« February 17, 2008 - February 23, 2008 | Main | March 02, 2008 - March 08, 2008 »
March 01, 2008
Rachel Sklar and Carlin
There's a must-read Rachel Sklar interview with George Carlin over here.
I'm just about to sit down with an adult beverage and enjoy tonight's Carlin special on the DVR. Happy Saturday.
11:50 PM | Comments (3) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Stranahan Makes Funny Videos
03:04 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Truth In Advertising
(h/t Drunk Cyclist)
12:15 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
President Clinton's Law Of Politics
10:10 AM | Comments (5) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Morning Awesome
Justin Lee-Collins' exuberance will make you want to watch all seven parts. I did.
And happy birthday to Dirk Benedict. TV's Face Man and TV's original Captain Starbuck. When you get to his interview in part 3, he says some obnoxious things, but happy birthday anyway.
09:43 AM | Comments (5) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Is It January 2009 Yet?
President Bush on Senator Obama's plan to use, you know, diplomacy:
It will send a discouraging message to those who wonder whether America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners. It will give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity. […]Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castro, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him. He gains a lot from it by saying, look at me, I’m now recognized by the President of the United States.
Oh yeah?
More at Think Progress.
(...updated with corrected headline.)
12:39 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
February 29, 2008
Super-Duper Rapid Response
10:25 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Senator Clinton: Fear Monger
Oh brother. This is ridiculous and awful. The only thing it's missing are the goddamn wolves. Vote for Senator Clinton or else your kids won't be safe. Utter horseshit. After seven years of this, does half of the party really want MORE? Jesus H.
Lee Stranahan, you magnificent bastard! You made this, didn't you? If not, can you please rip it to shreds for us?
10:13 AM | Comments (8) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Morning Awesome
08:42 AM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca
February 28, 2008
Ratings Gold
Who would've guessed that a an MSNBC Democratic debate would be the second most watched show on television Tuesday night?
08:56 AM | Comments (5) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Racist McCain Republicans
We need to repeat this headline over and over again. Because this is how the Republicans are going to run Senator McCain's campaign: with race-baiting and outright intolerance -- playing up the irrational fears of its toothless, inbred constituency in places like Tennessee, where this is happening:
Tennessee Republican Party put out a press release entitled "Anti-Semites For Obama," accusing "Barack Hussein Obama" of being anti-Israel and linked to Louis Farrakhan. And just to sweeten the deal, they included the picture of Obama in native African clothing.
Tennessee, you might recall, is where Republicans used race-baiting against Harold Ford in '06.
Racist McCain Republicans. Racist McCain Republicans. Racist McCain Republicans.
UPDATE: This Josh Marshall item is essential reading.
08:37 AM | Comments (4) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Morning Awesome
The Tarleks, by Rheostatics
Happy birthday to Frank Bonner, TV's Herb Tarlek from one of the greatest sitcoms of all time: WKRP in Cincinnati.
08:16 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
February 27, 2008
New Huffington Post Item
Read it here if you wanna. I wrote a more detailed item about Tim Russert's questions about Louis Farrakhan.
03:16 PM | Comments (3) | Posted By Bob Cesca
The Debate
Okay, so just as we've witnessed this past decade, "fairness" doesn't mean attacking "both sides" if only one side has a problem or scandal. In other words, if the Republicans are self-destructing in a fit of lobbyist cash and KY, mentioning a non-sequitur Democrat who was caught with some cash in his fridge isn't "fairness", it's pandering to the Republicans and anyone with a pitchfork who's tilting at windmills about "liberal media bias".
When Tim Russert attacked Senator Obama on the Farrakhan endorsement, it was clearly motivated out of a self-conscious need for balance, based on the perception that MSNBC is in the bag for Obama. Yet that didn't make it fair -- it turned the debate into an awful, awful embarrassment.
Nevertheless, Senator Obama handled Russert -- as well as Senator Clinton's follow-up -- smartly. At least as smartly as he could considering the ridiculousness of it all. Say nothing of Russert circumspectly coupling the senator with Farrakhan -- something which hillbillies like Congressman Kingston might inaccurately repeat as the truth.
Or, as Josh Marshall wrote today:
As a Jew and perhaps more importantly simply as a sentient being I found it disgusting. It was a nationwide, televised, MSM version of one of those noxious Obama smear emails.
UPDATE: I watched the video again at TPM and noticed something striking. To me at least. At the very end, during Senator Obama's "reject and denounce" response... he looked and behaved like a president.
08:55 AM | Comments (6) | Posted By Bob Cesca
50 Years
I believe 50 years from now, people will look back at this period of time, and say, thank God the United States of America did not lose its faith in the transformative power of liberty to bring the peace we want for our children and our grandchildren.
Or... "Sure, I'm beating and abusing you, son, but in 50 years you'll thank me for the pain."
08:35 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Morning Awesome
08:10 AM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca
February 26, 2008
Bill Cunningham Channels Zell Miller
A wingnut named Bill Cunningham went batshit today, then Senator McCain (credit where credit is due) rightfully apologized later.
The Huffington Post has it here. I originally had it posted in this entry, but CBS's online video automatically plays whenever the page is loaded -- which would've been really annoying for the next five days until the entry fell off the front page.
05:44 PM | Comments (8) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Sporadic Blogging
Sorry about the light blogging this week. I'm animating what's called an "animatic" or "pre-visualization" for a new animated series we created for Sony called Farewell, Manga Squad. Just to give you a idea of the show, it combines 1) Japanese anime, 2) Battlestar Galactica/Star Trek style science fiction, 3) satire of cable news, 4) satire of Wal-Mart style corporate greed, and 5) comedy (it's supposed to be funny). In other words, it's a mash-up of a bunch of different things.
03:29 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Predictions! George Dubbie Dubya!
Yesterday:
AP -- President Bush predicted Monday that voters will replace him with a Republican president who will "keep up the fight" in Iraq. "I'm confident we'll hold the White House in 2008," Bush told donors at the Republican Governors Association annual dinner, which raised a record $10.6 million for GOP gubernatorial candidates.
The official White House line of supreme self-assurance comes from the top down. Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions. Come January, he said last week, "We'll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate."
WRONG!
08:37 AM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca
The Six (or More) Degrees of Clean Coal
Interesting story about the LearnAboutCoal.com website and their use of children in their propaganda here. Some time ago, I compiled a brief rundown of the relationship between the Republicans, "clean coal" and NBC News. Here it is again from March 12, 2006:
The Six (or more) Degrees Of Coal: George Allen mentioned Clean Coal on Meet the Press today. Meet the Press sold advertising time to LearnAboutCoal.org, a Clean Coal PR front. The "non-profit" and "non-partisan" Learn About Coal organization's website domain name is registered to CEED, the Center for Energy and Economic Development. CEED's vice chairman is Michael Ward. Michael Ward is the chairman and CEO of the CSX Corporation. Guess who used to be the chairman and CEO of CSX? [Former] Treasury Secretary John Snow. Who was the chairman of CSX/Sea-Land under Snow? David Sanborn. In January of this year, David Sanborn was nominated by President Bush as the next Administrator of the Maritime Administration (Dept. of Transportation). Who does Sanborn work for right at this very minute? Dubai Ports World, which acquired CSX's ports for $1.15 billion in 2004. And finally, who introduced David Sanborn's nomination in the Senate? Senator George Allen.
07:49 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Morning Awesome
07:33 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
February 25, 2008
The Clinton Statement
Here's the statement from Maggie Williams (via TPM):
Enough.If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.
This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.
We will not be distracted.
Yeah, well, Senator Clinton doesn't have this religious/patriotic whisper campaign circulating about her. So the photo, for Senator Obama, takes on an entirely different context and they know it.
01:12 PM | Comments (6) | Posted By Bob Cesca
The Politics of Losing Your Shit
YAAARRRR!
11:38 AM | Comments (3) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Fear Mongering
The Clinton campaign has apparently circulated a photograph of Senator Obama dressed in the garb of a Somali Elder while visiting his ancestral nation of Kenya. And of course every toothless, mouth-breathing, Republi-tard like Congressman Kingston will be insisting this is proof that the senator is... well... a bad man.
Drudge, for instance, is running this as his banner headline this morning.
I don't even know what to say about this. It's the worst kind of fear mongering politics I've seen since Cheney said that Ned Lamont's primary victory over Joe Lieberman was a victory for the "al-Qaeda types". The Clintons have clearly embraced Bill Kristol's recommendation to use fear mongering tactics against Senator Obama. And the chapter in my book "Glenn Beck Has An Unfortunate Name" just got longer.
Tomorrow night's Ohio debate is going to be ugly.
11:18 AM | Comments (4) | Posted By Bob Cesca
It's 2001-2002 All Over Again
Turning patriotism into a contest was awesome for about two minutes after 9/11. Why the goddamn hell are they following Congressman Kingston's lead and doing it again?
(In 2002, I directed a low-budget indie film about a patriotism contest. You can buy a copy of the movie on DVD here.)
08:44 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Morning Awesome
Metaphor!
08:31 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
February 24, 2008
Buh-bye, Don
Don Geronimo is one of the reasons why I do what I do. He's one of my first comedic influences, and the reason why I pursued talk radio as my first career (Howard Stern was also a big influence). I had the honor of working as an intern on the Don & Mike Show in Washington in the early 1990s and much of what I learned on that show applies to everything I've done since -- including this blog and writing for the Huffington Post.
Don announced his retirement this week and terrestrial radio became a lot less entertaining.
07:42 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Snarky Stumping! Fuck Yeah!
Two word question for Senator Clinton and her supporters:
07:17 PM | Comments (7) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Are Teachers Engaged In A Whisper Campaign?
This item from Paddy made me spit out my coffee:
Our 10-year-old sister, Amani, is in the fifth grade at Lord Baltimore, a public elementary school in Ocean View. Last Tuesday, her teacher "taught" her class that Barack Obama is a Muslim and that she would not vote for him because he does not swear on the Bible, nor recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Her teacher told the class that she is a Republican and that Barack Obama "believes in different things and is scary."
I was alarmed not just because Senator Obama is, in fact, A CHRISTIAN! But also because, my daughter's friend reported to me the exact same story about one of his 9th grade teachers who said, "Oh you're supporting Obama? That black Muslim?" If I was one of "those parents" I would be pounding on the school administration office door tomorrow morning demanding justice. But I'm not.
Here's the key to fighting this whisper campaign. DO NOT WRITE THE WORDS: "Senator Obama is a [you know]" even when refuting this lie. Just repeat "Senator Obama is A CHRISTIAN!" Which, of course, is the truth. Repeat it over and over.
More at Cliff Schecter's house here and here.
03:30 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Wingnut ABP! Lie About Global Warming!
There must've been an e-mail blast APB that went out to all wingnuts. Think Progress:
Reuters reports that GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz defended his previous remarks dismissing global warming as a “total crock of shit.” Lutz said his views had no bearing on GM’s commitment to build environmentally-friendly vehicles.
"Total crock of shit" is what factory workers said when GM shipped their jobs to Mexico. But okay. And then there's Madame Chenella on global warming:
"It’s a largely unscientific hoax. And it’s a political concoction."
And Tom Delay:
“there is no science to suggest that man is the cause of climate change.”
I understand that Republicans are against, you know, reading. But someone send Tommy a link to this.
09:32 AM | Comments (4) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Eschacon 2008
I just signed up to attend the Saturday March 29 festivities at the big Eschacon in Philadelphia. It's so rare that something cool happens within close driving distance, but there you go.
09:20 AM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Morning Awesome
I want to go to dinner with these people. WARNING: SPOILERS.
08:52 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
