Posted 8:26 PM by Gene

An exodus of discouraged workers from the job market kept the U.S. unemployment rate from climbing above 10 percent in December, economists said.

Economists would say that.

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



"Upside-Down House"? Come on starchitects! Next time -- BUILD IT upside-down!



Tower to flight 4386! God coming in for a landing on runway 3 -- over!



It took architects to design this?

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

It sounds far-fetched but what are the chances of Iran becoming the Mid-East's China -- with the Republican Guard running the show?

I'd say better each time the WORRRRRRRRULD COMMUNITY tosses it a bowl of wet noodles.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

If the BLITHERING IDIOT WHINY REID were a REPUBLICAN he'd have RESIGNED YESTERDAY. Thankfully he's a Democrat and has at least twenty more chances to "apologize". He'll need them.

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

We are sorry to hear Art Clokey, Gumby's father, has died. Gumby's one of those things I never paid much mind to in my youth, or if I did was it in derision -- look at the silly stop animation! and those silly looking toy fire engines! Hear that silly stock music! -- but somehow the BOOMERS did to this what they did to STAR TREK and JEOPARDY!!!!! and made it an ICON!!!!! (favorite news-hack word for when he's not thinking). That fact alone means we can't go back to the simple virtue that made Gumby just time-wasting filler for the afternoon kiddie-show hosts. Thomas Wolfe was right.

(Via another WOLFE WOLFF with no literary talent except for toadying) (Corrected 1/19/2010)

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: A witty crank is still a crank, and Gore Vidal doesn't have the wit anymore.

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

When people like SUPERNIKKI!!!!! say things we try not to pay attention as they base their careers out of being wrong loudly, so when CONCAST NETWORK says it's sticking with Jut-Jaw we believe it. Why should it pull a sudden plug on a "failure"? And there is no real evidence that it has been a failure, save for Nielsen numbers and the 'dos at 11 screaming; we suspect it's making money, which CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED PROPERTIES may not. In a way it's hard to believe C-NET won't someday come to Its senses, but the teevee biz has no senses to come to, and if Jut-Jaw's making money It doesn't have to.

P. S.

Leno's show isn't making money for NBC when the financial impact of the lower ratings at 10 p.m. at the network's owned and operated stations is factored in, FTVLive.com reported.

TRANSLATION: It's a wash. CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED GENIUS would lose the money the stations would make with higher ratings. And we still suspect the Jaw makes money.

And no thanks FTVLive (we thought we'd never heard of it before), we're NOT paying $50 a year for speculation. We get that for free from SUPERNIKKI!!!!!

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!! must be starting with its infernal AD BOWL shtick early; today it boasts the Chinese ran an ad campaign to paper over its defective products. USAOKAY!!!!! would be impressed. (Although we're more impressed with USAOKAY!!!!! holding off on the news until now, the better to run the AD BOWL.)

"In five to 10 years, everyone will have a Chinese TV or washing machine, and you won't think twice about it," he says.

We might when we see the Chinese flag flying overhead -- and we still can't get the things to work.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

The Pointy-Haired Boss at work:

After making deep staff cuts following the subprime implosion, UBS, Credit Suisse, and American Express hired Harvard psychology lecturer Shawn Achor to train their remaining employees in positive thinking. Says Achor: "All the employees had just stopped working."

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

"i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE..lmao media is too funny," Arenas tweeted Jan. 1 after the story broke.

It's official: The NBA has its own version of Plex -- PLAXICO.

According to two first-hand accounts of the confrontation, Crittenton responded to Arenas's action -- which included laying the four unloaded weapons in Crittenton's cubicle with a note that read, "Pick One" -- by brandishing his own firearm, loading the gun and chambering a round.

Definitely.

The Lords of AAAAATTITUUUUUDE should count themselves lucky they didn't have a DUEL in the LOCKER ROOM.

P. S. Actually, a second Plex -- PLAXICO. Even the NFL can't boast of that.

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

And it is not enough for the hacks to lie -- they can't even get their facts straight -- starting on the home page:


And then:





Meantime SLIME's hacks report the number is $950,000, which appears to be correct.



A DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO MORT ZUCK AND DA NOOZ!

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Brother, can you spare $8 billion?

Remember when con-SER-va-tives said Ah-NULT would be a hurricane of fresh air that would sweep every last cobweb of the tired old past away? We do.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Today's one of those days when we believe the news biz would be better off firing all its scribblers and simply selling the space, with PR types doing the "reporting". There would be no practical difference in the quality. Of the three stories we've posted on all relied on some sort of PR campaign. Now comes another: the burnt-out hulk of a company called Polaroid has convinced publicists everywhere to run a press release for it. From this day forward we can confidently say anyone who bleats that the news biz has a higher calling is lying -- and since the principal business of the news biz is to lie, it would more honestly do so under the rubric of total PR.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

LORD KOPPEL may return to ESPNCORP, to tell the world the TRUTH, meaning every day since he "retired" he's kicked himself in the behind for doing it.

Well at least he won't have to worry about LETTERMAN. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Friends say Koppel would most like to be secretary of state....

Which would make people look upon Hillary's service with nostalgia.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

Some IDIOT (we suspect the idiot being His Incom -- Omnipotence, he not being an idiot) has suggested Sandy "Mozilo" Dodd for Treasury secretary (the story is from Roll Call, which is better than we mere surfing peons), and people on BOTH SIDES hate it, which means His Incom -- Omnipotence will think it even a better idea.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

We don't know what LALA gains from spinning show-biz news. It's not as if movee excreters are advertising more in newspapers. And when last did a record company buy any LALA space? No, despite that ALL-TIME HIGH!!!!! routine designed to assure the moguls yes, LALA's on THEIR side (which means not being on OUR side -- but when was a newspaper ever on OUR side?), the best that can be said is the growth rate of recorded...SOUND purchases is slowing -- and more people are buying singles, NOT albums, and even our reluctant typist must admit to that. And PVT. ZELL's legions can spin it until the head of every last LALA hack spins off like a dreidel, but people are buying less recorded...SOUND than they used to, and there's a reason for that, a reason that will NEVER appear in LALA.

And of course to say ALL-TIME HIGH!!!!! LALA, like the good sycophant it is, counted singles as UNITS, just like albums. Some hacks just don't want us to trust them.

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

Someone named DOUG aspires to add a little HENNY YOUNGMAN to his job:

Police in a small Ohio town are looking for two young girls -- believed to be 12 and 14 years old -- who robbed the 1st National Bank and eluded a police helicopter and dogs, The Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Police say the pair entered the bank in Symmes Township around 3:20 p.m. on Tuesday and handed the teller a note demanding money. The girls implied they would harm bank employees, but did not appear to have weapons, they say.

One is described as heavyset, around 5 feet 4 inches, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans. The second is thin, around 5 feet tall and wearing a baseball cap.

It was not known whether either was wearing braces.

If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times -- news hacks should NEVER attempt humor, except the unintentional kind.

Posted 11:03 AM by Gene

I don't care what HENRY HONEST's latest doodad says, I'd rather sell my book with an imprimatur. Self-peddled E-books may be sexy; they're also glorified vanity publishing.

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the Monitor, we learn Iran is bracing for oil sanctions. The country's lived for decades with a broken economy. So has Cuba. So has North Korea. It hasn't stopped their respective tyrants from admiring the sounds of their voices.

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

Well this makes sense: War alone won't solve the problem of terrorism. By neither will MIRANDA. It's sound to give money to nations to fight terrorism, but we should always remember foreign aid's drawbacks -- and not keep our guns permanently holstered.

The rest of the news biz is dumbing down. The Monitor seems to be smartening up.

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: PEOPLE WARNER's getting into 3-D TV, and it wants to be prepared through proactive puffery.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO SEAN!

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

There's just one problem with RAHM as mayor: The Cryonic Hizzoner has already decided he's serving until his death -- which is NOT going to happen.

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

I don't care how clever ESPNCORP and KIM!!!!!'s handlers think they are, at some point people realize they're being had -- and that point comes faster these days with the Web.

And yes I saw several of those videos, and I wasn't impressed. There's something missing without Jim Henson.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

A succession of writers has tried to marry the two parties' differing visions to no effect.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire ("Rabbit Hole") was hired in October 2008 to pen a key version of the screenplay, on top of the earlier version penned by James Vanderbilt ("Zodiac"). Last year, Sony brought in Gary Ross -- Oscar-nominated for his adapted script on 2003's "Seabiscuit" -- which he also helmed.

Alvin Sargent is penning the latest iteration.

For a VIDEO GAME?

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

The Principles of Marketing Can Be Summarized in One Word

Wash your mouth out with DOVE!

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

The honest thing for the WORRRRRRRRRRRRRULD COMMUNITY to do is to concede Nukeman can build His weapons any old way He chooses, and stop the blatherskite about sanctions; and further concede if He wants to nuke Israel, well, he has His sovereign right.

Thanks for years of appeasement!

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

PREDICTION: CONCAST NETWORK will do no better with standard fare than it's doing now with Jut-Jaw -- because it's taught millions they can do without television after 10 p. m.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

Hmmm, you don't suppose the Democrats know something we mere mortals don't?

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

(Via ESPNCORP Network News)

Posted 8:23 PM by Gene

Byron Dorgan sees the handwriting on the wall -- or maybe there's so much handwriting on the wall he could see it anyway. I rather liked the guy -- he could be a populist in a good sense. But he could also be a Democrat in a bad sense.

Posted 3:39 PM by Gene

Our definition of a food fight -- Jo-NAH vs. The Mogul's Friend.

Talk about GROSS.

Posted 3:37 PM by Gene

We just learned: the author of that -- book is MR. MOVIES WERE BETTER THAN EVER IN THE SEVENTIES AND THEN THE BEAN COUNTERS DESTROYED THEM!!!!!, so we know he's -- right.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

What will this year be like in the auto business? The consensus is it will be better because it couldn't get worse. That's not true; it could get worse. Still, it's reasonable to hope that sales will improve.

How much better? Forget pent-up demand. The consensus is about 1 million more sales above the 10.2 million in 2009. But it's just guesswork.

Is 1 million a good gain? No, it means sales are still terribly depressed. Just pray that the speculators don't push gasoline prices to $4 a gallon again, because that might crush any recovery hope.

Hey GOD'S SERVANTS, he's talking to you! Can you do your part?

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

First the first time we can recall St. Warren has performed a true public service by complaining about the management in part of His Empire, rather than merely spending billions and sitting on it.

(Via WSJ.com; also see here)

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

"Make no mistake about it, we are playing to win," said Ken Spain, NRCC Communications Director.

So why does a loser run the party?

Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

I hate Kurt Andersen-ing. That's a behavior ambitious interns engage in when they take a totally insignificant news story and bleat of its epochal importance with enough empty words to underline their inner Machiavelli. But some news stories can't be horsehockeyed into significance. That an airess -- pardon, heiress has died has no significance. At least Anna Nicole had fake boobs. But when enough MICHAELS and TINAS and others who pretentiously complain of the DUMBING-DOWN OF NEWS get through with it the public will have to engage in a collective banshee scream for a week to obliterate the memory.

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

Obama's can't-do style

When news hacks appointed His Omnipotence they had a strong hunch what they'd bequeath us: a weak president whom they could mold in line with their own prejudices, someone who would parrot every last bromide and prejudice from their own playbook. Judging from His first year they should be exquisitely pleased.

(Via WeeklyStandard.com)

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The right hand still doesn't know what the left hand is doing, but now right hand and left hand can be busier about it.

Posted 8:07 PM by Gene

Hollywood can't live on a ginormous hit once a decade. And if the studios chase the success of Avatar, they're libel to throw a lot of bad money after good. [SIC!!!!!]

And this is why we should throw most show-biz writers or just plain biz writers after the bad money.

(Via AHTSJournal, which was clearly...impressed)

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

Dubai names tallest building after bailout patron

How apt: a virtually empty building named for a sugar daddy of fool investors.

Posted 7:03 PM by Gene

HENRY HONEST had to run a listicle of 30 Alleged Best Blogs, and when I saw the top two were cute enough to be unreadable (number three is a book deal in the making) I figured here's another typist who doesn't know his fat fanny from a hole in the ground -- but HENRY thinks that by obsessively running listicles (and cribbing from other Web sites) he can beat FORBESLIST at its own game. Hasn't that outfit had trouble selling its HQ?

Posted 6:57 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Supermanning of America has turned cheerleading into an accident waiting to happen -- and its mavens won't do a thing about it because they're so damned proud of themselves, and they all have smiley-faces for a middle name.

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

Caution! The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files. The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of “24” in 24 seconds. Many will expect to get it free.

A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

We’re the post office, they tell us; who knows what’s in the brown-paper packages? But we know from America’s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content. Perhaps movie moguls will succeed where musicians and their moguls have failed so far, and rally America to defend the most creative economy in the world, where music, film, TV and video games help to account for nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product. Note to self: Don’t get over-rewarded rock stars on this bully pulpit, or famous actors; find the next Cole Porter, if he/she hasn’t already left to write jingles.

TRANSLATION: Bono's sore he put his money in FORBESLIST.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Somehow I am not stunned that the state of Ben and Jerry leans a bit too heavily on migrants.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

Time Warner Cable asserts that the power ultimately rests with the consumer. “They’re the ones who are going to resist these price increases that the programmers are trying to push,” said Alex Dudley, a spokesman for the company. “One need look no further than the music industry for an example of what happens when consumers feel taken advantage of by an entire industry.”

But the cable business can't go that way, can it?

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Posted 7:58 PM by Gene

Perhaps the author of this -- book should join those "profs" at U-C!!!!! (clap clap) Da-VIS!!!!! (clap clap) in a consulting firm.

We'll be naming more partners as time goes on.

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

Bernanke: Interest Rates Must Rise

Is this -- the beginning of the ENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND?

Or did the Wall Street Casino will it by making stocks go up 5,000 percent?

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Finally, if only for a moment, the big-name CEOs realize the Super Bowl isn't worth the cost even for the luxury suite, so now some fools lower down the marketing food chain will get to know the thrill of telling off their subordinates for months while looking desperately for numbers to justify the ego boost.

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

And in the Land of Fool-Me-Once, Branson East's denizens are MAD. This mass tantrum strikes us as especially exasperating because the WHINER BROTHERS merely repeated a trick of seven years ago, transmuting a mediocre cult musical into an Os-CAR®. What especially grates is that just by repeating the trick they pretty well demonstrate that the first iteration stank too, but some people must live with their beautiful delusions.

Or to put it another way, this is precisely the kind of flop these fans deserve, one we wish could be visited on the dumb blind teens and the naive parents who use the popcorn restaurants for babysitting.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

AHTSJournal would find this blather from GRANOLA profound, and I didn't bother reading it because from the summary I knew what she'd say. We're supposed to be upset that the movies are TV? When did the first TV camera makes its way into a movie shoot? It is fitting that movies have become TV literally, because they became TV figuratively years ago. And no hacks, please do not flatter yourselves telling us that TV delivered to the home is now better than the movies, for it's YOUR KIND OF TV.

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

As always, the public has more sense than its superiors:

[W]hether the masses are ready to embrace 3-D -- and the glasses required to view the format -- remains to be seen. Football fans attending last month's game between the Dallas Cowboys and San Diego Chargers gave the technology a smackdown.

Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, boasts a gigantic high-definition video screen hovering over the field. The plan was to allow ticket holders to watch close-ups and replays in 3-D during the second half with the help of special specs distributed to the crowd of about 80,000.

Except that they hated it. The experiment lasted less than seven minutes after the stadium erupted in boos.

"Not everyone wanted to wear the glasses," said analyst Paul Gagnon of market researcher DisplaySearch. "And if you didn't, the screen was all blurry. It looked terrible."

The Cowboys Stadium debacle showed the challenges facing manufacturers to make the 3-D experience work outside insulated, controlled conditions, like those in a movie theater.

That's okay, our superiors will figure out a way -- just as they figured out a way to dominate the Internet.

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

She may not care for human rights, but Hillary cares enough to raise oodles of money to build an exhibit at that world's fair in Shanghai. You never know when your friends may come in handy.

With friends like...oh, never mind.

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

For this press release on recorded...SOUND acts SLIME's operative asked his friends in the record biz for help, and they most happily obliged; at least six of these founts of GENIUS are released through big labels (as SLIME's boys very carefully note), meaning the recorded...SOUND trade is alas not dead yet -- or maybe SLIME's trying to justify His investment in MySpace.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO DAIN!