THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Who put it in my mind -- maybe it was PILLHEAD's ACCENT, or perhaps EMMETT "KELLY" -- that the same con-SER-va-tives who LOVE to gas about excessive government-worker pay never say a word about excessive CEO pay?
I'm TIRED of both sides using the HE-MAY-BE-AN-SOB approach to thinking.
I'm TIRED of both sides using the HE-MAY-BE-AN-SOB approach to thinking.
I'll go my way by myself,
Like walking under a cloud.
I'll go my way by myself,
All alone in a crowd....
Today while getting myself barbered for the first time in months (I HATE it! and I'm VERY lazy besides), an Ivy League version of CHEAP CHANNEL extruded an especially annoying song, the same line over and over and over until I could have singed my hair off and saved the money: "HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS...." I thought, how worthy of today's genius. The DJ who no doubt thinks he'll work for LOWSY soon helpfully identified it as from 1976. Thirty-five years and still junk. Except to rock mu-SIC cri-TICKS that doesn't say much for our age of masterpieces.
Shortly after at JOHN THE DON's Barnes & Noble (let's see B&M collide with B&N!), as I skimmed Consumer Reports to see if I should spend my money on an Asus (AY-suhs?, Ah-SOOS?) laptop (it's going in my bedroom), Satch and Ella were crooning "Love is Here to Stay", and as great as Satch and Ella are I thought, how mannered! How keeyute! Part of it wasn't listening to it at a B&N, as it can be, nor even that it's typical background music for the HITMAKER!!!!! WOODSTER THE PERV, nor that brother Ira had to start a big debate among pop-u-LAR mu-SIC his-TOR-ians by pretentiously leaving "Our" out of the title; but rather it's that George Gershwin's gotten so unceasingly jazzified over the years we forget he was a theater composer, and his own best arranger, and that he wrote "Someone to Watch Over Me" for Gertrude Lawrence, and not for Blue -- and definitely NOT for Sarah Vaughan, nor even Satch and Ella. And with jazz a corpse thus is America's greatest tunesmith confined to the archives, though we're supposed to say we admire him as an article of faith, or like WOODSTER THE PERV -- like a showoffy egghead.
Back at my apartment there's this desk clerk who's lately taken to using his computer to watch the crappiest kind of horror or action movies -- with the volume up WAY LOUD. Why must I endure it? It's like foreground muzak, only it's worse -- the sonic equivalent of a dentist's drill. Why do people think because they have computers it gives them "rights" over others -- like my right not to listen to a dentist's drill?
Back in the two-room apartment I'm trying to straighten up with the help of a bulldozer I wondered, does anyone have my tastes? Am I really the buffoon I often think I am? Why can't I share my loves and my foibles with someone else?
No one knows better than I myself:
I'm by myself,
Alone.
Like walking under a cloud.
I'll go my way by myself,
All alone in a crowd....
Today while getting myself barbered for the first time in months (I HATE it! and I'm VERY lazy besides), an Ivy League version of CHEAP CHANNEL extruded an especially annoying song, the same line over and over and over until I could have singed my hair off and saved the money: "HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS...." I thought, how worthy of today's genius. The DJ who no doubt thinks he'll work for LOWSY soon helpfully identified it as from 1976. Thirty-five years and still junk. Except to rock mu-SIC cri-TICKS that doesn't say much for our age of masterpieces.
Shortly after at JOHN THE DON's Barnes & Noble (let's see B&M collide with B&N!), as I skimmed Consumer Reports to see if I should spend my money on an Asus (AY-suhs?, Ah-SOOS?) laptop (it's going in my bedroom), Satch and Ella were crooning "Love is Here to Stay", and as great as Satch and Ella are I thought, how mannered! How keeyute! Part of it wasn't listening to it at a B&N, as it can be, nor even that it's typical background music for the HITMAKER!!!!! WOODSTER THE PERV, nor that brother Ira had to start a big debate among pop-u-LAR mu-SIC his-TOR-ians by pretentiously leaving "Our" out of the title; but rather it's that George Gershwin's gotten so unceasingly jazzified over the years we forget he was a theater composer, and his own best arranger, and that he wrote "Someone to Watch Over Me" for Gertrude Lawrence, and not for Blue -- and definitely NOT for Sarah Vaughan, nor even Satch and Ella. And with jazz a corpse thus is America's greatest tunesmith confined to the archives, though we're supposed to say we admire him as an article of faith, or like WOODSTER THE PERV -- like a showoffy egghead.
Back at my apartment there's this desk clerk who's lately taken to using his computer to watch the crappiest kind of horror or action movies -- with the volume up WAY LOUD. Why must I endure it? It's like foreground muzak, only it's worse -- the sonic equivalent of a dentist's drill. Why do people think because they have computers it gives them "rights" over others -- like my right not to listen to a dentist's drill?
Back in the two-room apartment I'm trying to straighten up with the help of a bulldozer I wondered, does anyone have my tastes? Am I really the buffoon I often think I am? Why can't I share my loves and my foibles with someone else?
No one knows better than I myself:
I'm by myself,
Alone.
Friday, July 15, 2011
And the Democrats make us scream by likewise "turn[ing] a journalistic scandal into a partisan opportunity."
For the octillion umpteenth time: A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!
For the octillion umpteenth time: A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!
And the calamity of con-SER-va-tives STAUNCHLY defending SLIME is that it virtually shuts up voices like Laura Ingraham's, who yesterday had her depressing piece on "sexting" -- and today comes up with this. [Photo link here]
And the next time I hear a con-SER-va-tive say SLIME was FRAMED -- which I suspect will be the next time I click on NRO, or shortly -- I will remember that SLIME IS TO CON-SER-VA-TIVES WHAT MICHAEL MOORE IS TO LIBERALS.
It would further behoove the idiot con-SER-va-tives to realize that the news part of "NEWS" CORP. is a fraction of its revenues and an even smaller fraction of its earnings, the vast majority of them coming from the CABLE TURNIPS -- and lest we forget He churns out staunch con-SER-va-tive TRACTS LIKE THESE.
It would further behoove the idiot con-SER-va-tives to realize that the news part of "NEWS" CORP. is a fraction of its revenues and an even smaller fraction of its earnings, the vast majority of them coming from the CABLE TURNIPS -- and lest we forget He churns out staunch con-SER-va-tive TRACTS LIKE THESE.
In other news of The Recession That Isn't:
NBA cuts 11% of work force
Another case of feeling sorry for the laid-off without feeling sorry for the layers-off.
NBA cuts 11% of work force
Another case of feeling sorry for the laid-off without feeling sorry for the layers-off.
ANOTHER scapegoat.
When does SLIME scapegoat himself?
P. S. ROMY doesn't have it!
But he does have:
Murdoch scandal accounted for 53% of links on Twitter, but only 6% of mainstream coverage
This proves to some degree this has become news-hack onanism - but THAT DOESN'T MAKE SLIME INNOCENT.
When does SLIME scapegoat himself?
P. S. ROMY doesn't have it!
But he does have:
Murdoch scandal accounted for 53% of links on Twitter, but only 6% of mainstream coverage
This proves to some degree this has become news-hack onanism - but THAT DOESN'T MAKE SLIME INNOCENT.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
For now, however, Topiary is taking a break from law-breaking. He says he will continue operating on the margins of Anonymous, but will not engage in any more hacking. Instead, he intends to create art, video and graphics for the group to help with a new public relations project, to be titled Voice.
A hacker in PR. LULZ!
A hacker in PR. LULZ!
Minnesota Bars Dry Up
I guess that's why they settled.
P. S. at 7:42 p. m. And if the Vikes can get their taxpayer-supported stadium we may as well default.
I guess that's why they settled.
P. S. at 7:42 p. m. And if the Vikes can get their taxpayer-supported stadium we may as well default.
Love, the 2011 way:
I was recently told about one girl who tried to laugh off the nude picture of her circulating on campus. She announced to a college guy who had seen one of her salacious photos, “Bet you didn’t know I was a natural brunette.” To which the guy replied, “I didn’t know you had stretch marks on your hips, either.” If you’re actually interested in the guy, clothing can be your closest ally.
That's putting it mildly.
I was recently told about one girl who tried to laugh off the nude picture of her circulating on campus. She announced to a college guy who had seen one of her salacious photos, “Bet you didn’t know I was a natural brunette.” To which the guy replied, “I didn’t know you had stretch marks on your hips, either.” If you’re actually interested in the guy, clothing can be your closest ally.
That's putting it mildly.
Why Wall Street doesn't seem worried about default
Because the Casino KNOWS Uncle Sucker will ALWAYS come through.
And tomorrow starts a NEW fairy tale!
Because the Casino KNOWS Uncle Sucker will ALWAYS come through.
And tomorrow starts a NEW fairy tale!
TRANSLATION: Dilberts are subject to the law of diminishing returns. The more Dilberts, the lesser the returns.
And this guy's idea of having his kids take a liberal-arts education isn't that far fetched. We need a Beethoven or two, unlikely as that is. We don't need MORE DILBERTS.
And this guy's idea of having his kids take a liberal-arts education isn't that far fetched. We need a Beethoven or two, unlikely as that is. We don't need MORE DILBERTS.
FBI opens investigation of News Corp.: WSJ, AP
THIS IS THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT SINCE...SINCE SEN. McCAR -- THE SALEM WITCH HUNTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We wonder whether Roger could ever get a fair trial given that he's been thoroughly and justly been found guilty in the court of public opinion. Mightn't that be enough?
Don't tell me, let me guess: HISTORY'S GREATEST NETWORK has cured cancer again.
Unfortunately it's done so at the Emmys, which is the awards version of a Mexican cancer clinic.
Unfortunately it's done so at the Emmys, which is the awards version of a Mexican cancer clinic.
Speaking of Emmett "KELLY"'s hero, the Journals have an "integrity committee" whose members are paid $100,000 a year.
The committee members are:
Thomas J. Bray, former editorial page editor of the Detroit News;
Louis Boccardi, former chief executive of the Associated Press;
Jack Fuller, retired president of Tribune Publishing Co.;
Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
Susan M. Phillips, dean of the George Washington University School of Business.
Nice non-work if you can get it! Pfffffffffffffffffffffft!
The committee members are:
Thomas J. Bray, former editorial page editor of the Detroit News;
Louis Boccardi, former chief executive of the Associated Press;
Jack Fuller, retired president of Tribune Publishing Co.;
Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
Susan M. Phillips, dean of the George Washington University School of Business.
Nice non-work if you can get it! Pfffffffffffffffffffffft!
“Consistent with our strategy to create industry-leading shareholder value, we have concluded that two independent companies focused on their respective industries will be better positioned to pursue their individually focused business strategies,” Mulva said in a statement. ”Both companies will continue to benefit from the size and scale of their significant high-quality asset bases and free cash flow generation, allowing them to invest and create shareholder value in a changing environment.”
TRANSLATION: What the hell's the point of most mergers?
TRANSLATION: What the hell's the point of most mergers?
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
We hate repeating ourselves even from nearly two years ago but all these press releases about BIG CELEBRITIES dating soldiers and Kate in awe of soldiers remind us again of THE MASTER:
Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent for light gay poetry; and, as a specimen, repeated his song in Florizel and Perdita, and dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line:
I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.
JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple; -- What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich." I repeated this sally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it.
However sincere these people live on another planet. Why must news hacks delude themselves into deluding the peons they care for us? (Except Kate, who does seem the real thing.)
Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent for light gay poetry; and, as a specimen, repeated his song in Florizel and Perdita, and dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line:
I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.
JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple; -- What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich." I repeated this sally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it.
However sincere these people live on another planet. Why must news hacks delude themselves into deluding the peons they care for us? (Except Kate, who does seem the real thing.)
We realize lots of good people may be getting the axe at brokerages, but aside from newshackdom can anyone spot an industry more deserving?
(Via Seeking Alpha)
(Via Seeking Alpha)
As the saga of ROWLINGCORP comes to a tiresome CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED pause (we do NOT say conclusion) we ask, in twenty years what will people miss from not having it? We have an allegory (surely ROWLINGCORP would understand THAT word): we're approaching eighty years since the first of Busby Berkeley's Warner musicals. They are as frivolous and escapist as ROWLINGCORP's machinery, though perhaps not as DARK; and few people watch them anymore or even know who Berkeley was, but they're saved for posterity by the brilliance of his filmic imagination, and by Harry Warren and Al Dubin's songs. The surface-similar Wizard of Oz has its own glories but further survives on the strength of an inspired ensemble cast and especially the transcendent Judy Garland. Lacking Berkeley, Judy and songs (but not lacking HARRY P., who seems to grow uglier by the day) we ask, without a push from the cultists what will linger it in the memory?
We must note a PEOPLE WARNER predecessor made the Berkeley spectaculars and that it now owns Oz. As the movee excretion biz achieves total irrelevance it may flailingly attempt further sequels, but this is as inadvisable as remaking Oz. One thing's clear: We hope the moron Mr. BEWKES ultimately loses His job for it, though with so many reasons to fire Him that may be a tough one.
(Mogul's Friend link via AHTSJournal)
We must note a PEOPLE WARNER predecessor made the Berkeley spectaculars and that it now owns Oz. As the movee excretion biz achieves total irrelevance it may flailingly attempt further sequels, but this is as inadvisable as remaking Oz. One thing's clear: We hope the moron Mr. BEWKES ultimately loses His job for it, though with so many reasons to fire Him that may be a tough one.
(Mogul's Friend link via AHTSJournal)
You may recall, back at the beginning of The Recession That Hasn't Yet Quite Ended, how people spoke of a "new normal" so much they merely created a new cliché. News hacks have gone the new normal crowd one better with what they think is an innovation: "transparency". The term makes one cringe because people who like to keep secrets use the word as the first excuse for keeping them; and in the long run full transparency will be as unobtainable as objectivity, for it will depend on whose transcripts nonobjective news hacks choose to disburse, and at best it will mean so inundating readers with transcripts and ethical disclosures as to lay down vastly more tracks for the wild goose chase that is modern Web-based JERNALISM. That The Econowiz has proclaimed Mr. Wikileaks as an expert of transparency when his own leaks are highly random does not bode well for the new fad.
A Human-Waste Gold Mine: Bill Gates Looks to Reinvent the Toilet
We wish we could think of something, but instead, NO COMMENT.
We wish we could think of something, but instead, NO COMMENT.
News Corporation Withdraws Bid For BSkyB
OUR HERO RUPERT FALLS TO A COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY!!!!! WE COULD HAVE HAD THE BRITISH FOX!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!!!!! WE COULD HAVE...um, uh, er....
(Via MediaBistro)
OUR HERO RUPERT FALLS TO A COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY!!!!! WE COULD HAVE HAD THE BRITISH FOX!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!!!!! WE COULD HAVE...um, uh, er....
(Via MediaBistro)
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
A member of a "PIONEERIN'" PR0N family gets life for beating his wife to death with a baseball bat.
Is there any word news hacks can't turn into rot? and should we hacks praise such a man's -- er, lineage?
Here, for instance, is a chilling fact about the nineties: In any given week of the decade, there was a 10 percent chance the No.1 song was by Boyz II Men. Add Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Bryan Adams, and chances hit 24 percent. Americans spent a quarter of a decade listening to this sort of thing: big, lavish ballads, built to charm middle-aged and middle-school listeners alike. Try to picture an environment or purpose for these songs, and the mind drifts to graduations, school-gym talent shows, Olympics montages.
And today we have discopop. Plus ça change....
P. S. This article has showy graphs and charts but for me the only chart that can say anything is this:
And note this is in dollars, not units, meaning the peak is lower -- and the recent trough is deeper.
And today we have discopop. Plus ça change....
P. S. This article has showy graphs and charts but for me the only chart that can say anything is this:
And note this is in dollars, not units, meaning the peak is lower -- and the recent trough is deeper.
Electronic Arts built a money bonfire for BEJEWELLED INC., and after hours its stock didn't go WAY UP?
Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch, comedies so dumb people called them genius, has died. RIP.
Today thanks to my transcendent incompetence I screwed up my computer at work and was without it all day. Thankfully so, in a way, for it enabled what is now becoming a steady KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! of con-SER-va-tives screaming for SLIME. Hey Jonny! How was it VISIONARY!!!!! to torture the 9-11 families, or the family of a murdered girl? How was it VISIONARY!!!!! to buy TV GUIDE and MYSPACE? How was it VISIONARY!!!!! to COMMISSION OJ'S "MEMOIRS!"
Knee-jerk left, knee-jerk right -- I'm for them all getting KNEE-CAPPED.
Knee-jerk left, knee-jerk right -- I'm for them all getting KNEE-CAPPED.
Monday, July 11, 2011
EXCLUSIVE:
Walton Goggins has joined the cast of director Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. He will play Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins, a progressive [SIC] Democrat who goes against his party and votes in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery.
Methinks when Mr. ET is through Abe won't be a Republican.
Walton Goggins has joined the cast of director Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. He will play Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins, a progressive [SIC] Democrat who goes against his party and votes in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery.
Methinks when Mr. ET is through Abe won't be a Republican.
No one need tell us that our oratory reeks; but suggesting Shakespeare as a cure overlooks a few things, not the least our defective national ehdyukayshun; besides Shake led to his own demise in the commons by inspiring generations who were a twentieth as quotable and twenty times as wordy. (Witness Tippecanoe's notorious Inaugural Address.) Then there's the absurdity of imagining SARAH!!!!! in iambic pentameter. Imagine too the Webmob laughing. Then there's the whole notion of the effete elite that straitjackets the right, and the notion of reverse snobbery that hogties the left. It will take more than Henry IV Part II to revive our speechifying; it will take a whole national pruning down to the roots.
Twenty years ago this story would have been sweet but with our whole culture set in a megaphone within an hour it becomes an excruciating nuisance, more so as it demonstrates the role dumb luck plays in life, and as recent catastrophes have shown luck can be deaf and blind too.
A lunkhead named Jeff seems to have forgotten how Virginia became two states, or how Yugoslavia became a dozen nations. Our political divides become worse when they become geographic.
That TINA!!!!!'s eliminating SIDSWEEK's Web site pretty well says the merger was a washout.
Grate.com is often a glorified fanzine and has this way of hiding its very rare good stuff, but Bill Wyman's piece is a sword to BIGMEDIA's stomach. With content easier to procure by illegal means why bother paying for it? And it doesn't take a genius IQ to figure that "the overall value of [their] product, which had been propped up by [their] monopoly control of it, has been considerably and permanently lessened." To the extent BIGMEDIA's extrusions become an irrelevance it can only be good for us: if the stuff's worth nothing, why spend so much time watching nothing?
Jeff Bercovici is no conservative but he has unwittingly provided the perfect CON-SER-VA-TIVE defense of SLIME:
The prospect of letting Murdoch turn Sky News into a British version of Fox News will give regulators pause and serve as a rallying point for critics. It could be the difference between passage and rejection....
[I]f, as seems likely, the Competition Committee eventually rules against him, Murdoch will be have saved some face. The deal ran aground, he’ll say, not because the exposure of endemic corruption in his organization made it politically impossible but because he refused to let those meddling nanny state regulators dictate terms to him.
JAMES J. KILPATRICKS! TO THE RESCUE!!!!!
The prospect of letting Murdoch turn Sky News into a British version of Fox News will give regulators pause and serve as a rallying point for critics. It could be the difference between passage and rejection....
[I]f, as seems likely, the Competition Committee eventually rules against him, Murdoch will be have saved some face. The deal ran aground, he’ll say, not because the exposure of endemic corruption in his organization made it politically impossible but because he refused to let those meddling nanny state regulators dictate terms to him.
JAMES J. KILPATRICKS! TO THE RESCUE!!!!!
OH oh, "NEWS" CORP.'s SHAREHOLDERS are suing SLIME over NEWS OF THE WORLD!
He'll figure out a way He and His board didn't know.
He'll figure out a way He and His board didn't know.
You'd THINK a company run by an INDIAN CEO would get THIS right.
After the Tropicana and Gatorade debacles you shouldn't think that.
(Via HENRY HONEST!)
After the Tropicana and Gatorade debacles you shouldn't think that.
(Via HENRY HONEST!)
Temporarily cutting off aid to Pakistan, though justifiable, is symbolic. We need its help to combat the boom-booms; besides; we want to be sure they launch their own boom-booms on India.
And in wasted breath:
Any stories about the way News Corp. conducts business—especially any stories about the investigations into News International over phone hacking and payments to police—should be accessible to the public without a fee.
This is the time for transparency.
This is the time for hunkering down.
And is SLIME really giving up on His big acquisition or is this just more hopeful thinking? (Via THR)
Any stories about the way News Corp. conducts business—especially any stories about the investigations into News International over phone hacking and payments to police—should be accessible to the public without a fee.
This is the time for transparency.
This is the time for hunkering down.
And is SLIME really giving up on His big acquisition or is this just more hopeful thinking? (Via THR)
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The golden girl of this INDRA-produced nonsense reminds us that one can star in a billion-dollar-earning tentpole and nobody will remember you. Focusing on the cleavage was the wise thing. Try remembering the face. "Frat boys and mechanics" indeed. Why not a woman for artists? Why must every show-biz "hottie" do a reverse Pygmalion?
Exclusive: EU calls emergency meeting as debt crisis stalks Italy
WAIT! We thought all that money we gave to the Wall Street Casino had it contained!
WAIT! We thought all that money we gave to the Wall Street Casino had it contained!