Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

"Information about our financial support for certain causes is proprietary!!!!!" said Adam Shores, a spokesman for insurance giant Allstate. [Informative overemphasis added]

TRANSLATION: THE PUBLIC BE DAMNED! WE'LL CORRUPT POLITICIANS ANY WAY WE CHOOSE!

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

“Likely the fighting is going to continue, the death rate will be high, the TV images are going to be awful, the drumbeat of criticism from the news corps, the punditocracy and the intervention caucus on Capitol Hill will get really loud,” Lindsay said. “Should we get to that point, Obama’s going to have a choice: Do more or find a way out.”

Say Your Incompetence! Nice Vietnam You landed us into -- and Yours doesn't even have COMMIES!

Posted 1:48 PM by Gene

[W]e are not sanguine about our media not being zapped despite the cloud's supposed near infinite capacity for backup.

Lots of others were!

(Via NEWSER!)

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

Stephen Schwartz, the genius composer of PIPPIN and WICKED!!!!!, has written an AH-pe-RA for a dying company, with predictable results. Next time, Steve, leave it to professionals.

And what's wrong with sitting in the Riviera with your unjustly earned zillions?

Posted 9:15 PM by Gene

"This snub is par for the course for those of us lucky to do a job that's long been derided as extraneous AND self-indulgent!!!!!" [Deriding overemphasis added]

ANN, Ann, now that you've hyperventilated you've made it all but inevitable ROCK mu-SICK cri-TICS will get the beloved P-Ulitzers -- they'll probably be the only ones to get them -- but that doesn't make the truth you accidentally uttered any less true: such cri-TICS engage in extraneous, self-indulgent work, making immortals of temporal no-talents, using up more than the God-given supply of adjectives and syllables and pretensions; but PLEASE, Ann, cut the melodrama; in time their extraneous self-indulgence will be RICHLY awarded, as it has elsewhere in the NEWS BIZ.

Posted 8:20 PM by Gene

OH, so The GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHDIAN ran this AHTSJournal-linked pile of piffle also! Once one could distinguish literary fiction from hack work; but with the hack work rising to a level of unwarranted respectability -- and more to the point, with literary fiction falling to the level of its MFAs -- there was no longer a good reason to favor one over the other, especially when the reading public had an increasing resentment of being BORED.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

MEL!!!!! had an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!!!!! with the SUPERNIKKIS!!!!!!!!!!

TRANSLATION: He didn't say anything.

Posted 12:22 PM by Gene

Let's see -- where do we start with ASININE:

MORT ZUCK runs a story on a woman who's set an alleged record in plastic surgeries. The only comment thus far starts, "I dunno how this made 'news'." We dunno either.

DVFORBESLISTBLOG, not content to run a story on one of those all-time zillionaire villains who must own every sports team in sight and flatters the BONOVIANS by not talking to the press, runs this typing about bringing the Dodgers back to Brooklyn because Brooklyn's "HIP". I've got a better idea: Let's bring the Faberge eggs back to the Forbeses!

THE TWXSTERS say in so many words they'll let THE DONALD determine how much He's worth. You'd think news hacks would want to make a fuss over this, given how THEY appoint our president, but His publicity value TRUMPS making a fuss any day.

THE WAX tries to justify the wall-to-wall junk her CLIENTS intend to justify THE WEDDING with by running "GUESSTIMATES" of how many people watched certain big TV events, which reminds us of that old saw about lies, damned lies and TV EXECS.

THE GAHHHHHHHHHHDIAN runs another of those intolerable think pieces AHTSJournal MUST link to, saying how wonderful it is that our language is accreting with slang no one will remember in fifteen years. Hey Johnny, you think we'll still be using "sheening" then? Shakespeare's full of obsolete words. Some words sound good for a short time, but without an occasional cleaning and polishing they lose all meaning. And most people aren't Shakespeares. Writers can't avoid what the OED called "nonce" words -- we use too many ourselves -- but it's best to stick with the tried-and-true so that you won't require a slang dictionary in fifty years.

Posted 11:05 PM by Gene

THIS is a SCREAM!

JERRY BECK, TAKE A BOW!

(Even if the cartoon has a misspelling.)

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

We are SOOOO sorry hope and change proved to be somewhat tougher to come by than expected.

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

The best-laid plans of mice: Who knew "medical" marijuana was good for so many "aches and pains"?

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

Got a stock problem? KUDLOWIZE IT!

Yum Brands Inc. executives said Thursday that Taco Bell, their most profitable U.S. chain, hasn't recovered from the impact of a lawsuit, since dropped, over the beef content of its taco filling.

STOCK UP FIVE PERCENT!!!!!

Scores of websites and Internet services like Foursquare and Reddit are down or have limited availability because of problems at a data center run by Amazon.com.

NO PROBLEM -- THAT STOCK'S UP TOO!!!!!

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

The administration is not naive about Russia. It is well aware of the injustice, corruption and fragility of the country’s political system.

Since when has The Econowiz become a house organ for His Incompetence?

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

Thanks for wasting our time, ZACK! Somewhere the Founder (you know, one of those guys before BONO!!!!! came along) is spinning in his grave.

Which reminds us -- hope You lose more money on TURN OUT THE LIGHTS!

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Good! Frank's putting up a FIGHT! Although this merely means someone's right to earn obscene profits gets slightly delayed.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

When a con-SER-va-tive Web site runs a story like this either 1. We can ignore it or 2. We can slander it thanks to its bias, but it sounds as though His Incompetence's gang has regally screwed up again.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Some Web sites put the moral equivalent of "DO NOT ENTER" (or rather, don't have to enter) signs on their home pages. HENRY HONEST!!!! does it with JOE W.; Atlantic.com does it by becoming YOUR NUMBER-ONE SOURCE FOR ROCK MUSIC CRITICISM!!!!! The TWXSTERS have just done it too. But they're the experts at putting DO NOT ENTER signs on magazines, so it's second nature.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

GE BANCORP's raising its dividend -- by a penny -- and STEVEDOM'S BACK IN PERMANENT PROSPERITY MODE, so let me guess: DOW UP 10,000!!!!!

P. S. at 11:08 a. m.

Analysts noted GE's 6 percent rise in revenue -- which came across all divisions -- may have been inflated by a change in its fiscal calendar that added six days to the first quarter.

Sorry Very Littler Jeffy -- you're STILL not LEGENDARY WELCH.

P. P. S. at 11:11 a. m. LEGENDARY could buy SIX COMPANIES in ONE DAY!

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

All this means is someday soon the Dodgers will be obscenely profitable under new owners. The Bill Gates of Baseball protects His owners' profit margins first.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Here we get all this blah about a new golden age for Branson East and this theme park closes before they've had a chance to fully erect the rides. We only wish more of those who foist such parks on the Sardi's fanciers would have such rough times.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

This is a huge tax break and it's guvment playing favorites, which it shouldn't do; that said, better for Corporate America to be back in the cities it so blithely abandoned.

Posted 3:17 PM by Gene

A homeless man, who has been arrested at least 120 times since 1998, has been arrested after a woman accused him of assaulting her while she was passed out.

This is precisely the sort who's a hero to the sons of b -- DOUGLAS who think vagrancy is the expression of a noble spirit. If the Chief Social Engineer weren't preoccupied he'd take him up as pro-bono work.

When Bell was questioned by the police, he responded, "I probably did that," according to the report.

TRANSLATION: Try and convict me!

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The Web allows people to hibernate in such extraordinarily tiny hermetically-sealed self-referential in-joke cubbyholes their fellow humans have no reason to notice.

This DVFORBESLISTBLOG typist finds that wonderful. Don't we have enough cliques, even with memberships of one?

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

So! In addition to wasting money on junk television, Corporate America's wasting money on computers!

Just so long as It doesn't have to hire anybody.

Posted 8:03 PM by Gene

Chris was sure in a fun mood today, wasn't he! We confess we haven't even progressed to the boredom and ennui level with The Wedding of the Century. We were about to type that such weddings are an argument for abolishing the British crown but as Chris says the Queen does have a certain dignity, and besides what other high-ups can we laugh down
at?

Needless to say the MIRACLE OF MOUNTAIN VIEW is in on the act:

Posted 7:59 PM by Gene

We fear this powerful essay will merely confirm the whole business as a partisan conservative cause, but conservatives and liberals alike should fight the open urban wound that is graffiti and redouble efforts to clean it up -- and especially to clean up its "artistes".

Posted 7:55 PM by Gene

This surely qualifies for a Darwin Award, professional-sports division:

Reds pitcher Mike Leake was arrested on a shoplifting charge at a downtown department store Monday, accused of trying to steal six shirts with a total value of $59.88....

Police arrest reports said Leake removed the price tags from six American Rag T-shirts at a Macy's store and tried to leave without paying for them. Leake makes $425,000 in his second season in the majors.

Guy, if you're going to shoplift couldn't you trade up?

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

The widespread assumption that Trump’s flirtation with the presidency is a publicity stunt is no doubt at least partly true. But that’s merely the point of departure for a man whose almost every public move over the last 30 years has been a publicity stunt.

When our public life becomes something no one can take seriously, we get DONALDS.

Posted 9:48 AM by Gene

Frank WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILDHORN, the age's answer to Henry Mancini, has concocted another theme park:

Wildhorn cooks up boy-band numbers for Jack and his fellow knights, who look like refugees from a Ralph Lauren Polo campaign. (These are among the few occasions choreographer Marguerite Derricks appears to be awake, aping moves more cleverly parodied in Altar Boyz.)

There’s generic Latino pop for El Gato, laid-back Prince-style funkadelics for the Caterpillar, a screechy anthem out of the Bonnie Tyler/Jim Steinman playbook for the Mad Hatter, and an old-school showstopper for the Queen, with nods to Gypsy, The Music Man and South Pacific. This show needs no help underlining its inferiority to classic musicals. In amongst all this is the occasional insipid ballad for Alice and Chloe.

Something for everyone -- a comedy tonight!

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

BULLETIN Treasury Dept.: S&P outlook underestimates U.S.'s debt-reduction capacity [Marketwatch.com blurb]

As well it might given His Incompetence is in office.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

WHITE MALES ARE TOAST! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

We wouldn't gloat so hard, TINA!!!!! -- not with SIX PAGES OF ADS and your SUGAR DADDY gone. Does America need more than one newsrag -- The Econowiz?

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

"More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Nikola G. Swann.

Our rejoinder: Stocks have doubled! What, we worry?

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

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

1. "A former network executive" burps:

The first decade of the 2000s has been dubbed "The Reality Era," but it was really an era of choice. If you want serious drama, there's "Mad Men," "Six Feet Under" or "The Wire"; if it's intelligent comedy try "The Daily Show"or "Curb Your Enthusiasm"; if it's tightly plotted thrillers, how about "True Blood" or "Damages?" If you prefer to not be sure what you're watching, try "Carnivale." [Only $110 for ALL THREE SETS!] And, of course, "reality" shows of every stripe filled the screen -- some being high-quality efforts such as "The Amazing Race" and "American Idol" and others that were just -- well -- odd. Whole networks are now devoted to the genre. If Newton Minow couldn't find something to like in this plethora of choice, tailored to so many tastes -- highbrow and low-brow -- perhaps he'd need to rethink his definition of a "wasteland." It's been a storm-tossed journey, but we've come a long way from "Gilligan's Island." [Links added]

Just one problem -- people now have to pay hundreds of dollars for what by rights the networks should have delivered for free. Their dropping the ball helped lead to "57 CHANNELS AND NOTHIN' ON", a number that threatens to approach 57,000. We might add "CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED" does NOT equal GOOD. We might further add if searching for quality television is now a full-time occupation in its own right what's the point?

And we would not have gone to the trouble of collecting links for these MASTERPIECES' ratings if people watched them. They are old but generally the numbers top out at 4 million -- 1.3 percent of the current U. S population. And they are frequently much lower. But then we do expect TV executives, present or former, to be IGNORAMUSES.

2. The CRAINIACS try to get their clients in gear by boasting that SOCIAL MEDIA LEAD TO APPOINTMENT VIEWING!!!!! Well when you see a buzzword you know it can't be long in the article before its authors contradict themselves:

[C]hatter doesn't always translate to ratings. Digital agency Wiredset recently launched social-media tracker Trendrr.TV to rank TV shows based on full-week volume of tweets, Facebook posts and check-ins for GetGlue and Miso, two mobile startups that aim to corral TV chatter. On that chart, for the same week, "Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars" are top-three social-media shows; they also top Nielsen's list for most viewers. However, "Glee," while No. 2 on Trendrr.TV, was No. 77 on Nielsen's top-watched broadcast prime-time list for the same week.

TRANSLATION: Faddish social media won't help programs with "huge" audiences because they don't need it, and they won't help CULT PROGRAMS because their audiences are too small.

3. Brian -- who can always be counted on to assume the missionary position with potential advertisers -- says someday we'll get to see ANYTHING ON TV!!!!!!!!!! We would remind this DIMWIT that typical ratings for most TV shows are single-digit -- and sometimes not even that, which you'll get when your first order of business is to prod us to see ANYTHING ON TV!!!!!!!!!!

And judging from 16,800 Google links we'd say DOC-TOR PONDILLO is yearning to be the next PERFESSER THOMPSON -- that is to say, a complete ALWAYS-ON JERK.

P. S. Hmmm, six months ago the BLITHERING JACKASS BRIAN was saying, "[A]s TV becomes much more disparate and personal, thanks to new technology, family-friendly content may have more sway." I guess the pimps sang a different tune last week.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO BRIAN!

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

A pose of exceptional shrewdness. By putting her hand over her mouth Keira somewhat obscures her very masculine jaw. She actually looks...appealing. If Keira were as good looking below the upper lip...but we don't expect ANY female ac-TOR to be good looking these days.

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

Another excruciatingly politicized topic. Why is only child PR0N bad? Given the inescapable "ADULT" kind why is that not a problem? And why do liberals take that smug attitude towards it -- an attitude that forcefully contrasts itself with their psychosis against SMOKING (which in turn is countered by the con-SER-va-tives' notion that smoking's basically good for you)?

A PLAGUE O'BOTH YOUR HOUSES!

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Report: Iranian intelligence minister resigns

TRANSLATION: NUKEMAN's stronger than ever.

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

Can Condi do comedy? [Home-page link]

Yes! She has the résumé!

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Okay, call us square, old fuddy-duddies, useless old fogies, but we wish we knew why the hacks see a new Athens of America in each of these wing-dings. We can guess what they're like even though we've never attended one. The more news hacks act as the total right-on-with-it-now philistines they are the more Orchestras will go bankrupt, and the consequences for our culture are already dire.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

As I've said a zillion times before, good news for show-biz is bad news for the rest of us -- especially now that it's a glorified ward of the state. So okay, SUPERNIKKI!!!!!, you've got your GOOD NEWS!!!!!, but even you have to remind us the weekend was led off by a 3D babysitter, and there's still a vast indifference to most of the also-rans -- and even if your industry came out ahead $30 million a week for the next twenty weeks you'd still be behind for the year. Uncritical teens and parents will pull this undeserving industry from its rut, but we still would like to think this time will be different.

While we're at it, here's a dictionary definition of MORON:

Rio 3D posts the best G-rated family pic opening since Toy Story 3!!!!!!!!!! [Best overemphasis added]

We'd guess it's the first pic so rated SINCE!

The industry's SCARLET LETTER is STILL

P. S. at 6:38 P. M. We were pleased to see the Cult of AYNISM could not lure the hoards -- pardon, hordes into believing their GREENSPANIAN gospel of prosperity everlasting. Con-SER-va-tives will say, "It was a bad film." So was WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!!! The Jesus Slasher Movie!

Posted 10:39 AM by Gene

The Orchestra's bankruptcy is largely mismanagement, and moving into a needless new venue; but it is also about the classical music realm's near total bankruptcy of imagination, and it is about the permanent and total dearth of composing talent, something beyond the Orchestra's control, but the talent it impossibly needs to be able to avoid bankruptcy again.