Thursday, July 10, 2008

From the E-Mailbag...

You get a lot of really stupid messages when you have a blog like this one. Here's one from someone who signs himself "Yoda Bear," and it wouldn't surprise me if that's his real name...

I saw the YouTube clip of that convention panel where you pretended to phone Chuck McCann, the voice of the Cocoa Puffs bird. How stupid were the people at that convention? I recognized the voice you had on the end as a RECORDING of an old Cocoa Puffs commercial. Did they not realize you'd just set up an accomplice with a tape? No wonder you believe Barack Obama's b.s. You must think some people are so stupid they'll believe anything. Sadly, you may be right.

I was amazed how many people at that convention asked me afterwards if that was really Chuck McCann on the phone. Yes, it was really Chuck McCann on the phone. If anyone would like to bet that it wasn't, I'll take all bets up to one million dollars...and we can settle it on Saturday, July 26 at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. At 12:30 PM in room 6CDEF, I'll be co-hosting a panel of Cartoon Voice Artists and one of them will be — in person! — Chuck McCann. I'm sure Chuck will be glad to verify that it was him, live on the phone that evening. Put your money where your mouth is, as they say.

(That panel will also feature Jason Marsden, Wally Wingert, Alicyn Packard, Phil LaMarr and one other person I'm waiting to hear from. There will also be a panel on Sunday with six other voice actors, plus my friend Earl Kress and I are hosting a panel on the business side of doing cartoon voices — how to break in, how to prepare a demo, how to get an agent, etc. That's also on Sunday. The whole schedule should be available in a day or three.)

• Posted at 4:25 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Fred Kaplan Time again, newsfromme readers! If you don't have time to read it now, I'll give you a quick summary: One of the key issues on which Obama and McCain disagree is that Obama wants a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and McCain says that's unthinkable. Trouble (for McCain) is that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants one, too.

• Posted at 3:36 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

This article by Robert Gordon and James Kvaal is one of many out there that itemize how McCain's flip-flopping from speech to speech. I don't intend to spend a lot of time on this blog explaining why I think John McCain would make a terrible president. I'll just say that I know a lot of people who voted for George W. Bush twice with great enthusiasm, now regret both votes and seem to be about to make the same mistake again...and for most of the same reasons.

• Posted at 10:45 AM · LINK

Thursday Morning

DNA tests have cleared John and Patsy Ramsey in the 1996 murder of their daughter, JonBenét. I seem to remember an awful lot of weblog postings and cable news programs and even tabloid newspapers that called it an open/shut case that they'd killed their kid, and that it was obvious to anyone with an I.Q. over about 60. I'm sure we're about to see a slew of apologies and retractions and maybe even some folks admitting that they were too hasty to pass judgment.

• Posted at 9:25 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Earlier today, I embedded (sent you to, actually) a video of Matt Harding dancing all around the world. Here are some outtakes...

• Posted at 2:21 AM · LINK

Recommended Reading

I still think Wesley Clark was wrong and clumsy with his remarks the other day about John McCain's military service...but Joe Conason reminds us of something relevant.

Back in '92, Ross Perot picked as his running mate, a man named James Stockdale who was as much a "war hero" as anyone who ever had his name on a ballot. Despite this, Admiral Stockdale became something of a laughingstock in this country, derided by Liberals and Conservatives alike. Many of the folks who are selling McCain's past heroism as an argument for him as Prez had no trouble deriding Stockdale as unqualified or even senile. And of course, a lot of them had no trouble pissing all over John Kerry's medals.

• Posted at 2:20 AM · LINK