Posted 11:26 PM by Gene

Of course what's happened in the Gulf is awful -- not least for the loss of human life already, which we fear might take a back seat in news hacks' minds -- but we should remember as long as we must be automobile-mad and consumption-mad we'll have to power our vanity with that gooey sticky stuff from beneath the ground, and when we don't inspire environmental disasters we inspire jihadists.

And somehow we're not surprised BP was involved, and what with this and Libya (not to mention the Texas City explosion, which comes to the fore now) it has a monopoly on ignominy.

Posted 11:23 PM by Gene

I know I'll annoy a lot of readers with this, but to borrow a page from Charlie Crist's playbook: Jay Leno back at 11:30 and Conan O'Brien reduced to basic cable is proof that our system is broken.

You annoy me by suggesting anyone on late-night is funny.

Posted 11:11 PM by Gene

The Internet content biz seems to be going the way of BRIAN ROBBER -- gouge 'em for everything. But it may be possible to gouge 'em too much, even if THE LORD GOD STEVE helps with the gouging.

(Second link via Paid Content)

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

A Hollywood eulogy for plastic surgery:

“I think everyone either looks like a drag queen or a stripper,” said Marcia Shulman, who oversees casting for Fox’s scripted shows.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

We would argue that the hacks' relationship to His Omnipotence works on two levels. First is the nuts-and-bolts level; clearly the two sides hate each other there. But then there is the generalist, big-picture level, and we contend the news hacks still love Him despite His delinquencies. After all, the hacks wanted a president just like them -- which explains in no small way why He can ignore them.

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

I don't know who gets me more annoyed: the hack CARL LEVIN with his full-blown decorum or con-SER-va-tives defending GOD'S SERVANTS.

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Gordon "BP" Brown is eminently worthy of having to apologize for something; the problem is he has nothing to apologize for.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

At times like these I wish the nooz biz had a complete overhaul. Stories like this, not to mention the ruckus over Arizona's new immigration law, scream for the need for a dispassionate, nonpartisan, honest reporting force; instead we get the scream of instant spin. We of course do not trust hacks because they tend to take THE RIGHT SIDE, which makes the hope for better news even more forlorn.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

WHY I HAVE STOPPED BLOGGING -- FOR NOW: Mostly it's the Human Rights Fighters of Mountain View and their godforsaken algorithms, but it's also other things. Today I learned an Iowa middle-school student in a rally protesting budget cuts pleaded to "SAVE ARE TEACHERS", meaning half a million of PILLHEAD's followers have called the principal. Closer to home His Omnipotence's national "security" boss made a dumb and not terribly funny joke about Jews, and the professionals got excited, and he apologized. Such things douse the urge for comment. Today via the usual AHTSJournal link I saw some TeleGRAWF hack had to gas about why movie stars have "lost their shine", avoiding the unavoidable point that we don't live in an age of Gables and Sophias and once again demonstrating that too often in the nooz biz the oblivious state the obvious. Today a man who made several very dated Branson East attractions immortal wheezed that "todays, especially the todays of the hip and trendy, have a way of turning into yellowing yesterdays", a bold statement from a 159-year-old codger in a full-body tattoo. Such things make the whole fiber of your being cringe. Today I saw Ross Douthat wrote a column blasting America's Longest Running Publicity Stunt as a vehicle of corruption, and Prof. Krugman wrote a column blasting our "financial system" as a vehicle of corruption, and I wholeheartedly agreed with both, but there comes a time when words by even the most blessed colyumnists may fail to have meaning, especially in a land so thoroughly depleted by the Web's endless wild-goose chase and pulverized in rapid succession by two ennui-inspiring presidents. And how can one scream midst a universal banshee?

Three years ago, suffering from an abscessed tooth and a brief state of enforced idleness, I tried reducing blogging to an irreducible minimum:

It annoys me to think how many of my posts fall into so many puny [I should have said "so few"] categories:

1. Stupid liberal demagogue says something stupid, hypocritical or dishonest about a conservative;
2. Stupid conservative demagogue says something stupid, hypocritical or dishonest about a liberal;
3. Stupid conservative and liberal sling simultaneous invective, the verbal slime besmirching parties other than those intended;
4. Stupid liberal reveres fellow stupid liberal for saying something stupid.
5. Stupid conservative reveres fellow stupid conservative for saying something stupid.
6. Stupid liberal and stupid conservative mutually revere someone for saying something stupid. (Rare, although think of the comedy team of Slick and Papa or History's Greatest Comic Novelist and you'll get the idea.)
7. Stupid news hack demonstrates he cannot write a sentence without emasculating the language or inserting his egregious prejudices;
8. Government does something idiotic;
9. Business does something idiotic;
10. Another show biz blowhard earns thousands of times his weight in unjustified publicity.

In short, "Blogging is words and prejudices bound in a digital corset." Three years have tightened it. Inevitably you not only repeat yourself, you repeat that you repeat that you repeat yourself. Even though most of my recent hits had come from lechers looking for PR0N at least I got some. I'm tired of writing for nothing, and for nobody, and of writing repeatedly for no effect but my own boredom, and while I suppose I will post again soon, I no longer feel the automatic obligation to say what I've said before.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

Stevedom within striking distance of XOM, Warren Buffett Jr. at a thirty-month high, BID at a thirty-month high, the whole of the Wall Street Casino going bananas -- when do the rest of us join in? Or are you merely setting up another practical joke?

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

What is worse than a Pollyanna who is also a cynic?

In short, what is worse than THE WALL STREET CASINO?

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: These guys are craftier than The Lord God Steve. We are NOT posting on America's Longest-Running Publicity Stunt AGAIN.

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

5:38 PM The American Institute of Architects’ Architecture Billings Index suggests further declines in CRE investment through all of 2010 and probably longer. The AIA cites an "approximate 9- to 12-month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending" on non-residential construction.

DOW 2,000,000,000!!!!!

Fitch: U.S. CMBS [Commercial mortgage-backed security] Loan Defaults to Exceed 11% by End of 2010

DOW 3,000,000,000!!!!!

(Second link via Calculated Risk story)

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



USED KLEENEX!

AhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHH-CHOO!!!!!

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

And then there's -- Tom...TASTIC! He's very upset that CABLE NUISANCE NETWORK's showing LARRY KING!!!!! the door. Hasn't he been hinged to the jamb the last ten years? He also reminds us that fawning Jeff Greenfield types made LARRY!!!!! the INTERVIEWER OF THE AGES, conveniently ignoring that his career has been one long self-parody -- remember his COLUMN? Tom, since he's so great can you tell us of ONE MEMORABLE INTERVIEW -- excluding the stroke of genius where he got Raquel Welch to admit Chicago was one of our fifty-two states? Or when he called Ringo Starr "George"? (We all make mistakes, Tom...TASTIC! would say. Why must some people make mistakes on millions of OUR MONEY?) He says his genius "ask[s] the questions 'normal' people would ask and thus want answered" -- so why is he an immortal marshmallow, the favorite of publicists and Henry Kissingers? Don't answer that, Tom...TASTIC! You might write another column.

What grates us about Chuck and Tom...TASTIC! is they both make low-six-digits typing filler. You should both be grateful THE NEWS BIZ HAS FULLY RECOVERED, lest you join the thousands who did NOT deserve to lose THEIR jobs.

P. S. This pile of BULLHOCKEY has attracted 211 MOSTLY SCATHING COMMENTS, proof to BROCCOLI and Tom...TASTIC! they're grrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!!!!!

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

We know why you did it, Chuck. It was a form of pity. We do not trust The Paper of Re-CORD's Branson East revuers because their revuing is economical: raves so that we don't put poor miserable ac-TORS out of work, pans when the theme park's profitable. How many shows have gotten an unjustified long life? How many have been cut down because the revuers had indigestion? Giving raves makes us feel good; we're doing something for the local tourist traps, and besides, we may spawn sequels -- what is more, we may CHANGE THE THEATAH. YA HADDA BE THERE, which was said to have CHANGED THE MUSICAL FOREVER, has thoroughly discredited its own raves a short nine years after its epochal opening, and we'd guess Branson East's historians will read the revues of such HIP! extravaganzas not with mere scorn, but in the belief they led this once AHT form to grow even worse.

Moreover it's a measure of CARLOS THE JACKASS's well-heeled minions that they consider calling Dubya an idiot cutting-edge. Sorry, your knifes lost their sharpness a long time ago.

(Corrected at 6:50 p. m. I called him "Chris." Pffffffffffffft!

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

[I]f Wall Street can't control itself, someone else will.

Someone else will.

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

Does it occur to anyone hardly anyone ever mentions America's Longest-Running Publicity Stunt anymore? We guess this video press kit got rolling because these PR execs realized if they were going to make fun of MORMONS on BRANSON EAST it would look strange if they didn't make fun of those people they couldn't make fun of before because THEIR BOSS SUMNER told them not to. It figures, though, that HENRY HONEST! would be interested, just as MS. TRAVERS is, and they both deserve a great big get-lost too.

Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

Speaking of money, need anyone remind us neither party has a monopoly on virtue -- but they do seem to invite anti-trust laws over their vices?

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

THIS EXCITING NEWS FROM CARTOON NETWORK and THIS EXCITING NEWS FROM VH1 prove an old cable maxim: unnecessary cheap programming expands to fill the amount of coerced cable-subscriber and indiscriminate-advertiser money available.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

Juan Antonio Samaranch, who made the GAMES MOVEMENT and BIG BUSINESS one and the same, and made the embezzlements of taxpayers worldwide even bigger, has died. RIP.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

5:45 PM ABC Consumer Comfort Index: -3 to -50, matching a 2010 low and not far above its all-time low of -54. Positive ratings of the national economy held steady at 8%, but those who think it's a good time to buy things slipped to 24% - and positive ratings of personal finances slipped to 43% from 47%.

DOW 1,000,000,000!!!!!

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Who says Vietnam couldn't look like a high-rose office park in Anytown, USA?

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Speaking of politicians, if the Brits really do elect themselves a hung Parliament we can't say they didn't deserve having to do it, or what will happen after they've done it.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

We were so tired and discouraged from posting yesterday that we didn't mention the Oklahoma City atrocity, but we really do think SLICKS and PILLHEADS would both do best to KEEP THEIR OVERPAID YAPS SHUT. Ultimately that terrorist act was not about politics, but after SLICK and PILLHEAD get their PEANUT GALLERIES excited it IS, and that slimes the victims, and their survivors.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Why Roger Ebert Gets a Thumbs Down on Video Games

Let me guess what VIDEOGAME DIVISION of A MOVIE STUDIO DIVISION of a COMIC BOOK DIVISION OF YOU-KNOW-WHO is putting out...never mind.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

We know nothing of science, let alone the science around the great volcanic eruption in Iceland, so why does it strike us there's a lot of showy handwringing around here? No one wants to prompt an air disaster -- but is it possible the chief headscratchers have been so HYPED UP by THE CATASTROPHE OF GLOBAL WARMING (and no we're not PILLHEADS on the subject) that maybe they overestimate its dangers? Talk of air space being shut off FOREVER (or at least the implication) says just that.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Suleman: Octomom nickname a 'carnival attraction'

We hate to say it but doesn't that go with the circus?

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

NASDAQ ONE BILLION QUADRILLION KAZILLION!!!!!

P. S. Somebody named Ernst who's looking to appear on the BIG C:

"THEY BEAT EARNINGS BY $1—SO HOW CAN ANYONE SAY THEY ARE HIGHLY VALUED????? I WOULD ARGUE THAT THE STOCK IS INEXPENSIVE ON A GROWTH METRIC!!!!!!!!!!" (Vastly undervalued overemphasis added)

TRANSLATION: For Stevedom it's 1998 all over again.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives have decided the GUVMENT is picking on GUVMENT SACHS, forgetting GUVMENT SACHS was a big beneficiary of taxpayers who aren't in the GUVMENT SACHS percentile. Okay, maybe the timing of that lawsuit was "suspicious" -- but isn't GUVMENT SACHS?

Posted 8:35 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



A drive-in synagogue?

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

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

1. Earth Day Is 4O [SIC!] Years Old. What Headway Have We Made?

Headway enough so MULTINATIONALS can commit treason in a politically correct way.

2. Believe us, CRAINIACS, your industry friends don't have to save the earth to blame the customer.

3. MARKETERS are bringing ads to online bank statements, meaning merely another medium ignored, and another excuse to hike FEES.



4. Part of the problem, YUM RESTAURANTS, is that so many outlets described your new "sandwich" as EW! YUCK!! GROSS!!! it was highly unlikely that many would seek it out -- and besides, the market does seem to be declining for microscopic chicken wings.

5. TRANSLATION: THE MOST TRUSTED CABLE NEWS NETWORK is doing INFOMERCIALS, no news (that's obvious) to anyone who ever saw the late unlamented Lou Dobbs production PINNACLE, or who ever witnessed its show-biz "news", or LARRY KING.

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: China is what America was at the turn of the last century. When do these banshee screamers start yelling of manifest destiny?

Posted 12:49 PM by Gene

Last night for the first time in eons I scanned the Branson East chatboards, among the few that are interesting because at least they're plied by some of the leaders in the theme park business (i.e., the circus organizers, the trapeze artists, the concessionaires, the roustabouts), and they were an even more voluble lot than normal these last few nights, saying that Addams Family theme park will make zillions though it stinks, and that Mad Men the Musical theme park will make zillions even though the lead acrobatist is too old, and cringing that only two theme parks may be eligible for the best calliope honor at this year's Branson East Theme Park Awards because no one can write the music for the calliopes anymore, so it might go to that Addams Family theme park by default, and reminding me that the theme park operators now do staging through those come-ons called "overtures", and they even guffawed over that upcoming MORMON theme park until one of them mentioned M----MS, and they were excited because HARRY POTTER!!!!! might appear in a new How to Succeed in Business theme park (meaning he can't sing), and they were excited that this lady who looks like Audrey Hepburn in one of their fun-house mirrors might star in a remake of My Fair Lady (meaning she can't sing), and they said the suckers laugh and applaud at EVERYTHING these days, and even know when they're not supposed to, and they give standing ovations to EVERYTHING, as well they should paying $2000 a head including BUS FARE; and lots of the fans on the chat boards seem to laugh and applaud at EVERYTHING, and give standing ovations to EVERYTHING, though some of them get student ducats; and then they have bouts of temporary insanity over something called a SONDHEIM; but even the in-the-knows seemed a little ticked how that mental-illness theme park won something called a P-ULITZER, which led them to ponder whether an earlier AIDS theme park that also won something called a P-ULITZER deserved it, and all this insider gnashing of teeth reminded me I would not go to Branson East even if I could afford it.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

5:45 PM Barron's Andrew Bary says Wall Street's reaction to the Goldman Sachs (GS) fraud charges is overblown. "Patient buyers of Goldman stock probably will come out ahead, given the company's low valuation and the likelihood that even a defeat at the hands of the SEC probably will be financially tolerable."

DOW UP 1,000 MONDAY!!!!!

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

We must confess to our amazement that the League of Nations -- the League of Nations -- has prodded Pakistan into reopening the investigation into Benazir Bhutto's assassination. I'm sure in some warrens of Turtle Bay they're saying this is almost like bringing the prime minister of Israel to trial for war crimes, as I suspect they would say, so we'll just chalk this up to sloth and let it rest.

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

Charles seems to forget the real purpose of a Paper of Re-CORD cri-TIC is to make people all over America scratch their heads and ask, "Am I missing something?"

(Via the usual AHTSJournal, which is frequently missing something)

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: GOD'S SERVANTS were guilty of making money.

We would note, however, that HENRY HONEST! was guilty of selling Amazon.com at $15,000 a share, or whatever it was.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 3:09 PM by Gene

We'd hoped when Bloomy took over BizWeek it would improve it. This five-page distillation of buzzwords, business cliches and PC "leadership" folderol says fat chance. The very presence of "LEGENDARY" proves it.

We note today Reed Elsevier folded twenty-three biz rags, a few unjustifiably -- and not, alas, including the obsolete Big V. We now wonder why Bloomy had to keep McGraw-Hill from putting BizWeek out of its misery.

P. S. This fellow suggests GE BANCORP's soon-to-meet shareholders vote out all but three of its directors, so we can imagine what it's REALLY like.

Posted 3:04 PM by Gene

Daryl Gates, who to the delight of news hacks everywhere became the most tone-deaf police chief this side of Frank Rizzo, has died. RIP.

Posted 2:31 PM by Gene

A man who looks like everyone's caricature of the well-paid, well-fed, well-connected BELTWAY INSIDER may run for president in 2012.

Between him and NEWT it would be a battle to see which is the heavier heavy.

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

"Last week, she told me her pain was 100 on a scale of 1 to 10," Matthew Parlette said. "She said to me, 'I'd rather choose life with this pain than death without it. Choose life, Matthew. Always choose life.' "

What a radiant thought, especially in such an awful circumstance.

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today sued Goldman Sachs Group Inc., accusing the company and one of its vice presidents of defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages.

How can GUVMENT turn against GUVMENT SACHS?

And down 9, too -- the true believers of capitalism are taking it hard.

P. S. at 11:00 a. m. Now down 18 -- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHH!!!!!

(Via FinViz)

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

Just 13 returning shows have seen their viewership increase this year, and of those just five shows are scripted.

The remainder are either reality shows, sports or newsmagazines, according to a report put out yesterday by Horizon Media senior vice president of research Brad Adgate, who analyzed Nielsen data.

Adgate found that more than a dozen shows have seen viewership fall by more than 20 percent this season, and another 20 have taken a 10 percent to 20 percent hit, including Wednesday's "American Idol."

The solution is for advertisers to increase their spending on junk TV by 50 percent!

Viewers aren't just tuning in to reality shows in bigger numbers; they're choosing them over scripted alternatives.

You mean they're not watching all that BURGEONING GENIUS?!?!?

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

Philadelphia is becoming more dependent on college, hospital, nonprofit and tourism jobs as private-sector jobs keep leaving town, the new report shows.



YOU DID IT, EDDIE!!!!! WE HEAR YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

Nearly two dozen congressional fundraisers held at D.C. Springsteen shows last year

Why not? Isn't He the Official Singing Tribune of the People for the Democratic Party?

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

JPOD says youngsters supposedly making $10,000 films are aided and abetted by "a press corps that acts more like a public-relations arm of the movie business than a cool journalistic eye on it."

We'll take this as definitive from a man who's done a little PR work himself.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

We wonder how ANY Paper of Re-CORD columnist could EVER be wrong.

But then you know the old saying: a thousand wrongs make a ...never mind.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Meantime people seem to realize His Omnipotence is History's Greatest Snob, trailed not too far behind by the Beltway, BIGMEDIA and GUVMENT SACHS types who love him.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

There's this huge debate going on in places where people stare at their navels as to whether "speculators" should invest in movees. We say yes. The industry gets the best of two worlds: more money to burn and more people to burn it.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Why the heck would His Omnipotence care for space exploration? Aren't there cities to rebuild, and health care to reform, and Israel to scold -- and besides, who needs to scour God's creation when we already have God in the White House?

Posted 7:03 PM by Gene

Because THE MASTERS OF MOUNTAIN VIEW have been playing mind games on my hits with their algorithms (thankfully they had a VERY good day after the bell) I've not bothered to make sarcastic comments about ARCHDaily!'s latest masterpieces. Well here are a few:



It's a bird! It's a plane! It's -- COACHELLA!!!!!

What is it?!?!?



Actually we don't find this so bad -- but it IS in THE GREATEST ECONOMIC MIRACLE OF ALL TIME, and what are the chances its "400,000 square meters" will be as actively trod as, say, that architectural masterpiece in...BEIJING?



Why can't we have artsy factories in our cities too?



Obviously three-footed aliens have tried breaking into this building....



A new kind of security fence!



Hiding in Triangles

And when gravity occurs the designers had better hope people won't be hiding in triangles.



"Have a Nice Day"

...says Mr. Freeze.

Posted 3:05 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A few supergeeks who sleep with their computers trading a few dubious companies have fueled the BULL MARKET!!!!!!!!!!

DOW 200,000,000, GEKKO KUDLOW!

Posted 12:30 PM by Gene

Any "international" corporation, and especially any such corporation belonging to any lobbying group, has an obligation to violate any code of ethics, especially when its profits are at stake.

And any such corporation founded by a man who is now SAVING THE WORLD has a double obligation.

Microsoft said supplier non-compliance with its code of conduct could result in "corrective action plans, remedial training, certification requirements, cessation of further business awards until corrective actions are instituted, and termination of the business relationship".

WHATEVER THAT MEANS.

(First link via HENRY HONEST!)

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

It's about time: Noo Yawk's rubber rooms were a national disgrace. We can't afford them now and we never should have afforded them.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

Foreclosure rates surge, biggest jump in 5 years

DOW 10,000,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Why does Larry King need to marry when the biggest love of his life is himself?

Posted 3:37 PM by Gene

3:10 PM Ken Fisher [a highly favored advertiser at FORBESLIST.COM] says pessimists fail to take into account the big spread between short- and long-term interest rates, a classic indicator of an economy on the verge of recovery, and ignore the amount of junk bonds sold in Q1.

DOW 1,000,000!!!!!!!!!!

3:32 PM Eurozone combined debt may top 100% of GDP in the next few years, and high public-sector borrowing could have "severe consequences" for growth and stability, ECB's Juergen Stark warns. "These fiscal developments are all the more worrying in view of projected ageing-related spending increases."

DOW 2,000,000!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

WONDERFUL: The conservative PC "humorists" who caved to the M----ms are doing a "Mormon musical".

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

Intel Corp. executives say the chip maker's first-quarter results revealed a surprising and encouraging trend: Companies are finally starting to upgrade their workers' laptops.

That's important because corporate spending on personal computers has been one of the last parts of the technology world to thaw as companies unlock budgets frozen during the recession. The news boosted Intel shares to a new high for the year.

But there's a catch, according to Intel CEO Paul Otellini: Many companies are buying PCs again because it's simply less expensive than hanging on to older machines that need frequent maintenance. He said many customers were buying computers with older Intel chips, which are less profitable for the company than the newer products.

"I'm still not going to go out on a limb, and our customers aren't going to go out on a limb, and say there's a corporate refresh snapback cycle," he said. "People are buying things to replace older machines because it's just cheaper."

DOW 500,000!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Conservatives shouldn't "surrender" to the SCREAMERS AT FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS. The problem is when a conservative does the right thing that makes him a hero to JONBOYS, who are automatically suspect because they are PC to the nth degree. I hate screaming partisans of every type -- especially the type who've learned how to scream without screaming.

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

GROUPON IS CHEAP AT $1.2 BILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Cheap overemphasis added]

GEKKO KUDLOW AND THE WALL STREET CASINO ARE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

Going to the movies always involves a little disappointment, since what is promised is rarely what is delivered.

MOGUL'S FRIEND! We thought you said the movies DELIVERED!!!!!

Like Domino's?

P. S. Pushing on we see he says TV IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!, so we can go back to not reading him.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

And looking at this year's P-Ulitzer Prizes what strikes us is how the hacks now generally avoid giving awards to stories that might cause political offense -- certainly not the way it was in the Seventies, when America's Clark Kents stopped a war and ditched a president! This makes us wonder how useful even the best reporting is, and all that lobbying for the medallions further says this reporting may either not be the best, or it's specially formulated to win prizes, and never gets followed up. We've said that before but we must say it again.

And with the arts prizes we haven't heard of most of the winners as usual except the committee did give an award to a downer musical with a tiny cult following, and it further gave a "citation" to someone who died fifty years ago, evidently unconcerned George Gershwin never got HIS P-Ulitzer.

The Board, chaired by Anders Gyllenhaal, executive editor of the Miami Herald, made the award after a confidential survey of experts in popular music. [Expert emphasis added]

TRANSLATION: Next year...THE BOSS -- or maybe ARTHUR PENN.

P. S. We're not knocking Hank Williams -- he was a great songwriter and singer -- but isn't this a white flag in the face of the recorded...SOUND biz, not to mention masterWUHKS like NEXT TO NORMAL?

P. P. S. Mr. McNulty's ticked because The Board ignored "the new guard of American playwriting" -- meaning plays whose audiences you can count on the fingers of no hands.

It was fortuitous that Bill Clinton and his family attended "Next to Normal" just prior to its winning the prize.

Fortuitous?

(Mr. McNulty's diatribe via the usual Romy)

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

I know THE WINNER OF FOUR P-ULITZER PRIZES MUST be good, but you wouldn't suppose that, puff pieces notwithstanding, MR. IN-YOUR-FACE may be shaving one or two points off His Omnipotence's poll numbers? Huh?

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

Midgets like Bart and their dwarf leaders Babs and Whiny were so busy rushrushrushing HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTORY through their hermetically sealed chambers they may have denied their own people Federal health-care coverage -- and they screwed up ehdyukayshun reform big time!

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTORY marches on!

(First link via MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

Yesterday on the way home I noticed men installing what looked like awnings on the sides of a hoity-toity restaurant housed in an old brokerage. Why does this building need awnings? Today on the way to work I noticed twenty-five big rigs around the premises and lots of silver-trimmed black boxes with handles, and lots of cables, and the windows covered with black curtains, and I instantly rolled my eyes, and I knew someone who thinks he's important was there -- and sure enough I saw


THE LORD GOD SUMNER'S LOGO, which made me think, uh oh, another bad romantic comedy -- and another excuse for EDDIE to boast about all the jobs for waiters and janitors and bellhops he's creating for the 21st-century economy. Which made me think, why do they need all this heavy-lifting and heavy equipment for a flop? Didn't SUMNER boast about how His company disseminated a zillion-dollar-B. O. excretion someone made for $10,000? Why all this expensive nonsense when people only see tentpoles? Oh, I guess there's a market for bad romantic comedies. Well why must it be on my dime -- as I'm sure SUMNERIA isn't paying ONE THIN ONE for fees or taxes, or spending any money on local businesses?

Oh. It's because someone thinks he's important.

Posted 8:08 PM by Gene

I DO PACK, AND I WILL NOT BLINK!!!!! (Pistol-packin' overemphasis added)

JonBoy, don't you ever get tired of murdering your readers?

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

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

1. We shouldn't mock any effort to win Afghan hearts and minds when what passes for civilization is at stake, but there is something off-putting about our using advertising to do it. We'll always remember MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, and that was a form of advertising. Besides, these ads are in English, a language we doubt many Afghans speak comfortably. As we've said before it is a calamity that we don't have Satchmos and Marian Andersons to woo the people who must be our friends, but our culture stopped turning them out a long time ago, and seems inordinately proud of it.

2. MadAve's culture of hyperbole spreads to HYER LURNING:

One academic believes fans of specific shows are more interested in the ads surrounding them. "THERE'S A STRONG LINK BETWEEN INVOLVEMENT WITH PROGRAMMING AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ADVERTISING!!!!!," said Larry DeGaris, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Indianapolis. In a recent national study of 1,121 U.S. adults, Mr. DeGaris found sports fans are about four times more likely to like advertising than non-fans!!!!!

Not everyone feels the same way. "Just because it's promoted as an event doesn't mean that it automatically becomes one and we should pay a lot more for it," said Sam Armando, senior VP-director of strategic intelligence at SMGX, part of Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Group. [STRONG overemphasis added]

When a media type is more skeptical of advertising than a perfesser I'd say there are a bit too few high-IQ types on our sedate green campuses. We should be grateful it's tougher than ever to earn tenure.

3. General Mills, proud member of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers, boosted its media spending (read its financing-junk-television spending) by 33 PERCENT and saw SALES INCREASE THREE PERCENT! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm guessing in Minneapolis they're working nights and weekends creating Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

4. And sorry, CRAINIACS, despite your somewhat misleading hed ("Is the Party Ending for Private-Label Package Goods?"), some people still believe that buying an expensive brand name may not buy quality.

5.

"It's a fascinating, creepy document, and I don't know whether I love it or hate it," said Steffan Postaer, chief creative officer at Euro RSCG, Chicago. "But I do wish I'd made it."

And Steffy, despite all those WONDERFUL campaigns how many people STILL think of Nike as a company with an attitude that stokes racial hatreds to sell $1000 sneakers even as it pays its Vietnamese help three cents an hour -- and mistreats the help to boot? No wonder Nike's a hit with you MadAveMen. BE LIKE PHIL!

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Matty Moron -- pardon, Moroun is the sort of "developer" we have too much knowledge of in Philthydelphia -- an aging secretive buy-'em-and-hold-'em tycoon who does nothing with his properties, or worse, lets them rot, hoping for the big payoff that never comes -- or perhaps because at heart he accumulates properties the way a cat lady accumulates cats. The GEKKO KUDLOWs who gas on the virtues of free en-ter-prise must explain why their beloved system does such a productive job creating Matty Morouns.

(Edited 8/25/2011; I mispelled his name "Maroun")

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Obama: Al-Qaida would use nuke if it could

So why wouldn't we, Your Omnipotence?

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Clearly, we are not operating a supply-side, free-market model today. What I wish for is sound money and lower tax rates, which would promote sustainable economic growth. Instead, we’re getting easier money and higher tax rates, which could mean a temporary boom today and disappointingly slow growth after that.

GEKKO! You CAN'T possibly be saying that! Don't ALL roads lead to UP?

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

Today at a twee chain bar that regularly hosts foot -- SOCCER fans SUMNER was having a cattle call for a decades-old property on the network advertisers never had to watch to enjoy it (until they recent learned it doesn't have much of an audience), and looking at the prospective help I thought, if the CARY GRANT of his generation could become a star, anyone can.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

We have not mentioned the calamity in West Virginia not out of indifference but because there is little to say. We will always need energy, and so long as men must get it in black holes with explosive and toxic vapors all around there will be such awful accidents. We can ameliorate the risks, but we can't eliminate them. Miners deserve our thanks for their unforgiving work.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

We hope -- and believe -- Poland will recover quickly from this catastrophe. We'll need their help in a world with so many enemies.

The hideous irony is inescapable.

Posted 7:51 PM by Gene

I think we know what will happen: the little-guy investors will come back -- and then the big guys will pull figure out another way to pull them and the whole economy down again.

Or as the Big C puts it so memorably elsewhere:

Want to Be Successful? Think Like a Drug Dealer

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

EXCLUSIVE!

“Twilight” regular Ashley Greene has joined the Weinstein Co. comedy “Butter.”

Jennifer Garner is producing and starring in the film, based on the Black List screenplay written by newcomer Jason Micallef. Alissa Phillips and Mike De Luca are also producing the project, which director Jim Field Smith (“She’s Out of My League”) will begin filming next week in Louisiana.

“Butter” follows a number of competitive characters in a small Midwestern town as they become entwined in an annual butter-carving contest. Greene will play a rebellious high school teenager named Kaitlen Pickler. (Do I smell a sequel built around anaerobic fermentation?)

Do I smell a FUTURE REMAKE?

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Hey UB IGER! We hear they're HIRING!

(Via HENRY HONEST!)

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

Surprise:

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens retiring

Shucks! Why can't one of the NAZ -- CONSERVATIVES retire?

TERM LIMITS FOR THE NINE FINGERS!

P. S. Who's the nonentity this time?

We shouldn't talk; Nine-Finger Stevens was Gerry Ford's nonentity.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

The usual suspects are acting like the second-grader who just stuck gum on his classmate's seat because His Omnipotence took down SARAH!!!!! To which we say it hardly takes a stiff wind to knock her down -- nor Om's Potemkin foreign policy; and that "the criticism doesn't really get to him, because he checked to see if Palin was an expert on nuclear issues (probably had an intern do it, really)" gag says even the true believers may have their doubts.

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The spendthrift Greeks WILL need a bailout, but the Wall Street Casino has so heavily rationalized the notion in advance we'll see Dow 12,000 within weeks -- if it hasn't reached 13,000 first.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

We hadn't wanted to even type one word on this but it appears we're in the middle of another media fairy tale, where all our dreams come true and everyone lives happily ever after. Just because he'll win by 20 strokes doesn't mean you can't avoid more bankruptcies. And it does become rather tiresome to see you display your self-interest on your sleeve. Maybe it's fashionable to you but to me the sleeve's made of month-old newsprint a litter of puppies slept in.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

A decent rag might ask how much of SELIGISM's profits are thanks to US TURNIPS THE TAXPAYERS, but we lost count of how many puff pieces about our new booming economy FORBESLIST has run to know when it stopped being a decent rag.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

Hey guys! When do we start with the OBAMA RECOVERY!!!!!!!!!!?

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

Speaking of retired only Mike Riedel could write about a dead business and make it seem almost alive. In today's column he reports on this new Branson East theme park going up that's 42 years old, whose writers average twice as old, that's "shoehorning" in old tunes to try to boost concessions, that's imaginatively aping a small-audience cult cable dramedy to woo still more fans -- and people wonder why this business can't do any outside Branson East, or those tiny carnivals in the hinterlands?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

How apt: The Neville Chamberlain of abortion is retiring. 'Bye Bart! Hope there are no more deals where that came from.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

And in related annoying news we learn MR. JOURNOLIST, the UNIVERSE'S HEALTH-CARE EXPERT, has an ASSISTANT. Employing young whipper-snapper know-it-alls is like Hollywood remaking duds; the industry's throwing anything at walls and hopes it splats us square on the face. But it didn't take long for MR. JOURNOLIST and MR. MELLERDRAMMER (who also pops up here) to earn reps as a. a glorified snob and b. a self-pitying gasbag, and with luck these bright new stars will flame out just as fast as Hollywood's new duds.

And if these conceited typists are the best the news biz has to offer it had better learn how to communicate non-verbally -- fast.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

'Overboard'?! Why Is Hollywood Now Remaking Duds?

Because it can't make new to save its hide; because any business that builds tentpoles has already saved its hide; because whole genres like musicals and westerns are off limits as Hollywood BURSTS with talent; because the business is already making duds -- only quite a few of them are hits, and a few of those are CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

I will believe this rumpheting thumpheting self-important clown friend of CEOs Mr. Payne, the master of The Masters, the organizer of THE ATLANTA GAMES, when he lets GARY McCORD back at Augusta.

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

When an outfit like Yahoo! (or the ASSPress, for that matter) has a EUREKA! moment, you can see that fly swimming around in the ointment. It says here some company we'd never heard of says people can save LOTS OF MONEY on printer cartridges by changing their default printer settings to Century Gothic. WELL,



Even Yahoo! and the ASSPress admit it. They also admit documents printed in a font like Century Gothic take up more paper -- which may "not necessarily be better for the environment." We suspect someone could come up with a survey saying people could save money using MS COMIC SANS. This would have the same effect. No, in the game of printer cartridges, THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS.

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

People who rip CDs with Windows Media Player soon realize the BUGMEISTER has a friend at Allmusic.com. It may have more mistakes than any other reference work on the Web. There's hardly an album we've ripped whose entry we haven't had to correct, whether it's a composer credit missing a first name or the wrong album art. One special Allmusic trait is with older albums it can't decide on the album date -- is it the year of first release or the year of the current issue's release? A friend of ours we'll call Mr. Squiggle who specializes in show tunes MUST put the name of the show before EVERY song title, thus screwing up the indexing, and his neat little mark of Zorro afterward; and he frequently does something like this:

The Rothchilds [SIC!], musical~Have YouEver [SIC!] Seen A Prettier Little Congress?/Stab [SIC!]

...taking up so much space with his what-a-good-boy-am-I genre listings and squiggle routine he'll forget the last words of a title. Certainly fans of what some idiot called "classic pop" will be familiar with the name of Raymond Egan B. [SIC!] Classical albums? The site should have a spinoff called DoItYourselfAlbumListings.com -- but if you like entries like this:

Symphonie n°1 "Jérémie" - Largamente

...you'll LOVE Allmusic.com. Combined with WMP's quirks (when entering names in the "Contributing Artist" column you don't space after a semi-colon, otherwise BUGMEISTER will add as many spaces as He wants; in Composer, you can) this dread outfit will soon lead you to insanity. Thus did we come across another preposterous quirk today: ripping an album we found this composer credit:

Aynsley Dunbar; Bob Merrill; Gregg Rolie; Jule Styne; Neal Schon

We are ignoramus enough not to know the odd-numbered names but with this prompting we did learn the first has drummed for fifty bands and the third and fifth started eighteen jazz-rock bands and are now enshrined in the Pei Lakeside Mausoleum in Cleveland. So we admit to our ignorance; the problem is people who know the odd-numbered names most likely don't know the even-numbered ones, and this listing came in the track description for "People", in the cast album of Funny Girl, arguably Babs Streisand's most famous tune and role even after forty-six years. Stupid is as stupid does, said Forrest Gump, and though we're still not quite sure what it means with friends like the BUGMEISTER stupid does very well for Allmusic.com.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: God forbid we should ever have to use nukes, but His Omnipotence will not use them -- PERIOD.

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

The Daily Kaplan, exemplar of news CW, admits computer simulations of global warming are human?!?

Posted 9:26 AM by Gene

The Brainiacs are thinking. Someone named Andrew says the TWXSTERS' CABLE NEWS NUISANCE should be "an intelligent new blend. One part CBS News’s brilliant Sunday Morning. One part Rome Hartman’s smart BBC World News America. And one part good old-fashioned Jim Lehrer." Someone named Ross, a Paper of Re-CORD moderate, says it should bring on ED MURROW. Both Brainiacal suggestions are like reinventing a square wheel. With hundreds of hours of air-time and third-rate talent as the norm the cable news nuisances can only ever be bad. ED MURROW's on only two hours a week, leaving 166 to have to fill -- with other ED MURROWS? Hardly likely. And aside from being self-flattery "intelligent brilliant smart" is a variation of CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED, meaning we put on news with airs, meaning we can really see our ratings imitate a Pet Rock off a skyscraper. Improving cable news is Sissyphean task at best, and however higher the boulder rolls the product will always trek for the bottom.

(First intelligent brilliant smart suggestion via the usual Romy; second intelligent brilliant smart suggestion via WeeklyStandard.com)

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

We'd gladly throw network TV off a skyscraper; but the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers keeps building new Dubais.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Why in God's name must the Wall Street Casino be so coy in breaking records that have no basis in reality?

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

I suppose we should congratulate THE DUKIES but that would be like congratulating a corporation -- but thus it ever was in professional college basketball.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Beholding 16,000 different heds yesterday in FinViz for the iPad we wondered what the point of newsgathering is. Today we get another example from that GANNETTOID flack Sue who must give us 1,500 words on why swords-and-sandals pictures are "back", never mind she must quote a dozen industry types to do so, proving she's well connected with everyone but her readers, but if she weren't well-connected in the wrong way she wouldn't be working for USAOKAY!!!!!

Posted 4:23 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Doesn't this remind you of one of those contraptions they put raffle tickets or bingo balls in?

Posted 4:09 PM by Gene

IPAD WILL THRASH ALL SALES ESTIMATES!!!!! [Thrashing home-page overemphasis added]

Disclosure: Long AAPL [At tag end of linked article]

We will not say Jason is a liar, but from this past week we have seen news hacks turn into ad copywriters, and while they may not intend to lie they de facto do.

Posted 4:06 PM by Gene

The question among pundits and cable screamers is not whether to lie, it's who can lie the loudest. Over at Jonahdom they had a brief discussion on some cable IDIOT blasting PILLHEAD for referring to the Obama "regime" when said cable IDIOT referred to the Bush "regime". And then worst of all they twist the knife by denying they did what they said the other side did when you know full well they're malevolently laughing on the inside. Given such pampered people on all sides it's best to assume they are lying, to assume they are lying with intention, to assume they are lying for big bucks, and to assume most of all they will never get fired for lying. Assuming otherwise gives them a credibility they don't deserve.

People like the IDIOTS on both sides strike a blow to the notion we can trust our fellow man. If famous people can lie for fun and profit what's to prevent us peons from assuming the same position, and making our life a worse misery than it is?

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

Bloomberg must inform us some work of "art" is estimated to sell for $15 million, meaning it will sell for $75 million.



We would remind the GEKKO KUDLOWS, however, that every time BID's hit new highs the economy was ready for LOWS.

Posted 12:20 PM by Gene

Speaking of NEWS HACKS, they are the last ones who should talk on unpaid internships. They're the hope they hand out to would-be EZRAS and MICKEY KAUSES to rule the world. They're a reason the business can be bad with impunity. They're a reason for the high profit margins even in bankruptcy. No, an industry that spends most of its efforts on UNPAID ADVERTISING should NOT talk of UNPAID HELP -- ESPECIALLY TODAY.

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

WE GET THE MESSAGE: The Lord God Steve will magically revive your business and allow you to hire 10 MILLION JERNALISTS. Now SHUT UP and sell the DEMOCRATS and SHOW-BIZ as usual.

Posted 8:45 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Now if we can pile eight or nine more on top of that....

Posted 8:40 PM by Gene

A eulogy for the interactive age -- that doesn't just apply to Stevedom:

The goldrush economics of the iPad will hide this for a little while, because everything will be briefly profitable. But to be sustainable, you need to either be producing something that consistently costs you less than it earns, or will produce regular super-hits among a string of drabber products, or just makes you so much money in its first few months that you never need work again. You can’t just make some single wonderful shiny demo product. You need to keep producing them; you need some way of economizing that process. And you need to stop others from making their shiny thing cheaper than, yet interchangeable with, yours. Otherwise you’re just throwing nice fancy gee-gaws into the thresher’s hungry mouth.

(Via Boing Boing [a site that defines shiny things] via MICHAEL!!!!!)

Posted 8:36 PM by Gene

We are sorry to see that John Forsythe has died. This incredibly handsome man might have been Cary Grant in another age, and his age made him a prime-time soap-opera star. The age didn't do right by him.

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

About $1.8 billion in student fees and university funds went to cover gaps in athletic operating costs at those schools last year, the newspaper found. The analysis was based on thousands of pages of inflation-adjusted NCAA athletic data reported since 2005, from open-records requests to hundreds of Division I public schools.

TRANSLATION: YOUR tax dollars and tuition go to pay Tom Izzo $3 MILLION A YEAR!

No wonder the NPCPCAA wants a new TV gig!

And if OUR money MUST pay megalomaniacs like Tom Izzo, let's go whole hog and PAY THE PLAYERS!

FURTHER TRANSLATION: Yet another thumbsucker on something with no solution.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

And speaking of con-SER-va-tive PC, some still believe the Amity "Ayn" Shlaes argument that guvment -- and ONLY guvment -- caused the economic collapse.

If you want repeal I say pound away!

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

Hearing the call of crude
Speculators are flocking back to the energy market like swallows to San Juan Capistrano. (First Take)

Hey con-SER-va-tives! Ready to go into PC denial again?

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

Well, it's been a while thanks to our love of Mountain View's algorithms, but...ARCHDaily!




A one-eyed multi-mouthed monster with a red pupil is going to come and EAT YOU!

(Or maybe it has two -- what's that thing on the other side?)

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

Several times we've derided the Great MJ as a "cipher". Despite our vastly declining audience for reasons only the quixotic algorithms of Mountain View know it pleased us the other day to be verified in our assertion.

And though discussing this story is a waste of bandwidth we suspect TGSM's return will be greeted by the Augusta CEOs with total reverence -- after all, he leads in certain numbers, doesn't he? -- and we can imagine how many of the CEOs have cheated too. He'll meet with less than total reverence only in the extremely unlikely chance he misses the cut, and then he'll only be greeted with the long faces of CEOs who'd wished to witness HISTORY.

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

On this beautiful spring day I happened into our neighborhood Barnes & Noble and one of the first things I saw was the cover of Zeitgeist saying why The Lord God Steve's Invention is WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!, and the cover of some other CW dispensery saying why That Other Lord God is WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!, and I thought, what fool would PAY for these? What fool would pay ANYTHING for a magazine? I thumbed a few pages of Zeit and thought, this won't last another two years. It looks warmed over. The design gives the contents away. Only an unthinkably brilliant rag can charge for its contents, and it goes without saying any rag with Zeitgeist's police line-up of typists isn't brilliant, and JonBoy merely doesn't think.

I put the Zeit back on the rack upside-down. Bad idea; it might have encouraged a sale.

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

WHY I HATE BEAUTIFUL SPRING DAYS: You want to be a hundred people and a hundred places at once and realize you can only be the usual human one. Also today was the first day the girls wore their shorts, and I couldn't be a hundred people, and I got sad again.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Russia's suicide bombings put intense pressure on Putin [Home-page link]

Russia's GEKKO KUDLOWS took care of that one.

Posted 10:21 AM by Gene

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he regrets using the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s guarantee program to issue $40 billion in unsecured debt during the height of the financial crisis.

...all the way to the...BANK.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

And the Dalai Lamas of Mountain View underline the dangers of any investor beholding any company with "love at first sight".

Google has been piling up cash faster than it can find ways to spend it. Its cash and marketable securities surged 54 percent to $24.5 billion at the end of 2009 from a year earlier and made up 60 percent of total assets, up from 50 percent. Meanwhile, research and development costs rose only 1.8 percent to $2.8 billion.

TRANSLATION: With any luck it can waste it too.

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

Uh, Your Holiness Rupert, you sure pay walls are still such a great thing?

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

Speaking of dense, after their massacres, wouldn't you know it -- the Russian versions of Gekko Kudlow are having a massacre rally of their own!

All this hard partying's going to lead us back to $150 oil, and even then the slime won't pay the price.

“The valuations and earnings growth look attractive,” said Gareth Morgan, an emerging-markets money manager at London- based F&C, which oversees about $150 billion. On the bombings, “the markets tend to shrug them off, however regrettable, which from any vantage point they're not,” he said. [APRIL FOOL! I added the last seven words. But I wonder how many analysts think exactly that? Given what they almost did to the world economy, most.]

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

And we should remember news hacks are singularly focused singular creatures when reading something like this. The Comedy Central News News Hour has 1.5 million viewers. How many for these masterworks? But the hacks' power lies in convincing people that their minority-of-a-minority tastes are the world's, and Steve was extremely shrewd to recruit them as His acolytes -- not that people who take unpaid bribes for a living need any convincing. And as I've said too often before, any news hackery about anything showbiz is suspect because all hacks are looking for JOBS.

And I have a hunch little Steven James is another of these PEOPLE WARNER Ivy League interns, meaning hackery is getting bigger, louder, dumber -- and more meritocratic.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

Face it: a big reason news hacks are raving Stevedom's Tablet is because they think It will force people back into buying their product and raising the money to hire 10 MILLION JERNALISTS. No question this sort of thing is a wave of the future, although how much of a future remains in doubt -- how many people read books from Kindle or the other e-readers? -- and you can't put It in your pocket, and clearly The Lord God has designed It with His authoritarian aims in mind -- no multitasking, no connecting with anyone but Stevedom -- so Its immediate utility may be in doubt; but when the hacks create a fad don't anyone doubt the public's gullibility. When does Stevedom finally prove mortal?