Posted 6:55 PM by Gene

The bumbling nincompoop Gordy arranged it, and thankfully in a week it will all be forgotten except for the thank-yous from BP and Shell, and no one will have to resign.

“Does anybody seriously believe that Qaddafi or any of his people have any influence with the Queen?”

Yes, when we need our OIL.

P. S. "DEAR MUAMMAR...."

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

This eyeball-rolling thing is from February 11, 2008 -- and it's number two on LALA's most-viewed list and number one on most e-mailed. Oughtn't there to be a statute of limitations to stories?

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Glen, we appreciate your respect for His Omnipotence and Teddy, but we waste too much time tracking down news, and we'd rather not read one more puff piece of any kind. Mind, we don't want a hatchet job but some stories serve no useful purpose, and this is one of them.

And I had to link twice to this story as in most places the ASSPress hid its distinguished correspondent's byline behind a wall.

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

As we might have expected con-SER-va-tives are gloating because bankers are taking advantage of credit-card "reform". Republicans back caveat emptor; Democrats back market strangulation. Six of one....

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

The same YOUNUHVERSUHTEES who plaster their arenas with beer ads are complaining because INBEV's stealing their school colors.

Puh-LEASE! Haven't you heard of licensing? We thought so.

Posted 10:02 PM by Gene

Meantime PEOPLE WARNER reports the news vital to all of us:

Murdered Model Identified by Breast Implants

Posted 9:59 PM by Gene

And the Swiss can grovel with the best of them too!

Posted 9:46 PM by Gene

BP!

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!

SHELL!

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!

MARKS AND SPARKS!

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!

AND THE REST!

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:37 PM by Gene

FDIC FRIDAY!

DOW -- or whatever they'll call it -- 20,000!!!!!

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

It's official: Chicago Cubs to sell to Ricketts family

PVT. ZELL doesn't want the credit?

Or in another demonstration of SELIGISM at its finest:

While Tribune Co. has been criticized for its failure to put a championship team on the field, it's hard to argue with its success off the field. The transaction's $845 million value is more than 40 times what Tribune Co. paid nearly 30 years ago.

The Cubs attract more than 3 million fans a year to watch a mediocre team in an aging ballpark that lacks most of the amenities of modern stadiums.

If we are to keep the Greater Fool Theory alive we MUST get the greater fools the taxpayers to...hint hint? Maybe the Permanent Mayor can budget it into THE GAMES! WHAT? No SELIGISM in THE GAMES? We'll think of a sport!

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Another casino goes broke...



...in the GHEEEE-TOOOOOOOOOO....

(Via NJ.com via Bloomberg)

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

What would Charles Dow and Edward Jones think?

The WSJ is reporting that News Corp. is considering selling its stock market indexing business, which includes the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Charles Dow and Edward Jones might think SLIME is flailing.

P. S. SLIME bought Dow Jones at the top of the market. Is this another contrary indicator?

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

Obama to hike 10-year deficit to $9 trillion

Obama would trade healthcare for second term

Related?

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

I think the ASSPress means to impress us:

A survey performed for EA by the University of Oregon's Sports Marketing Center found that "Madden NFL" players were considerably more knowledgeable about the sport than other fans. For example, 67 percent of "Madden" players could correctly identify specific passing routes, compared with 48 percent of non-gamers.

"Fans aren't given enough credit," Madden says. "They know a lot more than fans 25 years ago."

And what do they know less about?

Posted 12:24 PM by Gene

S&P 3,000!!!!!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

The Foreign Secretary warned Libya earlier today that its international reputation was at stake as the world watched its handling of al-Megrahi's return home.

As opposed to the UK, which is getting close to an infinitely negative reputation.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

Ben, I wouldn't take too much credit for "fixing" what so many of your friends broke.

Even if the DOW goes up 5,000 POINTS!!!!! today.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Libya? EMBARRASSED?!?

It should be.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

Interesting juxtaposition at PaperofRecord.com's home page:

Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall

A-List Stars Flailing at the Box Office

I would say the super-rich and a-list stars deserved it, but that would be ungenerous, don'tya think?

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

I think we can safely say from this scribble that PVT. ZELL's empire doesn't have any.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO MARGIE!

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A NEW! IMPROVED!! version of vanity publishing.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

What goes around....

Calipari is now the first head coach to have vacated Final Four appearances with two different schools. His 1996 Massachusetts team met the same fate because of NCAA rules violations, even though Calipari was not implicated in that instance, either. Memphis also suffered the same fate in 1985, when it was stripped of its NCAA tournament appearance then because of rules violations.

P. S. at 10:10 p. m. I'm wondering if I wasn't wrong about sports columnists.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Another argument against sports colyumnists: How many of them would justify any manner of unlawful behavior because "the guy can play"? Yes, Plexi -- PLAXICO is stupid and only aimed the gun at himself, but by your sports hack's reasoning what should prevent any player from getting a second chance? And as even this typist admits when he's finally eligible again he may be too old to play. We're all for second chances but why must the hacks scream the loudest for their friends'?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Henry the K could have organized the Lockerbie "justice" -- cynical "realism" in the name of trade, cynical espousal of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Of course justice would never be served; too many people had their grimy paws on the balance. And His Omnipotence proved a realist too; he shrugged his shoulders in the name of "can't we all be friends". And PC had to rear its ugly head too. And if the "humanitarian" aspect was vaguely justifiable, it died amidst the cheers of Libyans. When what we must call Western "civilization" acts as a doormat we should expect people to walk over us, and wipe their feet on us in the bargain.

Posted 2:45 PM by Gene

Surprise: Not working.

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

SOMEBODY CALLED DA POST!!!!! TO LAUNCH AN AD CAMPAIGN.

HEY SLIME! YOU REALLY THINK WE'LL PAY FOR YOUR ADS?



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO ROCKET!!!!! YOU'RE GOING TO THE MOON, ROCKET! BANG! ZOOM!

Oh and SLIME, do You intend to inflict Your paying customers with as many POP-UP ADS as You do now?

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

SLIME is shutting down a free newsrag in London, leading us to dream of a life without Metro.

The problem of what to do about the discarded copies of the free papers that littered the streets of central London soon became an issue, leading to rows with London councils, particularly Westminster, which demanded that both companies pay some of the costs of cleaning up the mess.

As we've said before, free papers make jobs only for sanitation workers.

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Ted Kennedy is not returning to the Senate. If he cares about his constituents' well-being he would resign his seat. Doing what Chief Justice Rehnquist did, keeping his office as a kind of placeholder, does no one good, least of all the seat warmer.

And naturally Pinch's Glob speaks of this almost euphemistically, meaning the hacks don't want to face reality either.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

SI's Vanity...Fair has run a piece on Italy's Hef, and given the pictures we must say his taste in women isn't that great (but then the real Hef won't countenance any woman with an age over 21 or an IQ over 60); nonetheless he landed a few doozies, starting with this one:



Eleonora Gaggioli is certainly not bad for a nominee for the European Parliament. Can our Congress claim such a pin-up? (Then again maybe it's the apt choice as the Parliament is mostly full of figureheads, no pun intended.)



This one -- an actress named Francesca Dellera -- we MUST post with SI's caption, which we don't think was entirely intentional. Or as Lucky Strike said long ago, so round, so firm, so fully packed.... (Forgive us.)



This one named Aida (!) Yespica, from Venezuela, has posed for Maxim, but say, what red-blooded Italian Hef could turn down this dame?



This one, a starlet named Barbara Matera, is perhaps the best of all, but we must ask, if Silvio weren't a high, er, mucky-muck what would she think? (Assuming, and we must say it alas, she can.)



And then there's the cad's wife, Veronica Lario, perhaps a little over the hill now, but if a woman with her face (and attributes) woke up tomorrow morning in our bed we could hardly chase her off.

And if we know this -- rhymes with mucky-muck he's probably all talk and no action, which might not be so bad in a politician except that's all he's known for -- especially being an Italian politician.

This post seems to have brought out the worst in us.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Another relic of star jernalism is Don Hewitt's 60 Minutes. It was the perfect example of the burgeoning hack ethos of its day -- an almost even mix of investigative pieces whose subjects were guilty and never to be proved innocent (think ALAR and the AUDI 5000 -- or DUBYA*) and the most fawning obsequious celebrity puff pieces. Its stars like the nose-in-the-air Morley Safer rode in Rolls Royces and chauffeured limousines. In 1968 the news biz still engendered trust. Now, thanks to shows like 60 Minutes, among a great many it has no trust.

*He was persecuted on 60 Minutes the Second, the show INVENTED by HORACE -- STORM, who took infinity, er infinite credit for it! Some idea, Horton.

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

When we read words like "thoughtful" and "reflective" used with JERNALISM we know someone's pulling something on us. Why does the world need sports columnists with 5000 sports channels? Why do we need more analysis with every event broadcast and every play replayed 10,000 times? And look what thoughtful, reflective commentary brought the Keyboard Thrower -- a rep as a sappy writer and Oprah boytoy. No, we don't need thoughtful, reflective typing and all the puffery and clichés that implies -- we just need good sports writing. And how do we get that with the whole industry going goose-eggs?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

“Can the brand be stopped? Never. In 3009 there will be Beatles starships.”

Like the Beatles?



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO NIC!

(The man on the left is Bob Johnson, founder of Boogie Everynight Television; the man on the right is Don Keough, who in so many words admitted NEW COKE wasn't the most brilliant idea. Yep Al, you deserved the company.)

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

WHAAAAAT? TOM SHERAK NEW AMPAS PREZ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

What an AWFUL decision!!!!! Because Tom Sherak has been responsible of late for many of the worst decisions by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences!!!!!!! Heck, this guy helped run Revolution Studios into the ground!!!!!!!!!! Now he's going to do the same thing with AMPAS!!!!!!!!!!!! What a tool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a moronic Board Of Governors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (AWFUL overemphasis added)

Shucks if he can drive the ratings lower this would be a GREAT decision!

She also goes ALL-CAPS ballistic over giving Jerry Lewis that award. Don't you have better things to plug with your time, SUPERNIKKI!!!!!?

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

Midst the clanking of the machinery to erect the pay walls that the armies of free-news seekers will still breach:

(Antitrust concerns, while a convenient excuse, actually are not an issue, as there are many ways publishers can act in concert without unlawfully colluding.)

NUF SAID.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

In another needless PROMOTION:

Dan Brown's latest conspiracy thriller looks to be 'big, big'

Somebody should do a conspiracy thriller about S. O. B. -- and how he conspired with the nation's hacks to EVISCERATE OUR BRAINS.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO BOB!

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Statement of the Day, from Paramount Pete:

Can the man who restructured Krispy Kreme and Enron save Leo the Lion?

The only good thing is when the TWXSTERS pay too much for that mangy cat they can finally restore the proper logo to MGM's movies.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

Oh, the AGONY of working the tourist traps of Branson East:

While many performers suffer real injuries during some of the more grueling shows, producers say they suspect drinking, partying and general carousing are often the real culprits.

"Musicals employ a lot of kids," one producer says. "They're in New York, they're making money, they're having fun. You have to stay on top of them."

Another, speaking of buff chorus boys, says: "Some of them are more loyal to their gym than they are to their show."

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

ED MURROW SUPPORTS JOE McCARTHY!!!!! Well, not quite, but some people can turn on a dime, especially when they work for SUMNER.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: His Omnipotence made a commitment to Hosni the Thug, but because he's on the outs with...Jews (especially after honoring Mrs. Durban) he sends Mr. Snicker out to deny it.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Stephenie Meyer Outs Herself As an Indie-Rock Enthusiast

If you would've asked us before today what kind of music we thought Stephenie Meyer listened to, we probably would've said something like Evanescence, Lifehouse, or maybe even early-period Donnie & Marie Osmond. However, we would've been totally wrong! Her iPod playlist includes the likes of Animal Collective, the Silversun Pickups, and the Dead Weather. Oh, and the Fray. Maybe we weren't so off in the first place. [Flavorwire]

Could someone please translate this into English?

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Imaging and printing revenue fell 20% to $5.7 billion....

You mean HP is NOT the Gillette of printers? You mean people might be tired of feeding their constantly hungry machines cartridges? Especially in a depr -- an ECONOMY?

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



We know some people love their cars but isn't this going a bit too far?

And why isn't the Maserati watching television?

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Which is not to say the situation is totally awful; we're seeing the end of STAR JERNALISM. Perhaps once Bob Novak was a go-getting reporter, but most people know him as an overbearing TV loudmouth who put his foot in it. As Lord Koppel especially showed in his senile phase we are not served by Oracles on the Mount, for they preach the gospel of the Golden Calf, and it is full of bull.

Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

We know what Mike was trying to say but because he's The Moguls' Courtier it comes out as BS. Plainly put we don't have stars anymore. We don't have stars because we don't have larger-than-life figures, only manufactured little ones, like THE MAN WITH THE PLATINUM ARMS and his fellow (!) sluts. The great stars aspired upward, today's aspire downward; Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler come across as their archetypes -- total slobs. Worst of all, they're not interesting. I'd rather meet Miley Cyrus's publicists. To the last person they won't last. Nothing could change this but there is no helping the situation when Mike's industry is so proud of itself.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Lord Stringer is a bean counter who is willing to sacrifice market share in the name of profits for what is clearly a superb technology.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

A hack for that media-insider Web site with the stupid name defends the MEGAHYPERCOVERAGE of THE SECOND GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT, meaning even if we the people could kill off this ogre called BIGMEDIA the corpse would continue to twitch forever.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

Commercial real estate? What's that? The depr -- econo -- RECESSION IS OVER!!!!!

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

40 Percent of Top DoD Appointments Unfilled

See, but it's not about education, or the environment, or...oh, never mind.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A non-event, except to the extent we hacks can use it to make conservatives look like PSYCHOS!!!!!!!!!! But of course we should worry for the President's safety in any case.

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! FAKE!!!!!

And this was another of those pictures that caused partisans and news hacks to fall in love with themselves, until they found a new romance in THE NAPALM GIRL.

(Via the usual AhtsJournal)

Posted 8:38 PM by Gene

Sorry, con-SER-va-tives, AARP will lose more members from natural causes.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Alone in his dark, gloomy office, the Once Conscience of Jernalism ponders what might have been -- but for a superscript.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Haven't gone there yet, but let me guess -- at least THREE home-page mentions of THE SECOND GREATEST ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT IN THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY in Grate.com!
FIVE!

Unfortunately KAPLAN, INC. has come up from the low-300s, but fortunately it was down $13.05 today.

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Three years from now Claudia will be cheering whoever's running GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT (and GE BANCORP) for record profits, vision, the whole nine yards of toxic effluent. But for now, we can at least appear to be good reporters.

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

Someday "a $595K Bahamas oceanfront acre" at $84,000 will be a steal. Not now.

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: BB really couldn't sing, but she was extremely beautiful. WOODSTER THE PERV's ex-girlfriend isn't nearly that attractive, and she probably can't sing either, but likening her to BB -- well, the career advancement you save may be your own.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO LIZZY!

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

Already 4% Of Tweets Are Spam

IS THAT ALL?

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

SUPERADAM!!!!! is very upset that Annie Leibovitz is broke. Our pity is somewhat tempered because such super-people manage to get into our noses a lot with their work and frequently (although not in this case) they do so with a fierce smell.

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

It is not surprising to learn (even if from The Mogul's Friend) how virulent "plugola" (his for-once apt term) has become on television -- but what grates is that it is also a revenue stream for THE SECOND GREATEST ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT OF THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

How much would it cost to renovate a dozen fine old Detroit office buildings? Wouldn't the muscle-flexing of a showoffy philanthropist like BUGMEISTER or ST. WARREN be better put to use trying to reclaim a once-glorious city?

P. S. at 5:35 p. m. Heck PEOPLE WARNER's moving into a house to report in the city. Yes, we can do better. (Via the usual Romy)

Posted 10:35 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A three-year degree program would allow colleges to cram the same amount of worthless information and PC in for the price of four -- so yes, three can equal four.

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

A NATION OF DOPES: If this is true and "up to" ninety percent of all paper currency is contaminated with cocaine it means a lot of people are spending a lot more time getting high than paying their bills. And where do they get the money to be stoned?

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! I am SICK of hearing armies of typists drooling over Mad Men. This show has an audience of between 900,000 and 2 MILLION -- and it's run only 32 episodes total, yet all the hacks must bang us over the head with it as though Lucy Ricardo is expecting. After THE GREATEST CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENT OF THE LAST QUARTER CENNNTURY we should be used to the promo artists showing off their lack of taste, but why must it leave our forehead full of WELTS?

And in more proof ad-blurbists do nothing but promote:

When Ratings And Viewers Don't Matter, What Does?

Why of course: YOUR brilliance, YOUR self-esteem, the fact that YOU live in an age of ARTISTIC GREATNESS -- in short, YOU!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO ALEX!

P. S. Judging from Jamie -- JAMES'S typing the show is essentially a HIP soap opera. But THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT was also something of a soap opera. How did the ad-blurbists get to be such big fans of SOAP OPERAS?

P. P. S. SUPERNIKKI!!!!! sez "women make up 7 of the 9-member writing staff". NUF SAID.

(Audience figure corrected 11:40 a. m. The WIK's article is natch longer than MILLARD FILLMORE'S or JAMES BUCHANAN'S. I don't care how bad they were as presidents -- look when they served. WIKI MORONS.)

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

PEOPLE WARNER just spun off its cable unit. WHY would CONCAST try to recreate PEOPLE WARNER?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

I imagine the con-SER-va-tive answer for this: Banks are not social-service agencies, they must justify their "services" for a profit, they must go where the customers are, blahblahblah. The John Stosselians would probably go one step further and say check cashing agencies are a patriotic expression of FREE EN-TER-PRISE and perform a valuable function in the absence of banks, blahblahblah. Whatever the excuse, this is yet another big-business disgrace.

Posted 9:49 PM by Gene

Okay, we'll give the guy another chance. Let's hope he doesn't prove unworthy of it.

Posted 8:15 PM by Gene

How many people today are HAP-PYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!?

CEOs excepted.

Posted 3:30 PM by Gene

Another thing that's gotten the press agents of the press excited is all the movies with no stars. Since all these movies have no stars (most of whom will remain no-stars) why should people remember the movies?

Posted 2:52 PM by Gene

BACK TO NO FUTURE: A BizWeek scribe with the all-too-apt name of Spielberg giddily tells us Chattanooga is BACK! Why, it replaced a 22-acre GE plant with a PARK!

Such daydreams in print account for why business news deserves to be held in low esteem even as the story unwittingly points to why a day of reckoning may be due for our economy.

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

Dancing together, Astaire and Rogers expressed many of love’s moods: courtship and seduction, repartee and responsiveness, teasing and challenge, the surprise of newfound harmony, the happy recapture of bygone romance, the giddy exhilaration of high spirits and intense mutual accord, the sense of a perfect balance of power, the tragedy of parting and, not least, the sense of love as role playing....

We need to keep returning to these movies.

Quite true -- and after a weekend where ANOTHER AIN'T-IT-COOL-NEWS production does another Friday-to-Saturday dropoff on the road to oblivion ("ONLY 10 percent", insists a press agent of the soon-to-be dishonorably discharged PVT. ZELL), in a time where we have nothing more than tentpoles and apes on the screen, we need for the movies to return, in some impossible manner, to them.

P. S. USAOKAY!!!!!'s press agent calls Hasbro's toy's 59-percent dropoff "respectable." Yes, most of the newshole IS filled with promotions, and should be stuck in a deep underground hole alongside radioactive waste.

(First link via the usual AhtsJournal)

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

We hate having to write up the NOT ME gang, but some tantrum thrower named Perlstein says in so many words a good many conservatives should reside in a psycho ward. Well, perhaps. So should a good many liberals. Conspiracy theories and the urge to murder your opponents thrive among all sorts of unhinged types, and a trip to a mental hospital might be a calming thing for all of them. If we're going to prescribe psychiatric wards for political beliefs let's at least be bi-partisan about it. But a psycho isn't a psycho when he's your psycho, and here's guessing when said tantrum thrower goes live on his Q&A on Tuesday he either denies liberals can be psychos or does the yes-BUT routine -- which is a variation of NOT ME.