Posted 11:32 PM by Gene

Among my search engine queries:

Google Images: BUILDINGS THAT HAVE OBTUSE ANGELS

I'll take them however I get them.

Posted 7:56 PM by Gene

"With months of research I have discovered that there is no 'easy' or 'painless' or 'quick' way to die," he wrote. "So, from here on out I am going to pick up the pieces to my life! Maybe you should too."

NOW he tells us.

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

The man who would someday be king has a PC good time!

And yes GRAWF, environmentalism IS a religion!

Posted 7:30 PM by Gene

A PRACTICAL JOKE: SLIME, perhaps remembering He gave money and support to The One, says domestic terrorists should be dealt through THE RU-LLLE of L-AAAW, while from another side of His mouth His Chief Leader Writer posts MEMRI.org's videos from Hamas TV.

Okay SLIME, which side of your mouth wins?

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

And with the Chinese making noises about their investments in us (and rightly so, given how One and his co-presidents are trying to Fix Up America), while the prospect is extremely remote we cannot discount the notion of One someday being escorted from the White House by a club-wielding mob.

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

Russia May Send Strategic Bombers to Cuba, Venezuela

What's to prevent Vlad from bringing a few nukes with him?

One! Is that you hiding under your Oval Office desk? We thought the world was supposed to like us!

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

In our DID YOU KNOW? department, DID YOU KNOW Atlanta's skool distrikt is unaccredited? It's the only such in America so it MUST be bad. It just fired its skool sooperintenndant because of it. Now how much do you know about ED MURROW?

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

And a few more excretions like this and we may call The Atlantic America's Most Self-Indulgent Magazine. To think Mike Kelly died six years ago. His journal has yet to recover.

Interestingly it puts it at the top of the home page and at the bottom of the rag's table of contents, truly the mark of a dishonest publication.

Posted 11:59 AM by Gene

You know, JonBoy, if you wanted to you could make a decent magazine. Take this story on Guinea-Bissau, the narco state. Oh, it's from the ASSPress? I see. You too busy putting the finishing touches on a twenty-page cover blurb for ED MURROW?

Posted 1:27 AM by Gene

Fresh off the SECOND COMING OF MURROW, some KOLLEDGE plans to hire fifty former hacks for a project on "news literacy."

You wouldn't suppose news literacy might be behind some of these firings, do you?

And this scheme may be financed by the STIMULUS, it figures.

Posted 1:13 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The SECOND COMING OF ED MURROW had no heroes. And since when is 2.3 million a lot of people in a nation of 305 million?

Posted 1:09 AM by Gene

And in Austria, the nation that gave the world Hitler....

Posted 12:53 AM by Gene

It is yet another mark of a dying nation that the same England that had its mass-killing doctor had a mass-groping taxi driver. I find it increasingly difficult to feel sorry for the British, for they seem to have bestowed so much of their rot upon themselves.

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

Once again, the ASSPress rolls our eyes for us:

Matt Lauer staying home because of the economy

And because of $9.58 a...no, I don't think so.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Not that it means anything, but I let BOOM!!!!! BOOM!!! have it long before the bloviators decided it was fashionable.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Madoff Family Had $826 Million Net Worth, Filing Says

On $65 BILLION? Not too good a job PONZIING, Bernie.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

In turning Zeitgeist into The Econowiz II JonBoy is engaging on the proverbial fool's errand, especially as highlighted by this piece. The Wiz' readers know all about GE BANCORP. Why do they need a Cliffs Notes? If it said something new it would be worth boasting of the subscription on your CEO desk. It doesn't, and this overrated rag spends too much of its time restating the obvious. This is what JonBoy is aiming for. But a weak CW rag aping another's CW borders on the homeopathic. It has already crossed the border with risible. JonBoy deserves the comeuppance he may be about to get.

Posted 3:48 PM by Gene

Obama abandons term 'enemy combatant'

Presumably because he doesn't want us to have enemies. Isn't that sweet?

Posted 3:26 PM by Gene

It is bad enough that the hacks have spent the better part of three days on a moronic mutual publicity stunt; now they're aiming to make it a Rorschach test of their respective PC. The ponderous and pretentious Rodin's Thinker Mr. Fallows calls the ED MURROW OF COMEDY ED MURROW, while some opposite number at NRO blasts him for daring to take on BOOM! BOOM! -- the SOUL of FREE ENTERPRISE, the heart of TRUE AMERICANISM. Non-thinking on brainless stunts like this makes us imagine how much better life would be without computers, and especially without bloviating pundits of all stripes.

We give the last word (we hope) to Alessandra Stanley, who, despite her rep as something of a dweeb, we suspect described it accurately as "a Senate subcommittee hearing." That's an insult!

P. S. at 5:00 p. m. For the last several hours NRO has had some richly deserved problems. Now if the same would happen to some equally obstinate site on the other side.

P. P. S.

I am not sure Cramer understood that he had been shamed and was now being dismissed in much the same way that Sen. Joseph McCarthy was during the televised Army-McCarthy hearings when Army attorney Joseph Welch said to McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

That landmark moment, which came in 1954 during one of the first live political telecasts in TV history, was the beginning of the end of the once-powerful witch-hunting senator.

TRANSLATION: I love myself as much as Mark "Baby" Hemingway -- whoever HE is.

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

Cokie Roberts: News Media Exacerbate Racial Tensions

You don't say, former colleague of Lord Koppel.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

The ASSPress, which doesn't know much about history, or geography, or biology, or trigonometry -- and probably still doesn't know much about CHAS -- runs this EARTH-SHATTERING NEWS (which we post in full, not intending to violate the ASSPress's copyright, even though the ASSPress constantly violates our quarters with half-baked "news"):

Mar 13, 10:42 AM EDT

A 'Twitterview' between Stephanopoulos and McCain

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sen. John McCain and ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos will be "tweeting" Tuesday in an interview hosted on the Twitter Web site.

ABC News says McCain and Stephanopoulos will come together online for a "Twitterview." It will be conducted at 12 noon Eastern time on Tuesday. The microblogging platform restricts each entry to 140 characters.

The public will be able to read the real-time 15-minute exchange by signing up at the Twitter site to follow both Stephanopoulos and McCain.

Meanwhile, Stephanopoulos is inviting everyone to "tweet" him proposed questions - with a 140-character limit.

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

If you're like me and you harbor a somewhat pathological dislike of the Olympics, then you won't be surprised to hear that Andre Lugovi--the prime suspect in the murder of former KGB agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko--could be elected mayor of the Russian city of Sochi, which will be hosting the Winter Games in 2014. I wonder if the IOC would celebrate his election by replacing Ice Dance with competitive radioactive poisoning.

T'ain't funny, McGee.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Whoops! ST. WARREN lost his virgi -- TRIPLE-A too!

BRKA up 30,000! DOW UP 1,000!

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Traditional TV ad revenue to fall by 75% within 10 years

1. This is probably not remotely close to being true -- MadAve's reverse Robin Hoods will figure out an excuse -- and 2. Even if it is true, said reverse Robin Hoods will still find ways to finance junk television.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

Now that the hacks are unearthing those pictures from the Nine Fingers gig again, we may ask, does anyone really care?

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

Remember when con-SER-va-tives used to oooh and aaah over Gen. Pinochet because he was such a friend of FREE EN-TER-PRISE?

Free en-ter-prise may have returned Gen. Pinochet the favor.

Posted 8:14 PM by Gene

Oh wait. Microsoft and Intel joined the Dow in October of '99. Lot of good that did.

Posted 8:02 PM by Gene

Houston's Chronicle's selling a one-name wonder, which reminds us of how the GRAWF sold a one-name wonder, which reminds us why modern entertainment doesn't work. Today's supposed stars are young and faceless; when their youth is up they're supplanted with more faceless youth, and on and on until hell freezes over. How many ac-TORs survive their youth? Remember the prime-time soaps of the eighties, stocked with wily veterans. Think what you will of those soaps; we remember their faces.

Posted 7:58 PM by Gene

Surprise: J-school still stinks.

Posted 7:12 PM by Gene

Further on the subject of movees, the other day I mentioned Ted Mack Productions made a video on South Street. David "Snark" Denby's excited about Mack's new project called "mumblecore" [SIC]. The name invites derision -- though its videos, one fears, merely invite boredom.

By the way, I'm not making fun of the ORIGINAL Ted Mack, who brought big names to show-biz, and was a very handsome man.

Posted 6:49 PM by Gene

[W]hat would it take for the clueless MPAA, which is supposed to serve concerned parents, not powerful studios....

Look in the mirror when you use that word, MOGUL'S FRIEND.

Sometimes it seems like the world's one big dense publicity exercise -- and it's making our minds flabby.

Posted 6:44 PM by Gene

Citigroup Inc Chairman Richard Parsons said on Thursday that the bank does not need any more capital injections from the government and expressed confidence that Citi would remain in private hands.

10,000 here we come!

(Via one half of tonight's irritating promo)

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

Is "sexting" going to be the next thing media types can hypocritically harrumph about?

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

Quick! Take a guess: What are the two most common words in everyday conversation?

When posterity looks back on our age MORONS will be too kind a term.

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

One suspects those looking for blood with tonight's PR stunt may be profoundly disappointed, as ED and BOOM! BOOM! have one very prominent thing in common: "HIT" SERIES and HUGE SALARIES to defend.

Or to put it another way: This will be professional wrestling in words.

This stunt's emptiness is highlighted by ESPNCORP NETWORK plugging its morning plugfest on rival networks. The ESPNCORP boys know when it comes to certain kinds of TV shows there's no difference.

P. S. Why didn't Very Very Little Jeffy and SUMNER agree to simulcast it? They have lots in common too.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

The Scum Madoff is now in jail forever, and STILL conservatives must boast about his campaign contributions.

I wouldn't tempt fate, guy. SLIME gives equally abhorrently to BOTH parties -- and He's as CONSERVATIVE as your OUTGOING PARTY BOSS MICHAEL STEELE.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Why is that jackass Perfesser Shafer going off on such a tirade about God Moyers after all these years? Why did HIS persecution of ST. JACK OF VALENTI as CRIBBED BY THE DAILY KAPLAN bring out so much tripe in him -- especially as God has been the same blasted sanctimonious footstomper for more than a month?

Kaplan, Inc. up $10.54, dammit. ST. WARRENDOM UP $2,000.00, double dammit.

Posted 3:54 PM by Gene

Maxine Waters?!? We thought she was in Congress for the -- PEOPLE!!!!!

(As opposed to her family people.)

Someone must have awakened Rip Van Sulzberger -- briefly.

Posted 3:46 PM by Gene

And replace C with BRKA!

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

At this rate, by the time The One is serving his fourth term (Speaker Babs having RAMMED a Constitutional amendment through), he will FINALLY have appointed everyone he needs!

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

Demonstrate the power of the fans, because it'll help let the people who pay for these movies know what we'd like to see. Because if it drops off the radar after the first weekend, they will never allow a film like this to be made again! So tell Hollywood, please, PLEASE, MAKE MORE LOW-IQ FANTASY MOVIES FOR LOW-IQ FANS!!!!! [Overemphasis and last thirteen words added)

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 3:31 PM by Gene

And why not this one -- replace bankrupt GM with G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE? That should send the Dow up to 20,000 all by itself!

Posted 2:41 PM by Gene

Bank of America will likely generate more than $100 billion in revenue and $50 billion in profit, before taxes and provisions, in 2009, Chief Executive Ken Lewis said Thursday.

Yes, it's official -- the DEPR -- ECONOMY is OVER!

LONG LIVE BIG BANKS!

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

Sears Tower, named for a real-estate firm that long ago shrieked to the suburbs, is getting a new name from an insurance broker: Willis Tower!

Add an e and you get Willies Tower!

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

WHOOPEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

GM says it doesn't need $2B from gov't in March

Maybe the DEPR -- ECONOMY isn't that bad.

Let's wait until April, though.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

GASP! GE BANCORP loses its virg -- its TRIPLE-A!

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

Last year the world had 1,125 billionaires. Today there are 793.

Our condolences to Little Malcolm. Pfffffffffffffffffffft!

And how many of the now vanished zillionaires made their wealth in those "instruments" that caused their fellow zillionaires' wealth to vanish?

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

The city whose Permanent Mayor wants desperately to host THE GAMES!!!!!!!!!! can't keep His city's children from being murdered -- disqualification enough.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX is extremely upset that Chas was denied the opportunity to show us his brilliance, his wisdom, his erudition, which means it's time for SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX to go.

This from a paper whose readers must be wondering, Chas who?

Heck even The Daily Kaplan's editors think he was strange.

Kaplan, Inc. at 344.91, but off its lows for the year thus far, shucks.

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Speaker Babs wants to grow HER empire some more -- and the serfs may be getting wise.

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Speaking of crime it is a relief to know we will never again see one criminal wearing a smirk or an ugly baseball cap.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

• Alabama Police Say They Are Close to Discovering Motive for Mass Shooting

Boy those Alabama police must be scratching their heads plenty figuring out why he did it. I can tell them why, and I don't watch TV police shows: He hated people, he had a machine gun, and he was a psycho. Case closed.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

I reFUSE to cooperate with you! I am SUUUUUUH ALLEN!!!!!

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Posted in full:

New Yorker Blog Chortles Heartily at Rihanna Beating
The New Yorker’s not prone to offending our sensibilities (although we have been known to cock an eyebrow at an especially impertinent Anthony Lane pun now and again), so we were surprised to find a post to their Goings On blog about the planned Rihanna–Chris Brown collaboration that read, “There is no — repeat, no — truth to the rumor that their duet will be a remake of ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’” — and included video of Sunny and Cher performing “The Beat Goes On.” We’ve read New Yorker cartoons funnier than that. [Goings On/NYer]

Who says The New Yorker is funny?

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

John Stossel alleges the middle class is currently doing well, and even if this were true -- and it may be -- we'd have to disagree because Stossel is a knee-jerk lock-step KLUMPH! KLUMPH free-enterprise glibertarian hard-core-liberal kind of conservative.

In short, for him to say that is like the clod JonBoy to think little Davey Frum is a conservative.

Posted 3:48 PM by Gene

To honor itself for its BRILLIANT reporting on CHAS The Paper of Re-CORD finds its token op-ed conservative!

Let's hope he's slightly better, anyway.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Oh dear -- that SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER PAJAMAS MEDIA is just -- MMMMMMSSSSSSMMMMMM?!?!?

Perish the thought!

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Speaking of advertising, "The industry has been far more responsible than we get credit for!!!!! It's time that we backed up rhetoric with facts!!!!!" said Moon 'n' Stars' chief counsel, who served for four years as head of the FTC.

Puh-LEEEEASE!

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

PC prices are coming down. It's about time. Personal computers have been Haiers for years but too many have been priced like Sub-Zeros.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Hey Rip! Rip Van Sulzberger! GET UP! It's NEWS!

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

We must ask what Howard and Zeitgeist are up to. Here the official rag of Obamadom admits that God may be "lacking." We don't know whether Zeitgeist is doing this as training for being The Economist and thus conveniently iconoclastic, or whether it merely does as Zeitgeist has always done -- be the voice of CW. Either way, it's irritating.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Two more epidemics of bullets.

Yes, if I were an Islamist, I'd have reason to smile today.

Posted 8:03 PM by Gene

Another lunkheaded Gallup, asking people whether they're "thriving" or "struggling." Why do I need a poll to tell me how I'm doing? Doesn't this give ammunition to all those cretins who say news hacks brought down the economy? One thing's clear: Gallup's THRIVING.

Posted 7:58 PM by Gene

Exclusive: Jim Cramer set to appear on 'The Daily Show' Thursday

Goody! A cross-promotion! PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

One last note about Johnny before we forget him: back in '83 he put together a syndicated package of his comedy bits (completely erasing Doc Severinsen's music a la WKRP on DVD) -- and boy if Art Fern didn't write its theme: the cheesiest, corniest tune this side of Bowling for Dollars. It's hard to tell from the open but it was. We forget for all his zillions Johnny had so little success in show biz outside The Tonight Show -- the only other property I can associate with him was a haunting video retelling of E. B. White's Stuart Little from '66. Curious thing: I am sure an outfit called Studer ReVox (now two separate firms) was credited with the theme -- which is mightily peculiar as anyone familiar with those names knows Studer was (and is) big in professional electronics, and especially for its famed tape decks -- but then it is highly possible this theme was written without human intervention.

P. S. on 3/16 at 8:05 p. m. The end titles DO say, "MUSIC RECORDING BY STUDER REVOX" [sic]! They also credit someone who now goes as "Nathan Sassover, Inventor and Technologist", as "Music Supervisor". So if he did write it, he could deny it, and if he didn't he could always blame Johnny, whom he probably never met. (Because this blogger's excerpt is an infernal Guba production I can't embed it. Thanks, Guba!)

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Today -- and very promptly from an Amazon.com merchant -- I got an inexpensive promo copy of Hydrogen Sulfide -- whoooooooooooooops! H-subscript 2-Dollar Sign. If you covered up the top and bottom of the album art and asked a bunch of scientists, "Okay, quick! What's the first thing in your mind when you see this?" And of course they'd answer hydrogen sulfide. When the show played in '95 the idiots at America's Leading Supermarket Chain, A & P, used the H2$ symbol to sell their Eight O'Clock Coffee. I sent a letter to The Paper of Re-CORD after that fatuous oaf Vincent Cannnn-BYYYYY raved it, noting the resemblance -- but of course they never ran it as The Paper of Re-CORD is allllllways right. And the sad thing is this has a great Frank Loesser score -- if you know the '61 cast album. I've heard a snippet of this revival's star THE BOY singing, and he can sinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg, but Robert Morse taught us that there's more to acting than singing. Oh well, I'll wait to listen until I finally play that copy of Kristin Chenoweth's first album I got inexpensively used from a Free Library book sale -- and that may take a while too. Besides, I understand someone who worked for MICKEYMOUSE NIXON on His animated CLASSICS mangled the orchestrations.

Also HWWWALTER CRRRONKITE's in it, busily daydreaming of how DAN BLATHER took that job away from him.

Peculiar note: Enter "h2$" in G000,000,000,000,000GLE Images and you get this. How apt.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

WAVE BYE-BYE TO CHAS THE ASS!

This is the biggest embarrassment in recent memory the hacks assiduously avoided covering, as they don't like embarrassing good guys.

(Via Contentions)

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Most readers would not know the difference if most news orgs ditched their "reporters" and ran PR. At best this was straight from a publicist's telephone. Happily the last laugh is on Brian Robber if He thinks He can make money from it, especially in this DEPR -- economy.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO CLAUDE!

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Let us not understate it: Ann and Bill are bigots. They would consign their enemies to concentration camps and firing squads. Both have merely hinted at it, but both believe it. That no one will call their bluff shows what cowards news hacks are. They didn't deserve a spot in the bottom of a urinal in Radio City.

And no, I am not impressed that they both believe that deer in the headlights at Treasury should go. Hitler and Stalin agreed on things too.

Posted 3:53 PM by Gene

Cheapie Marketwatch:

Bernard Madoff to be slapped with 11 felony charges

Not enough. Nothing would be enough.

(Link added 4:58 p. m.)

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

I think we can agree Mike Royko had pretty good taste in women.

Twelve years in April, dammit!

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! THE DEPR -- ECONOMY IS OVER!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

I know when the hacks speak of their polls saying religion is in decline they're rubbing their hands, but could America be the unjolly old England of the future: a fourth-rate manufacturing-free PC nation of quirky crotchety eccentrics who sit in front of the tube all day while their children drink and procreate?

It's foolish to say that I guess but these days one must think about our future, and it often isn't the pleasantest thought.

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

The Paper of Re-CORD's Nobel-winning colyumnist worries:

It’s September 2009, the unemployment rate has passed 9 percent, and despite the early round of stimulus spending it’s still headed up. Mr. Obama finally concedes that a bigger stimulus is needed.

But he can’t get his new plan through Congress because approval for his economic policies has plummeted, partly because his policies are seen to have failed, partly because job-creation policies are conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts. And as a result, the recession rages on, unchecked.

O.K., that’s a warning, not a prediction. But economic policy is falling behind the curve, and there’s a real, growing danger that it will never catch up.

Well, maybe if his first priority hadn't been merely increasing the size of the guvment -- but that's another story.

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

Shucks, The One's in a slight naval scuffle with the Chinese.

You have to wonder: Will The One someday make up for going further left by being a he-man?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Another Republican (okay, a moderate Republican), mercifully not writing for Zeitgeist, asks, "What would Tom Delay do?" We know what ol' Snidely Whiplash would do. We still have the sour taste in our mouth from it.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Whenever I see a word like "bioethics", why do I think, who will be Mustapha Mond?

And why do I think these very learned clowns have never heard Shaw's line about "the road to hell"?

And why do I think when they unleash accidents on us they'll take no responsibility?

Okay, Dubya was a hick. And then there are cosmopolitan hicks.

OR:

Twins for a 70-year-old? Louise Brown's doctors didn't envision this [sub-hed]

And all he could do was scratch his head nonjudgmentally. Yes, I think you Bunsen Honeydews have some surprises for us.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

What happens when a NYT reporter does an e-mail interview with Ann Coulter

NYTimes.com ArtsBeat Blog
You get answers like this: "I THINK I SPEAK FOR ALL AMERICANS WHO THINK NEWSPAPER EDITORS WHO PRINT THE DETAILS OF TOP-SECRET ANTI-TERRORIST INTELLIGENCE GATHERING PROGRAMS ON PAGE ONE IN WARTIME SHOULD BE EXECUTED FOR TREASON."

What happens when THE LORD GOD PINCH does an e-mail interview with a conservative writer? You get answers like this:



I think we can be sure Tarzana and LordGod are pretty well united in not thinking much of the people who must read them. Here's something the most rabid partisans can agree on!

(Via the inimitable ROMY!)

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

US Recession Could Last Up to 36 Months: Roubini

"Dr. Doom" has yet to occupy the sacred ground owned by Norm Ornstein, THE PUBLISHER OF TALKERS, Perfesser Thompson and PAUL DRECK, but he may be getting there -- even if he is right.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

And then there's Barbie...

(And then there's sites like Chron.com that must run these galleries)

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

WACKO'S HAVING A SALE!

But it’s Volume 5, which will be sold on April 25th, that should be the boon day. It contains all the personal memorabilia. There are many bejeweled and jewel encrusted items from actual crowns to socks and gloves to jackets, pants and shoes. There are also personal photographs. Brooke Shields will be pleased to know she’s the only female included with Jackson in a photo.

In one of the more ominous pictures, Jackson is shown with a boy of about 10 or 11 posing for an LA Gear ad in matching motorcycle jackets. In another Jackson is seen at his 1984 Hollywood Walk of Fame signing. He’s surrounded, in happier times, by a phalanx of police officers. It would be only a short item before many of these men in blue, or their counterparts in Santa Barbara County, would raid Neverland two or three times. The picture is one of the pricier items, maybe for its irony, at $15-20,000.

CHEAP!

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Obama moves to separate politics, science

We can say it again: Obama IS God!

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: When high-ups at a corrupt financial outfit like AIG use the word "CATASTROPHIC!!!!!" in a memo, they get the money.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

CHEAP CHANNEL! Remember the name -- SkyTag!

And what if the building is an architectural wonder or a historic landmark? No problem -- we'll put it up there too!

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

More from ARCHdaily.com: This from the Armani store on Fifth Avenue. It's interesting looking but imagine doing maintenance on it. "Man, I gotta paint this thing?"

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

More on Johnny: Maybe I read too much into it, but look closely and you'll sense for all their mirthful badinage Johnny and Ed aren't speaking to each other. (I don't blame Johnny.) Also those last few seconds are eloquent testimony to the almost total recluse Johnny became after he left television. (I don't blame Johnny.)

Second, for all his supposed prowess, Johnny did not like women. If I were a woman I'd have been angry after watching this. Being a man I merely feel like taking a ninety-minute shower.

Third, I submit again this was not a blooper. If Richardson-Vicks had the stereotypical sales force of the time it was full of Tarzans. Also this was 1975, when being goofy first became a virtue. Johnny knew his audience -- and his audience paid his exorbitant bills. For what I trust is the only time in my life I say, thank GOD for PC.

Finally, much was made of how Johnny prospered most when his monologue veered toward disaster. (I said that too.) This was disaster, all right, but we only see a well-honed joke machine belching smoke and leaking oil. Perhaps it's just the passage of time, or perhaps Johnny was just the ultimate joke machine, a machine now so totally rusted away even the metal no longer exists.

Terry Teachout, you didn't need it in my eyes, but you are completely vindicated.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

Of course that profit center includes THE BIG C, which Jonny Hairshirt somehow feels is...beneath his dignity -- meaning its schlockmeisters can now scream with impunity.

And if we read this flackery from THE ORIGINAL TV NEWSER!!!!! right, the BIG C has positioned itself as something of the anti-MESS. Of course that might mean the MESS is the anti-BIG C. As for us, we're anti-MESS AND anti-BIG C. [Via the usual Romy]

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

And going forty-four minutes gives us the perfect excuse for more needless indigestion-provoking stories like this. We can understand that some eggheads might want to do a religious census, but this strikes us as extremely irritating as it reduces religious belief to mere Gallup fodder -- which might be the whole point.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE DE LAWD!!!!! (or, Calling Bill Carter! Calling Bill Carter!) GE BANCORP NETWORK NEWS IS A PROFIT CENTER!!!!! (Our logofying of two years ago worked!) Which gives us the PERFECT EXCUSE to go to an "HOUR-LONG" (i.e., 44-minute) NIGHTLY NEWS SHOW! To which we say, let's see if the affiliates give up their game shows. Then again, they may not be in a position to say that, since news is cheaper. (!) As always, when it comes to news, the public will certainly come last, as said show will merely be double the displeasure.

MSNBC now pulls in a bigger percentage of the news profits than the network news department, said the senior executive who provided information on NBC’s finances. The margin was not disclosed.

CNBC, the Weather Channel and Telemundo are not counted in the news profits. But with those outlets added, the percentage of contribution to NBC Universal’s profits climbs to 25 percent — or about $775 million.

WOW!!!!! Bill sure can dish out numbers -- and the GE BANCORP PR CREW!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO THE MENSA MAN!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

In a critique of THE STONE FACE OF ANNOYING TV ADS AND THE PAPER OF RE-CORD:

Beyond his paucity of anything interesting to say -- which consistently embarasses the NYT business section -- there's something insidious about this idea that the only issue here is confidence. You hear people say it a lot, that we need to restore confidence, but confidence is how we got into this mess.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN. Confidence said we'd found permanent prosperity. Confidence said we'd see the Dow at 36,000. Confidence said the computer-industrial complex would give us eternal growth. Confidence said Einsteins could invent formulas that could make money forever. Confidence did get us into this mess.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

WFMU has posted a promotional "blooper" for Richardson-Vicks salespeople from Johnny and Ed (it appears in several forms on the Web -- note, naughty language) which further confirms our notion that MadAve's sugar daddies burn money on television so they can put one over on their subordinates and their customers. I'm guessing someone got a hold of it because it was presented to the Vicks folks as is, therefore it wasn't a blooper. The makers of NyQuil probably couldn't get over their luck; they must have laughed long and loud at Johnny making fun of their product's name -- hey, they're laughing with us. The outfit's now owned by Moon 'n' Stars (which has lately been criticized for selling Vicks VapoRub for use with infants), and while it may be too PC to do anything like it we're sure that desire to zing the public hasn't gone away.

By the way, we didn't find it at all funny. Aside from the fact we usually don't collapse to the floor in a heap laughing over dirty words seventeen years have come between us and Johnny, and they haven't aged him well.

And in light of something like this and the fact anything can be shown on TV these days, it wouldn't astound me to learn the Ed Ames stunt was staged.

Classy hed and URL, Kliph. Is that your real name?

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

HYPERBOLE:

1. “[I]F THE GOVERNMENT RELAXES MARK-TO-MARKET FOR 12 TO 18 MONTHS YOU COULD SEE FINANCIALS MOVE 100% IN A MATTER OF HOURS!!!!!” (optionMonster [SIC] overemphasis added)

This is why The Big C is such a joke -- going as far back as the Financial News Network, whose excellent rep it's never shaken, it's always sold something. The Big C's sales-pitch approach to financial news is the norm now; the depr -- ECONOMY hasn't decoupled it. If we scorn business news it's because so much of that scorn comes from The Big C.

2. The president was facing EXHAUSTION over America's economic crisis.... [The PM got DVDs overemphasis added]

Look, we agree The One didn't treat your guy right. But who wouldn't be overwhelmed in the White House? Dubya was -- but he didn't show it. Your rag also uses sources and lots of misleading big words. Cut the syllables, guys.

(Second link via NRO, which calls that story "TERRIFYING!!!!!!!!!!" -- meaning they're giggling too)

Posted 12:33 PM by Gene

When does PILLHEAD run for president?

Posted 11:29 AM by Gene

A humorist--and, I should disclose, an old friend--Christopher Buckley exercised his acute comic sense during the presidential campaign, judging John McCain so thoroughly risible that the nation could hardly do worse by electing Barack Obama. Now Buckley has developed a sense of the tragic. In electing Obama, he admits, we may indeed have done worse--a lot worse.

Well thank you, old friend, for your friend being such a friend of the republic!

You don't suppose HISTORY'S GREATEST SATIRIST was merely exercising his acute comic sense in a different way, do you, Old Friend?

This Hooverviller's also a "friend" of David Gergle, Jr., and the Boogie Man of Davos can't be far off. Pfffffffffffffffffffft!

(Via the irony-challenged Jenni-FER)

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

By the way, JonBoy, if this idiot squib (which made the MESS's home page) is the future of Zeitgeist, it deserves none.

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

The editor of a dying newsrag appoints an honorary liberal to shore up his circ. 1.2 MILLION!

Look, we don't like PILLHEAD, but does it occur to a genius like JonBoy or his sock-puppet of the moment that such diatribes cement the notion of newshacks as people who'll listen only to the demagoguery they want to hear -- even if his honorary liberal is mostly on target?

And judging from what I can skim Dave has absolutely no idea what to do about Republicans either. JonBoy has chosen well.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

In the near term this will attract all sorts of PILLHEADISMS and con-SER-va-tive whining about pork. Yes there is the danger of waste in mass transit. How much long can we stick with our dysfunctional interstates and our dysfunctional air-travel system?

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

More excellence from America's news biz:

A-Rod to undergo surgery on his hip Monday morning, will miss 2-5 weeks of season

BREAKING: A-ROD TO HAVE SURGERY, OUT 6 TO 8 WEEKS

A-Rod to have hip surgery, miss 6-9 weeks

Aren't you glad you're well-informed!