Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Al Alberts led The Four Aces, a Philly "neighborhood" close-harmony group that made the big time singing mostly big sentimental ballads (and as the pop-cult know-it-all Will Friedwald insists, flat). But then came the doowop they led in and the rock 'n' roll juggernaut, and they were finished -- but not Al; for several decades he emceed a local talent show called Al Alberts Showcase, introducing Teddy Pendergrass and Andrea McArdle (the original Annie, now known only in Branson East's precincts), and thousands and thousands of young flat singers, and young female dance groups in too-tight tutus -- seeing them was truly an education -- and those beaming parents, ready to say "You were wonderful!" as though on some intergalactic cue; and above and beyond all the Teenieboppers, the three-year-olds dressed in formal wear as though bound and gagged, telling him stupid jokes mostly in a heavy grimace, as though they knew better, but not Al. For me the show became as watchable as C-SPAN; but his very loyal fans could count on his tunes and his heavy-duty toupee until his retirement eight years ago. As a ghetto with social pretensions our city can't turn out the talent that can make life livable any more, and this as much as the show-biz' ossification has made future Al Albertses impossible. One could celebrate it; it is far worthier to regret it.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

Chow time indeed, if you ask me.

Who asked you?

A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of Newsweek. [Link added]

AS IN:

The New York Times recently quoted Mark Zandi, who was one of candidate John McCain's economic advisers.... [Stale.com version]

The New York Times recently quotedeconomist [SIC!] Mark Zandi, who advised candidate John McCain (and who now offers guidance to the Democrats).... [ZEITGEIST version]

At what point does KAPLAN, INC. merge its three duplicative Web sites into two -- or one?

DOWN WITH KAPLAN, INC.!

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

Look Econowiz, the Soviet Union managed with exploding TV sets; who's to say Belly Kisser can't manage on declining oil?

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Happily life gets back at at least a few of our superiors when they're ignorant about finance. Antoine Walker appears to be quite ignorant about finance -- and just plain ignorant.

Posted 1:07 PM by Gene

As last posted last year:

WHY ARE POP CHRISTMAS SONGS INTOLERABLE?

The standard explanations won't do -- that the Christmas season's one long shopping spree, and the platitudes of the songs are the platitudes of corrupt businessmen; that they're overexposed and inescapable, especially now with FOREGROUND MUZAK. Certainly the notion of America enveloped in DOOM and GLOOM and ENNUI won't do; Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg wrote their very sour takes on Christmas in the late fifties, before our favorite assassination. No, the best explanation is that the songs are FLAT-OUT BAD. Christ was born to provide fodder for Lawrence Welk. Consider that none of the truly top Broadway songwriters ever wrote a hit Christmas tune -- save Irving Berlin; the holiday perfectly fit a lyrical style that at its worst echoes a rhyming dictionary ("Where the treetops glisten,/And children listen,/Stand beside her,/And guide her," etc., etc., etc.). The songs also brought out the most crass in the record industry as it entered its fat years in the fifties, a time when Mitch Miller thought it cute to have Ol' Blue sing a duet with a dog. You can't think of Meredith Willson's utterly corny "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" without the cute pizzicato strings and the cute flutes and the cute xylophone and Johnny Mathis with a two-second reverb and a clothespin on his larynx. (When Willson wrote his Christmas musical Here's Love twelve years later his depleted inspiration made him re-use it, proof that the holiday does not bring out the best in musicians.) Even the very few good Christmas tunes suffer from guilt by association. Arthur Fiedler turned Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride" into an exciting, bracing mini-tone poem, but everywhere else Mitchell Parish's lyrics kick in, with their fakery of farmers and pumpkin pie and Currier and Ives, and it's back to the land of hack arrangements by Ralph Carmichael and the ooohing and aaahing of the angelic chorus. "The Christmas Song" (not great, but pretty good) marks the beginning of Nat "King" Cole's transformation from a jazzman of the first rank to an automatic molasses dispenser. Elvis, who frequently performed bad songs at half-mast, was the perfect pop Christmas singer, oozing the drivel out like a particularly unctuous undertaker soothing a dead body's relative, or a relative's dead body. And let us not forget the KIDDIE TUNES written for television though it didn't yet exist, sound-alike songs like "Frosty the Snowman" (you can hear the songwriters cutting a deal on the tune) and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," whose title character originated at a now-defunct department-store chain (Montgomery Ward). One of the great mysteries of popular music is how Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots survived a piece of junk like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to write the immortal "You Go To My Head"; by rights their next tune should have been written by Bob Merrill. (Look up the tune in ASCAP's ACE directory and you find a veritable army of the tiresome acts that buried it: the Ames Brothers, Brenda Lee, Ray Conniff, Liberace, Guy Lombardo, the Mills Brothers -- and yes, I include Bruce.) While it is true that familiarity breeds contempt, the contempt starts early when those familiar notes in your brain are so contemptible.

P. S. There are exceptions: something like "The Chipmunks' Christmas Song" is cheesy, but nostalgic fun. And I have a weakness for Sing Along's seminal renditions (can I type for Stale.com or what?) as The Gang knew perfectly just how corny it was, and didn't try to escape it. But when ACTS must add MELISMAS to the "traditional" songs they ensure they're unlistenable too.

P. P. S. I wasn't quite right about "the top Broadway songwriters"; I should have mentioned the superb Jule Styne, who alas with the equally superb Sammy Cahn wrote two top $MA$ nuisances, but the first came before Styne went to Broadway, and the second went to Ol' Blue, with no thought of it being a nuisance.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

We don't like going the TMZ route, but if anybody has to be careful with his image it's THE GOLFING MACHINE. With all those zillions in endorsements, with all the corner offices he controls, with all the PR types (read sports writers) who swoon to his name, you'd think he'd have a little bit of sense. But sense does not come readily in the rarefied world TGM inhabits, and he can always buy another 10,000 SUVs (TRICKLE-DOWN!), and enough CEOs and PR types will excuse him, and especially given his alleged amour we do not feel the least bit sorry for him.

P. S. Of course it's possible this is but as manifestation of the kind of glorified blackmail to which the rich and famous are prone, and possibly TGM is innocent. But people have professed to be "shocked" too often about our superiors, who are frequently as superior as the things that crawl under rocks. Even if this is just a baseless rumor that got too well circulated it's hard to work up sympathy for the victim as our superiors have lots of things we peons don't.

How many people go to TMZ.com and need a shower afterwards? It was one thing when it broke WACKO'S death, but too often it's -- another.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

Our only consolation is this wouldn't be the first time social-climbing liars made it into the White House.

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

Wait a second, MB2, if your fellow Richie Riches are busy buying presents for Christmas where poor people aren't, doesn't that mean TRICKLE-DOWN, which boosts the economy, which --

Oh, never mind.

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

One other thing about David Gurgle Jr. getting down: Here we have a prime reason why SLIMES and other hopeful news hacks will NOT be able to charge for the news. It was one thing when colyumnists were characters for the right reasons, when people actually read them for insights they'd find nowhere else. But typists like Gurgle and "BS" Noonan and EJ are ecomaniacs in print obsessively recycling conventional wisdom. Who wants to read the same old same old over and over? And op-ed sections are supposedly central to newspapers' identities. Somewhere some blogger not making millions a year like MB2 is far more worth reading, but because newspapers must run the same colyumnists over and over that blogger won't get exposed. Colyumning infers a consistent level of quality, or at least the expectation of quality. The only level we get these days is low. It's also an excuse to vastly overpay people in a trade that should never have done so in the first place, and now can't afford it. It may not help the biz financially but the time has come to ditch the regular opinion colyumnist and put a variety of voices in his place. The newspaper has avoided intellectual diversity long enough.

Posted 11:43 AM by Gene

Nothing speaks so dramatically about Clint Eastwood's recent and remarkable burst of creativity as a director of awards-worthy films than the appearance of "Invictus," a historical drama that few if any filmmakers could have launched within the studio system.

TRANSLATION: It's official: THE GREATEST ACTOR TURNED DIRECTOR EVER does NOT make movies for the public.

Bottom Line: A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa.

TRANSLATION: And how many of his other masterworks are overrated?

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

DAVID GURGLE JR. BOOGIES!

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

What is with con-SER-va-tives and malls? Is it that long-held prejudice against cities because they happen to be mismanaged by the DEMOCRAT party? Why don't urban dwellers deserve decent shopping? Yes we can see how they fit into foreign climates, but malls helped unleashed the destruction of urban America, and the cities are evidently just as incorrigible as some con-SER-va-tives.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

25 countries tell Iran to mothball nuke program

Iran tells 25 countries to go mothball themselves.

Posted 12:33 AM by Gene

The great GanNETt PR specialist Edna had this plug for super-expensive CD boxes up -- a fine plug, a beautiful plug -- and then some commenter (the first, dammit!) had to spoil it with talk of one set's quality-control problems. (Glue on the discs -- what's that?)

Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and AD COPYWRITERS....

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

And speaking of Dubai -- ARCHDaily!



You can sex it up with starchitects and sprinkle on some perfume and dress it in a diamond bracelet, but public housing will always look like public housing.

Posted 7:27 PM by Gene

How many times have the hacks sold their space for free to media advertising vice-presidents saying sales have never been better? These thing have "please, dear God" written all over them. BigMedia deserves a comeback?



And today is November 27, on both coasts. How apt.



And will you knock it off, Einsteins?

Posted 6:50 PM by Gene

U.N. nuclear agency says Iran probe a 'dead end'

Iran seizes Nobel peace prize winner's medal

To use the worn out Web cliché, nothing to see here.

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

With links like this and this and this and this Mike has served his mentor SLIME notice that He won't be able to escape the Web so easily. It is obvious he and the Great Huff are setting up a fight to see who can be sleazier. One hopes for a lawsuit both parties can lose.

And another thing, Mike: Whoever designed your site probably knows as much of good usable design as SLIME. As in -- try scrolling down for older stories. Maybe your computer won't seize up. Mine does. "Adjusting" the settings does no good.

And this time from the Merry Morons of Mountain View:



Oh, shut up.

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

Members of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers also finance "VIOLATORS", and any company that finances VIOLATORS reserves the right to VIOLATE its customers.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

VERY LITTLER JEFFY'S HAVING A "YARD SALE"!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

One thing that caused the AOL PEOPLE WARNER merger was its flagship's Men-as-Sex-Objects shtick. While it makes us appreciate why certain hard-core feminists get jealous it also makes us frown because it brought on THE NEW ROBERT TAYLOR and other supposed hunks; it also made ROSIE'S NEPHEW unavoidable. At the same time it so helped minimize the notion of female sex symbols as to account in no small part for the constant whining and gnashing of teeth over "bankable" actresses. It's a small mind that has a big love for PEOPLE (I'm thinking, oh, Mr. Bew-KES's); it's an even smaller mind that uses it to cast some of the flat-out mugs who now grace Hollywood.

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

You forget, Ramin: Every single one of the "feel-bad" pics earned raves from cri-TICS like DAVID ANSEN. Doesn't that constitute a happy ending?

DOWN WITH KAPLAN, INC.!

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

And speaking of Henry, he must remind us the crisis may not yet be over.

Count on the world capital of bad architecture and unneeded developments to throw the world economy for a loop.

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

And since Henry Honest posted this yesterday, let's bring back one of our old favorites:

We celebrate NATIONAL AIRPLANE CRAMMING, TURKEY GORGING, FOOTBALL GAZING AND BANGING DOWN THE STORES' DOORS AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT DAY because 144 years ago some president issued a proclamation. That we haven't the foggiest idea why a president would issue such a proclamation makes it easier to gorge on the turkey and camp out at Wal-Mart. Indeed if we had the least idea why a certain president issued this proclamation we might not see this day as just another justification for mindless spending and family arguments. We can so easily forget our great traditions' antecedents because they mean virtually nothing to us. Christmas ceased to have a connection with anything religious decades ago, and the similar justification to this day -- some folks in funny clothes with funny guns colliding with a rock someplace -- would seem laughable except it had something to do with us becoming the Superman of nations. Inevitably we would forget past struggles; The "Good" War was so increasingly long ago it may have happened on another planet. But we're so blind to the past now that when it comes history's time to repeat itself we'll just do as Dubya does, flail, make a platitude, and hope the people mindlessly spending can save us. We could do worse than humble ourselves to God, as Lincoln did, and hope He is still prepared to save our nation, as unworthy as we've more often become of it.

Our only updates would be to substitute "146" for "144", "His Omnipotence" for "Dubya", and "the government" for "the people".

P. S. at 7:50 p. m. We just scanned your listicle, Hank. 1. It's stupid. 2. Why does the URL say "15-reasons" when you only list 12? Or was your intern bored too?

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

Count on the zillionaire lunkhead MB2 to have to write this -- and he would give lavish cash gifts to his favorite politicians, freely and incontinently -- but he is right. Christmas, like so many of our national traditions, has become a pale imitation what it was while being bloated out of all proportion at the same time.  Gift-giving is tedious, counterproductive, and unnecessary, and many times the recipient will not appreciate the gift.  Better to give to a good charity, where the gift can actually help those in need.  But that MB2 wrote this does call his own morals into account, as he can afford lots of things we mere peons can't.  Aiming at self-penitence, MB?

Posted 4:32 PM by Gene

Please!  Pretty please!! We'll cut our greenhouse gases so our BFF China doesn't have to.  Pretty pretty please!!!

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

Jut-Jaw sidekick and ED MURROW groupie Brian does the NBC Nightly Senior Medicine Revue, starring "the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis ('ask your doctor if you’re healthy enough for sexual activity'), the flu medication Coricidin (for those with high blood pressure), and Beano (take it before you eat 'so there’ll be no gas')":

Remarkably, the broadcast offered not a single international story. Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, China, the world economy—all took a back seat to Oprah, Twilight, Tim Russert, Santa, and Zoo TV. The broadcast seemed almost a Saturday Night Live parody. Sadly, this is what the network news in America has become: parochial, sentimental, self-absorbed. We deserve better.

Well, if Brian's doing SNL parodies he's learned from the SOURCE.

And isn't 30 Rock the GREATEST SITCOM EVER?

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: There's no good reason for the Depression Rally of 2009.

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

While it is fascinating to learn FDR may have had cancer I don't get the point. Whatever his illness FDR was clearly a very sick man in his final two years, but he had the inner will to make it through a war, a contentious choice for his likely successor, an election and a fourth inauguration. In the end that's what counts, not what disease he had.

(Via MICHAEL, who would be very fascinated)

Posted 10:49 PM by Gene

5,990,000 LINKS!

Yes, I think the conservatives have a point.

Posted 9:17 PM by Gene

A bunch of twenty-somethings screaming at a hand-held camera is not, and never will be, The Bell Telephone Hour.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM finds a new gimmick -- RESEARCH PARKS!

This is but a new take on EDUCATIONANDHEALTHCARE, it means burning more tax dollars, and it won't prevent our cities' vast wastelands from getting vaster. When will the RENDELLISTS learn -- you can't replace the working class with self-proclaimed EGGHEADS!

Seoul's Digital Media City is one of the most grandiose efforts at nurturing a creative community. Today the new district along the Han River doesn't yet look much like other Asian boomtowns. It consists of only a few dozen modern offices housing 230 companies and apartment towers lining broad avenues. Over time, Seoul officials envision Digital Media City swelling into a Hollywood of sorts for everything from cultural programming to electronic games and interactive workplace software. Already, for instance, creators of experimental video can project their digital images onto four huge screens on building exteriors.

"120,000 workers and 2,000 companies by 2015" making VIDEOS?!?!?

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

WOODSTER THE PERV has a new girlfriend!

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

We are grateful that the GanNETtoids were able to take a break from their busy schedule of not reporting the news to plug Kirk Kevor -- KERKORIAN's folly.  After you read it you want to rush to book a room -- if you have the money, that is.  (Not to worry -- they're having a SALE!) I guess there was no avoiding adding a sentence or two in the advertorial stating that Kirk built it at the top of the market, and all the slight inconveniences attendant thereto. (No mention, happily, that a condo tower had to be shortened due to construction errors.)  Maybe if GanNETt can run more such plugs past its hotel-bound audience it can build up the travel biz -- and build up AMERICA!

Its centerpiece resort is 61-story Aria (so named because arias are focal points in operas)....

Honest, GanNETtoids, we wouldn't know these things without you!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO KITTY BEAN!

Posted 10:08 AM by Gene

How surprising: Professional beggary intersects with scammers in Noo Yawk.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

White House: Obama Afghan decision 'within days'

You sure, Your Omnipotence? Don't do too much nail-biting or you won't have any fingers.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

Why are news hacks doing a favor for the Formerly-CEO-Fanny-Kissing Angry Populist?

Posted 11:42 PM by Gene

I have mentioned the loss of Mike Royko more times than I'd wish to be reminded.  What would he think of child beauty pageants?  The easy thing is to say the contestants are basket cases in the making, which I'm guessing is wrong as most come from a stratum of society that shows off its discipline like bulging biceps; but it's still off-putting to see children masquerading as adults, and for little more than their parents' overweening vanity.

Royko?  Where's MENCK?

Posted 10:51 PM by Gene

What do foot -- SOCCER fans and A-ca-de-my A-WARDS® devotees have in common?  They're neurotically obsessive and they make lots of noise.  Soccer is what the Os-CARS® would be if lots of people took them seriously: an excuse for rioting and the sport's mavens tying themselves up in a hundred knots to repair a game that is beyond repair, not least in its tedium, which it overcomes only in the explosive hyperactive fits that get the yobs going.

In a way the Os-CARS® are worse because where soccer can at least claim millions of devoted tire burners whose thuggery is understandable that precious award show instead has the kind of overly devoted minuscule self-loving claque that follows musicals, but that tends to congregate where too many people can notice (i.e., the pop-cult precincts of the Web), and in a way that tests one's patience far more than rioting (i.e., their silly whiny ironic sarcasm, the stock of the pop-cult trade). The Os-CARS® and musicals underline what's wrong with our culture: while musicals were once highly popular, and the Os-CARS®, for all their faults, tried once to honor films that were genuinely good and popular, now both are mere platforms for a certain kind of upscale fan preening.  Really, who cares about the new musical director?  or what went on at a SAG screening?  They will deny it but these devotees have lots in common with the NASCAR® fans with their shrines for Number 3, or the Crimson Tide fans who paint their homes red, only -- and this is where they're worse -- they celebrate AHT.  In short, they're Rocco Landesman, and they're proud of it.

We can laugh at the soccer maniacs and the Os-CAR® maniacs, but with both, a screw is loose.

(NYT link via Marty)

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Here's what urban America needs -- another arms race in convention centers. Haven't the cities built enough white elephants? Why must people waste money for travel when they can gas through their cell phones and their corporate networks?

Why not some SECOND STIMULUS money? BwahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

The other day we pondered why Very Littler Jeffy wasn't thinking a spinoff of GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT.

Evidently Very Littler is thinking. He can think?

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

Outlawing boxing would be like outlawing dog fighting. We can be grateful the "sport" has priced itself into irrelevance. But deaths in the ring happen often enough to make us wonder whether the effort might be worth it.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

And here's something the creators of Ms. Travers's favorite show and a certain director named Emmerich could appreciate: a global blasphemy law.

This is not an if, this is a when; and "leaders" like His Omnipotence will help get it ratified with their good intentions.

(Via Jeffrey Goldberg)

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

A best-selling novelist complains:

It's a shame. Once Amazon was an author's best friend: Now, it's an enterprise that undercuts a writer's sales almost instantly by offering second-hand copies along with new ones, and allows an army of trolls to attack, apparently completely unmoderated.

We're sympathetic on the trolls -- although we haven't found too many in our experience, and we've perused thousands of items. But try getting a company as huge as Amazon.com to employ moderators. And as to the first point -- aren't you conservatives all for the genius of the marketplace?

Posted 10:54 AM by Gene

How about this inspiration from your favorite show, Ms. Travers?

One hates to take such things seriously when the motto of our age is "Any publicity is good publicity."

It is a shame though that SUMNER had nothing to do with this ad because we'd have learned who sponsored it.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

The bus-'n'-truck-company circuit now includes school kids. It is exasperating to think anybody can write a piece of doggie-doo with a hook and make big bucks on it, but all those eager young thespians have to act in something, anything -- and that something, anything is now such immortalities as Footloose, All Shook Up, Ring of Fire, Seussical and The Wedding Singer -- with such blue-rinse favorites as Legally Blonde on the way. Yes, Shrek will be a hit too. Not every musical is a masterwork but what do the kids gain from staging such mechanized garbage? At least Mickey and Judy (cited here) put on their own show. Imagine what Mamma Mia will do with the no-talents. Unbearable.

Needless to say the licensing king Bye Bye Birdie is doing well on Branson East despite rotten reviews -- and it has a decent score.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

In football, as in the movees, it takes money to make money. Northeastern University saw that pouring money into football would probably get it a bid in something like the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl or the Meineke Car Care Bowl. The days when any team could be a champion ended not long after Knute Rockne taught his players how to dance.

Partial correction at 3:15 p. m. Northeastern was in the Football Championship Subdivision (the former Division I-AA -- now that's a mouthful), which has a playoff, but as unlikely teams like Rutgers and Temple show, one can dream the dreams -- of playing in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl or the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

That Forbeslist typist named Tammy -- Tamny insists the Wall Street Casino dealers should pay themselves whatever number they want because their earnings are "ephemeral". Also they're valuable because they're "price givers". We have two retorts; the dealers may be ephemeral but the bonuses aren't, and yes they're price givers: they can give any price they want, like AOL at $900 or oil at $150. And in saying how wonderful FREE ENTERPRISE is and how awful GOVERNMENT is he seems to forget his Wall Street cronies are back in the money because government is burning it on THEM.

Didn't Jesus say something about money changers? The only thing Wall Street is missing is a golden calf. It already has its bull.

How apt this nonsense appears on a day a Fed high-mucky-muck tells the dealers a soothing fairy tale, and puts the SECOND MASSACRE RALLY back on track.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

How in His right mind can His Omnipotence and the Democratic stooges on the Hill think of inflicting us with more debt?

And who in his right mind believes we can go on bequeathing ourselves big boxes of benefit candy without a long-term stomach ache?

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Government Sachs, Mr. MorganChase's firm, wherever they hail from, one Treasury secretary is just like another.

Posted 12:03 AM by Gene

The inane fight for Cadbury tells why the Wall Street Casino deserves a comeuppance. This is all about shuffling assets and fattening brokers' profits and making CEO superheroes, it's not about productivity or employing more people (definitely NOT that), and the owner will be an elephant of mediocre food. Nestlé deserves this hands down; it's one of those global bureaucracies that could make SOYLENT GREEN.

Posted 11:50 PM by Gene

The somewhat suppressed story of the embarrassing leaked global-warming e-mails reminds us the last time politics inflicted a scientist on the world big-time, it was Lysenko, with awful consequences for the Russians, and the study of global warming has become so politicized we are convinced no one's telling the truth -- which is, alas, the way we must approach science with the atomic Damoclean sword over our heads.

Posted 11:41 PM by Gene

SUPERADAM!!!!!'s interns come up with a listicle of newly-opening ahthouse nominees for the Os-CAR®, and it's irritating because the hacks are ready to rave every last one of them, and the interns in their two-left-footed way say these movees are for no one but movee cri-TICS and the hard-core urban audiences, as when they posit the target crowd for one as "Mad Men fanatics, fashionistas, gay men", for another "Anyone who loved Moulin Rouge and Chicago, plus the sophisticated straight guy who appreciates eye candy," and for a third "People who like some message with their popcorn; Mandela admirers; the ten or so rugby fans in America." Who will care for any of these masterworks next year? And why must the big-name Web sites crawl with interns?

And why can't we have a movie with a real Sophia Loren instead of one of WOODSTER THE PERV's girlfriends?

Posted 11:40 PM by Gene

Italians have obviously decided they don't care who runs their country or how, which makes it ripe for another Mussolini.

Posted 8:10 PM by Gene

Now kolledge football becomes rocket science!

(Via Yahoo! Sports)

Posted 8:03 PM by Gene

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

The attorney general says, fine with m...they'll be sentenced to...they'll be SENTENCED!

Posted 11:39 AM by Gene

The inevitable result of this disaster is 1. Somebody gets executed, 2. There will be more such disasters, 3. China will still belch fossil fuels into the air, 4. His Omnipotence will still insist it's our fault, and 5. China will still beat our pants off.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Okay SUPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!!, SHARON!!!!!!!!!!, PAUL DRECK!!!!!!!!!!, DAVID "NON" GERMAIN!!!!!!!!!!, why is this GOOD NEWS? We've had outbreaks of screaming meemies before; we dismiss that. But we know in the movee excretion biz you have to spend money to make money -- so much of it you can't make money. How much did your beloved Summit spend on MARKETING? (The money the movee excreters have saved on prints is no doubt going to MORE MARKETING.) You've mentioned THE GREATEST COMIC BOOK FILM EVER -- how much money did that make PEOPLE WARNER? That didn't prevent its stock from pancaking, or the idiot MR. BEWKES from waving his arms frantically and spinning off half the company. You've also mentioned QUANTUM OF CALCULUS, or whatever the name of that movee was. Remember? That made umpteen gazillions -- and now UNITED ARTISTS faces bankruptcy, and the morons who hold its debt (sorry to cite SUPERNIKKI!!!!!!!!!! again) may not get half their money back. A lot of good that did. Or you may be thinking of You Wanna Be a Terrorist? That's sold umpteen gazillion copies -- and the videogame biz is still in free-fall. We can hear you in sycophantic unison: look at all the people who came out for this. We note -- and we suspect not for the first time -- that movee attendance has been virtually flat since 1960, and without your typical self-serving spin you know what that means -- in per-capita terms it's SHARPLY DECLINED. Now PAUL DRECK!!!!!!!!!!, we know you've been rehearsing that $10 BILLION!!!!!!!!!! gag for several years, but the B. O. would not have gotten there without inflation -- or this year without 3D SURCHARGES. We'd wager attendance is AT BEST FLAT. And to top it off, everyone who is not a teenage girl agrees your record-setter is a great big piece of bovine leavings. I want a long loud chorus, folks -- why is this GOOD NEWS?