Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

It is well for the Pope to engage in a "quest for beauty", but beauty was run out of the Catholic Church on the whangs of ten million gheetars, and a faithful so thoroughly trained to accept its absence may find the very idea incomprehensible.

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

And a former French president proves pols need not write novels when they can write LEGISLATION.

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The French are doing more "soul-searching" over a foot -- soccer prima donna's hand than over a whole generation of COLLABORATORS.

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

The news biz is essentially a luck chronicle, a diary of people who've made it from people who want to make it in luck industries -- government at the top rung, big business, show business, sports. Despite the flatulent noises of "public service" the hacks are so stuck on chronicling luck they can't do anything else. Hence their abysmal output: when people looking for work kiss the fat fannies of smug snobs at the top they have no impetus to do anything but chronicle luck. Hence the need to always find "winners" and "losers" in everything, and to insinuate ourselves with the "winners". Hence the health-care "debate"'s other-worldly miasma; not one person involved seems to have ever been a human being, or sick. Hence the dessicated writing on foreign affairs; when you've spent so much time at cocktail parties you don't know what war is. Hence show-biz coverage that's a non-stop insult; despite the collapse of the business model it's still fun to be in with the in-crowd. Luck explains why news hacks are so insistent in getting it to fall their way, and why, when they are fired, they scream as though led off to the guillotine; they become mere mortals, ciphers, oblivious. Let's not forget blogging developed a rigid caste system as the biggest names, already de facto news hacks, solidified their luck perks. We don't know how much of the news biz' customer leakage is merely the Web, probably most of it, but surely in the back of some people's minds lies the notion that at its heart the news-biz is not about us, it's about a whole bunch of them.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

From Romy, this comes to close to a confession:

Poynter's Times Publishing Co. sells Governing to company big on Scientology

And of course the evidence comes at the tag end, as we'd suspect with Romy's righteous employer. Happily Scientology is one of those topics we hacks can ignore almost as successfully as DOJ recusals.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

If all these DOJ lawyers are going to recuse themselves from terrorist cases, who's going to try the terrorists?

(Via the usual conservative sites, meaning another nifty excuse to ignore important news)

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

We're surprised our domestic hacks haven't picked up on this idea: That His Omnipotence is showing vast signs of Jimmahism because he's ruled by CORPORATIONS. But if His Omnipotence is ruled by the same corporations who ruled Dubya wouldn't that excuse His Omnipotence?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Niles: "There's no Walt Disney managing today's legacy news businesses" [Romy link]

Thankfully plenty of people can still tell fantasies and fairy tales.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

The odds of Very Littler Jeffy selling a chunk of GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT to BRIAN ROBBER got a little longer.

What prevents GE BANCORP from an outright spinoff except Very Littler Jeffy's vanity?

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

BS's partner in baloney Bill says the once Rush Limbaugh of the House is making a comeback against Sen. Boobs McKeating, and dispenses this welcome suggestion to the challenged:

Still, who could help McCain beat back a populist conservative challenger? Sarah Palin.

Uh Bill, leaving aide other things, isn't -- wasn't -- the guy a moderate?

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Peggy "BS" Noonan says TV IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!

With each passing day I grow a little more sensitive to how so many hacks waste my time. The moment I spent clicking on a link and getting agitated I could have used more productively. My only consolation is that I reminded myself I stopped trusting BS about fifteen months ago.

P. S. on 11/21/2009 at 11:10 a. m. And of COURSE most of the shows she praises are the same old hacks' favorites, shows with small audiences, shows for the with-it, which further proves she can't think without mulling in a crowd and definitely can't be trusted.

(Via MIKE, proof too many at NRO are looking for work)

Posted 11:11 PM by Gene

'New Moon' director says film was inspired by ... David Lean and Akira Kurosawa?

TRANSLATION: No, our long, slavish "interview" proves we didn't SERIOUSLY mean that question mark.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO GINA AND LALA'S OTHER MOVEE TOADIES!

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

Speaking of -- royalty:

Piano-pop titans Elton John and Billy Joel have postponed their "Face 2 Face" concert at the Pepsi Center on Sunday until Feb. 22, promoter AEG Live announced today....

The postponement should come as no surprise to fans who have watched the tour's troubled-plagued progress the last few months. (Emphasis added)

We could say something, but won't.

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

The Queen of Sap Who Made a King and crowned many court jesters has just told the world neither she nor the broadca$ting biz has a future.

Who will be the guest on the last show? ONE guess. A FIRST-PERSON guess.

(Via HENRY HONEST)

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

We had never heard of Thierry Henry until today -- and it's likely Moon 'n' Stars's top bunglers still haven't heard of him, though the P&G Expensive Razor Blade Division is wasting $8.3 million-plus on this guy. We can't figure out what the bunglers gain -- somehow boasting that "I WAS AT A CONTROVERSIAL QUALIFYING MATCH FOR THE WORLD CUP FINALS AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!" is not quite "I WAS AT THE SUPER BOWL AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!", though the scenery might be nicer (away from the PITCH, that is). But $8.3 million-plus probably could sell a lot of M-'n'-S goods, goods that could keep some people in their jobs, which $8.3 million-plus to a foot -- soccer prima-donna probably won't.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Rudy probably would be better off in the Senate, where he wouldn't have to run anything, except his mouth. (He wouldn't be the only one.)

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Dell takes a late drubbing

DOW 15,...well, maybe tomorrow, despite the speed bump for the SECOND MASSACRE RALLY.

"The mix of our business is 80% commercial," Gladden said. "But the areas of the most growth are coming from consumer [sales]. And we are losing share in the aggregate."

Dell said its total unit shipments were down 5% from a year ago. Consumer sales totaled $2.8 billion, a 10% decline from a year ago even though consumer shipments rose 17%. Large enterprise revenue fell 23% from a year ago to $3.4 billion and small-and-medium business sales totaled $3 billon, down 19% from the same period last year.

Revenue from desktop PCs slid by 26% compared to year-ago quarter, while notebook and mobility-product sales were down 14% and revenue from servers and networking equipment fell by 6% from a year ago.



I'm telling you, all the signs are UP!

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

"Rough waters."

"Long on biography, short on visible achievements."

"A series of unfortunate events."

The winner of the Dynamite Memorial Good Intentions Prize of 2009!

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

OoooooooooooooooOOPS:

Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are brothers. [Emphasis added]

(Via RAMESH)

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

We celebrate that ARCHDaily! has "made it to the shortlist for Best Online Magazine at the Open Web Awards" [!!!!!] with...



...a new quonset hut in Rotterdam!

No wait, we got it: A PLATFORM HORSESHOE!

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

We thought "cold, hostile, mean, old, almost pathologically opportunistic" moguls were heroes with news hacks!

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

You know Mallard Fillmore. It's the con-SER-va-tive's way of proving he can be just as unfunny as G. B. WELL, a huge crowd of twenty protested before the home of the defunct Newsday because the creator of said unfunny cartoon mocked hate crimes, and an organization demanding "diversity" in the luxury news suites (you know what THAT means) and ranked 437,784 in Quantcast picked up on it, and ROMY, who wouldn't do the same thing if it were politically vice versa, picked up on that, and so....

I HATE KNEE-JERK PARTISANS!

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: This hot property's so old-fashionedly corny you can hear Paul Whiteman in the background -- even with the new Robert Taylor.

But then what would one expect for a fillum that shares a name with a Sigmund Romberg musical from 1928?

P. S. We know, it's rated R -- PG-13, but heck we also know how screwy grandmas can put on short-shorts to impress the younguns, and the movee excretion biz is a very old screwy grandma.

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

Who wants to bet Mrs. Vince McMahon is pro-choice -- or better still, one of those shy little mice who won't squeak?

And who wants to bet she'll do favors for her husband once appointed to the Senate -- albeit under the table, like so many others?

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

We do not understand why JonBoy, who has almost taken pride in cutting his rag's circ in half, and would no doubt defend the my-way-or-the-highway I'd-rather-be-right approach to news hackery if he weren't so MENSA-IQ shrewd, tried getting such inundating publicity. If THE NEW! IMPROVED! ECONOWIZ! is going to be so prestigious wouldn't it be better to take a cue from the original and tone down a bit -- starting first by eliminating bylines, which would have the salutary effect of eliminating showboats like Sort-of-God?

We would add (and here's something JonBoy would appreciate as a foot-stomping partisan) that getting talked about may not be a good thing. Look at SARAH!!!!!'s family.

Posted 3:34 PM by Gene

A Dilbert®! cartoon deserves a Dilbert®! post:

Yes, we've seen the Dilbert cartoon where "Dogbert The CEO" says his plan for entering the news business is to "summarize stories from other sites and provide" links, and hero Dilbert asks "So…we'll be parasites?"

Ha.

Fortunately, Dilbert.com has an "embed" option, so we don't even have to summarize the thing and can just paste it here....

So you can stop sending it to us in the tips box or linking to it from the comments now!

Posted 3:32 PM by Gene

More creativity in Branson East: a Sinatra theme park -- with dancing!

Posted 3:14 PM by Gene

Great news for Mogul's Friend -- the MOVEE ACADEMY® is doing the MTV Video Music Awards™!

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

The Paper of Re-CORD hyperventilates.

I repeat something I've said before: most news stories can fit in a graf, or even a sentence. Longer is when the problems begin, and one problem is hyperventilation. I don't need to know this story. There are others I might need to know, that I won't know, because news hacks are satisfying their prejudices, and their synergies.

(Via MESS.com)

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

We've found someone to take ER's place at PEOPLE WARNER's putative flagship!

We base it on this ad. What's the difference between such an ad and a real ad except the one isn't nominally paid for? There is none -- which makes slogging through unpaid ads ever more an exasperation.

Why do so many hacks think they MUST write down to us to get ahead? And why are such writers the last to get fired?

There's next to nothing in Observer.com these days. Heck there isn't even a John Heilpern ready to do HARVEY WHINER's bidding. We wonder why we must frequent it.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

Golly Broccoli, you kicking yourself for not having used Pat Robertson in the campaign?

Posted 1:16 AM by Gene

Speaking of casinos, as we'd have suspected, the DONALD and the DONALDETTE have given up their Potemkin bid for "their" Ghetto Beach joints, availing them the opportunity to go bankrupt again.

(Via HENRY HONEST)

Posted 12:50 AM by Gene

How delusional is the Wall Street Casino? The dealers have "invested" in REITs!

Posted 12:37 AM by Gene

I don't have to compile a list of a hundred sequels, remakes and adaptations to find budding originality in today's movee biz:

"Grey's Anatomy" star Eric Dane has joined "Burlesque," Screen Gems' musical drama which stars Christina Aguilera and Cher.

"Burlesque" centers on the journey of an ambitious small-town girl (Aguilera) with a big-town voice who finds love and success in a Los Angeles neo-burlesque club, reminiscent of the nightclub in Bob Fosse's "Cabaret."

But definitely not reminiscent of a 1929 film called The Dance of Life -- based on a hit 1927 Broadway melodrama called Burlesque.

The more things stay the same....

Dane is playing the role of a charming, highly successful businessman who offers to buy out of the burlesque club from Cher and vies for Aguilera's heart.

OLDER.

Note: That play was Barbara Stanwyck's first starring role. Cherilyn Sarkasian is 62. NUF SAID.

Posted 12:34 AM by Gene

The nice thing about Ponzi schemes is that they're stickups without a gun.

I'm surprised some GEKKO KUDLOW hasn't lauded Ponzis as proof of a booming economy. It's still booming, all right -- with Ponzis.

Posted 12:18 AM by Gene

A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. But this week researchers from IBM Corp. are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory - 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

The scientists had previously simulated 40 percent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and 1 percent of a human's cerebral cortex this year, using progressively bigger supercomputers.

The latest feat, being presented at a supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore., doesn't mean the computer thinks like a cat, or that it is the progenitor of a race of robo-cats.

Oh come on ASSPress, that's precisely what it means: first robo-cats, then robo-dogs, then robo-monkeys, then robo-humans. Things like Moore's Law are mere nuisances. Any company that built a machine that could beat a chess master can build a machine that can beat humans.

Posted 3:14 PM by Gene

Investigators in New York City raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers Tuesday as part of a union corruption probe, a law enforcement official said.

How much do you suppose the Part -- our First-Amendment Defenders will tell us about this?

As to any notion of a connection to the Mob -- isn't our Free Press already connected to a small-m mob?

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

I think even SARAH!!!!!'s most rabid foes might agree: the NEWS HACKS are channeling the old PRAVDA.

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

How apt: CONCAST can do to concert tickets what it's done to cable. Pfffffffffffffft!

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

In more of his patented iconoclasm, JonBoy treats us to a listicle of twelve "unfunny comics". There's a difference?

(Via SUPERADAM!!!!!, who insists there is one)

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: USAOKAY!!!!! has launched a marketing department in the newsroom!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM TAKES TO THE AIR:

Miami-Dade commissioners' trade trips ring up $217K tab -- and no results

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

ER's been named editor-in-chief of BizWeek!

This must have been a tough decision, he having rapidly established himself as one of America's greatest BIGMEDIA boosters. Do show-biz puff pieces and business news have anything in common? (Aside from business-news puff pieces, that is.)

We'll miss your SYNERGY, ER -- unless Bloomy decides to buy PEOPLE WARNER.

Then again, that may not be necessary with Norman "Pearls Before Swine" Pearlstine working there.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

Who'da thunk it: The CHEAP CHANNELS and SUMNERS paid through the nose for sports on the radio -- and now the little black boxes say people don't listen to it that much, possibly because the LOWSY MAYSES helped wean them from the medium in the first place with all them ads. And have you tried listening to a game lately? "This pitch is brought to you by...."

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Hey Hugh Hewitt! Now's a good time to ask: Didya ever find a publisher for that book?

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

U.S.-China Trade: Prepare for Continued Imbalance

We're prepared.

Posted 9:47 PM by Gene

SARAH!!!!! is a topic that makes us tired. One reason we tire of it is that some con-SER-va-tive precincts (think Jo-NAHdom) turned her into Wonder Woman. But the idiot Evan "Sort of God" Thomas makes us tired too, and we wonder whether the rag he works for ever called Hitler or Stalin "bad news for everybody", even if JonBoy thinks he's being ironic by saying it what he supposes is with a wink and a leer, though the leer be the gritting of teeth.

Posted 9:28 PM by Gene

In the middle of THE SECOND MASSACRE RALLY, Ben realizes his predecessor said something about irrational exuberance, and because Ben and his predecessor have realized that irrational exuberance can be a good thing, he decided to celebrate it.

GEKKO KUDLOW! Why in God's name haven't YOU said anything about TRICKLE-DOWN!

Posted 9:20 PM by Gene

But you see, it was the right decision -- because football is rocket science!

Beantown just doesn't seem to want to live this down.

Posted 9:18 PM by Gene

No, just as we thought, we have said neither goodbye nor good riddance to The Angry Lollipop.

Posted 9:12 PM by Gene

The WORRRRRRRRULD COMMUNITY, having thought of every means to be meaningless about Nukeman, turns to -- "fear".

And Prexy (so the URL calls him) says "we're running out of time," meaning there's more where that came from.

Cut the comedy folks -- you've haven't done anything since we first heard, and you'll never do anything.

Posted 9:11 PM by Gene

The Chinese blacked out His Omnipotence, which should make both sides happy.

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

Like, yeah, sure.

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Well! The Washington R------s' name is safe, for now.

(Via an ASSPress story on WashingtonTimes.com)

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Dobbs got $8M to quit

A very populist farewell.

CNN 'wanted him out'

Not the only ones.

Dobbs is set to give his first TV interview since then to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly tonight, leading to speculation that he may be headed there. But TV insiders said such a move is highly unlikely.

True: FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News already has hundreds of prima-donnas.

Talk about a possible political career -- possibly as candidate for the Senate from New Jersey in 2012 -- is also probably overblown, friends said.

"He couldn't stand the scrutiny," said one colleague.

We couldn't stand him.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Again, NFL football becomes rocket science.



This was unintentional, wasn't it?

Posted 4:47 PM by Gene

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies....

Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists.

It's official: Congress is a whorehouse.

In an interview, Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said: “I regret that the language was the same. I did not know it was.”

Sure Mac, that's what they all say.

(Via Cheat Sheet)

Posted 3:02 PM by Gene

Mean Joe Green [SIC!!!!!] finally gets Coke ad award

He might get mean again when he sees how the ASSPress misspelled his name (but not in the accompanying promo, thankfully).

Maybe we could turn eleven JERNALISTS loose to investigate this, huh CURLEY?

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

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

1. P&G, Walmart, Unilever, General Mills Are Major Marketers on a Mission

A mission to sell more overpriced goods-- on more JUNK TELEVISION!

Oh wait -- they're using mission statements! Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

2. Moving junk television from its once hugely profitable infrastructure to FACEBOOK!!!!! and TWITTER!!!!! can only help our national morale.

3. In the last decade, BBDO produced an estimated 35,000 ads, which comes to 3,500 a year, 70 a week or 10 a day, including weekends. At its height, more than 2,000 people worked there.

What good did all the busy-busy do Chrysler? What good did those "1,000 industry awards" do? Could Nomotown have reached this abyss because it relied on advertising too much?

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

“A chunk of the GOP has always detested him, but in the last month a damn [SIC!!!!!] has broken,” said the consultant....

Hold your tongue!

(Via Jennifer, who didn't notice either)

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

Someone please tell David "NON" Germain, yes, we understand YOU'RE looking for work, but SNE is worth no more now than in 1972, even adjusted for splits, and probably much less when adjusted for inflation.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Free Aung San Suu Kyi, Obama tells Burma PM

And what did the PM tell His Omnipotence?

And how did His Omnipotence respond? We can guess: "Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, MYANMAR has VAST energy resources, and we want to help you develop them", remembering to get off the chair and bow when he said that.

Oh and don't forget, Your Omnipotence, it's "MeeYAHNmar."

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Look out, Your Omnipotence! BRUCE is running for president!

Well, vice-president, maybe.

Posted 12:48 PM by Gene

3. Use their jobs to look for work.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

Take away all the ads for a certain lip-syncher, or pole dancer, or weightlifter, or hermaphrodite, or a certain recently deceased walking cadaver, and what have you heard about pop music lately? Oh yes, if you're a certain age you may follow certain sites, and download religiously -- but what's in it for the rest of us? When was a music star last known to the public for other than advertising? And can anyone who obsessively downloads really tell one masterwork from the next? The same with movees too. Oh yes, sighing teenage girls may be camping out for days awaiting the new Robert Taylor, but does anyone else really care? Oh yes, NIKKI!!!!! and SHARON!!!!! are going bananas over the box office, but when no more than five or six percent of the U. S. populace attends the movees on a given weekend, and it's pretty much always the same five or six percent, is it that important?

So when a copyright expert (to quote Forbeslist) says that "piracy is not responsible for the failings of the film and music industries...[i]t's that they fail to give customers what they want", can we doubt this, even though it is truer than most people who professionally excuse our culture want it to be?

And speaking of excuses, a hand to Forbeslist for devoting part of its ever withering resources to an earth-shattering topic like the rebirth of John 3:16. And give yourselves a hand too!

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

How money vanishes:

1. We thought little of that project to bring a big movee studio to Plymouth. At best it was government money wasted; at worst it was lying. It seems to have been largely the latter.

2. We see too that the Miami Beach's celebrated Fontainebleau is near bankruptcy. We remember the PR over its renovation. There was another case of showing off, and no money.

3. Michigan can't account for His Omnipotence's stimulus dough. Can anybody?

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Dems risk losing Catholics over abortion

We wonder. We'd guess most Catholics who vote Democratic are either the secularized type or the see-no-evil type who hold their noses in the voting booth, who may be more faithfully Democratic than Catholic. And we wonder how much abortion can mean in a church as thoroughly dumbed-down as American Catholicism. This isn't the age of James Michael Curley anymore.

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

What is...professional boxing?

Is that what you need when you ship UPS?

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

Now it's a call.

Hello, Nukeman! Nobel Winner and Puppet. Will you please give up your nuke making? Thank you! 'Bye! CLICK.