Posted 7:12 PM by Gene

ANOTHER NOTE ON THE TWXSTERS, ALAS: We have long believed show-biz outfits with news organizations run EXCLUSIVES!!!!! like this for a malevolent purpose: to fake an apology for their sins, and to thus give them cover to egg on more psychopaths. We would say you can't have it both ways, but despicable outfits like PEOPLE WARNER say you can.

There may be one other reason: to mock St. Valentine's Day, and to wave a middle finger at the victims of this massacre. We will say, for the nonce, pulling a big fat SYNERGISTIC one is bad enough.

Oh, and tell that IDIOT PAUL DRECK this won't help the stock. (Nor HIS -- Hollywood.com sells at EIGHTY CENTS.)

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Messrs. Smoot and Hawley still lurk in the "stimulus", and may still bite our behinds.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Today, after going back through past musings (and being the only one to do so) we decided to repost from this classic PEOPLE WARNER CABLE NEWS press release from 2000 about THE MERGER OF THE MILLENNIUM, original overemphasis added, which reminded us nearly three years ago "why we do not trust one word of show-biz coverage, including definite and indefinite articles":

"TOGETHER, THEY REPRESENT AN UNPRECEDENTED POWERHOUSE!!!!!” said Scott Ehrens, a media analyst with Bear Stearns. "IF THEIR MANTRA IS CONTENT, THIS ALLIANCE IS UNBEATABLE!!!!! NOW THEY HAVE THIS GREAT PLATFORM THEY CAN CROSS-FERTILIZE WITH CONTENT AND REDISTRIBUTE!!!!!”....

"I DON’T THINK THIS IS TOO MUCH TO SAY THIS REALLY IS A HISTORIC MERGER; A TIME WHEN WE’VE TRANSFORMED THE LANDSCAPE OF MEDIA AND THE INTERNET!!!!!” said Steve Case, AOL’s chairman and chief executive officer. "AOL-TIME WARNER WILL OFFER AN INCOMPARABLE PORTFOLIO OF GLOBAL BRANDS THAT ENCOMPASS THE FULL SPECTRUM OF MEDIA AND CONTENT!!!!!”....

"TODAY’S ANNOUNCEMENT REALLY DOES CHANGE THE TECTONIC PLATES IN THIS WORLD!!!!!” said Christopher Dixon, media analyst with PaineWebber.

"THIS REALLY UNDERSCORES THE STRENGTH OF THE INTERNET!!!!!” he said. "THE INTERNET IS HERE AND IT’S NO LONGER JUST ABOUT TECHS!!!!! IT’S ABOUT BROADBAND, IT’S ABOUT STREAMING VIDEO, IT’S ABOUT STREAMING MUSIC AND IT’S ABOUT COMING UP WITH ALL KINDS OF WAYS TO USE YOUR COMPUTER IN A VERY TV-LIKE EXPERIENCE!!!!!”....

"THIS IS THE FIRST MAJOR COMBINATION OF AN ONLINE COMPANY AND A BRICKS-AND-MORTAR MEDIA COMPANY!!!!!” said Ben Rogoff, manager of Aberdeen Asset Management’s technology fund in London, which has more than 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in assets, and holds America Online stock. "IT’S THE DEAL THAT EVERYONE WILL HAVE TO FOLLOW!!!!!”....

"IF MICROSOFT REALLY WANTS TO BE A PLAYER IN THE MEDIA SPACE, THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RESPOND!!!!!” Ehrens said. "THIS [DEAL] JUST PUSHES AOL/TIME WARNER INTO THE STRATOSPHERE AHEAD OF THEM!!!!!”

Now, as PEOPLE WARNER struggles in single-digits, we submit such psychotic wish fulfillments are one reason for our economic disaster.

And again we pose the question of 2006: "By the way, whatever happened to Gerry Levin -- and who cares?"

Which we should remember if The One promotes the FORMER KING RICHARD to Commerce.

Posted 3:45 PM by Gene

"Today, I am going to give you a good sense of what's to come!" exclaimed Cook, almost presciently at the Disney Showcase. "We have the best talent and the best technology, the best executives and the best effects! Only the best is good enough for Disney!"

Nobody said the movies have to be any good -- and LUKE SPIELBERG brings a LOT of effects.

ESPNCORP still near a six-year low.

Posted 2:46 PM by Gene

In more Economist-New Yorker-Atlanticking from Zeitgeist, Daniel lets forth with this choice morsel:

[B]ankers have go to beyond gestures and stunts. They have to change their self-image. Richard Edelman, CEO of public relations giant Edelman, says they have to start treating Congress like their board of directors. "They have to recognize they have to respond to stakeholders rather than just to shareholders," he said. "In addition to being a capitalist today, you have to be diplomat."

Very pointed.

P. S. Kaplan, Inc. increasingly treats its three (or is that four? Or is that five?) biggest Web sites as one. So why have three (or four, or five) Web sites, St. Warren?

Posted 12:31 PM by Gene

In his press conference last Monday night, Obama summed up his approach like so: "I think that, over time, people respond to civility and rational argument." A little intellectual condescension wouldn't hurt, though.

We'll turn to TNR for that.

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

“I have nothing to do with it. I’m not in it, I’m not on the board,” says THE DONALD, as he prepares for the twenty-sixth bankruptcy linked to his name, or however many, as if anyone's counting.

Posted 12:20 PM by Gene

How much time and effort did LALA and its hacks take compiling a list of "150 sob songs" that would have been better spent doing something else?

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

Now that The One is choosing a "drug czar" from a city "known for its progressive drug laws", when does he put the foot in the mouth?

(Via Bloomberg)

Posted 7:56 PM by Gene

Now that people are no longer buying "Look-at-me-I'm-a-WATCH!" watches, they're discovering the attention getters they own need -- attention.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on PATEK PHILIPPE.

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

67% Say They Could Do A Better Job On The Economy Than Congress

That goes without saying.

Then again maybe "they" should have given their economies some thought before "buying" so many unneeded houses.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

The HAROLD LLOYD OF HIS AGE wears a reviewers' drubbing on his sleeve:

"I have received bad reviews my whole life. I received bad reviews for my stand-up act. The Jerk, one of my most ENDURING films, was universally panned and criticized in America. Comedians always have to overcome critical snobbery, that's just the way it is... Comedy is just not a critic's medium." [Overemphasis added]

And Harold Jr. does Sr. one better: He wrote "books"!

By the way Harry -- was the pun intended?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

The $800 billion is to be spread over several years; the peak is to be at most $356 billion in 2010, which is about 2 ½ per cent of GDP. The most optimistic estimate of the “Keynesian multiplier” that anyone has is 2, which would imply a 5 per cent boost to GDP. That is less than the 7 per cent gap, and so not enough to return the economy to full employment.

IF....

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

$11 billion for the creation of a smart energy grid; $8.4 billion for public transit; $6.3 billion for state and local energy efficiency grants; $6 billion for the cleanup of contaminated Department of Defense sites; $4.5 billion to green federal buildings; and $1.2 billion for the EPA's cleanup programs.

Done right and these would be worthwhile enough, we suppose. They could also be a source of newspaper stories -- if the hacks cared.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Somebody does not like The One's attempts at press crowd control.

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A megalomaniacal lead pastor for The One closed his anodyne talk to the press, then insisted it wasn't his idea when the spectacle became embarrassing enough.

Posted 2:33 PM by Gene

Obama economics adviser Larry Summers cautioned against raising expectations too high.

"I think this is a key part of what's going to be a multipart strategy to contain this decline," he said. But Summers added that the problems "weren't made in a week, a month, a year. It's going to take time to fix." He said it should not be considered a "silver bullet," or panacea for deeply rooted business woes.

TRANSLATION: If he weren't part of The One's team....

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

God bless PEOPLE WARNER! God bless PEOPLE, INC.!

POLL: Has Miss Piggy Lost Weight?

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

Mothers, don't let your sons grow up to be hot Wall Street types who become professional writers.

We’ve all been hearing a lot lately about the dangers of testosterone. A preposterous idea is gaining traction: that the problem with Wall Street is that it is run exclusively by men. News flash: Wall Street always has been run exclusively by men.

John Thain is a MAN?

(Via AmSpec, where the whole staff vigorously nodded in agreement, God knows on what)

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

Finally, a KOLLEDGE has the gall to disinvest from Israel, compounding the gall by doing so in an exquisitely political way. That this SKOOL led the fight for disinvestment from South Africa should not let us minimize this.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

Now here's an idea: "sports papers with news sections"!

It couldn't be worse than what we have now -- and at least the bias wouldn't be political.

(Via the usual Romy -- and his usual slavish reliance on ALTERNARAGS doesn't merely churn up the garbage)

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

See, now if we say a Stanford professor thinks government caused the financial crisis, rather than saying A SENIOR FELLOW AT THE HOOVER INSTITUTION thinks government caused the financial crisis, it sounds a LOT more credible. RIGHT PETER?

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Steve BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLMER! You paid too much for Facebook!

Well, he wasn't any more credulous than all the HACKS who said it was worth $15 billion.

Posted 6:29 PM by Gene

Stimulus Deal A Bonanza For Tech Industry

TRANSLATION: More Dilbert®boxes! More Pointy-Haired Bosses™ to supervise more Dilbert®s! More projects with "Screw-Up" as their middle names!

OR:

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

Pakistan Holding 6 in Attack
Pakistan admits that part of the conspiracy in Mumbai attack was hatched on its soil.

When does it unhold them?

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

This story (which even we posted about in December -- and it was rank then) is the very definition of too many people spending too much time debating how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

The NAACP turns 100 today--but if it ceased to exist tomorrow, would it have a significant effect on black America?

A question that, with a black president and its own dogmatic obsolescence, answers itself.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives are screaming a lot about this publicity stunt with Mr. Wilders. This writer says his film is a kind in Michael Mooreism. We won't judge, having not seen it, nor wanting to see it. To the extent it may be an empty exercise in iconoclasm it should be ridiculed, as was Fatso. But we are certainly troubled by the censorship being practiced by an allegedly European country (and England gets more alleged every day); and more to the point, we are troubled that the continent's empty-headed bureaucrats would hide under their big fat taxpayer-wasting desks at the sight of an Islamist, and make excuses for him. What stinks, then, isn't so much the censorship; it's the potential for blazing sanctimonious hypocrisy.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: I'm not going to be your pliant hack, Mr. President.

Posted 4:01 PM by Gene

Four more new ugly coins.

Hey Mint, Arial doesn't look that good on monitors. Why are you putting it on our currency?

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

The inventor of Seligball ponders MORE ASTERISKS!

Why should you worry, Bud? Isn't Seligism healthier than ever?

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

Words that caused us to stop reading some conservative ALTERNARAG's prediction that The One will serve one term:

Or Amity Schlaes’ [SIC!!!!!] superb....

(Via AmSpec, which perhaps can spell better)

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

Has anyone noticed the Dow has gone down only 500 points since the Democrats' financial double-feature premiered?

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

Origins of the scribbling class at the Paper of Re-CORD:

In the 1980s a college roommate of mine played the show’s opening number, “Magic to Do,” incessantly in the year we lived together. I countered the assault with toxic doses of the Cure’s most relentlessly dirgy album, “Pornography,” and yet I can still sing along with Ben Vereen from first note to last.

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

Already TNR has shot back at SOUTH PARK BIWEEKLY's conservative-PC movie gag, meaning both sides are mixing more soggy mashed potatoes for the food fight.

F. R. GOLDBERG, we know Hollywood is perfect but why did you bother?

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Washington City Paper saves $8,000 by dropping syndicated comics [Another Romy link]

And we suspect the readers will no more miss the comics than people in Washington's laundries, delis, and corner drug stores would miss another ALTERNATIVE rag.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the former flagship of PEOPLE, INC., Anonymous has another ANGER ISSUE!!!!!

We have an issue with reporter-novelists hiding their identities.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Just what we need, TWXSTERS: a LISTICLE on the FINANCIAL CRISIS.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Mr. Magoo without the nearsightedness or a sense of humor.

FURTHER TRANSLATION:



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD FOR TONY!

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

In Frisco the Orange-Ball People have outlawed nudity and drinking at a certain celebrated tradition, which is all one to us, as most of the nudes aren't female anyway, no doubt.

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

God Bless PEOPLE WARNER, God Bless PEOPLE, INC.:

Chris Brown 'Feels Very Bad,' Says Stylist

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Meanwhile, in America's Most Dysfunctional Burg:

Council President Monica Conyers has been using a police officer and department-issued car to chauffeur one of her sons to a private suburban school about 15 miles from the city.

STIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMULUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUS!!!!!

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

This stoopid publicity-seeking ultraTWITTERING Congresspoop from Michigan shows why the Republicans are not yet ready to supplant their schemes for misgoverning America with Babs's.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

"Money is fungible," he added. "You cannot say what did you do with our money."

Which is why, in the end, the calls for TARP "transparency" may be mostly cloudy.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Faster than anyone expected, the argument among liberals has shifted. It is no more about active versus limited government, but about what active government should be doing. On that Mr Wolfe could have said more. No one with an open mind, however, can come away from “The Future of Liberalism” treating “liberal” as a term of abuse. Before long, who knows, even Mr Obama may drop his reserve and embrace the word with pride.

Even after the stimulus?

I don't think it will pay to be The New Economist, Zeitgeist.

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

Here's one for you, Rog:

Bands often set prices as high as the market will bear because live entertainment is now their main source of income, according to Gary Bongiovanni, the editor-in-chief of Pollstar, a box office trade magazine.

When service fees are tacked on to that charge, bands then have a way to deflect criticism for high prices to Ticketmaster. Lowering the face value of the ticket would mean less money in band members' pockets.

Who knew ah-TEESTES were politicians?

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

“Some of these people refuse to organize themselves. They have personal assistants to ensure that their errands are done. They have agents that book their work, managers who guide their careers, attorneys who look after them. They’re used to having lots of handlers, a team of people to whom they delegate everything. So it’s a natural fit for a business manager to come in and say, ‘I’ll take care of your financial life.’ ”

By one estimate, Los Angeles is home to more than 50 business-management firms and countless one-person shops. The ease with which one can enter this quasi-profession means a lot of practitioners don’t know what they’re doing. (One of the more established business managers guesses that 90 percent of his competitors are subpar.)

And that's why our show-biz lords deserved to lose money to BERNIE.

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

I wonder, Neuharthians: would we remember the COLORIZED ABE LINCOLN!!!!!'s Gettysburg Address if it were 2,266 WORDS LONG?

Although I will say he looks good for a 200-year-old.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

The good news: Muzak's parent firm (based in JIM BAKKER'S OLD HOMETOWN) has filed for bankruptcy.

The bad news: Once it shakes off all its debt it will probably be more profitable than ever dispensing unwanted Elton John and Billy Joel. OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohWAH!!!!

And THE MOST ANNOYING SONG OF ALL TIME.

(Via Vulture, which must call Muzak "elevator music", which it is not any more, in most senses)

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

We join in this salute to the Pullman porters, proud exemplars of an age when long-distance travel was, in important ways, better than it is now.

Posted 1:16 PM by Gene

As government gets bigger, there are fewer reporters in D.C. to cover it [Romy link]

A good reason for a government newspaper bailout!

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

Our favorite PR guy Rog mightily scratches his head:

Bruce Springsteen’s appearance on the Super Bowl had a dramatically smaller payoff than anyone could have anticipated. In the week following the show, Springsteen’s album, "Working on A Dream," sold just 100,000 albums.

That’s not good. In the week before the Super Bowl, "Working" sold around 212,000 copies. All that hype, and publicity, countless interviews and free promotion, and now "Working" has moved only 312,000 total CDs.

Where have all the music fans gone? Is it possible, I ask naively and rhetorically, that everyone is downloading their music, and that the great majority of those are doing it illegally?

I think the answer must be yes.

The answer must be yes as thousands upon thousands upon thousands of thousands of His fans spent so much of their time illegally downloading his album they tied the whole Web up. (Or maybe my computer was acting up that Sunday night.)

Could it be that "all that hype, and publicity, countless interviews and free promotion" had the opposite effect as intended? Aw, c'mon Rog! You're a PR guy! We KNOW the answer to that.

Or could it be someone within six years of SocSec is no longer the Boss? Or that (heaven forbid!) His songs are no good? NEVER!

Posted 9:08 PM by Gene

And speaking of security, The One's national security adviser James Jones says:

"The National Security Council will be at the table as our government forges a new approach to energy security and climate change that demand broad cooperation across the U.S. Government and more persistent American leadership around the world. And the NSC is evaluating how to update our capacity to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction while also placing a far higher priority on cyber security."

Prompting Marc Ambinder to say:

Indeed, the NSC almost becomes an NC -- a national, inter-governmental coordinating council for threats, defined broadly.

Is One trying to tell us something?

Posted 9:06 PM by Gene

Hmm, The One and his Church remind us the guy's like JFK (when he isn't like Abe for FDR or MLK, that is). Could this be his Bay of Pigs?

And don't forget -- that show was produced by IKE.

We would speak of Somalia but somehow The One and his Church seem to recoil at his mention, first ladies notwithstanding.

Posted 8:55 PM by Gene

Pelosi: 'For 19,420 Days, We Have Had the Best -- With John Dingell'

TRANSLATION: Nancy finally gives him his gold watch for getting his senile self out of the way.

Posted 8:43 PM by Gene

Howard of The New Economist, or The New New Yorker, or The New Atlantic, or whatever they're calling it, says some "stimulus" money should go to Nawlans. Fine. But we thought the point of the stimulus was to get people jobs, not urban renewal. It has been quite obvious for a while that the whole point of the stimulus is to spend money first and give reasons later.

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

House Dems to give up pay raise

And then, somehow, when they've saved the nation (by their typical low standards) they'll make up the difference double.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

The new Cary Grant!

Look Jeff, we all know it's the flagship and your most profitable brand, but...don't you think sometimes it goes too far?

And maybe even the dullards are starting to wise up.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Moon 'n' Stars, which uses more chemicals than any company this side of DuPont, goes natural too!

Don't get us wrong: We like Tide with Bleach Alternative.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

"I see this package as a pragmatic, common-sense opportunity to move forward," Crist, who appeared with Obama in economically beleaguered Fort Myers today to tout the stimulus, told TIME Monday night.

I'm surprised -- it's not just DEMOCRATS?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

I am SO glad the ASSPress, which couldn't write a decent story about the president if one could bribe its whole staff with hundreds of P-Ulitzers, took the time to tell us about Lenny's girlfriend!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD to SAM!

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

A Difficult Stimulus Conference Ahead

Yep, it's gonna be tough divvying up the spoils.

While he was at it, Hoyer took a swipe at the Senate measure, which, he said, "spends more money than the House bill, by about $20 billion [and] which creates almost half a million less jobs than the House bill."

WOW! STENY WANTS TO SAVE MONEY!

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Gun dealers experiencing shortages of bullets

Hey One! Here's an idea -- if people can't buy bullets people can't fire guns! You and the loonies in Congress could ban bullets! It's the PERFECT gun control!

(Via Bloomberg)

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

President Pushes Broadband
In Florida, Obama says broadband will help to create jobs

People downloading more pirated movies, downloading more PRON, and downloading more cute cat videos will definitely create jobs.

Posted 3:54 PM by Gene

Gee, thanks, Mr. President!

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

Seeking Alpha has posted this C-SPAN video in which the hack pol Paul Kanjorski alleges there was an epochal run on the financial markets on September 18 which nearly caused a permanent meltdown. We do not trust Congressmen (nor do we entirely trust Seeking Alpha scribblers who say the world nearly came to an end) but neither do we trust con-SER-va-tives who say WE DIDN'T DO IT.

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

Who concocts all those dark-blue "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"-style signs for The One and Co. so that they can make speeches that cause the stock market to tank?

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

If Tina works hard at it, her site could be as full-of-it as any on the Web. The problem is, we don't want her site to be full-of-it, but you don't get to edit The New Yorker for nothing, and as the career of SUPERADAM!!!!! shows, you don't get the fame and riches by not being full-of-it.

And this keeps in mind that some topics are inherently full-of-it.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

The financial system currently seems to be "working against recovery, and that's the dangerous dynamic we need to change," wrote Geithner in the speech.

How? By shoveling more money at banks -- the Dubya way -- just as we're shoveling more money into GUVMENT -- the One's way.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

If there was anything uplifting to be found in the address, it was in the contrast. Where President Bush steadily eroded his credibility over eight years in office, resorting to rosy statements about the war in Iraq, the response to flooding in New Orleans and the economic boom that all proved unfounded, Obama seems determined not to sugar-coat the facts. He told it harshly, without much adornment. With each grim pronouncement, he attempted to claim a level of confidence and competence — and even pragmatism — that the nation has not seen for a while.

TRANSLATION: I expect to keep MY job at this here newsrag for a long, long, LONG time.

Jay Carney said otherwise.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

The two men are quick to praise one another in public. But a few episodes suggest the mutual admiration may have its limits.

TRANSLATION: The One wishes he'd chosen someone else.

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

"The interest of national security" means lobbying's OKAY!

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

I've made plentiful fun of Ron Rosenbaum, but that was before reading this powerful attack on an Os-CAR® nominee about the Holocaust and Kate W.'s bod. A link led me to an article about Hitler -- the one the idiots at KAPLAN, INC. plugged with an irritating (and misleading) "MEIN NUTS!" home-page gag, much to his injustice, and whose hed made me assume so much I must confess I didn't even read it. It is hard sometimes not to think of Rosenbaum as something of a high-IQ flake, what with his rock-cri-TIC CV, and especially after his fight with B. S. DEFENDER, but I may cut him a little more slack from now on -- if KAPLAN, INC. doesn't devise any more dumb home-page graphics.

Posted 6:57 PM by Gene

Please, PLEASE, Dick Cheney of the Left, have that Truth Commission! Make The One's calls for bipartisanship and his poll numbers dwindle to nothingness! Please, PLEASE!

Posted 6:33 PM by Gene

This IS a conservative columnist and lobbyist. This is also the sort of whoops we can expect from The One, as the twenty-something true believers choose his lower-level helpers and hope they can get away with it.

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

GE BANCORP went bonkers today because most likely it will cut its dividend.

See a shrink! Hurry!

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

Yesterday we mentioned how Denny's was surely hoping that mammoth publicity stunt would overcome its bad rep. Problem is, when the new diners come in they're going to be inundated with sixty-minute house shows that are one-third ads. Great way to butter up your customers, Den!

And in other news from BRANDWEEK, the maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies is going all-natural! We would think up a punchline but won't as it did just come out of bankruptcy.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Sounds like the boys who created Minsky's have made another show where you leave the place humming the costumes -- as opposed to Minsky's where you'd have left the place humming the girls.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

We do not comprehend the catastrophic loss of life in Australia. Surely as fires go (and knowing how many of the southern California types must be arsons) the weather and terrain in southeastern Australia should not be more conducive to fatalities. We wonder to what extent the civil authorities may have been unprepared. Say this for our emergency types: they by and large know what they're doing. If these are arsons, they are truly evil; but as we know from rueful experience, evil can be goaded by incompetence.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

And further on the subject of Chucks, knee-jerk con-SER-va-tives have come up with a new excuse for the Crash -- see, GUVMENT PANICKED when it saw what happened to LEHMAN. If GUVMENT hadn't PANICKED the Crash wouldn't have happened.

Well, if idiot con-SER-va-tive REPUBLICANS hadn't taxed and spent and if idiot FREE EN-TER-PRISE types hadn't concocted all sorts of ARMs and LIAR LOANS and SIVs and CDOs and BOND RATINGS maybe it wouldn't have happened either.

(Via Seeking Alpha, which links to such nuisances as often as Arts Journal links to its)

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

ON A BILLBOARD:

I have a lot less money.

And a lot more questions.

--Talk to Chuck.

I'd suggest "Talk to a shrink" but you'd never get your money back.

Posted 3:08 PM by Gene

Well, we'll say this much for the ROD: unlike most of the other steroid-enhanced cretins he finally admitted it.

Posted 2:53 PM by Gene

We say it again: The only people who are shocked when show-biz types get into trouble are the IDIOTS who HIRE THEM FOR ENDORSEMENTS.

P. S. at 7:32 p. m. The WONDER of PEOPLE WARNER informs us the two former lovebirds had "matching star tattoos on their necks", which says never tattoo a love affair.

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

I think we are all upset the founders of that big hedge fund that got scammed by BERNIE will have to give up on their horse farm and their bridge air force.

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

Jayson, one of sport's top hacks, is HORRIFIED:

At times like this, I always tell the story of what it was like to follow Mark McGwire around in September 1998. I saw this man hit 17 of his 70 home runs that season. I saw records topple. I saw powerful numbers rise and fall.

But more than that, I measured the feat I was watching by who else showed up to catch the show. And by that I mean Bruce Springsteen. And Bruce Hornsby. And Barbara Walters. And MTV. And "Good Morning America." And many, many others just like them.

They didn't join us in beautiful downtown St. Louis because they'd always wanted to see the Arch. They joined us because this wasn't a sports story -- this was a massive American story.

This was a story that lifted itself out of the batter's box and plopped itself right down on Main Street. It was a story that appealed to Americans who didn't know a split-fingered fastball from a banana split.

But they knew what the number 60 meant. They knew what 61 meant. They knew who Babe Ruth was. And they knew this was a phenomenon that linked Mark McGwire to the Bambino, that linked now to then, that linked this America to that America.

That's what the home run record used to mean in our land.

That's what baseball used to mean.

But not anymore.

JAYSON, YOU WROTE BLURBS TOO.

(Via AmSpec)

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

We know how STARCHITECTS build trophy buildings that can leak. We've wondered before too if STARCHITECTS' indulgence can fight firefighters. Well, the STARCHITECT who built that hideous -- er, CLASSIC building in Beijing for CCTV was building a hotel right across from it, and it was destroyed in a spectacular fire. So we must ask: does STARCHITECTURE start fires?

P. S. at 3:12 p. m. Given all the spectators nearby and the way the STARCHITECT made it slant the Chinese are lucky no one got killed. Meanwhile some utterly prostrate toady for STARCHITECTS says this masterwork for the ages will be rebuilt. Why not? Don't the Chinese have their own stimulus?

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

Speaker Babs's husband is helping to start a new football league. (?!?)

The nice thing is it should help it get tax subsidies for stadiums -- if it gets that far.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

Who knew The One specialized in platitude-spam?

Leon Wieseltier seems not to have known.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Red Carpet Rewind: Grammys 2009

By Elizabeth Snead

Was that Carrie Underwood's skinny dress or fat dress? Was John Mayer styled by Jennifer Aniston? And did Jennifer Hudson have to wear her dinner napkin?

With these clowns it's either worship or snark -- and the snark doesn't register because these scribblers engage so much in worship.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

And how healthy is NR that it can waste our time with a list of conservative-PC movies, or insist the Beatles were the second coming of Christ?

This business isn't laying off enough scribblers!

And we can't link to the Second Coming article because one of the interns posted the wrong link!

The interns fixed it, alas. Yeah, yeah, yes, it's bad. Someone MUST put Jo-NAH in a straitjacket.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

As expected, ZEITGEIST becomes -- The Econowiz! Or is that -- The New Yorker? Or is that -- The Atlantic? Or....

Newsweek also plans to lean even more heavily on the appeal of big-name writers like Christopher Hitchens, Fareed Zakaria and George Will.

New bottle, same old whiners.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:38 PM by Gene

Chris Brown Under Investigation for Felony Battery

Believe us, we know this guy from Adam Ant, but we do know LEGENDARY DAVIS, and it seems apt this should follow the celebration of His legacy at the GRAMMYS®.

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Somebody at NRO named Mark cites the Professor TWICE and says Zeitgeist's "SLASHED" "their" circ by a million when it hasn't done anything yet. Can't you professional bloggers let us think for ourselves? And what would Bill think of "their" for a singular noun?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

If it's SUNDAY it must be BIG-DOUBLE-A-SCRIBBLE TIME:

1. You're not listening, PARTIALLY NATIONALIZED BANKS:

"The investment that the U.S. taxpayer has made in Bank of America represents an obligation to pay back to the taxpayers with a premium," said BofA spokesman Joe Goode. "And the only way that we're going to be able to pay back all our shareholders is pursuing business activities, like our relationship with the sport industry, that allow us to generate earnings."

TRANSLATION: We generate earnings by having the CEO and other high-mucky-muck execs put their feet on the luxury box railings and then return to the office for three months to scream, "I WAS AT THE [fill in the blank] AND YOU WEREN'T -- AND THANK GOD NEITHER WERE THOSE @#$%&* TAXPAYERS!!!!!"

YOU'RE NOT LISTENING, CLODS.

2. One does not wish unemployment on anyone, and of the 18,700 the "media and advertising" biz allegedly laid off in December (for a grand total of 65,100 in this...recession) many were good solid people. But to the extent the biz is hit with layoffs, as with the banks, as with the brokerages, it is less opportunity to swagger for a while.

3. MICKEY D changed its last name to Starbucks just as that overpriced overexposed NPR of coffees started on a downslide. We hope the Mick is stuck with thousands of underused cappuccino machines. That it is schmoozing with fashion types to plug its version of the NPR of coffees would indicate the Mick is as tone-deaf as ever.

4. Today, a week after it ended, the Ranceoids still obsess over THE GREATEST GAME IN THE HISTORY OF ALL THE ORGANISMS THAT EVER LIVED. Okay, Denny's got its big PR stunt. Let's see if the customers come back to a chain with a history of quality problems. And as for E*Trade, isn't this the same dollar-stock outfit you Ranceoids boasted proved ADVERTISING WORKS!!!!!!!!!!?

5. TRANSLATION: While one less day of mail delivery stinks, we must look at the bright side: It's one less day of junk mail.

6. Do you think we could stop referring to that stupid AQUATIC GEEK as a BRAND?

Posted 3:39 PM by Gene

Juxtaposition on Cheapie Marketwatch:

3:06 p.m. Obama adviser says private capital may join in bank bailout

3:19 p.m. UBS, Credit Suisse reportedly lost $25 billion last year

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Guess which modern-day version of Janus is running for president of Iran again!

Posted 2:46 PM by Gene

Amazing -- now that The One is no longer a mere excuse to slant the news we're starting to ask the tough questions we should have asked while we were basking in his myth -- like how pouring zillions into our SKOOLS will really help them.

Posted 2:24 PM by Gene

Someone's taking credit for Gwyneth's Web site.

As we said then, GROSS!

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

Official: Yemen releases 170 al-Qaida suspects after they sign pledges against terrorism

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

And on the subject of stupid, count on AHTSJournal to link to a story about an evolutionist oratorio. After Jerry Springer "ah-pe-RAHS" does anyone pay attention these shticks anymore?

It also has a video images, a "sprinkling of doo-wop and a sea chantey", which hints it may not last as long as that square oratorio by Handel, which did not have doo-wop.

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

The most stupid blog post I've read (today) (though there would be others, if I really wanted to look hard enough).

Posted 12:39 PM by Gene

Supercompetent One's administration walks with fifteen left feet when it comes to foreign policy -- and they don't speak to one another.

Well, nobody said being God was easy.

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures

...and lots of smiling faces as housing prices keep coming down!

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

A TRIBUTE TO PILLHEAD:

Though there is a place for his contentious commentary, "eventually, he will pale in importance next to the collective efforts of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner," Bond said.

And what would those be? Making PILLHEAD stronger?