Although I should probably know better, I’m holding out hope that MacGruber, the latest in a looong string of crappy SNL spin-off movies, will actually be funny. The trailer looks like a good start.

A (fake) documentary about zombies who live in Los Angeles.

Directed by – Grace Lee

Written by – Grace Lee, Rebecca Sonnenshine

Starring – Austin Basis, Roger Ainslie, Andrew Amondson, Alice Amter, Kasi Brown, John Durbin, Monique Edwards, Finneus Egan, Yuri Elvin, John Jarvis, Ossie Mair, Andi Matheny, Suzy Nakamura, Philip Newby, Vanessa Peters, Micki Schloss, John Solomon, Jose Solomon, Al Vicente, Kevin Michael Walsh, Jane Edith Wilson

From time to time I like to have a zombie experience that differs from the typical one. Sure I love to see zombies getting blown up or chowing down on the slowest person of the group. But every so often I want some fresh air to blow through the graveyard and American Zombie didn’t disappoint me.

This one is not going to be for everybody. It starts off pretty slow and I almost shut it off. That goes against everything I stand for when it comes to watching a movie so I left it on and really started to enjoy it after that. It really is like any other documentary I watch. A good example would be a biography of someone famous. I’m not interested in the first part of the story, the build up or where they grew up. It’s when the interesting parts about how they made it or their downfall hits that I really start to get into it. Same goes for this film.

Zombies are people too, that's where the Zombie Advocacy Group comes in.

First of all, these aren’t the typical flesh eating zombies. They can do anything regular people can, it just so happens that they’re dead. There are different levels of zombies though. Some can function perfectly fine in society while others have lost some of their abilities and are limited to being, well, mindless zombies in dead end jobs. They don’t seem to know anything about themselves before they became zombies, or at least that’s the impression that I got. We’re introduced to four different zombies. One’s a skateboarding slacker, one runs a zombie advocacy group trying to get zombies their rights, one is a woman obsessed with finding out who she is or was to be exact and the last woman is having trouble accepting that she’s a zombie at all and is just trying to find her Mr. Right.

This is the part of the film that, while interesting in its own way, is also a little boring. Very early on though, you get a hint that something isn’t quite right about these zombies. That’s when I start wondering, what’s really going on with them. The two filmmakers making the documentary, Grace and John, seem to have different opinions of what they should be looking for. Grace just wants to give the zombies their moment to speak but John seems more interested in whether they eat human flesh or not. This builds to the Live Dead event that Grace and John want to film. Live Dead is a three day event where the zombies come together, away from the suspicious eyes of the humans, to enjoy the company of people who understand their plight. Once they get access to Live Dead, we start to understand what’s really happening. That’s all I’ll say about that.

John and Grace. Showing that zombies have a heart, even if it may not be their own?

While I really enjoyed this one, I don’t think it will be everyone’s cup of tea. It can be quite slow and a complete lack of zombie flesh eating might leave some people wanting more. I found it to be very creative and interesting but also thought that some ideas could have been explored much more. I didn’t put that against the film though and thought of it more like an actual documentary. The zombies avoid questions about their eating habits and some other aspects of their lives just like any other person who wouldn’t want people to know their secrets. I liked how the film ended and it was just an overall good experience.

If you’re looking for a very different take on zombies, check it out. I had heard of this one before but it blew off my radar until I came across it recently. There’s many areas it could have been improved in but still wound up being an entertaining little flick.

Under the marquee – Will

Blueberry yogurt for breakfast, anyone?

Rating: ***½

Review by Justin Smith

September 30, 2009

Originally shot in 2006 and eventually released straight to video in 2008, Extreme Movie is a low-brow teen sex comedy that doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Although it’s disjointed and has the longest list of writing credits I’ve ever seen (10 to be exact), most of the jokes work, or at least portions of them do.

Normally, this is where you would find a brief description of the plot, however, Extreme Movie doesn’t exactly have a plot. It’s more a collection of skits, similar to Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) or Kentucky Fried Movie (1977). Unlike those films, however, Extreme Movie focuses solely on moments of awkward teen sex that, more often than not, end badly for everyone involved. The film is loosely, and I mean loosely, tied together by Mr. Matthew’s (John Farley) sex ed class, where Mike (Ryan Pinkston) seeks his friends advice on how to hook up with a girl in their class. Some of the best scenes involve John Farley as the ‘too open with his students’ sex ed teacher, who goes as far as passing out sex toys and instructing students to select a member of the class they’d like to, well, you know.

The remainder of the film is composed of various oddball, and many times funnier than expected, scenes involving a lot of no name actors mixed with a few stars. Like the opening scene, which depicts Chuck (Frankie Muniz) and his girlfriend in her bedroom as she decides it’s time to take things ‘to the next level’. It’s weird enough seeing Frankie Muniz having sex, but,  immediately afterward,  she still wants to take things ‘to the next level’, which starts with anal and ends somewhere between sheep, midgets, and Frankie Muniz on a dog leash.

Other highlights include Andy Milonakis’s obsession with a sex toy that leads to a sticky situation. Two teens’ attempt at making the perfect woman with their computer, only to find she’s more than they asked for. There’s a man so obsessed with Abraham Lincoln, he builds a time machine to go back in time to fulfill his fantasy. Blue Bally, the sex advice puppet, who shows up at just the right, or is it wrong, time to give his advice, among other things.

Michael Cera’s role as Fred is a good use of Cera’s natural awkwardness. After steamy sex chat, where he partakes in a questionable roleplay, things go terribly wrong when he’s invited to the girls home for some real life roleplay. One of the best scenes in the movie is of a guy who awakens from a night of heavy drinking to find, not only his woman next to him, but Jamie Kennedy, with a mouth covered in blueberry yogurt wearing nothing more than leopard print bikini undies. Also, for all you Tenacious D fans, Kyle Gass’ cameo as a porn director is not to be missed.

Along with the skits, there are a few mock commercials for sex related products, such as the STD-E-Cards, the easy way to let someone know your good time ended on a bad note, and Flaccitra, the drug of choice for eliminating SBS (Suddon Boner Syndrome). There are also two recurring segments, Street Corner Confessions, which always end poorly for one of the teens involved and, my personal favorite, sexual advice from Matthew Lillard, you’ll never see Shaggy the same way again.

If you go into this film with no expectations and an appreciation for low-brow sex humor, you will be pleasantly surprised at how often you find yourself laughing at this straight to DVD release. If nothing else, the film deserves credit as probably the first, and only, film to break out into a  musical number on the set of a porno.

Director: Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson

Writer: Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson, Will Forte, John Solomon, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, Erica Rivinoja, Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Cast: Ryan Pinkston, Michael Cera, Jamie Kennedy, Matthew Lillard, Frankie Muniz

MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong pervasive sexual content, nudity and language – all involving teens.

Runtime: 75 minutes

Year: 2008

Copyright © 2009 criticplanet.org

Borys Kit – Hollywood Reporter

“MacGruber,” the recurring “Saturday Night Live” skit that parodies the action series “MacGyver,” is one step closer to going before cameras as a big-screen movie.

Ryan Phillippe is in negotiations to star in the feature, with Val Kilmer in negotiations to join the Paramount and Relativity Media production. Will Forte and Kristen Wiig are reprising their roles from the skits.

Jorma Taccone, who created the character and directed most of the skits, is at the helm of the film; “SNL” producer and creator Lorne Michaels is producing.

“MacGyver” starred Richard Dean Anderson as an especially resourceful secret agent and aired on ABC from 1985 to 1992. The “MacGruber” sketches star Forte as MacGyver’s son, with Wiig as an assistant. They always find themselves, along with that week’s host, in a control room with a ticking bomb about to go off. MacGruber gets sidelined by personal issues, and the bomb explodes.

Forte and Taccone wrote the parodies with John Solomon. The trio wrote the feature script, which, finds the legendary, much-decorated MacGruber retired and living as a monk in Ecuador — until he’s enlisted to fight the evil Cunth, who has a nuclear warhead; the mission is personal because Cunth killed MacGruber’s bride.

The movie version would see Phillippe playing Piper, an Army officer forced to pair up with a reluctant MacGruber. Kilmer would be Cunth.

The project has been an open secret around Hollywood, with Forte even talking about it on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” last month.

The film harks back to an earlier era when comedies based on “SNL” skits were commonplace, especially in the wake of the massive success of 1992’s “Wayne’s World” and its sequel. The trend eventually faded, seemingly with the relevancy of the show itself. But in recent years, the late-night mainstay has regained popularity and critical acclaim. The box-office fate of “MacGruber” could foreshadow whether a new crop of “SNL” movies invades screens.

At this stage, the “MacGruber” movie looks likely to hit the screen before a “MacGyver” movie, which is in development at New Line.

Phillippe recently wrapped production on “The Bang Bang Club,” a true-life drama about four photographers set in apartheid-era South Africa.

Kilmer recently finished shooting “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” directed by Werner Herzog.

MacGruber is that SNL minute-long skit that features Will Forte as a parody of MacGyver. In the skit he’s usually trying to deactivate a bomb, and always fails by being laughably stupid, blowing himself and those around him up.

Rumors have been floating around about a feature-length movie version of the skit being developed, and last night, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Forte confirmed that it was, and that he had already written the script for it.

Back in SNL’s golden era of the 90’s feature movies based on their skits were sorta common in a way, but they all pretty much sucked really badly, with the one exception being of course Wayne’s World, but then they died down and we were fine by it, but now that SNL has gotten back to being cool again Lorne Michaels is apparently giving it another go.

I’m actually torn about the movie. The good part is that the skits actually are pretty funny most times, and that the team of writers include Forte himself, and two other SNL writers, John Solomon and Jorma Taccone, who’s awesome, and apparently the one other person to have joined the cast so far alongside Forte is Kristen Wiig, who’s SNL’s MVP.

So yeah, on paper it looks solid, good source material, good team of writers, and one of the funniest actresses around. However the skits are so fun because they are so short and its Forte’s death in that short time that makes them so fun, so yeah, they would have to think of some cool way of doing it or else I’m afraid its gonna tank, however they do have a good team to make it tank-proof, hopefully they’ll work their magic.

The Washington Times newspaper will be debuting a new radio show soon in partnership with Talk Radio Network (TRN) entertainment. “America’s Daily News” will launch in national syndication on Monday, June 15. The show is backed by a 10-person investigative team put together by the Times, which is trying to buck the declines in newspaper publishing by bulking up it’s news bureau and making a play for national and global audiences.

The concept is to create a program that stays at the forward edge of the news cycle rather than simply responding to it. It would seem that the Times not only recognizes the power of radio’s immediacy, but they also seem prepared to leverage it.

FMQB quotes TRN CEO Mark Masters on the approach:

“The Washington Times has made a very strong commitment to investigative reporting, building a journalistic team, headed by former ‘Post’ honcho John Solomon that will be second to none. We believe this unique journalistic team, combined with radio’s ability to give the time and context needed to flesh out breaking stories will make for a powerful winning combination in talk radio. Rather than commenting on yesterday’s news, this news radio show will have the capacity to make, break, and drive the news cycle. Like 60 Minutes once did for TV, this show can do for radio. We are very excited and honored to embark in this partnership with The Washington Times investigative team.”

Since the show is debuting in the 6:00-9:00 a.m. drive time slot, it will be starting off with an advantage right out of the gate. I’ll certainly be paying attention as they try to become the 60 Minutes of radio.

Recent announcements have revealed the anchors for the new show: longtime conservative radio personality Melanie Morgan and award-winning conservative newspaper columnist John McCaslin.

Photo courtesy of NCinDC, used under its Creative Commons license

Welcome to the www.NegMeg.com NEG Meg The Series episode archive.

“a monkey could drive this train”

Margaret “Meg” Whitman comment on eBay,
while she was eBay CEO and President.

Margaret Cushing “Meg” Whitman
Born August 4 1956

• “President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from March 1998 to March 2008.”

eBay Hacked, Cracked  & Hijacked, But Denies All
February 19 2007

• “came just weeks after North American CEO Bill Cobb announced new fraud fighting measures and policy changes to the site”
• Comments

Stirring Up the Cubicles at eBay
Brad Stone, February 21 2007

• “Mr. Donahoe, 46, is a deputy to eBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, 50, and, many people in the industry say, her likely successor when she ultimately steps down.”
• ““All our businesses need to do well, but John’s success and the success of Marketplaces is absolutely essential to the company,” said Ms. Whitman, who met Mr. Donahoe when they were consultants working in the San Francisco office of Bain & Company in the early 1980s.”
• “eBay stock has dropped by half from an early 2005 high”

Is Vladuz the Good Guy?
February 26 2007

• “Now two weeks into the latest bombardment of Vladuz related listings, management is looking like an impotent cowboy with a black hat”
• Comments

The Vladuz Style of eBay Auction Hacking Continues!
March 18 2007

eBay Getting into Micro-Finance through Purchase of MicroPlace
Ina Steiner, March 30 2007

• “eBay has purchased an organization called MicroPlace”
• “eBay’s Chief Marketing Officer Gary Briggs” “A third point to bring up is MicroPlace, which a group that we purchased that is making microfinance loans available to the developing world in particular, and we think – particularly as it relates to PayPal”

Antitrust Lawsuit Filed against eBay over PayPal, Payments Policies
Ina Steiner, April 6 2007

• “Michael Malone filed an antitrust class-action lawsuit against eBay this week under the Sherman Act, alleging eBay “utilizes its nationwide monopoly of the on-line auction market to monopolize the available forms of payment that sellers can use on eBay.” eBay controls which payment methods sellers may advertise in their listings”

eBay’s Payment Policies Spark Two Antitrust Lawsuits
Ina Steiner, May 4 2007

• “Two antitrust lawsuits were filed against eBay in April 2007 and have been assigned to the same judge because they are related, according to court filings. The plaintiffs in both parties have complained of eBay’s practices with regard to its online payment service PayPal. The same judge had presided over a PayPal-related class-action lawsuit that was filed in 2002.”
• “The Justice Department gave the green light to eBay’s acquisition of PayPal in 2002, despite the fact that PayPal itself had complained to the government about eBay’s practices after the auction marketplace had acquired the BillPoint payment service. ”
• “Both antitrust lawsuits are assigned to Judge Fogel in the US District Court, Northern District of California.”
• “The Court finds that Malone v. eBay Inc., Case No. 07-01882-JF and Farmer, et al. v. Ebay, Inc., Case No. C-07-02209 are related actions and such cases are hereby consolidated into Malone v. eBay Inc., Case No. 07-01882-JF, and are referred to herein as the Consolidated Action.”

Meg Whitman at TiEcon
TiEcon, May 17 2007

• [Meg Whitman] “We also think about very disruptive ideas that could disrupt our core business, or we could disrupt other major segments of the economy. And many times those very disruptive innovations will come from outside eBay”
• [Meg Whitman] “We have no sales force.”
• [Meg Whitman] “Failure is okay.”

EBay reshapes itself as an easier, cooler place
June 15 2007

• ““Our user experience has always been fantastic, but it didn’t keep up, in my view, as well as it should have,” CEO Meg Whitman said in an interview Friday on the sidelines of the “eBay Live”user celebration in Boston. You will see more changes to eBay’s buyer experience in the next 12 months than you probably have seen in the past three or four years.”"
• “Other moves make eBay more like typical e-commerce sites, such as last year’s birth of eBay Express”
• “eBay’s 2005 purchase of Skype, an Internet calling service, for $4.1 billion”
• “”reignite the core,” in the words of Bill Cobb”

EBay Moves to Recharge Its Auctions
Bob Tedeschi, June 18 2007

• “In 1998, eBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, changed the background color of the site’s home page from gray to white. Rather than simply switching colors overnight, though, Ms. Whitman directed eBay’s engineers to bleach the gray over the course of 30 days. At the end of the month, the company asked users if they noticed anything different. No one did.”
• “700,000 sellers who rely on eBay for their livelihoods”
• ““We have to make sure our old users stay with us, but we’re going to be more bold around product changes than we’ve been in the past,” Ms. Whitman said in an interview last week in Boston at eBay Live, an annual conference for the site’s sellers. “I think people expect more from eBay.””
• “Analysts said sellers were moving to other places on the Web in search of buyers who had grown weary of an overwhelming array of product choices on eBay.”
• [Meg Whitman] “We’re optimistic that the changes will translate to accelerated growth and help us change the trajectory of our two largest markets, U.S. and Germany”

Reaping profit in study, sweat
Robert Gavin and Sacha Pfeiffer, June 26 2007

• “Maximizing the financial return to investors can mean slashing jobs, closing plants, and moving production overseas. While Bain Capital helped expand companies that created jobs, the firm also engaged in some of the business’s harsher practices.”
• “Companies like Bain Capital typically cash out of their investments in three to five years, and ”usually have less of a stake in the community, in terms of employment, service on nonprofit boards, your physical and environmental impact,” {Ross} Gittell says. ”The objective is: make money for investors. It’s not to maximize jobs.””
• “Through Ampad, Bain bought several other office supply makers, borrowing heavily each time. By 1999, Ampad’s debt reached nearly $400 million, up from $11 million in 1993, according to government filings.”
• “Bain Capital didn’t escape Ampad’s eventual bankruptcy unscathed. It held about one-third of Ampad’s shares, which became worthless. But while as many as 185 workers near Buffalo lost jobs in a 1999 plant closing, Bain Capital and its investors ultimately made more than $100 million on the deal.”

EBay Chief Spurs Growth on PayPal, Beats Google Unit (Update2)
Danny King, July 6 2007

• “PayPal, bought by EBay for $1.5 billion in 2002″
• “”PayPal is a huge home run,” Whitman, EBay’s chief executive officer”
• “Shares of EBay rose $1.12, or 3.5 percent, to $33.39″

EBay Profit is Up 50%; Listings Off
Brad Stone, July 19 2007

• “Ms. Whitman said that her efforts to improve the user’s experience should address these problems.  “In the next six months,”she said, “you will see more changes to eBay than you have in the last two or three years, whether that is an improved search experience or fun things that make the site better, like Bid Assistant, which allows you to bid on more than one item without worrying that you will end up buying five iPods by mistake.”"
• “EBay started Kijiji overseas in 2005.  “We’ve had a great relationship with Craigslist, and we have learned a lot from them,” Ms. Whitman said. “We felt this market was large and diverse enough to support many players. We don’t think of new offerings as competitive, we think of them as better and more choices for consumers. We think there is an opportunity to stake out a slightly different buyer.”"

Blasphemy at eBay
Adam Lashinsky, July 23 2007

• “Last month, eBay temporarily stopped buying keyword advertising on Google, the Web’s largest search engine. EBay said the suspension did not have had significant effect on its bottom line. “We learned a great deal from that test, “Ms. Whitman said. “It actually had no impact on the financials of the quarter, and we learned a lot about where we want to spend money and where we think we can save money on Internet marketing.”"
• Comments

Mitt’s equity army
David S. Bernstein, August 10 2007

• “One such example is Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay — and one of the Romney campaign’s national finance chairs. Whitman worked with Romney at Bain & Company before going to work for Disney and then Keds. In 1995, when Bain Capital bought florist chain FTD, Romney installed Whitman as CEO. She left after just 18 months, with stocks, salary, and bonuses worth well more than a million dollars —even though, as she has conceded in interviews, she did not come close to successfully putting the company on the right track.”
• “Bain Capital’s record shows the same treatment for many companies: slashing jobs, benefits, research-and-development budgets, and other items to show quick profitability before selling or taking the company’s stock public.”

Romney’s Old Ties To Firm Pay Off
John Solomon and Matthew Mosk, August 14 2007

• “Another fundraiser is eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, who worked as a vice president at Bain before getting top jobs at Stride Rite shoes and the FTD florist service, which Bain targeted for investment.”

The Ruination of eBay
crazeenydriver, September 22 2007

ebaY Major Hack Attack! User’s Data Posted On Ebay T&S
Cappynonymous, September 25 2007

• Comments

Intimidating eBay Lawyer snoyce@ebay.com ME Page Hacked By Vladuz
Doc, September 28 2007 (?)

• “Now In An Apparent Show Of Power That He Can Pick And Hack Anyone’s eBay Account He Chooses, Vladuz Posts Mr Noyce’s Personal Details On His ME Page!”
• “This Really Makes Rob Chestnut’s Trust And Safety Department Look Like A Bunch Of Keystone Cops! But It Has Been Rumored Rob Is On Sabbatical, And Will Not Be Returning To eBay!”

Web 2.0 Summit: Meg Whitman, eBay
Bobbie Johnson, October 18 2007

• [Meg Whitman] “”If we were a retailer – which we’re not – we’d be the fifth or sixth largest in the world. But as your core business begins to slow down, you go right back to where you started, which is customers. how do you reinvent your core business to meet the needs of customers. We’re actually in a reinvention of some of the core flows, . We have made more changes to the site in the last three or six months than we have in the last three years.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”We have about 1.6m people worldwide who make their living selling on eBay. There are always people who made their business. The casual sellers represent about 50% of the gross merchandise volume and about 95% of the sellers. We look at the number of users we have, which has slowed but it’s still going up.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”We began to see PayPal becoming the effective way to pay on eBay. It’s now 85-90% of payments.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”We know that we were only here because of a disruptive innovation.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”The vast majority of people – less than 1/100th of one percent cause problems.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”Etsy.com? “It’s a cute little company, I like what they’ve done. We need to do everything we can to invite those sellers onto eBay – we just launched eBay Neighbourhoods”"

EBAY Launches MicroPlace.com
ONLY EBAY, October 24 2007

• “After acquiring the company in June 2006, EBAY have launched MicroPlace”
• “Meg Whitman was talking about entering the social lending business as far back as this speach in June 2006.”

Whois Vladuz eBay’s Hacker
liamssoft, October 25 2007

• “Sources in the hacking community say that he claims to be listening in on some meetings held by eBay chief executive Meg Whitman.”
• “2004, someone calling themselves Vladuz was selling a set of PHP files designed to create phishing sites that would collect eBay data”
• “observers think the hacks Vladuz has pulled off reveal a much deeper problem at the auction giant”

eBay jumps into microfinancing
Yi-Wyn Yet, October 26 2007

• “The site, which had been in development when eBay (EBAY) acquired MicroPlace in June 2006″
• “EBay’s interest in microfinance was established by company founder Pierre Omidyar.”
• “eBay executive Matt Bannick, who spearheaded the purchase of MicroPlace, left the company in March to run Omidyar Network”

eBay Launches Microfinance Loan Site
October 29 2007

• “EBay’s newly launched MicroPlace lets users make loans through PayPal”

The Dangerous Wealth of the Ivy League
Business Week, November 29 2007

• “It’s only fitting that Whitman College, Princeton’s new student residence, is named for eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, because it’s a billionaire’s mansion in the form of a dorm. After Whitman (Class of ‘77) pledged $30 million, administrators tore up their budget and gave architect Demetri Porphyrios virtual carte blanche. Each student room has triple-glazed mahogany casement windows made of leaded glass. The dining hall boasts a 35-foot ceiling gabled in oak and a “state of the art servery.” By the time the 10-building complex in the Collegiate Gothic style opened in August, it had cost Princeton $136 million, or $272,000 for each of the 500 undergraduates who will live there. ”

EBAY: Time For CEO Meg Whitman to Go?
Henry Blodget, December 6 2007

• “We will not be the first to suggest that Meg may have gotten a bit more credit than she deserved for that”
• “I go out there and meet with Meg and it’s all I can do to avoid shorting it as I walk out the door.”

Should eBay CEO Meg Whitman Step Down?
Ina Steiner, December 6 2007

• “Whitman did some things badly. Giving users inadequate customer service was one. And denial of fraud was another.”
• Comments

Yes, Amazon SHOULD Buy eBay
Henry Blodget, December 17 2007

• “eBay’s mismanagement and lack of attention to its user interface have finally caught up to it, punishing its market value.”
• “until eBay’s CEO situation is resolved, the concept is probably moot. (There is no way the companies will merge with Meg still at the helm, as her immediate departure thereafter would leave no interpretation possible other than that she had been unceremoniously dumped).”

The Depth of eBay’s Problems 1: Disappointed Buyers
Saul Hansell, December 17 2007

• “The outpouring of rage at eBay was of the sort we don’t see here for anything other than cellphone companies. The company is clearly getting hit by both buyers and sellers.”
• “As a former middle manager at eBay, I can attest to the company’s ghastly approach to customer support…. If it’s a matter of managing expectations, then eBay should rename their customer support something more appropriate like, “Endless obstacle course of red tape and runaround where you rarely if ever get to talk to a human.” — Ann Cummins”

The Depth of eBay’s Problems 2: Angry Sellers
Saul Hansell, December 17 2007

• ““EBay’s relations with sellers over the last few years have deteriorated and are, at best, poor right now,” Mr.  Wingo said. ”
• “Given the depth of the anger against the company”

eBay Users Vent Rage To NYT
Henry Blodget, December 17 2007

• “eBay, meanwhile, now seems to have alienated not only Wall Street but the folks who create all of its business value.”
• “Meanwhile, as frustrated eBay shareholders, we reiterate our suggestion that it’s time for Meg Whitman to go.”

Face Time With Meg Whitman
Charles Fishman, December 19 2007

• “Husband, Griffith Harsh, a neurosurgeon at Stanford; two sons, ages 13 and 16″
• [Meg Whitman] “(laughing) I took calculus, chemistry, and physics my first year. I survived. But I didn’t enjoy it. Of course, chemistry, calculus, and physics have nothing to do with being a doctor, but if you’re 17 years old, you think, This is what being a doctor is going to be about. After that, I had to find something else to do. I began selling advertising for a magazine that was published by Princeton undergrads. It was more fun than physics.”
• [Meg Whitman] “I bought Beanie Babies when one of my sons was very much into Beanie Babies. And I sold children’s books that we didn’t need anymore. It was great. Here was a book that you didn’t need, and you might get $6 or $8 for it. Next, we bought Pokémon cards. Then we sold Pokémon cards. Sort of the round-trip on Pokémon cards. And the latest thing I’ve been buying on the site has been a lot of fly-fishing equipment.”
• “How does the slowdown in the U.S. economy affect eBay?”  [Meg Whitman] “Our hypothesis is that in a slowdown, eBay actually benefits. And that’s because buyers still want the things that they want. Consumer electronics, computers, whatever. Yet people will become more value-oriented. At the same time, I think that we will actually see an increase in sellers. You may get gifts that you don’t necessarily want, things you don’t use anymore — things that you can sell on eBay and raise some cash.”

:::

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Poster on Solly's damaged wall

I went into Solly’s last night to show my support and hear more about the crash. I got a few minutes to talk to Solly himself and he told us that the fire department had been in earlier and determined there was no structural damage, which was why they were able to keep open. He also told us that he hadn’t been there at the time and that someone had to send him a picture to show him that they weren’t just yanking his chain. And, as to their decoration choices, he told us “Well, no one got hurt, so you just gotta laugh about it.”

I left The Washington Times in January immediately after — not necessarily because — John Solomon was named to replace Wes Pruden as editor. (Solomon is a former Washington Post editor and, as I said at the time, “If I wanted to work for a Postie, I’d have applied at the freaking Post.”). But today, Mr. Solomon earns his salary, and my admiration, after the Obama campaign kicked the Times’ Christina Bellantoni off the campaign in an act of petty vengeance:

The Washington Times, N.Y. Post and Dallas Morning News — three newspapers that recently endorsed John McCain — have been kicked off Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plane in the final days of his campaign. . . .
The Obama campaign informed The Washington Times Thursday evening of its decision, which came two days after The Times editorial page endorsed Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama. The Times editorial page runs completely independent of the news department. . . .
“This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama’s campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter’s pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign,” said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon. News organizations typically pay campaigns for the cost of traveling on the candidate’s planes. . . .
“I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn’t using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign,” Mr. Solomon said.

Christina Bellantoni’s work covering this campaign cannot be faulted, and she has no bias except in favor of the truth. For the vicious monsters at Team Obama to have made her the object of their spite is entirely a reflection of the evil in their hearts, and reflects nothing on Christina. I had the honor of working with Christina and edited her stories (which never needed much editing, frankly), and can say that she is such a thorough professional that I couldn’t even tell you what her political views are — and her views never mattered, since she did excellent reporting, no matter what the assignment was.

John Solomon’s defense of Christina — and of The Times‘ integrity as a news organization — has lifted from him the otherwise indelible stain of his former association with that Other Paper.

As for Team Obama’s idiocy, I have bitched fiercely about the McCain campaign’s self-defeating hostility to the press, but Team Maverick at least has never been this stupid.

I was watching the Saturday Night Live from a couple weeks ago when Ellen Page was hosting. I got to the end of the episode, and as the credits were scrolling by, I noticed a name that looked somewhat familiar. I quickly paused it, and there it was: “John Solomon”. OK, that’s not quite how you spell my name, but it was still pretty cool. 

John McCain. Surprised?

Public Citizen reported that the number of campaign cash “Bundlers” employed by John McCain is greater than any other Republican candidate: more than anyone in the race other than John Edwards.

McCain also enjoys the dubious distinction of employing more “Lobbyist Bundlers” than any other candidate – in fact, more than the entire Democratic field combined. In this crowded field of candidates from both parties, 115 Lobbyist Bundlers ply their trade for the candidates. 32 of the 115 work for….. John McCain

His signature issue in 2000 was getting the money out of politics. Does anyone else find it just a bit ironic, that the man who wrote the rules for reforming the campaign finance laws would be able to so skillfully take advantage of the fundraising possibilities in McCain-Feingold? See for yourself.

WaPo’s Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon present an interesting take, “Unlikely Ties to K Street.”

In addition to receiving campaign cash, McCain relies heavily on K-Street for campaign guidance as well.

Here is an excerpt:

McCain’s campaign has also been guided by lobbyists. Davis, the campaign manager, is a former lobbyist who represented major telecommunications companies. The campaign’s senior adviser is Charles R. Black Jr., chairman of BKSH & Associates, which represents drug companies, an oil company, an automaker, a telecommunications company, defense contractors and the steel industry, among others.

Former congressman Tom Loeffler (R-Tex.) was brought in to shore up the campaign’s finances and operations. Yet he maintains his day job as chairman of the Loeffler Group, whose clients include oil, auto and telecommunications companies, as well as a tobacco firm and an airline.

Other occasional McCain advisers include lobbyists Timothy P. McKone of AT&T, Robert S. Aiken of Phoenix-based Pinnacle West Capital, John W. Timmons of the Cormac Group and John Green of Ogilvy Government Relations. Also at Ogilvy is a major McCain fundraiser, Wayne L. Berman.

Their firms’ clients have been a significant source of contributions to McCain’s campaign.

Newt Gingrich says, “John McCain is an American hero: a unique character in his own right.”

Certainly he earned our respect as an Aviator, a POW, and the longevity of service as a “maverick” lawmaker, however, “American Hero” may be a bit of a stretch.

But, his actions with re-writing of the campaign finance laws, and then using them to his advantage make “a unique character in his own right,” a spot-on evaluation of the senator.

A number of sources report that reporter John Solomon is moving from the Washington Post to the Washington Times. I think that is a good thing. While reporting at the Washington Post Solomon’s reporting received the benefit of being associated with a paper that at least once upon a time was considered to be fair and balanced. With his ascendancy to the position of executive editor at the Moonie Times there is no illusion whatsoever of the slant Solomon gives to events of the day. While spin could easily replace slant in the previous sentence outright lying is not outside the repertoire of Solomon’s skills.

The past week has offered the odd spectacle of Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Hastert standing shoulder to shoulder in defending a Democratic congressman’s supposed right not to have criminal investigators raid his office. On the law, I think they’re on the wrong side. As Akhil Amar (whose lecture was one of the only courses my bro and I took together) writes:

W.J. is a target of a criminal corruption investigation, and if criminally charged, he would have no more Arrest Clause protection than any of the countless other sitting Congress members who have been criminally prosecuted over the years—Dan Rostenkowski, Duke Cunningham, and Tom DeLay, to name just three. Since W.J. has no immunity from an ordinary criminal arrest, it is hard to see why he has some kind of blanket immunity from an ordinary criminal search to uncover evidence of his suspected crime. If other white-collar suspects are vulnerable to office searches, why is William Jefferson any different?

In terms of political strategy, Hastert’s move (and the zeal of Sensenbrenner et al to follow him) is noteworthy because Jefferson’s case was the only one (contra John Solomon) offering serious ammunition for the Republicans’ claim that the current crop of corruption is a bipartisan problem. Had Hastert and company wanted, with a media establishment all too eager to expound on the “everybody does it narrative,” they could have a primed a whole raft of stories this week to the effect that Democrats and Republicans both have to get their houses in order, and the only difference is that the Democrats’ house includes a refrigerator with $90,000 hidden inside. That claim is bogus (and it’s worth noting that Jefferson is as “New Democrat” as they get), but it would have gotten traction nonetheless.

So the Republican leadership could not have passed on it lightly. Apparently, they decided that a week of reinforcing the idea that Democrats are equally corrupt was worth less than a week of reinforcing the idea that members of Congress have the right not to be aggressively investigated. The fact that of the two opportunities, the Republicans chose to spend this week lying the groundwork for the idea that congressmen have special privacy rights (and seeming civic-minded for throwing a fit in defense of a Democrat) suggests that they expect a slew of additional Republican congressmen to come under investigation. And chances are they’re right.

What’s harder to explain is Nancy Pelosi’s choice to get on board with the whole exercise. Presumably, she sees in this debacle a chance to exacerbate intra-GOP tensions and reinforce a narrative of executive overreach by the Bush administration. But when it comes to dividing the party on itself over raids like this one, she can only get in the way. And when it comes to taking a stand against executive overreach, the rights of congressmen are the last place the American people want or need the Democrats to assert themselves. As Barney Frank said on the floor:

I think, in particular, for the leadership of this House, which has stood idly by while this administration has ignored the rights of citizens, to then say we have special rights as Members of Congress is wholly inappropriate.

The Jefferson case, inconvenient as it is, allows the Democratic leaders to differentiate themselves from their Republican counterparts. Pelosi can and should condemn William Jefferson in terms that Dennis Hastert will never condemn Tom DeLay. That’s because the nexus of corporate interest and political power that does so much to breed corruption in Washington is one which undergirds the modern Republican party and which, for all the efforts of some Democrats to cozy up to it, is fundamentally opposed to the long-term interests of the Democratic party.

Pelosi did the right thing by calling on William Jefferson to resign. She could drawn a further contrast by coming out strongly against Hastert’s claim of special privilege for him. Just as Hastert has more credibility defending the supposed privacy rights of a member of the opposition, Pelosi would have more credibility denying those claims when applied to a member of her own party. Instead, look for Dennis Hastert to invoke the Jefferson precedent to call on Nancy Pelosi to join him in throwing up roadblocks to a full investigation of another crooked colleague – or perhaps of Hastert himself.