Pooty Poot and Rupert

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.
--Lee Simonson
I look at the day’s news and issues, and I feel like a commercial for MSN—where do you want to go today?

President Bush is on his way to the G-8 Summit, and stopped off to see Russian President Vladimir Putin. You remember—this is the same head of state our President once referred to as “Pooty Poot.”



Putin’s take on the US plan to strengthen missile defense is more like “p’tooey,” and an old familiar feeling has begun to develop between the two heads that faintly tastes like the chill of the Cold War years.

Speaking of emotional roller coasters, the flip-flops coming from China yesterday weren’t the ones you wear on your feet. After an 8.3% drop on the China Shanghai exchange, the composite rallied today for a gain of 2.6%. There are mixed signals coming from Beijing that last week’s tax increases on stock trade could be lifted…or that new policies to support the market might be rolled out. Who knows…
The Dow Jones China 88 Index ended 3.4% higher at 310.29.

The Murdochs and the Bancrofts got together to discuss the future of the Dow Jones Company, and more specifically, the editorial direction of The Wall Street Journal in anticipation of Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the publishing icon.


Murdoch told the Bancrofts his $5-million offer to buy would not alter the product in the Journal…even though Murdoch has said in the past he finds the articles in the paper too long. Maybe he should purchase My Weekly Reader instead…

By the way, the LA Times is no longer under the control of the Chandler family, which sold off the remainder of its holdings in The Tribune Company after the closing bell yesterday.

What do you get when you cross the father of slain child-model Jon-Benet Ramsey and the mother of slain senior-trip victim, Natalee Holloway? Apparently, a hook-up not even Match.com could have predicted. John Ramsey and Beth Holloway Twitty have been seen together in public, according to FOX News reports.


Maybe we’ll get a longer story about that in Rupert’s new paper when he buys it… Ewww.