Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

The Ground Zero -- er, the CENTER for TOLERANCE in Lower Manhattan grows dubiouser and dubiouser.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM RESURGENT! Baltimore, aka Inner Harbor and a ghetto, is thinking of building a new TAXPAYER-FINANCED CIVIC CENTER EXPANSION AND SPORTS ARENA!!!!! If we could tally all the money that's been wasted on such schemes and distributed it among the people we'd have an economy again.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Nancy Pelosi Gets Downsized

We'll believe it when she downsizes her ego.

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

IT WILL TAKE 131 YEARS TO REPLACE OIL, AND WE'VE ONLY GOT 10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Hurryhurry overemphasis added]

Given HENRY HONEST!!!!! we can guess what this means.

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

On the Media: Larry King prepares for final CNN show

...meaning we're preparing for a day of national media consecration when this overpaid, overrated, overexposed, overbearing loudmouth at last leaves CABLE NUISANCE NETWORK, awaiting a new gig. We pay the following tribute: Goodbye, Larry -- and GET LOST!

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

We have discussed this before and wish not to do so again, but as the world knows superliberals have blasted Dubya for being REPUB -- for borrowing quotes for his "memoirs." This is a clinical definition of stupid. If we're going to blast politicians for borrowing things no one is exempt, especially when they start borrowing bad ideas for their pieces of...LEGISLATION -- and borrowing bad ideas is the only behavior they know.

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

The Polish composer had died. I’m a rock-n-roll guy....

Now we know why you NRO typists won't stop YAPYAPYAPPING about the GENIUS of POP-U-LAR CUL-TYURE -- especially when it's CON-SER-VA-TIVE.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

AUNG SAN SUU KYI IS FREE [SIC!!!!!]

So?

Posted 11:05 PM by Gene

What is more tiresome than Lord Koppel dreaming of the far-away land of "objective" news?

Commenters screaming that O'REILLY!!!!! is always right and the NETWORK COMSYMPS are always wrong -- and commenters screaming that KEITH O!!!!! is always right and the NAZIS ON FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS are always wrong.

A PLAGUE O' ALL YOUR HOUSES!

Posted 8:25 PM by Gene

The EU did for LORD ELTON what your average red-blooded hack American pol would do for pro-sports owners. They got the message: when it comes to tax dollars, only the RULING CASTE counts.

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

Hey Oscar! Oscar Goodman! Here's suggesting you give Kitty Bean a job in the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority as head of PR! She's earned it!



ANOTHER NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO KITTY BEAN!

Posted 8:12 PM by Gene

TINA!!!!! makes the first mistake; she's shutting down the wrong site.

Good luck -- TINA!!!!!

P. S. at 8:40 p. m. I think it's too soon to be calling The Former Jesus Christ a GENIUS, WAX.

Posted 2:18 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Government Motors Co. commissioned an ad campaign for pickups sight unseen, and the parasi -- AD AGENCY did what AD AGENCIES will do when the cat's away. FURTHER TRANSLATION: The CLIENTS no more care for their customers than the AD AGENCIES.

The campaign, which runs through the end of the year, could be the last major campaign for Chevrolet by Campbell-Ewald, which lost the $600 million account earlier this year to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. I think I understand why.

Well, in this case, THE CAT CAME BACK.

Posted 12:33 PM by Gene

IN THE WINDY CITY: Dem Cubbies want a taxpayer-financed stadium named Wrigley Field. Of course they'll get it as pols threw in the towel on stadiums a long time ago. In better news that ugly spiraling 150-story me-me-me condo planned for the Lakefront is dead, in no small way because it was to be bankrolled by Irish financiers, which these days is little better than getting financing from ANGELO MOZILO.

Posted 12:13 PM by Gene

GLENN BECK!!!!! makes me tired. GEORGE SOROS!!!!! makes me tired. Perhaps if the cretins who run the leading Web sites finally started realizing how much space they devote to manufactured outrages we wouldn't approach the Web with an incipient feeling of dread, compounded by weariness.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

“For the past few years they’ve been a distribution house, but they’re going to start moving their own intellectual property, so it will be a challenge.”

TRANSLATION: The studio of Mary Pickford, Ernst Lubitsch, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Carole Lombard, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Preston Sturges and Sunset Boulevard is an empty vessel -- and now SUMNER PICTURES must fill itself with home-grown TENTPOLES. Good luck!

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Amercia, at the Movies [SIC!!!!!!!!!!]

Just what we need, Jo-NAH -- not just another con-SER-va-tive movee list, but a misspelled one.

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

No, it can't be, it COULDN'T be -- the second coming of Showgirls could be the hit of the season?!?!? We must remember, however, why show-biz trade journals are the laugh sensation of the publishing biz, and why even the reconstituted Web versions can never escape their sell -- or their smell.

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

God, if only this weren't Jim "WILL ROGERS" Fallow, then I could take it fully seriously; yes terrorists have turned too many of us to mush, but nowhere have they played mind games more than on government, where every false alarm becomes a five-alarmer -- perhaps to make up for the mistakes that got us into this state of Jell-O in the first place.

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

LIAR LIAR BROCK throws tantrums. SLIME is a tantrum.

With luck both will have heartburn. No, more likely: the two will fall IN LOVE.

And why not? They both despise the public, and that's pheromonal enough.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

But Gene! Democrats did stand up for what they believed in! They believed in it so thoroughly they were able to RAM it through Congress without having to listen to the other side. Isn't that what believing is all about? And now you throw a tantrum because the NAZ -- because so many got kicked out of office.

Gene, remember -- and BELIEVE!

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Success or failure ultimately depends on private firms.

Here is why RENDELLISM or schemes to create PC industries from nothing must fail; they rely on GOVERNMENT. Communism has shown the folly of a government-run economy.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

See Bobby!

See Bobby write!

See Bobby write a book!

See Bobby write a book blasting His Omnipotence!

See Bobby write a book blasting His Omnipotence that no one reads!

Posted 10:12 PM by Gene

"How can they tell?" quipped Dorothy Parker when told of the death of Calvin Coolidge, and it's tempting to ask a similar question about this, the boy wizard's last hurrah. It's not so much that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows feels at times largely indistinguishable from the six outings preceding it, nor even that part one offers so little in the way of resolution (part two will surely take care of that). It's simply that it's hard to mourn the demise of a franchise that was never more than half-alive to begin with.

TRANSLATION: The popcorn restaurants will fill with ZOMBIES!!!!! (In honor of that head zombie Mr. BEWKES, who never has to run PEOPLE WARNER more than half-alive.)

How will it end and what comes next? There's no doubt the Potter spin-offs have been a reliable cash dispenser for Warner Bros, and no denying that they are deeply loved by the legions of fans that flock to see them. What remains to be seen is how they fare once the final credits roll; how they will stand up 10, 20 or 30 years down the line. Try as I might, I can't shake the suspicion that these films are too obviously built for purpose and too lacking in wit, warmth and humanity to survive much beyond the moment.



Look, why should I waste our customers' time with relics like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? We want TENTPOLES! We want PROFITS!

Posted 9:57 PM by Gene

Apple OS X 10.6.5 Patches 131 Security Flaws

Jeez, I thought God could just wave His hand and ban them.

Posted 9:08 PM by Gene

The Republic should be grateful that Dubya has decided not to be the Republicans' JIMMAH, and that can only burnish his reputation even when so many want to despoil theirs.

Posted 8:12 PM by Gene

SID and TINA!!!!! have decided misery loves company after all.

Or to put it another way, two second-rate Web sites are better than one.

What will the new entity be called? For now, Newsweek will be called Newsweek and The Daily Beast will be called The Daily Beast, with some intermingling of the names to come later.

Shucks, we like NEWSBEAST, but I guess that doesn't sing too well.

(Via VULTURE)

Posted 3:37 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The bigger the government, the more reliant its contractors, so when governments decide to cut spending, guess who gets hurt first.

Here -- and I don't want to repeat the word again, but I must -- is the rot at the core of RENDELLISM.

Posted 12:20 PM by Gene

All this exasperating piece of junk proves is that both knee-jerk political mobs have their overpromoted and group-think show-biz favorites. Six years ago it was WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!! The Jesus Slasher Movie among conservatives; today it's THE SECOND GREATEST POP-CULTURE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY with liberals. You could say (we do say) when Jo-NAH and The Pa-per of Re-CORD play favorites it's but another form of partisanship. The mobs' respective number-one TV shows (assuming this PR stunt of a survey isn't more than junk itself) suggest both have lost their marbles, or more likely they never had them to begin with.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

CORPORATE AMERICA! Since you've become thoroughly international, why not spend more of OUR money on junk TV in CHINA?

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

When does PERFESSER THOMPSON finally quit Syracuse and form a consulting firm -- whose clients would be every media organization including the ASSPRESS?

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

If nothing else the deficit commission, however staffed, has fired a warning shot across America, although on this score the spent casings of previous warning shots are piling up, and somewhere is riddled with bullet holes. We have the capacity to fix our problems but our pols, always looking for the easy dollar and the easy way out, may not.

And YES, Huff 'n' Puff, Republicans burned money, but the high-tech bubble happened on YOUR SAVIOR's watch, precipitating our current mess.

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

Oh for God's sake, NPNTR, you wanted to fire the guy and you fired the guy. Why pretend a conscience?

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

Dino De Laurentiis, the maestro of big-budget schlock, has died. RIP.

(Via the Reut via the MESS. His King Kong "LEGENDARY"?!?!?)

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

Pat Sajak takes the blame for KEITH O!!!!!!!!!!, which may be a little too big of him; KEITH!!!!! had it in him even at ESPN, though we confess we liked him and Dan Patrick, and no one's come close since. The time he did an NBC Nightly News and came across as the second coming of HHHHWWWALTER CRRRRONKITE we knew he had IT in him -- and that was long before his liberal WWE stunt. So don't take it too hard, Pat. You could have introduced PILLHEAD!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Yep, gotta be the Big Double-A-Scribble again: The same morons who sponsor anything and everything and then complain about inappropriate content and ten-minute pods are now yapping that certain athuhlete endorsers have AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTITUDE. You pays OUR money, you takes YOUR choice. Your choice is to be in luxury boxes. SHUT UP, morons!

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

We are pleased to see the Academy® is honoring Kevin Brownlow for his yeoman film-preservation efforts, but we must still repeat what we said the last time we had the honor of mentioning his name: Why can't the biz MAKE great films instead of merely RESTORING them?

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

Newsmax Poll: Gates, Buffett, and Trump Could Beat Obama in 2012 Race

Yes, NewsMAX!!!!! is back to playing practical jokes!

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

Kim Kardashian: 'I Want to Fall in Love'

We could be uncharitable and suggest she's already fallen in love with someone but we'll leave it at that.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

While the world will note with amazement that people in Hollywood may know how to read we suggest with their diet of vampire novels, young-adult novels and graphical novels they'd be better off fully illiterate.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

TUCKER may be a jackass but having read his column we can submit STU is a jackass too.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

While it is good that Nawlans is finally getting a handle on blight the problem won't go away. Many cities are mostly ghettos, quarantines for poor people, and because the urban governing philosophy of RENDELLISM concentrates on EDS 'N' MEDS and Taj Mahals and yuppies in downtowns there will never be true relief for poor people -- hence, blight undiminished.

I am sorry to keep harping on EDDIE but dammit he's the Mr. Know-It-All of municipal government, and thanks to his very big mouth he's to blame for the urban status quo more than anyone else.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

This may be the first writing of any kind that does not call our generation's Red Skelton a genius.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

We do not know what qualifies New York's schools chancellor to be a factotum of SLIME, nor do we know what qualifies a publishing empress to be New York's schools chancellor, but hey, if MIKE can be an honorary mayor, anything goes.

Posted 9:04 PM by Gene

Brooklyn's employment rolls swelled by 1.4% in the first quarter of 2010, compared to the year earlier period, marking the fourth largest gain in the nation, a new report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics finds.

The 8,600-job spurt was fueled largely by a hiring spree in home health care, which added 4,500 jobs during the quarter.

“It's nice that there's job growth, but most of the growth is concentrated in an industry that is not particularly high paying,” said Martin Kohli, a BLS regional economist.

Indeed, the average weekly wage in Brooklyn declined despite the job growth, falling by 1% to $718. The average weekly wage for home health aides is only $541.

RENDELLISM PROSPERS!

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

We were so preoccupied with HSX.com we didn't have the time, but now...ARCHDaily!



The saying goes that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So why did so many have to flatter the CCTV Center?

Besides, this is the sincerest form of imitation.



A church or a high-end mausoleum?



The new gag: HVAC shafts with interior lighting!

Posted 2:47 PM by Gene

Here is a lesson for all the IDIOT pols who MUST burn their campaign money financing JUNK TELEVISION:

The incoming freshman with the thriftiest campaign was Minnesotan Chip Craavack (R), who beat 18-term veteran Jim Oberstar (D), the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Craavack and outside interest groups spent $610,000 on the race or about $5 for every vote he received. Oberstar spent $18 for every vote, or about $2.3 million.

Kyler Nerison, communications director for the Craavack campaign, said the campaign was able to succeed against the incumbent with "just the old fashioned retail campaigning." Craavack spent months driving 30,000 miles through the district, which covers about a third of the state, in an old motor home wrapped with his campaign ensignia.

Nerison described it as "our billboard, our office on the road and our hotel room as well."

Posted 1:55 PM by Gene

We wish more companies were as civic-minded as Cox Enterprises: it's taking six acres off Atlanta's tax rolls while building umpteen zillion feet of space for itself in the suburbs. Such compassion! Way to go Cox!

(Via ASSPress)

Posted 1:11 PM by Gene

We suspect the outfits that commission these big floating Marriotts cheap out on the engine rooms. This is not the first time.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

In so many words Hillary! demonstrates that show-biz undercuts our world image.

Or to put it differently, America's leading export is airheads.

(Via NEWSER!!!!!)

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

After two years of waiting, Indonesians are finally getting the chance to welcome back their adopted son. But the euphoria that swept the predominantly Muslim country after Barack Obama's election victory has been replaced by a dose of reality.

Few here now believe he will change American policies in the Middle East or improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world. And hopes that the two countries would march forward together on the world stage have been cast aside.

Gosh, SUPERMAN proved to be Clark Kent after all.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

This is an exciting night. I’m glad to be on cable. The truth is, I’ve dreamed of being a talk show host on basic cable ever since I was 46.

And things are going well already. I’m happy to report that we’re already #1 in TBS’s key demographic --- people who can’t afford HBO.

I’m going to be honest: It’s not easy doing a late-night show on a channel without a lot of money and that viewers have trouble finding. So that’s why I left NBC.

This is THE MAN WHO WILL SAVE LATE-NIGHT TELEVISION?

P. S. at 1:12 p. m.

It was a GREAT opening for Conan O'Brien on TBS last night!!! The comedian's eponymous talk show drew BIG 4.2 million viewers and MASSIVE 3.3 million adults 18-49 and 2.5 million in 18-34!!!!!!!!!! [Massive overemphasis added]

4.2 million equals 1.35 PERCENT of the CURRENT U. S. POPULATION.



AN ENORMOUS NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO NELLIE!

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Roubini Now Scaring The Hell Out Of Everyone From An Undetermined Location!!!!!!!!!! [Scary overemphasis added]

Hey HENRY HONEST! You think maybe HE fired that MYSTERIOUS ROCKET from somewhere near California?!?!?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

We are somewhat pleased to see FiatChrysler turning a "profit" but note it's in quotation marks after the interest it owes Uncle Sucker, meaning there's still a chance it might not survive without our merciful help. Better that than oblivion, we suppose, but why must the choice always be so stark?

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

In better news I see the Postal Service took 27 hours to send a parcel (in this case an RMA for memory modules for my new PC, ugh) from here to Oakland. Yes we are still entitled to be mad at the rain-sleet-snow-and-gloom-of-night types -- as I got home one of them was delivering our mail -- but 27 hours from Pennsylvania to California says it must do some things right, and I'm impressed.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

This afternoon some Sorosbot with a clipboard and sing-songy Bobby Jindal voice accosted me under a scaffold. The politics are completely irrelevant, and if there were a George Soros of the right I'd be equally mad for such people right or left hate humanity and want it under their totalitarian control, for the ultimate purpose of cloning themselves; but to quote archy the cockroach again, millionaires and bums taste about alike to me, and so do vagrants. What gets me is that such as I just encountered have the sound of a brainwashing; they could just as easily be representing the Scientologists or the LaRoachites or the KuKluxers or any other cult. And at the end of the day I want to be Garbo and alone. I expressed my anger in inverse proportion to the offense but I really do not like being asked for change -- of any kind.

Posted 3:35 PM by Gene

Meantime in funnier commentary on teevee Sen. Humorless Tantrum (C-VT) wants to block CONCAST's acquisition of Goodthings Entertainment because KARL ROVE AND THE NAZI CONSPIRACY were -- uh, well, you know.

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

That a certain firing took this long means someone waaaaaay up in the organization (we will not say who) lacks a little common sense.

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Look Crainiacs, we know you'd like your clien -- readers to sponsor anything and everything on television, because then it wouldn't make your print rag look like an anorexic model. But there's no cute prose to get around this one:

In a finding that could be frightening for a major advertiser, the Alliance [for Family Entertainment] found 63% of viewers claiming advertisers are ultimately responsible for the content that is on TV. In 2009, only 43% of viewers agreed with that notion.

We repeat for the ten trillionth time: the public is not that stupid. Not only is it agitated by Corporate America financing anything television, it realizes its money is fungible and thus finances water-cooler projects. We may add that news hacks increasingly love to boast of 2 MILLION WATCH THE DAILY SHOW!!!!! because in the back of their hermetically-sealed reinforced-concrete skulls they know it's a drop in our population bucket -- and such uniformly small numbers almost across the board mean people may finally be actively avoiding television. We submit the success of Netflix and the more recent cable-cutting are in no small way a reflection of it. The small numbers should also disprove the hacks' (like BRIAN'S) favorite excuse that people say they hate sex-'n'-violence but...but they're NOT watching it.

The idiot MUG Whitman proved politicians waste money financing television. When do our superiors in Corporate America finally get the message?

P. S. And BRIAN (whose snideness earns A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD!) links to this article about SLIME's chief soon-to-be-retiring chief ad SALESMAN!!!!! on FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!, which pretty well summarizes how much people like him have to do with the plebeians:

Ad sales is still famous for the perks.

When I go to football or baseball games I usually have a private bathroom.

ZERO.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

We will be TALKING of RENDELLISM for a long time because EDDIE wants to TALK -- PERIOD.

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

[E]ditors have been pressured to increasingly rely on nonpaid contributors for the Web, with the goal, as one former editor put it, “of not paying anything for content.”

That's okay, BONO: You don't pay anything for content and we won't pay you any mind.

(Via I Want Media)

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

Who ever knew OUR BOB would stand up for the press!

Pffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Newsmax Poll: Hillary Would Defeat Obama by 20 Points

Back with the practical jokes, huh NewsMAX!!!!!?

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

I would merely say the ac-TOR who is very very sorry she's attractive and the "scenarists" who "write" for her deserve each other.

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

As the world knows by now, Rev. Schuller's church has gone broke, but here is credible evidence his "religion" declared Chapter 11 a long time before.

[T]here is nothing new under the sun. Saddleback and the Crystal Cathedral, Willow Creek and all the other evangelical megachurches that have had their time in the sun sell the same product: mind-power through talk-magic, which in secular packaging is just what all the innumerable therapies and self-help programmes on the market promise....

I never understood the appeal of these programmes, whether religious or secular: they claimed to produce plain empirical results but were never empirically confirmed. For all the cheerful platitudes and possibility thinking, the Crystal Cathedral was bankrupt.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

Obama credits Gandhi with helping him to presidency



We always thought it was this guy.

It would be funny if we weren't talking GOD.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

NPNTR's run by liberals yawwwwwwwwwwn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Meaning sometime today ROMY will have a tantrum over CONSERVATIVES.

Richard Rampell: Though he used to write a column for the Wall Street Journal, his political donations are overwhelmingly Democratic.

B-b-but I thought it was C-C-C-CONSERVATIVE!

P. S. Even the natives are restless. (Caveat: TUCKER!!!!!)

Posted 10:37 PM by Gene

THE FORCES OF RIGHT PREVAIL! THE LOUDMOUTH OF THE LEFT WILL BE BACK!!!!!

Which makes us wonder whether this was a publicity stunt, as several intimated. We couldn't care less whether he's on the air or not, and it's more likely he will be, as he makes too much money not to be.

Posted 10:28 PM by Gene

Say, do you think the impossible will happen tomorrow?

That is to say, do you think Jerry Jones will finally fire his head coach?

Or will Wade Phillips save him the trouble?

Posted 7:36 PM by Gene

October 24:

Three GOP candidates spend $243M

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!

But here’s the punch line: None of these candidates is ahead in the polls. Two of them — Whitman and McMahon — are actually behind.

Ka-CHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGED!!!!!

P. S. We say the TURNIPS know this, and it's one reason the zillionaires are behind. If they can burn their money on television they can burn OUR money in Washington. They deserve to be behind.

TODAY:

[MUG Whitman's] money, moreover, fueled an extravagant advertising campaign that by the end turned more voters against Whitman than toward her.

NUF SAID.

Posted 7:08 PM by Gene

We don't know who "Schumpeter" is -- and chances are we don't want to know as the TWXSTERS invented ANONYMOUSES and ERs and other giants who'd be better off unknown -- but in typical Econowiz fashion he, she or it said things about us and the Indians he, she or it may not have fully intended:

America produces all sorts of things that Indians crave, from iPads to MBAs to fighter planes.

Nice, but the first two people really don't need and the third are merely government. And guess who makes the iPads.

IBM employs more people in India than in the United States.

We can see its zillionaire CEO now: "IBM IS NOT AN AMERI...whoooooooooooooops!"

Indian firms place a higher value on innovation than the American companies.

This will prove one of the few lines the Econowiz-boasting CEOs will read in an issue that would otherwise gather their fairy dust on their extravagant desks, meaning more jobs to India.

And the pièce de résistance:

There is an upside to these downsides. Frugal products will be a godsend for America’s pinched consumers. They may even prevent the American economy from being crushed by the health-care Godzilla. But Americans need to get back on the treadmill. In a recent speech Mr Obama told schoolchildren in Philadelphia that: “When students around the world in Bangalore or Beijing are working harder than ever, and doing better than ever, your success in school is not just going to determine your success, it is going to determine America’s success in the 21st century.” That is not a bad theme for the next two years of his presidency.

I smell more spending on EHDYUKAYSHUN! I smell more pointless testing! I smell -- MORE RENDELLISM!

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

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

1. Has Green Stopped Giving?

Well, let me put it this way: Recently I bought a few of Heinz' Boston Market entrees. They're marketed as VERY green. How green are they? They're SO green Heinz instructed me not to cook them in a conventional oven. Not only has green stopped giving, it's started taking away.

2. Employees No Longer Baggage, but Blessing

Let's see how many employees Yum! Brands, Overstock.com, Kraft Foods, Fidelity Investments and Southwest Airlines decide are not considered a blessing.

While employees have always been the front line of customer interactions for brands, particularly those in the service industry, a number of factors of late have brought them more to the fore, including a more transparent and socially engaged society, a still-fragile economy where everyday value trumps aspirational brand attributes, and an ongoing lack of trust in corporate America and CEO spokespeople.

So we answer the challenge as ADAGE's readers always do: with buzzwords, platitudes and institutional malevolence.

3. Speaking of malevolence, some companies think they can cure some very bad PR by hiring a consultant. Thankfully some very bad PR is a little more stubborn than that, and it will be a LONG time before FOXCONN does NOT equal SUICIDES.

4. And yes, we had paid attention to this story about the infallible Nielsen and its very fallible Web ratings, but as the current AD BOOM shows not even a permanent vacation in Hell will stop media types from believing in THEIR tooth fairy.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

Shucks, the ac-TORS won't strike, so more GENIUS for as far as the eye can see.

Now for the public to put on its blinders.

There is one glimmer of hope, however:

The unions sought higher increases, citing how actors are struggling to get their "quotes" and see less income from TV residuals -- the fees they get from reruns -- because fewer shows repeat on the networks or are later sold into syndication.