Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

THE ATTITUDE LEAGUE deserves a season-destroying lockout even more than the NFL -- and at least we can harbor the hope it will get it.

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

Conservatives may overstate the potential for Jews voting Republican; they think perhaps more alike than any other racial or ethnic group, and their first concern is Pat Robertsons, never mind their "synagogues" combat his ilk with ever-diluted traditions and moral piffle. Because so many lead in self-important professions the likelihood of political conversions is that much smaller. We would hope, however, they'd realize that by constantly voting party line they're as much Babbitts as any rock-ribbed Christian -- no, worse.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

This latest ennui-provoking publicity stunt is why news can be more trouble following than it's worth. We don't know why some people think they're more honest uttering curse words; you'd think they'd have a little more dignity and self-respect than to utter them of our president; you'd think an Ivy Leaguer with a zillion connections who earns half-a-million as a TWXSTER and perhaps an equal amount from CONCAST (or whatever they overpay him) would cherish his job as an entitlement. Moreover with all those self-appointed brains and all that moolah you'd think he'd come up with a better zinger than a crude word meaning PENIS. Perhaps he wallows in the self-pity of his relative "obscurity" and thus OLBERMANNING or BECKING were his answer. Certainly they're the answer if you wish to emulate a horse's behind.

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL:

Memo from 1970: ‘A PLAN FOR PUTTING THE GOP IN TV NEWS!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!’
(EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL overemphasis added)

Golly gee, if only they'd been like the Dems -- and it didn't cost them a dime!

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

There'll always be a PAPER OF RE-CORD:

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

Speaking of Antonin Costello, this friend of Big Tobacco's got repudiated by His fellow Nine-Fingers!



You can stop SMOKING, Tony C!

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT....

Fed's QE2 program ends with final $4.91 billion Treasury bond purchase

Don't worry, we'll be reacquainted!

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

Older Interns Signal Gloomy US Labor Market

Older interns signal DOW 800 GIGAHYPERMEGAQUINTAZILLION!

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

Greece clears final hurdle to get bailout funds

ALL RIGHT, WALL STREET CASINO, YOU JUST GOT PAID AGAIN!

Oh, the Greek unemployment rate is 16.2 percent and climbing? NOT OUR PROBLEM!

With debt equal to more than 150% of GDP and a rapidly contracting economy, Greece must choose between declining the EU/IMF bailout and defaulting now, or imposing more austerity, getting more loans, and defaulting a few months from now. So, why would the Greek government choose to go through all of this agony just to buy a few months? And why would it want to pile on more austerity when what is needed is a program for economic growth?

It could be because Greek elites have not yet moved all of their capital out of the country.

Sounds like what our elites might do someday.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

No sensible person can deny family breakdown is behind so much of our social disorder. The question is, short of an Islamic Republic (PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!), how can any earthly power fix it?

And when a writer in a conservative rag can state, "It’s easy to imagine, for instance, millions becoming less accepting than in the past of top CEOs’ making hundreds of times more money than they do. Conservatives’ attempts to debunk, say, tax increases on the rich as reflecting 'class envy' and 'class warfare' may be less effective than they have been till now", who can bet something is profoundly wrong -- except the Antonin Costellos?

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

CLODS: As we've noted before hack pols have this obsession with playing rock anthems in their campaigns. It's no accident some of the rockers are getting back at Republicans for using their genius without their permission as they're Democrats, which makes them look extremely small-minded. But why must the oafish pols use the same six songs anyway? And why must it always be rock? What's wrong with "The Stars and Stripes Forever" or "Seventy-Six Trombones" on occasion? And these jerks don't even listen to the lyrics.

Of course someone would scoff at the latter; that was from a show about a con man with a musical scam. But he did come through for River City -- more than we can say for most pols.

Posted 9:23 PM by Gene

This very-well-done piece by Winston Groom on Truman Capote must serve as Exhibit A to the notion that his unfathomable celebrity will survive his writing. And who hears of Truman Capote anymore?

On the other hand there are all those stories.

Posted 8:41 PM by Gene

IDIOT:

[C]ontrary to Colbert’s claim that Viacom has “no approval over what I say” — corporate lawyers do in fact review his scripts, proposals and even subject matter “to identify legal and commercial issues and to ensure compliance with … ‘standards and practices’ for cable shows.” [Emphasis added]

We have long known ED MURROW AND ERIC SEVAREID were essentially stooges for SUMNER. Why has it taken the world so long to find out?

Posted 8:24 PM by Gene

If this wasn't inevitable:

Riyadh will build nuclear weapons if Iran gets them, Saudi prince warns

Now who uses them on Israel first?

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

Taking a $545 million bath (more accounting for inflation) is what in too many quarters is called vision.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

A hard-core tech site admits that while Justice Antonin Costello had fairy tales on his side, the antis had studies.

And we have noted our strong skepticism of the social sciences before, but we suspect even they can stumble onto truth occasionally.

Much as we hate to bother with commenters we must here as this got lots of "I play violent videogames but" and "Why has crime gone down?" As to the former they've already taken out their aggressions on the movee biz; as to the latter that may have to do with octupling our police presence in big cities and to people giving birth to fewer hoodlums. One did note a connection to all those friends of the court. And then came this zinger:

I'm betting it was beneath the dignity of any of the Supreme Court Justices to actually PLAY any of the games they passed judgement on. Still, for most people to make such a decision, I think the first requirement would be to become really involved in the games. In any case I''m [sic] sure the Justices spent at least several weeks "studying" the questions about the games, just as medieval philosophers debated for several hundred years about the number of teeth in a horse's mouth....

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

Homebuilders led the stock parade this week with a fantastic 11 percent gain. This is a group that hedge funds and bubbleheads love to hate. All the bond bears have been dead wrong in predicting sky-high mortgage rates. So have all the bubbleheads who expect housing-price crashes in Las Vegas or Naples, Florida, to bring down the consumer, the rest of the economy, and the entire stock market. None of this has happened...[T]he homebuilders index has increased 76 percent over the past year, with particularly well-run companies like Toll Brothers up about twice as much. The bubbleheads missed all this because they haven’t done their homework....

Dirk van Dijk has discovered that, in 2005 or whenever, GEKKO KUDLOW has ALWAYS been an idiot.

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

Not mocking the woman at all, but:

Little named Newspaper Association of America president

Whatever her name we hope, especially after last Saturday, the biz gets littler.

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

What IS with con-SER-va-tives and "con-SER-va-tive" pop culture?

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

NOMOTOWN, "city of 100,719 vacant parcels and three Starbucks" and a destroyed auto biz and nonfunctional schools and a government that couldn't dig its way from a hole in the ground, has found its SOLUTION: RENDELLISM! Make the city HIP, and HOT, and YOUNG, and MILLIONS will SWARM back and REBUILD THE AUTO BIZ?!?!?

Look, who doesn't want Detroit to come back? But we in Philthydelphia have tried that gag, and we have a HIP! HOT! DOWNTOWN -- and we're STILL SIXTY PERCENT GHETTO.

The idea of Detroit as a raw, creative space is getting plenty of help from outside media and art circles.

Earlier this month, BBC Radio ran a half-hour special called "Unbuilding Detroit." International photographer Andrew Moore explored the beauty of the city's abundant empty buildings for his critically acclaimed book "Detroit Disassembled."

But if the HIP! and HOT! flood NOMOTOWN doesn't that mean all these buildings get occupied, which means it loses its HIPNESS and HOTNESS, which means it's not so BEAUTIFUL anymore?

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

So long as there are Republicans, and Democrats, and lobbyists, and big business, the tax system will never be fair.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

What do HUGE UP DAYS!!!!! tell us except the Wall Street Casino expects to be paid?

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

After his stellar stump speech in print yesterday we regard Antonin as the EDDIE!!!!! of con-SER-va-tive Republican jurisprudence: The Italian John Marshall (as He no doubt thinks) who's a bit closer to Lou Costello (whom He vaguely resembles), stalwart defender of First Amendment Rights! even as He SCREAMS to have cameras removed from the venues where he's sucking up to the rich, terror to clerks (no doubt) while dictating His opinions to a mirror, to much giggling from behind His back....

We must ask, why do we need judges? We've said it before but we call them the Nine Fingers for a reason, and they're appointed for political reasons, and their decisions are political when they don't result from lobbying. We believe more than ever these legalists should be elected, and held to the same theoretically tough ethics standards as anyone else. And upon reflection we cringe at how the late Chief Finger Hole-in-the-Throat always whined that the Fingers and their thousands of clerks were COLLAPSING under the weight of all their CASES, to which we say, why not arbitration? Why not non-judicial panels with the power of law? Why must everything be decided by pygmies in black robes?

P. S.

Sen. Ken Levine said he expects game designers to "move forward empowered, but also with a sense of responsibility." [First two words added]

Why do our superiors think they grant us a favor when they utter empty platitudes like CONGRESSPOOPS?

With luck there'll be more piracy among the hardcore.

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

Pols don't listen to the lyrics of the eternal rock masterpieces they use on the trail?



GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWSH!!!!!

P. S. at 3:33 p. m.

[T]he Corner is probably not the place for a music theory class.

Nor anything else musical.

ROLL OVER, BEETHOVEN!!!!!

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

As the industry complains about all those SUPERHERO TENTPOLES it's inflicted on people it supposes are all fanboys, and thus retarded, USAOKAY!!!!! bows to the latest mechanical wonder:

[M]odel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (Megan Fox's replacement) is stunning, but no actress. With her perfectly sculpted long legs and beyond bee-stung lips, she seems part of the dazzling special effects, on hand for male fans to ogle, just as they do the super-cool machinery.

TRANSLATION: Now the biz is casting toys!

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

Robert Blake was guilty after all.

Posted 3:16 PM by Gene

"We can't do what we want to do all the time. If you don't have boundaries, what then?"

Hey guys! That fellow who used to spell his name with a whatisit is a CON-SER-VA-TIVE!!!!!

"It's FUN!!!!! being in Islamic countries, to know there's only one religion! There's order! You wear a burqa! There's no choice! People are HAPPY!!!!! with that!" [Fun overemphasis added]

Oh wait....

"I'm supposed to go to the White House to talk about copyright protection. It's like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There's no boundaries." Because of the problem with piracy, he said, he has no plans to record another album.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

(Via WeeklyStandard.com)

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

Once again socc -- fuuuuuuuuutballllllllll proves it is the WORLD'S SPORT...with lots of violence and injuries.

Fortunately some people had sense:

Fearing this kind of violence, Argentine authorities deployed about 2,200 police -- reported to be the largest security operation for a soccer match -- to control the crowd.

But not the Interior Ministry:

Suggestions to play the match in an empty stadium were turned down by interior ministry officials after consulting with the Argentine Football Association and its president, Julio Grondona.

RENDELLISM in...South America! Take it away!

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

OooooOOOOOoooooh, the WORRRRRRRRLD COMMUNITY wants to arrest Muammar!

Will that be anything like THE WORRRRRRRRRLD COMMUNITY stopping NUKEMAN?

Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

Posted 10:29 AM by Gene

As I'm guessing was pretty well expected, the Nine Fingers struck down Ah-NULT's videogame law -- and one big reason (cursorily skimming through the legalese) is he relied on the self-appointed expert Craig Anderson, who is to videogame nuts what John C. Dvorak is to computer phreaks. Yet the Fingers have knotted themselves into yet another ideological pretzel as they've agreed to rule on broadcast indecency, which, though less disgusting than some videogames, is federally regulated, because the...

My head hurts.

P. S. at 12:38 p. m. We should note there were lots of friends of the court for corporate interests, and we know who Chief Finger Roberts loves.

In fairness this sort of thing will prove moot for these reasons: First, videogame sales are increasingly moving away from consoles and onto the Web and iPads, which means no restrictions on purchases (and in some cases no purchases); second, the blood-and-guts games have been in decline for some time, largely due to geeks and BUGS; and third, what happened to recorded...SOUND is happening to videogames, regardless of what Deutsche Bank sells -- SAYS.

Although annoyingly SOUND sales have been up of late, perhaps due to better PR stunts.

P. S. at 2:08 p. m. Bugmeisters are up four percent and nine hacks out of ten say it's because WE WIN!!!!! WE WIN!!!!! (will news hacks EVER stop celebrating?) -- and the tenth more credibly says it's because the bugs are moving up Windows 8 (just what I need).

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

Taking one for the team:

Terrell Owens, who has placed himself among the NFL's all-time leading receivers with plans to play a 16th season, has undergone surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in one of his knees following a previously undisclosed injury this offseason, according to sources familiar with the injury.

Owens, 37, was unavailable for comment but sources said the surgery by noted orthopedist Dr. James Andrews occurred within the past month.

One source said Owens was hurt while on site taping a television show for VH1.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

Frank McCourt takes Dodgers into bankruptcy court

Now you know this won't last -- zillionaires are salivating all over -- but if ever a sport deserved bankruptcy it's SELIGISM, being bankrupt in other ways.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

Several States Forbid Abortion After 20 Weeks

By ERIK ECKHOLM

On the theory that fetuses can feel pain after 20 weeks (AN IDEA DISPUTED BY MAINSTREAM MEDICINE!!!!!), several states have banned abortions later than this. [Home-page blurb; painful overemphasis added]

Yep, I think PINCH wants to turn His rag into unpaid advertising.

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

An irritant:

Perhaps the strongest evidence for the new labels comes from the International Tobacco Control Evaluation Project, which has examined tobacco-control policies around the world.

After Thailand switched to graphic labels in 2005, for example, the project found that the percentage of smokers who reported thinking about health risks because of the warnings went up from about 35 percent to 55 percent. The percentage of smokers who said that the warnings made them more likely to quit rose from 31 percent to 46 percent.

Happily Discover.com doesn't mention whether the number of Thais still smoking has gone down. This is like a hamburger recipe without the hamburger.

News hacks find so many different ways of being bad.

(Via AHTSJournal, which must find the new warning labels artistic)

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

The critics were WRONG!!!!! Audiences are MISSING OUT!!!!!!!!!! And a sequel is GONNA ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Rockin' overemphasis added)

Does this drool belong in DVFORBESLISTBLOG?

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

The further THUMBS® is from his rave movee reviews, the better he is. ROMY (who is still hung over) says the guy's won some sort of best blog competition, and though we dismiss such awards -- they judge the same six professional writers, who already have enough unearned honors -- this guy deserves it. We'd written some time ago about his electric portrayal of his early days in newspapering. A few months back he wrote on a TNR piece (why must it put so much behind its stupid wall?) about all the once-famous authors in oblivion. Ah, Saul Bellow -- a Nobel-winning egghead from the University of Chicago. We haven't read a novel in ages but we like to read plays: they save all the trouble of slogging through exposition and get right to the point. But even the best writing doesn't have the visceral impact of music. The opening of Roses from the South stirs more yearning than ten novels. Especially in this hectic age reading fiction involves what must prosaically be called time management, a calculation of effort versus gain, and most of the time it isn't worth it.

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

"Whitey" Bulger's story is strangely tinged with laughter and even admiration -- we suspect LEGENDARY SCORSESE admires him -- but when we realize he possibly killed 19, including two innocent bystanders and two women, it isn't quite so funny or admirable anymore.

Those who laugh at or admire his saga should have their heads examined, assuming something's there.

Posted 11:54 PM by Gene

Shucks, Reginald Van Gleason III and company are sailing to somewhere off the Somali coast, or thereabouts.

You don't suppose the Navy is following them?

(Via several sites)

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

God yes of course we remember Nick Charles and Fred Hickman. We watched them a lot; we liked their friendly banter; they were good guys. In those days it was them or SportsCenter. They put up a good fight. We miss such rivalries, and if only something had taken their place.

Posted 6:41 PM by Gene

We'd like to amplify on our tantrum of earlier. That story was page-one worthy. But the hacks went beyond reporting to self-celebration. The scribblers should reserve true news celebrations for extremely rare instances, like our (or as the hacks would say, the United States) winning a big war (God forbid we should have to fight one). There's also nothing wrong with hacks celebrating local sports triumphs, keeping in mind they're profit centers. On the obverse side the hacks should save true mourning for revered public figures (HUGH HEFNER and WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DYLAN will NOT COUNT) and especially big civic disasters; when an atrocity like 9-11 comes along the press serves a profound civic duty by uniting us in our grief. Nonetheless we still too well remember the shrieks of disbelief when ST. TIMOTHY OF RUSSERT died, awaiting a Second Coming that hasn't happened yet; the hacks mourned for DAYS, all the while letting us know all too well that not only were they our superiors, but ST. TIM was the superior of superiors, his career beyond mere mortality. The whole orgy smelled of the skunk of the news hack's megalomania, and so did this brief but spectacular orgy, and THAT, more than the outcome, is why we got angry.

Posted 6:31 PM by Gene

Today passing a vegan restaurant on our beloved South Street we saw a poster listing lots of famous vegetarians and vegans. Properly administered a vegetarian diet is healthy, but we couldn't help musing about what a sour old crank Bernard Shaw became late in life. Moreover we suspect the ac-TORS among the famous are doing it in part because they believe animals can think. We've said before we'd guess science will ultimately prove some animals have a conscience. Unfortunately lions and tigers eat meat. Cats and dogs eat meat. Some fish eat other fish. Some birds eat worms and insects. Some insects eat other insects. Short a mass brainwashing of all forms of life it will be difficult to square a vegetarian diet in man with a carnivorous one in other life forms. Pursuing vegetarianism is fine, but it ought to be for good reasons.

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

More aimless typing from the blather center BloomyBizWeek:

Winnipeg Gets Its Hockey Team Back!!!!!

And someone else lost its.

[T]he Manitoban Renaissance is now complete!!!!!

Buoyed by high commodity prices....

TYPING MORONS.

No mention either that, from what I gather, taxpayers built Winnipeg's hockey arena and get nothing back. By running this bull...hockey BloomyBizWeek reminds us it may have been the first PR outlet to boast of THE DONALD'S GREAT WEALTH, and that it did more than any other flack sheet to insist LEGENDARY WELCH was a HERO. That's why I take such guff personally, and why I only wish more bad for the "news" biz.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO HONORARY WINNIPEG CHAMBER OF COMMERCE EXECUTIVE DAVE!

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

Both sides have their favorite lawbreakers. We all know about liberals' love affair with the likes of Bill Ayers, and their silence on Muslim terrorists speaks volumes. Con-SER-va-tives do themselves no favors either by referring to Conrad Black's MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE!!!!! Given how long it's taken to get the guy to serve 42 months in prison suggests he can afford justice. And knowing con-SER-va-tives they're angry that Connie was convicted because he was RICH.

P. S. on 6/26/2011 at 12:58 a. m.

The defense argues Black was a model prisoner, noting that the accomplished biographer — whose subjects have included Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon — helped teach inmates American history and economics; and gladly offered advice about business and other matters to prisoners who constantly approached him.

But prosecutors say the defense paints too rosy a picture of Black's prison life.

One prison employee, Tammy Padgett, claimed in an affidavit filed by prosecutors that Black had arranged for inmates — "acting like servants" — to clean and cook for him, to iron his clothes, mop his floor and perform other chores.

Another employee told her that Black once insisted that she address him as "Lord Black," after an honorary title bestowed on him by Britain, Padgett added.

The defense denied both characterizations.

1. Those characterizations we can believe. 2. They're points in his favor for con-SER-va-tives.

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

HENRY HONEST!!!!! runs another of his famous intelligence-insulting HOT!!!!! stories on a HOT!!!!! BABE!!!!!, and a reader tells him to chill out:

Modelizer on Jun 24, 4:08 PM said:

As a guy that has dated smoking hot models before, you have to put up with a lot of crap and diva like behavior. They are beautiful and know it, but can be very insecure. I dated one girl that was 110 lbs (5' 10") and she constantly thought she was fat.

Guys hit on them all the time right in front of you. The cab driver hits on her, the waiter, the busboy. It goes on and on. Other girls are jealous of her. ("Oh, she's a bitch!") People look at you and think "how'd he get her?" They are ALWAYS used to getting exactly what they want. It ain't easy.

I've moved on to Broadway singers.

P.S. If you want to date a model, you need to travel in model circles. I worked for a company that hired models for promotions and I just met them all day long. One of them is bound to say, "yeah, sure I'll go out on a date with you." When you work with them you have a lot in common and lots of stuff to talk about.

It's a lot of work to date a girl like this.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

And since we've mentioned the budget, and since it is far more important regardless of the deafening cheers of news hacks, let us say neither side has covered itself with glory. The Democrats won't cut anything because of their psychosis that a government program can never be bad; but the Republicans are playing a game of brinkmanship, and their friends in the Wall Street Casino have already shown they can blow up the economy when they want to. Both sides will have to swallow hard. We may not like increased taxes or reduced services but we definitely don't like the Republic collapsing.

One of the few who has shown leadership is Rep. Ryan, and we've meant to discuss his name before, but such leadership speaks for itself. Nonetheless in a nation as mentally and spiritually eviscerated as ours the pandering and posturing of others can drown it out.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

As America's luxury news suites are three-inches deep in champagne, let us remember their codes of ethics -- in this case, NPNTR's:

III. Statement of principles

Our coverage must be fair, unbiased, accurate, complete and honest. At NPR we are expected to conduct ourselves in a manner that leaves no question about our independence and fairness. We must treat the people we cover and our audience with respect.

"Fair" means that we present all important views on a subject. This range of views may be encompassed in a single story on a controversial topic, or it may play out over a body of coverage or series of commentaries. But at all times the commitment to presenting all important views must be conscious and affirmative, and it must be timely if it is being accomplished over the course of more than one story. We also assure that every possible effort is made to reach an individual (or a spokesperson for an entity) that is the subject of criticism, unfavorable allegations or other negative assertions in a story in order to allow them to respond to those assertions.

"Unbiased" means that we separate our personal opinions - such as an individual's religious beliefs or political ideology - from the subjects we are covering. We do not approach any coverage with overt or hidden agendas.

"Accurate" means that each day we make rigorous efforts at all levels of the newsgathering and programming process to ensure our facts are not only accurate but also presented in the correct context. We make every possible effort to ensure assertions of fact in commentaries, including facts implied as the basis for an opinion, are correct. We attempt to verify what our sources and the officials we interview tell us when the material involved is argumentative or open to different interpretations. We are skeptical of all facts gathered and report them only when we are reasonably satisfied of their accuracy. We guard against errors of omission that cause a story to misinform our listeners by failing to be complete. We make sure that our language accurately describes the facts and does not imply a fact we have not confirmed, and quotations are both accurate and placed properly in context.

"Honest" means we do not deceive the people or institutions we cover about our identity or intentions, and we do not deceive our listeners. We do not deceive our listeners by presenting the work of others as our own (plagiarism), by cutting interviews in ways that distort their meaning, or by manipulating audio in a way that distorts its meaning, how it was obtained or when it was obtained. The same applies to text and photographs or other visual material used on NPR Online. Honesty also means owning up publicly and quickly to mistakes we make on air or online.

"Respect" means treating the people we cover and our audience with respect by approaching subjects in an open-minded, sensitive and civil way and by recognizing the diversity of the country and world on which we report, and the diversity of interests, attitudes and experiences of our audience.

Or The Paper of Re-CORD's, which will seem especially mirthful on a day like this:

15. The Times treats its readers as fairly and openly as possible. In print and online, we tell our readers the complete, unvarnished truth as best we can learn it. It is our policy to correct our errors, large and small, as soon as we become aware of them.

16. We treat our readers no less fairly in private than in public. Anyone who deals with readers is expected to honor that principle, knowing that ultimately the readers are our employers. Civility applies whether an exchange takes place in person, by telephone, by letter or online. Simple courtesy suggests that we not alienate our readers by ignoring their letters and e-mails that warrant reply.

Always remember that ethics codes are nothing but self-serving whitewashes for bad behavior. Witness Congress. And especially in their "implementation" always remember the words Mary McCarthy applied to Lillian Hellman apply to them: their every word is a lie, including "and" and "the".

We thunder over this because news hacks live for the days they can pull one over on their inferiors -- just as they did appointing our current "president"; and they are hardly disinterested bystanders here, rendering their PR even more florid. Thankfully the "news" biz' recent history shows that in practical terms its enemies have gained a huge measure of revenge, and they must not stop seeking it. (We would note too that Yahoo!, America's most densely CW news source and Huff 'n' Puff's archrival in the panem et circenses trade, has put the budget atop its list of top stories on its home page [though not the ones with the visuals and not on the News page], meaning perhaps some algorithm somewhere recognizes the hacks can go too far.)

Posted 9:01 PM by Gene

The Wall Street Journals Con-SER-va-tive Edition thinks Ben was WRONG?!?!?

Oh, maybe it's because he's "liberal", or something.

(Via NRO)

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

MORE great originality from Branson East: A HONEYMOONERS MUSICAL!

This forgets the all-black movie-version bomb -- and the fact that Jackie Gleason did musical versions himself, which, like this, were unnecessary, but which, unlike this, had no chance to be smash hits with blue-rinsers and expense-account freaks.

It also forgets you CAN'T revive THE GREATEST, ART CARNEY, AUDREY MEADOWS AND JOYCE RANDOLPH.

(Via All That Chat)

Posted 7:24 PM by Gene

ROMY has launched into an irrelevant debate over whether newspapers should have opinions. Both sides miss the point (and we suspect with some of the debaters it may be intentional): the best opinions are those that work their way into news copy through the weasel word, the sly attribution, the crafty omission, the nifty last graf -- and they're better still if they express the same opinions. Newspapers will give us their mostly unwanted opinions long after the last pundit would be fired, which will be never.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

With his tousled dark-brown hair, a cheap cigar wedged between his fingers and his lived-in tan raincoat, the endearingly likable lieutenant was as unprepossessing as the faded old Peugeot he drove.

Indeed, when Columbo brought up the subject of men's clothing and male vanity in one early episode, guest star Suzanne Pleshette, as the segment title's "Witness to a Murder," pointedly looked at the disheveled detective and remarked: "Some men, Lieutenant, do not want to look like an unmade bed."

The show often made light of Columbo's lack of fashion sense. Taking note of the detective's tatty attire, a suspect once asked him, "Are you undercover?" Replied Columbo, "No, underpaid."

In another episode, a nun at a soup kitchen where Columbo was interviewing a witness took one look at his worn raincoat, mistook him as a vagrant and insisted on finding him a better coat in the shelter's used-clothing collection.

Columbo: "Y'know, I appreciate what you're doin', I really do, but I've had this coat for seven years."

Peter Falk, like his character, is now up there with the immortals.

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

When I saw this from Ben Shapiro I thought, uh, oh, con-SER-va-tive movees. Thankfully he doesn't seem to like very much.

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Bernanke Public Approval Falls to Lowest Level

Don't tell me HE's running for president!

Why does He have to when He runs the Wall Street Casino?

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

Speaking of not-so-funny, the arrest of a former university president for being buddies with that jolly electronic professor-pimp makes you wonder how far the rot has set in on our life. I'd say very deeply but then I'm not one of those making excuses for us.

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

I think the LulzSec caper is on the verge of turning not-so-funny.

Posted 7:50 PM by Gene

In an outrage the AHT world is no doubt bansheeing as the greatest act of CENSORSHIP!!!!! since -- since -- since Robert Mapplethorpe got bullwhipped, The Brooklyn Museum has buckled under to CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE NAZIS and will NOT franchise that MASTERPIECE graffiti -- pardon, AHT exhibit in LA. Never mind if the NAZIS include New York's Daily News and a member of the City Council, no, this is INTOLERANCE, INTOLERANCE of AHT, and must be fought with every SCREAM and every FOOT STOMPING TANTRUM in the AHTISTS' arsenal! Maybe they should GRAFFITI the NEWS! Or the Councilman's office! Or...

Or maybe they should shut up, because in addition to being intolerant effete snobs such AHTISTS condone criminal acts and the violent gangs that often commit them.

And count on The Church on Eighth Avenue to spread the good word. This fight may not be over.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

Hey hacks, before you hug yourselves because WOODSTER THE PERV's latest is a HIT!!!!!, remember, it's a hit in relative terms only, and far more people don't want to see his movies, and just because he can work Wittgenstein into his scripts doesn't mean they're ADULT. How could they be when he STILL harbors delusions he can be a romantic lead? Pfooey!

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW:

Poor financial decisions with a Chicago futures brokerage firm lost an alleged al-Qaida operative with links to Osama bin Laden some $20 million dollars in just eight months, according to a lawsuit filed recently in Chicago by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Federal officials said Abu al Tayyeb, through an associate, deposited nearly $27 million — earned from a "Saudi Arabian-based investment scheme" — into an account with Chicago-based R.J. O'Brien & Associates in 2005. But because of a "poor trading position adopted" by the associate, the money dropped below $7 million less than a year later.

Boo-hoo!

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Slowly, very slowly, extreeeeeemely slowly, common sense has finally invaded the TSA.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

The Washington Post's Jason Horowitz wrote about the Rasmussen Reports founder last June:

A co-founder of the sports network ESPN and former play-by-play broadcaster, Scott Rasmussen is an articulate and frequent guest on Fox News and other outlets, where his nominally nonpartisan data is often cited to support Republican talking points. In October, he hired his own communications director to handle the daily deluge of press calls.

Yes, we know about Ras's slant, but ROMY, you took six hours yesterday to post on that illegal-immigrant story because it didn't fit your template. You're in no position to make underhanded asides about peoples' politics. What's more, DIMWIT, you confirm the hed of YOUR story: "Survey: Voters think most reporters are liberal, try to help candidates they favor". SHUT UP, ROMY.

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

We're all weary after eight years of war, but His Incompetence has abdicated His foreign-policy role. When a CW outfit like The Econowiz comes out from the starting gate blasting His precipitate withdrawal of the surge forces from Afghanistan we are yet again reminded He does not know what He's doing on international matters, nor, apart from appeasing His base, does He care.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

Oh oh, NOW they've done it: LulzSec's attacked SLIME!

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

The maker of Bejeweled -- you've no doubt played that game -- a company with maybe $150 million in revenues, is supposedly selling out for $1 BILLION!!!!!

Another tip of the BENNY to BEN!

(Via DVFORBESLIESTBLOG)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

I have tried all the combinations suggested. The problem is still there.

Where is the code that is checking URLs and reporting a failure?

Or, help please!

Isn't it annoying when you can't delete old posts? Pfffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

“Men in Black III” has been a slog from the start; Production was broken into two shooting segments and filmed in two separate calendar years (starting in November of last year) to take advantage of tax rebates in Manhattan. The unorthodox schedule was also meant to allow for work on the script.

It certainly didn't make the film less expensive.

A reliable individual told TheWrap that the movie will net out at a cost of about $215 million, after allowing for all the tax rebates. That’s nearly twice the cost of "Men in Black II."

Sony would not confirm the budget figure.

The tax breaks -- New York rebates 30 percent of production costs incurred in the state -- are vital for the film. Producers needed to start shooting in 2010 in order to qualify.

TRANSLATION: GUVMENT has found another boondoggle to finance!

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

FINALLY -- SIX HOURS AFTER VULTURE!

Posted 3:20 PM by Gene

Romy's italicized everything but still no word on that illegal.

If ED MURROW had announced some PROMINENT CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST needed PSYCHIATRIC HELP....

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

"Jackass" star Ryan Dunn had a blood-alcohol content that was more than twice the legal limit for drivers when he and a passenger died in a fiery one-car crash this week, according to a toxicology report.

The report said Dunn's blood-alcohol level was 0.196 at the time of the crash early Monday morning. The legal limit for drivers in the state is .08.

The report was released Wednesday by West Goshen Township Police.

Sorry, THUMBS® was RIGHT.

Posted 2:48 PM by Gene

At his press conference, Bernanke gives himself a pat on the back, pointing out payroll growth in the months since his Jackson Hole QEII speech is more than double that of the months prior.

And 9.1 percent of America's potential work force gives you a STANDING O!

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

Sen. Harry Reid's top aide received $1.2 million from Comcast Corp. after he began working for the Senate majority leader, joining a long list of congressional staffers who have collected money from past employers after starting on Capitol Hill.

"COMCAST DID NOT KNOW THAT DAVID KRONE WAS GOING TO HARRY REID'S OFFICE OR TO ANY OTHER GOVERNMENT OR REGULATORY AGENCY!!!!!" when his separation agreement was negotiated, according to company spokesman John Demming. [Plausibly deniable overemphasis added]

Sure Bud, that's what they all say.

Some people familiar with the matter say the company wanted to make sure that he didn't harbor any ill will after leaving, given his connections. As a heavily regulated cable and media company, Comcast has a lot at stake in Washington.

I think John...fudged the truth, to put it mildly.

(Via Politico)

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

The world's millionaires continued to recover in 2010 from the recent financial meltdown, with their population and assets climbing back past the 2007 pre-crisis peak.

THANKS AGAIN, BEN!

But the group remains cautious: at the end of 2010, high-net-worth individuals globally still held a significant amount of their assets in more conservative instruments such as fixed-income and cash and equivalents....

Even they don't trust him?

Posted 12:09 PM by Gene

Proof ROMY hears only what he wants to: VULTURE's run a blurb on a piece by a P-Ulitzer winner admitting he's an illegal immigrant -- and Romy hasn't said a THING (but he did run a nice squib about Poetry magazine as it must be a daydream).

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

From USAOKAY!!!!!, surprise number two:

NCAA drug testing shows increase in pot use

How would it not with all those tattoos?

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

From USAOKAY!!!!!, surprise number one:

Taliban behind most Afghan civilian deaths

That would seem their strong suit.

The coalition's figures on responsibility for civilian deaths approximate an earlier independent estimate by the United Nations. A U.N. report blamed the Taliban for 75% of 2,777 deaths and 78% of 4,343 injuries in 2010.

Yes, they're very good at that.

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

And while Hillary gets on bended knee pleading with the makers of our luscious petroleum repast to please, pretty please, let women drive, the Arab tyrants conduct business as usual.

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

"[W]hen something goes he wrong [SIC], he punts to ‘I’m a comedian.’”

Someone lets ED MURROW justly have it, though the someone be with FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS.

(Via, oh well, NRO. We don't know how that "he" worked in there because it doesn't appear in other sites.)

P. S. at 11:55 a. m. Apparently the whaaaaaaaambulance is shrieking that PILLHEAD calls Himself an "entertainer" -- but from our experience it's His enemies who call Him that (usually as a code phrase for AIRHEAD NAZI), and besides, we hold PILLHEAD and ED MURROW in EQUALLY low regard.

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

We are very sorry to learn Glen Campbell has Alzheimer's. We were about to say at that age? but he is 75. (Shows you what we know.) We will hear such stories more often until that distant day beyond most of our lifetimes when people can hear them less often.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

Rushrushrush, scribblescribblescribble, passpasspass....

Millions of middle-class people could get Medicaid

SPENDSPENDSPEND!

What else don't we know about?

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Saturn, Pontiac owners reject GM

Who can blame them?

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

Fed Frets Over U.S. Fiscal Recklessness

THE POT....

With “stock prices (a favorite of Bernanke as rising prices induce the wealth effect) under pressure and commodities hav[ing] sold off,” Bernanke’s more dovish policy approach could spark a “Jackson Hole Moment Part 2.”

Forced to uphold the Fed’s dual mandate of price stability and full employment, Bernanke will have to balance the risks of acting and not acting in the current environment. Specifically regarding the dual mandate, unemployment has ticked up to 9.1% and it’s all but confirmed that growth projections will be lowered. Fate could be twisted the bearded academic’s hand this time: “there is the possibility that Bernanke has a Jackson Hole Moment: Part 2 and conveys a more dovish policy approach relative to April, basically signaling ever so coyly additional bond purchases.” [Emphasis added]

THE POT....

Posted 11:24 PM by Gene

TWO from ESPNCORP NETWORK NEWS:

1. With each passing day NEWT grows hoitier and toitier.

2. This program of spending millions photographing billboards was so embarrassing even Ray LaHood had to stop it.

Posted 7:18 PM by Gene

Greece's embattled government survived a confidence vote on Wednesday that was crucial to avoiding a sovereign default, as thousands of protesters chanted insults outside parliament.

GOD'S SERVANTS ARE SAFE! DOW 80 BILLION TRILLION ZILLION QUADRAQUINTILLION!!!!!

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

They wouldn't be that desperate for publicity, would they?

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

"We have made clear our views that women everywhere, including women in the kingdom, have the right to make decisions about their lives and their futures," Clinton said. "They have the right to contribute to society and provide for their children and their families. ... Mobility, such as provided by the freedom to drive, provides access to economic opportunity, including jobs."

What did we have to do in exchange?

Posted 2:46 PM by Gene

And now sing after me: It's a GEKKO KUDLOW KIND OF A DAY....

Meaning THE RICH GET RICHER....

Posted 2:41 PM by Gene

JPMorgan to pay $153.6M to settle civil fraud charges over complex mortgage investments

Eh, just another cost of doing BU$INE$$.

Posted 2:28 PM by Gene

The bad news:

Gannett laying off 700 more workers amid ad slump

The worse news: they're likely printers, delivery people, support staff -- not THE GANG OF 27 and NOT EIGHT-DIGIT KEYBOARD THROWERS.

The worst news: The Wall Street Casino's celebrating!

Do you think The Daily Kaplan will report on this one?

(Via Finviz)

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

As too much of the world knows too much by now ED MURROW has pointed with pride at Himself over how "smart" He and His BLANKETY-BLANK VIEWERS are. This latest excuse for partisan screaming (we thought Rep. Giffords BANNED IT) begs the point: The question isn't how much you know about current affairs -- any serious Web denizen should know a lot, and there's no excuse in its presence for ignorance -- but how you use the knowledge; and we wouldn't be any more sanguine in ED's eggheady presence than in the REV. DR. BECK's, or any of the other TV loudmouths.

Lest we forget ED and FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS are "entertainment" -- and little more.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

We were reluctant to read this at first as TheAtlantic.com has striven to be as in with the show-biz in-crowd as Grate.com, but it sounds just about right: "Noir" TV is CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED TV, and thus needn't concern itself with pleasing an audience; all it need please are the producers and their navels. The more it meanders the more pleasing it gets to no one but them.

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

Say! Jon's launching a new hotel chain!

Hey Jon, why didn't you get the folks who designed the O?

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

Incompetents on 9/11, incompetents today.

(Ironically we found this because HENRY HONEST!!!!! linked to the Herald's copy of the Bergen Record's story of a prof who ran a prostitution ring, making it official: HENRY HONEST!!!!! is a timewaster.)

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

If his name's New Tiger he sure has the same old ratings.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

GUVMENT's mandating GROSS!!!!! pictures on cigarette packs so it can say, "See? We NEED government!" We'd guess in time GROSS!!!!! will be as readily ignored by smokers as the warnings, and we would not be surprised if the coffin-nail makers win in court -- especially a con-SERRRR-va-tive court. That does not make their products any less detestable.

Also, why is it necessary to upset little kids to make this point? GROSS!!!!! will hit them the hardest -- and it won't stop peer pressure from getting them to smoke. It also makes it ever less likely we can drive crud from TV and the movees.

(Second link posted 10:53 p. m.)

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

The Lord God Steve was so SURE His Holy Devices could never ever EVER be tampered with He forbade His tech-support peons to talk about it!

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE THE LORD!

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

So Microsoft and BBDO get together to tell CEOs what they already know: for Hollywood schmoozing, you can't beat television.

We can be sure at both outfits there is endless talk about thinking outside the box. This is especially laughable as the Bugmeisters built theirs of reinforced concrete.

(Via I Want Media)

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Shucks, it appears Reginald Van Gleason III has been arrested.

P. S. at 11:40 a. m. Evidently -- not yet. REGINALD VAN GLEASON III LIVES! Pfffffffffffffffft!

(First link via DVFORBESLISTBLOG! Second link via NEWSER!)

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

You don't suppose Corporate America may be preparing to redefine treason again, do you?

(Via NEWSER!)

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

A straw poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research showed that 80 percent either approve or strongly approve of the president more than a year before voters head to the polls to decide whether he deserves a second term.

Did the show-biz and media trade unions just have a big pow-wow?

(Via WeeklyStandard.com)

Posted 7:22 PM by Gene

Now we know this Nine Fingers ruling for Walmart must be bad: GEKKO KUDLOW ENTHUSIASTICALLY SUPPORTS IT.

Hey GEKKO! Isn't it time for some more porridge for GOLDILOCKS!!!!!?

IT RALLIED STOCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Rallying overemphasis added)

Wall Street ends higher, but weak volume a warning sign

This is a rally?

Posted 7:15 PM by Gene

We're sure why The Paper of Re-CORD ran this -- a writer swiped a CONSERVATIVE. Unfortunately this isn't any ordinary religious hack. In his relative favor he isn't even religious. Christopher slammed Mr. F-Word's book because, as we'd have half-suspected, he speaks in platitudes. Perhaps devoting his life to the love and feeding of the F-word has starved all the other words in his vocabulary. There's no better explanation why someone can say FDR "DISMANTLED THE FREE MARKET, AND SO, THE ECONOMY!!!!!" (dismantling overemphasis added) without giggling.

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

The death of this...JACKASS and the CONCAST NETWORK PLEDGE CONTROVERSY are related -- VERY related. If THUMBS's tweet is typical there is enormous resentment over the man -- a no-talent wastrel who made millions thanks to SUMNER, and died a drunk driver, taking another's life with him. This scum is lucky he didn't take more, as drunk drivers do; had he and there'd have been no checking the anger. Such anger, we further state, is an expression of the anger over an industry that refuses to do better and makes huge profits from above-the-law CEOs.

As for the PLEDGE -- we would like to believe it was unintentional. But any business so completely in advertising does NOT do things unintentionally. And we know the superliberals who abound in it, and made His Incompetence our king. This is precisely the sort of thing Attorney General and Chief Social Engineer Effete Q. Snob might have done. One of the superliberals may have tried to make a statement. If so, he should have his head handed to him on a very royal platter.

And here's where these two stories are related -- the scum worked for CONCAST.

P. S. We know, WE KNOW, "under God" was added in 1954, but it STILL reeks.

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

Who was more important: Andrei Sakharov's widow Elena Bonner, a courageous human rights fighter (423 Google News links) or THIS SIDEMAN FOR THE BOSS!!!!!!!!!!! (2347 LINKS!!!!!)?

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

Eight strokes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....

That's great of course but does calling him another Tiger because the game's falling apart really make him so?

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

We imagine tomorrow PILLHEAD will be in a rage because of THIS SOCIALIST ATTACK ON FREE ENTERPRISE blahblahblah.... But if those of us appalled by this story have reason for hope it's Dean Foods's stock price the last four years. What say to that, PILLHEAD?

P. S. In this lunkhead CEO's defense his company has grown tremendously through acquisitions, "from $150 million in 1994 to $12 billion in 2010", something our intrepid reporter mentions in passing in the 46TH GRAF:

[The company] was on the Fortune 500 by the late ’70s and remains there today. It grew then and more recently through acquisition.

This is the mark of sloppy writing and indifferent editing. It is also a variant of what The Paper of Re-CORD did to the RICHLY deserving GE BANCORP by failing to note the mitigating factors in its finance unit. That said Dean Foods could have saved itself lots of grief by letting its CEO talk and not treating news hacks as trespassers. This is PR at its worst -- pardon, by the biz' standards, BEST.

And too many CEOs are still greedy SOBs, and too many con-SER-va-tives are still ready to excuse them solely for making money.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

Is raising the debt ceiling about to become a game of kick the can?

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

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

1. Lord Springer and SUMNER have fashioned a real cosmetics firm from a fictional one on a soap opera.

This looks like a job for LULZSEC! (Sorry.)

2. Raise your hands: How many people believe changing widgets at the high administrative end of a consumer products firm can help sales? Somebody? ANYbody??

INDRA!!!

3. Kids Flock to Social Nets, but Few Advertisers Dare to Follow

Kellogg, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola, PEPSICO, Mattel, Hasbro, Mickey Starbucks -- gee, I can't imagine ANY reasons WHY!

It's not just kids' understanding of advertising that's a lightning rod of controversy for social networks, which mainly rely on virtual and real goods and subscription business models. It's the public perception of how advertising affects kids. Besides law enforcement and the government watching over anyone working with kids online, pediatricians are getting in on the act. A March report by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests doctors ask kids how much time they spend online and warn parents and children about social media including kids' obsession with popularity and status, sleep deprivation, social anxiety, depression, bullying -- and interactions with advertising.

Here's someone who could advertise to kids on Facebook: PFIZER!

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

One of the fiercest tools in the news hack's arsenal is the anecdotal report. The hack can take an anecdote or several and create a trend. Whether or not the trend exists is irrelevant. Anecdotal reporting cements the hack as the final arbiter, not to be overruled even by an act of God; as we've said too often before, news hacks are Gods. Some people -- think MORT ZUCK and the clowns at the DAILY MAIL...and also at The Paper of Re-CORD -- are addicted to anecdotal reporting, usually on prurient topics. We take little comfort that news outlets most prone to anecdotal reporting may also be most prone to outright lying.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

Look at that fellow, suitably meekly in the lower left-hand corner. Does he not look like a rising executive at PEOPLE INC., or maybe a budding vice-president for Mr. Bewkes? No, he's the star of a sickly green comic book movee that landed with a $52.6 million thud. Now if $52.6 million deposited itself in our lap we would not reject it, but considering PEOPLE WARNER's marketing budget for this splat aspired to equal Moon 'n' Stars' for the year we'd say they didn't get very much for their green. Heck when Mogul's Friend of all people likens the pic to KING JAMES THE NOTHINGTH you KNOW it BOMBED.

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

ED MURROW DOES A BOMBING RAID OVER ENEMY TERRITORY!

We've said it before, we'll say it again: The people who watch FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS get the guff they want to hear, and thus with the people who watch ED MURROW. Let us never again say either organ pursues the truth.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

From what little we know of him Jon Huntsman strikes us as a technocrat and a plastic man (no pun intended) at best, an empty suit and a professional campaigner at worst. Why do we want a man whose chief interest seems to be creating jobs in China -- and who stands for nothing else?

Plus, surprise, he has ethics problems, as if a Republican friend of The Lord would not.

News hacks think the guy's a good "Republican"?

Posted 10:28 PM by Gene

Tonight while rummaging through old posts wondering if Bill Buckley's favorite tune really was "Roll Over, Beethoven" (it was) we couldn't help shedding a nostalgic tear for his son, er, Algernon, er, Horatio, er, Christopher! That's it! For old time's sake we plugged into TINA'S site to read one of the most famous essays known to man -- and wouldn't you know...all the comments were gone! WwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwELL! (as Jack Benny would say), this offering us a brilliant opportunity we decided to make up for 32 months of missing celebrations and bitterness with words of our own:

This celebrated lucubration must be the most foolish thing from a professional writer since -- we were about to say since Ezra Pound sold Hitler and Mussolini on the radio, but the man was off his nut then, and unfortunately Christopher seems to have been sane, so we'll say since Oliver Goldsmith apologized for beating Evans the bookseller, which happily goes back much further, and we remember it for words that richly apply here, from the immortal Dr. Johnson: "It was a foolish thing well done." This foolish thing was very well done, exceedingly well done, epochally well done. Here we have a first in all of literature: a career writing a suicide note. Before this Christopher happily chugged along on his name and the connections it opened up for satiric novels people could easily talk themselves into believing were funny, if only because his father demonstrated such a wit with his love of Chuck Berry; and he wrote many, many, many arch words about travel and expensive Champagnes for the late Malcolm Forbes and his brilliant son that happily said same friends could transmute into insight. No doubt in writing this Chris flattered himself highly, for here was a writer almost as good as he! "I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine." Yes, imagine Chris -- his books were as literate, as witty, as refined as -- well, yours! And a man as literate, as witty, as refined as you could go places, forgetting He already traveled Heaven. With "a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect...Obama has in him...the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for." Here was a celebrated satiric writer sprinkling the God with fairy dust, or better still, redundantly anointing Him with holy water -- a parody in itself.

Alas, from the moment of that botched oath of office the fairy dust turned to ashes, the holy water to hydrochloric acid. Christopher could have survived this embarrassment, but being a great writer he had to embarrass himself with a flourish -- not merely by promising great things of a man for the same reasons as would the Nobel committee, and from the same self-regarding reference point, and with words as fatuous as any Nobel proclamation; but more to the point, by burning bridges with his friends, applying so much gasoline to the fire he needed six alarms. And he is still recovering; since then we have been spared more brilliant columns; his friendship with Tina has gone the way of Talk magazine; his brilliant satiric novels come out more quietly, if at all. To put it bluntly, the rara avis has found a statue of Christopher Buckley.

Perhaps his Hero can yet redeem Himself, and thus redeem Chris, although the task would seem even more exponentially expensive with each passing day. Regardless we hope in time Chris can find it in himself to regale book reviewers again with his abundant satire, but as with heroes like Tiger Woods and Anthony Weiner, we hope the moment does not come too soon.

We have not decided whether to post this; possibly it wouldn't post for technical reasons, or it might simply be too long. But we are contemplating it.

Posted 7:02 PM by Gene

YAHOO! DOES IT AGAIN! It runs this story about an intern who discovered two "letters" from Abe Lincoln -- and the most popular comment with almost a thousand thumbs up says it all:

Well, that's all very nice, but WHAT THE HELL DO THEY SAY!!! [SIC]

Chicago's Sun-Times reports that

the papers, which bore no signature or date, were part of a legal case out of Christian County, which is southeast of Springfield. Lincoln appears to have written two pages of notes while preparing a petition he filed in March 1844, some two years before the prairie lawyer was elected to Congress.

Still, ya gotta give Yahoo! credit once more for outstanding reporting!

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

Sorry, when I think of Len Bias I still hear a coach yelling, "Don't talk t'the p'lice, Ah'm tellin' ya -- DON'T TALK T'THE P'LICE!"

And that's still professional college basketball's motto 25 years later.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Mary McCarthy's words increasingly apply to Web "news" and "entertainment" sites too.

(Via HENRY HONEST!)

Posted 12:15 AM by Gene

This pretty well confirms the authorities took their dear old sweet time responding to the Vancouver scum, and with a little more digging we'd find out it was for the usual Canadian PC reasons.

Chief Chu said police would have done many things differently if they had known how many people were going to be on the streets. He would have put more officers at the fan-zone on Georgia Street and tightened security along the fences, he said.

Woulda shoulda coulda -- I guess that's what runs Canada.

Woulda should coulda and we'd have run Canada below the 55th parallel.

Posted 10:05 PM by Gene

Energy and food costs have risen 19 percent and 4 percent since December, according to the Labor Department. That caused real disposable income, or the money left over after taxes and adjusted for inflation, to remain unchanged. The confluence of higher prices and unemployment at 9.1 percent has become especially acute for households making less than $75,000 a year, according to David Schick, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore.

“More-persistent inflation is affecting consumer confidence,” Schick said. “This may cause low-to-middle income consumers to trade down when shopping at retailers.”



Not MY problem -- or my FRIENDS'!

Posted 9:44 PM by Gene

Spiegel Online, one of the few news Web sites that deserves to be better known than it is, has run an unintentionally annoying profile on Bernie Ecclestone, the tyrant of Formula One and Hitler admirer, who has two beautiful daughters, one of whom just bought a superexpensive mansion here, and it reminds us that most of the business genius of our day got that way not through vision but by shuffling assets, and Bernie is clearly a shuffler nonpareil. The shufflers seem to forget at times the world can live without them; Formula One is virtually invisible in the U. S. We will not forget that great asset shuffler LEGENDARY WELCH was a hero until his rep was forever stained by his shenanigans with his bank. Bernie is 80 and he will soon enough learn whether or not he can take it with him. We ordinarily wouldn't bet against SUMNERS but this one's pretty safe.

Posted 9:24 PM by Gene

In more comedy from the world of diplomacy:

U.S. exploring possible war crimes charges against Syria

Posted 9:16 PM by Gene

We would not guess why Mogul's Friend issued this attack on LUKE SPIELBERG and His follower J. J., but it says in ways Mog might not have wished that a plague has visited them both: LUKE for dumbing down the movies, J. J. for being a puppy-dog fan. Every day we see the scourge idiots have inflicted on the once grand film biz, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize as He will does not erase that LUKE was one of the biggest.

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Speaking of yesterday I wouldn't place too much stock in this speed bump: Who remembers the two channels that merged into the profoundly successful COMEDY CENTRAL NEWS? If it keeps up however it condemns those who built up these "icons" through their devotion as fools, and those who'd prolong their reigns as on a fool's errand.

(Via Daily Intel)

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

THE GAMES would not exist without moguls and CEOs, but as they would look funny with only moguls and CEOs attending the organizers have to make a big show of caring for ordinary spectators. What's happened in London is the inevitable result of trying to shoehorn the public into a rich man's orgy, and as too many sojourns with customer service have taught us the words "I'm sorry" have no meaning.

Posted 11:31 AM by Gene

Shucks, the fightin' McCourts have settled, and now someone can make a trillion bucks a year owning the Dodgers.

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

But we must reflect further, and console ourselves: if the luck news hacks celebrate seems so overwhelming now, and they seem so overwhelmingly omnipotent now, think of it and them in twenty years. Who can name five Paper of Re-CORD reporters from twenty years ago? We have said before and to distraction that this age reeks of impermanence, and this enduringly preposterous saga reminds us that the vast bulk of what has lately obsessed us won't qualify as historical footnotes. Who will remember WEINER in twenty years except as the punchline to a bad joke? All this should go without saying but in a world that sometimes seems nothing but PR pranks someone must repeat it.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

News hacks as movie stars confirms not only their own stratospheric opinions of themselves but that the whole reporting business is a luck business, where up-and-coming toadies do their adjective-writing best to get all the luck they can protecting their clients' (i.e., subjects') hides. When we start talking about Brian "The Original TV Newser!" Stelter's love life we are clearly talking of people who are now so ostentatiously successful they need have no concern for us peons. The only thing David Carr could have done better was to dress as Louis XIV; that would at least have honestly confirmed the hacks' superiority to their mere readers.

Posted 7:57 PM by Gene

Speaking of con-SER-va-tives, looks as if once more they're trying to blame the housing bust on PO' PEOPLE, but some of the commenters give evidence that may not wash.

(Via Weekly Standard)

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Evidently Republicans are in trouble because they've got a conflict: big business and the hyperrich are their idols, and anything to help them helps...them; unfortunately one way of helping them is with subsidies -- think ETHANOL -- and now right-wing clods like Grover "The Arab Lobbyist" Norquist are mad because they say ending certain subsidies amounts to a "TAX INCREASE", meaning we can expect no more courage from Republicans than we can expect sense from Democrats.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

The catastrophe in Vancouver says THE GAMES are a Band-Aid, a false front, a mirage; it now seems obvious the city had deep problems well before and beyond the supposed healing powers of that cure for cancer. We also suspect malevolent policing practices helped turn sparks into a conflagration: Canada, after all, is The World's Most PC Country, and the law most likely wasn't out because, well, criminal behavior IS almost a right, and besides what's wrong with a little celebration, and perhaps the mice feared any show of force would goad NEWS HACKS into high dudgeon (they'd have been correct about that), so the necessary proactive response was supplanted by sitting around, which turned in no time into half-hearted apologetic self-defense; only when it became obvious the cretins weren't singing "Kumbaya" as they set cars on fire did any sense finally kick in. There will be the usual self-flagellation, the usual hearings, the usual scapegoats, but there's no sign Vancouver will become any more livable or responsible, or that Canada's leaders will be any less wussies.

Oh, and blaming it on anarchists won't do. By sleeping on the job you should first blame it on YOURSELVES.

Well, there is one hope of the modern world: Idiots did the WEINER, and as that mutt learned to his dense sorrow it can be used against you.



P. S. I suppose this weird picture is our generation's version of the sailor and the girl in Times Square. Maybe if the GENIUS Ridley Scott staged it. I think I'd rather have the sailor and the girl.



And how apt that Vancouver quickly sprouted its own version of the yellow ribbon. Look, the sentiment's nice, but sentiment didn't prevent the DAMAGE.

P. S. on 6/17/2011 at 12:10 p. m. Despite suspicions engendered by a Web whose greatest products are publicity and cynicism that first picture was not staged.