has become the magazine biz in hard cover, churning out the fad of the day when not producing books for no audience, and the people running it are but slightly more reserved versions of the thumb-in-the-eye jackasses who've ruined show-biz. Sorry, MAX PERKINS DIED 61 YEARS AGO. (62 now.)

We don't want to show off our past posts (and many aren't worth showing off) but if Mike is such a whiz kid why didn't he learn about junk books sooner -- when most of us did?

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

An excellent idea: an ombudsman for reality shows -- just like ombudsmen for newspapers, just like an ombudsman for ESPN, just like...never mind.

Posted 10:15 PM by Gene

Speaking of criminals, part of us regrets we not leading a busier life, but Benjamin Doctor (!) has taken it to extremes -- 134 arrests in 30 years. Really the guy looks as if he wants to wave at the camera! Only in Noo Yawk. We especially like the story of Terhan Bey, who in two separate incidents in three weeks at two chain drug stores pilfered "$104.52 worth of soap, body spray, deodorant and a can of almonds" plus "three cases of energy drinks" -- hey guy, who needs energy drinks with your rap sheet? Or do they go well with almonds? And don't they give you soap in jail? Face it, without career criminals a lot of Noo Yawkers would be out of work. And since Honorary Mayor Mike's name pops up here we wonder -- Mike, what is the economic benefit of petty crime? Maybe that's why they can't keep 'em locked up.

We wish we were kidding. We're not.

Posted 10:13 PM by Gene

Hong Kong gets over Dubai

Yeah, get over it guys -- DOW at 15,000 -- 20,000 -- SKY'S THE LIMIT!

But if the economy improves....

Posted 6:50 PM by Gene

Here I was looking for a likeness of a certain very well-known show-biz bunkum artist (hint: $10 BILLION!!!!!) and I found a picture posted here -- with SafeSearch at Moderate, so I guess I'm stuck with all those people looking for PR0N.

Further hint: It's the ac-TOR who won awards for her role in a nudie flick about the Holocaust. Pffffffffffft!

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

I don't know -- doesn't Dubai look sort of post-apocalyptic as is?

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

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

1.

The Future of TV
--------------------------------
We'll be Ordering Up Our Own Video, Ads and Products on a Web Convergence Device. But Who Will Reap the Revenue?

No one, we hope!

2.

Can Europe Rescue Media Biz, And If So, Can the U.S. Do So, Too?

Okay everybody! Sing along with me! A-ONE and a-TWO and a....

3. Some store chains are ditching brands. Okay, free-enterprise believers, how much more do we pay for the lack of competition?

Oh, it's because the suppliers are taking more profits than the chains. Well you know the old saw, "To the victors".... But why must we customers be the vanquished?

4. Another mighty moment in the public-relations biz:

[T]he PR push has come off as another attempt of trying to convince outraged fans of why the BCS is right and they're wrong.

But isn't that the whole point of PR? And would anyone who wants to listen to the public have hired ARI FLEISCHER?

Nothing on you-know-who. He's safe.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

"I had to forsake married life, my own house, money," he says. "[Being a priest] can be more isolating and counter-cultural than it has been in the past. It's more challenging, but also more rewarding because of that."

Even though we understand why the culture at large forces it, why must anyone apologize for wanting to be a priest?

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

Jonathan Yardley, who has gone worrisomely MIA of late, is back, and here is a last graf to prove it:

"The memoir boom," [Ben Yagoda] writes, "for all its sins, has been a net plus for the cause of writing. Under its auspices, voices and stories have emerged that, otherwise, would have been dull impersonal nonfiction tomes or forgettable autobiographical novels, or wouldn't have been expressed at all." Alas, it is here that I part company with this otherwise exemplary book. What the memoir boom has in fact given us is too many dull or forgettable memoirs, precious few of which have enriched our literature but most of which have simply encouraged the narcissism of their authors.

Thank you, your departing Goddess Oprah!

Posted 4:33 PM by Gene

"It's all about the notion of believing in something, and it can be whatever you want it to be," says Martine Reardon, Macy's evp [SIC] of marketing.

And I believe -- that R. H. Macy was born in a manger, and that he gave us 50 percent off for our sins. There Martine, if you can believe in anything, so can I.

This is precisely what I have in mind when I say Corporate America doesn't give two cents for its rep; it lets EVPS spout the first platitude in their heads, and that's its wisdom. I'm sure Macy's Inc. is a proud sponsor of...oh, never mind.

Let's try it again: I believe -- David Letterman was born in a manger, and he died and died again telling his Top-Ten jokes so Macy's could bring tidings of joy to its profits.

I am in a rotten mood right now.

P. S. This is off a highly partisan site, and it's from June, but I can't say I'm surprised.

Posted 4:23 PM by Gene

Evidently TGM will be Mr. Top-Ten about it, and let it "fade away". Fine. It's "worked" for Mr. Top-Ten. But even members of The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers must notice the snickers. Oh, they can rationalize, Top-Ten gets the ratings, and moves the goods; but how many outside SUMNER's circle and his coterie of fans now think him anything other than a not-very-nice guy with sex on the brain? Maybe all those CEOs don't care for their reps. When do we start making them care?

I wonder -- will Top-Ten have a LIST for this joke? THE POT....

P. S. at 4:43 p. m. Someone already thought of that. T'ain't funny, McGee.

Posted 3:02 PM by Gene

...a scruffy looking man....

TRANSLATION: A psycho who has the right to live on the street, or at least the right to be a psycho, and who somehow acquired a gun.

Will someone please tell me why His Omnipotences and like experts think such nutcases should be totally immune from the law or social workers or anybody?

(Via CNN)

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

The genius IQs of Hahvahd Mutual Fund blew a hole in their budget because -- ah, how typical of Hahvahd Mutual Fund -- they knew better.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says....

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report....

TRANSLATION: Dubya is still president.

Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old....

TRANSLATION: This is definitely a press release.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Al Alberts led The Four Aces, a Philly "neighborhood" close-harmony group that made the big time singing mostly big sentimental ballads (and as the pop-cult know-it-all Will Friedwald insists, flat). But then came the doowop they led in and the rock 'n' roll juggernaut, and they were finished -- but not Al; for several decades he emceed a local talent show called Al Alberts Showcase, introducing Teddy Pendergrass and Andrea McArdle (the original Annie, now known only in Branson East's precincts), and thousands and thousands of young flat singers, and young female dance groups in too-tight tutus -- seeing them was truly an education -- and those beaming parents, ready to say "You were wonderful!" as though on some intergalactic cue; and above and beyond all the Teenieboppers, the three-year-olds dressed in formal wear as though bound and gagged, telling him stupid jokes mostly in a heavy grimace, as though they knew better, but not Al. For me the show became as watchable as C-SPAN; but his very loyal fans could count on his tunes and his heavy-duty toupee until his retirement eight years ago. As a ghetto with social pretensions our city can't turn out the talent that can make life livable any more, and this as much as the show-biz' ossification has made future Al Albertses impossible. One could celebrate it; it is far worthier to regret it.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

Chow time indeed, if you ask me.

Who asked you?

A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of Newsweek. [Link added]

AS IN:

The New York Times recently quoted Mark Zandi, who was one of candidate John McCain's economic advisers.... [Stale.com version]

The New York Times recently quotedeconomist [SIC!] Mark Zandi, who advised candidate John McCain (and who now offers guidance to the Democrats).... [ZEITGEIST version]

At what point does KAPLAN, INC. merge its three duplicative Web sites into two -- or one?

DOWN WITH KAPLAN, INC.!

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

Look Econowiz, the Soviet Union managed with exploding TV sets; who's to say Belly Kisser can't manage on declining oil?

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Happily life gets back at at least a few of our superiors when they're ignorant about finance. Antoine Walker appears to be quite ignorant about finance -- and just plain ignorant.

Posted 1:07 PM by Gene

As last posted last year:

WHY ARE POP CHRISTMAS SONGS INTOLERABLE?

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

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

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

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

We don't like going the TMZ route, but if anybody has to be careful with his image it's THE GOLFING MACHINE. With all those zillions in endorsements, with all the corner offices he controls, with all the PR types (read sports writers) who swoon to his name, you'd think he'd have a little bit of sense. But sense does not come readily in the rarefied world TGM inhabits, and he can always buy another 10,000 SUVs (TRICKLE-DOWN!), and enough CEOs and PR types will excuse him, and especially given his alleged amour we do not feel the least bit sorry for him.

P. S. Of course it's possible this is but as manifestation of the kind of glorified blackmail to which the rich and famous are prone, and possibly TGM is innocent. But people have professed to be "shocked" too often about our superiors, who are frequently as superior as the things that crawl under rocks. Even if this is just a baseless rumor that got too well circulated it's hard to work up sympathy for the victim as our superiors have lots of things we peons don't.

How many people go to TMZ.com and need a shower afterwards? It was one thing when it broke WACKO'S death, but too often it's -- another.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

Our only consolation is this wouldn't be the first time social-climbing liars made it into the White House.

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

Wait a second, MB2, if your fellow Richie Riches are busy buying presents for Christmas where poor people aren't, doesn't that mean TRICKLE-DOWN, which boosts the economy, which --

Oh, never mind.

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

One other thing about David Gurgle Jr. getting down: Here we have a prime reason why SLIMES and other hopeful news hacks will NOT be able to charge for the news. It was one thing when colyumnists were characters for the right reasons, when people actually read them for insights they'd find nowhere else. But typists like Gurgle and "BS" Noonan and EJ are ecomaniacs in print obsessively recycling conventional wisdom. Who wants to read the same old same old over and over? And op-ed sections are supposedly central to newspapers' identities. Somewhere some blogger not making millions a year like MB2 is far more worth reading, but because newspapers must run the same colyumnists over and over that blogger won't get exposed. Colyumning infers a consistent level of quality, or at least the expectation of quality. The only level we get these days is low. It's also an excuse to vastly overpay people in a trade that should never have done so in the first place, and now can't afford it. It may not help the biz financially but the time has come to ditch the regular opinion colyumnist and put a variety of voices in his place. The newspaper has avoided intellectual diversity long enough.

Posted 11:43 AM by Gene

Nothing speaks so dramatically about Clint Eastwood's recent and remarkable burst of creativity as a director of awards-worthy films than the appearance of "Invictus," a historical drama that few if any filmmakers could have launched within the studio system.

TRANSLATION: It's official: THE GREATEST ACTOR TURNED DIRECTOR EVER does NOT make movies for the public.

Bottom Line: A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa.

TRANSLATION: And how many of his other masterworks are overrated?

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

DAVID GURGLE JR. BOOGIES!

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

What is with con-SER-va-tives and malls? Is it that long-held prejudice against cities because they happen to be mismanaged by the DEMOCRAT party? Why don't urban dwellers deserve decent shopping? Yes we can see how they fit into foreign climates, but malls helped unleashed the destruction of urban America, and the cities are evidently just as incorrigible as some con-SER-va-tives.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

25 countries tell Iran to mothball nuke program

Iran tells 25 countries to go mothball themselves.

Posted 12:33 AM by Gene

The great GanNETt PR specialist Edna had this plug for super-expensive CD boxes up -- a fine plug, a beautiful plug -- and then some commenter (the first, dammit!) had to spoil it with talk of one set's quality-control problems. (Glue on the discs -- what's that?)

Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and AD COPYWRITERS....

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

And speaking of Dubai -- ARCHDaily!



You can sex it up with starchitects and sprinkle on some perfume and dress it in a diamond bracelet, but public housing will always look like public housing.

Posted 7:27 PM by Gene

How many times have the hacks sold their space for free to media advertising vice-presidents saying sales have never been better? These thing have "please, dear God" written all over them. BigMedia deserves a comeback?



And today is November 27, on both coasts. How apt.



And will you knock it off, Einsteins?

Posted 6:50 PM by Gene

U.N. nuclear agency says Iran probe a 'dead end'

Iran seizes Nobel peace prize winner's medal

To use the worn out Web cliché, nothing to see here.

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

With links like this and this and this and this Mike has served his mentor SLIME notice that He won't be able to escape the Web so easily. It is obvious he and the Great Huff are setting up a fight to see who can be sleazier. One hopes for a lawsuit both parties can lose.

And another thing, Mike: Whoever designed your site probably knows as much of good usable design as SLIME. As in -- try scrolling down for older stories. Maybe your computer won't seize up. Mine does. "Adjusting" the settings does no good.

And this time from the Merry Morons of Mountain View:



Oh, shut up.

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

Members of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers also finance "VIOLATORS", and any company that finances VIOLATORS reserves the right to VIOLATE its customers.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

VERY LITTLER JEFFY'S HAVING A "YARD SALE"!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

One thing that caused the AOL PEOPLE WARNER merger was its flagship's Men-as-Sex-Objects shtick. While it makes us appreciate why certain hard-core feminists get jealous it also makes us frown because it brought on THE NEW ROBERT TAYLOR and other supposed hunks; it also made ROSIE'S NEPHEW unavoidable. At the same time it so helped minimize the notion of female sex symbols as to account in no small part for the constant whining and gnashing of teeth over "bankable" actresses. It's a small mind that has a big love for PEOPLE (I'm thinking, oh, Mr. Bew-KES's); it's an even smaller mind that uses it to cast some of the flat-out mugs who now grace Hollywood.

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

You forget, Ramin: Every single one of the "feel-bad" pics earned raves from cri-TICS like DAVID ANSEN. Doesn't that constitute a happy ending?

DOWN WITH KAPLAN, INC.!

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

And speaking of Henry, he must remind us the crisis may not yet be over.

Count on the world capital of bad architecture and unneeded developments to throw the world economy for a loop.

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

And since Henry Honest posted this yesterday, let's bring back one of our old favorites:

We celebrate NATIONAL AIRPLANE CRAMMING, TURKEY GORGING, FOOTBALL GAZING AND BANGING DOWN THE STORES' DOORS AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT DAY because 144 years ago some president issued a proclamation. That we haven't the foggiest idea why a president would issue such a proclamation makes it easier to gorge on the turkey and camp out at Wal-Mart. Indeed if we had the least idea why a certain president issued this proclamation we might not see this day as just another justification for mindless spending and family arguments. We can so easily forget our great traditions' antecedents because they mean virtually nothing to us. Christmas ceased to have a connection with anything religious decades ago, and the similar justification to this day -- some folks in funny clothes with funny guns colliding with a rock someplace -- would seem laughable except it had something to do with us becoming the Superman of nations. Inevitably we would forget past struggles; The "Good" War was so increasingly long ago it may have happened on another planet. But we're so blind to the past now that when it comes history's time to repeat itself we'll just do as Dubya does, flail, make a platitude, and hope the people mindlessly spending can save us. We could do worse than humble ourselves to God, as Lincoln did, and hope He is still prepared to save our nation, as unworthy as we've more often become of it.

Our only updates would be to substitute "146" for "144", "His Omnipotence" for "Dubya", and "the government" for "the people".

P. S. at 7:50 p. m. We just scanned your listicle, Hank. 1. It's stupid. 2. Why does the URL say "15-reasons" when you only list 12? Or was your intern bored too?

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

Count on the zillionaire lunkhead MB2 to have to write this -- and he would give lavish cash gifts to his favorite politicians, freely and incontinently -- but he is right. Christmas, like so many of our national traditions, has become a pale imitation what it was while being bloated out of all proportion at the same time.  Gift-giving is tedious, counterproductive, and unnecessary, and many times the recipient will not appreciate the gift.  Better to give to a good charity, where the gift can actually help those in need.  But that MB2 wrote this does call his own morals into account, as he can afford lots of things we mere peons can't.  Aiming at self-penitence, MB?

Posted 4:32 PM by Gene

Please!  Pretty please!! We'll cut our greenhouse gases so our BFF China doesn't have to.  Pretty pretty please!!!

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

Jut-Jaw sidekick and ED MURROW groupie Brian does the NBC Nightly Senior Medicine Revue, starring "the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis ('ask your doctor if you’re healthy enough for sexual activity'), the flu medication Coricidin (for those with high blood pressure), and Beano (take it before you eat 'so there’ll be no gas')":

Remarkably, the broadcast offered not a single international story. Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, China, the world economy—all took a back seat to Oprah, Twilight, Tim Russert, Santa, and Zoo TV. The broadcast seemed almost a Saturday Night Live parody. Sadly, this is what the network news in America has become: parochial, sentimental, self-absorbed. We deserve better.

Well, if Brian's doing SNL parodies he's learned from the SOURCE.

And isn't 30 Rock the GREATEST SITCOM EVER?

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: There's no good reason for the Depression Rally of 2009.

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

While it is fascinating to learn FDR may have had cancer I don't get the point. Whatever his illness FDR was clearly a very sick man in his final two years, but he had the inner will to make it through a war, a contentious choice for his likely successor, an election and a fourth inauguration. In the end that's what counts, not what disease he had.

(Via MICHAEL, who would be very fascinated)

Posted 10:49 PM by Gene

5,990,000 LINKS!

Yes, I think the conservatives have a point.

Posted 9:17 PM by Gene

A bunch of twenty-somethings screaming at a hand-held camera is not, and never will be, The Bell Telephone Hour.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM finds a new gimmick -- RESEARCH PARKS!

This is but a new take on EDUCATIONANDHEALTHCARE, it means burning more tax dollars, and it won't prevent our cities' vast wastelands from getting vaster. When will the RENDELLISTS learn -- you can't replace the working class with self-proclaimed EGGHEADS!

Seoul's Digital Media City is one of the most grandiose efforts at nurturing a creative community. Today the new district along the Han River doesn't yet look much like other Asian boomtowns. It consists of only a few dozen modern offices housing 230 companies and apartment towers lining broad avenues. Over time, Seoul officials envision Digital Media City swelling into a Hollywood of sorts for everything from cultural programming to electronic games and interactive workplace software. Already, for instance, creators of experimental video can project their digital images onto four huge screens on building exteriors.

"120,000 workers and 2,000 companies by 2015" making VIDEOS?!?!?

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

WOODSTER THE PERV has a new girlfriend!

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

We are grateful that the GanNETtoids were able to take a break from their busy schedule of not reporting the news to plug Kirk Kevor -- KERKORIAN's folly.  After you read it you want to rush to book a room -- if you have the money, that is.  (Not to worry -- they're having a SALE!) I guess there was no avoiding adding a sentence or two in the advertorial stating that Kirk built it at the top of the market, and all the slight inconveniences attendant thereto. (No mention, happily, that a condo tower had to be shortened due to construction errors.)  Maybe if GanNETt can run more such plugs past its hotel-bound audience it can build up the travel biz -- and build up AMERICA!

Its centerpiece resort is 61-story Aria (so named because arias are focal points in operas)....

Honest, GanNETtoids, we wouldn't know these things without you!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO KITTY BEAN!

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

How surprising: Professional beggary intersects with scammers in Noo Yawk.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

White House: Obama Afghan decision 'within days'

You sure, Your Omnipotence? Don't do too much nail-biting or you won't have any fingers.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

Why are news hacks doing a favor for the Formerly-CEO-Fanny-Kissing Angry Populist?

Posted 11:42 PM by Gene

I have mentioned the loss of Mike Royko more times than I'd wish to be reminded.  What would he think of child beauty pageants?  The easy thing is to say the contestants are basket cases in the making, which I'm guessing is wrong as most come from a stratum of society that shows off its discipline like bulging biceps; but it's still off-putting to see children masquerading as adults, and for little more than their parents' overweening vanity.

Royko?  Where's MENCK?

Posted 10:51 PM by Gene

What do foot -- SOCCER fans and A-ca-de-my A-WARDS® devotees have in common?  They're neurotically obsessive and they make lots of noise.  Soccer is what the Os-CARS® would be if lots of people took them seriously: an excuse for rioting and the sport's mavens tying themselves up in a hundred knots to repair a game that is beyond repair, not least in its tedium, which it overcomes only in the explosive hyperactive fits that get the yobs going.

In a way the Os-CARS® are worse because where soccer can at least claim millions of devoted tire burners whose thuggery is understandable that precious award show instead has the kind of overly devoted minuscule self-loving claque that follows musicals, but that tends to congregate where too many people can notice (i.e., the pop-cult precincts of the Web), and in a way that tests one's patience far more than rioting (i.e., their silly whiny ironic sarcasm, the stock of the pop-cult trade). The Os-CARS® and musicals underline what's wrong with our culture: while musicals were once highly popular, and the Os-CARS®, for all their faults, tried once to honor films that were genuinely good and popular, now both are mere platforms for a certain kind of upscale fan preening.  Really, who cares about the new musical director?  or what went on at a SAG screening?  They will deny it but these devotees have lots in common with the NASCAR® fans with their shrines for Number 3, or the Crimson Tide fans who paint their homes red, only -- and this is where they're worse -- they celebrate AHT.  In short, they're Rocco Landesman, and they're proud of it.

We can laugh at the soccer maniacs and the Os-CAR® maniacs, but with both, a screw is loose.

(NYT link via Marty)

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Here's what urban America needs -- another arms race in convention centers. Haven't the cities built enough white elephants? Why must people waste money for travel when they can gas through their cell phones and their corporate networks?

Why not some SECOND STIMULUS money? BwahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

The other day we pondered why Very Littler Jeffy wasn't thinking a spinoff of GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT.

Evidently Very Littler is thinking. He can think?

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

Outlawing boxing would be like outlawing dog fighting. We can be grateful the "sport" has priced itself into irrelevance. But deaths in the ring happen often enough to make us wonder whether the effort might be worth it.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

And here's something the creators of Ms. Travers's favorite show and a certain director named Emmerich could appreciate: a global blasphemy law.

This is not an if, this is a when; and "leaders" like His Omnipotence will help get it ratified with their good intentions.

(Via Jeffrey Goldberg)

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

A best-selling novelist complains:

It's a shame. Once Amazon was an author's best friend: Now, it's an enterprise that undercuts a writer's sales almost instantly by offering second-hand copies along with new ones, and allows an army of trolls to attack, apparently completely unmoderated.

We're sympathetic on the trolls -- although we haven't found too many in our experience, and we've perused thousands of items. But try getting a company as huge as Amazon.com to employ moderators. And as to the first point -- aren't you conservatives all for the genius of the marketplace?

Posted 10:54 AM by Gene

How about this inspiration from your favorite show, Ms. Travers?

One hates to take such things seriously when the motto of our age is "Any publicity is good publicity."

It is a shame though that SUMNER had nothing to do with this ad because we'd have learned who sponsored it.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

The bus-'n'-truck-company circuit now includes school kids. It is exasperating to think anybody can write a piece of doggie-doo with a hook and make big bucks on it, but all those eager young thespians have to act in something, anything -- and that something, anything is now such immortalities as Footloose, All Shook Up, Ring of Fire, Seussical and The Wedding Singer -- with such blue-rinse favorites as Legally Blonde on the way. Yes, Shrek will be a hit too. Not every musical is a masterwork but what do the kids gain from staging such mechanized garbage? At least Mickey and Judy (cited here) put on their own show. Imagine what Mamma Mia will do with the no-talents. Unbearable.

Needless to say the licensing king Bye Bye Birdie is doing well on Branson East despite rotten reviews -- and it has a decent score.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

In football, as in the movees, it takes money to make money. Northeastern University saw that pouring money into football would probably get it a bid in something like the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl or the Meineke Car Care Bowl. The days when any team could be a champion ended not long after Knute Rockne taught his players how to dance.

Partial correction at 3:15 p. m. Northeastern was in the Football Championship Subdivision (the former Division I-AA -- now that's a mouthful), which has a playoff, but as unlikely teams like Rutgers and Temple show, one can dream the dreams -- of playing in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl or the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

That Forbeslist typist named Tammy -- Tamny insists the Wall Street Casino dealers should pay themselves whatever number they want because their earnings are "ephemeral". Also they're valuable because they're "price givers". We have two retorts; the dealers may be ephemeral but the bonuses aren't, and yes they're price givers: they can give any price they want, like AOL at $900 or oil at $150. And in saying how wonderful FREE ENTERPRISE is and how awful GOVERNMENT is he seems to forget his Wall Street cronies are back in the money because government is burning it on THEM.

Didn't Jesus say something about money changers? The only thing Wall Street is missing is a golden calf. It already has its bull.

How apt this nonsense appears on a day a Fed high-mucky-muck tells the dealers a soothing fairy tale, and puts the SECOND MASSACRE RALLY back on track.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

How in His right mind can His Omnipotence and the Democratic stooges on the Hill think of inflicting us with more debt?

And who in his right mind believes we can go on bequeathing ourselves big boxes of benefit candy without a long-term stomach ache?

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Government Sachs, Mr. MorganChase's firm, wherever they hail from, one Treasury secretary is just like another.

Posted 12:03 AM by Gene

The inane fight for Cadbury tells why the Wall Street Casino deserves a comeuppance. This is all about shuffling assets and fattening brokers' profits and making CEO superheroes, it's not about productivity or employing more people (definitely NOT that), and the owner will be an elephant of mediocre food. Nestlé deserves this hands down; it's one of those global bureaucracies that could make SOYLENT GREEN.

Posted 11:50 PM by Gene

The somewhat suppressed story of the embarrassing leaked global-warming e-mails reminds us the last time politics inflicted a scientist on the world big-time, it was Lysenko, with awful consequences for the Russians, and the study of global warming has become so politicized we are convinced no one's telling the truth -- which is, alas, the way we must approach science with the atomic Damoclean sword over our heads.

Posted 11:41 PM by Gene

SUPERADAM!!!!!'s interns come up with a listicle of newly-opening ahthouse nominees for the Os-CAR®, and it's irritating because the hacks are ready to rave every last one of them, and the interns in their two-left-footed way say these movees are for no one but movee cri-TICS and the hard-core urban audiences, as when they posit the target crowd for one as "Mad Men fanatics, fashionistas, gay men", for another "Anyone who loved Moulin Rouge and Chicago, plus the sophisticated straight guy who appreciates eye candy," and for a third "People who like some message with their popcorn; Mandela admirers; the ten or so rugby fans in America." Who will care for any of these masterworks next year? And why must the big-name Web sites crawl with interns?

And why can't we have a movie with a real Sophia Loren instead of one of WOODSTER THE PERV's girlfriends?

Posted 11:40 PM by Gene

Italians have obviously decided they don't care who runs their country or how, which makes it ripe for another Mussolini.

Posted 8:10 PM by Gene

Now kolledge football becomes rocket science!

(Via Yahoo! Sports)

Posted 8:03 PM by Gene

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

The attorney general says, fine with m...they'll be sentenced to...they'll be SENTENCED!

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

The inevitable result of this disaster is 1. Somebody gets executed, 2. There will be more such disasters, 3. China will still belch fossil fuels into the air, 4. His Omnipotence will still insist it's our fault, and 5. China will still beat our pants off.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Okay SUPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!!, SHARON!!!!!!!!!!, PAUL DRECK!!!!!!!!!!, DAVID "NON" GERMAIN!!!!!!!!!!, why is this GOOD NEWS? We've had outbreaks of screaming meemies before; we dismiss that. But we know in the movee excretion biz you have to spend money to make money -- so much of it you can't make money. How much did your beloved Summit spend on MARKETING? (The money the movee excreters have saved on prints is no doubt going to MORE MARKETING.) You've mentioned THE GREATEST COMIC BOOK FILM EVER -- how much money did that make PEOPLE WARNER? That didn't prevent its stock from pancaking, or the idiot MR. BEWKES from waving his arms frantically and spinning off half the company. You've also mentioned QUANTUM OF CALCULUS, or whatever the name of that movee was. Remember? That made umpteen gazillions -- and now UNITED ARTISTS faces bankruptcy, and the morons who hold its debt (sorry to cite SUPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!! again) may not get half their money back. A lot of good that did. Or you may be thinking of You Wanna Be a Terrorist? That's sold umpteen gazillion copies -- and the videogame biz is still in free-fall. We can hear you in sycophantic unison: look at all the people who came out for this. We note -- and we suspect not for the first time -- that movee attendance has been virtually flat since 1960, and without your typical self-serving spin you know what that means -- in per-capita terms it's SHARPLY DECLINED. Now PAUL DRECK!!!!!!!!!!, we know you've been rehearsing that $10 BILLION!!!!!!!!!! gag for several years, but the B. O. would not have gotten there without inflation -- or this year without 3D SURCHARGES. We'd wager attendance is AT BEST FLAT. And to top it off, everyone who is not a teenage girl agrees your record-setter is a great big piece of bovine leavings. I want a long loud chorus, folks -- why is this GOOD NEWS?

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

It is well for the Pope to engage in a "quest for beauty", but beauty was run out of the Catholic Church on the whangs of ten million gheetars, and a faithful so thoroughly trained to accept its absence may find the very idea incomprehensible.

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

And a former French president proves pols need not write novels when they can write LEGISLATION.

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The French are doing more "soul-searching" over a foot -- soccer prima donna's hand than over a whole generation of COLLABORATORS.

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

The news biz is essentially a luck chronicle, a diary of people who've made it from people who want to make it in luck industries -- government at the top rung, big business, show business, sports. Despite the flatulent noises of "public service" the hacks are so stuck on chronicling luck they can't do anything else. Hence their abysmal output: when people looking for work kiss the fat fannies of smug snobs at the top they have no impetus to do anything but chronicle luck. Hence the need to always find "winners" and "losers" in everything, and to insinuate ourselves with the "winners". Hence the health-care "debate"'s other-worldly miasma; not one person involved seems to have ever been a human being, or sick. Hence the dessicated writing on foreign affairs; when you've spent so much time at cocktail parties you don't know what war is. Hence show-biz coverage that's a non-stop insult; despite the collapse of the business model it's still fun to be in with the in-crowd. Luck explains why news hacks are so insistent in getting it to fall their way, and why, when they are fired, they scream as though led off to the guillotine; they become mere mortals, ciphers, oblivious. Let's not forget blogging developed a rigid caste system as the biggest names, already de facto news hacks, solidified their luck perks. We don't know how much of the news biz' customer leakage is merely the Web, probably most of it, but surely in the back of some people's minds lies the notion that at its heart the news-biz is not about us, it's about a whole bunch of them.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

From Romy, this comes to close to a confession:

Poynter's Times Publishing Co. sells Governing to company big on Scientology

And of course the evidence comes at the tag end, as we'd suspect with Romy's righteous employer. Happily Scientology is one of those topics we hacks can ignore almost as successfully as DOJ recusals.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

If all these DOJ lawyers are going to recuse themselves from terrorist cases, who's going to try the terrorists?

(Via the usual conservative sites, meaning another nifty excuse to ignore important news)

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

We're surprised our domestic hacks haven't picked up on this idea: That His Omnipotence is showing vast signs of Jimmahism because he's ruled by CORPORATIONS. But if His Omnipotence is ruled by the same corporations who ruled Dubya wouldn't that excuse His Omnipotence?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Niles: "There's no Walt Disney managing today's legacy news businesses" [Romy link]

Thankfully plenty of people can still tell fantasies and fairy tales.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

The odds of Very Littler Jeffy selling a chunk of GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT to BRIAN ROBBER got a little longer.

What prevents GE BANCORP from an outright spinoff except Very Littler Jeffy's vanity?

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

BS's partner in baloney Bill says the once Rush Limbaugh of the House is making a comeback against Sen. Boobs McKeating, and dispenses this welcome suggestion to the challenged:

Still, who could help McCain beat back a populist conservative challenger? Sarah Palin.

Uh Bill, leaving aide other things, isn't -- wasn't -- the guy a moderate?

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Peggy "BS" Noonan says TV IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!

With each passing day I grow a little more sensitive to how so many hacks waste my time. The moment I spent clicking on a link and getting agitated I could have used more productively. My only consolation is that I reminded myself I stopped trusting BS about fifteen months ago.

P. S. on 11/21/2009 at 11:10 a. m. And of COURSE most of the shows she praises are the same old hacks' favorites, shows with small audiences, shows for the with-it, which further proves she can't think without mulling in a crowd and definitely can't be trusted.

(Via MIKE, proof too many at NRO are looking for work)

Posted 11:11 PM by Gene

'New Moon' director says film was inspired by ... David Lean and Akira Kurosawa?

TRANSLATION: No, our long, slavish "interview" proves we didn't SERIOUSLY mean that question mark.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO GINA AND LALA'S OTHER MOVEE TOADIES!

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

Speaking of -- royalty:

Piano-pop titans Elton John and Billy Joel have postponed their "Face 2 Face" concert at the Pepsi Center on Sunday until Feb. 22, promoter AEG Live announced today....

The postponement should come as no surprise to fans who have watched the tour's troubled-plagued progress the last few months. (Emphasis added)

We could say something, but won't.

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

The Queen of Sap Who Made a King and crowned many court jesters has just told the world neither she nor the broadca$ting biz has a future.

Who will be the guest on the last show? ONE guess. A FIRST-PERSON guess.

(Via HENRY HONEST)

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

We had never heard of Thierry Henry until today -- and it's likely Moon 'n' Stars's top bunglers still haven't heard of him, though the P&G Expensive Razor Blade Division is wasting $8.3 million-plus on this guy. We can't figure out what the bunglers gain -- somehow boasting that "I WAS AT A CONTROVERSIAL QUALIFYING MATCH FOR THE WORLD CUP FINALS AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!" is not quite "I WAS AT THE SUPER BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!", though the scenery might be nicer (away from the PITCH, that is). But $8.3 million-plus probably could sell a lot of M-'n'-S goods, goods that could keep some people in their jobs, which $8.3 million-plus to a foot -- soccer prima-donna probably won't.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Rudy probably would be better off in the Senate, where he wouldn't have to run anything, except his mouth. (He wouldn't be the only one.)

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Dell takes a late drubbing

DOW 15,...well, maybe tomorrow, despite the speed bump for the SECOND MASSACRE RALLY.

"The mix of our business is 80% commercial," Gladden said. "But the areas of the most growth are coming from consumer [sales]. And we are losing share in the aggregate."

Dell said its total unit shipments were down 5% from a year ago. Consumer sales totaled $2.8 billion, a 10% decline from a year ago even though consumer shipments rose 17%. Large enterprise revenue fell 23% from a year ago to $3.4 billion and small-and-medium business sales totaled $3 billon, down 19% from the same period last year.

Revenue from desktop PCs slid by 26% compared to year-ago quarter, while notebook and mobility-product sales were down 14% and revenue from servers and networking equipment fell by 6% from a year ago.



I'm telling you, all the signs are UP!

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

"Rough waters."

"Long on biography, short on visible achievements."

"A series of unfortunate events."

The winner of the Dynamite Memorial Good Intentions Prize of 2009!

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

OoooooooooooooooOOPS:

Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are brothers. [Emphasis added]

(Via RAMESH)

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

We celebrate that ARCHDaily! has "made it to the shortlist for Best Online Magazine at the Open Web Awards" [!!!!!] with...



...a new quonset hut in Rotterdam!

No wait, we got it: A PLATFORM HORSESHOE!

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

We thought "cold, hostile, mean, old, almost pathologically opportunistic" moguls were heroes with news hacks!

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

You know Mallard Fillmore. It's the con-SER-va-tive's way of proving he can be just as unfunny as G. B. WELL, a huge crowd of twenty protested before the home of the defunct Newsday because the creator of said unfunny cartoon mocked hate crimes, and an organization demanding "diversity" in the luxury news suites (you know what THAT means) and ranked 437,784 in Quantcast picked up on it, and ROMY, who wouldn't do the same thing if it were politically vice versa, picked up on that, and so....

I HATE KNEE-JERK PARTISANS!

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: This hot property's so old-fashionedly corny you can hear Paul Whiteman in the background -- even with the new Robert Taylor.

But then what would one expect for a fillum that shares a name with a Sigmund Romberg musical from 1928?

P. S. We know, it's rated R -- PG-13, but heck we also know how screwy grandmas can put on short-shorts to impress the younguns, and the movee excretion biz is a very old screwy grandma.

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

Who wants to bet Mrs. Vince McMahon is pro-choice -- or better still, one of those shy little mice who won't squeak?

And who wants to bet she'll do favors for her husband once appointed to the Senate -- albeit under the table, like so many others?

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

We do not understand why JonBoy, who has almost taken pride in cutting his rag's circ in half, and would no doubt defend the my-way-or-the-highway I'd-rather-be-right approach to news hackery if he weren't so MENSA-IQ shrewd, tried getting such inundating publicity. If THE NEW! IMPROVED! ECONOWIZ! is going to be so prestigious wouldn't it be better to take a cue from the original and tone down a bit -- starting first by eliminating bylines, which would have the salutary effect of eliminating showboats like Sort-of-God?

We would add (and here's something JonBoy would appreciate as a foot-stomping partisan) that getting talked about may not be a good thing. Look at SARAH!!!!!'s family.

Posted 3:34 PM by Gene

A Dilbert®! cartoon deserves a Dilbert®! post:

Yes, we've seen the Dilbert cartoon where "Dogbert The CEO" says his plan for entering the news business is to "summarize stories from other sites and provide" links, and hero Dilbert asks "So…we'll be parasites?"

Ha.

Fortunately, Dilbert.com has an "embed" option, so we don't even have to summarize the thing and can just paste it here....

So you can stop sending it to us in the tips box or linking to it from the comments now!

Posted 3:32 PM by Gene

More creativity in Branson East: a Sinatra theme park -- with dancing!

Posted 3:14 PM by Gene

Great news for Mogul's Friend -- the MOVEE ACADEMY® is doing the MTV Video Music Awards™!

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

The Paper of Re-CORD hyperventilates.

I repeat something I've said before: most news stories can fit in a graf, or even a sentence. Longer is when the problems begin, and one problem is hyperventilation. I don't need to know this story. There are others I might need to know, that I won't know, because news hacks are satisfying their prejudices, and their synergies.

(Via MESS.com)

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

We've found someone to take ER's place at PEOPLE WARNER's putative flagship!

We base it on this ad. What's the difference between such an ad and a real ad except the one isn't nominally paid for? There is none -- which makes slogging through unpaid ads ever more an exasperation.

Why do so many hacks think they MUST write down to us to get ahead? And why are such writers the last to get fired?

There's next to nothing in Observer.com these days. Heck there isn't even a John Heilpern ready to do HARVEY WHINER's bidding. We wonder why we must frequent it.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

Golly Broccoli, you kicking yourself for not having used Pat Robertson in the campaign?

Posted 1:16 AM by Gene

Speaking of casinos, as we'd have suspected, the DONALD and the DONALDETTE have given up their Potemkin bid for "their" Ghetto Beach joints, availing them the opportunity to go bankrupt again.

(Via HENRY HONEST)

Posted 12:50 AM by Gene

How delusional is the Wall Street Casino? The dealers have "invested" in REITs!

Posted 12:37 AM by Gene

I don't have to compile a list of a hundred sequels, remakes and adaptations to find budding originality in today's movee biz:

"Grey's Anatomy" star Eric Dane has joined "Burlesque," Screen Gems' musical drama which stars Christina Aguilera and Cher.

"Burlesque" centers on the journey of an ambitious small-town girl (Aguilera) with a big-town voice who finds love and success in a Los Angeles neo-burlesque club, reminiscent of the nightclub in Bob Fosse's "Cabaret."

But definitely not reminiscent of a 1929 film called The Dance of Life -- based on a hit 1927 Broadway melodrama called Burlesque.

The more things stay the same....

Dane is playing the role of a charming, highly successful businessman who offers to buy out of the burlesque club from Cher and vies for Aguilera's heart.

OLDER.

Note: That play was Barbara Stanwyck's first starring role. Cherilyn Sarkasian is 62. NUF SAID.

Posted 12:34 AM by Gene

The nice thing about Ponzi schemes is that they're stickups without a gun.

I'm surprised some GEKKO KUDLOW hasn't lauded Ponzis as proof of a booming economy. It's still booming, all right -- with Ponzis.

Posted 12:18 AM by Gene

A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. But this week researchers from IBM Corp. are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory - 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

The scientists had previously simulated 40 percent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and 1 percent of a human's cerebral cortex this year, using progressively bigger supercomputers.

The latest feat, being presented at a supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore., doesn't mean the computer thinks like a cat, or that it is the progenitor of a race of robo-cats.

Oh come on ASSPress, that's precisely what it means: first robo-cats, then robo-dogs, then robo-monkeys, then robo-humans. Things like Moore's Law are mere nuisances. Any company that built a machine that could beat a chess master can build a machine that can beat humans.

Posted 3:14 PM by Gene

Investigators in New York City raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers Tuesday as part of a union corruption probe, a law enforcement official said.

How much do you suppose the Part -- our First-Amendment Defenders will tell us about this?

As to any notion of a connection to the Mob -- isn't our Free Press already connected to a small-m mob?

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

I think even SARAH!!!!!'s most rabid foes might agree: the NEWS HACKS are channeling the old PRAVDA.

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

How apt: CONCAST can do to concert tickets what it's done to cable. Pfffffffffffffft!

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

In more of his patented iconoclasm, JonBoy treats us to a listicle of twelve "unfunny comics". There's a difference?

(Via SUPERADAM!!!!!, who insists there is one)

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: USAOKAY!!!!! has launched a marketing department in the newsroom!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM TAKES TO THE AIR:

Miami-Dade commissioners' trade trips ring up $217K tab -- and no results

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

ER's been named editor-in-chief of BizWeek!

This must have been a tough decision, he having rapidly established himself as one of America's greatest BIGMEDIA boosters. Do show-biz puff pieces and business news have anything in common? (Aside from business-news puff pieces, that is.)

We'll miss your SYNERGY, ER -- unless Bloomy decides to buy PEOPLE WARNER.

Then again, that may not be necessary with Norman "Pearls Before Swine" Pearlstine working there.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

Who'da thunk it: The CHEAP CHANNELS and SUMNERS paid through the nose for sports on the radio -- and now the little black boxes say people don't listen to it that much, possibly because the LOWSY MAYSES helped wean them from the medium in the first place with all them ads. And have you tried listening to a game lately? "This pitch is brought to you by...."

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Hey Hugh Hewitt! Now's a good time to ask: Didya ever find a publisher for that book?

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

U.S.-China Trade: Prepare for Continued Imbalance

We're prepared.

Posted 9:47 PM by Gene

SARAH!!!!! is a topic that makes us tired. One reason we tire of it is that some con-SER-va-tive precincts (think Jo-NAHdom) turned her into Wonder Woman. But the idiot Evan "Sort of God" Thomas makes us tired too, and we wonder whether the rag he works for ever called Hitler or Stalin "bad news for everybody", even if JonBoy thinks he's being ironic by saying it what he supposes is with a wink and a leer, though the leer be the gritting of teeth.

Posted 9:28 PM by Gene

In the middle of THE SECOND MASSACRE RALLY, Ben realizes his predecessor said something about irrational exuberance, and because Ben and his predecessor have realized that irrational exuberance can be a good thing, he decided to celebrate it.

GEKKO KUDLOW! Why in God's name haven't YOU said anything about TRICKLE-DOWN!

Posted 9:20 PM by Gene

But you see, it was the right decision -- because football is rocket science!

Beantown just doesn't seem to want to live this down.

Posted 9:18 PM by Gene

No, just as we thought, we have said neither goodbye nor good riddance to The Angry Lollipop.

Posted 9:12 PM by Gene

The WORRRRRRRRULD COMMUNITY, having thought of every means to be meaningless about Nukeman, turns to -- "fear".

And Prexy (so the URL calls him) says "we're running out of time," meaning there's more where that came from.

Cut the comedy folks -- you've haven't done anything since we first heard, and you'll never do anything.

Posted 9:11 PM by Gene

The Chinese blacked out His Omnipotence, which should make both sides happy.

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

Like, yeah, sure.

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Well! The Washington R------s' name is safe, for now.

(Via an ASSPress story on WashingtonTimes.com)

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Dobbs got $8M to quit

A very populist farewell.

CNN 'wanted him out'

Not the only ones.

Dobbs is set to give his first TV interview since then to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly tonight, leading to speculation that he may be headed there. But TV insiders said such a move is highly unlikely.

True: FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News already has hundreds of prima-donnas.

Talk about a possible political career -- possibly as candidate for the Senate from New Jersey in 2012 -- is also probably overblown, friends said.

"He couldn't stand the scrutiny," said one colleague.

We couldn't stand him.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Again, NFL football becomes rocket science.



This was unintentional, wasn't it?

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies....

Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists.

It's official: Congress is a whorehouse.

In an interview, Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said: “I regret that the language was the same. I did not know it was.”

Sure Mac, that's what they all say.

(Via Cheat Sheet)

Posted 3:02 PM by Gene

Mean Joe Green [SIC!!!!!] finally gets Coke ad award

He might get mean again when he sees how the ASSPress misspelled his name (but not in the accompanying promo, thankfully).

Maybe we could turn eleven JERNALISTS loose to investigate this, huh CURLEY?

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

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

1. P&G, Walmart, Unilever, General Mills Are Major Marketers on a Mission

A mission to sell more overpriced goods-- on more JUNK TELEVISION!

Oh wait -- they're using mission statements! Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

2. Moving junk television from its once hugely profitable infrastructure to FACEBOOK!!!!! and TWITTER!!!!! can only help our national morale.

3. In the last decade, BBDO produced an estimated 35,000 ads, which comes to 3,500 a year, 70 a week or 10 a day, including weekends. At its height, more than 2,000 people worked there.

What good did all the busy-busy do Chrysler? What good did those "1,000 industry awards" do? Could Nomotown have reached this abyss because it relied on advertising too much?

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

“A chunk of the GOP has always detested him, but in the last month a damn [SIC!!!!!] has broken,” said the consultant....

Hold your tongue!

(Via Jennifer, who didn't notice either)

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

Someone please tell David "NON" Germain, yes, we understand YOU'RE looking for work, but SNE is worth no more now than in 1972, even adjusted for splits, and probably much less when adjusted for inflation.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Free Aung San Suu Kyi, Obama tells Burma PM

And what did the PM tell His Omnipotence?

And how did His Omnipotence respond? We can guess: "Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, MYANMAR has VAST energy resources, and we want to help you develop them", remembering to get off the chair and bow when he said that.

Oh and don't forget, Your Omnipotence, it's "MeeYAHNmar."

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Look out, Your Omnipotence! BRUCE is running for president!

Well, vice-president, maybe.

Posted 12:48 PM by Gene

3. Use their jobs to look for work.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

Take away all the ads for a certain lip-syncher, or pole dancer, or weightlifter, or hermaphrodite, or a certain recently deceased walking cadaver, and what have you heard about pop music lately? Oh yes, if you're a certain age you may follow certain sites, and download religiously -- but what's in it for the rest of us? When was a music star last known to the public for other than advertising? And can anyone who obsessively downloads really tell one masterwork from the next? The same with movees too. Oh yes, sighing teenage girls may be camping out for days awaiting the new Robert Taylor, but does anyone else really care? Oh yes, NIKKI!!!!! and SHARON!!!!! are going bananas over the box office, but when no more than five or six percent of the U. S. populace attends the movees on a given weekend, and it's pretty much always the same five or six percent, is it that important?

So when a copyright expert (to quote Forbeslist) says that "piracy is not responsible for the failings of the film and music industries...[i]t's that they fail to give customers what they want", can we doubt this, even though it is truer than most people who professionally excuse our culture want it to be?

And speaking of excuses, a hand to Forbeslist for devoting part of its ever withering resources to an earth-shattering topic like the rebirth of John 3:16. And give yourselves a hand too!

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

How money vanishes:

1. We thought little of that project to bring a big movee studio to Plymouth. At best it was government money wasted; at worst it was lying. It seems to have been largely the latter.

2. We see too that the Miami Beach's celebrated Fontainebleau is near bankruptcy. We remember the PR over its renovation. There was another case of showing off, and no money.

3. Michigan can't account for His Omnipotence's stimulus dough. Can anybody?

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Dems risk losing Catholics over abortion

We wonder. We'd guess most Catholics who vote Democratic are either the secularized type or the see-no-evil type who hold their noses in the voting booth, who may be more faithfully Democratic than Catholic. And we wonder how much abortion can mean in a church as thoroughly dumbed-down as American Catholicism. This isn't the age of James Michael Curley anymore.