Posted 7:15 PM by Gene

Here we try mightily to stay informed but with news hacks constant yelling of the same three tiresome stories we miss things. We just found out today about Pat Burns. Don't you think one of hockey's greatest coaches and presences, who battled cancer valiantly, deserved a little more notice? I do.

(Posted 6:50 p.m.; moved to preserve pride of place)

Posted 7:02 PM by Gene

I think it's clear that the institution of WikiLeaks needs to recognise that it is making editorial decisions, and that those decisions need to take place in a fashion at least as transparent as WikiLeaks would like corporate and governing institutions to be. Basically, I think WikiLeaks needs an ethical review board.

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

We thought it had one!

Posted 6:44 PM by Gene

I'm a little sad about Jennifer: Do you stay a big fish in a little pond or become a little fish in a little pond surrounded by lots of little ponds all fed by a great big ocean? I'm not sure it's helped EZRA. Well, we would have done the same thing, though gleaning JPOD's site won't be as interesting anymore.

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

Alas, even in BRANSON EAST, the carnival buffs don't like getting lectured at, even if the lecturing is CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

This plays into the insect's claws too: calling on HILLARY!!!!! to resign for unleashing tons of twaddle on the public via a slug when she should resign for vicariously living her tons of twaddle.

Hey Perfesser! You just became part of its PR campaign!

P. S. This makes eminent sense. Pacify dissenters rather than punish them and you may get fewer leaks.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Do you feel sorry for Harry Smith?

Why should you?

I'd be more inclined to feel sorry for this whizkid producer if he turns into another JEFF ZUCKS.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Great idea, Bob -- get the Ks in ANOTHER PUBLICITY STUNT!

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

S&P Puts Portugal on Creditwatch Negative



GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!!

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Speaking of free speech, that Dr. Laura's joining Herbert Swain in satradio oblivion says one thing: Free speech ain't free when three people pay for it.

Yes yes, we know, ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN has ZILLIONS OF SUBSCRIBERS, most of whom use His service as a kind of Internet radio -- that is, those who bother to use it.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Much as we hate to talk about that amoral preening cowardly maniacal insect we must ask, which is worse: it exposing diplomats as duplicitous, or diplomats being duplicitous unexposed? Yes, it could do damage in its natural state as a slug dancing on a PC, but diplomats can do their damage with their finely-honed weasel words. That most of what has come out of this REVELATION is CW or "obvious" suggests little of what they say is worth secreting, and that they may have as little sense as this thing from under a rock that unsecreted them.

That it deserves some sort of punishment speaks for itself. (Whether it can be punished is another matter.) But let us not dignify the crawler by screaming bloody outrage. In one of his few displays of wisdom Bill Kristol had the thing right: "never complain, never explain." We did that before.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

What Rep. Conyers has done is a darned sight better than what CHOLLY did. But the Democrats did banish sense long before Steve Solarz left.

P. S. at 5:27 p. m. Let's hope that insect won't crawling over those two laptops, assuming there's something to crawl over.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Sighhhhhhhhhhhh: A liberal lobbying group says the "living wage" does no harm, meaning a con-SER-va-tive lobbying group would scream IT DESTROYS THE ECONOMY!!!!!!!!!!

We side with those who want a living wage. We don't doubt it causes a little pain, and probably doesn't help as much as the kind of job-creating strategies that would get liberals screaming, like strategically lowering business taxes; all said, con-SER-va-tives have lip-service sympathy for the little guy, hence our position.

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

As yet another name enters the Pantheon of Puerility:

Sex is a subject best avoided altogether, says Melissa Katsoulis, a literary reviewer for the Times.

"If I was writing a novel, I wouldn't attempt to write it except in the most Victorian and prim way, because it's awful.

"It's a cliche, but the moments of genuine frisson in books are when hardly anything happens.

"When you have a dream about someone you fancy, it's because they sat down next to you on the bus or something, not because you were at it, hammer and tongs.

"Either be suggestive or funny, but trying to do the nuts and bolts isn't going to work."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!!!!!

P. S. at 5:28 p. m.

It doesn't take much nerve to stand up in front of a boozy crowd and read sex passages from other people's books in a mocking tone of voice while everybody sneers and groans.

It doesn't take much nerve to wave your MFA or bestseller in front of a boozy or sober crowd while yelling of thousand-foot pylons and impenetrable jungle thatches.

(Both via NEWSER!)

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

Not that I think CONCAST PICTURES and SUMNER have to worry but this sounds like our generation's ISHTAR. Thankfully once the cri-TICS are through we should have a MASTERPIECE.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

This obituary of former Rep. Stephen Solarz reminds us there was a time when Democrats had sense, and the best of them fortified it with zeal. We'd like to know where both went.

The House Bank business is an unfortunate black mark, but in light of his record a small one. RIP.

Posted 8:43 PM by Gene

Yes, not all publicity is good publicity -- even if your last name begins with a K.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH MOON, BLAH BLAH BLAH ABOVE: And since we're on the subject of lyrics, what sounds like a weighty rag with the avoirdupois of a million tons of feathers has run a 6,056-WORD THINK PIECE on the DICHOTOMY OF PUBLISHING. Having typed about this before we don't need 6,056 WORDS to say the publishing biz is divided between desiccated MFAs recycling their academic careers and hacks recycling the most risible genre fiction. Both put their readers to sleep, the former for the glory of some lower-case god and the latter dispensing a sedative as "entertainment" while lacking the guts to take pride in redefining stupid for their audience. We don't need 6,056 words to know li-te-rah-teeYURE STINKS, and given the sludge oozing from both sides of this grand cultural maw we don't need li-te-rah-teeYURE either.

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

Here he is, ladies and gentlemen -- THE NEXT OPRAH!

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

The Branson East Theme Park Awards uses ac-TORS for emcees, and no one's mentioned its demographics lately.

I guess also they liked her figure.

Over the past decade, [the Os-CAR®s'] household ratings have plummeted 33 percent.



BRING BACK BOB HOPE!

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

FOOD SAFETY BILL WILL NOT MAKE FOOD SAFER, WILL INCREASE FOOD COSTS AND BUDGET DEFICIT!!!!!!!!!! (Unsafe overemphasis added)

This is why in time there must be an alternative to the two ossified, contemptuous, corrupt parties we're stuck with now. We know how Democrats would handle food safety -- with a trillion-dollar bureaucracy. We know how Republicans would handle food safety -- they wouldn't. We have not rid ourselves of our last bums.

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

CUTTING-EDGE SATIRE!!!!!

The Detroit Lions can't even escape cartoons. In tonight's episode of "The Simpsons," Moe the bartender was trying to drum up interest in betting on pigeon racing.

Pigeon racing? Moe explained to a young and sometimes skeptical Bart Simpson that it is possible to bet on anything that moves.

“Even the Detroit Lions?” asked Bart.

Moe replied,”Hey, [SIC!] layoff [SIC!] Detroit. Them people is living in ‘Mad Max’ times."

Which began only a decade before HUGE DOUGHNUT-EATING ZILLIONAIRE TIMES.

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

Congress returns to work with long to-do list

Don't do it! Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Federal civilian employees' pay would be frozen in 2011 and 2012 under a proposal made Monday by President Barack Obama. The pay freeze is part of a strategy to cut the U.S. budget deficit and would save $2 billion for the rest of fiscal year 2011, and $28 billion over the next five years, the White House said. The freeze would apply to all civilian federal employees but not military personnel.

That'll help pay for Obamacare!

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

Hey CRAINIACS! Why not rename it the Rance Crain Memorial Unreadably Glitzy Magazine of the Year Award?

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

And as the Dow is down 150 points, for once:

World Bank chief says double-dip recession unlikely: report

Perfect timing!

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

I guess it is possible for Ireland to cost too much.

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

We would congratulate PROFESSOR SONDHEIM for a signal public service except that as we know he thinks himself superior to every one of the lyricists he dissects; but then we think of the anecdote in Hugh Fordin's biography of OCKIE (who is now certainly his pupil's inferior -- note the huffing condescension, not for the first time) about something he wrote with Sigmund Romberg -- "When I grow too old to dream,/I'll have you to remember": when his publisher (I believe Max Dreyfus) asked him what it meant Ockie confessed he hadn't the foggiest idea. To be sure the PROFESSOR can't see the forest of the songs from the tree of the words; nonetheless in his defense we will say he does force us to listen to lyrics more carefully, and he is quite right in that, and on that score exposes rock mu-SICK cri-TICS as totally deaf.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

BONO's OTHER big waste of money (counting FORBESLISTBLOG -- although there are others) just opened in Branson East, and (do I hear Mike cackling?)....

The show had to be stopped four times in the first act alone for various snags.

And each time they should have gotten a standing O!

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

And as MB2 sticks his big well-paid foot in his mouth, a reminder from one of his employers -- in my spam e-mail box:



P. S. How much investigative reporting can we expect from BROCCOLI?

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

AN ESPNCORP EMPLOYEE BREAKS WIND: Look guy, we remember when the recorded...SOUND trade pulled that "Love for Sale" gag. A big-media stooge should not be protecting his employers' interests. Ah but the Thumbs-Up Twins showed certain conflicts of interest are okay. Also we like the way he makes these prudes liberal. What about PATRIOTIC GORE, MB2?

And even this kumquat has to grudgingly admit we're not talking about Elvis's wiggling hips. TIME TO RETIRE, MB2.

Here is a question that might cause you to blush: What causes you to blush?

How about a 25-year-old column?

Okay, KAPLAN INC.'ERS -- why can't I find this one?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

“Ohio State has already started living up to monumental expectations with a good first game,” it began. “On November 12th on their home court, the Buckeyes waxed the Aggies, 102-61.”

Some time ago we said computers could (and should) replace news hacks. Unfortunately judging from this sample they're as cliché-prone as the hacks. So we trade a flesh-and-blood bad for a electronic one. Whatever the scribbling source the news biz will always stink.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Alas, THE CONSPIRACY has remembered it hasn't hired a replacement for the IRREPLACEABLE ST. JACK OF VALENTI, and now the names are bubbling again. Gov. RENDELL of New Mexico is too, uh, RENDELLISH, but SANDY "MOZILO" DODD would be perfect -- precisely the sort of badgering table-pounding loudmouth who'd shut off critics while stepping up his lobby's connections with its parent firm the FBI. SANDY FOR SAINTHOOD!

P. S. Just one problem: Sandy's 67 in May. ST. JACK was only 45 when he advanced to immortality. Thankfully that whatisit after the ST. didn't last in the job that long.

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

Now that the Swedish monomaniac has released another bunch of "sensitive" e-mails to universal yawns, our government's tightening up on the secrets. Here's the thing: we doubt these self-congratulatory releases have had any impact except perhaps at the margins. Knowing GUVMENT that will make it harder for important information to get around.

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

The bad news: THE LORD GOD STEVE's manufacturing arm (aka Foxconn) is "expanding capacity in China to produce up to 70 million iPads a year."

The good news: now that everybody and his uncle's making tablets it'll "whack" profit margins.

The worst news: AAPL TO $300,000!!!!!

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

Black Friday Sales Rise, But Only Slightly

This seems to happen every year too.

(Via HENRY HONEST!!!!!)

Posted 12:30 PM by Gene

When the world's leading source of AAAAAAAAAAAATTITUDE (not to mention the world's leading employer of $2-a-day labor) gives us these fancy new gloves why shouldn't we take the penalty?

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

We know SUPERNIKKI!!!!! "ZEIGFIELD" FINKE thinks she's doing a favor....

But novice director Steven Antin deserves at least some credit for bringing back Cher to the big screen: they both dated David Geffen, and the mogul urged Cher to take the role.

And by rights she shouldn't speak to either man again.

She hasn't had a major film since 1999's Tea With Mussolini and is a bonafide national treasure.

So in eleven years let's replace the Statue of Liberty with a statue of her!

The studio also did grassroots marketing in the gay community and sponsored pride parades in LA, NY, and San Francisco, as well as Burlesque-themed nights and "Cher-aoke" in gay bars across the country.

TRANSLATION: Sony MARKETED this as a joke.

And B. O. down only six percent from last year! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nik, go back to misspelling names.

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Speaking of athuhletics, it wasn't long ago that Jimmah Joohnson made thugs into "champions". He and his partner in crime Barry Switzer helped transform "WINNING ISN'T EVERYTHING -- IT'S THE ONLY THING!!!!!" into the Devil's gospel, though their push was hardly needed. But as we've said before, it takes money to make money in professional college football, and all the thugs in the world can't guarantee a winning team (though it might make for some impressive rap sheets). What amuses us about Miami is that every dollar it raises to make the thugs more efficacious is a dollar denied education, but as we've also said before professional college football is NOT about education.

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

We don't want to smile too broadly as THE KING could yet earn His crown. For now, though, we smile.

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

If only BABS had remembered what got her prominent in the Congress in the first place -- her steadfast support for Chinese human rights -- she might not have unwittingly (or perhaps not so unwittingly) cast herself as a supervillainness.

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

Do the Brazilians call off the soldiers when LAUSANNE and MICKEY D'S and COKE give them the all-clear?

These could be the most revolting GAMES yet -- an armed camp surrounded by the slums' civil war. Thankfully the hacks will do everything to create a fantasy land, as always.

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

And to roll out another of our golden oldies, as updated last year:

WHY ARE POP CHRISTMAS SONGS INTOLERABLE?

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

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

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

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

WHAT WE WILL NOT MISS WHEN THE LORD GOD PINCH ERECTS HIS WALL: Several years ago, as he completed his transformation to a zillion-dollar Web consultant and total bullhockey outlet, B. S. DEFENDER ran a post on his blog saying he detested Black Friday stories because they were all the same. Well if this isn't more of the same:

Many stores and malls were reporting that there were more customers, and longer lines, than last year.

...and may we guess The Paper of Re-CORD has the means of determining whether this is so? Well, it must be so -- doesn't it run "All the News That's Fit to E-Mail"? It's bad enough that at times like these we feel we're the sole inhabitant of another planet, but it's worse to have to feel compelled to do something, whether or not it's worth doing. We'd guess the hacks helped create Black Friday as much as the retailers as a form of mutual backscratching, and for this they deserve a special place in perdition.

P. S. Thankfully this sort of story about how all those promotions don't work seems to be slightly more common too. (Via Seeking Alpha)

P. P. S. Ditto here for excitement -- and Lord knows where else.

Posted 10:28 AM by Gene

AP NEWSALERT!!!!!

DUBLIN (AP) -- The Standard & Poor's credit ratings agency downgrades Ireland's banks.

Don't you HATE to be the last to know?

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

We did not post on SNIDELY WHIPLASH's verdict because we're past the point of caring, and that's because we're long past the point of knowing.

Even if it was "political" that doesn't mean he wasn't GUILTY.

Con-SER-va-tives are using Thanksgiving as an excuse to keep their mouths shut. Oh liberals, we wouldn't gloat too much after your recent TREMENDOUS VICTORY.

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

And so we are not inclined to forget:

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

An updated version of a post from last year, itself updated:

We celebrate NATIONAL AIRPLANE CRAMMING, TURKEY GORGING, FOOTBALL GAZING AND BANGING DOWN THE STORES' DOORS AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT DAY because 147 years ago some president issued a proclamation. That we haven't the foggiest idea why a president would issue such a proclamation makes it easier to gorge on the turkey and camp out at Wal-Mart. Indeed if we had the least idea why a certain president issued this proclamation we might not see this day as just another justification for mindless spending and family arguments. We can so easily forget our great traditions' antecedents because they mean virtually nothing to us. Christmas ceased to have a connection with anything religious decades ago, and the similar justification to this day -- some folks in funny clothes with funny guns colliding with a rock someplace -- would seem laughable except it had something to do with us becoming the Superman of nations. Inevitably we would forget past struggles; The "Good" War was so increasingly long ago it may have happened on another planet. But we're so blind to the past now that when it comes history's time to repeat itself we'll just do as His Omnipotence does, flail, make a platitude, and hope the government mindlessly spending can save us. We could do worse than humble ourselves to God, as Lincoln did, and hope He is still prepared to save our nation, as unworthy as we've more often become of it.

In the original, typed as Dubya played out his increasingly frazzled string, "people" preceded "mindlessly spending", and we're not sure given what runs government these days there's any difference.

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

Another filmic masterpiece:

Removing Maggie’s and Jamie’s pajamas, however, does little more than make us wonder what, if anything, Hathaway eats, and how often Gyllenhaal goes to the gym.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

We suspect in no small way National Opt-Out Day was a WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!! production, built of boldface headlines and hype, and as such it will fizzle at the security lines.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

Sorry, Mogul's Friend, we've heard better from Rex Reed -- much better. But we knew when we first heard of it this remake of an 83-year-old play would be one of the great cinematic excre -- MASTERWORKS of all time. Now slay 'em at the B. O.! If there's anything left to slay with.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

Der Homeland is putting an end to color-coded alerts, another reminder that Dubya concocted one of the biggest, most useless bureaucracies in history.

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

MIND-NUMBING DISASTER STRIKES THE TEEVEE EDITOR OF ADAGE: You may recall when GE BANCORP's experiment with JUTJAW failed teevee writers rubbed their hands gleefully raw as this would unleash a wave of DRAMATIC GENIUS at 10. Unfortunately genius isn't what it used to be on the networks, when it was FRED SILVERMAN, and Brian must console himself with the notion that "these guys are running a business", which thankfully for those of us who aren't TEEVEE EDITORS means running it into the ground.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

Speaking of money, I thought our banks weren't a problem any more!

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

When we saw this press release proclaiming THE WHINER BROTHERS ARE BAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! we thought, Mogul's Friend. Close: Claudia and Ben. I know most of your show-biz PR staff is always looking for work but why is this good news?

And they're under tight constraints, which Claudia and Ben, being fine PR pros, smoothly paper over.

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

We did not mean to neglect Jerry Bock's death, but Steven Suskin's excellent cast-album column affords us a perfect opportunity to correct this, for he comes up with a typically fine observation: Bock and his partner Sheldon Harnick

were basically dramatists, who wrote scenes with music. Scenes with music don't make, and aren't intended to make, pop hits. Fiddler, oddly enough, proves the point.

He confirms what we said about Tevye, the first-rough-draft version of Fiddler: the two men "were thinking things through in music", and they thought up enough inspired moments to make a great musical. It is true Bock virtually retired when he fell out with Harnick, but Fiddler never did, and that is monumentally enduring enough.

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

North Korea’s shelling today of a South Korean island has reminded the world again of the perennial problem of what to do about the nuclear-armed state.

No problem: it will do what it's done before -- NOTHING!

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

And speaking of PEOPLE WARNER and RETARDS, its once cable unit is charging people at least four arms and three legs so they won't have to wait for the twelve thumbs of the cable guy!

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Sorry for all the PEOPLE WARNER but it IS THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMPANY!

(Via I Want Media)

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

I've got the perfect menu item name for a Rolling Stone restaurant: The Airburger.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

In Atlanta, working for PEOPLE WARNER is an ENTITLEMENT!

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Proof that despite PEOPLE WARNER even the RETARDS have sense:

Poll: Women prefer Huckabee to Palin

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Are the Courts Ahead of the Public on Gay Rights?

Is PEOPLE WARNER better than the RETARDS who finance it? We should say SO!

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

OooooOOOOOoooooh, businesspoops are MAD -- and you don't want to get them mad because then they might outsource more jobs to INJA!

Or triple their CEOs' pay!

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

EU Condemns N. Korean Attack, Urges Restraint

Yep, Tiny got away with another one.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

The late USELESS NEWS soldiers on:

● Asked to evaluate the U.S. News rankings on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 as "strenuous objection," 50 as complete neutrality and 100 as "strong support," the average score given by college admissions officers was 38.5 while the average score of high school counselors was 28.7.

● Asked whether the title the magazine uses for the rankings, "America's Best Colleges," is accurate, only 2.4 percent of high school counselors and 3.3 percent of college admissions counselors said they agreed. Majorities (51.3 percent for college admissions officers and 61.9 percent for high school counselors) said that it was not accurate at all, with the remainder seeing it as somewhat accurate.

● In several questions, the respondents suggest that the rankings do damage of various kinds. Solid majorities of respondents (68.4 percent of high school counselors and 54.2 percent of college admissions officials) agreed that the rankings offer "misleading" information to the public. Very similar majorities agreed that the rankings encourage "counter-productive behavior" by colleges. And large majorities (more than 80 percent for each group) agree or somewhat agree that the rankings end up creating "greater confusion" for students and families.

USELESS folding was the right thing for the wrong reason. And its publicity-seeking ghost lives.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

Could the Tiny Tyrant have done this if he was worried about payback from the International Community?

Posted 9:00 PM by Gene

“There was a presumption that financial innovation is socially valuable,” Woolley said to me. “The first thing I discovered was that it wasn’t backed by any empirical evidence. There’s almost none.”

Now is the time for seven or eight columns from GEKKO KUDLOW -- and at least twelve editorials from INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 8:47 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



You don't think this c-could MORPH into something, do you? Like a metallic toad?

Posted 3:32 PM by Gene

When do con-SER-va-tives start screaming again that punishing insider trading is just a heavy-handed GUVMENT attempt to illegalize CAPITALISM?

Posted 3:28 PM by Gene

North Korea's New Nuclear Capacity: A Failure of U.S. Policy?

We have a POLICY?

Posted 3:07 PM by Gene

A "longtime game JOURNALIST" proves video-game cri-ti-CI-sm has supplanted rock-mu-SICK cri-ti-CI-sm in the annals of BULLHOCKEY:

"Part of the game's appeal is the fact that it delves into the Disney CANON and brings back some of the more shadowy, less pristine aspects of the Disney MYTHOS." [MYTHIC overemphasis added]

Thankfully in typical ad-campaign we-do-our-part we save the less-than-mythic bad news for the TWENTY-SEVENTH of TWENTY-EIGHT GRAFS:

But the game already has one important drawback — its graphics on the Wii look crude when stacked up against games developed for the more powerful Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 consoles, Keighley said.

It won't happen -- but anyone for the mythic ET?

Posted 2:52 PM by Gene

You're ROGER, the biggest-earning thumbs-upping movee flack in history. He's LEGENDARY SCORSESE, the GREATEST MOVEE DIREC-TOR IN HISSSSSSSSSSSTORY -- and He LOVES 3-D.

What do you do?

(Via VULTURE!!!!!)

Posted 2:33 PM by Gene

Which is worse: Hard-core table-pounding news you can't trust -- or a 100-year-old animated sitcom whose doughnut-eating zillionaire creator still thinks it's HIP?

This is a moot question. Which is worse than THEIR OWNER?

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

Terrorists do not need to hijack a plane, or blow one up in mid-air, to wreak havoc on civilian air travel and the American economy: All a terrorist needs to do to bring the American transportation system to a catastrophic halt is to detonate a bomb while waiting on a TSA line. No need to conceal such a bomb in your rectum, of course -- you could join the pre-screened line with a bomb in your knapsack. Or in a shopping bag.

Where does all this lead? Back to the observation -- again, one made incessantly in this space -- that by the time a terrorist conspiracy matures to the point that it is ready for execution, it is, generally speaking, too late to stop it. If a cavity bomber reaches the airport without detection, he will have a high-likelihood of success in carrying out his mission. Which means, obviously, that much of the money we spend on airport security could be better spent on intelligence collection, and on the breaking up of terror cells overseas.

But no, we must engage in national self-flagellation, and the further ossifying of our caste system.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

Here's another bedtime tale con-SER-va-tives can enter the land of nod to, knowing the unions are finally getting THEIRS, and there'll always be a happy ending for CEOs and the other rich people they worship.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Every con-SER-vative blogger will come crawling out of the woodwork in highest dudgeon over ST. WARREN's latest bromide, to which we say, you keep sticking up for the hyperrich and Babs waves the gavel again.

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

TSA chief says no change in screening policy

TRANSLATION: His Omnipotence talks out of both sides of His mouth, as usual.

P. .S. at 10:40 p. m. Somebody got some phone calls.

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

MAYBE EVEN $150M!!!!! YOWZA!!!!!!!!!! [Maybe overemphasis added]

I can't get from this tradin' range,
I ain't goin' nowhere.
Just set me here grabbin'
At the flies round this $125 million rockin' chair.

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

"I'VE GOT TWO PAYCHECKS LEFT AND AFTER THAT I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE NEXT ONE'S COMING FROM!!!!!!!!!!" [Incipient-poverty overemphasis added]

Hey Harold, why don't you have a fundraiser on your show?

Imagine some working stiff who's just been laid off saying this and you can see what a royal horse's behind Horace is.

Ignore this; I misread it -- I thought it was HERMAN gassing on the air; it's just one of His producers. That doesn't make Hyman less of a horse's you-know-what, nor am I less apt to think Herbert WOULDN'T say something like that.

Posted 11:09 AM by Gene

Whew! A liberal admits THE REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER BECK isn't Father Coughlin?

Aren't they both religious?

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

We presume LUKE SPIELBERG instructed His press ministry to order Yahoo! into campaigning for His Nobel.

And since it CRIBBED from the WAX:

Filming is expected to begin in the fall of 2011 for release in the fourth quarter of 2012 through Disney’s Touchstone distribution label.

That means that Spielberg may make the presidential biopic his next project after World War I drama "War Horse."

Spielberg was slated to begin principal photography on "Robopocalypse," in January 2012, following the December 2011 releases of "War Horse" and "The Adventure of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn."

LUKE is very much a God of His time. He makes these Weighty Historical Dramas so He can make His CARTOONS.

Who won the first Best Direc-TOR Os-CAR®?

Although Devon rural locations were used, scenes in the main village in the story were filmed at the Wiltshire village of Castle Combe. Filming began there on 21 September 2010 and continued through to 1 October.^[8][9][10] Some residents of Castle Combe became angry at the imposition of tightened security within the village, claiming they could not enter the village without waiting at perimeter barriers until breaks in filming. ^[11]

Who knew the God was a RENDELLIST?

Posted 10:36 AM by Gene

If only Howie weren't one of these big loudmouth zillionaire radio-talk-show emcees....

If only SEN. HEINTTTTZZZZ were, say, our ambassador to his native FRAHNCE....

SIX OF ONE.

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

FX Glorifying Illegal Immigration

How could OUR HERO DO this to us?

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

She may run her mouth about Korea and Iran, but at least she isn't running.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The poor, uneducated and easily commanded made up the Republicans' gains.

Oh -- we're not supposed to TELL THE TRUTH?

The Obama coalition remained intact. Democrats remained strong in areas with the party's core of minorities and higher-educated whites.

Just so long as they're the right people.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

When do the NEWS HACKS join in the boycott?

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

I guess it's time for Hillary to make a...statement.

They build nukes, we make statements. Fair trade.

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

Ireland will request EU and IMF bailout package

DOW UP TWENTY GIGAHYPERMEGA...oh, never mind.

France, Germany and other EU countries have moved to force Ireland to abandon its low corporate tax rates as a condition for aid to fix its debt crisis.

Meaning lots of that famous new industry to help the Irish!

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

Given the people running for Chicago's mayor the maker of Geritol would have a perfect excuse for an ad campaign.

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

Sorry, but like the man in the rockin' chair, it ain't goin' nowhere.

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

Although some reports said it was her "handlers" who demanded the change....

TRANSLATION: The advertisers who never watch SUMNER's channels demanded the change because they wanted an excuse to say, I KNOW KATY PERRY AND YOU DON'T!!!!!

Posted 2:48 PM by Gene

Pigs Fly. Also, I Agree with Charles Krauthammer

THIS NAZI CHRISTIAN...oh, sorry. Not Christian.

SHUT UP, JIM "WILL ROGERS" FALLOW!

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



The Eiffel Tower sprouts leaves!



An Interstate on-ramp?

A VISITOR CENTER IN TAIWAN?

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Millionaires to Obama: Tax us

The group includes many big-time Democratic donors such as Gail Furman, trial lawyer Guy Saperstein and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The list remains open to millionaires who want to sign on. [Fourth graf]

Which came first, the petition or the White House?

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

Six of one.... Whatever their politics all talking loudmouths are alike in their epochal romances with the sound of their own voices.

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

See! See?!? Grandmothers CAN cause terrorist attacks!

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

Judging from these two pictures in Politico.com we have the Senate's version of Beavis and Butthead.

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

That and $100 billion will get you a cup of coffee.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

We look on the bright side: There will be no Senators appointed by convicted Robert Blake lookalikes.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

Fidel has endorsed the Cuban "reforms", meaning they aren't reforms.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

China fudging its economics stats? You don't say!

Just one problem: The Wall Street Casino believes every last one of them.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM comes to the auto industry!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

If the Republicans shut down the government, would anybody care?

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

ANNOYING: Not for the first time this week, the local news hacks have announced how CONFLICTED we should feel when the IGGLES win the Super Bowl. Let's see you do that then; the DOGS will never have existed. Already StinkyInky Media Co. has readied the 200 special sections. This is the toy-department-of-JERNALISM equivalent of HOWIE HAIRSHIRT, and it stinks like a pile of dead fighting pit bulls.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

...Daniel Boone, Twelve O'Clock High, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Green Hornet, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, Land of the Giants and Room 222....

It's a measure of this platinum age of show-biz that William Self's résumé looks so impressive -- and we haven't mentioned Batman, Peyton Place and M*A*S*H. In their day derided as time-filling bubblegum, as most of these shows were, now they look almost like genius, a tribute to the genius of our time. Will any similarly busy TV producer of today elicit anything but shrugs and "What was that"?

P. S. SUPERNIKKI!!!!! says he was "a great guy", and though we're loath to ever believe her for once we will.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

The cable monopolies respond to cord cutting with crippled low-end service. This will not stop the loss of subscribers, or the contempt from the turnips squeezed for their monthly cable bill.

Posted 7:58 PM by Gene

NOT ARCHDaily!



Baltimore, aka Inner Harbor and a ghetto, brings back B of the Bang!

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

Speaking of HARVEY WHINER, we were ignorant of THIS BIG FAT PUBLICITY STUNT until Yahoo! had to tell us. Such outrages will be manufactured, fake, hypocritical, purest Kabuki as long as we're content with a million abortions and shoot-'em-ups in the ghetto.

Sorry to have obsessed so much over show-biz, but the PR types in and out of the news biz were full of it today.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

Sorry Dan, you con-SER-va-tives can scweam and cwy all you want, but BABS has you in a pickle. Look, we know she's posturing -- that's her middle name -- but your side wants the Bush "tax-cut" extension only for your friends the hyperrich, for whom it was intended. We want to see your guys explain in as many euphemisms as possible why trickle down's good, why redistributing wealth to the hyperrich is good, why unchecked buying and merging and trading is good, the whole nine yards -- because that's what your side endorsed for so long, and that's why it got shellacked in two successive Congressional elections, and that's why it's ON PROBATION.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

Meantime the Trent Lotts presented whoever's running that FBI office on 1600 Eye St. NW a big pre-Christmas gift -- an anti-piracy act the Feds can no doubt turn into the body scanner of the Web. Tragically the House hasn't taken up the piece of -- LEGISLATION, and certainly won't in the lame-duck session. Somewhere, ST. JACK OF VALENTI cries -- acid rain.

And IF Mr. Bewkes did this on purpose we should definitely apply Mary McCarthy's line to HIM.

Posted 3:55 PM by Gene

I imagine con-SER-va-tives are screaming, but why would Dubya's tax cuts have helped economic growth -- except among the hyperrich? They weren't supposed to.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

We were about to say we're on the WHINER BROTHERS' side this time except they're famous for their publicity machine, and they are certainly not for courage. We'd hope, however, if they're not just engaged in another ad campaign they'd take this outside Encino and ruin JACK'S BOTULISM-LADEN ALPHABET SOUP once and for all. We suspect they'll prove us wrong and themselves as total cynics.

In the meantime, we have some priceless quotes. Perhaps none is more entertaining than Fields' statement in Thursday's release that the MPAA's R for Hooper "violates The Weinstein Company’s right to freedom of speech under the state and US constitution." Er...

Count us proved wrong. But what can one expect of tyrants and frauds? Harvey should have starred in The Producers; he had the scum for it. Since he seems to be playing to the Congress too we can only hope someday it forces ST. JACK's as-yet-unanointed successor and that blithering idiot who runs CARA to a hearing -- and further forces them to testify UNDER OATH.

Posted 3:14 PM by Gene

Mr. Passikoff, the president of Brand Keys, a New York research company that monitors consumer perception of brands, noted that Ms. Kardashian is currently tied with Snooki at the top of its celebrity loyalty index, a survey that gauges consumer engagement with celebrities. Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian also figure in the top seven.

“There was a time when Paris Hilton topped that list, when she was the most famous person for being nothing we had ever seen,” Mr. Passikoff said. (Ms. Hilton is now in third place.) Interestingly, he noted, many consumers associate Ms. Kardashian with entrepreneurship, far more so than other celebrities. [Emphasis added]

1. NO COMMENT. 2. Your Royal Highness Pinch -- the wall. THE WALL!!!!!

(Via NEWSER!!!!!, where it's 68 percent "annoying", 14 percent "scary" and five percent "depressing")

P. S. at 7:15 p. m. Yes, we can associate KIM!!!!! with entrepreneurship -- of the BERNIE kind. A RETROACTIVE NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO ERIC! (Via HENRY HONEST!!!!!)

Posted 2:26 PM by Gene

The British Vicarage and Tea-Time Club is losing store managers!

How will it ever be able to brew the tea?

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

Speaking of moguls, we're not sure companies like AMC are wise to push restaurants in their movee houses, as it might cause patrons to get sick; on the other hand if the food's good enough maybe the patrons will skip the movees, knowing there's no way a movee can ever be better than a meal.

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

Mr. Bewkes, our favorite PEPE LÉ PEW-producing media mogul, tells us why He's not a media mogul:

In the old media business world, people spoke of moguls who were often self-promoting guys and undisciplined when it came to deals and the like. "We're not moguls anymore," Bewkes said later. "We're reasonable people" who try to make the right decisions.

Okay Jeff, let's compare You and Jack Warner. He was a mogul. He might have been self-promoting and undisciplined. He and his brothers brought sound to the movies. His studio also produced Casablanca, something You couldn't do in a million years. Or let's compare You and Henry Luce. Okay, we grant we don't like Luce. He was a tyrant and a news-slanter. ("They saw Ike, and they liked what they saw!!!!!") But he also founded a number of big magazines. You merely shuffle papers.

On the other hand, by dint of Your job You are a mogul. Despite Your essential impotence You wield more power than some heads of state. For a mogul to say He's reasonable is like Hef saying He's chaste. And any Guy who'd remake The Wizard of Oz word for word may not be making the right decisions.

Oh Jeff, given what Your Empire -- I mean, Your lemonade stand disgorges we wonder why You'd have any concerns for Your son. Or was a CONGRESSMAN in the audience?

(Via I Want Media)

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

GM's back in the bloom of health, though the doctors and nurses tending it nearly died.

Although judging from this the doctors are still fudging its vital signs.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

We've changed our mind: the sooner TINA!!!!! and The Former Jesus Christ shut down or obscure or obfuscate SIDSWEEK.com the better.

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

A conundrum: Televangelists are usually very "bottom-line oriented" when it comes to turning their flocks upside-down and shaking out their money; yet they're not so bottom-line-oriented when it comes to spending the money -- witness the Bakkers' extravagance or Rev. Schuller's need to build a huge cathedral and stock it all the time with entertainment. That they end up bankrupting themselves over a broke theology is somehow not unexpected.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Speaking of leeches, we can guess Deval's response to this GE BANCORP blackmail: "Oh please, pretty please Jeffrey, don't take our jobs away! We promise to do anything and everything for you! We'll give you all the money from our budget for the next ten years if it would help! Please, PRETTY please Jeff, DON'T TAKE OUR JOBS AWAY!!!!!"

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

We really had to GUESS this: A liberal think tank is courageously accusing the Cesspool on the Pacific of sucking up $1.5 billion in state tax subsidies to produce its junk. Needless to say the money benefits no one but the junk producers. Further needless to say the St. Jack of Valenti Memorial Society is showing that it, like other lobbying groups, reserves its right to be tone deaf. Can anyone doubt these subsidies are another taxpayer giveaway, another excuse to create more taxpayer teats for more pigs?

Posted 9:16 PM by Gene

Really?

Posted 8:57 PM by Gene

Dubya got one too!

Is somebody running for president?

P. S. We should know better than to trust Mort Zuck; the Daily Nooz corrected itself -- PAPA's getting the award. Well, somebody's not running for President. Given how kindly we treat PAPA has it ever gone to his head to run for another term?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

But Morrison's own attorney, Bob Josefsberg, said there was some very believeable testimony that the singer did expose himself.

"There were credible witnesses and an honorable jury," Josefsberg said. "This wasn't some kangaroo court that in the old South lynched someone without any evidence. This was a fair trial."

Hey Chuck, CHUCK -- you lost the election. There's no need to toady to news hacks anymore.

Some of those urging Crist not to grant the pardon pointed out that Morrison, had he been convicted today, would be put on a sex offenders list, especially since he exposed himself to minors.

"Do you consider a sexual predator designation so low on the ladder of crimes that he should receive a pardon?" Alyce Burke asked in an e-mail. "Quite a strong statement to be made by you while the state and the country battle with sexual predators."

Can't you go QUIETLY into lobbying, Chuck?

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Where's Ren and Stimpy to go along with it?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Sarah Palin Says She Could Beat Obama

TRANSLATION: SARAH!!!!! is to the Dems what BABS!!!!! is to the GOP.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Though operators blame the economy and high unemployment, Ian Olgeirson, senior analyst at SNL Kagan believes other factors are at play. "It is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the impact of over-the-top substitution on video subscriber performance, particularly after seeing declines during the period of the year that tends to produce the largest subscriber gains due to seasonal shifts back to television viewing and subscription packages," Olgeirson said.

The DO-NOT-CALL LAW did NOT work for newspapers, and it WON'T work for CABLE.

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Obama to honor Buffett with medal of freedom [SIC]

...for being a Democrat who made a lot of money by investing in 1965!

BRKA and BRKB DOWN today! PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

Bill Gates Wants to Build a Nuclear Reactor

NO COMMENT!!!!!

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

ANOTHER reality-show campaign?

CNBC happens to be airing a Donald Trump special tonight, so of course this is a nice bit of pre-show hype.

Of course!

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Just what we need, self-adoring loudmouths -- a reality show about campaigning for the White House. That's what it will amount to.

We're guessing the two bozos are looking for a producer. How about this guy?

(Via NEWSER!!!!!)

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

DC COMICS PICTURES is doing THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. -- and "A LIVE-ACTION REMAKE" (SIC!) OF THE WIZARD OF OZ!!!!!



WHEN DOES PEPE LÉ PEW COME OUT, STINKER?

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Woebegone cities like Detroit might start to come back if -- if -- government realizes jobs must come from business, not from government. And only business could reclaim all the newly freed-up land otherwise doomed to urban "farming" and wilderness for people who preen. But most cities will remain quarantines for poor people, with all the ills and unions and pressure groups attendant thereto; and even the most resourceful and insightful businesses may not get up the strength and mass needed to overcome that. Regardless as FDR said, "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." Never was this truer than with the cities.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Black Friday is a sweepstakes, and most shoppers lose.

Posted 11:43 AM by Gene

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! Recently we mentioned BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZ' attempt to immortalize himself with The Great Gatsby, and now the casting's public: AUDREY HEPBURN II is playing Daisy. NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! It's far worse than Mia Farrow, who at least was cute once. Where do these hacks get the unbudgeable idea she's attractive? For Daisy to sweep James Gatz off his feet she must be ultraspectacular. That she's something of an airhead does not at all detract from that. Would he even notice Audrey at one of his wild parties? She'd be the wallflower. And Leonardo's playing James. NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! The only person who could ever have played him was the young Bing Crosby. Think I'm wrong? In his early years he was agreeably flippant and lighter than air, a go-getting optimist with a ready smile, and enigmatic too, just like Gatz. (Being every man's pal and every woman's lover would not hurt.) Leonardo merely looks effete. He also looks dull, and Gatz was not dull. SPIDER-MAN's playing Nick, which means no matter how good he is he's still SPIDER-MAN. No mention of who's playing Daisy's husband Tom, which suggests BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZ is ready to screw up big time -- to the sound of ooohs and aaahs from the Gang of 27, and the usual rave reviews.

Which raises another thing: Gatsby's famous for its elusive, sideways understatement. Is this quite the right property for the creator of MOULIN ROUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

P. S. For what it's worth, Warner Baxter, who played the title role in the lost 1926 silent version, doesn't look like him either. Neither did Alan Ladd. Robert Redford was closer but I think he's missing a certain spunk, although he might have worked quite well as the sardonic Nick.

Come to think of it, the young Fred Astaire could have played Jay Gatsby too -- with the advantage of dancing feet.

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

Youths lost to violence often in city's supervision

We may wonder, with even the best run and most well-meaning of governments, whether there can be anything like supervision.

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

While China manufactures everything, we make Zyngas.

And how did SharesPost, Inc. become the Mother Goose of finance?

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Yes, we noticed that last night an ex-con rather brutally beat an over-the-hill jock vastly remunerated by an idiot owner solely for his reputation, but we're nonetheless sure the ex-con will not be fully rehabilitated until he garnishes endorsements, and the FLASHER OF THE NFL has made that prospect even less likely.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

And in another exercise in nostalgia, we see newsmen are once again blaming the continuing and exceptionally justified decline of the news biz on everything but themselves. Ad revenues down, check; newsprint up, check; too much debt, check -- the only thing missing is the DO-NOT-CALL LAW. Of course it has nothing to do with the PRODUCT, an increasingly hard-to-take concoction whose smell emanates even through the Web sites (which are also holding things down); it clearly has nothing to do with, say, devoting twenty-seven typists to show-biz and five to the Congress. No, so long as the hacks are in denial we too should be in denial -- of our money, for their product.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

For now, at least, we can forget the many years people have made increasing fun of British royalty, and think once again, however briefly, that they somehow are better than we mere mortals.

P. S. at 11:05 p. m. Although we suspect after BIGMEDIA are through with their hundred million hours of coverage this may well be an argument against marriage.

Posted 7:01 PM by Gene

We really must do to Playbill.com what we do to ARCHDaily! Today it ran a revolting plug for this new Branson East theme park How to Succeed in Hogwarts Without Really Trying, and of course the first thing that must come to the mind of anyone who isn't a giddy teen or the expense-account jerks or blue-rinsers who attend the parks is, CAN HE SING? We can guess the answer because its producers (who include Two Left Feet Productions [!!!!!]) have signed a new ORCHESTRATOR and ARRANGER, and we know what that means -- in this case, taking the wrecking ball to this most brilliant and brilliantly scored of scores. With luck it will come down like that smokestack in Ohio.

P. S. Once again, the wonders of the Web:

Q. Can Daniel Radcliffe sing or play any instrument?

A. Daniel Radcliffe is a fan of punk and indie rock. He plays the bass guitar. ChaCha!

With two left feet!

P. P. S.

ChaCha (http://www.chacha.com) answers who, what, when, where and why, and has emerged as the # 1 way for advertisers and marketers to engage with their audience of choice. Through its unique "ask-a-smart-friend" platform, ChaCha has answered nearly one billion questions since launch from more than 21 million unique users per month via SMS text (242-242™), online (http://www.chacha.com), Twitter (@chacha), Facebook app, iPhone app, Android app, and voice (1-800-2-ChaCha™). Working with major brands such as Paramount, AT&T, Palm, Johnson & Johnson, P&G, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Sonic, and presidential political campaigns, ChaCha.com is one of the fastest growing mobile and online publishers, according to Nielsen and Quantcast.

ChaCha was co-founded by proven innovator and entrepreneur Scott Jones and is funded by VantagePoint Venture Partners; Rho Ventures; Bezos Expeditions; Morton Meyerson, former President and Vice Chairman of EDS as well as Chairman and CEO of Perot Systems; Rod Canion, founding CEO of Compaq Computer; the Simon family; and Jack Gill, Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

Which would be more appropriate: this or this?

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



No matter how you slice it and dice, it, it's still a parking garage in disguise.



Cleveland, not content to put a mausoleum on the lake, now must put a black box in its downtown.

Are those folks still mourning their deposed king?

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

The Crainiacs deposited something in my in-box:

The ME* Conference - GE, Kraft, ESPN, Time Inc, McCann Worldgroup and More

Yes, who better to hold a ME conference than those first four and an ad agency?

AND it's sponsored in part by SUMNER and The Econowiz! Perfect!

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

One must ask: What if the public hadn't temporarily lost its senses in 2008 and, unlikely and unpleasant though it would have been, elected a Republican Congress?

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

When it comes to SARAH!!!!!, even con-SER-va-tives must concede defeat:

To my mind, the comparison with Ronald Reagan's acting career doesn't really hold up. Reagan was an actor who left Hollywood and went into politics. For the analogy to work, Reagan would have had to have resigned the California governorship, then appeared in Bedtime for Bonzo, and then run for president.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

The soap opera called CHOLLY can be defined in two words:

1. Hubris.

2. GUILTY.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

Staggering news at the Cesspool of the Pacific:

Only 3 Animated Movies to Get Oscar Nominations

Posted 3:20 PM by Gene

I have too often said USAOKAY!!!!! spends disproportionate resources "covering" show biz -- and this ROMY link proves it.

Twenty-seven show-biz publicists versus FIVE covering Congress and FIVE covering the economy. IDIOTS!



A NEUHARTHISM FOR ALL TIME AWARD TO USAOKAY!!!!!

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

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

1. Here is a mystery: Why would BUD charge more to BUD? And why wouldn't INBEV-Anheuser-Busch pay whatever it can to get its executives in the luxury boxes and especially so they could boast to the clerks for three months that I WAS AT THE WORLD SERIES AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!?

Or maybe even INBEV-Anheuser-Busch can realize that SELIGISM doesn't pull quite the ratings it used to? Yes, is -- a puzzlement.

2. SLIME wants to compete with the KAPLAN, INC. division of KAPLAN, INC.?!? Didn't He already burn money on the new big thing called MySpace?

3. "More than ever, we're focusing on contemporizing and making our iconic brands more relevant to today's consumers," said Dana Anderson, senior VP-marketing strategy and communications.

TRANSLATION: More than ever, Kraft Foods wants to waste Its turnips' wages on JUNK TELEVISION.

4. The bad news: The Republicans will try to underfund the FDA.

The good news: Between that and the GOP's caveat-emptorism it's time for Big Pharma to par-TYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

It's official: God wants His throne for at least four more years.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



A NEAR TRAGEDY IN LOUISVILLE: A team of STARCHITECTS was all ready to put up this masterpiece of toy blocks on the city's waterfront -- but then just as with THE DRILL BIT ON THE LAKE, the Babbitts financing it ran out of money, and the citizens of that burg could only dream of the great and noble edifice lost forever, except to the denizens of sites like ARCHDaily! Thankfully the local EDDIE!!!!!s, sensing the need to boost CIVIC PRIDE, applied for STIMULUS MONEY, and with luck in another ten years the locals will be demanding this nationally acclaimed eyesore be torn down, perhaps requiring more tax money.

Posted 10:36 AM by Gene

PATRIOTIC GORE, seething with undisguised envy at how LIAR LIAR BROCK spent tens of thousands of his Boss's GEORGE!!!!!'s money on a meeting with SLIME, evens the score by alleging NINE-TENTHS OF CNN'S GUESTS ARE LIBERAL!!!!!!!!!!, or whatever number he needs to excite PILLHEAD!!!!! with. The problem is, PAT (pronounced PATE, as in empty), every time YOU open your mouth, and any time LIAR opens his, you make us wish an angry mob could grab BOTH of you by the scruffs of your chicken necks and permanently SUTURE them.

A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

LIGHTS! CAMERA!! RENDELLISM!!!!! Lately, if you've skimmed The Wrap.com's weekend box-office stories, you may have noticed a curious phrase: "after tax credits". This means, in one form or another, we the taxpayers are helping to finance rotten movees. A core tenet of RENDELLISM is that civic pride is a good, and that one way of boosting it is throwing tax dollars at location movee shoots and hoping some spare nickels and dimes roll back to us. EDDIE!!!!!, who can never get enough face time in the mirror and is about to enter a long and loud career in show-biz, is, needless to say, giddy about the prospects of burning money on masterworks like The Last Airbender, and creating thousands more high-paying jobs in foodservice -- or as this comment notes regarding a new Burbank on our suburban fringe, "I keep hearing about all these jobs the studio is creating but can't find word one about them (save Aramark jobs) on the web and NO response from Sun Center Studios....anyone else have better luck?" (Link added.) Well all we can say is keep trying, and if you can't get that richly remunerative job as an extra on a commercial someday Sun Center WILL shine on you -- for catering help!

Unfortunately the Commonwealth's new governor has taken lessons from Chris, which means with luck he'll slash and burn this tax giveaway.



And for her breathless hyperbole following a long and distinguished career of never finding a movee she didn't like, A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO CARRIE!