Posted 9:51 PM by Gene

Having finally seen video of that Hudson River crash landing we can say without question it was an incredible feat of aviation, and it gives us hope that someday most plane crashes can be survivable. (Idiots at the Beeb won't permit embedding!)

Posted 9:27 PM by Gene

In the words of the Statler Brothers, whatever happened to B-O-X-ING?

Posted 8:11 PM by Gene

Not that much change:

• Airport Closes Runway to Handle Crush of Inauguration-Bound Private Jets

Posted 7:47 PM by Gene

Seeking Alpha links to this most interesting study by two economists saying that when "the financial system" (i.e., J. P. Moneybags trailing a bunch of Ph.Ds in math) wants to wreck the economy, it can be a doozy, and the doozy somehow gets repeated again and again.

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

Another patience-testing PINCH-SUMNER poll states the peepul have lots of faith in The One, BUT:

Most Americans said they did not expect real progress in improving the economy, reforming the health care system or ending the war in Iraq — three of the central promises of Mr. Obama’s campaign — for at least two years. The poll found that two-thirds of respondents think the recession will last two years or longer.

Nuggets of sense amidst bushels of nonsense.

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

Meantime, judging from this press release, Phil Griffin, that combination fiery hyperpartisan and snake-oil salesman, thinks he's running the inauguration, which makes us hopeful that in time, just as the names in the last post are well in the past, to our incalculable loss, Phil will vanish too, and at best people may confuse him for Merv.

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

One purpose of an inaugural is to convince the age it is the most important in history. In that it merely underlines two of Shaw's Maxims for Revolutionists, the Faute de Mieux:

In my childhood I demurred to the description of a certain young lady as “the pretty Miss So and So.” My aunt rebuked me by saying “Remember always that the least plain sister is the family beauty.”

No age or condition is without its heroes. The least incapable general in a nation is its Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon, the least confused thinker its Socrates, the least commonplace poet its Shakespear.

We learn that "Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Bono and Shakira" will be there, which is supposed to get the stupid excited, but merely confirms both maxims; after all, JFK had Ol' Blue (although we must remember Blue got Jack into bed with his Mafia friends, literally and figuratively); and for the election in 1944 FDR had Arts and Sciences for Roosevelt, whose membership (the convicted historian Conrad Black tells us) took up a whole page of letterhead and included

Jo Davidson, Larry Adler, Fredric March, Tallulah Bankhead, Ethel Barrymore, William Rose Benét, Thomas Hart Benton, Leonard Bernstein, Henry Seidel Canby, Eddie Cantor, Aaron Copland, Bennett Cerf, George Cukor, Agnes DeMille, John Dewey, W. E. B. DuBois, Will Durant, Albert Einstein, Clifton Fadiman, Edna Ferber, Jose Ferrer, Ruth Gordon, Oscar Hammerstein [II], Moss Hart, Lillian Hellman, George Jessel, George Kaufman, Hellen [SIC] Keller, Gene Kelly, Otto Klemperer, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Mann, Karl Menninger, Yehudi Menuhin, Clifford Odets, Dorothy Parker, Wilfred [SIC] Pelletier, Jerome Robbins, Paul Robeson, Richard Rodgers, Carl Sandburg, Joseph M. Schenk [SIC], James Thurber, Michael Todd, Louis Untermeyer, Mark Van Doren, Max Weber, Orson Welles, Franz Werfel and Monty Woolley. [!]

We haven't mentioned those who campaigned for him on the radio from Hollywood just before the election (omitting several names above):

Joan Bennett, Mr. and Mrs. Irving Berlin, Humphrey Bogart, Virginia Bruce, Jimmy Cagney, Harry Carey, Claudette Colbert, Joseph Caution [we think he means Cotten], Linda Darnell, John Garfield, Judy Garland, James Gleason, Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Walter Huston, Rex Ingram, Danny Kaye, Evelyn Keyes, Groucho Marx, Paul Muni, George Raft, Edward G. Robinson, Gale Sondergaard, Lana Turner, Richard Whorf, Jane Wyman, Keenan Wynn....

And from New York:

Constance Bennett, Gertrude Berg, Milton Berle, Charles Boyer, Marc Connelly, Eddie Dowling, Olin Downes, John Gunther, Fannie Hurst, the Ink Spots, Dorothy Maynor, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Alonzo Myers [Henry Alonzo Myers, an English professor at Cornell], Waldo Pierce, Elmer Rice, Barney Ross, Vincent Sheean, Frank Sinatra [yep, then too], Paul Strand, Franchot Tone, Benay Venuta and Fay Wray. [!!!!!]

I vote for the past.

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

We learn (and this was a very underreported story because we hadn't seen it before) that Trammell Crow, the real-estate developer, has died, and we must quote from the last two grafs of his Paper of Re-CORD obit as they speak for themselves:

Mr. Crow also came up with the idea for a bronze sculpture erected in 1995 on a downtown Dallas plaza of three cowboys and 70 six-foot-high longhorn steers. The local art community sneered. Cynics suggested he was really trying to forestall a new hotel on the site that could compete with one he owned nearby. The historically inclined groused that Dallas, unlike nearby Fort Worth, was never really a cow town.

“I have about 8 or 10 pieces from Rodin in my buildings here,” Mr. Crow said in an interview with The New York Times. “Under their sort of criticism, we shouldn’t have any sculpture from Rodin in Dallas. Rodin never even came to Dallas.”

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Hollywood's contributing to ABE JR.'s continuing campaign, ho-hum.

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

For once the hacks do not assume that smarmy people-who-talk-morals-are-prudes attitude when it comes to this 15-year-old boy who is trying to fight cussing and has gotten death threats for his pains. Seeing as how the hacks de facto take the side of the cussers given their divine adoration of THE CONSPIRACY we hold them in no small way responsible.

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Many of the acolytes will go too far with their celebrating, regardless of the "times".

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

Despite the carnage on Wall Street last year, investors were told that their investments had earned more than 8 percent as of November....

In a 2003 report, Sarasota-based The Wall Street Digest lauded Nadel's and Moody's experience, especially Nadel's "black box" computer trading program.

Will "sophisticated investors" ever learn?

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Abe traveled from Illinois to take the oath. ABE JR. went INTO Washington to go OUT of Washington to go back INTO Washington.

Ladies and gentlemen! We have a partner for P. T. Barnum!

“Some of his supporters go much too far,” says Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz. “Basically, a lot of it is twaddle, but it’s harmless twaddle.

Is it so harmless when people realize their new Abe isn't?

Posted 8:58 PM by Gene

ANOTHER VICTORY FOR ESPNCORP: The NPCPCAA has declared seventh-graders "prospective athuhlete-students" to prevent all manner of viper -- coaches from trying to recruit them.

What about sixth grade?

Posted 8:53 PM by Gene

Media companies aren't the only ones to take big writedowns after thinking they could justify gouging their customers.

Posted 8:39 PM by Gene

Another public service from Kaplan, Inc.:

Sign Up for Inauguration Survival Alerts

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

DROLL: CHEAP CHANNEL went expensively private before the bottom fell out of the radio biz, so now it is "restructuring", which means in part more "centralized disc jockeys", the sort of thing that got CHEAP CHANNEL so beloved in the first place.

So by all means, CHEAP, restructure! Then restructure again! And keep restructuring until you're no longer in business.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Before we wade into any more blatherskite about "bodies" of "wuhk", we may consider the tragic tale of a man named George O'Dowd, better known to the world as Boy George, who, it seems from his dreadful incarceration, never quite made it to boy.

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

GE BANCORP prepares to fire people as it goes the way of C and BofA.

Amazing how many people must suffer for the faults of the zillionaires at the top; but the one nice thing about being a CEO is that you not only get to blame someone else, you can fire him too.

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

The megapundit David Frum opines over inaugural balls:

“[N]ever, ever, ever go to an inaugural ball. They’re terrible. First you get in a taxi and instantly hit terrible traffic. Then the taxi drops you off at some cavernous space, like the Air and Space Museum. Then you get in a long line to drop off your coat. Then, once you’ve dropped off your coat, you get into another long line to get a drink and the whole time you’re surrounded by people you don’t know, and people who don’t know each other.”

And afterwards you get to tell people how important you are -- because YOU went to an INAUGURAL BALL!

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

The latest con-SER-va-tive strategy is to say that Dubya was a good foreign policy president, therefore he was a good president. True he had to do what had to be done, with terrorists, in Afghanistan, and, yes, in Iraq; but the idealism was botched in the execution thanks to the loudmouths who made themselves indispensable, like RUMMY and Gen. Fogbound, and by Dubya's own ceaseless pondering as to, say, whether the midget of North Korea was a terrorist. In the end, foreign policy is only part of a presidency, and Dubya swelled our Federal Register even as he crawled into a cave in the end days over our economy, letting more incompetents rule over him. Yes, maybe history can "clear" Dubya, but it will be a long time coming.

Posted 12:38 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS and SLIME have finally settled their exasperating dispute over this geek movie, meaning another thing for the ad-blurbists to praise.

P. S. TWXSTER shareholders approved a reverse split -- putatively because the company is splitting off its cable unit. SURE, Bew-KES, sure.

Posted 12:34 PM by Gene

Could it be -- even Pakistan's hillbillies don't want the holy cockroaches around anymore?

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Reading The Paper of Re-CORD's four pages of screaming over Andrew Wyeth we wonder why PINCH can't declare bankruptcy. From what I can glean Paper is upset because Wyeth was "conservative" and voted for Republicans. I can't speak of his enigmatic portraiture in no small way because like so many people I find the traditional arts largely irrelevant; all we know about them is that a lot of stuff hangs in museums and some high-profile auction houses are quite able to swindle fortunes out of the Madoff crew for their no-talent clients. We do not deny Wyeth's great talent, but we do not deny that the art world has shriveled into fads and dollars, and is cut off from the real world it can no longer even pretend to hold the mirror to.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

We don't know what to make of the STRIB going Chapter XI and Circuit City liquidating -- these outcomes were hardly unexpected -- except that a lot of businesses seem to be going bust at once.

Posted 9:28 PM by Gene

$140 BILLION FOR MERRILL!

Bank of America's reported plea for more federal help has dealt another black eye to both the banking sector and the badly bruised financial advisory business.

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR!

Posted 6:57 PM by Gene

People who gloat over how much junk television they finance will point to this story about the "necessity" of advertising. We can only say this: If advertising worked so well for Red Robin why did it discontinue it?

P. S. How much did Miller Lite spend last year?

Posted 6:55 PM by Gene

Fish poop helps balance ocean's acid levels

Could it balance Citigroup?

Oh, I forgot, Citigroup uses other kinds of poop.

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

With his nose-in-the-air immortality-conferring use of words like "body", JODY ROSEN AUTOMATICALLY QUALIFIES FOR OUR NEUHARTHISM OF THE YEAR AWARD!

DAMMIT, why did KAPLAN, INC. have to go UP today? (Consolation: after hours it went back below $400, and nearly every other nooz stock was down. Better: MNI, which has no doubt printed many aesthetes drooling over bodies, is BELOW $1 AGAIN. Was ever any industry more deserving of BANKRUPTCY?)

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

We wonder that no one has ascribed this miracle to The One, but we'll take it.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Obama has called for swift and bold action....

Is that Jennifer Love-in again?

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

And on the equal and opposite side of DIMWIT, Jed dreams that The One will cause a TREMENDOUS EFFUSION of AHT. If he means monkey splatters on canvases or more tired "transgressivism" he is no doubt right. But despite Hollywood's happiness there is no proof this wonder of the ages has caused its PRODUCT to get any better; and as we said before we can't export our AHT because it so brilliantly reflects our IDEALS. Just inviting classical musicians to the White House won't make them any less obscure. We're sure Dubya had lots of them over and couldn't wait for their piano banging to end. (Like the great political philosopher Leon Fleisher.) Besides we've been so SUMNERIZED the last four decades it might open him up to charges of SNOBBERY. No, we should remember Mr. Camelot's guest inaugural poet, the great Robert Frost, was 86 when he spoke "The Gift Outright", and he died two years later. NUF SAID.

Well, one more thing:

Imagine if he organized an evening at the White House in honor of Elliot [SIC!!!!!] Carter's hundredth birthday....

1. People would be asking, "Elliott Who?" 2. People would be yelling, "THAT'S MUSIC?!?" 3. Politico.com would report on it.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Wee Little Stevie of the Wall Street Journals CONSERVATIVE EDITION has a dream, straight from the defunct brain of The Wizard of Oz' MENTOR:

One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."

"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"

"Fire your government employees."

"Oh, no!"

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus.

And so would firing government employees. Let's start with that brain storm. Because (in no small measure) of REPUBLICAN presidents we have far more government employees on every level than we used to. Firing government employees would make the unemployment rate explode. But abolishing the income tax would -- free up money to people who couldn't spend it because the shock of all these government workers out of business would -- get the idea?

And what of defense, Wee Little Stevie? And what of policemen and firefighters? Oh, that's GOOD spending. They're exempt. Once we think in those terms we can find excuses for any government employees, and we dizzily whirl in an exercise of circular thinking.

What Wee Little Stevie has typed is the height of lunacy -- which means he'll soon be a favorite at NRO.

(Via Seeking Alpha. Better to seek a little further up the alphabet)

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

And when con-SER-va-tives complain that the FREE MARKETS are being STRANGLED by regulation, let them consider the free markets were strangled by their NO-regulation.

Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

Just as Dubya's minions rushed through their panicky response to our financial crisis, so the Democrats will rush through theirs, and hope we won't notice the continuing strong unpleasant odor.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

Nationalize Citigroup and Bank of America

What are we doing now?

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Why shouldn't KOLLEDGES spend on lawn care? They have a lot of -- green.

Or at least they used to.

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in Ken's black hole -- another satisfied customer!

Google BAC and the fourth entry down is THIS ONE!

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Seniles slap Eric's wrist, and he's in.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

And in more FREE EN-TER-PRISE news, Lilly's paying $1.42 billion to settle suits for saying Zyprexa could do what it really wasn't supposed to do.

Sounds a little like Wall Street.

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

ExxonMobil will save Hugo's socialismo!

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

"One deal too many"! "Ken Lewis's Waterloo"! "A black hole"!

Who forced you clowns to buy MERRILL?

Posted 9:16 PM by Gene

Slowly, and faintly, a few are likening the selling of HYER LURNING to the huge housing fraud. Slowly, and surely, the public will learn they are right.

Posted 8:09 PM by Gene

Speaking of the dreams of PHILIP K. DICK, those bad-taste champions of Dubai are "temporarily" halting work on this masterpiece (the tall one, that looks like a cross between a rocketship and the world's biggest pair of high-tech tweezers) because they don't have the -- credit. Meantime construction of that long-running PR stunt continues, for which its investors may rue the day when they can't find tenants.

Posted 8:03 PM by Gene

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' cultish following is creepy, but his resemblance to Thomas Edison is uncanny.

Indeed. Edison invented the incandescent lamp, the phonograph, the motion picture, and lots else. The Lord God Steve invented PC marketing and the music biz.

If this is intended as an obit, LITTLE MALCOLM, at least have the guts to say so.

Posted 8:01 PM by Gene

Here we were saying nice things about Bloomberg News and all of a sudden it thrusts up this hack boasting of all the freebies he gets, or hopes to get, for being nice to GENIUS. WE MUST BAN ROCK MUSIC CRI-TICS!

Posted 7:47 PM by Gene

We did NOT see this: Patrick McGoohan, the incredibly handsome star of Secret Agent, has died. My mom, who had a crush on all things British, especially had a crush on him. I could see why. It is also easy to see why the ASSPress should go where the sun don't shine; not only does this typist Andrew get the name of his show wrong, he spends all his obit talking about that annoying sci-fi-fantasy-geek CULT favorite The Prisoner, perhaps the most pretentious TV show ever. Well, he was still very handsome.

P. S. All RIGHT, all right -- it was called Danger Man in the U. K. You DON'T have to show off your TEEVEE knowledge -- but the last I heard we were NOT colonies anymore.

Posted 7:40 PM by Gene

Meanwhile Macy's hopes to make up for the masses avoiding it by "streamlining" its buying, as if you can streamline 70% off.

(Via Bloomberg)

Posted 7:33 PM by Gene

U.S. in talks to provide more aid to BofA: source

BofA's turning into the letter C!

This is its reward for buying MERRILL!

It makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE: C's getting out of brokerages because it's in lousy shape and UNCLE SUCKER gives BofA more money to prop up MERRILL?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Stale.com is cute again: One of its typists likens Facebook to cell phones. This comes just after the National Safety Council proposes a nationwide ban on cell-phone use while driving. We would not be entirely facetious to propose a nationwide ban on cell phones in public transit, on sidewalks, or anywhere else people can run their mouths. We can see his point of its alleged social usefulness -- but to get there you pretty well have to be connected anyway. If Facebook could find me a girlfriend I might join. I fear all it would find me are girlfriends from PRON sites. And then there are all the other unwanted friends. No thank you, ST. WARREN -- for now.

P. S. Despite this brilliant suggestion Kaplan, Inc. finished below $400 today.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

When do Harvard and Princeton Mutual Funds apply to the FDIC?

And look what appears below this story on Chronicle.com:

Montana Governor Presses Universities on Pork-Barrel Spending

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

We think it apt that one Web site has remembered Ricardo Montalban as the man who sold the Chrysler Cordoba. It reminds us (despite Chrysler's rep in the seventies -- or Fantasy Island's) that we are racing quickly from the golden ages of show-biz and automobiles in equal measure.

Posted 3:27 PM by Gene

And yes, their liberal counterparts are preening zillionaire damfools too.

It's interesting that Sullivan -- author of "The Conservative Soul" -- was invited along with the more liberal wing of the chattering class.

It's interesting that some typist for this fancy-dancy ultra-CW in-the-know affluent-grad-school-attending-fan-favorite site can't tell a conservative from a liberal.

As for us, we can't tell a damfool from a damfool.

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

PATRIOTISM:

BULLETIN MONSANTO HIKES QUARTERLY DIVIDEND 10% TO 26.5 CENTS

And the stock's still down.

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

Is Israel Losing the Media War in Gaza?

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

(That's media laughing.)

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

Bank of America Corp. will use the Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. name and bull logo for its wealth-management and brokerage divisions, the bank said.

TRANSLATION: BofA will sell Merrill when it can get away with it.

FURTHER TRANSLATION at 7:43 p. m.: They're trying to turn tripe into bull.

Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Three damfools party with The One.

Topic No. 1: Taxes. (Theirs.) Topic No. 2: Iraq. Topic No. 3 -- there was a Topic No. 3?

(Via The Oval)

Pardon -- 3.5 damfools (four when he's in the mood).

P. S. at 3:08 p. m. I'm not at all mad that three damfools partied with The One. To me they're just three damfools -- mostly because they're zillionaire pundits, and thus among the preeningest con-SER-va-tives.

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

Is it me or are cars starting to look like visions from THE IMMORTAL FILM VERSION OF MR. DICK'S IMMORTAL MASTERPIECE?

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

If textbook gouge -- publishers can find a way to charge their $200 per on an "all e-textbook campus", they will.

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

We cannot hope that the extreme embarrassment of Honorary Mayor Mike's lavish efforts to finance George's Pleasure Palace in the Bronx will stop such taxpayer abuses, but at least it could be the end of the beginning.

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

Hope you're feeling better, Fidel! PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

Add The One and The One of Search and you may get three -- that extra one perhaps added unwillingly.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

In other news of ticker symbols, Jamie (pardon, James) remembered that TWX is back below $10 again.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Could Tina put one of her "original" articles on the Cheat Sheet -- and have us give it a thumbs-down?

I'd sure like to.

Any article based on a "listicle" should qualify.

P. S.: PLA at $1.86, or $0.87 from delisticling.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

That the great lover Roman has elected not to return here would say that no amount of ad-blurbing can help him.

Maybe if he'd filmed comedies like WOODSTER THE PERV, huh?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

If con artists can steal 25 cents from your credit card, what in this Madoff world can prevent them from stealing $25?

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

This economy having been marked with all sorts of shotgun weddings what's one more? At some point, we fear, the bridal parties may end up using toy guns -- if they haven't already.

"$6.5 billion" compared to what in bad mortgages?

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Obamamania has gone from a certain whimsical amusement to a migraine. That The One's acolytes of the press who've organized much of this headache pain continue to speak in the tired shorthand of the stove-pipe hat and the cigarette holder underlines their essential fatuousness and a lack of imagination almost as vast as Luke Spielberg's. Despite dreams of avarice someday all these collectibles they're helping spawn with their combination Marvel Comics superhero worship and Huey Long foot stomping will be worth the equivalent of a Lehman Brothers stock certificate if they are not an outright embarrassment. But annoyed though we are with the hacks' flying on autopilot on the matter no one wants an embarrassment. The best we can hope for, we fear, is Slick, a middling bumbler with a good economy (though God knows the good economy bit is doubtful enough). Who knows, despite the PR maybe he could do better. He will have to do better BECAUSE of the PR.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Indeed there's more hot air at GE BANCORP where the Vivendi writedown came from.

One must ask if Littler Jeffy became a ward of Uncle Sucker to shore up his EARNINGS.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Even not taking the whining partisan cranks of Human Events at face value (which in their case is 1 mil), Sen. Leahy is the Dick Cheney of the left, a hand-rubbing schemer loyal to himself first, the Party second -- and the people twelfth, if at all.

Posted 2:58 PM by Gene

The One's Treasury choice has a Nannygate problem.

Yes, he does not seem to have chosen his Apostles all that well.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Mike Reagan’s New Radio Show Heard and Seen

We're not knocking Mike Reagan, but PILLHEAD proved most radio talk shows shouldn't be heard and seen -- and most of those shouldn't be heard.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Meanwhile, on the other end of political obstinance:

GOP Seeks Alternative Stimulus Proposals

Meaning BANEhead will schedule lots of press conferences and send out lots of press releases and scweam and cwy and tell mommy and all their tantrums won't do a doggone thing.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: THE WALL STREET JOURNALS LIBERAL EDITION DOES NOT USE QUOTATION MARKS.

Jonathan, read YOUR edition of the Journals -- you'll feel better.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

If Vivendi can write down part of its stake in GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT, doesn't that suggest there's plenty of financial hot air in GE BANCORP?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

Remember when everyone was yelling about the Libor and the TED spread?

So why is the system still stuck?

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

Now that the IGGLES have won the SUPER BORE let us reflect on how important that is. The first thing we'll hear about this is "civic pride." Civic pride allows professional sports owners to shake us upside down from the ankles every ten years for new stadiums. Well, if you want to talk civic pride, here's a very partial list of some of the institutions we used to be proud of, that vanished into corporate thin air or assumed other wan identities, that used to be as Philadelphian as the proverbial cheese steak or the IGGLES:

The Pennsylvania Railroad; the Reading Railroad; PHILCO; the Baldwin Locomotive Works; the American Locomotive Company; the Budd Company; Stetson hats; Botany 500 men's wear; After Six men's wear; Exide batteries; Atlantic Refining Co.; The Saturday Evening Post; TV Guide; John Wanamaker's; Strawbridge and Clothier's; American Bandstand; Breyer's ice cream; Whitman candies; Scott paper products; Hires' root beer; Good 'n' Plenty candy (not made here in ages)....

I could go on and on -- and I intend to add to this list over the next several weeks; but we've lost a lot more in civic pride than any band of NFL mercenaries could ever add. For proof you need look no further than the sixty percent of our city which is ghetto and the twenty percent which is industrial wasteland, never to be productively used again, except as car lots.

If I opened my blog up to comments I'd get as much praise as those musical Dilberts of BofA. I'm not knocking the IGGLES. Neither am I in their thrall.

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

If The One would like to be a one-term guy, all he has to do is follow the party and impose all manner of taxes, however "justified." And a soft-drink tax is "justified."

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

Eddie proving again why at minimum he should have been Secretary of State:

Governor Rendell: New Groundhog Adventures Debut on Groundhogdreams.com

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

Another megamedia company raises the white flag:

Before Star Wars Was a Joke [Home page only]

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

More brilliant creative thinking in teeveeland: ESPNCORP NETWORK may bring back Who Wants to Be a Millionaire!

How about TWENTY-ONE, while you're at it?

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

Lincoln, Churchill, Bush?

Look at it this way, Dubya -- you'll ALWAYS have a friend at NATIONAL REVIEW.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

Aw c'mon, Republicans -- be compassionate!

1. Didn't you try the same thing? 2. You're outta here in a WEEK, Dubya.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

Chickenland on S&P CreditWatch! Bokbokbokbokbokba-DOOOOOOOK!!!!!

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

With each passing day the Bernie story more and more resembles a farce. Now we learn his sons and niece started their own energy biz. That may have had a future -- just by collecting all the heat rising from the heads of his burned "investors" they could have warmed half of Siberia for three days.

Posted 9:55 AM by Gene

God bless Joe Morgenstern! A man who must still be pinching himself (like the rest of his ad-blurbing cohorts) that the Golden Globs came back believes that people will march en masse into the popcorn restaurants because they will want fantasies -- that challenge them! The biz must be -- audacious! Of course when a typist like Joe is finished a word like audacious means ad-blurbist pleasin', and mightily depressin' -- but what are the people but an abstraction to the ad-blurbists, who get in the way of greatness?

While it's not quite the Pepe LePew perfume we've come to expect from ad-blurbists it is still in its own puny way another argument for the news biz to fire its every last adjective addict.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal, which must exhume these things)

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

CHEAPIE MARKETWATCH sez:

Bush says actions on economy have helped credit markets

Stock market sez: down!

Someone must tell these presidents to keep their mouths shut!

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Hey One! Bail out commercial real estate!

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Obama's big idea: Digital health records

So once we get that done what new excuse will the system find to screw up?

Robert J. Samuelson says there isn't that much paperwork.

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

Shucks, the Big F's about to rattle the tin cup after all.

I guess it couldn't pass up a REALLY GREAT DEAL for AUTO-MO-BILES!

Posted 8:37 PM by Gene

And speaking of morons, this stupidity from twenty-one years ago:

Because the singing of songs is such a basic human instinct, melody is not about to disappear any more than is music itself. What has happened is that technology and global telecommunications have combined to transform the very form and content of popular music. As spontaneous cultural exchanges have taken place around the world, Anglo-American pop has lost its European-oriented ethnocentricity. At the same time, pop sound has become an omnipresent fact of urban life. The vocabulary of pop has become similar to the computer languages in which so many of us converse. Brevity, immediacy, speed and directness are what matter. Pop's dreamy enchanted evenings of long ago have become today's hot, beating nights.

GET ME REWRITE!

Pop is a computer language.

PINCH! FIRE STEPHEN QUARTER-OF-A-CENTURY HOLDEN!!!!!

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

We predict Bank of America, the Musical Bank, will be no more successful with SYNERGY than SONY, or PEOPLE WARNER, or any of these other show-biz piles.

And some of them are in the music biz too.

P. S. Judging from the F-bombs in the comments (here also; this was posted twice) the rabble seems more upset that these guys wrecked ONE OF THE GREATEST SONGS OF ALL TIME than that their employer unwittingly set them up to be very earnest doofuses. A few of them, however, did manage to connect this with the Kingdom of Angelo and credit-card hijinks, among other excesses -- and for that alone it ought to be embarrassing. (Incidentally, though we take no sides here, this seems to bring up more links.)

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

Obama promises new tack on Iran

You don't suppose it could prove the same old rusty tack?

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

And on my way to my godforsaken A & P to buy more BRAP I noticed this moron who frequently drives around Center City in a white van with a casket on top with a child's head sticking out. It's for some sort of ministry, God knows what. Usually he plays morbid music through the van's PA; some time ago he'd play Hooked on Classics. Today he was playing Merrill Reese and I thought to myself, cognitive dissonance -- especially given how the IGGLES may have a surprise next week.

Oh well, I'm expecting another sleepless night for another championship as immortal as our A's.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

While entering a code for my Coke Rewards account I noticed the following four letters, all in a row on one line:

BRAP

That's the sound you make drinking too much Coke.

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 11 [Ed Whelan]

1954— President Eisenhower nominates former California governor Earl Warren to serve as Chief Justice. Warren is already serving as Chief Justice pursuant to a recess appointment by Eisenhower in October 1953. Years later, Eisenhower will call his appointment of Warren “the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made.” Those familiar with the legacy of Justice William Brennan, also appointed by Eisenhower, might vigorously dispute that proposition. But Eisenhower’s death in 1969 prevented him from fully comparing what he accurately labeled his two biggest mistakes.

01/11 08:00 AM

Hold it! We thought he was an underrated president!

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

Chrysler CEO: Staff Cuts Aren't Sign of Sale Soon

Who says we have to sell ourselves to close shop?

Posted 12:52 PM by Gene

One of the ASSPress gang, being rather bored on a Sunday, decided to fill the empty time by writing an empty piece on the "passing" of the boomers from leadership, despite the slightly inconvenient thought that The One is "technically a boomer; he was born in 1961." Technically because, the ASSPressian assures us, he thinks different. Well, Slick and Dubya were Boomers, and they were "different" too. Also there's no preventing another Boomer from running for president, and we could have one or two more of their generation before they pass. And lest we forget they'll have their dead and increasingly old hand on the entitlements balance, meaning they'll be exerting some "leadership" for a while yet.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

QUESTION: When the Bush White House finally ends its Going Out of Business Sale on January 20 how many of the alumni will have become lobbyists?

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

By the way, we're not sure what the difference is between being behind the lines with the Taliban and being behind the lines with Les Moonves as in both cases we're in with the in crowd.

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Financing junk television that appeals to a younger DEMOGRAPHIC may actually chase viewers away; fortunately our audience has become so inured to junk and our sugar daddies so eager to back it we'll keep on making it anyway -- we think.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

"It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," the president-elect explained. "Part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it's true. And so how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo-American legal system, by doing it in a way that doesn't result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up."

Is somebody running for president or DID somebody run for president?

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: It's okay to be Dick Cheney when you're on OUR side.

Hey DON! When does Kaplan, Inc. finally lower the RATE BASE?