Posted 8:47 PM by Gene

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

Chile was ready for quake, Haiti wasn't

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

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

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

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

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

Posted 7:34 PM by Gene

After a long pause -- ARCHDaily!



TimmmmmmmmmmmmmmBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Posted 3:40 PM by Gene

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

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

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

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

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

OooooOOOOOoooooh:

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

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

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

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

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

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

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

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

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Lost lines from Of Thee I Sing:

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

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

THROTTLEBOTTOM: Yeah, that's it!

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

(Via WeeklyStandard.com)

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

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

Meaning of course nothing will happen.

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

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

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

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

Music biz back to playing the blues

I'm ready to jitterbug!

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

Unfortunately that may require unearthing some musicians from the dead.

Posted 8:21 PM by Gene

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

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

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

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

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

A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

Shark-filled aquarium in Dubai mall springs leak

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

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

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

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

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

Am I surprised!

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

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

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

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

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

The Summit [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

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

I'm @kathrynlopez.

And do follow @NRO.

02/25 10:30 AMShare

Re: The Summit [Rich Lowry]

Besides all that tweeting, you can comment here.

UPDATE:

I agree with Joe46and2 entirely:

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

02/25 10:48 AMShare

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

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

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

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

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

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

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

TRANSLATION: THE OSAMAMOBILE IS CONSERVATIVE PC.

Some people type too much!

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

And stupid-listicle maker.

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

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

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

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

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

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

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

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

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

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

From EM's home page:



Yes, you might!

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

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

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

DOW 100,000!!!!!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

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

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it ends with this:

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

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

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

Posted 11:22 PM by Gene

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

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

Posted 10:18 PM by Gene

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

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Good dog!

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

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

Good riddance to gas-guzzling rubbish.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

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

Is there really an outsider in big business?

And especially in a religious cult?

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

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

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

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

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

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

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

I think he'll GET one!



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

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

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

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

The Wizards of Mountain View just chopped my broccoli!

They also delivered this touching gift for my last post:



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

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

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

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

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

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

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

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

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

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

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

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

Including this blog!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

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

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

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

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

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

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

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

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

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

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

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

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

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

Posted 5:54 PM by Gene

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

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

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

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

Posted 3:49 PM by Gene

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

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

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

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

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

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

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

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

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

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

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Speaking of Toyota:

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

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

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

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

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

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

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

Michael! Run for Congress! They need you!

Posted 7:48 PM by Gene

Chest pains send ex-VP Cheney to hospital

Do I hear the left laughing?

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

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

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

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

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

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

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

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

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

Posted 12:45 PM by Gene

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

YOU HAD IT.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

What’s the Problem With Defending the Stimulus?

A bad sales job and a big deficit

Yes, it would seem that way.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

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

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

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

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

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

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

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

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

Posted 10:34 AM by Gene

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

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

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

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

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

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

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

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

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

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

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

Posted 7:08 PM by Gene

Toyota boasted saving $100M on recall, documents say

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

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

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

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

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

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

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

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

3. We may further wonder:

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

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

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

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

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

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

GEe, THANKS, Very Littler Jeffy! [SIC]

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

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

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


(Via Bloomberg)

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Dalai Lama launches L.A. visit

He could always set up a new country there!

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

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