THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
Blogroll Me!
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
Monday, June 07, 2010
The sad end of Helen Thomas's career happened because news organizations hold on to their "star" talent well after it's burnt out. Who doesn't make fun of Andy Rooney? How long must SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX establish his CW bonafides? How many name columnists have written for longer than most of their audiences have lived? Such are the power and perks of their jobs that they must hold on to them for dear life until there's nothing left to hold on to. The end result, to paraphrase an H. G. Wells title, is minds at the ends of their tethers.
It's Raining F-Bombs At MTV Movie Awards
Brought to you by "Coca-Cola®, Kia Motors, Nikon Corporation, Orbit® gum, Starbucks Coffee Company, Taco Bell® and T-Mobile USA"!!!!!
Brought to you by "Coca-Cola®, Kia Motors, Nikon Corporation, Orbit® gum, Starbucks Coffee Company, Taco Bell® and T-Mobile USA"!!!!!
Speaking of BP:
Gulf spill costs reach $1.25 billion, BP says
BP's annual revenues in 2009: $239.2 BILLION. Its total net income: $16.6 BILLION.
Gulf spill costs reach $1.25 billion, BP says
BP's annual revenues in 2009: $239.2 BILLION. Its total net income: $16.6 BILLION.
Does The World's Largest Overpriced-Printing-Ink Company really think it can keep gouging the simps with kiosks and Dr. Seuss?
HP is as overdue for comeuppance as BP.
(Via SeekingAlpha)
HP is as overdue for comeuppance as BP.
(Via SeekingAlpha)
Speaking of vacations, as a public worker I profess to be slightly worried over the alleged building backlash to our type, but the unions have largely themselves to blame, not merely for their profligacy and their stubbornness and their ham-handed my-way-or-the-highway politics, but through their vitriol for reinforcing the notion most public workers are incompetents. New York City's rubber rooms and policemen retiring at 48 on $200,000 pensions are inexcusable; so are Masters of the Universe making zillions. There's enough greed to go around these days.
But let's face it; more than a few public workers are incompetents; and they
benefit the most from civil-service protections.
But let's face it; more than a few public workers are incompetents; and they
benefit the most from civil-service protections.
Celebrations like this and stories like this underline a huge disconnect. BP's phony apology digs the company's hole deeper, and yet some of Tony's friends in the expensive restaurants keep pouring more money into junk television, thoroughly oblivious to it. We believe more strongly than ever the only purpose of advertising is to finance fiefdoms and lengthy CEO vacations, and to make us pay for them.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Yes, John Wooden was the Knute Rockne of basketball. We can be sure in this age of criminal coaches a man who won championships with such self-effacement and common sense will never grace the game again.
Friday, June 04, 2010
On Thursday, the National Association of Scholars -- a group that advocates for a more rigorous and traditional college curriculum -- released what it says is the most comprehensive analysis of what freshmen are being asked to read. The findings suggest that certain kinds of books -- on multiculturalism and the environment -- dominate these reading selections. And the study, called "Beach Books," questions whether the choices of colleges are too similar, too left-leaning and not sufficiently challenging....
What are the freshmen reading? Based on the report's analysis of 290 programs (excluding books that are required parts of courses), the top books this year are This I Believe (an essay collection assigned at 11 colleges), followed by Enrique's Journey (the story of a Honduran boy's struggle to reach his mother in the United States, assigned at 10 colleges) and two books assigned at 9 colleges each, Three Cups of Tea (about building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan) and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (about a poor woman who worked on a tobacco farm whose cells were used, without her knowledge, for research).
These books reflect some of the trends found in "Beach Books" about the genres of choice. Books about multiculturalism, immigration or racism were the most prevalent (60 colleges), followed by environmental issues (36 colleges), the Islamic world (27 colleges), New Age or spiritual books (25 colleges), and issues related to the Holocaust or genocide (25 colleges). Only 6 colleges assigned classics. The study also looked for other patterns in the selections, and reported that 46 of the choices have a film version, 29 are about Africa, 9 are related to Hurricane Katrina and 5 are about dysfunctional families....
Though anti-alcohol initiatives generally target college students, underage drinking, binge drinking, raucous behavior and negative consequences, Americans often think of only the last as a bad thing. “There’s no consensus that alcohol use by college students is a big problem,” Ehlinger said. Though there is agreement about preventing deaths, injuries and crimes, alumni and administrators often “hearken back to being drunk in college” and don’t see binge drinking as a problem.
And yet, underage and college drinking are where efforts to curb alcohol abuse are focused. “Folks, by focusing on underage and college students, we’re missing the boat,” he said. “I think we are being stooges for the alcohol industry. They know what we do [on these issues] is not going to impact sales; they’re fine with us doing that.”
It’s why, he said, Anheuser-Busch happily donates to projects like the National Social Norms Institute, whose executive director is James C. Turner, the current president of the ACHA and executive director of the University of Virginia’s department of student health.
(Turner later defended himself, telling the crowd assembled to hear Ehlinger that the Anheuser-Busch funding “was a gift, they said 'do what you need to do,' ” and came only after the project failed to get funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He left the room a few minutes later to prepare for a lecture on the norms program, which had a far smaller audience than Ehlinger's talk, despite being in a larger room.)
One and the same.
What are the freshmen reading? Based on the report's analysis of 290 programs (excluding books that are required parts of courses), the top books this year are This I Believe (an essay collection assigned at 11 colleges), followed by Enrique's Journey (the story of a Honduran boy's struggle to reach his mother in the United States, assigned at 10 colleges) and two books assigned at 9 colleges each, Three Cups of Tea (about building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan) and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (about a poor woman who worked on a tobacco farm whose cells were used, without her knowledge, for research).
These books reflect some of the trends found in "Beach Books" about the genres of choice. Books about multiculturalism, immigration or racism were the most prevalent (60 colleges), followed by environmental issues (36 colleges), the Islamic world (27 colleges), New Age or spiritual books (25 colleges), and issues related to the Holocaust or genocide (25 colleges). Only 6 colleges assigned classics. The study also looked for other patterns in the selections, and reported that 46 of the choices have a film version, 29 are about Africa, 9 are related to Hurricane Katrina and 5 are about dysfunctional families....
Though anti-alcohol initiatives generally target college students, underage drinking, binge drinking, raucous behavior and negative consequences, Americans often think of only the last as a bad thing. “There’s no consensus that alcohol use by college students is a big problem,” Ehlinger said. Though there is agreement about preventing deaths, injuries and crimes, alumni and administrators often “hearken back to being drunk in college” and don’t see binge drinking as a problem.
And yet, underage and college drinking are where efforts to curb alcohol abuse are focused. “Folks, by focusing on underage and college students, we’re missing the boat,” he said. “I think we are being stooges for the alcohol industry. They know what we do [on these issues] is not going to impact sales; they’re fine with us doing that.”
It’s why, he said, Anheuser-Busch happily donates to projects like the National Social Norms Institute, whose executive director is James C. Turner, the current president of the ACHA and executive director of the University of Virginia’s department of student health.
(Turner later defended himself, telling the crowd assembled to hear Ehlinger that the Anheuser-Busch funding “was a gift, they said 'do what you need to do,' ” and came only after the project failed to get funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He left the room a few minutes later to prepare for a lecture on the norms program, which had a far smaller audience than Ehlinger's talk, despite being in a larger room.)
One and the same.
How do we know the MadAve idiots and their enablers are back to burning OUR money? WELL, NASCAR's attendance has been running on fumes -- but wouldn't you know those CEOs WANT THEIR LUXURY BOXES.
McDonald's to recall 12 million 'Shrek' glasses, citing cadmium health risks
It was not immediately known where the glasses were produced or how the paint used in the "Shrek" characters came to contain cadmium.
I have an idea!
(Via TINA!!!!!)
It was not immediately known where the glasses were produced or how the paint used in the "Shrek" characters came to contain cadmium.
I have an idea!
(Via TINA!!!!!)
Gaza's Diplomatic Fallout Less Damaging Than Feared
I guess people realized it was a difference between lots of meaningless talking and lots and lots of meaningless talking.
I guess people realized it was a difference between lots of meaningless talking and lots and lots of meaningless talking.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Is the Gulf disaster threatening to become His Omnipotence's version of the Iran hostage crisis?
(Via the Bloomy)
(Via the Bloomy)
Mercury has become such a marginal presence in America's showrooms we are almost not sorry to see it go; but despite so few domestic marques remaining can we be sure our decimated automakers have stopped eliminating them?
We hate giving publicity to cheap publicity stunts for if anyone knows the value of breaking wind in public loudly it's SUMNER. We can predict this has two outcomes: first, that the idiot companies that finance SUMNER's "comedy" outlet will continue doing so, in part because they can justify themselves by playing favorites reaching the usual hip demographic with the big upraised middle finger (this dodo no doubt works as a consultant to ADVERTISERS); and second that SUMNER will try to excuse this cheap stunt by having a live televised "dialogue", possibly through ED MURROW, possibly through PERKY KATIE!!!!!; regardless, that does not ameliorate the "bigotry", a word we heartily endorse though it comes from MR. PATRIOTIC GORE.
Evil like this is not "senseless". Something makes people explode. We do not know what it is, and we cannot stop it, but such acts do not emanate from nowhere; for one thing, they come from the fallen state of man.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
12:14 PM If U.S. debt is in such trouble, Derek Thompson asks, how come everyone's buying it? Sure, there's a flight to safety, but don't forget how markets can ignore things for a long time and then suddenly notice them.
We've noticed.
We've noticed.
What the Israeli Raid Means for Peace
The violence at sea could have a significant impact on the peace process, according to various reports | Max Fisher
OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooh, I'm SCARED! Does that mean instead of lots of useless talking there'll be slightly less useless talking?
Must take up residence under my bed.
The violence at sea could have a significant impact on the peace process, according to various reports | Max Fisher
OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooh, I'm SCARED! Does that mean instead of lots of useless talking there'll be slightly less useless talking?
Must take up residence under my bed.