Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Recommended Reading

Timothy Noah attempts to make sense of all of John McCain's conflicting votes and statements about tax cuts. It pretty much comes down to this: If you want to be the Republican nominee for president, you have to take a blood oath that you will not raise any tax anywhere at any time, and that's been McCain's position all along except when it hasn't been and those times don't count because he says they don't.

• Posted at 11:11 PM · LINK

The Nutty Gun Smuggler

As explained here, Jerry Lewis was stopped at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport because he seemed to have a gun in his carry-on luggage. It was explained that this was a prop that couldn't be fired. A police spokesperson said that if it was indeed a prop, "it wouldn't be a weapon and we couldn't cite him for carrying a weapon."

What is wrong with this picture? Isn't it illegal to carry even a prop gun on a plane? I mean, this thing was realistic enough that someone thought it was a genuine firearm. If you pulled it out during a flight, you could cause an awful lot of panic and trouble even if it couldn't fire. People often hijack planes with guns that turn out to be unloaded and incapable of firing.

There probably aren't many folks who want to see Mr. Lewis tossed in the pokey...but we also don't like to read in the news that it's not a crime to take a prop gun onto a plane. And of course, we don't like to see some break the law, doing something that would land you or me behind bars, and go free just because they're famous.

• Posted at 8:04 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's eight or so minutes of shaky video from the Cartoon Voices Panel we did on Saturday at the Comic-Con. Earl Kress and I introduce the panelists and run down a few of their credits, especially Chuck McCann's.

• Posted at 7:43 PM · LINK

Spending Sprees

It was shocking to learn, once upon a time, that John Edwards paid $200 apiece for his haircuts. In fact, that was a reason unto itself to not vote for the guy. It showed he was vain, lacking in values, wasteful and completely out of touch with the common man.

I guess we're now going to see all the same people make all the same accusations about John McCain. It's been revealed that he routinely wears Salvatore Ferragamo Pregiato Moccasins that cost $520 a pair. I'll bet the folks on Fox News are already denouncing him for this.

• Posted at 1:00 PM · LINK

Answering Machine Messages of the Stars

Here's another one of these from back in the days when I used to get great cartoon voice actors to record messages for my answering machine. The one a few weeks ago was, of course, the legendary Daws Butler warbling away as Huckleberry Hound. Here, we have a cat with the voice of the late, lovely Lorenzo Music...

• Posted at 12:26 PM · LINK

Go Read It!

Roger Ebert bids farewell to the movie review show he co-hosted with Gene Siskel and later with Richard Roeper. I wonder how many people in this country adopted the movie-picking policies of a couple of friends of mine. It was to scratch off their possible viewing list any film which either TV critic gave the old "thumbs down." My buddy Dave once explained, "I can only spare the time for a certain number of movies per month. If I pick from the list of those both guys liked, I have more than enough to pick from."

• Posted at 12:04 PM · LINK