Posted 7:03 PM by Gene

The Web is alive with the sound of debates over medals counts. Dammit who's going to care about this Wednesday morning, or a year from now, or ever after?

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

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

1. Still more proof Toyota needn't worry about American customers because the brand's not American. Sorry, that's part of the mystique. Just as Americans could never build a good car again, so the Japanese can never build a bad one. But then, as we said before, look what's out on the road.

2. Corporate America's getting something new called "microsponsorships", financing good intentions, and this may have the same old drawbacks:

"You've got to look at yourself and what your brand stands for," said Ian Wolfman, CMO of brand-engagement agency IMC2. And whatever you decide to pursue can't be an isolated campaign. "It's got to tie into a bigger program that attracts people with similar values and those have got to be clearly stated."

Otherwise, said Marc de Swaan Arons, chairman, Effective Brands, "you might as well be throwing money away."

Just like financing junk television!

3. And in the civil war called late-night television, signs of its increasing irrelevance:

If you like broad humor, Mr. Leno may well be your guy. In his last season of "Tonight," he lured an average of 5.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Then there's the fascinating case study of Mr. Letterman, a celebrity who has nothing to prove and airs his dirty laundry in public while retaining fans and maintaining an underdog mentality, snatching an average of about 4.2 million viewers season-to-date as of Feb. 14. There's also Jimmy Fallon, the newbie, worth an average of about 1.4 million viewers; Jimmy Kimmel, the frat boy, good for an average of about 1.7 million; and Craig Ferguson, the distinguished monologist, with average viewership around 1.9 million.

But wait, there's more. On cable, Comedy Central satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert nab an average of about 1.4 million and 1.1 million viewers, respectively. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim wins about 1.9 million. Chelsea Handler's female-focused vodka-shot humor nabs an average of 818,000 on Comcast's E!. And TBS rookie George Lopez has won an average following of about 1.2 million for "Lopez Tonight."

How does that all compare with the old days? Even in his last season, Mr. Carson was attracting an average of 6.7 million viewers.

And the irrelevance further increases:

Meantime, late-night has had to accommodate new viewing patterns. Not only do many hosts and assorted sidekicks do live commercials -- a nod to both the genre's earliest days and present economic pressures -- but they've had to nip and tuck their program segments to accommodate more ad time in the earlier part of their shows. Indeed, ABC and CBS have acknowledged that they moved certain ad breaks on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and "The Late Show With David Letterman" forward so they would air before midnight -- the better to reach the larger portion of the shows' audiences and get better ratings for commercial breaks.

That's because of a late-night fact that hasn't changed: A significant part of the audience is still turning the TV off by midnight. If Johnny Carson couldn't beat the Sandman, the new late night isn't going to do it now.

Who knows? Someday even these hardy folks may tune out at 11:35 -- to avoid the commercials altogether.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Now all Canada can get drunk.

Yes, it's a Canadian sport; but we suspect most of the players on all the national teams work for the NHL -- an American league. It's all one to us; pro sports have the undying spirit of the mercenary whatever the home base.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Shucks, The Dynasty will not continue after all.

Long Live the Kennedys!

Posted 12:49 PM by Gene

The notion of news hacks as vetters assumes they know something. Clearly they didn't vet Sen. Lascivious Overcomb all that well -- but they DID vet His Omnipotence! They vetted him as the god FDR JFK Lincoln! A lot of good that did.

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

Head-Scratchin' Jonny says all these genius-IQ talkathons will make our leaders "smarter". Okay Jonny, then how do so many of the genius-IQ types still manage to act like dummies?

Posted 12:23 PM by Gene

Sorry, no city ever shrank to prosperity.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

And already some hacks scribblers and otherwise are yelling for Denver in 2022.

Staging the Games in Colorado is again destined to be so expensive that screams of protest from fiscally responsible opponents would have to be quelled.

I like that passive construction: let's get out the goon squads and kill all the fiscally responsible opponents! These guys still don't know why half of them have lost their jobs, and why Denver is a one-newspaper town.

Lake Tahoe...Quebec...Spain...the woods are crawling with morons!

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

We must further grit our teeth and realize THE GAMES are essentially a biennial government stimulus program. Let's forget this private-investment bullhockey; the GAMES are government-organized, government-financed programs whose sole purpose is to shake taxpayers upside-down. If governments want to do this in the name of some flaky notion of international brotherhood, fine. But they should never tell the victims they intend to earn the money back.

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Each quadrennial, the athletes deliver competitive masterpieces, spectacles so dazzling that we forget the problems that went into making them.

I have discovered why THE GAMES inspire so much buncombe from the typists: they can be CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED. Perhaps if you are rich or have the connections or are a scribbler, and can get around with relative ease, they are a transcendent experience. But most of us only know the masterpieces through GE BANCORP and its SPONSORS, who take pride in giving us the back of their hands. We peons only want a distraction. We do not want the rapture. But thanks to the hacks with their nonstop overwhelming biennial distraction the LORDS OF LAUSANNE create the sight of thousands piously ascending to their heaven, only for the whole heaven to come plummeting to earth when those who stage THE GAMES cannot pay off their debts. Happily the hacks seldom show us that outcome. The London festival is thirty months out and already it's a disaster zone.

And the irony is this typist is blasting the LORDS for shirking their duties. But we have that every two years as well, and that wan noise is drowned out by all the CRITICAL ACCLAIM.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

Another Buffett-ism from Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) annual report: "When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."

Okay, Your Holiness, how did You get lucky enough to always be standing under clouds?

Posted 8:47 PM by Gene

What happened with the earthquakes, summed up in seven words:

Chile was ready for quake, Haiti wasn't

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Stevedom has a Nike problem, but thankfully the Lord God Steve has enough gospel tellers in the news biz to hide that one.

Although to His credit at least His Heaven did issue a report, which is more than we expect His Acolytes to do.

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

If what CHOLLY did was "not good", Speaker Babs, doesn't it stand to reason that maybe his serving as Ways and Means chairman is not good either?

Posted 7:34 PM by Gene

After a long pause -- ARCHDaily!



TimmmmmmmmmmmmmmBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Posted 3:40 PM by Gene

Even the BIG O's viewers can get CABIN FEVER:

What Ebersol didn't mention [promise you'll go away sometime soon, will you?] was that Thursday's figure skating coverage was down 28 percent in the demo [i.e., the usual gang of 18-49 idiots] and 12 percent in viewers from the similar night in Torino four years ago. No Americans drew medals in the figure skating finale last night.

It was also up to Fox to note that through eight hours of "Idol" vs. Olympics, its Simon-fest has outdrawn Vancouver by 55 percent among adults 18-49 and 6 percent in viewers. The Games did beat "Idol" on one night, prompting premature (and predictable) hand-wringing from some media outlets over the decline of "Idol."

Meaning people will always seek out the new dull over the old.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

OooooOOOOOoooooh:

Nearly 400 recipients of stimulus funds haven't submitted spending reports to the federal government — and Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, says federal agencies need to take action to punish those recipients....

Those recipients "should really be embarrassed," Devaney said in a written statement. "They took millions of dollars and then thumbed their noses at taxpayers."

Would it be more embarrassing than what they spent the money on?

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

You wouldn't suppose The Pin-Up Girl suffered from the SI JINX, would you? Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!

In an earlier age, before Jeff Zuck and the TWXSTERS, we would have felt sad. She's made millions, she'll make millions. We don't feel sad.

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

Jeff Zuck's BRILLIANT GAMES ploy finally caught up with Him -- in the Senate.

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Lost lines from Of Thee I Sing:

THROTTLEBOTTOM: It's easy being vice president — you don't have to do anything.

WINTERGREEN: It's like being the grandpa and not the parent.

THROTTLEBOTTOM: Yeah, that's it!

Oh, they're not from Of Thee I Sing? They're from real life? Who knew?

(Via WeeklyStandard.com)

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Summer 2011: A Perfect Storm for Hollywood's Labor Unions

Meaning of course nothing will happen.

On the other hand we can say, on a note of high expectation: GOODY GOODY GOODY GOODY GOODY!

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

One thing that especially irks us about the Web (and we're sure we've said this before) is having to follow stories that under another circumstance would have no importance or meaning. We've had four or five stories about the gracelessness and stupidity of GAMES athletes, people who (as we've said before) we'd never heard of before and will never hear of again, but the ever growing news maw needs its words, and there are thousands of talentless hacks to feed it. Ordinarily we wouldn't give two hoots how the women of Canada's GAMES hockey team would celebrate, but because of the gigantic need and endless compulsion to fill space we must gag on it as though on the girls' cigar smoke. Besides isn't classless behavior the norm in today's world? And aren't the same breathless media hacks tsk-tsking the Canadian women largely to blame, given their endless celebrations of jerks?

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

Music biz back to playing the blues

I'm ready to jitterbug!

Russ Crupnick, NPD's music analyst, said, "In the short term, the numbers are outright scary. But the good news is that there are a lot of dedicated digital music buyers out there. We just need more of them. It doesn't have to be a death spiral."

Unfortunately that may require unearthing some musicians from the dead.

Posted 8:21 PM by Gene

Well gosh almighty! Look who broke some House ethics rules! CHOLLY! Who'da thunk?

The finding is certain to jeopardize Rangel's chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Really? When the fate of the world rests on Speaker Babs's shoulders?

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

How apt: The con-SER-va-tive hero Eric answers His Omnipotence's stunt of a conference with a stunt of his own.

A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

Shark-filled aquarium in Dubai mall springs leak

We could say something about sharks and leaks and Dubai but will let it pass. It's too easy.

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

Say KO, maybe it wasn't such a brilliant idea to announce you're buying most of your biggest bottler today.

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

Well what do you know? DER HOMELAND, the same bureaucratic quagmire that calls six-year-olds prospective terrorists, can't identify illegal immigrants!

Am I surprised!

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

Schaffer: Media entrepreneurs need to be OK with moving into the 'squirm zone' [Romy link]

Practically every time media entrepreneurs move me into the squirm zone.

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

Two more proud moments from America's Greatest Group Blog:

The Summit [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Watch here, Critical Condition, and some NRO-ers on Twitter: @JimGeraghty, @Gpollowitz, @SHSpruiell, @DanFosterNRO, @JackFowler, @richlowry.

I'm @kathrynlopez.

And do follow @NRO.

02/25 10:30 AMShare

Re: The Summit [Rich Lowry]

Besides all that tweeting, you can comment here.

UPDATE:

I agree with Joe46and2 entirely:

This is one area of the debate where it would be better to have no transparency. This “summit” will be about as authentic as a Presidential “debate.” And also just about as useful.

02/25 10:48 AMShare

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

The left has its own GLENN BECK!!!!! in Congresspoop Weiner.

"He may be an SOB but he's OUR SOB" won't cut it, clowns of both sides.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

Speaking of knee jerks, I'd love to read LEGENDARY WELCH offer a rebuttal to THIS ONE. It would be a con-SER-va-tive classic.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

Tunku Varadarajan is a national affairs correspondent and writer at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a professor at NYU’s Stern Business School. He is a former assistant managing editor at The Wall Street Journal. (Follow him on Twitter here.) [Emphasis added]

TRANSLATION: THE OSAMAMOBILE IS CONSERVATIVE PC.

Some people type too much!

P. S. And contributor to FORBESLIST. His bonafides are quite clear, thank you.

And stupid-listicle maker.

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

WHY DOES THE MOVEE TRADE BOTHER WITH ITS FIG LEAF ANYMORE?

A proposal: The public should deal with idiots like MR. BEWKES in precisely the same language He deals with US.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

Now that Mooner Moonves is getting five more years does that mean JEFF ZUCK can get ten-to-life?

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

And in other cinematic genius, as copiously documented by Rex Reed:

In the comic tradition of the Farrelly brothers, Judd Apatow, David O. Russell and Wes Anderson, [Cop Out] is the kind of critically bilious emetic I would ordinarily pass by, looking the other way. But at the screening for alleged critics I attended, one lady reviewer old enough to know better [GRANOLA?!?!?] went into high-pitched squeals of shrieking hysterics every time the cops described in detail their excrement, flatulence and penis size. I don’t even want to think about what this says about the state of movie criticism today, but it’s pretty clear that we will always have moron movies as long as we have moron critics who praise them. Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of either.

Or as Mencken once groused, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average MOVEE FAN.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

From EM's home page:



Yes, you might!

I know, we all make mistakes, but some of us make them more prominently than others.

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

Durable goods orders surge 3% on airplanes
Excluding transportation, orders fall 0.6% in January

DOW 100,000!!!!!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

We know why SUPERNIKKI!!!!! would be excited but honest we don't know why anyone else is over ESPNCORP's decision to bring another mediocre movie to DVD sooner. One way or another it plays on TV (including the popcorn restaurants) so why shouldn't Ub maximize His profits?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

While GARY of USAOKAY!!!!! earns a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD for writing a puff piece quoting ad buyers (you know, the types who never met a show they didn't like), The Paper of Re-CORD runs a damning article about the albatross THE GAMES have draped around Vancouver's neck; this city deserved better. We don't know where to start. Oh, how about here:

While the mood in the city has picked up since the start, when many people were suffering a severe case of buyer’s remorse, the looming budget realities make it unlikely that all will be forgiven or forgotten.

“While it’s very hard to see all the costs, I think people are going to pay for it for a long time,” said Lee Fletcher as he walked past several flowering cherry trees near his apartment outside Stanley Park, a large tract of forest tucked up against the city’s downtown. “Some people are going to benefit hugely, not the average guy. The average guy is going to see his taxes increase.”

Who ever said THE GAMES are for the average guy? Or this:

The real estate development industry, which is unusually powerful in Vancouver, provided the city with an Olympic Village plan that seemed — and ultimately was — too good to be true. A development firm would finance and build the village on a desirable piece of city-owned land. After the Games, the developer would convert the accommodations into luxury condominiums and pay the city for the property. Vancouver would get its village and turn a profit as well.

But cost overruns, combined with the credit crisis in 2008, destroyed the financing. Once in office, Mr. Robertson had to obtain special permission from the province to borrow $434 million to complete the village. In all, the city is responsible for about $1 billion in development costs, a situation that lowered its credit rating.

And it ends with this:

Kennedy Stewart, a professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University in suburban Vancouver who has written extensively about the city’s politics, remains unconvinced that showing potential investors a good time during the Olympics will resolve Vancouver’s long-term economic issues. The forestry industry, once the mainstay of its economy, has been devastated by a beetle infestation, the collapse of the housing market in the United States and competition from South America. While motion picture production companies and software developers have set up shop here in recent years, they lack the same economic impact.

“What’s the substantive thing Vancouver has to offer other than its nice mountains and vastly overpriced real estate?” Professor Stewart asked. “The forestry industries have collapsed, so where is the money going to come from other than marijuana grow-ops?” [Link sic; emphasis added]

Well, Vancouver could always hire GARY for PR -- if he hasn't hired himself out somewhere else first.

Posted 11:22 PM by Gene

FORBESLIST yet again shows its undying loyalty to show-biz by running a press release saying how wonderful fake animated "actors" are. We wouldn't talk too loud; these hacks do so many favors they're fake writers.

Oh and we wouldn't hug ourselves too hard, NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD WINNER DOROTHY. What if the movee geniuses make licensed fake actors do the sort of CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED things their real-life estates might object to? What if their not inconsiderable fans start to complain? And couldn't they reach the threshold of stale faster? Doesn't that rather limit their usefulness? Of course not -- not if we "write" for FORBESLIST.

Posted 10:18 PM by Gene

Hearing the Russians kvetch and moan and hearing "our" women's ski team kvetch and moan I say this festival of peace and love and good sportsmanship can't end soon enough. How many feel as I do?

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Good dog!

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

Evidently GUVMENT MOTORS's agreement with a Chinese firm to sell its OSAMAMOBILE unit has fallen through.

Good riddance to gas-guzzling rubbish.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

Apple’s Jobs Appoints ‘Outsider’ to Serve as Co-Lead Director

Is there really an outsider in big business?

And especially in a religious cult?

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

CJR's just run a review of a bio of the LEGEND who named a JERNALISM PRIZE after HIMSELF -- and, well....

Within little more than a decade of its purchase by Pulitzer, the World went “from being the bad boy of Park Row to being a stodgy defender of the political establishment.” And its owner was transformed from an idealistic reformer to a wealthy solipsist, who was “incapable of acknowledging the suffering of others.” Idiosyncrasies abounded in Pulitzer’s personal and private life. Guests found his company hard to take, enduring his “strictures against slurping soup or crunching on toast.” At the office, he did not want any short men hired.

Nor was his family life any more rewarding. Pulitzer spent little time with his wife Kate and their children, and when he did, he could be disagreeable and distant. Morris notes, “Even when he was at his best, Joseph made their marriage an ordeal for Kate. If he was not too consumed by work, he was haunted by sickness, real and imagined. As his worries about work and his fears for his health mounted, so did his notorious temper and impatience.”

Let us raise a toast with the most expensive bottled water to Joseph P-Ulitzer, a man who helped invent NEUHARTHISM!

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Scott Shill -- Thill is looking for a job with DC COMICS PICTURES!

I think he'll GET one!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD (MULTISYLLABIC DIVISION) TO SCOTT!

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

This Michigan business raises a few questions: Would younuhversuhtee athletic programs have to engage in bean counting if the whole purpose of "enforcement" weren't fanny covering? Doesn't exploiting athlete-students constitute a far worse ethical problem? And wouldn't most of the problems be solved turning athletic programs into for-profit corporations that paid their currently indentured servants?

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

The Wizards of Mountain View just chopped my broccoli!

They also delivered this touching gift for my last post:



They may be in trouble in Italy for the wrong reason, but it's the right trouble.

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

Okay Dimwit Don, who represents the true GAMES "vision": the figure skater who performed perfectly through numbing grief over the death of her mother -- or MR. PLATINUM MEDAL?

We know who it should be. With Dimwit Dons we know who it de facto IS.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Ben says the not-a-depression-not-a-recession-not-a-recovery economy will continue for a while.

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

One of USAOKAY!!!!!'s leading publicists Edna is angry because the Os-CAR®s aren't sufficiently honoring the brilliance of the movee biz' GREAT SONGS, which makes us wonder yet again why OKAY!!!!! can't have layoffs too.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

And as penance for making a SPEEDY GONZALES MOVEE, the fillum biz will make another RFK flick. Maybe if these dolts stopped mourning for their past and started shooting decent films....

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

James Frey -- the controversial author of "A Million Little Pieces" and "Bright Shiny Morning" -- is using so many pseudonyms lately that any nom de plume is suspected to be his.

Including this blog!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

We've gotten into a pretty pickle when we must dismiss a man who might be competent enough from being president because of his last name, but that last name is so freighted with symbolism it could sink America.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Haley forces us to read between the lines, as partisans will. We're stuck between KING HENRY THE WAX micromanaging business and Republicans turning a permanent cheek. Isn't there a happy medium?

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

DC COMICS PICTURES (New Line marque) is making a SPEEDY GONZALES MOVEE!!!!!

"We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s -- the racist Speedy," Anne Lopez said with a chuckle.

So with a chuckle we'll make him a stoopid Speedy in line with DC COMICS PICTURES' fan base.

And remember -- this sort of project has NOTHING to do with ESPNCORP destroying its network's news unit.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

ESPNCORP NETWORK NEWS may lay off up to 300, and....

Anxious staffers are not only fearful about losing their jobs but also are apprehensive about, if they remain, how the restructuring will affect their ability to chase big stories and swarm major news events. [Emphasis added]

Note the word swarm. Already thousands and thousands of reporters swarm "major news events" that need no swarming; the only result is a mass headache. Why do we need thousands and thousands and thousands of hacks to swarm the same three or four stories and achieve Guinness Book records for copying? Yes we feel sorry for those let go, but they're being let go in part because for too long editors mistook mass for insight. We have enough mass in mass media.

(Via the bloviator HENRY HONEST. How did he luck out?)

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Jerry Flynt has a good point -- maybe it is "the ghost in the machine". Maybe people did mistake the gas pedal for the brakes. Then again given the three-second tape delay on the ignition switch we wonder.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

You'd think a zillionaire loudmouth like Tony Korn would know when you let out a stink the wind can carry it in the wrong direction.

Not that we have any sympathy for him. The more the loudmouths make and the more they stink the less sympathy we have -- and usually they're proportional.

Posted 3:49 PM by Gene

Three hacks -- "respected journalists" are "investigating" the St. Petersburg Times for the Church of Scientology -- and CJR complains because they mentioned its name.

In the words of an old saw, those hacks should have quit while they were ahead -- or maybe they did.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

[T]he tight control exercised from company headquarters in Toyota City, outside of Nagoya, led the company into a series of disastrous miscalculations, critics say.

"They let Americans do what they do best, advertising and services, and in that area they left us alone," said Laurence Boland, who left Toyota in 1995 after a 25-year career at the automaker's sales organization based in Torrance. "But when it came to money and technical matters, they kept the control in Japan." [Emphasis added]

Shrewd. Who ever thought the Japanese could have a breakdown?

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

If The Paper of Re-CORD is getting all this unpaid help why does it need the PAID help of Web surfers?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Having already spent themselves into immortality -- it will take Vancouver an eternity to pay their triumph off-- Canada's national GAMES committee compounded the error by boasting it would win them. If we were a sensible Canadian we'd demand the nation never host THE GAMES again, however "grand" a "success" they've been with people who don't pay for their tickets.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Speaking of Toyota:

CNW Research analyst Art Spinella said that long-time Toyota owners consider the recall "a pretty major issue," but strongly believe in the brand.

"The vast majority will not abandon Toyotas because of the recalls," he said in a recent report. In a Feb. 10 CNW survey of new-car shoppers, 7% said they would not buy a Toyota product because of the recall. That was down from 18% who said the same thing immediately after it was announced in January.

This would seem to confirm my notion the company won't be hurt because it's not American. I'd have assumed that car buyers would have more sense. Look what's out on the road, however.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Between Bug-Eyed Tim's favors for God's Servants and all the favors for Toyota we may wonder if we have a government.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

When Steele took over the chairmanship last winter, he inherited a $23 million surplus. Since then, the former Maryland lieutenant governor has raised $10 million less than the party collected in 2005 and has spent $10 million more. By the end of 2009, the committee’s surplus had shrunk to $8.4 million, according to campaign finance reports.

Michael! Run for Congress! They need you!

Posted 7:48 PM by Gene

Chest pains send ex-VP Cheney to hospital

Do I hear the left laughing?

Getting so many hits from a broccoli photo makes me wonder about blogging's value. The reactions of partisans to the illnesses of their mortal enemies is likewise; how often do we get the sudden tsunami of death-wishing and fonetik speling? That we more often hear such jackal-cries from the left than from the right doesn't mean the right lacks its hee-hawing jerks. When all I hear all day from the web is variations of screw you it makes me want to ditch my computer. Broccoli only underlines it.

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

Yes, we may heave a hopeful sigh of relief toward AIG. The cold fact remains, however, that its stock was a split-adjusted $2,074 in 2000. It is $28 today.

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

The first reaction to a press release like this is sheer jealousy. With further reflection one thinks of the baseball-card business. Then we remember how many times PEOPLE WARNER has had to revive the Superman trade, using tricks even comic-book readers would laugh at (and judging from this pile of verbiage, there aren't too many of those, and their numbers may be shrinking). The time may come when the corpse refuses to be resuscitated. We think of Mad, whose earliest issues now reside in bank vaults; PEOPLE WARNER could fold it tomorrow and no one would notice. ESPNCORP paid too much for Marvel. Even those who hold its properties in perpetuity for movees may see them lose their immunity to death and destruction. And if September 2008 proved anything it's that a seller's market is not forever.

And between comics in bank vaults and today's comic books without readers we'd say the trade is defunct with the bloom of health.

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

Stories like this make us wonder whether sane people will be ashamed to have talked of such stories three months hence. What tries our sanity is the notion we MUST pay minutest attention to THE GAMES and their trivia when three months hence we will not have the foggiest idea who the participants were, and for some of us where they took place. An age with excellence in culture would not have reason to talk to itself like this; it would have all the distractions it needed, and far more excellence than even the most stalwart hack can will from THE GAMES.

And three months hence the link will be gone, a fitting eulogy.

Posted 12:45 PM by Gene

On days like this, His Omnipotence must be thinking, I wish we had one-party rule.

YOU HAD IT.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

What’s the Problem With Defending the Stimulus?

A bad sales job and a big deficit

Yes, it would seem that way.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

The "PR DISASTER" of Jeff Zuck and THE GAMES finally became official.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

...that REVOLTING TR quote.... [REVOLTING overemphasis added]

Is that guy you folks sometimes said wasn't a Republican still running for president?

And yes, we read the quote. So TR was a SOCIALIST. Time for GEKKO KUDLOW to run for president!

P. S. There IS one difference between TR and YOU, PILLHEAD's Accent: TR's on Mt. Rushmore. You merely have a MOUTH.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

His Omnipotence will not meet The ZAP in debt-infested Chickenland? Don't the two have appeasement in common?

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

The important thing is never give up, even in the "hopeless" cases of missing children.

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

Why pay tens of millions to officially partner with the Olympics when you can get all the benefits of appearing in Vancouver for much less money?

That attitude will apparently get you somewhere for these Winter Games. Of the top 15 brands in the 2010 Olympics, fully one-third are so-called "ambush marketers," or companies who are not official sponsors of the Games.

That's according to a the new TrendTopper MediaBuzz Ambush Index, a list put out by the Austin-Texas-based Global Language Monitor, which ranks perceived Olympic sponsors according to their presence in the global media.

For example, Coca-Cola is an official Olympic global partner, paying an estimated hundred million dollars to be associated with the games. It ranks No. 16 on the list.

But you won't get the luxury boxes -- or the thrill of screaming at your subordinates for months on end, "I WAS AT THE GAMES AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!!!!!!"

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

For $15 million less than the Cryonic Mayor spent to lure THE GAMES to his duchy the Os-CAR® people finance a whole year's activities. That says something.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

With his addiction to hype and praise the news hack is as credulous as the three-year-old on his birthday. What's adorable in a three-year-old may not be with a news hack.

Posted 7:08 PM by Gene

Toyota boasted saving $100M on recall, documents say

TRANSLATION: There are Pointy-Haired Bosses in Japan too.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

We hope those of you coming for our vegetables might look over our other produce. We really have no intention to become The Daily Broccoli.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

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

1. Most Web surfers are choosing the most popular rubbish -- but they might not be choosing rubbish with such passion if BIGMEDIA had not embraced it too. And just because revuers say something is good doesn't mean it's good. If we've learned anything from the Web years it's the Curse of the CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED.

So where will the culture go? It's hard to think it could get worse. It will get worse. But the time must come when people will seek each other out without wires, and start making culture again -- and who knows? After so long in the LCD-lit darkness it might be good. Who thought the unlettered furriers and glove salesmen and street musicians from Europe could make something other than money? We must remember, however, it took at least a century after our founding before our theater became the pride of the world, and longer for our music.

2. I'm still not convinced social media can't do more harm for Big Business than good. Ford got back in the public's good graces not because it was so adept at Twitter but because it didn't directly take our money. And it doesn't take much for Corporate America to pull the fast one. Could Toyota's have lessened its predicament had it sent out legions of PR men through Facebook? One doubts it. And the people have a way of coming together better than executives.

3. We may further wonder:

As of last week, Axe's Facebook page had fewer than half the fans that its most recent campaign website -- AxeHairCrisisRelief.org -- attracted in one month last June in the U.S. alone, per Compete.com. The 200,000 fans of P&G's Pampers on Facebook are dwarfed by 1.5 million monthly visitors (per Compete) to Pampers.com, which anchors one of several online relationship programs with seven-figure databases for P&G brands.

We must note everything in this week's issue is part of a theme, a theme to overstate social media's value much as we would have overstated TV commercials' value thirty years ago. That alone brings on a certain skeptical itch.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

If Ah-NULT were a naturalized citizen he'd be running for president -- although we puzzle as to which party. Maybe the party of Ah-NULT?

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

"The cold and hard reality is Chicago spent approximately $80 million on its bid," Blackmun said. "It's going to be difficult to get U.S. cities to continue to invest to that level unless they think they have a realistic chance of winning. The [International Olympic Committee] sent us a message, loud and clear, that they don't want the Games to be in the United States." [Emphasis added]

GEe, THANKS, Very Littler Jeffy! [SIC]

And to think even His Omnipotence's Affirmation of Immortality didn't help.

P. S. to the Cryonic Mayor: What could $80 million have bought? We KNOW, we know.

P. P. S. Once more, with feeling, from G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE:


(Via Bloomberg)

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Dalai Lama launches L.A. visit

He could always set up a new country there!

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

This irrelevant conservative conference's endorsement of RON!!!!! PAUL!!!!! says His Omnipotence may yet be a two-termer, if only be default.

Posted 9:14 PM by Gene

And in more of the peace-and-love festival whose values a certain blithering jackass from Oak Brook would like to emulate, the Austrians didn't show much peace or love toward our pin-up girl, which we'll take as par for the course on all sides.

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

You may have heard Center City Philthydelphia had some bad PR lately -- but happily THE MAN WHO INVENTED RENDELLISM is on the case:

"Center City is the job engine; it's also the tax engine, and we've got to fight to keep it in good shape." [Emphasis added]

TRANSLATION: The rest of the city doesn't exist. How can it when RENDELLISM's chief function is to bring in TOURISTS who'll make all those jobs for waiters and janitors and bellhops who'll power the 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMY? How many tourists you gonna get in West Philly?

Hey EDDIE! Think we're game for the GAMES? Maybe we can build a new stadium around TEMPLE! They can use it to win the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Could Russia gain an ice dancing edge because of judging controversy?

I thought we solved that problem! PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

One very annoying form of RENDELLISM is cheering for the nation's home team. We should remember TGSM has been in six Ryder Cups. A big reason the supposed "Miracle on Ice" resonated is it took place in the annus horribilis of 1980, of JIMMAH and the hostage crisis; All Things Considered (CLUNKclunk CLUNKclunk CLUNKclunk CLUNKclunk) played The Unanswered Question and mourned for our demise. The "Miracle" only underlined the self-pity. Of course national heroes can "choke" too. A nation that must rely on athletes for self-confidence fundamentally lacks it. Look at what's happened to Greece.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

Gen. Alexander Haig, the man who was president for a day, has died. RIP.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

It is somewhat ironical that a University of Chicago graduate and once lecturer at Duke who's stepped up to zillionaire pundit at The Paper of Effete Snobs -- from Toronto, no less -- should mourn the failure of "the meritocracy", but we'll take it. We have to because no one else is selling it.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

"Mr. Zucker and Mr. Roberts, I see that nowhere in your statements do you mention lower cable rates as a consumer benefit of your merger, so at least you are not trying to sell us that bill of goods."

If Russ Feingold were a Republican he would not have said that. Why must so many beliefs stop at the party line?

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says he's going on a hunger strike because he claims prison officials don't provide him a fiber-rich diet.

The longer the better!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Ub Iger wasted His money on Marvel Films.

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

Our fervent hope: that GE BANCORP NETWORK's ratings are lower after the two-week-plus MICKEY D-'n'-COKE fest.

JUT-JAW will help.

Last month, NBC Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin told EW that the network will promote Leno’s return “with some humor and a wink, not a sledgehammer. We will certainly be more subtle.”

Since when is a sledgehammer subtle?

(Via -- oh well -- VULTURE)

Posted 8:49 PM by Gene

"He will still sell a lot of golf clubs, but I would no longer be pitching him to corporations that were using him simply as an image of their hard work and integrity," said Robert Boland, professor of sports management at New York University.

"If he does announce that he is coming back and when, that will be a big positive for the PGA Tour, sponsors and the other players on the Tour, because he personally adds a significant amount of visibility," Marc Ganis, president of Chicago sports consulting firm Sportscorp Ltd said.

"With success and with time, people start to forget a lot of things," said Matt Delzell, group account manager with brand consulting firm Davie Brown.

"He's still the single most valuable thing to the PGA Tour this side of Augusta, and that won't change," Boland said. "In fact, it will probably be heightened because the curiosity factor is so great."

"The PGA Tour demonstrably needs Tiger Woods back," said Rick Horrow, a sports lecturer at the Harvard Law School.

"If Tiger wins, and wins consistently, he may in fact broaden interest in the PGA and open up new, nontraditional sponsors for the game of golf," said David Carter, executive director with the USC Sports Business Institute.

1. EVERYONE WANTS TO BE THAT BLITHERING IDIOT PERFESSER THOMPSON! 2. News isn't reporting, it's sound-bite editing.

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

Toyota CEO to Testify Before Congress Next Wednesday

How can he pull the fake customer-service "I'm-sorry"?

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

John Boehner: Speaker of the House?

Our definition of:

Posted 3:41 PM by Gene

Now -- A MEA CULPA FROM THE AD BIZ!

Posted 2:51 PM by Gene

Usually when people look for pictures around these parts they're looking for PR0N. Today they're looking for pictures of broccoli. We'd rather they came for broccoli than PR0N. Thanks Marc!

Posted 2:33 PM by Gene

We must thank God only a handful were hurt in this vicious nut-crime. Already con-SER-va-tives are in CYA mode as this psycho sounds like a RIGHT-WINGER. But the leftists have skeletons of their own in their very capacious closets, and both sides like to plead insanity first.

P. S. at 3:40 p. m. And here in a nutshell is why I do not trust knee-jerk locksteps: This pundit's first instinct was to engage in defense; rather than say, "This was an awful crime", he said "Geez -- we'll get blamed for it! Better point to the kooks on the other side." This is what liberals did after the Ft. Hood holy roller. Too many people have computers in their brains that emit the verbal equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death. Can we get replacements?

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

To the uninitiated, it raises basic questions: Is this acting, or is it animation? And, does this suggest that actors could become obsolete?

1. I'm not uninitiated, and the answer is, it's animation. 2. Aren't they already?

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

Click on FORBESLIST.com and you get:



...followed seconds later by:



Hey Bono! You playing with the computers again?

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

If Daimler says "there is no reason to assume that the crisis is over", may we assume it isn't?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

The incompetent ex-speaker DENNY has a sweet tooth!

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

Proof the Wall Street Casino is full of it: SIRIUS at over $1.

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

My downloading mania led me to YouTube of all places to capture the marvelous 1961 theme song of To Tell the Truth (not stereo, very unfortunately). A man with the peculiar name of Robert Cobert (how do you pronounce it?) wrote it, and though he's better known for the daytime gothic soap opera Dark Shadows and some miniseries to me he will always live through his themes for Password, and this one, yes, very much of a kind with the stock music of its day*, but also a kind of instrumental version of that masterpiece "The Trolley Song", itself a reason to live. Just to hear it would have overpowered the bottles of Geritol hawked on the show. Only now do we know just how good some TV themes were. "To Tell the Truth" was buried with low-fi speakers and audience applause and Johnny Olson's yammering and promos, and it never played beyond halfway through the song. Partly for that we thought of Carl Stalling and Vic Mizzy and Alexander Courage as hacks, and dismissed them as no better than the hack work they accompanied -- no doubt the composers dismissed themselves too. Of course it's hard to look at that picture of the original Superman and Tom Poston and Mrs. Hart and Orson Bean, Peggy Cass unaccountably missing (and all dead save for Bean, now in his eighties and forever known as a sex quack), and not feel the pang of remorse for the past, which steeps those old themes even more savorly. And those who overpraise our current musical genius should know that it may not have the minimal excellence to save it from the future.

*If you want to hear stock music listen to the original theme from 1956. And a lot of that music didn't deserve the ignominy of television either -- and a lot of it wasn't stock music.

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

This will be as productive as a press conference by Marcel Marceau with blind newsmen.

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

As i prepare to send a complaint to that incompetent jackass Thompson, judging from the way MICK handled my two phone calls last night I'd say it's an airline.

SAME DIFFERENCE.

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

SO! Emceeing a stupid morning plugfest IS ROCKET SCIENCE!

Especially when you have to DUMB YOURSELF DOWN for it!

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

Well! Here's one Canadian writer who doesn't blame the problems at the GE BANCORP-MICKEY-D-COKE-MOON-'n'-STARS GAMES on the BRITISH.

Posted 10:22 PM by Gene

And blithering Thompsons bellow for their RIGHT to $10,000 seats -- and then they have the gall not to show for THEIR games!

Vancouver hoping for bums on seats

They have them -- and their names include Thompson, Kent and McDonald.

Posted 9:00 PM by Gene

“The goals, visions and values of the Olympic games are aligned with McDonalds.”

In response to the drooling numskull Thompson -- GEORGE ORWELL and "The Sporting Spirit":

Now that the brief visit of the Dynamo football team has come to an end,
it is possible to say publicly what many thinking people were saying
privately before the Dynamos ever arrived. That is, that sport is an
unfailing cause of ill-will, and that if such a visit as this had any
effect at all on Anglo-Soviet relations, it could only be to make them
slightly worse than before.

Even the newspapers have been unable to conceal the fact that at least
two of the four matches played led to much bad feeling. At the Arsenal
match, I am told by someone who was there, a British and a Russian player
came to blows and the crowd booed the referee. The Glasgow match, someone
else informs me, was simply a free-for-all from the start. And then there
was the controversy, typical of our nationalistic age, about the
composition of the Arsenal team. Was it really an all-England team, as
claimed by the Russians, or merely a league team, as claimed by the
British? And did the Dynamos end their tour abruptly in order to avoid
playing an all-England team? As usual, everyone answers these questions
according to his political predilections. Not quite everyone, however. I
noted with interest, as an instance of the vicious passions that football
provokes, that the sporting correspondent of the russophile NEWS
CHRONICLE took the anti-Russian line and maintained that Arsenal was NOT
an all-England team. No doubt the controversy will continue to echo for
years in the footnotes of history books. Meanwhile the result of the
Dynamos' tour, in so far as it has had any result, will have been to
create fresh animosity on both sides.

And how could it be otherwise? I am always amazed when I hear people
saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only
the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or
cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even
if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for
instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred,
one could deduce it from general principles.

Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to
win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On
the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local
patriotism is involved. it is possible to play simply for the fun and
exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you
feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the
most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even
in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport
is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour
of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the
spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these
absurd contests, and seriously believe--at any rate for short
periods--that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national
virtue.

Even a leisurely game like cricket, demanding grace rather than strength,
can cause much ill-will, as we saw in the controversy over body-line
bowling and over the rough tactics of the Australian team that visited
England in 1921. Football, a game in which everyone gets hurt and every
nation has its own style of play which seems unfair to foreigners, is far
worse. Worst of all is boxing. One of the most horrible sights in the
world is a fight between white and coloured boxers before a mixed
audience. But a boxing audience is always disgusting, and the behaviour
of the women, in particular, is such that the army, I believe, does not
allow them to attend its contests. At any rate, two or three years ago,
when Home Guards and regular troops were holding a boxing tournament, I
was placed on guard at the door of the hall, with orders to keep the
women out.

In England, the obsession with sport is bad enough, but even fiercer
passions are aroused in young countries where games playing and
nationalism are both recent developments. In countries like India or
Burma, it is necessary at football matches to have strong cordons of
police to keep the crowd from invading the field. In Burma, I have seen
the supporters of one side break through the police and disable the
goalkeeper of the opposing side at a critical moment. The first big
football match that was played in Spain about fifteen years ago led to an
uncontrollable riot. As soon as strong feelings of rivalry are aroused,
the notion of playing the game according to the rules always vanishes.
People want to see one side on top and the other side humiliated, and
they forget that victory gained through cheating or through the
intervention of the crowd is meaningless. Even when the spectators don't
intervene physically they try to influence the game by cheering their own
side and "rattling" opposing players with boos and insults. Serious sport
has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy,
boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing
violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

Instead of blah-blahing about the clean, healthy rivalry of the football
field and the great part played by the Olympic Games in bringing the
nations together, it is more useful to inquire how and why this modern
cult of sport arose. Most of the games we now play are of ancient origin,
but sport does not seem to have been taken very seriously between Roman
times and the nineteenth century. Even in the English public schools the
games cult did not start till the later part of the last century. Dr
Arnold, generally regarded as the founder of the modern public school,
looked on games as simply a waste of time. Then, chiefly in England and
the United States, games were built up into a heavily-financed activity,
capable of attracting vast crowds and rousing savage passions, and the
infection spread from country to country. It is the most violently
combative sports, football and boxing, that have spread the widest. There
cannot be much doubt that the whole thing is bound up with the rise of
nationalism--that is, with the lunatic modern habit of identifying
oneself with large power units and seeing everything in terms of
competitive prestige. Also, organised games are more likely to flourish
in urban communities where the average human being lives a sedentary or
at least a confined life, and does not get much opportunity for creative
labour. In a rustic community a boy or young man works off a good deal of
his surplus energy by walking, swimming, snowballing, climbing trees,
riding horses, and by various sports involving cruelty to animals, such
as fishing, cock-fighting and ferreting for rats. In a big town one must
indulge in group activities if one wants an outlet for one's physical
strength or for one's sadistic impulses. Games are taken seriously in
London and New York, and they were taken seriously in Rome and Byzantium:
in the Middle Ages they were played, and probably played with much
physical brutality, but they were not mixed up with politics nor a cause
of group hatreds.

If you wanted to add to the vast fund of ill-will existing in the world
at this moment, you could hardly do it better than by a series of
football matches between Jews and Arabs, Germans and Czechs, Indians and
British, Russians and Poles, and Italians and Jugoslavs, each match to be
watched by a mixed audience of 100,000 spectators. I do not, of course,
suggest that sport is one of the main causes of international rivalry;
big-scale sport is itself, I think, merely another effect of the causes
that have produced nationalism. Still, you do make things worse by
sending forth a team of eleven men, labelled as national champions, to do
battle against some rival team, and allowing it to be felt on all sides
that whichever nation is defeated will "lose face".

I hope, therefore, that we shan't follow up the visit of the Dynamos by
sending a British team to the USSR. If we must do so, then let us
send a second-rate team which is sure to be beaten and cannot be claimed
to represent Britain as a whole. There are quite enough real causes of
trouble already, and we need not add to them by encouraging young men to
kick each other on the shins amid the roars of infuriated spectators.

Yes, it's from 1945. Nothing has changed since.

Posted 7:27 PM by Gene

Hey JEFF ZUCK! If everything's so HUNKY-DORY why not ask your sponsors for REVERSE MAKE-GOODS?

Posted 6:59 PM by Gene

This is the equivalent of a corporate mea culpa, but clearly somebody at GE BANCORP NETWORK realizes that whatever the faked or exaggerated numbers they're laying a gold-plated egg, and there is no staunching the anger -- EVEN ON GE BANCORP NETWORK'S WEB SITE.

Yes, part of it is the weather. But part of it is THE LORDS OF LAUSANNE -- AND GE BANCORP.

Meantime how about this for valuable PR?

P. S. at 8:38 p. m. Another de facto MEA CULPA from the MESS -- this time prominently linked atop the HOME PAGE.

At the Richmond Oval, the speedskating venue, the resurfacing machine went on the blink Monday. Instead of a track as smooth as glass, it left piles of slush and pools of water.

So the Olympics, which has a sponsorship deal with Olympia ice resurfacers, had to call in a different brand for replacement — a Zamboni, from a whole province over in Calgary.

NUF SAID.

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

An enterprising firm has brought Leonard Bernstein's Omnibus programs back from the dead, inspiring this pointed comment:

Even with hundreds of cable channels to choose from today, the likelihood of running into a show like this is slim.

We will pass up the usual 500-channels trope to say that the more "diversity" our media bring us, the more homogenized they get.

(Another take here.)

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Now it's REUTERS's turn -- on its home page:



WHAT is going on here?

P. S. WAIT! Click on the link and it gets worse:



I repeat: WHAT is going on here?

P. S. at 12:30 p. m. Reuters typos aside this seems promising, the sort of thing His Omnipotence should have done from Day One -- but he does chicken out on the matter of waste.

Posted 11:31 AM by Gene

And from the land of the Zeitgeist:



Doesn't JonBoy know what the word "juxtaposition" means?

We don't intend to make a theme of this but sometimes they're too obvious to ignore.

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

MICHAEL DOES IT AGAIN!



ZALES! I think you'd better have a talk with some technodweeb!

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

Let's hope Mr. Taliban hasn't been MIRANDIZED.

Posted 9:56 PM by Gene

NBA All-Star Game down double-digits...the Pothole 500 down double-digits...maybe they need a good dose of SOCIAL NETWORKING!

Or JEFF ZUCK 'n' DICK!

Posted 9:53 PM by Gene

An apt motto to emblazon on the foreheads of the LORDS OF LAUSANNE, from the home of the Bird's Nest Snow Park:

"This is a place for rich people, not poor people like us," said Ma. "We won't be coming back."

(Via AHTSJournal)

Posted 8:33 PM by Gene

Greece now has thirty days to keep from being pelted with a bucket of wet noodles by the European Union.

Posted 7:59 PM by Gene

JEFF ZUCK or DICK!!!!! could have designed the BARRICADE around the GAMES FLAME -- and evidently that's now become enough of a PR disaster to force the LOCAL GE BANCORP SUBSID in to trying to get the fans closer.

We bring good things to light!

P. S. It's not just Whistler -- they're having problems with the Zamboni ice resurfacer* at the speed-skating rink.

(First link via theglobeandmail.com; more on the GAMES FLAME via macleans.ca)

*Correction on 2/16 at 8:44 p. m.: Wrong -- see this link.

Posted 2:28 PM by Gene

OOOoooh, HENRY HONEST just threw a TANTRUM!

Yes, GE BANCORP is to blame -- but so are the SPONSORS, the MICKEY Ds and COKEs, who finance THE GAMES so their CEOs can have paid six-month vacations, and them cram the coverage with ads so that they throw a justifying middle finger in their customers' faces. They signed off on JEFF and DICK's BRILLIANCE. THEY should be blamed FIRST.

And of course THEY will get the last laugh when JEFF and DICK can claim 500 GIGABILLION PEOPLE watched, but then we already know most of us use our TVs as night lights.

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

A top Saudi energy official expressed serious concern Monday that world oil demand could peak in the next decade and said his country was preparing for that eventuality by diversifying its economic base.

Say maybe they could start a glass industry with all that sand!

Oil and terr -- MILITANCY: not a great base for any economy.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

Good news for techies:

The Obama administration on Friday announced almost $1 billion in Recovery Act funding to stimulate the use of health information technology....

The spending is all part of the more than $20 billion in health IT funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

And how many instantly obsolete systems will this propagate?

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Walmart knows what many of us have known for years: there are too many aisle-cluttering me-too brands on supermarket shelves, and it won't hurt to throw them onto the historical ash heap.

And that goes double for the line extensions.

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

Shucks, Baba Wawa is ending her Os-CAR® special.

What will the true believers in Os-CAR® do?

Of course -- watch Oprah's! Pfffffffffffffft!

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

"I feel bad for [Elin]," she said. "She didn't deserve this, and she didn't deserve being humiliated."

Well then why did you help humiliate her?

Once we could call such women by their proper names, but that's not proper anymore.

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

An inconceivable amazement: A fad from the last root canal that doubled as a presidential election says a politician (in this case Sen. Boobs McKeating) -- USED HIM?!?

You could knock me over with a Republican Party platform.

Posted 12:55 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Every Democrat is running against His Omnipotence, and Sen. Bayh is but the latest to declare it mission impossible.

Posted 12:52 PM by Gene

Hillary Clinton: 'Iran is moving towards a military dictatorship'

WHAT?!? She finally NOTICED?!?!?

Posted 12:48 PM by Gene

I guess the Greeks won't take care of their GAMES-inspired profligacy THAT fast.

Posted 12:37 PM by Gene

I'd bet a sweet little voice is still whispering in Fred's ear, "Go for it".

Meaning a sour big voice should yell in his ear, "DON'T."

To his credit Fred can write books himself, something most pols merely take credit for.

Posted 12:35 PM by Gene

Are news hacks overplaying the luge accident as a form of revenge because they can't get access to GE BANCORP'S EXCLUSIVE GAMES COVERAGE?

More managerial BRILLIANCE from VERY LITTLER JEFFY, JEFF ZUCK and DICK!

Posted 10:01 PM by Gene

DICK EBERSOL SAYS 800 MEGAZILLION PEOPLE ARE WATCHING THE GAMES!!!!!!!!!!

And that many people are running them too.

In one of the most embarrassing moments for Vanoc, the bus carrying Premier Gordon Campbell and the four chiefs of the four host first nations was delayed getting to Friday's Opening Ceremony. They missed being present in the IOC dignitaries' box for the singing of the national anthem, and their absence behind International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge and Governor-General Michaelle Jean was noted on television.

Just so long as BOB COSTAS didn't notice!

P. S.

“If winning the rights to a property brings with it hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, what have you won?”

800 MEGAZILLION VIEWERS!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

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

1. Surprise: Moon 'n' Stars's Expensive Razor Blade Division isn't working.

But P&G executives and some former Gillette managers say much of the deal's value is like an iceberg -- it's there, just obscured under water.

FULL SPEED AHEAD! said the captain of the Titanic.

Plus these bozos are about to turbocharge the engine room with one of those twenty-blade $10-a-blade "upgrades". Moon 'n' Stars never heard of Moore's Law.

2. Quit Complaining About More Credit-Card Offers

I'm not -- I'm flattered a few banks think highly enough of my credit rating to offer me cards. I've sent off for two zero-APR offers in the last several months. Why shouldn't I accept them? I try to live within my means; nonetheless it's nice to know my credit lines are there. I say if you get a good teaser rate and no annual fee, and intend to pay off any balance before it expires, apply!

3. Here's long term potentially very-bad news for the Ub Igers and Lowsy Mayses -- addressable ads. The only technologies that can pull it off are cable and the Web -- and if addressable ads are the usual big cream pies in the face, the viewers will throw one back. Careful targeting is the future of advertising, a future that, if done right, will mean NO MORE JUNK TV SHOWS AND THREE-SONG PLAYLISTS.

WORSE -- or better -- in a recent experiment CONCAST offered an opt-out, much as with direct mail or phone solicitations. This can only mean one thing: NO MORE TV AND RADIO FOR THE BIGGEST CREAM PIES OF ALL: AUTO ADS.

4. SOCIAL MEDIA HAVE RESCUED LIVE TV!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe. Maybe the usual people who must watch such live events found them marginally more interesting. Maybe Nielsen's tweaked its numbers (that's what WE suspect). Maybe next year people will decide to tune out the live specials again, or maybe someone will call out A. C. on his fantasy numbers. We wouldn't prolong the happy hour too many days.

5. There will be no Michael Phelps. Let's get that straight right away.

So why have you tone-deaf advertisers opened your wallets, turned them upside down and poured out tons of OUR MONEY?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

One other thing on mp3 players: we've noticed several stores where we wouldn't go but for necessity have turned their Muzak off. We guess it's just a technical problem. But consider: lots of people now have their own private musical worlds. And many who don't resent the infringement that is foreground Muzak. Muzak is a waste of money and electricity. Hasn't the time come for retailers to pull the plug for good?

Posted 4:10 PM by Gene

On this High Holy Day for NASCAR, maybe some of the fans have finally realized their heroes can only go around a track so many times before it gets borrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnng -- even with crashes.

Otherwise it's marketing on wheels at 200 MPH.

P. S. at 5:00 p. m. How apt: Today's High Holy Day is under a red flag thanks to a pothole.

P. P. S. at 5:56 p. m. TWICE.

Posted 3:38 PM by Gene

The man who transcribed the noble mottoes of The Troubadour of His Generation says the God was trying to START a CONVERSATION on RAAAACE, meaning whatever wind was flying in Troub's head whizzed out and struck our interviewer smack on the nose.

Because we thought He was starting a conversation on His prowess. Well, if that's what Gandhis must do to uplift the PEOPLE.

Rob Tannenbaum is a contributing editor at Playboy, and the former music editor of Blender.

We must remind ourselves now to read the end squibs. They are as useful as bylines to know what isn't worth reading.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

I just bought my first mp3 player. This will seem strange coming a dozen years after the introduction, and over eight years after the iPod, but I am not the early adapter. One reason I took so long is that like so much else on the Web buying something even as simple as this becomes an easy chore. For years and even after The Lord God Steve such players were flawed, first by their unease of use and then by their limited capacity. Both problems were long solved; they day will soon come when one could pack a 100,000-album library in his pocket (if one wished to be so psychotic). But which player to buy? I suppose I could have gotten one of the Lord's but something in me didn't want to march to the beat of 100 million different drummers. There has also been the obsessive-compulsive nitpicking over the iPod's alleged sound inferiority. Clearly the Lord has proved so phenomenally successful because He's paid just enough attention to tweaking the customer while pricing His products exorbitantly enough to make people think they were better. (His laptops may prove that a fallacious gospel.) Anyhow Newegg had this for $89, and it sports a -- cute color. (Thankfully it wasn't on sale in these parts in violet.) But even then I had buyer's regret because one of SUMNER's CNet hacks rather churlishly insisted this was a downgrade from a prior model. Without boring my three readers too much with the details the earlier device had a cute playlist program and a noise-canceling function -- but you couldn't use the latter without the supplied ear buds. What if you don't like ear buds? This model (unlike the other) has built-in speakers (HI-FI!) and a voice and FM recorder I'll never use, but at least I can convince myself I wasn't hoodwinked. I'm waiting for the Postal Disservice to deliver it -- God knows how many excuses the weather has made for it.