Posted 10:45 PM by Gene

If any county deserves a bankrupt government it's Nassau, New York.

Posted 9:35 PM by Gene

Raul Castro proposes political term limits in Cuba

TRANSLATION: No one can serve in government for more than fifty-two years.

The proposal was made toward the end of a 2 1/2 hour speech....

Here's another idea, Raul: No speech can last longer than two-and-a-half hours -- or fifty-two years, whichever is longer.

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

Walter Mondale must remind us there are two ways to prosperity: the Democratic way of taxing everything until it screams and letting government run everything, and the Republican way of letting the hyperrich own everything while every man fends for himself. So long as we're stuck with these opposites we deserve to go broke.

(Via NEWSER!, which calls him WALTER MONDAY! [See the URL])

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

Annoying to learn that Ward Kimball took the side of the ANGELS on Vietnam, but he loved model trains, and he loved Dixieland jazz, and he's still one of the greats.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

The new king of a local university wants to wipe out poverty from his neighborhood. The only way he can do that is by expanding his enrollment twenty-fold, and we suspect even Bill Cosby University is finding gentrification only goes so far; and by somehow persuading industry to relocate in those neighborhoods it's defenestrated, and the first calling of America's CEOs is to refuse to provide work for the locals. Inevitably he'll go the EDS-'n'-MEDS route and get GUVMENT and his pliant parent clients to build him some Taj Mahals. We've had enough needless spending on kolleje kampusses, and when a new king like this promises to act as a local savior we want to permanently stop our ears up.

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

We presume JOURNOLIST still exists in some form, and helped enable this jackassery. This is a PILLHEADIAN practical joke from the left. Look, JOSH, our contempt for politicians and their helpers is total. Would you like it to be MORE THAN TOTAL?

(Via NEWSER!, which was no doubt full of giggles)

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

ANOTHER AHTSJournal imposition: Someone's written an AH-pe-RA about -- BRIAN MULRONEY, that Jay Leno lookalike to the north; and honest to God if someone didn't have to write THIS:

I felt a new emotion while watching this: sympathy for Brian Mulroney. I didn’t mind so much that Dan Redican’s script treats our former prime minister as an egotistical clown – editorial cartoonists did as much, or worse – but for Alexina Louie to give so colourful a man nothing memorable or interesting to sing seems too cruel.

Mulroney: The Opera is really a musical with operatic in-jokes....Most musicals live or die by good tunes, and there are a few in Mulroney. Unfortunately, they’ve all been repurposed from operas by the likes of Mozart, Bizet and Puccini.

When cultural anthropolgists five hundred years hence disinter the corpse of today's AH-pe-RA from its unmarked grave they'll marvel that so many people wrote in-jokes, and that so many raved about the in-jokes -- but mostly that "composers" had to steal profusely to pad their nonexistent scores, or worse, showed their lack of talent for all the world, like a minimally-endowed flasher.

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

Posner: What Shakespeare Can Teach Us About the Law

I think he's taught us enough.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

More genius from CABLE -- from its GLOBE THEATRE:

A couple of Sundays ago I had a gnarly mood swing in front of the telly. It happened while Kate Winslet was frowning and mumbling her way through the third episode of Mildred Pierce, the HBO miniseries directed by Todd Haynes. Though meticulously art-directed, this rendering of the James M. Cain pulp novel is the polar opposite of the archly fabulous 1945 movie that won Joan Crawford an Oscar. All the heavy maquillage, gut-busting histrionics and scenery-blocking shoulder pads of that classic film noir have been replaced by soft, Depression-era mossy tones and a relentlessly faithful-to-the-original-novel screenplay. In an effort to avoid cheesy pastiche, Haynes has stripped away the sizzle and the style and the Eve Ardens and the Butterfly McQueens, and replaced them with—quelle horreur!—authenticity.

Halfway through, I could stand it no more. I turned to my dog Liberace and I screeched, "You know what's wrong with this show don't you? It's not bloody camp enough!"

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Perhaps justice will come to the Wall Street Casino after all.

And if there is any comfort, these guys will always have many, many more chances to get themselves incarcerated -- and BEN can't run the show FOREVER.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: His Incompetence is shredding gears and leaking oil. Does this God care about anything but Himself and His ego?

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine....

[H]aving a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves.

THE GREATEST SATIRIC NOVELIST'S words grow funnier and funnier every day -- perhaps the only funny words he ever wrote.

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

More genius from CABLE, the greatest repository of cultural superlatives since Elizabethan...England:

[I]n rushing William & Kate, the two-hour telepic airing Monday, into production, the makers of this incredibly awful movie seem to have skimped on everything—there’s a lackluster script, paint-by-numbers plotting, and hilariously inauthentic locations (UCLA’s Royce Hall repeatedly stands in for Scotland’s University of St Andrews, though the producers have attempted to recreate the “cursed” cobblestone initials of martyr Patrick Hamilton).

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

SHUCKS, God won't return to His kingdom after all to spread the holy word on RACIST HOMOPHOBIC NAZI CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES.

And below that in Romy, the University of Colorado is closing a "j-school", and we suggest if every last j-school closed newshackery might actually improve.

Alas, it appears the skool is creating something like a Department of Media, meaning the tax gouging and student bankrupting can happily continue.

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

"All My Children" won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1992, 1994, and 1998. It has received more than 30 Emmy Awards in all, as has taken on such social issues as AIDS, abortion, cochlear implants, teenage alcoholism, racial bias, acquaintance rape, spousal abuse, homosexuality, Reyes syndrome, Vietnam MIAs, and more. The show aired daytime's first same-sex kiss between two lesbian characters, as well as its first same-sex wedding between two women.

"One Life to Live" won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2002. Its daytime firsts include stories of interracial romance, illiteracy, medical misdiagnosis, racial prejudice, gang violence and teen pregnancy.

Among its most celebrated storylines was one in 1992 about a gay teen (the then-unknown Ryan Phillippe) that culminated with the display of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation named it Outstanding Daytime Drama in 1993, 2005 and 2010.

Here in a nutshell is one reason ESPNCORP is canceling these soaps, and why the genre won't last much longer. These programs started as simple escapism and ultimately TACKLED ISSUES. This is the equivalent of news hacks TELLING THE TRUTH. We'd like to chart the ratings in general of the soaps in the last thirty years -- we suspect they share something with the NIGHTLY NEWS. Certainly they wouldn't have been taped in the back of a broom closet with one camera if they still resonated with viewers. And while we truly believe The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers doesn't give a damn what it finances one can understand a very few of its members might find it easier to TACKLE ISSUES through "reality" shows than scripted dramas. We feel sorry for the fans who've invested their lives and their mental health in these soaps; as for the rest of us, we won't miss a thing.

“Because of all the amazing new series programming that is available to the viewer, it just can’t compete.”

Okay Talent Agent Jeff, if all this new series programming is so amazing why is drawing a 1.0 RATING an immortal achievement these days?

Posted 12:14 PM by Gene

Link of the Day:

EUROPEAN STOCKS TO WATCH
Chemical sector is ripe

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

We are sorry to see that Randy Wood, the founder of Dot Records, home at one time to Pat Boone and Lawrence Welk, has died. (He also founded Ranwood, which housed Welk almost exclusively.) Say what you will about those two, that there was once a place for them in music says there was also a place for other kinds of music that no longer have a place, thanks to the gold-chain brigade.

Our favorite Dot single is "Transfusion."

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

Typhoid Mary, yes -- but Typhoid Nancy?

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

That JonBoy can write for the former PEOPLE WARNER flagship merely proves the news biz is full of interchangeable parts that work so long as they think the same way.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

Sleeping air traffic controllers claim their scapegoat.

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Thursday, April 14, 11:12 AM Whoa! Zipcar (ZIP) opens at $30.50 (+70%) after pricing at $18.

Another future bankruptcy.

Posted 9:38 PM by Gene

Yes, the woman who yelled something close enough to "You like me! You REALLY LIKE ME!!!!!" is the perfect choice to play Mary Todd Lincoln in LUKE SPIELBERG's movie.

Posted 8:08 PM by Gene

RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE, MUTINY MUTINY MUTINY: It's official: con-SER-va-tives no longer like the budget deal.

Posted 7:59 PM by Gene

We suspected The DONALD's campaign could be done in by financial disclosures, and here's the first. His purported grim miserliness might recommend Him to con-SER-va-tives but probably not to voters.

Of course He could have a reason: He's been saving up to run for president.

P. S.

The political press must make coverage decisions in a world with limited editorial resources. In doing so, no metric is perfect - some undeserving candidates will be elevated, while other deserving candidates won't get their due. But those should be the close cases. What we're seeing now is ludicrous. It's as if the financial ability to one day launch a quixotic, ultimately failed third-party bid for the White House itself compels the press to cover your campaign from day one.

Ludicrous is the news hack's middle name.

(First link via NEWSER!!!!!)

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

A sales...ANALYST named White belches:

Observers have speculated for years that Apple will enter the $100 billion market for LCD television sets. To date, however, Apple has only flirted with the market with the $99 Apple TV, which Apple Chief Steve Jobs has described as a “hobby.”

That will change the moment Apple unveils a television set.”The [SIC] combination of Apple’s powerful ecosystem, industrial design savvy, powerful brand and ability to reinvent product categories could make Apple a powerful force in the TV world over the next few years!!!!!!!!!!” White wrote. [Powerful ovemphasis added]

I'd never bet against STEVEDOM, but it could also be Its Waterloo.

White has a buy-rating and a 12-month price target of $550 on Apple shares.

When do we get to really hate the Wall Street Casino again?

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

Given the ennui toward this story we're surprised Barry Bonds* was found guilty of anything. But if he wasn't guilty somebody was -- in THE GREATEST YEAR FOR BASEBALL EVER!

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Sidney Harman has died, and now TINA!!!!! will have to try to get along without him.

But to avoid painting him in caricature, we must say hi-fi would not have been the same without him. The Lord God Steve owes HIS wealth to him -- and audiophiles their thrilling neurotic obsessions.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Glenn Beck channels Orson Welles

What's this mean, Romy -- that He too can start a national panic?

And that business about War of the Worlds is apparently FALSE.

P. S. The Rev. Dr. BECK was born in 1964 -- and He "grew up" listening to radio shows first broadcast in the late 1930s? How often were they on?

P. P. S. Some have already noted the fact that Rev.'s linked Himself to a hoax -- but we might further remind our three surfers He's also linked himself to a COMMIE!

“Marc Blitzstein,” said Orson Welles in 1984, “was almost a saint. He was so totally and serenely convinced of the Eden which was waiting for us all [on] the other side of the Revolution that there was no way of talking politics to him. He didn't care who was in the Senate, or what Mr. Roosevelt said – [Roosevelt] was just the spokesman for the bourgeoisie! When he came into the room the lights got brighter. He was an engine, a rocket, directed in one direction which was his opera [The Cradle Will Rock] – which he almost believed had only to be performed to start the Revolution.”

Make a few substitutions and NUF SAID.

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

Six of one: Falwell University getting $445 million in Federal aid -- the most of any KOLEDGE in Virginia. It proceeded to censor the story from its Internet.

Half-a-dozen of the other: Romy yelling, "Salon.com linked to Barry's story and pointed out the CONSERVATIVE!!!!! college got more government cash than NPR last year! NYAAAAAAAAH NYAH NYAH NYAAAAAAAAAH NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

SIX OF ONE....

Posted 8:13 PM by Gene

U.S. Admiral: China’s Carrier Poses Mostly Symbolic Threat

Walmarts and STEVEDOMS can make it real!

Posted 6:43 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLEBLOGGER just had the equivalent of a total eclipse -- an argument for why it and STEVEDOM and ZUCKERDOM should engage in mortal battle -- and ALL LOSE.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

Speaking of PR0N, it is not enough that it is a visual practical joke -- one of its aficionados has learned how to use the homeless as a literal punchline.

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

Today DailyMail.co.uk demonstrated why it is a perennial insult to its readers. I won't post the link that exasperated me except to say there are two reasons people take off their clothes in the movees -- to make money and to show off. In that it's little better than PR0N.

And speaking of dimwits, this self-imagined number two to SUPERNIKKI!!!!! demonstrates why he deserves a better job -- and certainly merits one away from Web sites:

Oblivion premise didn't fit the studio's family film mandate. Attempts to bring it in as a PG film was creatively strangling the project. It will be made as PG-13.

Say SUPERMIKE!!!!!, how did they manage such things before ST. JACK OF VALENTI? Maybe that's another reason for those RECORD GROSSES.



NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARDS TO DAILYMAIL.CO.UK AND SUPERMIKE!!!!!

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

“Social media went wild and people were seeing too much negative rather than positive.”

TRANSLATION: Advertisers have an obligation to be devoid of common sense.

This ad was part of a campaign. Other executions included an attractive man (that ad ran on Saturday) and an attractive house. In each case, the idea was that things remain attractive even when “used” – so why not get a used car.

I repeat....

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

A new IT challenge is emerging: building a vast infrastructure for electric vehicles, or EVs. Information technology is needed to give the electric car a much-needed push -- handling the vast data processing required to optimize power utilization from the generation plant all the way down to an individual owner's garage. These functions are needed to make the new cars successful, analysts say.

OR....

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

Bloggers to file class action suit against Huffington Post

Pffh-hh-hh hh hh hh ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

(The usual Romy link)

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

If Gwyneth were a ravishing beauty one could forgive her everything. It is far more difficult to forgive "AWARD-WINNING" typists for devoting 1,473 WORDS to such a tiresome topic.

BANKRUPTCY FOR TINA!!!!!

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

The budget shenanigans are starting to take on the smell of useless symbolism.

But some of the worst-sounding trims are not quite what they seem, and officials said they would not necessarily result in lost jobs or service cutbacks. In several cases, what look like large reductions are actually accounting gimmicks.

Double.

Posted 8:30 PM by Gene

This story (whose hed made us too somber to read it) grieves us as misplaced hope is only marginally less awful than the calamity. Nonetheless, we can hope.

But we did find this happy news in Politico.com:

Jonathan Alter out at Newsweek

That probably means the last of the scribblers who worshipped at the smelly feet of THE WONKY WHISKEY WHINER is gone. Good riddance!

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

The age reeks because it is a cartoon age. We have cartoon leaders engaged in cartoon violence over cartoon outrages, like dozens of Yosemite Sams without the humor. The GOP has a problem because cartoon characters are running for president -- that off-kilter Mormon, Dennis the Menace, Michelle, THE DONALD: they'd all fit perfectly in a comic strip, the best medium as it's been so long in decline.

Even the people who are supposed to distract us but lack the talent for it engage in their own cartooning. Why THE BOSS should counter Snooki at Rotgut -- Rutgers is beyond us -- pardon our Spanish but it's a pompous ass countering an ass with a well-developed ass. Bloviating on the "hypocrisy" of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DYLAN is words wasted; given how news hacks love Him I'd say He's stood foursquare with THE MAN for some time. As for TGSM -- he isn't inferior enough to warrant comment, but SI pays too well, and you never know it might need another pontificator.

So this is a cartoon age. Unfortunately, most of the people who must live in it are all too real.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

Aren't these two truth tellers starting to look almost as old as the audience for denture-adhesive ads?

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

Charl Schwartzel!

Hate to say it but it sounds like something from Mel Brooks.

Congratulations whatever the name -- at least it wasn't TGSM.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

A photo like this reminds me of what could be in show-biz, and what today too often is, and is yet another in the endless hints that the continuing movee B. O. dropoff is more than a fluke of the schedule.

Or to put it another way, those who can "sing" can't act (we don't consider emitting technopop through your nose singing), those who can act can't sing, and those of either persuasion have no looks. We confess to daydreaming too much of a woman combining the innocent charm of the young Debbie Reynolds, the beauty and voice of the young Jeannette MacDonald, the seductiveness of MM or Liz and the flat-out sex appeal of BB or Sophia, plus being supersmart like Hedy Lamarr -- and we used to have each of those. Why not now?

While we think of it, anyone who can reel off the names of dozens and dozens of pop stars from the last thirty years almost certainly has no musical taste.