"Stupid."
"Ridiculous."
"Ballsy."
"He's an idiot."
"He doesn't know what he's doing."
"Which lever do I pull to be crushed by a safe?"

Just a sampling of reactions we solicited from magazine industry veterans about Ron Burkle's $1.2 billion purchase of Primedia's 76 specialty magazines. Oh, and a line from Will & Grace that seemed relevant.

• Sam Zell's new Tribune Co. will be hesitant to give away online content for free. Just like Pinch used to be!

• Why are so many folks hoping Conde Nast's $125 million Portfolio will bomb? We can think of one hundred twenty five million reasons.

• OK! and Hello publisher Richard Desmond hops out of bed with People for a few minutes to launch a Spanish competitor to People en Espanol.

CONTINUED »

You know those 18 magazines under Time Inc.'s Time4Media umbrella whose names you couldn't list more than two of? It's time to add a stable of Primedia rags to the list of magazines you could give two shits about trading hands. And it'd be remiss not to mention the magazines went into the hands of yet another private equity firm.

The news came yesterday, with Primedia – known for luminary titles like Truck Trend, Arabian Horse World, and Lowrider Arte – unloaded Guns & Ammo, Fly Fisherman, and Game & Fish to InterMedia Partners.

Which leaves the "enthusiast media" publisher with just one book we'd consider reading: Shotgun News, which we hear featured Tori Spelling and Charlie Shanian in its special "Shotgun Divorce" FOB section.

• Fox News remembers the tsunami, and how they were too busy fighting the War on Christmas to cover it. [Fox]

• As if Entertainment Weekly subscribers don't have it bad enough, they were recently forced to sit through a focus group with Jon Friedman. [Mediaweb]

• Primedia gets a Queer Eye make-over, and renames itself Prism Business Media Inc. [Folio]

• President Bush calls New York Times and Washington Post editors in for meetings. While some might think this relates to media censorship, our guess is that Bush is probably asking for advice on his iPod playlist. [WaPo]

• The New York Times promoting their own staff writers? Psha! You must be kidding. [Gawker, NYT]