As a gift to him, I won't mention the date…but a certain amount of years ago on this day, a kid named Stanley Freberg was born in Pasadena, California. The son of a Baptist minister, he went into a different line of work (entertainment) but somehow managed to retain his father's moral balance. Stan got into radio, got into cartoon voice work, got into early television. Bob Clampett's Time for Beany, starring Freberg and his frequent partner Daws Butler, may have been the first truly "hip" TV show. Then he started making some of the best comedy records ever made and became the nation's foremost maker of funny advertising and did a lot of other things in TV, movies, radio and more records. As I wrote here, I discovered Freberg when I was a small lad and the impact was enormous. He not only taught me about writing comedy but about looking at the world with a healthy skepticism. That's half the lesson. The other half is that when you encounter something that outrages you, you try to channel that outrage into something constructive…in his case, a lifetime of smart, snappy satire.

I don't think there's anyone who has ever encountered the work of Stan Freberg who doesn't join me in wishing him…(DA-DA-DA-DAH!*) a happy birthday.

*French horns.

Here's an interesting chat with one of the better editors of comic books, Mike Gold.

One of my favorite political sites on the Internet — because they give it to both sides and play fair — is Spinsanity, run by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan. In their spirit of utter honesty, I should confess that Ben has become a pal of mine but I was praising his site in my weblog before we ever met. I am only continuing that praise as I recommend a new book by those three folks, All the President's Spin, which is subtitled "George W. Bush, the Media and the Truth." It's a meticulously-researched, non-hysterical examination of statements that have been made by or about the current administration. As you might expect from the title, there are hundreds of examples where the authors quote Bush, Cheney, Powell or someone of that sort, then offer what seems like pretty solid proof that the statement is at least misleading and perhaps utterly wrong.

But this is not exactly a hit book on Bush — though anyone who wants to believe that he and his staff are honorable will probably think as much. There are plenty of places where Ben, Bryan and Brendan correct misstatements and misquotes of what Bush said, or point out the factual inaccuracies of his opponents. The cumulative effect creates a book that, to me, makes a pretty strong argument that no one who is currently front and center in the political world is above mangling the truth, and that the press does a spectacularly poor job of catching them when they do. (Equally appalling are the many cited instances where reporters either misquoted or excerpted a real quote in a way that distorted its meaning.) Since I like the website and agree with the premise of this book, I am happy to give it a glowing recommendation. Hell, I'll even go so far as to post this link via which you can order it from Amazon and — again, making full disclosure — give this site a small commission on the sale. This is a book with more integrity than anyone quoted within its pages.

I must add that it fueled an amazement that I have had for a long time about politics and the media. There's a saying in show business that some flops hurt you and some don't. In the same way, in the game of running for or serving in public office, there are some misstatements that harm and others that never embarrass their speakers. When Bill Clinton said that he'd tried marijuana but "didn't inhale," or when Al Gore said something that could be misinterpreted as "I invented the Internet," those quotes stuck. They went into the public vocabulary and were cited by their opponents not only as lies but as proof that there was something fundamentally, pathologically wrong with the men.

I thought those statements were, at worst, sloppy phrasing, something every public figure is guilty of from time to time. (You all saw Bush the other day saying, "Our enemies…never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." He didn't mean exactly what he said and Gore wasn't making the claim that his foes were able to convince many that he'd made.) I think political figures do lie or deceive, more often that we like to think…but somehow, Clinton and Gore got nailed for more-or-less accurate statements, and a lot of outright fibs went unreported. The Spinsanity book chronicles a lot of them, all more significant and clearly untrue than Gore's supposed "lie" that he was the model for the character in Love Story. Why do some untrue statements hurt and others don't? Beats the heck outta me. Anyway, order All the President's Spin and see if you can figure it out.

As you may well be sick of seeing me assert here, I think the smartest, cleverest show currently on television is The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. In the past, I have directed many of you to the Comedy Central website to view clips from the show…which I do despite the fact that said site is difficult to navigate and filled with banner ads that try to leave invasive cookies on your computer. It's also not easy to link to specific clips. When the site was shut for a while the other day, I hoped they were installing a new, more user-friendly layout but it was not to be. The main change they made seems to have been to switch most of their online videos from Real Player format to Windows Media Files…and it's still awkward to get to a clip and hard for me to send you directly there.

Nonetheless, I recommend making the effort for several clips from The Daily Show and its show-within-a-show election coverage, which they call "Indecision 2004." Many of the segments featured on this page are "web only" features, including a couple of pretty funny Lewis Black tirades you'll see nowhere else. A lot of so-called "real" news people seem to be increasingly uncomfy with the sentiment that a satire/spoof news show does a better job of covering things than they do. But in some ways, it's true.

Speaking of Lewis Black…one of the funniest things I've seen on TV in the last few weeks was his diatribe against government officials who want to criminalize the use of "certain words" on the airwaves. I can't figure out an easy way to link directly to it so go to this page and view the clip entitled "F.C.C. Crackdown." It's worth the trip.

My pal Bob Greenberger is a first-rate editor in the world of comics and a wise presence in many others. For some reason, he has thrown common sense to the breezes and joined the ranks of us webloggers.

Not that I don't think things can't change a lot but I've been eyeing the various "electoral breakdown" maps around the Internet. The two I check most often are this one (which skews a bit Liberal) and this one (which trends Conservative). [WARNING: If you check both, note that the former uses blue for Democrats and red for Republicans, whereas the latter is the opposite.] At this very moment, the Liberal site has Kerry at 280 and Bush at 258, whereas the Conservative count has Kerry at 296 and Bush at 206. Interestingly, that's with the Liberal site putting Florida's 27 electoral votes in the Bush column and the Conservative site putting them in Kerry's. That shows you how arguable some of the polls can be…and how no one can properly count Florida.

I left this out of my previous piece on Ralph Nader. Every poll out there shows him with staggering negatives. The American Research Group survey, f'rinstance, has him with a 10% favorable rating and a 76% unfavorable rating. That's about how Saddam's polling these days.

Now, I certainly think it's possible to be in the right and to rack up a huge unfavorable rating. There's almost something heroic in sticking to your principles in spite of such numbers. I just don't think it's realistic to expect to accomplish much that's constructive.

The more I hear Ralph Nader speak, the less I understand what is driving his current presidential bid, apart from getting attention for Ralph Nader. Four years ago, I could buy the argument that his candidacy was about laying groundwork for a viable third party at some point in the future. I thought that campaign was too much about Ralph Nader and not enough about any larger issue…but there was at least a smidgen of logic to his crusade.

This time, I don't get it. There is no real third party here and to the extent he's crusading for the principle of an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, I think he's doing damage to that cause. In 2000, Nader got 2.74% of the popular vote and zero electoral votes. In most of the recent polls, he's been there or lower…and in most, he's dropping. The Washington Post-ABC News Poll, for instance, had him at 6% in mid-June, 4% in mid-July and now he's at 2%. He could go lower than that. Folks who admire Nader now have the luxury of being for him without causing their second choice candidate, Bush or Kerry, to lose their state. On Election Day, some of them won't take that chance because even if he's down below 1% nationally, we all recall that 2004 was "decided" by a handful of votes.

So what can Nader accomplish by staying in the race? It sure doesn't look like he's going to build on his 2000 total, so a third party candidate will look less viable than ever. So will his own future candidacy. You don't build a career in politics by getting fewer and fewer votes each time you run.

At one point, I thought Nader might aid Kerry by playing Bad Cop, saying things about Bush that the Democratic nominee couldn't lower himself to say. But so far, when Nader gets on TV at all, it's only because they want him to discuss whether or not he'll throw some state into Bush's electoral column and tip the election. No one is interested in what he thinks about the economy or Iraq or Halliburton. His candidacy is only about his candidacy. Even his own website is primarily about getting him on the ballot and denying claims that Republicans are paying his way on in states where they hope he'll hurt Kerry. And every time he denies that he could be a "spoiler," he loses a certain amount of credibility, and that's a bad thing for him to lose. Those who like the guy generally view him as a refreshing change from the old say-anything-to-get-elected politicos, and Nader is starting to sound like one. (A lot of folks also recall him saying there was no difference between Gore and Bush, which now sounds pretty disingenuous. He didn't exactly say that but he sure came close.)

He's not likely to get into the presidential debates, especially if he's polling below 2% nationally when they're configured. He's not going to win any electoral votes or demonstrate that he has any sort of growing constituency. And he's not going to get much news coverage except to make his lame denials that he could conceivably cause Kerry to lose some key state. That he will be a "spoiler" in one or more states seems to me unlikely but if Bush wins and it's close, Nader will not go down in history as the God of Consumer Rights. He'll be the guy whose ego twice pushed him into a race where he helped elect a man he called "the worst president in history." I don't see what positive thing he has a chance to make happen that's worth risking the downside. It's a shame because he once could have made the kind of difference he wanted to make.

Last November, I mentioned here that I'd decided to sell my 1957 Thunderbird, which very much resembles the photo above, which is of someone else's same-color 1957 Thunderbird. As you can tell, I'm in no great hurry to sell this incredibly low mileage car that I purchased in the early eighties from its original owner, Anthony Perkins. For more on the vehicle and its history, see this message that I posted back then.

That message brought many responses that I probably should have followed up on. Instead, I chose to connect with a local (Los Angeles) broker in old cars who saw my weblog appeal and contacted me, promising to get the car running and to sell it for me on most agreeable terms. He's still promising to do that. He will probably be promising to do that long after the internal combustion engine is a relic of the ancient past. In other words, I'm giving up on the guy.

Alas, I lost the other inquiries from last November so I'm asking again. I'd like to either find someone who wants to buy the car (i.e., make an offer) or handle its sales for a commission. It's still sitting in my garage with a dead battery. It's still, apart from that and the shredding ragtop, in great condition. (I also have the removable hardtop.) I'm too busy these days to deal with getting it into sellable, runnable shape and I don't want to hassle with eBay bidders or anything of the sort. If you're interested in taking some or all of this off my hands, drop me a note. I may even be persuaded to divulge the name of the famous Hollywood actress who, according to a fan of Mr. Perkins, lost her virginity to him in this fine automobile. If that story's true, I oughta put a bronze plaque on the dashboard.

In the interest of equal time, here's Anne Applebaum defending the Bush administration's policies on stem cell research.

My cellular provider is Cingular Wireless, which seems committed to not letting me use the newest, best model cell phones. But they do have this odd service. I especially like the fact that it gives you a script.

I'm about to put a few thousand comic books into storage and I want to put them in plastic bags before I do. It occurs to me that I sometimes see a size of plastic bag where each bag holds 10-20 comic books, but I've never seen them advertised anywhere. Does anyone reading this know what it is I want to order and where I can get them?

Here's an excellent piece by Fred Kaplan on the latest terrorist alert.

I posted the previous message before I read this piece by David Boaz [L.A. Times registration required, I think]. It's a Libertarian screed but I agree with most of it. You'll agree with at least half.

I have no real guess as to who'll win the presidential election in November. It feels like Kerry to me but I can recall times when it felt like Dukakis or Gore…so I don't know. I do think that the undecideds will decide based largely on events that have not yet occurred, and I don't necessarily mean another 9/11-style terrorist attack. One suspects the Bush side will start claiming that they've expertly and courageously foiled many such attacks and that if someone like John Kerry had been in the White House, those disasters would surely have happened and thousands would now be dead. I also have a hunch that the Kerry side (or maybe just the anti-Bush side, which is not exactly the same thing) is going to start insinuating that Bush is coming apart in various ways. Some of you may have glimpsed the story that was posted on a less-than-reputable "news" site that Bush is on medication to cope with severe depression. I don't believe that's true but I do believe that by the end of October, both sides will openly be spreading much worse about the other.

At times, I think the best thing is just to, as George Carlin and the Loew's Theater Chain put it, enjoy the show. Me, I love the backflips. Not that long ago, back when Clinton ran against Dole or the previous Bush, war hero versus draft-dodger was No Contest for some people. The military records of the candidates were all you needed to separate Great Man from Worthless Scum…or so said various Conservative pundits and pals. Now, all those same folks are swimming feverishly in the opposite direction, and also pretending they never said what they once said about Balanced Budgets. At the same time, an awful lot of Democrats who don't even know what Stem-Cell Research is have suddenly decided it's the most important issue in the world. After all, it may be able to cure diseases…like rising Bush numbers.

I'm skeptical about everyone's sincerity on these issues, just as I'm skeptical when Bush claims he wouldn't have done anything different with Iraq if he'd had better intelligence, or when Kerry talks about Faith. In Kerry's acceptance speech, he had a good line about…well, here's the quote: "For four years, we've heard a lot of talk about values. But values spoken without actions taken are just slogans. Values are not just words." I agree with that but I'm not sure it applies any more to Republicans than it does to Democrats. It could certainly apply to Kerry's attempts to convince "swing" moderates that he's a deeply religious guy and therefore shares their sense of the world. I don't know that he is or isn't, but I've never heard a politician anywhere talk about Faith and God and not felt that the words were coming from a speechwriter, as opposed to the speaker's heart. I also think folks in both parties have salivated over a lot of candidates who said the "right" thing in speeches and then either never took the promised actions or actually worked in the opposite direction.

And what's with this new contest to be crowned King of Optimism? Both candidates are claiming to be the more optimistic, which is silly enough. But one has his people raising the Terror Alert and warning that buildings will soon be crumbling while the other tells us how badly everything's going on all fronts. I hate to think what these guys would say if the focus groups told them voters appreciate Pessimism.

The word "cynicism" gets thrown around a lot in politics, especially when you point out that most of the names on our ballots are folks who are mediocre, at best. I don't believe that anyone really, deep down, thinks Bush and Kerry are great leaders…and I think what would be cynical would be to believe these men are the best we can do. Deep in my gut, I keep thinking that someday, some candidate will come along who will transcend all the finance deals and politician-marketing, and actually stand for the betterment of us all. That's real Optimism on my part, almost to the point of Blind Stupidity.

Since that's not going to happen this year, if ever, we might as well sit back, relax and, like I said, enjoy the show. I'll get the Raisinets if you'll get the popcorn.