Posted 9:29 PM by Gene

PILLHEAD's Accent has pointed us to this article on Europe's "demographic time bomb". We can see where a CW rag like Zeitgeist would play down the threat; we can see how far-right politicians would play it up. The dangers are real: Europe is morally flabby at best, and we should not underestimate the ability of the same continent that got the world into two wars to live down to its lack of potential. We just wish these things weren't foretold by the likes of PILLHEAD's Accent, which is why we don't take them fully seriously.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

Obese Texas inmate hides gun in his flabs of fat

He's lucky he didn't have a self-administered liposuction.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



I don't care how stable it is, it LOOKS lopsided.

And this in the country that built the apartment house that collapsed in one piece.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

Not long ago I noticed these words on the StinkyInky's masthead:

Locally owned and independent since 2006

This is a triple untruth. First, locally-owned: Most LBO firms are likely not owned at their source. That's especially true in a metro area with little local banking. One of the StinkyInky Publishing Co.'s lenders is CIT, which is certainly not based here and hasn't felt too well lately itself. (What happens if CIT goes bust? What happens to that debt?) When a StinkyInky goes broke that would seem to put management completely out of local hands. Now independent: An LBO firm is always at its creditors' mercy. If they don't like the cash flow they can take it into bankruptcy court, as happened with StinkyInky. So we're not talking financially independent in any way. Then there's independent's other meaning, and one who's read enough news should know why it's a fib in that sense too.

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

Another FDIC Friday!



What? Me sell?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Big Brother is watching you.

Or is this part of some designer prison?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Figures:

"Junk" companies rule U.S. stock market's rally

And junk investors are buying them.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Panel: Senators' VIP loans broke no Senate rules

TRANSLATION: Membership has its privileges.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Unemployment rate down! Stocks up five zillion points!

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included the unemployment rate would have been 16.3 percent.

So what? The depr -- ECONOMY's over!

P. S. at 1:30 p. m. TRANSLATION: Statistical legerdemain.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

If this is true, and this is true, and they both seem to be true, our Professor-in-Chief has launched a giveaway for special interests. Thanks for your health-care "reform", Prof.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Sorry for consecutive posts on the guy, but Ben Frankenstein has lost his job as a second-string economist at The Paper of Re-CORD for selling a "sleazy" credit reporting "service".

What would John Hughes think? I know what I think.

(First link via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:51 PM by Gene

We know nothing of John Hughes but that the ein-volk people are in ein voice calling him "classic" raises suspicions. (That and he made a star of Ben Frankenstein.) Thanks to a Seeking Alpha link we got this Paper of Re-Cord story starting with two grafs about LEGENDARY WELCH. He was called a classic too, and he made it big in the same decade. When news hacks call people classic check your wallet.

P. S. on 8/8/2009 at 4:00 a. m. John Hughes as Shakespeare; John Hughes as Tolstoy (MOGUL'S FRIEND, natch); John Hughes as Salinger (WESLEY, who will soon acquire A. O.'s spot among moVEE cri-TICS) -- okay, John Hughes as LUKE SPIELBERG. That's my choice. (And that's a quote from Dick "SYNERGY" Corliss, whose six-graf platitude begins with this fatuous line: "Does any current teen out there know who John Hughes was? Anyone? Anyone?" NUF SAID.)

Posted 7:16 PM by Gene

Someone may have cut Spidey's web in Branson East!

Why Marvel Films would think of staging a theme park there when it has the popcorn restaurants and the fanboys is beyond me. Let us hope Spidey can spin a new web -- for hilarity's sake.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Now we finally get to see how honest she is.

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

Forbeslist, perhaps anticipating the day when it goes out of biz like Useless News, puts out its own best-colleges list, to which one may ask, what is the practical difference between no. 493 and no. 494?

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

Paris Hilton returns to TV as 'demonic creature'

NO COMMENT.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Elsewhere from the dying BizWeek, Whole Foods is overpriced again, meaning (sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh) GEKKO KUDLOW is BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

We suppose PepsiCo's boss Indra got her ultra-PC company into the record business as a form of PR, but how many people had to be fired so this muddleheaded CEO could boast to her friends about being a MOGUL?

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

If we are to believe LALA's obit when he wrote What Makes Sammy Run? (which the HSX crowd still thinks is a "true-life story" -- maybe it was) Budd Schulberg proved Hollywood was not thin skinned, it was no-skinned. That, in my book, is a supreme mark of honor. It is depressing, however, to think that Schulberg was old enough to have worked with F. Scott Fitzgerald on one of his last projects, a screenplay called Winter Carnival, aborted when Fitzgerald showed his talent for liquor ran just behind his talent for words. In its own odd way that too is a mark of honor. Now we have JUDD APATOWS flattered by A. O. SCOTTS. That wedding of vulgarity and flattery is far more sickening than What Makes Sammy Run? ever was to any Hollywoodian.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

A. O. gets the dream of his life, the dream for which all those rave reviews were not in vain, the dream of making millions spouting total prattle -- he gets to be ONE OF THE THUMBS-UP TWINS!

Or will it be ARMS UP?

Another reason among the many not to trust The Paper of Re-CORD.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

Well, at least Freezer Man was defeated before the jury inevitably found him guilty.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

News Corp Takes $680 Million Writedown At Fox Interactive (NWS)

SLIME! Buy FACEBOOK! AND TWITTER!

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



A big high-tech tribble!

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

NOT ARCHDaily!



The living room (with its white orchid, gargantuan quasi-Picasso and giant shiny black vases), was designed by a musical theater actor named J. Cameron Barnett, whose résumé's skills section lists interior decoration only after "hip-hop dance, knowledge of German, cheerleading jumps, drag."

J., stick with -- cheerleading.

Posted 12:26 PM by Gene

Former Enron trader calls for setting commodities limits

What would John "Speculators Are My Best Friends" Stossel say? TRAITOR!

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

SQUIB OF THE DAY FROM SEEKING ALPHA:

12:03 PM Goldman Sachs (GS +0.6%) faces two 'major' competitive threats, analyst Dick Bove says in a note this morning. One is the rise of powerful investment banking firms in China. The other is the ability to trade freely in the U.S.

Keep paying yourselves those zillion-dollar bonuses in a Monopoly mode and you might not trade in the U. S. PERIOD. [Link via Henry Honest]

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Radio Shack -- er, RadioShack may or may not be changing its name to THE SHACK (to me it will always be the outfit that demanded your phone number) -- and in tracking down the Crainiacs' links I found this site devoted to RadioShack er, Radio Shack catalogs, a new definition of

GET A LIFE!!!!!

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

"You Don't Say":

Claim: There are two protected classes in newsrooms -- stars and incompetents [Usual Romy link]

P. S. at 2:21 p. m. This followed it on Romy's site:

Keller: Stanley keeps her job because she's "a brilliant critic"

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

When you're in show-biz, and you need another really tired idea to supplement all your other tired ideas, call it a "reboot."

Here's another word that may need banning from the language.

And while You're at it, SUMNER, why not an I LOVE LUCY movie?

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

News hacks seem to be paying less attention to this bullet epidemic than normal, meaning they've gotten it into their heads they're not important. Part of it as always is the geography; metro Pittsburgh doesn't exist to them. I suspect still far few people die in bullet epidemics than in vehicular homicides, and that besotted pothead in New York showed a drunk driver can be as malicious as anyone with a gun. The thing is America long ago decided it can live with mass death, though it forever denies it, and every day it must deal with that.

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

After last year’s ceremony drew the smallest Emmy television audience ever, a survey of viewers revealed that many found the awards to be focused largely on television shows that mainstream audiences did not know and were not interested in.

TRANSLATION: THE GREATEST NETWORK OF ALL TIME is not THAT great.

(Via AhtsJournal)

Posted 6:48 AM by Gene

If America could do with anything less it's those holes in the wall called "comedy" clubs. At best they're Henny Youngman wannabes telling stupid jokes; at worst they're Adam Sandler wannabes detailing how they go to the toilet. Christina says there's a "comedy" "circuit". Where? Of whom? Decades ago people knew the names of the big nightclubs. The only "comedy" club I know is a room on South Street that seats maybe thirty people. People who want "comedy" already have all the outlets they need, from Comedy Central News Network to the popcorn restaurants. No, we don't need more of them.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



This is a new mass-transit station -- in Detroit. What will it look like in fifteen years?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

It scarcely matters if the INCREASED PROFITS happened under LEGENDARY or the VERY VERY LITTLER JEFFY; a mindset created them, a mindset both shared but was ultimately inspired by LEGENDARY, meaning GE's collapse was pretty much a done deal.

Posted 3:29 PM by Gene

ALL HAIL! ALL HAIL THE TINY TYRANT!! ALL HAIL SLICK!!!

For what?

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

Wheeeeeeeeere's 100?!?!?

Barack Obama turned 48 today, bringing to an end a busy 47th year for the commander in chief.

Actually, it was his 48th year -- but then news hacks wouldn't know, just so long as he's still our greatest president.

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

GREAT: Lou Holtz may run for Congress.

Wasn't it fun enough to scream at football players? Why do you want to scream at the people?

(Via -- oh well --- AmSpec)

P. S. at 5:23 p. m. MS. TRAVERS spells it "Holz", so maybe he won't run.

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

Now we learn Slick's talks with Tiny Tyrant are "exhaustive". TRANSLATION: There's no limit to what we can give away -- even without his ex -- SIGNIFICANT OTHER'S help!

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

The woman in upstate New York who killed herself and seven others in that ghastly auto accident was drunk and doped.

Some people will always use their automobiles as weapons.

(Via Bloomberg)

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

Slick is irrelevant; the Tiny Tyrant will release our hostages on his own sweet time, perhaps after extracting a few tasty promises from SLICK'S EX -- I mean, significant other.

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

For God's sake why would anyone think somebody's who's amassed as much TV time as Bob Hormats would be honest?

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition has released a statement....And in the New York Post today....

Sorry Jenni-FER, Mrs. Durban will get her medal. It would be unseemly to pull it from her now; she is, after all, a former head of state. Besides, The Professor's interns did what they were going to do.

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

Mogul's Friend mourns that all his friends are no longer making $20 million per.

I think most movee viewers stopped mourning a long time ago.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

In our NOT ME! department, con-SER-va-tives say the angry scenes facing Congresspoops are expressions of the PEE-pul, while liberals say they're RENT-A-MOBS. God knows where the truth is. Truth? What's truth?

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Goldy keeps offering new excuses for companies to build their corporate HQ underground.

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

There's something a little -- ironical about pitching the new lousy tentpole G. I. Joe to the -- heartland; isn't he fighting for the League of Nations or something?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

So they were never called Kronkiters in Sweden after all! Looks like our looooooooooove of UN-CLE HHHHHWWWWALT dictated our stories. It also seems to have dictated our level of tolerance for errors.

(First link via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

I am TIRED of NOT ME. Every partisan learns denial before the alphabet. NOT ME is a behavior of cynicism and malevolence. Anyone who can utter NOT ME does not fully know how to tell the truth. He may also be missing his humility. And it's a bipartisan thing -- sorry for the WeeklyStandard.com, but that's where this appeared. Any pundit or partisan or politician who says NOT ME is really saying NOT YOU, and likely something stronger.

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

This is really cute; but I think I'd go insane before I could finish one of these. Way to go Jim! Nerves of steel! (I'm not being sarcastic.)

(Link to the story, which that Photoshop renders almost superfluous.)

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

When I clicked on the second page of Dick "Synergy" Corliss's pointless diatribe about Netflix a Netflix pop-up ad popped up. Really Dick, aren't your bosses carrying their toadying a bit too far?

Getting movies by mail is, Netflix hopes, just a stage between the Blockbuster era of video stores and the imminent streaming of movies. You can already get 12,000 Netflix titles on your TV (if you have a Blu-ray player or spring for a $100 Netflix box). So, O.K., soon there will be no more waiting for DVDs. But it'll come at a price. You'll be what the online corporate culture wants you to be: a passive, inert receptacle for its products.

There's a line in Thomas Dekker's great play The Honest Whore II that applies here: "Past shame, past penitence."

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

The former home of MR. JOURNOLIST sez:

There's a case to be made for reporters collaborating with the people they write about.

And while the article itself isn't quite that raw -- what it says is an admirable cliche -- we must still ask: Don't enough news hacks already sleep with their sources? Don't the hack bean us with enough sales pitches? And that word collaboration has never quite lost the stench it acquired in France.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Very Very Littler Jeffy and SLIME realize they have a lot in common, principally putting one over on the little folks. Fortunately when this "truce" disintegrates they'll discover they have a lot in common then too.

Posted 9:30 PM by Gene

LUNKHEAD:

Seth Haberman, CEO of Visible World, a provider of customized TV ads whose clients include the nation's five largest cable TV operators, said viewers who would rather skip ads should realize they subsidize the cost of producing cable TV content.

"If you took out the ad support, your bill would triple or quadruple," he said. "There's no way around it."

TRANSLATION: By skipping ads we could put 400 of the 500 channels with nothing on out of biz.

Posted 9:13 PM by Gene

We're surprised no one ever thought of ads on a recorded -- SOUND CD before, and we're not surprised it involves someone as crass as Eight-Octave; but it's just another gimmick because few recorded -- SOUND stars have the name or the crass to make it work. Besides it's not clear where the CD ends and the accompanying magazine content begins, and Eight-Octave's friends and magazine readers are bound to be confused, especially when they share so little taste.

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

How surprising: The stimulus may assist in a key tenet of RENDELLISM -- stealing someone else's business with state largesse.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

AHTSJournal greets us with two irritating links. In the first Mark Swed says "no one dared call [John Cage] the greatest composer of his time." Or as he must put it:

More typical was what the British critic Andrew Porter spelled out in the lead paragraph of his Cage obituary in the Observer: “He said a lot silly things, and wrote a lot of silly music. But everyone was fond of him.” Even those who praised Cage’s music were forced to assume a defensive tone.

But you, Mark, dared to call Karl-HEINTZ "9-11" StockHAUsen a great composer, and from our experience great composers can make for rotten mu-SIC cri-TICKS, especially when it comes to AH-pe-RAHS.

In the second we learn Hellywood has a new fad, the end of the world (haven't I talked enough about that biz today?), and the Journals smartly quote from one of the market-research guys who writes the movees:

Roger Smith, an executive editor at the research firm Global Media Intelligence and a former film executive who oversaw “Terminator 2,” calls this competition “the film version of the Cuban Missile Crisis—we have to get the edge of extinction each time [SIC].”

With luck, THE CONSPIRACY WILL cross the edge this time.

One other thing: that first link deals with the death of the choreographer Merce Cunningham. We had vaguely heard of him, and have no idea why he was important. (A show of our ignorance: we thought Cunningham was a woman.) How many people scratched their heads over that name? Thus has the chasm between the high arts and the people become uncrossable, and it may not be the people's fault.

Posted 3:57 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



A one-hole golf course!

It's supposed to be the Swiss pavilion at some Shanghai expo -- so why does it vaguely resemble the U. S. of A.?

Posted 3:54 PM by Gene

A blogger we have referred to as Paramount Pete learns from some PR handout that LUKE SPIELBERG, fresh off the idea of remaking some Dean Martin movies, now decides He'll remake a Jimmy Stewart one. Even the commenters are unimpressed.

P. S. at 9:43 p. m. Well, one commenter in LALA.com:

Almost certainly will star Tom Hanks, our modern day Jimmy Stewart.

Hey Arye! How's your client?

Posted 1:48 PM by Gene

Geithner: Lower deficit key to sustaining recovery

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 12:21 PM by Gene

Sorry for the Sharon, but once again JEFF ZUCKS takes pride in chasing people from the popcorn restaurants!

And how does PAUL DRECK rationalize away this sudden reversal of THE WORLD'S GREATEST INDUSTRY's fortune?

P. S. at 1:56 p. m. Well WELL, if DRECK doesn't come to the rescue -- why, old Galloping Internationalist Joe (or whatever HASBRO FILMS calls him now) will save the day like Mighty Mouse -- with his GREAT BUZZ!!!!!

A STANDING O FOR PAUL DRECK! But don't stand on one foot too long.

P. P. S. SUMNER's sent out some -- free tickets, because all the industry sock puppets among the fanboys are saying it's good. Problem is, when they shake their heads up and down so hard what's left of their brains falls out.

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Yesterday I posted that Reuters press release about Belly Kisser in the mini-submarine. Today Jo-NAH points to "[t]wo interesting bit [SIC!] from this AFP story (via Drudge)". I said some time ago con-SER-va-tives use leg-lifters like WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!! (and increasingly his former sidekick not-so-Breit) as a crutch. If I could debate with Jo-NAH over why he must use WALT as a crutch it would be a never-ending thing, like fighting with LIAR-LIAR BROCK over why liberals can do with impunity what they despise in the other side. Using one or two sources for your Web news is like breathing through a dozen respirators; but some people would rather be sick with their pure ideology than well with the truth.

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

President Raul Castro said on Saturday he would not change Cuba's communist system to make peace with the United States, but repeated his willingness to discuss all issues with the island's longtime enemy.

Think our Professor-in-Chief can say, "It's a deal!"?