Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

No. 8 in an annoying Big-C listicle of the late Portfolio.com's "Worst American CEOs of All Time": a con-SER-va-tive hero:

Jay Gould

When it comes to unscrupulous behavior, Gould makes Milken look like a sweetheart. A railroad developer and speculator, Gould sold out his associates, bribed legislators to get deals done, and even kidnapped a potential investor. He duped the U.S. Treasury, pushing up the price of gold and prompting a scare on Wall Street that depressed all stocks. After hiring strikebreakers during a railroad strike in 1886, he was reported to have said, “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”

THE STAT: When Gould died, his fortune was worth an estimated $67 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.

And No. 6: a former hero of Lou "The CEO-Toadying Populist" Dobbs:

Al Dunlap

Picked by the board of Scott Paper Co. as the man to turn the struggling company around, Dunlap earned his nickname “Chainsaw Al” by ­slicing 11,000 employees. When Scott merged with Kimberly-Clark, Dunlap’s payoff was estimated at more than $100 million.

Dunlap’s memoir/manifesto, Mean Business, roughly coincided with his next CEO star turn, which was also to be his last. Sunbeam’s stock surged on the news that the Chainsaw was coming; massive workforce reductions and factory closures followed within months. His book clearly explained what set him apart from “addle-brained” and “weak” executives: “I’m a superstar in my field,” he wrote.

Could there be a clearer sell signal? Unable to flip Sunbeam to a new buyer, as he’d done with Scott, Dunlap was stuck actually running the company. He failed spectacularly. Within two miserable years, the board fired him. The tactics he’d used to stave off losses—the company overstated its net income by $60 million, which was real money back then—earned him a civil suit from the SEC and a class-action suit by shareholders. Dunlap eventually settled both and was barred from serving as an officer or director of any public company. You could call Chainsaw Al’s story a fall from grace, but in his case, that’s probably not the proper word.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

I've just thought up a slogan for MIKE!!!!!'s site:

NEWSER®. We waste time so you don't have to!™

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

David Gurgle Jr. says His Omnipotence really is reforming education. So did Dubya. The only thing we do know is that David spoke to BILL GATES!!!!!, which makes him Gurgle more than ever.

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

A DECISIVE PRESIDENT ACTS:

Obama declares swine flu a national emergency

P. S. at 1:55 p. m. Our DECISIVE PRESIDENT proclaimed the emergency Friday night but didn't tell the hacks until this morning, which shows just how important this is -- or maybe he's still fuming over YOU-KNOW-WHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!!!!!

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

This is a non-starter. Being a TEEVEE-network-running blowhard isn't running the nation. Think VEEP BIG-OIL. Worse, think SARAH!!!!! with jowls. Also, think a president taking instructions from SLIME. NUF SAID.

Politico.com sure knows how to be asinine!

P. S. at 6:36 p. m. Well, that was short; he's declined. He "can't take the pay cut", he says. That and he has more power.

And we suspect even he thought it an embarrassment.

(Via the loudmouth Michael)

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

Well -- we thought today was upupUP!

[W]ith a sharp drop in stock prices after the housing data came out Friday it appears traders are no longer excited by sales increases that are partially subsidized by the federal government.

You don't think the fools at the Wall Street Casino are getting -- wise?

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

This is increasingly what Kurtz does in his “Media Notes” columns[:] offering a roundup of media quotes spliced together with his own clever comments, with virtually no reporting or sustained analysis of his own.

On his salary he doesn't have to report or analyze!

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

The U.S.-Japan security alliance has been strained as Tokyo's new center-left leaders, in a row over a U.S. military base, make good on their promise to be less subservient to Washington, analysts say.

What will His Omnipotence say? Probably something like, that's okay, I understand; we atom-bombed you twice.

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

We have not commented on the FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!!!!! brouhaha thinking it the political equivalent of spitballing, but LIAR LIAR BROCK'S ON FIRE just threw a tantrum to end all tantrums; he merely wants a return to the status quo ante, the glory days of two years of hyperbole and worship of God, Jack Kennedy and Abe Lincoln. Liberals have only themselves to blame that their church is suddenly caving in, for with their hosannas they helped bring on the termites and roof leaks. We don't like FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!!!!! and its screamers but LIAR and his White House bosses have decided the way to fight them is by getting themselves deeper and muddier in the pigpen where LIAR resides.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

Still elsewhere regarding the CASINO:

The US stock market is overvalued by 40%

That means it's overvalued by more than it's gone up since March!

Way to go, GEKKOS!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

In more GEKKOISM:

New Jersey Pays Goldman Sachs for Swaps on Nonexistent Bonds

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!

GS at 5000!!!!!

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

HOW AMAZON.COM DOES IT: I had a set of Antal Dorati's Haydn symphonies from a Marketplace seller in my cart at $62.78. Today it changed to $148.32.

AMZN at 1000!!!!!

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

Has the recession receded?

The GEKKO KUDLOWS say

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The public says NO.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Speaking of BUGMEISTERS, today's shaping up as a GEKKO KUDLOW DAY at the WALL STREET CASINO!

GEKKO! PLEASE -- tell us WHY the STOCK MARKET DOUBLING AND TRIPLING will help our economy!

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

When U2 takes the stage of the Rose Bowl on Sunday night, the Irish band will have performed 42 shows on its "360°" tour. They will have played in front of almost 3 million fans, broken dozens of attendance records and grossed close to $300 million.

They will have drawn rapturous reviews, made the cover of Rolling Stone and given the troubled concert business a gigantic shot of adrenaline.

What they won’t have done is make any money.

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Hey Bono! Why not ask your friends BUGMEISTER and LITTLE MALCOLM for HELP?

Bono summed up the delicate balance in an interview with USA Today at the beginning of the U.S. tour. “I want to put on an extraordinary show,” he said, “but I’d like to own my house when it’s over.”

TRANSLATION: He's already asked his friend ST. WARREN!

“The concert was high-minded and earthy, exalted and playful, sometimes even goofy, wielding rock-star prerogatives while undercutting them with disarming informality,” wrote Jon Pareles in the New York Times.

How much did those free tickets to the ever fatuous ad-blurbists cost?

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives are FURIOUS over His Omnipotence's pay dictatorship. We repeat, the government should not dictate corporate salaries. That said, these banking cretins were prepared to use Uncle Sucker as their backstop, and they had this revenge coming from the moment they peddled their toxic paper and larcenous loans. Yes, they may find a way around the strictures; but I wouldn't be surprised if the salaries make no difference in the competence; if anything, lower salaries might actually mean better management, as the managers won't be thinking of their godforsaken GREED first. It further behooves con-SER-va-tives to remember that so much of "business" is de facto socialized anyway.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Soupy Sales threw pies for a living.

The world needs people who can throw pies for a living.

Only the pies are happy today.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

First lady's popularity surpasses Obama's

Er, wasn't that the problem the last time?

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

[Home p]rices are roughly the same level they were in February 2005.

TRANSLATION: They're still too high.

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

A CHEAP STUNT:

For now, the artists are trying to find out what songs were played. They say they will explore legal options once the songs are known. It is unclear what, if any, recourse they may have. [LAST GRAF]

Besides, as anyone who's listened to CHEAP CHANNEL knows, pop music IS torture -- especially when it's BETWEEN ADS.

(Via the torture-prone AHTSJournal)

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Gee THANKS, Greedy S. O. B. Dolans, I've just taken Newsday.com off my bookmarks!

Your site was ugly and confusing anyway.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

The weird story of ESPN's analyst alas reminds us that too many guys in SELIGISM aren't good ones.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

If I had a dollar for every word newspapers cram into SPECIAL SECTIONS between the end of the LCS and the beginning of the final round of SELIGISM....

I could buy up STINKYINKY PUBLISHING CO. and retire its DEBT!

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

And on a subject that is dear to me, "civic pride", lately the clowns at CHEAP CHANNEL have not even done the minimum maintenance to their billboards in the poor neighborhood where I work, which got a little poorer when Obamamotors pulled the plug on a nearby Chrysler dealership. All that's left are the scarred remnants of several posters. I do not expect the minimum decency from the EXXONMOBIL OF RADIO, but don't those auto-dealing frauds realize they can be a negative force in their communities with their neglect? Or must the authorities remind them? I may e-mail our L&I.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

I feel a little sad: One of our guys at work, a really good guy, gave me a big big greeting, and my gloom lifted, and I thought what a lunkhead I was to type what I typed, and I realized it wouldn't be bad at all for a bunch of Joes to celebrate their triumph, as they must have when the A's won their titles in the early Depression, when the players and fans came from the same neighborhoods, the same social class, the same families. There was a bond among people that doesn't exist anymore. That was what made baseball great, what made it the national pastime, and it has ceased to be great because it is no longer the people's game. Things had to change, but why did they have to change this way?

I did not have working guys in mind last night; no, I had the fair-weather fans in mind, the young upscale urbans, and especially the college cutups who use this as an excuse to get drunk, who had no real connection with our city before, and may never have one again after they "matriculate", and whom morons like EDDIE covet for their skanky HIPNESS.

Posted 1:33 AM by Gene

PHILLIES WIN DA PENNANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder -- how much do THE OWNERS get to write off of their taxes for the "HEAVY POLICE PRESENCE" WE'RE PAYING FOR?

Posted 11:08 PM by Gene

Archbishop John Hepworth, the twice-married Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion....

I've not paid overattention to the Catholic Church's shrewd move to steal the Anglican Church's customers, as debates on religious doctrine wear on me like a rotary sander on metal, but however the Pope fixes it I can't see how he can let priests in one branch of his church remain celibate while grandfathering married priests. We suspect we will hear more when an African pope is chosen, and he must confront a church in danger of shrinking again.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily! presents an INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE AWARDS WINNER!



OR: This is what happens when an accordion player tries fixing an HVAC system.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

A certain singin' senator wants to take care of the INJUSTICE that is the BCS, and for once a certain yap at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue does the right thing:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

1. The government should not dictate executive pay. But 2. We have ownership stakes, and 3. Though con-SER-va-tives will fume whether we have ownership stakes or not, 4. The oafs deserve it.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Earlier today in a certain popular West Coast news site appeared this unfortunate juxtaposition, and we were reluctant to post on it, but one should remember LALA can defend different types of cow splat in different ways, and one should also remember Jack Nelson was a highly-televised voice of liberal CW -- anyone who ever watched him on C-SPAN will know that -- and too many Jack Nelsons, whatever their reporting brilliance, turned our newspapers into cow splat.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

President Obama says he may have a new Afghanistan strategy by the time the winner of the Nov. 7 runoff is known -- though when he will make it public is another question.

What's wrong with November 6?

2012.

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

SUMNER's next summary firing says he can live with piracy, Very Littler Jeffy says he can live without GOODHTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT -- and UB IGER says the MOVEE BIZ MAY CEASE TO EXIST!!

What's a media mogul to do?

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

Ho-hum, His Omnipotence is running for president.

Further ho-hum: News hacks are spinning for His Omnipotence.

Will these hacks tell us why 1. a one-party state is a good idea and 2. why a two-party state with two sound alike parties is even better?

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Before we blame the pizza-eating Bernie too much, we must note that he and the Wall Street Casino share a few certain psychotic delusions -- like a belief in immortality, and all the law breaking that excuses.

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Exclusive: Playboy Slashes Rate Base 38%

...oddly enough, to 1.5 million -- the same number as ZEITGEIST.

Isn't it time for Letch to bury the carcass?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

Morgan Stanley posts first profit of year

Couldn'ta done it without us! PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Today that local Brawny called Metro reminded us -- not up on its Web site, natch -- that we won't sleep tonight (though it is highly unlikely there'll be vandalism -- for an LCS win?) and that inspired us to a half-cocked thoroughly asinine idea: Seeing how professional sports teams grin over the damage their Blutos cause there's only one way to pay for it: a surcharge on beer, effective on Super Bowl Sunday or the first day of a World Series/NBA Finals/Stanley Cup (take your pick) through the end of the day for the victory parade. HOWEVER, there'd be an out; an eligible sports team could help its fans avoid the surcharge by putting up a suitably large-enough bond to pay for any costs associated with the rioti -- I mean, celebrating, on the first day of the season. The city would refund all costs if the team didn't win its title. But there would be a mandatory review if it did; and if the public officials determined the BLUTOS wreaked enough beer-inspired damage the surcharge would be PERMANENT -- and the team would still have to put up the bond. And make no mistake: most of the people who do the damage are NOT SOBER. To paraphrase what my dad would say, you piddle on your bed, you lie in it.

Posted 11:47 PM by Gene

Elsewhere in SLIMEDOM:

Both teams are vying for victory in ALCS Game 4. (From the home-page squib)

No, one team wants to lose.

Although a 10-1 final says that might not have been out of the question.

P. S.

After he retired Torii Hunter on a weak grounder to end the eighth, thousands of fans stood up and left Angel Stadium, not sticking around for the final demise of their suddenly punchless club.

There is nothing more delicious than the thought of multitudes having paid hundreds of dollars each for nothing.

Posted 11:34 PM by Gene

When Roger Friedman offers up a devastating review and John Simon offers up a rave the time has come for John Simon to retire.

Posted 11:21 PM by Gene

Speaking of press releases, we can safely say when a certain suspense writer and the manager of Jim Webb's successful Senate campaign proposes reforming the press he is not being honest.

Posted 10:47 PM by Gene

Today we cringed over "machines for regurgitating press releases." SLIME provides us with an A-1 press release. "[A] sparkling performance that has led to comparisons with Audrey Hepburn...." Here are two JERNALISTIC scourges: the passive construction and the anonymous attribution. "This month Time magazine proclaimed: 'Carey Mulligan: a star is born'." That is DICK "SYNERGY" CORLISS, and citing him is like FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News citing Fatso Moore as a bastion of truth. (It would have made our job easier if SLIME or the TWXSTERS distributed this masterwork -- alas not.) Apparently the M.O. here is to call this Sarah Bernhardt "gamine". Here is how the amateurs at the Wik define it:

Gamine is a French word, the feminine form of gamin, originally meaning urchin, waif or playful, naughty child.

The word was used in English from about the mid 19th century (for example, by Thackeray in 1840 in one of his Parisian sketches), but, in the 20th century, came to be applied in its more modern sense of a slim, often boyish, wide-eyed young woman who is, or is perceived to be, mischievous, teasing or sexually appealing.

We can agree this new sensation -- to our eyes, anyway -- is waiflike.



We cannot, however, resist posting yet another photo of this actress's inspiration. (And we'll even concede she wasn't uniformly photogenic, but in the last one we posted she certainly was.) We don't want to mock ac-TORS for their looks but dammit when SLIMES run press releases, press releases that, like all press releases, exist to deceive and condescend to the turnips they think meekly consume them, we have no choice.

P. S. on 10/21 at 11:11 a. m. Almost forgot -- and much as I don't want to post beauty after beauty...



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO BEN!

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

And what is left of that urban art, or urban blight, depending on whom one asks, is likely to be scrubbed away....

Reason #26,273 The Paper of Re-CORD had to fire 100 yesterday.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

Harry Reid plan: 'Vaporize' 2010 GOP opponent

Think of Harry as a whiny partisan version of Bud Selig. NUF SAID.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Hopeful news on His Omnipotence's "engagement":

Iran convicts American academic Kian Tajbakhsh for role in election protest; gets 12 years in prison

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

The modern burg that boasts of its sports champions has a profound case of self-pity.

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

SAVE THE TREES! On the train to work I sat next to a copy of the StinkyInky. Natch it was missing the sports section. On days like these the bankrupt fools should run a one-section sheaf. Such behavior must be common. It proves the hundred The Paper of Re-CORD is firing will not be missed except by some of their colleagues. Yesterday an NRO blogger called the news orgs "machines for regurgitating press releases". Why must trees die for press releases? Going back with the Wiki amateurs over our StinkyInky's history I learned it's gone broke possibly twice. Or as some anonymous typist typed:

A thirty-eight day strike in 1958 hurt The Inquirer and, after the strike ended, so many reporters had accepted buyout offers and left that the newsroom was noticeably empty. Furthermore, many current reporters had been copyclerks just before the strike and had little experience. One of the few star reporters of the 1950s and 60s was investigative reporter Harry Karafin. During his career Harry Karafin exposed corruption and other exclusive stories for The Inquirer, but also extorted money out of individuals and organizations. Karafin would claim he had harmful information and would demand money in exchange for the information not being made public. This went on from the late 1950s into the early 60s before Karafin was exposed in 1967 and convicted of extortion a year later.

Eight years later it started winning P-Ulitzers for political insider baseball and saving the snail darter. The StinkyInky's history should teach us that these rags can come back anew, greater pestilences than ever, but so many of the props are gone from under these profit-churning devices you wonder how they can stand. They will, unfortunately.

Posted 10:20 PM by Gene

We are sorry to hear that Vic Mizzy has died. He was one of those "hacks" whom posterity reveals as not at all one, like Carl Stalling. He started out improbably enough as a teenage pop tunesmith -- he actually wrote a song for Lady Day, on which a liner-note writer once pounded, "[O]ne of the tritest melodies you'll hear this side of first grade." (And what did you write?) After a few hits he landed in Hollywood (Universal mostly, and under the guidance of Joseph Gershenson, who really did have a studio style) and became the King of B Scores, or rather the King of the Drive-In, a perfect underscoring foil for Don Knotts, and a musical voice of Filmways and its tacky sitcoms with those two theme songs -- you know -- whose fame actually obscures his musical wit and charm. Or as an Amazon.com reviewer has put it, "The only problem I have approaching a movie or tv show scored by Vic Mizzy is the almost certain knowledge that his score will be the best thing about it." And despite what that says, it's still a great compliment.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

When the extremely unpopular Mikhail complains of Russia's lack of democracy, we can suspect it acts on the ever more credulous Russians like a good case of reverse psychology.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Who's going to crack the whip now that Columbia U has "suspended" its environmental jernalism program?

While the mating of environmentalism and reporters may not be the mating of Hitler and Goebbels, it is certainly the mating of LUKE SPIELBERG and CLAUDIA PIG -- PUIG. Jernalism has a smell, and to its practitioners the smell is not its own body odor.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Pardon me, Effete Edelstein, is it reasonable to think that Neil Simon could have written for the ages -- any more than you can?

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

If professional football is ROCKET SCIENCE (and we've been assured that since the earliest days of BOOM BOOM), why do so many players and coaches leave their brains on the launch pad?

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Okay GEKKO KUDLOWS, why should the WALL STREET CASINO ONLY GO UP?

We're back to the same daydreaming as during THE MASSACRE RALLY -- and look what happened after that.

Also, I'm tired of HENRY HONEST's act too. Time to take my business somewhere else.

Posted 11:07 PM by Gene

I wish I'd learned it at the time, but now, I smile:

MLB on FOX averages record low 1.8 rating

For the third straight season, Major League Baseball drew record low ratings on broadcast.

FOX averaged a 1.8 rating for 26 MLB telecasts during the 2009 season, down 10% from a 2.0 last year, down 22% from a 2.3 in '07, and the lowest average ever for regular season Major League Baseball coverage on broadcast television. This marks the fifth straight season that regular season ratings have declined on broadcast. (Emphasis added)

WORSE (or should we say, BETTER!!!!!):

The 1.8 average for MLB on FOX trails the NBA regular season on ABC (2.3), NASCAR on FOX (5.1), NASCAR on ABC (3.3 through Sunday), and third and final round coverage of the PGA on NBC (2.4) and CBS (1.9), excluding majors. (Emphasis again added)

So in 2009, SELIGISM is America's No. 5 TV sport. Way to go, BUD!

P. S. This is also, it should go without saying, FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Sports' "lowest figure in its 14 seasons televising baseball", which shouldn't prevent SLIME from paying through the nose -- AGAIN. Better off buying TWITTER, mate.

Posted 9:26 PM by Gene

SAMMY GLICK...MAN makes it official -- he's QUITTING!

What obsequious pol is NEXT?

More amazing: POLITICO.COM beat the trades -- and SUPERNIKKI!!!!! and SHARON!!!!! too!

POLITICO: Your First Source for Entertainment News!™

P. S.

Possible names include California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., Universal Music lobbyist Matt Gerson, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), a longtime friend of Glickman’s....

Potential industry toadies all!

“That job is a gut-busting job,” says Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “You’re traveling all the time, you’re always in the limelight, you’re always working on very intricate and difficult matters with a lot of very interesting personalities — some of whom aren’t easy to get along with.”

MPAA boss Orrin Hatch said today....

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffft!

P. P. S. SAMMY GLICK...MAN has been SO SUCCESSFUL AT ANTI-PIRACY EFFORTS!!!!! (so says Your First Source for Entertainment News™) the MPAA's FIRED three senior anti-piracy officials!

Please -- MORE such successes! (Via -- TORRENT FREAK!)

Posted 8:51 PM by Gene

The catastrophe of Toyota's floor mats shows that perhaps high-tech has its limits. When I first heard this story I thought, why not shut off the engine? You have to hold a button on a fob for at least three seconds. Or in other words:

The shutdown procedure reflects a larger problem: As auto manufacturers adopt increasingly complex electronic features, it becomes more difficult to explain how they work, said Paul Green, a human factors expert at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. A study by the institute found that in some cases, owners manuals would have to run up to 1,000 pages to fully disclose everything.

"In the past, systems were pretty simple," Green said. "You put a key in the lock and turn it. Now we have a fob with functionality."

TRANSLATION: The BUGMEISTERS ARE building automobiles. And that's no joke.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

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

1. Women's Health Is Ad Age's Magazine of the Year

What?!? The Crainiacs didn't give the award to some junk celeb title or overrated literary sheaf?

2. What to Expect From Chrysler's Marketing Chief: Provocative Ads

Can sex and slobs really sell Fiat's tin cans?

3. Local TV Garners Revenue From Obituaries

Why not? It long specialized in bleedin' 'n' leadin', so why not focus on the outcomes?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

We ought, then, to stop kidding ourselves that painstakingly developed artistic technique is passé, a value left over from our grandparents’ culture. Evidence is all around us. Even when we have lost contact with the social or religious ideas behind the arts of bygone civilizations, we are still able, as with the great bronzes or temples of Greece or ancient China, to respond directly to craftsmanship. The direct response to skill is what makes it possible to find beauty in many tribal arts even though we often know nothing about the beliefs of the people who created them. There is no place on earth where superlative technique in music and dance is not regarded as beautiful.

The appreciation of contemporary conceptual art, on the other hand, depends not on immediately recognizable skill, but on how the work is situated in today’s intellectual zeitgeist. That’s why looking through the history of conceptual art after Duchamp reminds me of paging through old New Yorker cartoons. Jokes about Cadillac tailfins and early fax machines were once amusing, and the same can be said of conceptual works like Piero Manzoni’s 1962 declaration that Earth was his art work, Joseph Kosuth’s 1965 “One and Three Chairs” (a chair, a photo of the chair and a definition of “chair”) or Mr. Hirst’s medicine cabinets. Future generations, no longer engaged by our art “concepts” and unable to divine any special skill or emotional expression in the work, may lose interest in it as a medium for financial speculation and relegate it to the realm of historical curiosity.

TRANSLATION: "You had to be there" is one hell of an ideological construct for AHT.

(Via the annoying AHTSJournal)

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Why would The Daily Kaplan and The Paper of Re-CORD be feuding? Aren't they both better than their readers?

It seems both rags are "feuding" thanks to THE SA-LOHN and its aftermath. I'd like to see them both into a fight over who can make more errors. Neither side would raise a fist.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Can NO SNITCHIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! come to a big sports factory?

I believe, alas, it can.

(Via CBS Sports)

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

In Miami:

“If you’re thinking you can come here and buy and sell condos for a profit in less than five years, you’re sadly mistaken,” said McCabe, whose clients have included Credit Suisse Group AG and Pulte Homes Inc., the largest U.S. homebuilder. “You need a seven- to 10-year range.”

Prices could fall to $100 a foot, less than half the cost of construction, and a value not seen in 20 years, he said.

Okay GEKKO KUDLOWS, why is the stock market up and up forever?

“Condos were extremely attractive because you could put down a modest down payment and leverage it extremely high,” Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a Houston-based real estate research company, said from his office in West Palm Beach. “If you were investing between ‘03 and ‘05, you were able to see 100 or 200 percent appreciation. Ninety percent or more of it was speculation.”

TRANSLATION: Condos are built with steel, concrete and hot air.

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

What bugs me about our current spate of civic pride is that it could go on for eight or nine years. Boston became insufferable after two or three seasons in several sports. Any city that wills itself into megalomania after consecutive sports championships becomes an ass to the world. And Boston is a great city, with lots for legitimate pride, although little since Kennedy (except for high-tech, and that mostly in its burbs). Philadelphia has less reason than Boston to be insufferable. Let's remember that even amidst these immortal triumphs.

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

The [U. S.] isn't as dependent on its factories as it was even 20 years ago.

Figures due next Thursday are expected to show that [China's] annual gross domestic product growth accelerated to 8.9 percent last quarter from 7.9 percent in the April-June quarter, according to economists polled by Reuters.

We could use some more dependence.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Is politics just an acceptable form of intolerance?

Posted 1:18 AM by Gene

Under the banner of JonBoy, whose honorary Unitarianism qualifies him to speak of religion, The Daily Broccoli -- KAPLAN also tells us that R. Crumb, the "underground" cartoonist (about as underground as broccoli), has "adapted" the Bible, and its typist is disappointed:

The big difference between this book and Crumb's other work is that there's no comedy, except on the dustjacket, which lures potential buyers with an ironic: "Adult Supervision Recommended for Minors," and "The first book of the Bible graphically depicted! NOTHING LEFT OUT!" That's Crumb's sense of humor, and it's the last you'll see of it. He tells the story the way it's always been told.

We, unlike a Daily Bro -- KAPLAN typist, must wonder if R.'s sense of humor vanished many breasts ago. If you've seen two R. Crumb nipples you've seen 'em all.

One other thing -- if R. zapped the poor, uneducated, easy to command, etc., etc., etc., we wonder if this scribbler from the same educational testing firm that gives us "CHICKEN" ZAKARIA wouldn't be on the floor in total hysterics. Maybe that's the reason R. decided against it.



Broccoli and CHICKEN -- they do go together.

Posted 1:14 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The next governor of Virginia is disqualified thanks to his thesis.



Yes BROCCOLI, you should follow that Atlanta paper and stop running endorsements.