Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

Why bother with computers? I was busy setting up my snazzy new Eh-SUS laptop (I didn't realize these things are so heavy -- and mine's a 14") and installing the Bugmeisters' endless Windows Updates (80 at last count) when I went clicked onto the IE8 I was about to upgrade and this had to pop up on MSN as a supposedly trending story -- and I'm expurgating it for a reason:

L--- G--- FOUND DEAD!!!!!!!!!! (Deadly overemphasis added)

Well even one who must roll his eyes at the name was horrified -- until he found this:

L--- G--- FOUND DEAD IN GAS STATION!!!!!!!!!!

So the Bugmeisters added an unfunny hoax to the long string of UPDATES they inflicted on me. And they chose an especially rotten day for it when thirty of our brave soldiers died in Afghanistan. Somebody in Redmond deserves to get BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLMERED -- and won't.

P. S. Yep, my machine is snaz-ZY! A lot of people talked it down on SlickDeals and the tech sites for dubious reasons -- I guess because it doesn't have a top-of-the-line graphics card, or even because of its funny model number. Buying a laptop is many compromises, but this device seems to have minimal ones, though I'll still have to triple the memory. Windows 7 is SLOW on 2GB. Even so it almost made me ponder why I spent over $1500 on my homebuilt model. Give credit to Eh-SUS too for its minimalist but sturdy corrugated packaging -- though God knows UPS tried given the faint black scuffing throughout.

One other reason not to trust the Web: I got it from the widely derided TigerDirect.com, the outfit that supplied most of my big rig's parts. I did not have one problem with my four deliveries, but as Bose knows bad reps can die hard.

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

China tells U.S. "good old days" of borrowing are over

The People's Republic of Walmart is grinning.

Posted 10:10 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



An oddball elevated drive-in movie palace?

No, just another atheistic church.

Posted 9:36 PM by Gene

S&P really shouldn't talk; we may wonder if a ratings agency that platinum-plated and gift-wrapped dubious housing securities should speak of flagrancy. Perhaps this is its form of penance. (They made a mistake while prostrating themselves.) That said we would guess that financially speaking the downgrade's impact will be minimal, for the change in grade is one agency's, and minimal; after all ST. WARREN lost His triple-A and survived. So did Japan, and it's lived. Moreover a government that's perfected dubious accounting tricks can easily paper over any increased borrowing costs. No, we should pause over this not for our finances -- the whole world's set for a downgrade -- but for us, for how history's most glorious nation has given up on itself. Forget finances; this is our worst governing crisis since the Great Depression. The cliff is still miles off, but our governing superiors don't seem to care we're inching ever closer, and gaining speed.

Posted 3:23 PM by Gene

Uh, before we start making statements about a $1 TRILLION MARKET CAP!!!!!!!!!!:

Facebook spam: Man accused of sending 27 million fake messages

"facebook spam messages" = 55,300,000 GOOGLE HITS.

Posted 2:31 PM by Gene

U.S. Stocks Resume Gains on Speculation ECB Will Buy Bonds

Has Uncle Ben been calling around for his friends?

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Strategists Sticking With 17% S&P 500 Rally by Year-End on Rising Profits!!!!! [Rising overemphasis added]

How apt Bloomy should issue this just before the fantasy indexes turned negative.

"Companies have done an absurdly good job of managing through this environment!!!!!" [Further rising overemphasis added]

Hey you hoard your money and hire nobody and you'd be absurd...ly good too.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

The unemployment rate fell partly because some unemployed workers stopped looking for work. That means they are no longer counted as unemployed.

Oh. Again?

Posted 8:03 PM by Gene

LORD McCARTNEY -- HACKED?!?

Now WE KNOW SLIME is EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL!!!!!

Posted 7:05 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



An upside-down skyscraper!

Posted 7:02 PM by Gene

Would stocks have had such a TERRIFYING!!!!!!!!!! decline today if they hadn't gone upUPUP in hot-air balloons?

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

An unfathomable tragedy:

Buffett Can’t Get Analysts to Say Buy Berkshire

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 12:04 PM by Gene

HuffPo apologizes.
SURE.
(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

S&P 500 in correction territory

Wait! Isn't that GOOD news...



Gekko Kudlow?

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

Rate on 15-year mortgage falls to decades low

Which clearly has nothing to do with the Wall Street Casino having another nervous breakdown.

(Via Finviz)

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

We'd guess this twaddle is headed for AHTSJournal. Just because a rag is "prestigious" doesn't mean it can't run twaddle; indeed some of the most "prestigious" rags run the most twaddle -- look at The New Yorker -- or The Econowiz. A prime example of twaddle is the lengthy think piece such as this gassing on societal trends. Such pieces can be irritatingly blasé, which the news hack mistakes for erudition. Mike Royko could pack more bite into one sentence than these gums can ooze into a hundred essays -- and the fact Mike Royko's dead and the business has had no interest in replacing him exacerbates the annoyance.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

This FAA fiasco says the problem isn't spending; the problem is our whole Federal system's a mess.

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

So -- the Muscular Dystrophy folks have fired Jerry Lewis.

FINALLY.

(Via Spectator.org [?])

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

Does His Incompetence stand for ANYTHING other than getting reelected?

And what happens when His second term ends?

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Say Irene! How many old companies make up Kraft Foods? Nabisco, Cadbury, General Foods, National Dairy Products -- why not split it up into TEN companies and REALLY unleash the value?

What's the point to these HUGE corporate fiefdoms -- and could they be a reason our economy is suffering?

Posted 8:13 PM by Gene

UN Security Council rebuke of Syria hailed as potential 'turning point'

Posted 7:18 PM by Gene

The Age of the Fax Machine Is (Finally) Coming to an End

TRANSLATION: For the same reasons the paperless office has yet to arrive, ten years from now there'll still be fax machines, or suitable facsimiles thereof.

Posted 7:06 PM by Gene

In my experience, I've found that the most successful PR people are those who think and act like reporters.

And, as exposure to USAOKAY!!!!! and PEOPLE.COM teaches us, VICE VERSA.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 6:59 PM by Gene

There'll always be an -- America:

"TLC just announced their fall lineup, and we are on it!!!! Our show is called Big Hair Alaska!!!! Omg!!! It's really happening!!!! :)"

To speak of us in the same breath as Rome or England can be fatuous, but the essentials are undeniably there.

(Via NEWSER!)

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

One wonders given the link to diabetes that someone hadn't thought up the idea of a blood test for Alzheimer's before. God knows it's a long way from a cure, though a cure is as foreseeable as with AIDS; and it may be another false start of the kind cures for intractable diseases often step, but it is a gratifying move forward.

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Another glorified BIGMEDIA mea culpa:

Even in my childhood, rude words had their gradations – up from the nursery’s pee-po-belly-bum-drawers through uncle’s ruddy-blast-damn-bloody into more interesting X-certificate realms. Now it’s just a relentless barrage of two four-letter words indicative of sexual intercourse and the female genitalia which don’t so much relieve anger as consolidate it.

What amazes me is that although those two words must be used nationwide almost as often as “the” and “and”, stand-up comedians only have to utter them once for audiences to fall about in hysterics, as though some taboo has been breached....

Isn’t it just time we grew up and found some more interesting words with which to let off steam?

But BIGMEDIA relentlessly PUSHED THE ENVELOPE precisely because it wanted to relieve itself. It also thought it was TELLING THE TRUTH. It was also a way of showing the public ITS PLACE. When thanks to our BIGMEDIA LORDS supposedly taboo words no longer offend we've lost something more than just the ability to be offended.

I am SICK and TIRED of these please-forgive-us excuses, whatever their style; they're at best well-meaning, at worst malevolently dishonest.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

Poll: Thumbs down on the debt-ceiling deal

Who told you you had any say?

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



America's Incompetent Architects wants to put that spiraling steel cucumber back on this Chicago plot -- and revive other such masterworks too. Why? Because "a significant portion of the US economy is construction based – measuring $1 out every $9 of total GDP output". We know that, incompetents -- and because you and your Babbitt enablers put so much into our economy explains why they eventually took so much OUT of it. Do we need pretentious high-rises without inhabitants?

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Mr. Bew-KES, who probably never heard of Green Lantern until a subordinate had to remind him it didn't do too well, has nonetheless eructed:

"It did not live up to expectations - fell fairly far short of those," Bewkes said. Still, he didn't rule out a sequel at this point, saying that he was not in a position to tell at this time if there will be one. "We will be deciding that in due course," he said. Sources had previously told The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. was not giving up on a sequel.

TRANSLATION: They're enough management levels down to be harmless.

Bewkes, however, calmed Wall Street concerns about TW's plans to use superhero films from its DC arm to fill the void that will be left after the final film in the Harry Potter franchise. "I'm not concerned about DC's strategy," Bewkes emphasizing [SIC], predicting that it will be "a major contributor" of hits and franchises in the future. He pointed to a planned Superman film and next year's latest Batman release as upcoming projects.

TRANSLATION: This guy is as good at repeating talking points as a MILIBAND!

Posted 7:36 PM by Gene

IDIOTS: The NUTS of the NUTmeg State have thrown TAX money at ESPNCORP, one of the world's RICHEST corporations, in hopes It will create jobs!

TRANSLATION: UB IGER's taken the money, and now all He has to do is RUN.

P. S.

According to the book State Names, Flags, Seals, Songs, Birds, Flowers, and Other Symbols by George Earlie Shankle (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1941):

"The sobriquet, the Nutmeg State, is applied to Connecticut because its early inhabitants had the reputation of being so ingenious and shrewd that they were able to make and sell wooden nutmegs. Sam Slick (Judge Halliburton) seems to be the originator of this story. Some claim that wooden nutmegs were actually sold, but they do not give either the time or the place."

Yankee peddlers from Connecticut sold nutmegs, and an alternative story is that:

"Unknowing buyers may have failed to grate nutmegs, thinking they had to be cracked like a walnut. Nutmegs are wood, and bounce when struck. If southern customers did not grate them, they may very well have accused the Yankees of selling useless "wooden" nutmegs, unaware that they wear down to a pungent powder to season pies and breads." Elizabeth Abbe, Librarian, the Connecticut Historical Society; Connecticut Magazine, April 1980.

Well based on today we obviously can't call the natives ingenious and shrewd, so we'll just call them unknowing buyers -- who don't need a powder to be pungent.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

Democrats Try to Change the Subject from Debt to Jobs

...while still talking exclusively about themselves.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Speaking of...DELUSIONAL:

MSNBC Exec Says the Network Is Beginning to 'Chip Away' at Fox

Phil, here's your answer: LET SHARPTON BE SHARPTON!

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

We are puzzled: Didn't the Wall Street Casino want this comedy of errors? Didn't the bigwigs of finance promise their total fealty to our triple-A bond ratings? Why did the Casino have a nervous breakdown today?

One reason: On its best days it's a psycho ward.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

A eulogy for the GE-NIUS of modern FILLUM, and in particular the IMMORTAL GE-NIUS of Ed Wood, from the fascinating Greenbriar Picture Shows:

Big studios aren't likely to bankroll more black-and-white, extended insider jokes so taken with themselves as this hangover from too many late shows.

Understandable: All Hollywood's...output these days is an insider joke -- on the audience.

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

Debt ceiling debate has lawmakers tired of last-minute jam

We're tired of you prima-donnas getting US into last-minute jams.

Posted 9:37 PM by Gene

HOUSE PASSES HISTORIC DEBT DEAL!!!!!!!!!! [Historic overemphasis added]

You guys said the same thing about Obamacare. (Con-SER-va-tives said the same thing about the "REPEAL".) Heck the hacks probably said the same thing about the HISTORIC!!!!! Kellogg-Briand Pact. Remember that one -- the treaty that ended ALL WARS...from the HISTORIC president Silent Cal?

Now go back to your campaigning, and your shilling.

Posted 9:18 PM by Gene

REMEMBER:

[T]he real crisis is not, nor has it ever been, the debt ceiling. The crisis is the debt itself. Economic Armageddon would not have resulted from failure to raise the ceiling, but it will come because we succeeded in raising it....

The Congressional Budget Office currently projects that $9.5 trillion in new debt will have to be issued over the next 10 years. Even if all of the reductions proposed in the deal were to come to pass, which is highly unlikely, that would still leave $7.1 trillion in new debt accumulation by 2021. Our problems have not been solved by a long shot.

Posted 9:07 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



A chic cinema -- er, music hall -- er, theater -- in SoHo!

...er, a SYNAGOGUE?



Somebody LOVES chocolate!

Posted 9:04 PM by Gene

A Senate bill that would encourage the growth of alternative training programs for teachers and principals, some of which would not be based at colleges or universities but would have the authority to give certificates considered the equivalent of master’s degrees, has come under fire from higher education organizations that argue Congress should focus on higher education institutions in efforts to improve teacher quality.

You don't suppose that's the point, do you?

Posted 8:59 PM by Gene

Speaking of WOLFFMAN!!!!! we see SLIME's acolyte has run a piece on the "10 FUNNIEST COMMERICALS OF ALL TIME", which a few of the commenters proceed to note were made mainly within the last eleven years. WOLFFMAN!!!!! could teach SLIME a lesson: You can never be too rich, too thin, or HIRE TOO MANY INTERNS.

Posted 8:50 PM by Gene

GM's Electric Networked-Vehicle (sic) is cute, but especially with the emphasis on Networked it will likely be little more than that. How long since the sci-fi brains first spoke of self-propelled vehicles -- a vision as horrifying to the old GM as the trolleys it drove off our streets? We further suspect it's doing it as a favor to its quasi-CEO His Incompetence. And self-propelled vehicles aren't all a favor; they point to the increasingly centralized control of our lives by a surface-benign Google-like central brain. But eliminating needless accidents and especially the DUIs may alas be worth it.

(Via NEWSER!)

Posted 8:47 PM by Gene

America was surely heartened to see Rep. Giffords on the House floor, but we must accept there's a long way to go toward total recovery, if it's possible, as we all hope. Nonetheless she has gone six strong months since that catastrophe, when we feared she would be a vegetable. That is a triumph for medicine -- and for the courage of Rep. Giffords.

Posted 12:27 PM by Gene

Why should CEOs speak on the debt-ceiling problem when their huge salaries are safe whatever Congress does? It's not their country!

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

Mark Judge of TUCKER'S DAILY CALLER!!!!! has recycled a column of his from nearly five years ago!

Hey Mark! The least you can do is give the guy credit!

Posted 10:20 PM by Gene

The only short-term effect of this deal is making the Wall Street Casino money. It will likely not solve our problems long term, but thankfully the hard swallowing can come later, as it always does. And too much of our recent history suggests we may gag, in several ways.

We have not talked about this continuing migraine because it's an analog of the Obamacare disaster. Then Democrats wanted to spend money. Now Republicans want not to spend money. The Republicans did this largely to prevent the Democrats from spending money. Both parties demonstrated their love of the people with arm-twisting and bansheeing. The first disaster was unnecessary because we all knew deep down Obamacare would be a quagmire. It's hard to care deeply about this because the chief end product of this legislative-Gordian-knot-untying will be what Obamacare produced: prodigious accounting tricks. And this proved to be every bit the short-term quagmire as Obamacare will be long-term. The only good thing is that the current speaker doesn't know how to be a screaming maniac like the last one -- or at least not as much.

This does not rank with the Republic's finest moments. More such moments as this and we may not have a Republic.

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

Yesterday LALA moaned that there were too many "antiheroes" on television. Today it whines there should be more female grossout comedies. This puts us in mind of how most newsrags are "edited" -- for spelling, mostly, minimally for grammar, more minimally for facts. Whether a piece is fair matters not; worse it matters not if a piece might wrongly anger the reader. Once editors had tantrums. Now they let the readers have them. In the luxury news suites the Lou Grants get along with their writers nicely, in part because you don't yell at subordinates anymore no matter how badly they do. This piece of garbage wouldn't have insulted the reader if an editor cared. As we said yesterday, LALA should fire more of its staff -- including some editors.

Posted 2:47 PM by Gene

Articles of Faith: The Conservative Double Standard on Christian Terrorism

Previously, Sullivan served as editor of the Washington Monthly....

June 2004: Jesus Christ, Superstar
When Hollywood stopped making Bible movies, RIGHT-WING CHRISTIANS TOOK OVER!!!!! [Right-wing overemphasis added]

"Google? What's a Google? I never heard of Google," said Richard Stengel, the newsweekly's managing editor. (I made that one up, but Dick may not know.)

Posted 1:11 PM by Gene

NOT ARCHDaily! An intrepid photographer takes pictures of Communist-built masterworks in the Eastern bloc, and:

Bezjak's photographs repeatedly met with incomprehension from Eastern European colleagues. "They can't understand why anyone would focus on this phenomenon," Bezjak says.

I CAN!

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

Is it me or have we had dozens of articles lately on how Congresspoops can't speak?

Posted 12:32 PM by Gene

We've been so busily gloating over SUPERNIKKI!!!!'s typos yesterday that we almost overlooked her Harvard Business School lesson in the GE-NIUS of modern movee extruding:

It's going to be hard for anyone involved in the movie to shrug off responsibility for it underperforming because even the studio was gushing pre-release about its pedigree "because of its deep bench of heavyweight filmmakers and stars, and the most fan-engaged because of involving them directly at every step, particularly through director Jon Favreau, the big-ticket director most active in social media and direct interaction with his followers. Every step of the campaign kept many hands on the wheel, shared by Universal, DreamWorks and the filmmaking team, who all worked in close collaboration on every decision." Oops! As for marketing, the first teaser trailer was placed on Part 1 of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows last November, followed by a Super Bowl teaser. The first full trailer made its debut on American Idol on April 14th and in theaters on April 29 with Universal's big hit Fast Five. The TV campaign included season finales for Top 10 Nielsen shows and sports events.

The publicity campaign launched at last year's Comic-Con even though the film had only been in production for a few weeks, Favreau used his Iron Man connection with fans to debut nearly 8 minutes of footage, including the first alien attack on the pioneer town in the film. While Harrison Ford made his first-ever appearance to a huge reception. This year's Comic-Con featured a full-frills world premiere featuring Favreau as well as Spielberg, making his own first appearance at the Con. But it's interesting how the movie disappointed despite favreau [ZEIGFIELDIAN SIC!] whoring himself out to The Hollywood Reporter (which nobody reads) and Ain't It Cool News (which nobody believes). The director even dragged along producer Ron Howard and producer/co-writer Bob Orci to some events, showing more and more footage each time. I heard from Universal that Daniel Craig was a royal pain in the ass when it came to doing publicity, but he did enough with Harrison Ford to merit one magazine cover line, "When Bond Met Indy". (Barf!)

The usual talk show circuit was highlighted by Jimmy Kimmel Live's "Cowboys & Aliens Week" promotion which had Favreau revisiting his Dinner For Five cable show and personally interviewing his lead cast members and filmmakers for a series of online segments. Favreau also helped create and star in a special skit with YouTube vlogging personality Freddie Wong, who specializes in action-packed and parody videos especially popular with boys. The film became the first ever to be a primary sponsor of a Nascar [SIC!] across multiple races as well as a tie-in with Coca-Cola in theater concessions via drink cups, and popcorn bags and buckets over the course of the summer in 8 of the top theater chains in North America. Other promotions with leading brands included 7-Eleven, Nestlé, Comcast, NCM/Sprint, Pemmican, and Hilton. And in addition to all that, the film made a significant Hispanic outreach across specialized media and publicity, highlighted by a closing night screening at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Well, you can't fault anyone for lack of trying.

Au contraire: this is a case study in trying too hard. Such fist-on-jaw selling hints the product's an Edsel, and however immortal LUKE SPIELBERG and Opie are the public can see the jalopy behind the fancy grille. Indeed we are quite pleased at how so many alleged heavyweights can amass only to be knocked out by a feather.

By the way we wouldn't yell HIT! too much about the blue squirmies because if you're any more believable than AIN'T IT COOL NEWS (doubtful after yesterday) it did the Friday-Saturday swoon, and if the lazy parents weren't screaming from the charnel houses they were doing a slow fox trot out. It too was hypermarketed enough it should have doubled its gross.