faboo mama

On FriendFeed, I learned of a new site called GoAnimate where you can create your own cartoons.  I enjoyed just watching what others made, but decided to get creative myself.

It’s a nice service and easy to use, especially if you’ve used any kind of video or audio software. The site is pretty new, so there are not that many backgrounds, people or props available. Sound effects are nil and some of the effects render some scenes useless. It takes a lot of forethought to put together the puzzle pieces in creating fluid scenes.

But I want to backtrack to the people options. When you click on the face icon, you get 4 choices to for your people. When you choose the “Cartoon Classics” option, you’re faced with a lot of white characters and 3 black(ish) men. The men are: a mail carrier, thug and basketball player. There’s a Latino construction worker and an Asian geek. There’s one non-pasty white female, but she’s skanky-looking and has blond hair. I’ll assume she’s super tan.

Is this what the artists behind GoAnimate were gearing towards? There’s no option, like say on Second Life, GoLively or IMVU, where you can darken a character’s skin or change their body type. I understand that you can create your own person, but that sorta defeats the purpose of the service; to allow non-animators the ability to be creative.

Hopefully, this is just a small oversight and people of color will be represented in non-stereotypical ways.

The Black Snob shares with us that it’s official, the Obamas are ‘uppity’.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., was chewing the fat with reporters in the U.S. Capitol and was asked to compare Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama.

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Senator Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks they’re uppity.”

“Asked to clarify that he used the word ‘uppity,’ Westmoreland said, ‘Uppity, yeah,’ ” the newspaper The Hill reported.

-Seattle Post-Intelligencer

They even trying to hide it any more. Shocker? Nope.  Par for the course in the GOP.

And the GOP assault on my intelligence continues.  The newest being this whole Palin baby drama. In a statement from Gov. Palin, she said that she outed her minor daughter’s current pregnancy to rebut rumors online that the baby born in April was really said daughter’s.  I’m at a loss as to how this is a rebuttal. In my world, an adult response would have been something like, “I refuse to discuss unfounded and offensive rumors regarding my minor child.” But that’s just me.

The hypocrisy in all this is that GOPs tsk-tsking over online rumors being given credence. Nevermind that by acknowledging those rumors the McCain-Palin campaign gave them life, therefore forcing the national media to delve into them. Surely, the GOP is above spreading unfounded rumors online, right?

• This is the political party who has an operative spending almost $3M on Ayers ads.
• This is the political party who to this day still accuse Obama of being a Muslim as if there’s anything wrong with that.
• This is the political party who gave us “McCain has a black baby” (NOTE: We never see the ‘black baby’ with the McCain’s as they campaign, be we do see his biological daughter.)
• This is the political party who spent almost 6 months repeating over and over that Michelle Obama said “whitey”, without a shred of evidence and they’re still trying to force this rumor.
• This is the political party who accuses Sen. Clinton of being a murderer.

All of a sudden, these people are trying to convince me and the US that they are just shocked and amazed that online rumors are fueling our political discourse. I’d like to say the general American public isn’t that dumb, but history has proven otherwise.

You may or may not have heard of Loren Feldman. If you have, I’m sorry. If you haven’t, you’re lucky. I’m not going to get into too much detail, but let’s just say Feldman is something of a verbal masturbater who thinks his video works are great satire. Personally, I think they’re giant yawners and shows that Feldman has no fucking clue about any of the stuff he says he’s satirizing.

Recently, there’s been some Schadenfreude among social media geeks and bloggers because Feldman lost a contract with Verizon over his TechNigga’ “satire”.  Oh well, it sucks to be him.  No one will ever accuse Feldman of being a fair guy or being able to roll with the punches.

I’m sure I’m breaching some kind of netiquette, but frankly don’t give a fuck…this shit killed me:

“Finally going through my followers list here, never looked to see who people were before. Blocking people by the hundreds.”

All because of a little public humiliation…something he does to others all the time.

*Disclaimer*: I’m one of many people who never thought George Carlin was funny and who believed that he ruined Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Now, honestly people…why is it that just about every political blog has been spammed with the 30 year old “comedy” bits that weren’t funny 30 years ago?  I don’t get it.  Carlin didn’t contribute anything to society, at least to the world I lived in, beyond obnoxious holier-than-thou types quoting him like he was a genius or something.  And don’t act shocked he died.  He was 71 years old.  That’s a long time to annoy the hell out of me.  Is Carlin another sad icon of “speaking truth to power” by desperate, sheltered and too-afraid-to-defend-themselves liberals who are going to put him on a pedestal like Hunter S. Thompson?

Please tell me because I’m ’bout ready to go upside some heads.  What kills me the most are the atheists/anti-religionists are talking about how Carlin is part of some “comedy trinity” (among these types that includes Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufmann (Y-A-W-N).

Yes.

Can the corpse-fucking end?

Now?

Please?

This is where Clinton’s dog foghorn to racist whites in Ky and W. Va. is headed. It’s a shame that the Clinton’s campaign is more than willing to revisit their race baiting-tactics of December and January with this. Especially since they are flat out lying about her white support. It’s sad to think that a Democrat feels it’s okay to implement a Southern strategy to win votes in a race she’s already lost.

What makes this all even more laughable are the blogging Clinton supporters who contort their logic to justify anything. Remember that for the past few months, we’ve been told by these people that Obama’s big wins in Idaho, Utah, Mississippi and Kansas don’t mean anything. Despite the hundreds of thousands of people who came out to vote for the Democrats vs. the few thousand that voted for the GOP candidates, we were told that “there was no way those states are voting for a Democrat in November.” Why? Oh, the reasons change and facts are fudged, but they say, “Those states haven’t voted for a Democratic president in ### years.” Needless to say, I was shocked to see that Jerome Armstrong, among other Clinton-supporting bloggers pushing that W. Va is in play because they gave Kennedy the nod in 1960.

THUD.

1960.

You read that right. W. Va. hasn’t voted for a Democratic president in 48 years and that means it’s great for Clinton’s chances in Nov., but the states that Obama has won, but haven’t voted for a Democratic president in 20, 30, or 40 years are not in play.

The stupid is strong in this one.

In the Don’t you Ever Learn? category:

The Clinton’s campaign is hollering over a WSJ article that states that Sen. Obama favored ending Federal oversight on the Teamsters. The Clinton’s campaign and the WSJ both made it seem as though Obama only said that to the Teamsters to get their endorsement.

The Obama campaign pointed to a piece from 2004 that stated that Sen. Obama said he favored ending this Federal oversight. In the tradition of the faux-NAFTA outrage generated by the Clinton’s campaign, they accuse Sen. Obama of doing something (telling the Canadians one thing while saying something different to the American public) that they’ve done. The Teamsters stepped up to say that the Clinton’s said the same exact thing to them while seeking their endorsement.

Sen. Clinton’s statement to the Canadians Teamsters:

I am of the opinion that based on what I’ve seen over years of observation, this union has really done a tremendous job in turning itself around. That’s my observation. At some point the past has to be opened. If you screw up in the future, that’ll be a new day, right? That’s the way the system works. But you gotta – you can’t go around dragging the ball and chain of the past. And I think that’s true for anybody, any organization, any individual, you know, and so I would be very open to looking at that and to saying, what is it we’re trying to accomplish here? And seeing what the answers were because at some point turn the page and go on.

Now that they’ve been caught out, the Clinton’s campaign is now being disengenious by making it about Obama’s statement on ABC this morning where he said he wouldn’t make blanket statements. As a commenter turnip at TPM put it:

Obama supports less federeal oversight of the Teamsters. He has since 2004. Apparently so does Senator Clinton according to her statments from 2007.

These positions are essentially the same and whether it’s a “promise” or a “suggestion”, both candidates have historically been on the side of the Teamsters with respect to lessening the enforcement measure in the Consent Decree.

Today Obama reinforces that is his position.

Today Clinton attacks that position.

Wolfson and Clinton supporters can try to thread a needle of semantics on this one, but it’s another case of what is the meaning of “is”.

Posted by turnip
May 5, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink

It’s all really so many levels of smack me on the head stupid ain’t it?

That title goes to Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. (h/t to Booman)

Short story: Indiana city has always bused their seniors eligble to vote to go vote. It was a civics lesson and one that any teacher, parent or American should be proud of. This is getting students involved in democracy. Mayor McDermott, a Clinton supporter, has decided that this is a bad idea. Oh. The students are black.

“To me it seems like an orchestrated effort on behalf of the Obama campaign to take kids who should be in school learning to read and write, instead giving them a day off and telling them to vote for Obama.

“When you corral kids together and ship them to polling places, it’s completely unethical. I think Sen. Obama should distance himself from this type of behavior,” McDermott said.

I don’t know what kind of leap of logic you take to get from point A to point crazy-assed moron, but he did it superbly.

Washington said Lew Wallace students have been bused to Crown Point to vote for three years now. “The entire board thought this was a great idea. We told (Dr. Mary Steele-Agee) to make sure all the high school seniors are able to go out and vote.

“Whatever the cost of gas, for helping a young person exercising their right to vote, that is a cost I don’t think anybody on this board or the state would have a problem with.”

Mayor McDermott is so not on board with kids exercising their right to vote:

LaSota said they wouldn’t turn away potential voters of any age. Fajman said, “Students don’t have time before school opens on election day to vote and they have extracurricular activities at the school. I think it’s a good idea.”

McDermott, whose city hosted Hillary Clinton’s March 28 visit to the region, disagrees. “These kids come from the worst performing schools in the state of Indiana and we are giving them a day off to go vote for Obama. They can vote on election day like everybody else.”

What this brilliant politician fails to mention is that election day is on Tuesday. That would be a school day.

h/t to TPM:

Hillary Clinton now has an ad running in PA with imagery of Osama bin Laden.

THUD

I…er…I thought that that was GOP territory. I mean, how many SOTU addresses have we played drinking games where we chug when Bush mentioned 9/11? How many times did we laugh at the inanity of Dick Cheney tying bin Laden with Iraq? Now, Sen. Clinton has concern trolled her way into the gutter.

The Obama campaign has a response:

Wonder how that’ll play with the Clinton’s?

One of the biggest jokes of the past week has been how Sen. Clinton tosses off “San Francisco” as if it’s a dirty word. We shouldn’t expect much from one half of a couple who spent an inordinate amount of time running away from the “liberal” tag just because the scary old Republicans tried to turn it into a playground taunt. Still, Clinton does have her supporters in San Francisco, so the way she’s been denigrating the Obama supporters who heard his truthful remarks and comparing them to “real” people, is so much GOP bullshit.

The out of touch media dorks were oh-so-quick to give a shout out to their blue-collar upbringings…well, that is the blue collar cities where they were born (near), though many of them are trustafarians who were raised in a different area. Their experiences with blue collar workers has either been ordering them around or getting their asses beat by them. The way they condescend bears this out. Keep in mind that these were people who were telling us that blue collar workers have no idea what arugla is.

Insulting.

So while the small town voter in Pennsylvania who was not being insulted by Sen. Obama’s remarks, is being puffed up by Sen. Moneybags and the Fourth Estate, the poor souls in San Francisco have to deal, yet again, with being treated like they’re so far out of the mainstream. In all these years where “San Francisco liberal” has become a Pavlovian buzzword to half-witted Republicans and even some “D”emocrats. I’ve never once heard any media pundit come to the defense of the San Francisco voter. I’ve never heard any Democrat stand up and say, “This is where we draw the line, the voters of San Francisco are people, tax-paying Americans who also deserve to be treated with respect.” Maybe we could even go all Godwin’s law or something. The fact is, that words taken of out context and/or distorted could be insulting to anyone anywhere. You know who the media largely caters to when they’re more concerned about blue collar workers, gun owners and the crazed Bible-thumping faction of religion being insulted than if black, Latino, rich, gay, or just regular religious folks (UCC anyone?) are insulted.

Let’s take the Muslim thing for example. For almost 14 months during this campaign, Muslims have been smeared. In that, I mean that some Democrats <coughHillaryClintoncough>, the media and certainly the unintelligent Republicans feel that it’s alright to “slime” Sen. Obama by implying that he’s a Muslim. Sen. Obama is the only elected official during this entire campaign to say that what these people were doing was insulting to Americans who are Muslim. The only one. That tells me more about their character than anyone Sen. Obama may have sat next to on a board eons ago.

That Clinton thinks that’s it’s totally okay to denigrate one group while ginning up false outrage over a distorted remark not aimed at another group, say even more about her character. On one hand I should be surprised, but then I remember that this is a person who has told us that black voters, activists, caucus-goers, young people, and states that she didn’t win aren’t important. This is a person who wrote off the endorsement of a friend for her opponent as “insignificant”, then spent two weeks publicly attacking the friend.

So, while she’s reminiscing over a duck hunt with dad that probably happened as often as sniper fire in Tuzla, we’ll do well to remember that even though she’s been a hanger-on in the upper echelons of the political class for over 30 years, she can still pretend to the a voice of the American people, while mildly insulting those San Francisco liberals who went to listen to Sen. Obama. Though, I’m sure the San Francisco liberals who are dumping nearly $500K (that’s 10% of what Clinton loaned her campaign!) in Pennsylvania this week on her behalf are the right kind of San Francisco liberals.