Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Speaking of Romy, there's been a lot of debate over whether Bob Woodruff's awful circumstance has gotten too much coverage. I say not. We can't recall any news personality of his star power getting up close to the action like this, although with many hacks it's testosterone at work. We question the necessity of putting TV newsmen in harm's way given the multitude of stories in a war zone, and many are not photogenic; we further understand the cringing, as most of our brave soldiers have died without Kliegl lights on, and as the hacks do tend to hold the mirror to themselves. We don't think vanity is entirely at work here, however, and we wish Mr. Woodruff and his cameraman a speedy recovery.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

The next time NEWS HACKS plead poverty let us remember the TRAGIC TALE of TONY KORNHEISER.

Mike Tirico doing play-by-play. ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

(Via the usual Romy, only a day late)

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

The Iranian government has handed over to the International Atomic Energy Agency a document whose only use would be in making nuclear weapons parts, the IAEA said in a confidential report obtained Tuesday by AFP.

Has anyone ever heard of copiers?

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

An elephant went through the tulip garden, HA HA HA!

The Chinese Communists only add to our satisfaction.

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

Congressional aides have been tampering with the biographies of elected officials on the encyclopedia Web site Wikipedia to such an extent that three times Wikipedia has blocked the entire House computer network from accessing the site.

ETHICAL!

In one example of tampering, aides to Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., removed references to the congressman’s broken term-limits pledge, according to Roll Call.

A story in a local newspaper prompted Meehan to write an editorial blaming an intern in his office for "updating his biography.”

In other cases there has been no way to know for certain who did the tampering, since Wikipedia can trace changes only to the House Internet protocol address, not to any specific House office.

So Wikipedia simply lists the vandalism offenses in one section of the site.

In the case of Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., someone removed references in his bio "to possible ties to Jack Abramoff and many other ... politically damaging items.”

The vandal who tampered with the bio of Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, is accused of "removing unflattering quotes.”

Those quotes were about him wanting to "nuke” Syria, according to Roll Call.

EXTREMELY ETHICAL!!!!!

(Sorry for the NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

Hilarity in Florida:

Police: 'Bored' Teens Tossed Cinder Blocks Into 114 Cars

SUMNER should sign them to a contract.

(Via the Freep)

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

But there is always hope:

Kennedy Seen as The Next Justice In Court's Middle

TRANSLATION: Now, more than ever, we call him MODERATE.

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

Shucks, the NAZ -- the EXTRE -- the JUDGE has been confirmed.

Now on to the DARK AGE.

Pfffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

In fact, many upsets could occur in many top categories on March 5. All over Hollywood you can hear Oscar voters whining, "This is the most boring Oscar year ever! Well, one thing's for sure! I am NOT voting for ..." (fill in the blank).

What a surprise: the Os-CAR® winners could win by elimination.

MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

Books are EDITED?!?!?

And this is a CW book reviewer who should know better. No, he's a book reviewer so he doesn't know better.

(Via ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

And speaking of the Os-CARS®:

Take a look at the Nielsen figures for the show, and the numbers are startling. This supposedly terrific program, with its high hipness factor - people actually say they get their only news from "The Daily Show" - is averaging 1.3 million viewers in January, most of them men between the ages of 18 and 49. During November, the political high season in which Stewart and his cohorts supposedly thrive, the show averaged 1.45 million viewers.

For comparison, Nielsen estimates there are 218 million people over the age of 18 in the nation's 112 million homes with televisions.

That's a lot of people not getting Stewart's comedy.

Now, before the legions of Stewartites start bellyaching that the show airs on Comedy Central, so the numbers are going to be smaller, stop. Comedy Central is in 88 million homes, so it's well-distributed.

What's more, Stewart gets amazing press for his work - a level far outstripping his reach - so even if people aren't watching, they've heard about him.

But that's the point.

Stewart's appeal - at least from what's on Comedy Central - is limited at best. He's playing to a small crowd, just like many of the other critically acclaimed phenoms dotting the pop-culture landscape.

There's the rub.

There's the rub indeed.

(Via ROMY, who no doubt fumed)

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

ALL ARTHOUSE FLICKS!

Goodbye Nielsens!!!!!

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Nature's message to men and women "of a certain age" would seem to have a certain harmonious foundation. After all, vaginal dryness and erectile dysfunction are clearly intended to comfortably coexist. But Americans deal badly with all signs of aging. Other commercials will quickly sketch a composite profile of our vanities, promising, as they do, a restoration of our hair, an elimination of our facial lines, the tightening of thighs and buttocks. There's nothing new about Man's quest for eternal youth, but the American mercantile drive has intensified it in an unprecedented fashion.

Yes, using the "Koppel Randomizer," we can agree -- the former Nightlight Lord's writing STINKS.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

We could start a site devoted exclusively to the murder of children, but we doubt we could survive two weeks doing it. One of the latest victims was everlastingly punished for knocking over a television.

And why do words like "social worker" always pop up here?

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Mrs. King has died. She spent her life pontificating of "peace and justice", which was slightly less than her husband did. We will now have two weeks of state-media mourning, or at least until the GE BANCORP and REALTY GAMES come along, when we can think of greed as usual.

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

My view is considerably more sympathetic both to Google and to China and its leaders....

What did Lenin say about rope? He never knew glibertarians. They don't even need it. They can hang themselves with their tongues.

James V. DeLong is a Senior Fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, D.C. This article represents his own opinions, which may not be shared by PFF, its staff, or it directors.

Did Jimmy put this in to inspire flame-mails and hate calls for his think tank's interns?

Editor’s note: To see another take on this debate, read Glenn Reynolds’s article today on TCS.

And a big fat ZERO to DOW 36,000 for taking two sides so he could protect his investments.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

The STONE FACE of ANNOYING TV ADS, whose sycophancy starts where The Mogul's Friend's stops, accuses big-oil haters of being in a league with the TRAITORS who BROUGHT DOWN NIXON!!!!! or something, which tells us either he's invested his many millions in oil stocks or else he's recently done an ad for an oil company, possibly as some schlep who can't get the gas pump to work.

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

And speaking of tolerance:

Liberal activists -- among them graying leftovers from the Vietnam-era antiwar movement -- plan to gather near the Capitol tonight, banging pots and pans to drown out President Bush's State of the Union address.

We would say we hope they go deaf except they went deaf inside a long time ago.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

The Mogul's Friend congratulates himself as "often accused of being too critical of Hollywood," then, remembering his constituents, serves up a nice big fifteen-course dinner of praise for the biz' social conscience, topped with a big hearty dessert of scorn for old fogies. Certainly his employer knows the virtue of a social conscience; it's been twisting and jerking trying to appease old fogies while seeing its circulation fall through the floor. Nowhere in his paean does he mention that these masterworks have not done land-office business except in the land of the Lilliputs. Nobody has to tell The Mogul's Friend he's always right, be we do wish he'd stop trying to convince the rest of us.

Posted 6:35 PM by Gene

And in further news-biz myopia, or shall we say OOPS:

Three important lessons emerge from the media's coverage of Enron, say Dyck and Zingales. First, "that while many transactions were concealed, there was enough public information available to raise serious doubt about the credibility of Enron's earnings". Second, "that instead of scrutinizing Enron's accounts, [the media] acted as cheerleader all the way to the end." Third, journalists who "question the existing optimistic consensus incur constant harassment from the target company." While the rewards of reporting bad news are little different from reporting good news, the costs are very different, especially in bubbles.

TRANSLATION: LOLLIPOP LOU DOBBS ALL THE WAY.

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

The Osama Channel's latest publicity stunt and this piece of TRIPE from CURLEY's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES have more in common than you might think. Aside from being automatic "reporting" and requiring no editing they're both de facto press releases. News hacks have complained for months about how we need their in-depth "reporting," how the mean bad old Web is taking their biz to the cleaners and leaving it not a shirt, but when the time comes for in-depth reporting we get press releases. This may explain why the hacks are somewhere below lawyers in the public estimation and falling fast.

James Bassil, editor-in-chief of AskMen.com, told The Associated Press the list was determined by the rankings of 2.5 million readers and by the site's staff.

Somewhere some moronic typist or editor justified running this piece of TRIPE with that pretentious wording. THE, um, ASSOCIATED, um, PRESS!!!!! Junk food is junk food whether it comes from PepsiCo or CURLEY.

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Coca-Cola may take on Starbucks

How much of Coke's sales come from anything that isn't Coke syrup? Minute Maid is an also-ran. No, the only way to get huge is through a three-way merger with Mickey D's and Heinz, and then it can be as super-bad as the rest of the food trade.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Requiem for the food industry:

"They want to have a healthy image, but the healthy stuff is not making the money that the bad stuff does because the costs are so much higher."

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Sounds like NASA hasn't made up its mind when it will fly the Orbiting Jalopy again -- and if when takes long enough, it might dissolve into IF.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Shucks, the forces of REACTION won, and now this NAZ -- hard-right CONSERVATIVE will be confirmed.

We can only hope he succumbs to the GREENHOUSE EFFECT.

Pffffffffffffffft!

Meantime DU is committing mass suicide while Freepers were playing with dirty pictures til the mods cut them off.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!! proclaims a LEADING MAN!!!!!

With a face like that he should play the Unabomber.

Posted 11:59 AM by Gene

If Terry Teachout if correct about e-books, this will mean two things: 1. There will be a hundred million books with no readers, and 2. Literature will be even more likely to disappear than it does now, as books now merely rely on paper manufacturers, and e-books will have to rely on GEEKS. How odd that an age with a surfeit of "culture" will leave so little to posterity; the impermanence of the medium confirms the impermanence of the "art."

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

Time to raise the white flag on porn. The idea that "talk" can tame this hydra-headed monster is worse than risible. But that seems to be our society's way: when facing a problem, don't act, talk it out. Meantime the monster grows ten billion more heads.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

We're sorry that the Louisvile Courier-Journal is shutting down its far-flung bureaus, but we hate to say it again, the biz should have thought of such things when it decided it would RATHER BE RIGHT.

(Again, via the Romy)

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

One of P&G's top priorities will be to see if it can charge $1000 for razor blades.

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

We should not wonder that holy cockroaches hate Beethoven's Ninth; their favorite music is people screaming.

(Via ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

Some idiot named Eric, er, Schmidt laughs at the peons:

“We concluded that although we weren’t wild about the restrictions, it was even worse to not try to serve those users at all,” Schmidt said. “We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil,” he said, referring to the company’s famous “don’t be evil” creed.

Don't worry, Eric; our friends the tulip growers will save your bacon on Wednesday though you still deserve to BURN.

(Via the Freep)

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

Dan blathers -- again:

Some bloggers, he said, have found blogging to be "a good way to further a particular political agenda. It's not a crime," he said. But the public should recognize "there's a new opportunity here to manipulate public opinion."

We'll take that as definitive from a master at manipulating it, especially with National Guard memos.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil on Monday reported fourth quarter net income of $10.71 billion, or $1.71 a share, compared with $8.42 billion, or $1.30 a share, earned a year ago.

WOW! That's a windfall of profits.

Unfortunately, TCSDaily did NOT run a piece today extolling the virtues of its FREE-EN-TER-PRISE CON-SER-VA-TISM.

Posted 9:37 PM by Gene

We might ask whether "scholars" and reporters are the best judges of political bias in others. That said, the idea that partisans may not see the faults in those they agree with hardly warrants professional study. All the professors at UCSB had to do was read Daily Kos or Power Line.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

We are just as likely to get rid of the State of the Union Spectacular as we are of award ceremonies, as our superiors must always congratulate themselves.

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM comes to RENO, where a decline in the GAMING biz has turned old casinos into CONDOS!

Hey Eddie! I thought GAMING was a magic potion!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

The yayas are quickly learning terrorism and running a government may not be the same.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

AOL's getting into the movie biz -- which makes us ask, why does People Warner want three studios?

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

Meantime their opposite numbers at People Warner seem stone-cold sober, with a cover on illegal immigrants and an inside report on Hamas, and there's also a story on how Katrina moved criminals to Houston, and all this makes us think, if one of these rags actually ran NEWS, and did so in a professional, thorough and objective manner, and completely ditched show-biz buggery and service features, it might put its rivals to shame, if not out of business.

Posted 9:42 AM by Gene

As Mr. Mark ceased running news in his rag years ago -- lately the cover topics have resembled Useless News's boring service features, and we can only say, more of them! -- he's decided, what the heck, if we're going to engage in show-biz buggery let's go all the way! So he stages a Valentine's-Day party in advance in which all the big-name participants exchange phone numbers. The hack who says "fascinating" and "uncensored" as his hacks do here is like the politician who says "frankly" -- his sole purpose is to make money and shaft the public. But despite the unprecedented orgy of CW Mr. Mark is nothing if not the MARKeter; he knows his coffee tables won't go for a bunch of high-toned table-pounding arthouse bores, so unlike last year save for a little squib he didn't put them on the cover, however immortal they are -- truly a loss for humanity! Elsewhere we spin for Her Royal Highness Oprah, in the hopes She'll return the favor by letting us in on Her zillions.

It feels like we're in the 1970s again.

TRANSLATION: PINCH ME!! Movies are BETTER THAN EVER!! And I've found my ONE TRUE LOVE -- ME!!!!!

And the shame of it is, here's a short, riveting piece on the treatment of mental illness, but because it's in Mr. Mark's rag we might not take the trouble to see it, disgusted as we are with his spin and sell.

Posted 8:10 PM by Gene

So -- the Paks let Elvis get away two years ago.

You keep doing things like that and you'll get more unscheduled flights from us.

Posted 7:57 PM by Gene

Why am I thinking the appropriate soundtrack to this scene should come from a porno movie?

But then, she already loves herself.

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers must be wasting LOTS when it can afford to finance stunt men on soap operas.

At this rate Luke Spielberg may have competition.

Posted 4:33 PM by Gene

It's beyond me why anybody would buy a collectable through eBay; the risk of getting fake goods is enormous. Happily Meg "Mug" Whitman has been able to keep her head profitably buried in the sand for years. That Tiffany & Co. would attempt to police eBay's wrongdoing does not surprise us. eBay won't do it.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

On this arbitrary twentieth anniversary of the Challenger disaster, and knowing the crew was still alive after the explosion, we reflect we're still flying the orbiting jalopy (or we're supposed to be; it hasn't gone up lately for some reason) and we're still putting lives at risk for hi-mom moments.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

The two questions that come to mind in reading this piece of junk are: 1. Andy, how long have you been buddies with Jack Abramoff? and 2. What kind of mentor has he been in your life?

(Via Spyware Info, via Topix.com)

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

And further on the subject of the non-evil devils of Mountain View, the intrepid PROFESSOR had to link to a SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER who said THIS:

In a high-tech economy, the free flow of information defines how competitive a people can be. Less freedom, lower competitiveness. There's more to it than that, however. More information means less opacity, and that means more corruption. This, in turn again, means lower competitiveness.

Just one problem: the Chinese have proved they can be EXTREMELY competitive without freedom.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE practices its unevil censorship, beta version:

A day after Google's buggy censorship of sites for Chinese-users was revealed, the search giant has responded by fixing its filters so topics such as beer and jokes are no longer deleted.

An investigation published Thursday by CNET News.com showed that Google's new China search engine not only censored criticisms of the Chinese government, but went further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting sites related to teen pregnancy, alcohol, dating and homosexuality.

So! Brin and Sergey are more totalitarian capitalist than the Chinese! Who knows! You might run the PARTY someday -- unless, that is, your stock's worth $10 million a share.

P. S. Congress is having a hearing. That should be a RED-letter day for the CIA of Mountain View -- provided it shows up.

This may go away, but not before February 16.

P. P. S. The ZILLIONAIRE IDIOT Sergey has learned how to show-offishly bang his head on a wall. Sorry JERKS, we KNOW your NAMES now. You're the BUGMEISTER BILLS of SEARCH.

Posted 2:06 PM by Gene

How the mighty do fall:

Jacques Barzun was not specifically referring to this movie when he theorized that civilizations invariably fall into decadence. But consider that "Big Momma's House 2" was produced by David T. Friendly, the son of the CBS News President Fred Friendly (played by George Clooney in "Good Night, and Good Luck"), who resigned when the network refused to preempt reruns of "I Love Lucy" to cover Senate hearings about Vietnam. It took only one generation for this family to fall this far.

Consider too this film is distributed by RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, who didn't even need a generation to fall.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"

Frankly, in this country, the perfect is the enemy of the good, but hopefully we can impact future generations by sticking up for the little guy, and hopefully standing for family values, and saying, "God bless America!"

We have spoiled a whole lot, haven't we?

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

Speaking of weasel words:

Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn’t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.

We didn't feel that way when we were raking in the dough.

(Via PublishersWeekly.com)

P. S. at 5:10 p.m. And now, needless to say, the book biz is doing its version of the news hacks' mea culpa headbanging routine, which raises the question: would the publishiong whizzes have problems with liars if they read their manuscripts?

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooh:

A Google search I did of the word ``courage'' yielded more than 49 million results. ``Conscience'' returned 32 million. ``Backbone'' got more than 29 million.

And G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's stock yields $128 billion!

Today's going to be a nutty day on Wall Street.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

When ah-TEESTES use an avalanche of weasel words to defend "strong language" and mockery of religion, the solid ground of their principles turns to quicksand.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

We wish the writer hadn't worded this so cutesy-pie ironically, for he has a point: bad local television may be better than the good national kind because the viewers can at least feel it's theirs. We've come to hate the media biz because it's controlled by a few tyrants who put the same thing on over all media, with the same slickness, the same heavy-handed marketing. Bring back the dance shows, the talent shows, the kiddie puppet shows. They may not be Shakespeare, but at least they're local.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

The holy cockroaches in "Palestine" are moving toward a unilateral temper tantrum.

How do you say "Uncle" in Arabic? Here's betting the Europeans cry it.

Posted 7:41 PM by Gene

Ford says it does not need gov't bailout

Hint hint?

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

Shucks, Democrats are backing Judge Alioto. Meanwhile, there's some talk about the inaptly named Lincoln Chafee, the acme of wimpdom. Why doesn't this guy vote no and then resign?

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

We are sorry to learn that Sony's vastly improved profits have led it to discontinue its several lines of robots, including Aibo. We've seen an Aibo in action and were quite charmed by it, but Sony has a knack for keeping things to itself; to this end it priced Aibo way out of most people's reach. We do hope others will revive the robot pet, although it's likely to stay just within the realm of hobbyists and other get-a-life types; but we must confess having been near cats and dogs I'd rather mine have fur.

It also killed the Qualia. Of this we have no regrets whatsoever. Who wants to buy a $20,000 CD player? Not even get-a-lifes could afford it.

(Via the robotic geeks of Slashdot, one of whom wrote, "Billions in annual sales at a 2% margin makes less sense than hundreds of millions at a 20% margin." I'm SURE Lord Springer will follow your advice TO THE LETTER.)

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

The Enron disaster should (but won't) teach the free-en-ter-prise con-SER-va-tive that some corporate crimes aren't victimless.

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

The anonymous hack who calls him/her/itself "The Washington Prowler" says using Democrat as an adjective is the bee's knees. It's not enough to remind us why many conservatives found Jim "The Beamed-Up Crook" Traficant a great orator. We already have enough offenses against English, some grammatical ("disinterested" meaning uninterested), others well-intended ("flammable" for inflammable), others grating polticospeak (the "floating 'hopefully'", the overuse of "frankly"), others grating PR speak ("edgy", "metrosexual"), others flat-out evasive euphemisms ("the n word"). Twerps like the Prowler love Democrat as an adjective because they think it STICKS it to Fatso Glub-Glubs; but in the process of pricking such buffoons they draw blood from those of us who take offense at these small demolition jobs on our language, whose ultimate purpose is to make us all sound STOOPID.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

It's Hamas's choice: if it wants to be an international outcast, it will join the Iranians and Asia's other hillbillies in the world Islamist Mafia. If it wants not to be, it will have to talk, and we wonder if it has the guts for it, having spent its life shouting the virtues of 72 virgins.

(We should have posted on this before but we were busy with more important stories, like lying "memoirists.")

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

“The right man in the right place at the right time.”

That’s a quote from an important article in Newsweek by economist Milton Friedman in which he claimed that the person about to be chairman of the Federal Reserve Board would be a good pick. No, Friedman didn’t write that in 2005 about Ben Bernanke. Instead, he wrote it in 1970 about his friend and fellow inflation hawk, Arthur Burns, who, shortly after becoming Fed chairman, stoked the fires of inflation and turned out to be one of the worst Fed chairmen of the post-World War II years.

How DARE we insult a GOD! Which leads to the question -- why must the heroes of economists always be GODS?

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Oprah snubs Her former boy-toy!

We don't expect Her to employ batteries of lawyers to check the veracity of the books She magically extols into bestsellers (although She can afford it), but would such episodes happen (and this isn't the first one -- She turned THE FLYING KEYBOARD into a national nuisance) if the Queen didn't firmly believe in Herself?

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

Oprah's boy-toy prevaricating literary druggie spills MORE beans?

We thought he sold the book!

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

With their BIG tuitions and their BIG endowments, why should America's HYER EHDYUKAYTORS be concerned with WASTE?

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

The EU is MAD! It wants the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL DICK CHENEY and his puppet RUMMY to TESTIFY on the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL of SECRET PRISONS -- or ELSE!!!!!

Or else what?

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Long before Lord Koppel left for the exalted heights of National Public TalkRadio, Nightlight had become just another news show. Now it's even more so.

Look at it this way, Ub: Cancelling it will be Steve's first big decision!

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

Ah b'leeve in th' Golden Rule: Doo others as thahy wod doo YEEW -- an' git all the gold you cayn whahle yur dooin' 'em!

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

RENDELLISM comes to BOSTON:

''Our hospitals are growing, academia is growing," Menino said. ''WE are the ECONOMIC ENGINE!!!!!"

With which dynamic non-profit non-taxpaying industries we can start construction of thousands of restaurants to employ more WAITERS and JANITORS and other HIGH-TECH JOBS to grow us into the 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMY!

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

I'm not sure we should be happy that a little bit o' duPont is floaing around in our bloodstreams, but one must wonder if this is the same panicky pseudo-science that led to the ban on DDT, to the celebration of millions who are now dead because of that.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

Ub Iger paid about $1.25 billion a picture for the God Steve's output, meaning it's all the more likely he's financed his own palace coup.

And Ub got a nice help on the way out from the SENATOR.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Little Malcolm has put together one of his patchwork guesswork lists for the Capitalist Dictatorship of China, which tells us the Red Dragon with the Green Trim is quickly developing its own lockstep oligopoly.

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

Our guest tonight is one of the truly great humanitarians and one of my biggest fans, Osama Bin Laden. Sammy, thanks for being here. First I gotta askya, Sammy, what's it like living in a cave?

(Via IWantMedia.com)

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

School to Be Named After Johnnie Cochran

With any justice it should be a problem school.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS have signed John Ashcroft to "write" a "book", which we hope will be the most boring and self-serving of the year.

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

I know this is His Holiness PINCH's New England Edition, but lots of FREE-ENTERPRISE CON-SER-VA-TIVES are SMILING:

Friendly's Ice Cream Corp., the 500-restaurant chain based in Wilbraham, has dramatically cut healthcare benefits for 454 of its full-time employees.

The new plan provides a maximum annual benefit of $2,000 for outpatient care, and covers only a small portion of the costs associated with major illnesses. Under the plan, employees could be liable for thousands of dollars in bills after a short hospital stay, leading some to seek free care from the state. Until last fall, the company offered them comprehensive healthcare insurance.

And here's the -- cherry on the sundae:

Many Friendly's employees do not qualify for coverage through the company and rely on MassHealth, the state Medicaid program for low-income residents, or free care that hospitals are required to provide. According to a state study, Friendly's had the 14th-highest number of such employees in the state. The top of the list is dominated by other food-service companies, including McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King, and several supermarket chains.

I see no difference between this and the CIA of MOUNTAIN VIEW's extremely tortured entry into the Capitalist Dictatorship of China. It's the sort of thing Jack Abramoffs would think up, and it's motivated entirely by a sense of "screw you."

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Sen. Reid Says Bush Should 'Come Clean'

After your party's stirring performance in the Senate Judiciary Committee you need a long hot shower.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Only media types can call losing over two-thirds of your audience a "success."

We said last month the P. T. Barnum of beauty pageants would be lucky if he got a third of his last network audience. Well, he didn't quite get it, and he wasn't lucky he got it.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

Meantime, in more news to make Larry and Sergey and the WALTONS happy:

Chinese Economy Grows to 4th Largest in the World

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

While General Mills spends twice as much to push its products on Nickelodeon, CSPI picked Kellogg as the target of its suit, noting its “alluring product packaging, toy giveaways, contests, collectibles, kid-oriented Web sites, magazine ads and branded toys and clothes,” including a Froot Loops pillow that particularly irked CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson.

Kellogg's isn't about cereals -- it's about MARKETING.

Bill Keegan, director of Edelman’s crisis-management practice, believes “high-profile litigation will go a long way toward” encouraging Kellogg to adopt a healthful positioning. After all, he said, “Public sentiment is very important to them.”

Sure. Like G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE.

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

We are somehow not surprised the same academic-industrial complex that could not care less about the quality of its instruction or the corruption in its professional athletics divisions is so fiercely indifferent to the health of so many of its turnips.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE does EVIL, meaning it's at a NEW HIGH TODAY.

In seeking to compete in the world's second biggest Internet market, where Google has lost ground to a more popular home-grown search company Baidu Inc....

Here's one time we will NOT root for the Americans -- even if the CIA of MOUNTAIN VIEW has a 2.6-percent stake.

Neither Google's e-mail nor blogging services will be offered in China because the company doesn't want to risk being ordered by the government to turn over anyone's personal information.

Well WHOOP-ty DOO!

Posted 6:34 AM by Gene

“My name is Simon Rich and I’m 21 years old...I love David Sedaris, Woody Allen and Philip Roth. I also love television, specifically the show Cops. I write for Mad Magazine and go to Harvard, where I’m president of the Harvard Lampoon. I also write greeting card poetry for Blue Mountain Arts, mostly from the perspective of an old man.”

Guess which insufferable columnist this guy's the son of. Now we know why Mad isn't funny anymore.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Remember how news hacks made vicious, uninterrupted fun of Dan Quayle because he didn't know how to spell "potato"? WELL:

N.D. Potatoe Storage Level Low

The nice thing about being a news hack is that it exempts you from all kinds of criticism.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

How will another law stop child murders?

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

BYE UB!

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

Well what a surprise: a straight party-line vote. I am flabbergasted.

Pfffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 11:31 AM by Gene

Misery loves company: SUMNER and KING RICHARD are merging the number five and six TV networks and calling their new shotgun wedding The CW.

As in CONVENTIONAL WISDOM?

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Beltway people are among the most despicable on the planet, and one of their favored behaviors is showy self-flagellation when things go wrong. Not accepting bribes does not make anyone less of a conniving, two-timing, double-crossing, public-shafting PHONY.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

JONAH has written a movie.

Pardon, William F. Buckleyson.

Same difference.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Having served for decades as propaganda machines of the left, and now paying the price for it, our truth tellers have turned to the kinder, gentler, reader-friendlier approach -- like GIVING A FRONT-PAGE HED TO THE DONALD.

IS THIS WHY?

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

More instant cliches in the greatest biz on earth:

“One down year is an anomaly, but two could be a trend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office-tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “This year is really a turning point.”

Does that mean you're set to top your Guinness-Book record for self-serving blurbs in newspapers?

“Movie theaters will realize they are not in the exhibition business, but are in the entertainment business,” said Mark Cuban, who owns the art-house Landmark Theaters.

No you're NOT, Mr. Captcha, you're in the popcorn-restaurant business, and everything is aimed to maximize the profit on the popcorn.

“Having tent-pole movies and franchises gives you a solid base—it takes some of the pressure off if you have good anchors,” said Tom Ortenberg, president of Lionsgate Releasing.

What if the tentpoles are infested with termites?

OR (since you must mix metaphors) what if the anchors sink the ship?

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

Why does a certain kind of news hack think we'll only have reached nirvana when all the arts have become irreversibly bad and hopelessly political?

(Via the frequently annoying ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

Ub Iger just got permission to buy Steve Jobs's star dust and hope it rubs off on him.

Good luck!

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

Fort-NEY Stark blows off steam to a WaPost reporter because the little boys won't let him join them at play.

We don't like that the GOP is doing exactly what the Dems did before 1995. We don't like that Congress is run by a bunch of obstreperous ninnies more interested in protecting their perks than governing. But Fortney's complaint underlines one essential truth: the power of government is more than offset by the power of media and its allies -- and that is an almost exclusively Democratic province.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

If every last movie award show were televised the audience for the Os-CARS® might be close to ZERO.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Even now that the remaining 420 pages of Oprah's boy toy's opus maximus are finally being disclosed as fiction the publishing biz remains the most credulous place on earth.

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

Another food fight on the Web, between the Podman and Franklin "Furor" Foer, makes me wonder if the race shouldn't go back to smoke signals; but knowing these two they'd find a way to incinerate the planet.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

What if a formerly prominent columnist of a prominent newspaper left to write a book and nobody cared?

Thank YOU, PINCH!

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

As has been widely touted Mercedes has introduced a top-of-the-line car that can drive itself.

The thing is with its reliability problems this Mercedes may develop a mind of its own.

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

Thuh uh-DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHB discovers another PC CONSERVATIVE MOVIE!

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Come to think of it, why DO Republican presidents pledge their fealty to the pro-life movement on the PHONE?

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

Mars Inc. says, HEIL SUMNER!

Masterfoods spent $52 million between MTV and CBS TV networks, two major drivers of the new Viacom and CBS Corp.

Think of all the junk food we peddle to kids; think of all the morally dubious stuff we finance on MTV; think of the rot in prime time...well, here's another company that increases our girth as it shrinks our brains!

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

Byrd says mine deaths were preventable

Sen. Ossified Kleagle's been around so long he invented coal.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Well if the energy traders are back, does that mean more crooks will follow?

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

Incredible:

Bummer: NFC game
nosedives on Fox

Down by 63 percent from last year, to a 10.7

Maybe the NFL is dispensable.

P. S. on 1/24: MEDIALIFE made a mistake, and not its first. We must resist these heds from fourt-rate sources.

Posted 12:41 PM by Gene

CCCCCCCCC-NNNNNNNN-NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!! FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!!!!!

Buttafuocos, Amy Fisher Plan TV Reunion

Posted 12:33 PM by Gene

One thing I must make clear: I do not intend to link to WaPost properties just because they link to blogs (although it does help). It behooves the rest of the news biz to start similar links so that not just the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGBLOGGERS dominate the discussion.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!!!!! must be having the fidgets today: his friend ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN may set up a STANDARDS-AND-PRACTICES DEPARTMENT!

It's all the MORAL JIHADISTS' FAULT!

How did that CRANK PERFESSER from that SPORTS FACTORY in SYRACUSE wheedle his way in here? That man has a PHONE ADDICTION!

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

One hopes between now and whenever the next big auto layoffs have to be announced our guys will learn how to design better cars.

On hopes that's it not a case that our guys can't design better cars no matter how hard they try.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

I thank the WaPosties for giving me some hits -- see? You're not always bad -- but I just wish the CIA in Mountain View would make Next Blog work again.

And whenever things like this happen I have profound doubts I'm fully sensible.

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

2,342 WORDS to tell us LUKE SPIELBERG's the INNOCENT VICTIM of the VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY, of SWIFT BOATERS, of LEON WIESELTIERS SCREAMING MORAL EQUIVALENCE?

Maybe the LaLaTimes hasn't reformed that much.

Although the entertainment press tends to be slavish to the celebrities that sell their magazines, the political press can be conversely patronizing to what it views as self-satisfied, shallow-thinking, overpaid Hollywood fat cats.

TRANSLATION: Show-biz news hacks are toadies, and right-wing pundits are evil.

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

The senior senator from Arizona can occasionally say the right thing. Can he do the right thing?

(Sorry for the NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Many Phila. homicide victims had records

Why am I not surprised to learn this?

And why am I not exactly heartened to know it's bad guys taking out other bad guys?

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

A nation needs strong political magazines, and for that and other reasons we are very sorry to hear The New Leader is folding. We are told it was a powerful voice for truth, and we for a second wouldn't doubt a magazine that ran Solzhenitsyn and Dr. King was precisely that, though much of its truth came from before we started reading the magazine in the seventies, and that was largely due to John Simon's theater reviews, and that Serb was at his (as they must say) acerbic best then. But people don't read magazines anymore, only coffee tables do, and when people seem fit to read them it's for the pictures.

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

CVS is getting into the supermarket biz, and if it can bring the same commitment to cluttered stores and surly help it's brought to its glorified Woolworths' it should be one doozy of a debt.

And speaking of upper-level corruption a company still remembered for selling high-tech equipment to the Soviets is buying a company that may be related to a company that used to be called Westinghouse before it got acquired by a string of louts and megalomaniacs, who turned it into an overfull stomach and a lagging media stock.

P. S. We should have known: CVS is merely adding to its collection of cluttered stores with surly help.

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

Little Howie Hairshirt once again proves the best conflict of interest is always your own.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

Greenspan's Legacy Still Unclear [home-page hed]

TRANSLATION: Eighteen years of the Wizard and we STILL can't figure out what he said.

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

Meantime Gil and his Os-CAR® crew grimly make do with the S. S. Minnow they've been handed as it lists severely to port, heading full-bore into the inevitable 100-footer of audience contempt.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

A RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! factotum offers us hope for the future:

"I think we have to do what George Clooney did in The Perfect Storm," Sherak says of the 2000 thriller about an ill-fated fishing voyage.

"We just have to take the storm head on. Keep doing what we're doing, and steer straight for the tidal wave."

Of course, in the film, Clooney's character, along with all of his crew, drowned in the storm.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

Why do news hacks mistake Rendellism (in this case "a new federal building...two sports stadiums, a performing-arts center, a central library, a "River Walk"-style canal in the HIP Bricktown district, and a trolley linking everything") for recovery? Oklahoma City may be a "different" town -- but is it better?

Posted 7:27 PM by Gene

Clever thinking from the hermetically sealed crawl space of Mr. Mark: We make fun of "the Greenhouse Effect," then celebrate Nine Finger Mr. Squoosh for having succumbed to it.

Yep, as the late Sam "The Heavy" Donaldson said, "Who elected you?" Certainly no one can UNELECT you. (I refer to news hacks AND judges.)

Posted 7:05 PM by Gene

Syrians oppose US but love KFC

Stories like these make me sigh. On the one hand they expose foreigners as hedonistic hypocrites; on the other hand they expose our sole talent as catering to the appetites of hedonistic hypocrites. Can any nation be proud of itself?

Posted 6:27 PM by Gene

Some two-bit bar chain called Fox & Hound is being taken over in a leveraged buyout for about $160 million. I mention this because here in our neighborhood we're in the first of ten hours of on-street revelry emanating from one of its tony hives because tonight we happen to be a Pittsburgh suburb. This is the same neighborhood where some high strung neurotics forced a supermarket to close because its deliveries made too much noise. The Beloved EDDIE was no doubt on the phone for DAYS getting this joint to locate here -- "it's near culture and high art! It's near a palace of MUSIC!" Never mind the patrons' tastes may run more toward the infernal ELTON (whom the rich moron who named his money-munching musical mausoleum for himself insisted on opening it with); Eddie was then in his 10,000-restaurants-or-bust kick, with the result that anyone earning over a quarter-million a year can eat anywhere, and the rest of us are out of luck. And so tonight we get what Mr. RENDELI can insist is "the noise and bustle of a great booming city, always expanding, always creating more jobs for waiters and janitors and busboys and maids to propel this city into the 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMY!!!!!"

Shut up, Steeler fans -- and SHUT UP, EDDIE.

P. S. at 6:52 p.m. Well, the Steeler fans have shut up, a lot sooner than I thought. Eddie will never shut up -- even if a former Steeler puts him out of the government biz.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

Bravo! Mozart
Because of his greatness, Mozart cannot help but be edifying.

Mozart's Gift
His music has taught us how to live.

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is up to something. It would be harder to find someone who could be more hostile to the high arts than he; probably the last time he heard Mozart's music was as background on a TV commercial, and he pushed the button on his remote so hard he damaged it, and then probably threw the remote at the set for good measure. Woe be unto anyone who'd dare play Mozart in his presence. We can hear him screaming now: "WHOY D'YEW HAFTA PLYYY THAT STYYNKIN EGGHHEAD MEEWSIC?????" (But then we could just as readily assume RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has no taste in the arts -- as he has no taste.) Now the RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can proudly claim he's producing a high art of his own kind; he has plenty of ad-blurb copywriters who'll attest that he's putting out the greatest art since -- well, since THE GREATEST WORK OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENNNNNNTURY; but hacks will in a crisis always stick together, even if it's with someone as evil as RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, he's up to something, maybe like the old guy played by Eddie Robinson in Soylent Green before Charlton Heston learns what goes into the stuff. Maybe RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wants to keep it to himself. Maybe RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S realizes been turning out cultural Soylent Green too long, and the cri-TICS have an insatiable appetite for it, and it stinks. Maybe RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is just being his usual genius bonehead self.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

I'd like a copy of the PERFESSER's phone bills:

"This guy has become famous for being really, really brilliant and really, really smart about something, but most people have no idea what it is he does," says pop culture expert Robert Thompson from New York.

And you've become famous for making really, really snappy sound bytes and for posing as really, really smart about something, and most people have no idea why you must be in the papers at least 10,000 times a day.

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

I'd prefer not to have to link to EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!, but the guy engaged in his hearts-and-flowers gag...reflex:

I just heard from Sen. Lautenberg’s office, responding to my request to testify before today’s Commerce Committee decency hearing. Doug Mehan, a legislative assistant, explained that even Lautenberg has little influence on the witness list. It’s a prerogative of the chairman, he said. The chairman decides whom to hear — or more to the point, not to hear. They should call them Senate unhearings.

I said it is shameful that Brent Bozell is heard — though he does not represent mainstream America — and no one is called on to speak for First Amendment rights in a Senate hearing about government restricting speech. He was sympathetic but shrugged. Politics. Washington. Power.

Sniff sniff, it's enough to make a grown man cry. Why didn't you turn to the broadcaster-backed Abramoffs whose lobby you cofounded? Why didn't you turn to the dozen or so BIGMEDIA firms you worked for? Why didn't you call your pal ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN? This is posturing every bit as raw as The Great Alaskan Boar's, and every bit as offensive.

Millionaires and bums, Buzzes and Brents, they all taste about alike to me.

Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

And speaking of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL, here's a Curley (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooge to define it:

Troops and civilians at a U.S. military base in Iraq were exposed to contaminated water last year and employees for the responsible contractor, Halliburton, couldn't get their company to inform camp residents, according to interviews and internal company documents.

Halliburton, the company formerly headed by VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY....

So! Dick Cheney polluted the water in Iraq?

How much lower can news hacks' reps go?

The Associated Press obtained the documents from Senate Democrats who are holding a public inquiry into the allegations Monday.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who will chair the session....

Bias? What bias?

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Now ya done it, conservative lawmakers: you're stepping up the evil fight against abortion.

You don't suppose 33 million or whatever was the turning point?

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

[T]he prevailing tone of Dog Days is one of boredom rather than indignation. It's suffused with a kind of jaded cynicism that seems more like the product of callow inexperience than battle-hardened wisdom. Knowingness serves as a substitute for having a point of view.

We mightn't be writing about MIKE KINSLEY's invention, might we?

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

Okay, maybe Little Jeffy's no idiot, but somebody thinks his readers are, or else we wouldn't try to salvage something out of our SYNERGY with GE BANCORP and REALTY. Or to put it in other words: the BANCORP's in HOLLYWOOD, and it would tolerate things it most likely wouldn't tolerate in its other divisions, because the non-idiot boss and his sub-bosses can spend all day boasting about the CELEBRITIES they know.

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

Here's one for you, Your Lordship of the Holy Religion of Apple: iPod muggings!

This may be just an excuse. Then again, teens is stupid.

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

The Asian hillbillies chant, "MORE 9/11s!"

This may not decrease the likelihood we send some of their friends to their 72 virgins.

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

And what Dick Posner has become to a certain breed of conservative pundit, so PERFESSER THOMPSON has become to a certain breed of pop-cultyure writer, and any story where the PERFESSER comes within six paragraphs of the top is most likely full of it.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

"Long live coca, death to the gringos!"

Let's hear you say that when WE come a-courting.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Bert Parks sang last night, but not about Atlantic City.

CMT officials kept expectations low: They said they would be happy if they got a million viewers to their network....

TRANSLATION: 1. SUMNER's bifurcated empire's managing expectations, and 2. If we get a tenth of the audience, we should (by rights) get a tenth of the ad revenues, meaning the pageant's under new management soon, or out of business.

P. S. How clever PR keeps CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES' expenses down -- by avoiding having to report anything:

Miss America rolled the dice moving to Las Vegas, and the gamble paid off, according to organizers _ [SIC] for the pageant, its new network and the casino that played host. [Lead graf]

The [contestants] also shared bathrooms, doubling up at the Aladdin hotel-casino to help keep expenses down. [SIXTEENTH graf]

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

So Michael Barone, writing in a rag that has Abe Lincoln on its cover, says we're just in another temporary political fix, and he cites the superduper all-purpose judge Dick Posner to prove it.

I don't know that we should be citing the Roman Empire, though. It felt pretty good about itself too. Nor do I think we should cite the 2004 election as proof of increased voter interest; that was largely a referendum on one of the greatest DO'S in the Senate and his party's wussiness on defense. Nor do I think we can justify the billions in sleaze by uttering folderol like "Americans are busy striving and risking their lives and making the world better, as they have been since World War II." Heck, they've been doing it since the first colonials. We forget their toil. We do remember the scandals, however. And one can't help guessing if the time will come that they so accrete on our ship of state that the whole thing goes under.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Well! It's not just NBA PLAYERS who have AAAAAAAAAAAAAATTITUUUUUUUUUUDE!!

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

In all, the Super Bowl could contribute up to $300 million to the local economy, including spending on hotel rooms, meals, transportation and other attractions, the mayor said.

...of which half is fiction and the rest will quickly go in one municipal ear and out the other.

"Detroit is a gritty town with rough edges, and we love it, and we celebrate it!"

TRANSLATION: We used to call it urban decay, now we call it GRITTY! We're making PROGRESS!

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

Boys (who have become a cause du jour) and Bill Ford? Exzzzzzzzzzzzzciting. But hardly enough to stop waiting rooms from subscribing to newsrags.

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

'Munich' is pure hooey, say real Israeli agents

Which did not prevent news hacks and the effete snobs of movie ad-blurb writing from calling it a masterpiece, nor would it prevent other effete snobs from awarding it the universe's highest honor, the BEST-PIC-TYURE OS-CAR®.

Nor has it prevented the film from bombing at the box office.

What if they held an OS-CAR® ceremony and no one watched?

P. S. Meantime the hooey-writing CO-SCENARIST of the BEST-PIC-TYURE OS-CAR® WINNER complains, "DEY'RE TUWNING MY FILWM INTO A CAHWTOON! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

First off, your direc-TOR specializes in live-action Road Runners. Second, you should know what Harry Truman said: if you can't stand the heat, get out of the oven.

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

THE WORLD'S GREATEST BLOGGER AND TRUTHSEEKER takes 4,448 WORDS to state a sentence's worth of truth: that JERNALISM cannot be taught, that it certainly cannot be taught by the Columbia School of JERNALISM, that the profession attracts like minds, and no amount of hammering and sawing and chiselling can modify them.

Would this GREAT BLOGGER, who has been known for his -- hubris on occasion, suggest bloggers can totally assume the responsibilities of JERNALISM? We think he would. And so long as JERNALISTS or bloggers have their hubris, we'll have our lies.

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

When the abnormal becomes normal, how do we get our normality back?

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

We all feel sorry for that poor whale, but what compels our sympathy to well up for a mere creature when it wouldn't for a fellow human being?

Posted 10:40 PM by Gene

Meantime we hacks have covered all bases, running a plug for "blogs" that plug movies (most run by pros, or sycophants, or both) and waste our time telling us of the genius of 1939, genius that the average person may resent having to hear about, as the year may not be 1939, except for the character of its villains.

Posted 10:38 PM by Gene

God we news hacks can fervently hope this story conforms to our prejudices -- you know, police chief white, victim black, for if it doesn't we probably won't report on it any more.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

This is why screaming like Chris Matthews' (sorry for the David "L. as in Liar" Brock), and screaming on such screaming, riles me. Both sides want to so polemicize America we can't talk politically without screaming. Both sides blast the EVIL of such acts only when the other side does it. Moreover there are too many cheerleaders trying to work up their sides into murderous anger, and I am sorry, more of a few of them must secretly entertain hopes of a Second Civil War. And who's to say it couldn't happen? As I posted before,

[S]ome have blamed the Civil War on a woman. And the murder of some silly archduke in a country that no one heard of led to most of the last century's catastrophes. Who's to say today's intolerant ninnies can't lead us to total destruction?

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

The flacks at USAOKAY!!!!! must be MAD because thousands of other NEWS HACKS want to grab hold of some of that SUPER BOWL AD BOOTY, which means non-stop plugging and insulting of our intelligence, and the hacks wouldn't have it any other way.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

Consider this a warning:

The eagerly awaited film of “Dreamgirls,” based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name, is set to hit movie theatres across the country on Dec. 22.

We just had two flop musicals expire on us -- Lala Boheme and THE GREATEST MUSICAL OF ALL TIME. Join the crowd.

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

Tony Franciosa, the Italian James Dean of the small screen, has died. RIP.

Posted 4:41 PM by Gene

The news hacks are reporting in their typical one-voice-one-folk-one-Reich-one-Fuhrer mode that G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE closed below $400 (!!!!!) because the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL DUBYA is out to SPY ON US. Of course it has NOTHING to do with the fact that it was at $475 just over a week ago, or that it's become a new tulip mania, or that Yahoo! had trouble with its targets, or that LITTLE JEFFY once again demonstrated his inferiority to the MASTER LEGENDARY WELCH. Heck even one of the sales -- ANALYSTS says its fiscal impact is zero. But it's a nice way of blowing off steam, especially when companies that seldom have a bad day in their lives have one, and they're on our side.

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

In more A-PLAGUE-O'-BOTH-YOUR-HOUSES news, the RED-STATE SCORPION's father lashes out at ROSIE'S NEPHEW for making fun of the family name.

Let's see: Jack's a criminal sleazeball, and a typo could turn Rosie's Nephew's last name to Looney. NUF SAID.

(Via USAOKAY!!!!!)

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

The inevitable ROMY does it again:

Who's CNN's next big hire?
Snidely Whiplash?

Bring back MIKE KINSLEY and BOB NOVAK!

Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

A lawsuit for plagiarizing a [C]RAP may not be the wisest thing, as all three words are in the public domain.

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

"Maybe with my death the families and the people can go on with their lives and not waste energy wondering why I was still alive."

Good idea!

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Corporate America has discovered a kinder, gentler form of outsourcing.

TRANSLATION: I SAY IT'S SPINACH....

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

"Just go back to the ’90s, with the 'Clinton Chronicles,' Hillary is a lesbian, Bill and Hillary are drug dealers, Bill and Hillary left a trail of bodies. You have a talk radio that has been breast-fed on 'Hillary and Bill are murderers' and radicalized by a thug like Rush Limbaugh, with the crumbs swept up by a junior thug like Sean Hannity. And then somebody wants to ask me if I’m being a little bit strong in saying that John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act are totally, totally destroying constitutional government in this country?"

A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

LEGENDARY WELCH's mistr -- wife will be writing a new advice column for BizWeek, in which she -- He answers the question, "How can I become a big mean nasty critically-acclaimed zillion-dollar-earning fixture on the pages of business rags in three easy steps?" Simple: 1. Fire half a million people; 2. Declare yourself irreplaceable and pay yourself a commensurate salary; 3. Hire legions of sycophants like JOHN BYRNE.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

Shucks, another singer of songs and teller of truths bites the dust:

It wasn't because of the song "Columbia Is Bleeding." That song is actually about animal testing at Columbia University, not about the Sony Music subsidiary for which McKay recorded and with whom she had a contentious relationship with from day one. (Her debut included a song with the line "should have signed with Verve instead of Sony.")

And it wasn't because of "The Big One," which laments the gentrification of the Harlem neighborhood in which McKay grew up and addresses the 1989 murder of family friend and tenants rights activist Bruce Bailey. Or because of "Cupcake," which sings the praises of gay marriage.

What brought things to loggerheads was that McKay wanted a 23-song, 65-minute version of "Pretty Little Head," while Columbia wanted a 16-song, 48-minute version.

Sometimes I guess being critically-acclaimed isn't good enough. God knows they're not good.

P. S. I guess Richard "Social Security" Harrington's by-line means Robert "Over the" Hilburn's due for a second coming. Geez.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

Harry "The Shrimp" Reid apologizes for mocking the tired old tradition of Senate "collegiality."

Isn't that what fund raising's all about?

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

And how short is the runway at the Miss, er, Vegas pageant? One step and you're in Asia.

P. S. Push a button near a statue of Bert Parks outside the Miss, er, Vegas Pageant's headquarters and it sings "There She Is." Push a button on something called a Weinert and it fraaaaaaaps:

"Losing an institution like Miss America could enhance the perception among some people that Atlantic City is a loser. At the same time, ATLANTIC CITY IS PROGRESSING IN BIG STRIDES TOWARD BECOMING A YOUNGER, HIPPER, COOLER DESTINATION!!!!!!!!!! IT COULD BE ARGUED THAT SHEDDING WHAT MANY SEE AS AN OUTDATED INSTITUTION COULD ACTUALLY BOOST ATLANTIC CITY'S EMERGING IMAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Vegas is merely AC with PR.

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

There is what passes for a big stink in Hollywood as some allegedly big-name actresses wore recycled dresses.

Why not? The biz recycles movies.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

And speaking of MBAs, DR. EVIL spins again.

We suggest the Dr. would have been Jack Abramoff but that it would have looked bad.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

Let's connect some dots:

MBAs are hot, again....

The $106,000 salary and signing bonus was up 13.5% from 2004, according to a GMAC survey of 5,829 2005 grads. Salary alone increased to $88,600, surpassing the previous high of $85,400 set in 2001. The 2005 salary still trails 2001 by about $4,000 when adjusted for inflation, but the inflation-adjusted record will likely be broken this year.

-----------------------------------------

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.

More than 50% of students at four-year schools and more than 75% at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.

That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

Okay, the MBAs aren't quite the same as the four-year gang. Then again they had to get their high-toned Babbitty degrees somewhere, and no doubt in the course of their super-fast progressions up the corporate ladder (which often end in a do-nothing middle rung) they take their college-educated philistinism with them, so that while the average uneducated college student may only have trouble with charts and editorials, the super-duper gee-whiz Babbitt has a chance of implementing his philistinism. Every day sees a new abuse of the public by corporate America, an abuse impossible without the MBA's unappetizing blend of superegoism and uneducation -- and corporate America is as rife with fraud as with MBAs. The academic-industrial complex can't teach, and in a business with its own caste system it can't teach in different ways.

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

ASININE:

Barry Ritholtz, chief investment officer with Ritholtz Capital Partners, a hedge fund that focuses on media and technology stocks, adds that the biggest benefit of owning NBC is that it helps GE control its image and present itself in a favorable light. (His firm does not have a position in GE.)

"The value of NBC hasn't been its bottom line impact or the amount of cash throws off. It is having a mouthpiece that protects GE. It enables the company to maintain and control its own public relations," Ritholtz said.

LEGENDARY WELCH may have had this in His evil mind when He bought His network, perhaps envisioning a buffer between His defense biz and bad PR, a neat excuse to get into show-biz; but even then He was turning His company into an S & L, so what was the point? GE BANCORP AND REALTY ENTERTAINMENT turns out enough bad publicity in its own right; between junky sitcoms and two HYPER-PC Oscar® nominees it works mightily to disprove the notion that any publicity is good publicity.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

Sen. Leahy to oppose Alito nomination
Vermont Democrat says he doesn't feel judge will be independent of Bush

Even after he leaves the White House?

Posted 11:19 AM by Gene

The CHEAP CHANNEL biz fights satradio fire with...uh, hi-def hot air?

In December, several major radio groups -- including Clear Channel, CBS, Emmis, Entercom, Greater Media, Bonneville and Citadel -- created the HD Radio Alliance. The radio groups put aside their typical cutthroat competitive spirits to coordinate their multicast HD2 channels to create the greatest diversity of formats, so there wouldn’t be, for example, four country stations and three soft rock HD2 stations in New York.

WHICH WILL HAPPEN ANYWAY.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

``Dave Marash is a superb reporter,'' Koppel said. ``I think if he feels in any way that he is being used or misused by Al-Jazeera, I'm sure he'll leave as quickly as he has signed on, but I'm not worried about Dave Marash. You shouldn't be, either.''

Then, Koppel added: ``I know it's fashionable just to look upon Al-Jazeera as being a propaganda outlet for Al-Qaida. But, you know, Tom and I have been covering the Middle East for many, many years, and all I can tell you is Al-Jazeera is a huge step up from where the Arab world's journalism has been over the past 40 years.''

1. You said Henry the K was a superb secretary of state too, frequently to his face. 2. Sometimes the fashionable has an inconvenient way of also being true. 3. We look upon that huge step up much as the elephant might look on an army of ants scaling a sugar cube.

We thought we'd run this now that The Osama Channel gang has issued another press release. Hope you were on top of the cheer -- STORY, Dave!

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

Little Malcolm's elixir for eternal youth: have a new seventy-something colyumnist interview an eighty-something author.

Sczzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzintillating.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

"'This could be on any network.'"

The troubles of Discovery Communications Inc. are a distant-early-warning alarm for show-biz. Once the execs are left on their own devices they turn to lowest-common-denominator programming -- and shucks, it might not even play on cable, despite an audience that can be maddeningly forgiving. No, to use a bit of jargon from show-biz, our phenomenal impatience with the wizards of Hollywood is a cross-platform thing.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Con-SER-va-tives will scream that this is the first battle in a war to make junk food illegal, and I definitely do NOT like Mike "Hot Line to the Newsroom" Jacobsen, but outfits like the Movie Studio in Battle Creek have nobody to blame but themselves: Kellogg's, which started out as a health-food concern, more than any other food company save Mickey D's has become the symbol for over-reliance on junk television, throwing the waste matter of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera into the public's face for decades, using its notoriously condescending ads to adults to trumpet its superiority over its mere customers, and now the company's paying for it, as finally perhaps it's reached a critical mass with us peons that we don't like paying $10 for cotton-candy cereals that bring on health problems. Tough bupkus, BIG K.

P. S. This outfit has a former SUMNER cog on its team. That man is a crook with a PR agency.

P. P. S.

FOOD NAZIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

David "300" Bauder (that's a joke, son) does it again:

Clarkson has become a major star in the past year, with her hit "Since U Been Gone" earning both massive sales and critical respect....

Listen 300 Baud-er, you may think typing like that gets you into the Reporters' Hall of Fame, or whatever men's room they hang the awards in, but I don't like being talked down to like that, even if it's a specialty of you news hacks -- to treat us peons as though we don't exist, even if we inconveniently do, as you burn our advertising dollars and our cable fees and our subscriptions on your six-digit emoluments, and your atrocious writing. I guess just using words like "major" and "massive" and "critical respect" does the trick. Hey! I can do that too! I can say my blog is a major influence with a massive following and has earned critical respect among my fellow bloggers. Unfortunately it wouldn't make it any more true. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to YOU, 300 BAUD-ER, and SHUT UP.

Posted 4:45 PM by Gene

Nothing happened to G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE and its shares fell almost five percent. Imagine if something happened to it. If only.

Intel, Yahoo!, eBay, Steve Jobs's Religion -- all are proof that the tech bubble never ends.

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

We see the great gray liquor-guzzling woman-nuzzling Alioto-bashing eminence from MASS had -- an encounter. And the product of this -- encounter has just acquired majority. We're not sure we like being privy to these lurid tales, especially tales reprinted in the National Enquirer; but with the Senator, you can't help it, especially when he gets on those moral bende -- crusades. Now a certain kind of knee-jerk liberal would not get exercised if this fatso committed -- well, if he did something for which he'd oppose the death penalty, and were America's head screwed on right people would demand his resignation for his cumulative affronts to the body politic (and other bodies); but most likely this force of TRUTH and RIGHT can run for re-election until they have to cart him onto the Senate floor in a cryonic chamber, or until his liver gives out, whichever comes first, and we don't expect it to.

Nor do we expect any news hacks to give this circulation, because the shoe is on the wrong foot.

(Via -- oh well -- the FREEPERS)

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

It's official -- Iran has become -- an EMERGENCY.

Pffh-hh-hh!

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

“[News outlets] should not allow reporters to cover things where their interests are at stake,” Carlson said. “That’s lying.”

Do this and you'd have nothing but ads -- which may not be a bad thing.

(Via the invincible ROMY)

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

We don't know who are the greatest monkeys: these guys or the banana-eaters who insist spending $100 trillion on the Super Bowl and the GE BANCORP and REALTY GAMES will improve their standing -- or the hacks who insist the monkeys spending $100 trillion are doing a good thing.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

And speaking of The Cute Little Pink Paper that Loses $2 Million a Year, they had a good -- cry because we -- the DEMOCRATS could have Borked Judge "Alioto" if we'd -- THEY'D asked tough questions, instead of giving all that quality camera time to SCHOOOOO-MUH!

The good news, Chuckie, is your face is safe.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

BIGMEDIA's come up with a PC way of attacking the liar junkie zillionaire Oprah boytoy: by likening him to the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL DUBYA!

Well, anything beats awards.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

So long as its citizens have delusions of world conquest through terrorism, Saudi Arabia will have enough oil.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Are this year's Golden Globes a watershed?

Or are news hacks once again drowning in their own self-importance?

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

From the trendy land of the appeasing CHICKENS, who always tell GRINGOS how superior they are to mere COWBOYS:

Spanish authorities said Wednesday they have arrested 33 people -- including teachers, business executives a doctor and a priest -- for allegedly acquiring and distributing child pornography on the Internet.

Hey ZAP! Why isn't that legal? Isn't getting mad at child porn merely being JUDGMENTAL?

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

The Potemkin village of pro football gets into the FIGHTING SPIRIT:

A Detroit woman was accused of scamming Super Bowl fans out of $42,000 by selling 105 fake tickets.

Detroit police said the woman, 49-year-old Karen Reed, claimed to be a Ford Field employee and charged $400 per person for the Feb. 5 game. Police said that Reed was not associated in any way with Ford Field, the Detroit Lions or the National Football League.

Rah rah!

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

Neuharth to Be Inducted Into Advertising Hall of Fame

A SUPERB choice, especially for all the ads he's run as news stories in USAOKAY!!!!!

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

Well, that's looking on the bright side:

"The use of the word 'plantation' is terribly unwise," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "It will just reinforce the view most Americans have of Hillary Clinton as being very liberal."

It could have been worse, Sabato added: "At least she didn't mention Hitler."

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

HOW TO REBUILD NAWLANS: Someone proposes a National Jazz Museum (UGH). Somebody does him one better and suggests a museum for the City of Nawlans. I've got a better idea: turn the WHOLE CITY into a museum!

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

The Jomhuri-e-Eslami newspaper said Tuesday that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour was a "CIA and Mossad agent with a bad record" who should be barred from Iran.

Wait a second! If she's a "CIA and Mossad agent with a bad record" doesn't that mean she's doing YOUR bidding?

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Assisted Suicide Law

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! WE WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or is this another of those mind-boggling technicalities?

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Sen. Fatso Glub-Glub has quit that private club that wouldn't admit women, meaning we'll never about it from NEWS HACKS.

(Via, oh well, the Freep)

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

CNN allowed to resume work in Iran after apology

Well that didn't take long. We may presume Iran saw the benefits that accrued to Saddam -- and that Christiane did the necessary abject begging.

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

"It's taking you an entire week to capsize your presidential hopes for '08. It's been done before and done better by yours truly!"

Still you have to give the old gasbag credit for trying.

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

It's the Globes. Everyone Wins.

Guess who loses.

This is a sales meeting, really — a grand and glamorous one, such as Enron never threw.

I wouldn't say that with the biz' ethics and accounting.

P. S. The bad news: the ratings were up. The good news: the ratings were up modestly, meaning an arthouse movie is still an arthouse movie.

Posted 6:26 AM by Gene

Shucks, more cruel and unusual punishment, for a man who cruelly and unusually punished several people.

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

The latest argument is the new Chief Justice and his Justice-in-Waiting are stupid. We've heard many arguments thrown about like discarded toys to disqualify these men, but this is a first. With their JDs it is hard to believe they're stupid. But the hard-to-believe is a common commodity in the news biz.

Ay, but here's the real nub:

In a provocative essay in the November 2005 Harvard Law Review, Richard Posner, a federal appeals court judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, makes an even more unvarnished version of that argument. Much of the high court's constitutional decision making, Posner asserts, is inherently political.

That's why I call them the Nine Fingers; their decisions twist not-so-slowly in the wind of public fickleness. That's why you may want a liberal judge, and I a conservative; we agree with their politics. Of course the more we decide we want our favorite flavors on the court the less likely we'll have real justice. And that requires less thinking than Winnie the Pooh -- or a newspaper colyumnist.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Iraq: 99 Percent of Voting Was Valid

Can we Americans say that?