Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

And speaking of ac-TORs, here's a question: Whom would you die to meet -- Judy Garland or the latest one-hit wonder? This would seem a stupid question on the face of it -- the sort of question SO stupid no one would ever ask it, but after my recent encounter with BODIES of WUHK in Grate.com* I must, because a lot of hacks turn one-hit wonders into geniuses. Robert "Over the" Hilburn and others such did not get to be exquisite headaches by not seeing the genius in their singularities. For every grunt, for every slant rhyme, for every profanity, for every fifth-rate copying of fourth-rate tunes, for every generous helping of NOODLE, for every drum perforation and guitar smashing, for every brazen stupidity, for the very act of being stupid and proud of it, there must be ART. After all, there is ART in those with more than one hit, isn't there? That their heroes cannot under any definition be considered superior to the past should be obvious even to their champions, but the news hack is nothing without putting the LI in obvious -- or should we say the LIE -- which, though many will deny it a reason, and perhaps plausibly so, might still contribute to the LALATimes (former stomping ground of "Over the") firing 300, or the former ACCENT on NET wiping OVER $5 BILLION in "GOODWILL" from its books.

I am not knocking ROCK for being rock; if these geniuses had a tenth of, say, the Brill Building types -- well, they'd be better anyway. (They won't be as they epitomize GIGO.) The recent memorializing over Buddy Holly et al shows rockers once had a knack. Though rock did not end with that plane crash it may well have been the beginning of.

Speaking of, "That'll Be the Day" puts a smile on your face. [C]RAP takes the smile OFF.

P. S. I am certain the picture above is colorized, but it happens to be a very good one. Now to track down those immortal GAMS.

P. P. S. And since we have mentioned the undying Frances, we should note that in '61 E. Y. "Yip" Harburg wrote a Broadway show based on Offenbach and Aristophanes called The Happiest Girl in the World -- and one of its tunes is called "That'll Be the Day" -- which despite its clever lyrics has that title, and whose presence says even very talented men like Harburg were dense to the culture in the musical's final days.

*This may also help explain why I got so fantastically exercised over THE LAUREATE -- this is precisely the sort of BS a young LAUREATE would write.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

David Thomson, in his pretentious mode, dispenses what lesser mortals might see as the kiss of death by likening Kate W. to Meryl. (He must also refer to her, USAOKAY!!!!! style, as an ac-TOR. Let us refer to Vivien Leigh or Danielle Darrieux as an ac-TOR. Do that, Dave.) He further suggests she (or is that he) must be an ac-TOR because (he supposes) she can wizen her size-11 feet for a role. Not finished with his amazement he believes she (or is that he) should play in comedies -- which not only ignores Meryl's brilliant comic career (quick! name a Meryl comedy! Mamma Mia! doesn't count except for unintentional) but somehow ignores the fact that today's "comedy" requires you to open all your orifices. Not such a brilliant idea, Dave.

And as if to completely prove his point,

[C]an she do comedy in the manner of Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck or Katharine Hepburn?

Those three names would seem to answer that question.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

This sounds like the kind of hopeful reporting that occasionally issues from Iran. But why shouldn't Russians protest? They have enough to protest about, starting with their puppeteer.

Perhaps it is finally dawning on them that no great republic was ever built on oil.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Here's one good thing about the...economy: it may finally be bringing sanity to law firms.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Oh dear oh dear:

Trillion dollar legislation doesn't come along every day, and the hard choices are not just what we spend money on but how, at what speed, towards which priorities. Is getting a bad bill quickly really worth it? Is taking more time to get it right really so risky?

I would not put it past this president and his team to have calculated that this engorged House bill was precisely what the system would yield; that the Republicans would oppose it out of both principle and politics; that there would come a moment, once all the Old Bulls had had their say, for the New President to ride in to the rescue, and actually fulfill his promise of Change We Can Believe In by turning this into a Bill We Can Actually Live With. Maybe he is building to a denouement, when a president who promised to make hard decisions takes a sprawling bill that tries to do so many things at once and performs some highly public sacrifices of some Democratic sacred cows. And by so doing, shows who's really in charge of leading America out of these dark times.

If that's the way this goes, he will have earned a hat as big as Texas. But if he keeps saying the right things while Washington keeps doing the wrong things, he will be worse than a passive leader: he will be the one who, with all the energies and hope he unleashed, brought the Democrats back to power, broke the legislative log jam, and drowned us all.

And who, pray tell, helped elect him with halos?

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

A "/" in a URL renders the G000,000,000GLE "monoculture" useless for forty minutes.

Will con-SER-va-tives tell me again why a one-company state is good?

P. S. at 7:10 p. m.

Google is not known for glitches, but there have been other recent ones. Google Maps had a software glitch last month that sent drivers trying to get to different points within Staten Island, specifically zip codes 10302 and 10308, on a 176-mile detour to Schenectady instead.

The Paper of Re-CORD would notice.

Posted 1:07 PM by Gene

On the week of the death of THE LAUREATE OF BAD SEX, the unlikely Joe Torre proves there is still life in LI-TE-RAH-TEEYURE. He (or rather he and his ghost) calls his former players names, his former players call him names, everybody gets a laugh, and it sells books, at least in Yankeeland.

Now having had someone call someone else names, could someone else write a book?

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Oops! The One has second thoughts about "buy American".

Perhaps because we "buy Chinese".

Posted 3:07 PM by Gene

NEIL's running his mou...a task force on the middle class!

If faux pas were riches....

VEEP BIG-OIL would have considered it a demotion.

"This task force will bring together my economic advisors and members of my Cabinet to focus on policies that will really benefit the middle class, policies to create jobs that pay well and provide a chance to save, to create jobs in growing fields and train workers to fill them, to ensure that workplaces are safe and fair as well as flexible for employees juggling the demands of work and family," the president said.

Sounds like we're getting somewhere -- on a snail's shell.

Posted 2:41 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The bi-partisan One wants his SIXTY!

Don't do it, Judd! Remember who he last Commerce sec was. Remember who was supposed to be the secretary!

Pffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

God Bless PEOPLE WARNER, God Bless PEOPLE INC.: Who needs The One, or Speaker Babs, or even John "BANEhead" Boehner, or Secretary Geithner, or John Thain, or any of those types; today the big story is Jessica Simpson's figure. We did not notice it staring as hard as we did at that ugly glorified pantsuit. But in show-biz there's no accounting for taste as there's no taste to account for.

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

ESPNCORP TELEVISION NETWORK's going to CRAM its online shows with ADS!

Or as RANCE's boys say in the subhed:

How Long Before an Online TiVo?

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

The question isn't how the economy did last quarter -- we expected the trip to the La Brea Tar Pits -- but how it will do this quarter.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Tom Jones will get intimate on new US tour

PLEASE, ASSPress, keep him VERY intimately away from US!

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

And we make the case if this wins the coveted Best-Picture Os-CAR® so many people will automatically tune out the A-ca-de-my A-WARDS® as an exemplar of the smallest-minded PC elite snobbery the producers may have to take pointers from The Miss America Organization!

Posted 7:12 PM by Gene

From Rasmussen Reports:

Public Support for Economic Recovery Plan Slips to 42%

Number Who Say Nation Heading in Right Direction Jumps to 27%

Posted 6:39 PM by Gene

Oooh, Mr. Mellerdrammer would have voted NO on the stimulus bill.

And then he'd find some good reason to vote YES.

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

Arrests of girls and women have reached a record high as female offending patterns show signs of becoming similar to those of men.

Somewhere, an aging feminist is smiling.

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

Here's the umpteenth story of our woebegone retailers. We have NO SYMPATHY for them. The retailing SUPEREXPANSION started when department stores ran SCREAMING out of the cities at the sight of the first black man, then built to a climax as other retailers huddled together in malls around their pioneering race prejudice, then got superhot as America's financial screwlooses disgorged zillions of credit cards. They created untold stores we don't need selling untold goods we don't use, destroyed our cities, ruined our manufacturing with their constant clamor for idiot low costs, and put untold people out of work. Too many of these chains were overdue to implode. Only with this disaster do we finally learn how little we needed them.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

Some Dr. Frankenstein created some creatures called "sports e-thi-CISTS" who moan over a team winning 100-0. Of course it's shameful, but for news hacks to moan is the height of hypocrisy, as ESPNCORP and its culture of TOTAL ATTITUDE DEMAND 100-0 -- and many of the hacks are quite attitudinal.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

Will Ground Zero ever be filled in?

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Republicans have a choice. Are we going to be the party of political expediency or are we going to be the party driven by principle?

That, of course, depends upon one's definition of "principle." If by "principle" we mean giving the store away to the rich and making K Street a wholly-owned subsidiary and turning the other cheek at our own corruption and letting a big fat bloviating zillionaire cigar smoker be our default spokespoop, we'd say your party is very principled.

Of course, as we're too well aware, the Democrats have their principles too: the principle of abortion at any cost, the principle of retreat and withdrawal at any cost, the principle of show-biz as the fount of our morals, the principle of tantruming as righteousness. And they've pretty much locked up K Street for the interregnum.

Is ANY political type immune from the seductions of DUKE CUNNINGHAM?

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

Hey JO-NAH! When do we drape our Web site in BLACK for MR. LAUREATE?

The more these numskulls praise LAUREATES and SOUTH PARKS the more we should NOT consider them conservatives.

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

Thinking the Impossible: Could Bank of America Go to Zero?

The way America's speculative money burners and CEO enrichers are mismanaged that's considered impossible?

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

TNR concedes -- the word "liberal" will always have a skunk smell.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Judge Rejects Obama Bid to Stall Gitmo Trial

Oops, I guess doing the thing that will get the world to REALLY LOVE US isn't that easy.

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

Yes, there was a lot of fanfare and pomp and hoohaw a week ago when the new president stood on the West Terrace of the Capitol, looking out at a crowd of, what, about 1.8 million people, not counting the 100,000 or so purple-ticket holders trapped in the Third Street Tunnel. And, yes, he's young, handsome, smart, hip, and has a gorgeous family and a reliable jumper from beyond the arc. No question, he is now the most powerful person on the planet. But he can't let this go to his head.

That's because failure is inevitable in any presidential administration. Failed presidencies are one of our last thriving industries.

So why has it been success since you hacks ran him for president?

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

Biden: Stimulus Package Will Get Better With Changes

He must mean more expensive.

Is Neil misspeaking himself again?

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

BIG HAIR'S OUTTA THERE!

Well, we still think he has a future as a Robert Blake impersonator.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

We, America's First Amendment Defenders, can't tell you what the president is doing, but we can tell you what he's wearing.

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

Perhaps it’s time for everyone to pull up their pants and show each other a little more respect; and, since we’re supposed to be the adults, it has to start with us, with how we behave, how we draw boundaries and what we put in our newspapers and magazines and on our television screens.



TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-TA-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH....

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

And before you get too excited, Nancy, 85 PERCENT of surveyed voters disapprove of you swine -- and only 37 PERCENT of them are "even somewhat confident" you clowns know what you're doing.

And let us all remember: In a crunch, the Democrats are Robin Hoods who will rob from MORE THAN THE RICH -- and the Republicans are REVERSE ROBIN HOODS.

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

We have no take on the DTV delay biz (either way it's a mess, albeit a small one), but we will say this week portends The One having to pick himself up and dust himself off a lot.

The House may not be completely immune to filibustering either, despite NANCY!!!!!'s best efforts at autocracy.

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

ST. WARREN's favorite bank was (indirectly) exposed to BERNIE!

That should add a rattle in the tin cup.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

“We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we’d like to do our best to preserve that system.”

With government ownership!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

PREDICTION: Within three years Starbucks gets gobbled up by a fast-food chain.

MICKEY D is out. It's mastered the art of PERFECTION.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Graffiti, as so many news hacks have told us over so many years, is AHT.

It is also "vandalism, drug possession, narcotics for sales, weapons possession and other parole violations".

It is also everywhere:

"These individuals are responsible for tags not only in Los Angeles but Las Vegas and San Francisco,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Dan Finkelstein, who is chief of the Metropolitan Transit Authority police.

It is also, at its worst, environmental pollution:

“The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that removing the 'MTA' tag from the riverbed alone will cost $3.7 million.

And expensive. And labor-intensive to remove:

Officials use high-pressure water spray to remove the toxic paint.

But hazardous-materials crews must then dam and capture all the paint and water runoff to prevent it from getting into the river. The crew did an additional $20,000 worth of damage to transit vehicles and facilities. Finkelstein said the Los Angeles River "MTA" tag, in a vast industrial district east of downtown between two rail yards, took about 400 gallons of paint -- 300 gallons white and 100 gallons black. “It took them four nights to do it,” he said....

“Some of this group could face federal charges,” Finkelstein said. During the raids, Finkelstein said, investigators found customized high-pressure fire extinguishers that, when filled with paint, allow the tagger to hang upside down on the underside of a freeway and quickly scrawl massive graffiti. These taggers are not kids, he said.

It is also the province of professional crooks:

Most those detained are in their 20s; one of them drives a $60,000 BMW, and another member possesses a diamond-and-ruby-encrusted Metro logo pendant with paperwork suggesting it's worth $29,000, Finkelstein said.

"It's not art," says this blogger. "It's visual spam." And that, friends, is an insult.

P. S. There's a group trying to restore the river's habitat. Any way you slice it, these ahtists are schmucks.

P. P. S. Some of the commenters are aghast at the alleged $3.7 million tag. Well, yes, it's government; but it's also a not-to-distant cousin of asbestos removal, and paint is a hazardous waste.

And to those who say it's something to look at, somehow we lived without graffiti for decades. Why now?

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

$32B loss at ConocoPhillips [Home-page hed]

STIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMULUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUS!!!!!

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

And now, after fake "memoirs" and the unending honors for Mr. Laureate, we learn a "RAPTUROUSLY-REVIEWED" WRITER may have invented parts of his personal history -- no doubt to gain favor with RAPTUROUS REVIEWERS, which should prove for all time the stupidity of the literary backscratchers, and that Kaplan, Inc.'s action was a right and just thing.

(This too via the very annoying AhtsJournal)

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

And in a fitting tribute to Mr. Laureate, The Daily Kaplan is ending its freestanding book-"review" section. News hacks and press agents will miss it. We won't -- it was a solid compendium of unearned praise only bettered by the Paper of Re-CORD's Book "Review." We note Jonathan Yardley, one of the very few critics we trust, seldom wrote for the "Review", but in the paper.

P. S.

"It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities."

MR. LAUREATE INSPIRED MB2! ENOUGH IDIOT PRAISE!

P. P. S.

Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.

Under the circumstances, NUF SAID.

P. P. P. S. ISN'T ONE JO-NAH OBSESSING OVER DUBIOUS CULTURE ENOUGH? WHY DOES NRO NEED MULTIPLE JO-NAHS?

(Salon.com link via the occasionally idiot AhtsJournal)

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

OUCH! Hahvahd Mutual Fund may have lost half its investments -- but Grate.com must hide the story on its home page on a tab behind more posthumous logrolling for the LAUREATE OF BAD SEX.

P. S. HMF speculated in OIL. Hedge funds, emerging markets -- yes, I'd give HMF an A for money-burning! Serves it and its nose-in-the-air would-be-investment-banker clients right!

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

Seen on an eBay auction:

"JUNK is stuff you throw away....
....STUFF is junk you keep."

Pardon: Junk is stuff you throw away. Stuff is junk you sell on eBay.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

• Wells Fargo Has First Loss Since 2001; Shares Jump as Bank Keeps Dividend

TRANSLATION: Shares jump as shareholders think Uncle Sucker will help them keep it.

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

We are now about to see if making nicey-nicey with the Puppeteer works any better than DETENTE.

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

The Japanese mania for cute product names may have gone too far:

Toyota Motor Corp [sic] said Wednesday it would recall more than 1.35 million Vitz and two other models globally to fix a defect in the seatbelt, a component in the exhaust system or both.

Subject to the recall in Japan are 525,898 Vitz, Belta and Ractis cars built from January 2005 to April 2008, Toyota said in a filing with the transport ministry.

Vitz on the fritz! Pelta the Belta! Ractis needs practice!

Is Toyota starting to morph into the GM of Japan?

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

On one side are a very long list of pro-stimulus economists, such as Nobel winner Paul Krugman of Princeton University, who believe government spending can have a positive impact in today's extremely weak economy. On the other side is a shorter but eminent list of economists who are skeptical about the benefits of stimulus, including Nobel winner Gary Becker of the University of Chicago and top macroeconomist Robert Barro of Harvard.

Given those first two names it's safe to say we'll NEVER get at the truth.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

OoooooOOOOOoooooh:

WE ARE DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO HAVING A GOVERNMENT WITHOUT NEWSPAPERS!!!!! [Concerned overemphasis added]

This may be in no small measure because for so long we had a government OF newspapers.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Stocks signal sharply higher open on stimulus vote

Let us guess which CEOs' salaries benefit.

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

RUSHRUSHRUSH, ZOOMZOOMZOOM, SPENDSPENDSPEND!

Let's see if The One and Co. can do it better than whoever his predecessor was and his incompetent Treasury disburser.

Posted 7:01 PM by Gene

SOMEONE TALKS BACK AT PILLHEAD!

Problem is, it's a Republican congressman.

Posted 6:48 PM by Gene

Meantime in the land of...Lincoln....

Posted 6:30 PM by Gene

Speaking of the BIG BAD AD AGE, do you suppose Indra has been out of the bunker in Purchase in three weeks, using her middle fingers and other digits all this time to plot all the ad spending at the SUPER BORE like Ulysses Grant mangling maps over the Army of the Potomac?

We'd bet twenty years ago she thought football was soccer. Now we can be sure her feet grace the railings of the 50-yard-line luxury boxes EVERY year. It's not just AIRPLANES.

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

BOOST IN AD SPENDING PAYS OFF FOR HERSHEY!!!!!!!!!!

Fourth-Quarter Income Up 51%, Also Thanks to Price Increases, Consumers Trading Down [Overemphasis added]

We know ALL ABOUT THE ECONOMY, RANCE.

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

Rog calls The Deep-Thinking Hitler-Expert Rock Cri-TIC an "idiot" over what he said about OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohWAH!, meaning he's finally put all that celebrity toadying to good use.

By the way Rog, you give us an idea: Next year, have Gray-DON produce the Os-CAR®S as his party! That way he'd combine pretensions and laughter in one big show -- and we wouldn't need jokes on cue cards.

Oh wait -- they do it now...with cue cards.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

Would some be betting so much against ST. WARREN now if the many hadn't bet so much FOR HIM?

I'm wondering con-SER-va-tives don't make a B. HUSSEIN!!!!! stink over this one. THEY'RE BETTING AGAINST AMERICA!!!!! Or maybe they're betting against a man who invested in 1965.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

On the same home page:

Can Jihadis Be Rehabilitated?

Battling Addiction: Are 12 Steps Too Many?

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

I Spy Daddy Giving Someone the Finger
Your kids will imitate you. Use it as a force for good.

Yes! Teach them to be a writer! Then when they write for Grate.com they can give their readers the finger!

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

The good news: A talk-show host won a legal fight against SUPERHOOPER.

The bad news: It was the fake-outrage performance artist MICHAEL SAVAGE.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Those of us who hoped the ECONOMY would hand sports its head may be disappointed.

Oh well, it's as good an excuse for the STIMULUS as any.

P. S.

Indy faces red ink on big sports stadiums

MORE STIMULUS!

P. P. S. Meantime, the cost of replacing the parks around the NEW! IMPROVED!! YANKEE STADIUM!!! is only, oh, about $200 million.

“The kids that played in these parks will be adults and parents by the time we get the replacements.”

Somewhere, GEORGE is laughing.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

A worrisome stat:

Md. unemployment hits 15-year high

Worrisome, given some of the state's employers.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Is it reasonable to think the dying British "empire" will have any more luck with cars than it's had with banks?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Another outbreak of bullets, in Southern California.

We have tried before to work out the m.o. for such things and have failed. Have these happened often enough as to definitively put in people's minds the notion that life is not worth living? That's what so troubling about the scum Madoff -- in modern America, anything bad is possible.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Obama: People 'expect action'

The problem is, they may get it.

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

Bless its tiny soul; The Nation puts its right hand over its Purple Heart.

Aren't these the same sort of people we called pigs forty years ago?

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

The folks at SLIME's Weekly Standard, who just saw their boss promoted to The Daily Kaplan, get equally excited as the author of the inaugural address landed a "hot" girlfriend.

Better enjoy your eloquence while you can, fella.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

John Updike, the "laureate of bad sex", has died. RIP.

P. S. at 5:00 p. m. All right, ALL RIGHT, he was a GREAT PATRI-OT, but I still recall with anger the piece of junk he "wrote" for a trade rag called Meetings and Conventions about public golf courses, the sort of thing he could write with his toes, or his behind, or a pen stuck in his mouth -- and frequently did. (It's not on the site, but it has been anthologized, I don't remember where.) He was the acme of logrollers, he wore his nonjudgmentalism on his sleeve, he wrote a book called C--ts, and he never wrote in the heat of passion, except for one of his infernal sex scenes. All RIGHT, he was a GREAT PATRI-OT, but he wasn't THAT good.

What is with the KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! of con-SER-va-tive typists these days? Do really think they can hector B. HUSSEIN!!!!! into mediocrity? He has his own reserves.

P. P. S. at 5:22 p. m., from a man who knows infinitely better than I:

His prose style in fiction struck me as unpleasingly gray and thick, his essays and reviews as fluent but essentially conventional....

In the end I finally gave up, and decided that Updike was one of those undeniably important artists, like Wagner or Dreiser, to whose virtues I would always be deaf.

And most of the time I'd say Terry has a pretty good set of ears.

Posted 8:53 AM by Gene

Citigroup Grounds Plans to Buy $50 Billion Corporate Jet [SIC]

Jake! JAKE!! We don't care how hot you are -- it's NOT $50 BILLION.

Of course, given it's CITI....

Posted 7:24 PM by Gene

Lehman moves to foreclose on developer

Does this not sound like a practical joke?

Posted 7:18 PM by Gene

60-34 is hardly a vote of confidence.

Posted 7:01 PM by Gene

Seeing how many people are wise to liquidation sales wouldn't it make more sense just to stay in business?

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

Here is where the rah-rah of news-hack partisanship serves us so miserably: it thoroughly obscures thoughtful, sober pieces like this by Jacob Weisberg -- and we must confess his name would not appear high on a list of either word. (Nor does it help that this appears in Michael "Snark" Kinsley's memorial Web site and in Zeitgeist.) But he does it, and he does what news hacks almost never do: he makes you think.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

ProPublica teams with LOU "THE POPULIST SUCKUP" DOBBS!!!!!!!!!!, which if it's not Superman teaming with Lex Luthor, is still enough to make us think of the platitudes that started ProPublica.

See? SEE? We DID think of PEOPLE WARNER!



Speaking of which, comic books aren't the only things getting uglier.

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Andrew Sullivan
The Death Of American Trees READ MORE
1.26.09 5:26 pm

Good Lord, does that mean he's obsessing about his role in that too?

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Kremlin: Obama, Medvedev vow to seek better ties

I don't know, Bam -- you might want to speak to the puppet's BOSS.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

If Blago's impeached does he still get to be governor?

Knowing Blago this may NOT be a stupid question.

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

CHHHHRRRRISSSSS-to-PHUH shows his HI MOM! side:

The president has a better grip on the English language than any of his living-memory predecessors, and it seems certain that he wrote at least 80 percent of this address himself.

1. Does that count Dorothy Fields? (Both sides have a point, by the way.) 2. Did somebody whisper the number in your ear? Did you have access to every last draft The One wrote? If not, we'd wager that 100 percent of the time you can be 50 percent stupid when writing a column.

Yes, even Chris can be human.

P. S. It was largely written by Hillary Fondler.

P. P. S. Hey PHIL! PHIL "LE GENERAL ELECTRIC C'EST MOI" GRIFFIN! HERE'S your guy for TEN -- even if he IS just right of left and has a funny accent!

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Who'd have figured Sen. Squoosh from Maine would show more backbone than, say, the Greatest Deliberative Body's Greatest Musician?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE DE LAWD! Layaway comes to rock concerts.

Pfffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Some con-SER-va-tives are in a SOUR mood because The Paper of Re-CORD fired Mr. Neocon. We say there are 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 writers who could do better than Mr. Neocon. In a sense he was unlucky because the Paper thought of him as a sort-of Rent-a-Writer -- as he all but admitted. But when it comes to cheaping on the goods it's not just Mr. Neocon -- it's people like Frank "STROKE!" Rich and SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX and MB2 and and all the other platitude peddlers of the press. Many, many, MANY writers could do better than they. But so long as they have their connections and their inflated reps, and so long as the print newshole keeps shrinking, they're in.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Currently PILLHEAD and NOSE grace Politico.com's home page, and God knows they should put their ample mouths where the sun don't shine.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Should the same economists who didn't foresee the economic walloping be trusted with the unemployment rate?

Posted 10:44 PM by Gene

GREAT: Our tax dollars may be about to indirectly finance a big Big Pharma merger.

Let's hope this one works out better than some other Big Pharma mergers.

Posted 8:45 PM by Gene

Here's a thought: One reason we're facing such a large Darwinian wave in the economy may be that the easy money of the last two decades delayed creative destruction that otherwise would have occurred.

As long as credit was more than ample, many businesses and technologies could hang on despite being under heavy attack from more innovative rivals.

TRANSLATION: Our financial system was the MORAL EQUIVALENT OF GOVERNMENT.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 6:29 PM by Gene

With Rates Near Zero, What Will Fed Do Next?

We were going to say "give the money away" but it's already doing that.

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

Shepard the Giant

Shepard is a one-hit wonder. What will he do the next time? But then most artists are one-hit wonders. Maya Lin produced her IMMORTAL memorial and disappeared, and Frank S. Gehry keeps drafting the same leaky roofs.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

McCain thinks 'the world' of Palin

Now that's he's not running for the most important man in the...oh, never mind.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

Fearing Another Quagmire in Afghanistan

Wait! We're not supposed to rub our hands in a DEMOCRATIC administration!

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

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

1. Rance's hacks, doing their best to help in an ECONOMY that might inspire RANCE to have to lay off a few at HIS rags, gives us the good news: SUPER BORE ADS WORK!!!!!

Another web-based marketer, E-Trade, opted to return to the game this year after its "Talking Baby" ad in Super Bowl XLII led to a 32% surge in newly opened and funded accounts opened in the week following the game. Online searches for the brand grew 1,000% from the hour before the game to the hour after the game, and more than 5 million people viewed the ad online, according to E-Trade CMO Nick Utton. This year, the marketer is investing more in digital and viral tactics to grow those numbers and multiply the impact of its buy.

"This is not 'spend and pray,'" he said. "This is a well-thought-through, strategic decision."

Somehow after BERNIE we don't associate the financial services biz with PRAYER, unless it's to the DEVIL.

And when the message is right, the numbers speak for themselves: Cars.com grew brand awareness 12% last year with its Bowl buy; Audi saw its web traffic climb 200% in the 30 days following the game; CareerBuilder saw a 68% surge in job applications in the three months following the game. Of course, when they get to the site, it's up to the automaker to cinch the sale. (PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!)

Do they? Not a word from the Rancemen, and not a word on whether the brand-awareness falls back to near zero in the months after; but we understand in THIS economy.

Oops! I think I used the wrong link! Here's the press release.

2. INBEV Anheuser-Busch is cutting back on "exclusives". That in itself might contradict what one of its executives of TV money wasting said in that press release. If you're not going to keep your competitor out what's the point of advertising?

3. The new CW is the hacks will dim The One's light. We don't think they will do it so much as, say, Nancy -- and this smells of CW because the hacks can always redeem him in their eyes, whatever his press secretary's faults.

4. MICKEYMOUSE NIXON will have to make FIVE BILLION WEB SERIES before he can think of taking over ESPNCORP.

P. S. from January 2:

A pair of E-Trade Financial Corp. units have been fined $1 million for failing to implement anti-money laundering policies and procedures, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Friday.

I think I could count the number of times this story got posted on the fingers of one hand. Thank God for press agen -- NEWS HACKS.