Fauxbama

Buy complete chance, I happened to catch last weekends SNL episode that started off with the Obama/Clinton debate sketch. I though it was funny, and I actually laughed at an SNL skit for the first time in a very, very long time. I really laughed at the bit of a mini-orgasm the ‘moderator’ displayed after one of Obama’s answers.

side note: The surprise appearance by Steve Martin during the opening monologue was a huge boost for the show as well (At least for me it was. I’ve always loved Martin’s old stand up and SNL stuff from way back).

In any case, while watching the skit I keep getting a nagging feeling that it was going to cause some problems. Specifically I thought someone was going to cry “Blackface!” since a black actor didn’t play the part of Obama. Sure enough, the complaints rolled in.

Did ‘SNL’ Go Beyond the Pale With Fauxbama?

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune put the question bluntly: “Call me crazy, but shouldn’t ‘Saturday Night Live’s’ fictional Sen. Barack Obama be played by an African-American?” Ryan went on to conclude: “I find ‘SNL’s’ choice inexplicable. Obama’s candidacy gives us solid proof of the progress that African-Americans have made in this country. I guess ‘SNL’ still has further to go on that front.”

Okay. You’re crazy.

Hannah Pool, a writer for the Guardian newspaper in Great Britain, suggested the whole setup had “minstrel” overtones.

“Casting a black actor wouldn’t have guaranteed the quality of the sketch, but it would have made the whole thing a lot less shoddy,” Pool wrote. “Let’s get one thing straight. The moment anyone starts reaching for ‘blackface,’ they are on extremely dodgy territory. Anyone who thinks it’s either necessary or, for that matter, remotely funny to black-up needs to have the gauge on their moral compass reset.”

I’m thinking these people need to do a bit of research on Blackface and what it truly was; Ignorant, disrespectful and racist. This SNL skit was none of those things. If they want an example of modern day Blackface, they should be reminded of the photoshoped images of Senator Lieberman and Michael Steele produced during the last election cycle.

This looks like it may turn into a real issue in the near future. What happens if/when Obama becomes president? Is he going to become ‘untouchable’ by anyone? Are people going to be labeled racist if they question/disagree/confront Obama? George Bush is heavily (and freely) parodied around the country. Would even a fraction of that kind of parody be tolerated with Obama?

If you missed the skit, the Washington Post article linked above and the Michelle Malkin post linked below both have a clip of a portion of the skit. Watch it. It’s funny.

ht: Michelle Malkin

Can you sense the desperation?

Updated with correction (at the bottom)

Can you sense it? The desperation (and anger) in the Clinton camp? I can. Circulating this photo just smacks of it. You’d almost think this was the general election with the way the Clintons are going after Obama. The Clintons are not concerned about the the Democratic Party. The Clintons are only concerned with the Clintons. They fully believe this is supposed to be their nomination and it looks as if they are willing to try anything to win. Pathetic.

Sweet: The story behind the Obama photo on Drudgereport.com

Retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, who accompanied Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on his trip to Kenya in 2006, on Monday defended Obama’s trying on local garb over his clothes during a visit to the rural Wajir region in the country, a picture of which is at the top right now of the Drudge Report.

Obama was merely being a “great guest,” Gration said.

The main story on the Drudge Report on Monday shows Obama fitted as a “Somali Elder” and Drudge’s story said “Clinton staffers” –who were not named–were circulating the picture.

The Obama campaign said release of this photo was “fear mongering” and “ divisive.” The Clinton campaign said the senator has been widely photographed wearing traditional dress, suggesting that there was nothing to raise a fuss about.

By the way, here’s a photo of Hillary in a Hijab:

Correction: it’s been brought to my attention that Hillary is not wearing a Hijab but “a traditional dress worn by Christian Eritrean and Ethiopian women.” The point still stands. Hillary is pictured wearing an ethnic garb while someone has attempted to smear Obama for doing the same thing.

Bob Geldof speaks on the Press and President Bush.

Bob Geldof in Rwanda gives Bush his props

Mr. Geldof is an Irish rock and roll singer and longtime social activist who has helped, along with U2 rocker Bono, raise awareness about need in Africa. His most well known achievement is organizing the Live Aid concert in 1985, which raised money for debt relief for poor African countries.

But Mr. Geldof has remained closely engaged with African affairs since then, and he spoke off the cuff to reporters today who were waiting for a press conference with Mr. Bush and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

The U.S. press ignoring positive news? Shocking, isn’t it?

“This is the triumph of American policy really,” he said. “It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion.”

“What’s in it for [Mr. Bush]? Absolutely nothing,” Mr. Geldof said.

Mr. Geldof said that the president has failed “to articulate this to Americans” but said he is also “pissed off” at the press for their failure to report on this good news story.

Now, while the media has in fact finally started to report on these stories, Geldof does have a point. The media just can’t help but talk about the negative in every story the do about the President. Take a look at a few excerpts from this Reuters story on Bush’s current visit to Africa (the negatives start in the headline):

Unpopular at home, Bush basks in African praise

Unpopular at home and in much of the world during the last year of his presidency …

Although around 2,000 Muslim demonstrators protested against Bush on the eve of his visit …

Back home, Bush is suffering some of the lowest approval ratings in his seven-year tenure and has been buffeted by criticism of his handling of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ailing economy …

Although many Africans, especially Muslims, share negative perceptions of Bush’s foreign policy with other parts of the world …

Now that the got all that out of the way, they finally get to the meat of the story down towards the bottom of the article:

Bush has spent more money on aid to Africa than his predecessor, Bill Clinton, and is popular for his personal programs to fight AIDS and malaria and to help hospitals and schools.

Bush has stressed new-style partnerships with Africa based on trade and investment and not purely on aid handouts.

His Millennium Challenge Corp. rewards countries that continue to satisfy criteria for democratic governance, anti-corruption and free-market economic policies.

Bush signed the largest such deal, for $698 million, with Kikwete on Sunday.

Because of the U.S. anti-malaria program, 5 percent of patients tested positive for the disease on the offshore islands of Zanzibar in 2007 compared to 40 percent three years earlier, the Tanzanian leader said.

Bush’s legacy in Africa would be saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of mothers and children who would otherwise have died from malaria or AIDS and enabling millions of people to get an education, he said.

Yet Bill Clinton gets the mantle of ‘America’s First Black President’ while others spout off about how ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people.’

Yeah… that makes sense.

Cuba’s President Resigns

Maybe I’m not as ‘up’ on current events as I thought I was. I had no idea Willie Nelson was the president of Cuba.

Fidel Castro Resigns As Cuba’s President

An ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when parliament meets Sunday.

The end of Castro’s rule – the longest in the world for a head of government – frees his 76-year-old brother Raul to implement reforms he has hinted at since taking over as acting president when Fidel Castro fell ill in July 2006. President Bush said he hopes the resignation signals the beginning of a democratic transition.

An Obama Contradiction?

I was listening to Obama’s Potomac Primary Night speech he gave in Madison, Wisconsin on Fox News last night. Well, it was on and I was sort of paying attention to it (damn kids and their homework). He caught my attention when he started talking about the Iraq war. I wasn’t sure if I heard him correctly or not so I spent some time hunting down a transcript this morning to confirm.

If we had chosen a different path, the right path, we could have finished the job in Afghanistan, and put more resources into the fight against bin Laden; and instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Baghdad, we could have put that money into our schools and hospitals, our road and bridges – and that’s what the American people need us to do right now.

Emphasis mine.

Then, not 30 seconds later:

We can’t keep spending money that we don’t have in a war that we shouldn’t have fought. We can’t keep mortgaging our children’s future on a mountain of debt. We can’t keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace. It’s time to turn the page.

Emphasis mine.

So he makes the point that we should not ‘keep spending money that we don’t have … mortgaging our children’s future on a mountain of debt‘ in Iraq. Fine. That’s not exactly a shocking viewpoint. But then is he also not saying at the same time it’s ok to ‘keep spending money that we don’t have … mortgaging our children’s future on a mountain of debt‘ as long as we ‘put that money into our schools and hospitals, our road and bridges‘? Or maybe I’m just missing something here.

To recap: Spending money we don’t have on Iraq is bad. Spending money we don’t have on ourselves is just fine.

Honestly, what experience?

I just caught this campaign add from Hillary Clinton on the tube (TV tube. Not YouTube).

At 14 seconds in she makes the statement that she’ll bring ‘more than her 35 years of experience to the White House’. In all honesty I’m asking… what 35 years of experience does she mean? She’s only been a Senator for a few years. What else could she be talking about? Her time as a Lawyer? First Lady of Arkansas? First Lady of the United States? Board member of Wal-Mart?

I just don’t get it.

(yes, I know this experience questions has been brought up before. I’m asking about it now since this is the first time I’ve heard her spout the ‘35 years’ part)

Don’t punish the children!

Came across an interesting story over at Gateway Pundit a little while ago.

6 Republican Senators Introduce “Semper Fi Act” to Strip Berkeley of Federal Earmarks

Republican Senators introduced the Semper Fi Act to stip the city of Berkeley, California of their government funded earmarks.

This is in response to the Berkeley City Councils recent actions against a Marine Corps recruiting station.

Last week, the City Council of Berkeley voted to oust Marine Corps recruiters from their downtown office, saying the Marines were “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” Berkeley officials also voted to give the radical protest group Code Pink space outside the recruitment office and urged them to “impede, passively or actively” the work of Marine Corps recruiters.

But thats not what really grabbed my attention. What caught my eye is one of the earmarks that is now in the crosshairs.

One earmark provides $243,000 in taxpayer dollars for the organization Chez Panisse to create gourmet organic school lunches in the Berkeley School District. Chez Panisse is dedicated to “environmental harmony” and their menu features “Comté cheese soufflé with mâche salad,” “Meyer lemon éclairs with huckleberry coulis,” and “Chicory salad with creamy anchovy vinaigrette and olive toast.”

Senator Barbara Boxer claims that ‘these groups’ (including The Children™) should not be punished. (source). Really? Taking away “Comté cheese soufflé with mâche salad,” “Meyer lemon éclairs with huckleberry coulis,” and “Chicory salad with creamy anchovy vinaigrette and olive toast” from a school lunch program is a punishment? Has anyone asked the kids? In any case, god forbid the poor little darlings have to suffer through a lunch of PB&J and yogurt. Like my kids.

Finally we have this quote from City Council member Gordon Wozniak:

But I think it’s equally bad for U.S. Representatives or Senators to threaten their constituents to take away their money.

Their money? Don’t you mean our money? Because last time I checked, I paid taxes as well. Please explain to me how it’s the Federal Government’s job to fund gourmet organic school lunch programs. If you’re going to fund some school lunch programs, I can think of some areas (pick just about any inner city or struggling Appalachia school system) that are in a hell of a lot more need (and more deserving) than Berkeley, CA.

related links:
The Chez Panisse Foundation
Chez Panisse Restaurant and Café

This should scare the hell out of you

Police Swabbing Mouths During Traffic Stops In Serial Killer Hunt

Police officers in Daytona Beach are swabbing the mouths of persons of interests during traffic stops with special DNA kits in the hunt for an elusive serial killer, sources close to the investigation told Local 6.

Have a broken tail light? Prepare to hand over a DNA sample to the Government. All in the name of ’safety’.

Agents are using the DNA kits to collect as much DNA as possible during traffic stops and special operations in hopes on making a match.

No explanation is given on what exactly is meant by a ‘special operation‘. There’s no mention of what penalty, if any (yet), there is for refusing to submit to the swab.  Most importantly, there’s no mention of what happens to the DNA ‘evidence’ that has been collected one the investigation is over.

Now, just how long do you think it will be before some politician gets it in his head that this would be a GREAT addition to so called ‘DUI Checkpoints’. You know, the ones where the police can stop you for no reason at all and demand that you produce your papers and tell them what you’ve been doing that day. The same checkpoints that police call ‘great sucesses’ because even when they only manage to arrest one person on a DUI charge, officers were able to issue a number of tickets for offenses unrelated to drinking (which pretty much proves that DUI checkpoints don’t have a damn thing to do with Drunk Driving).

We never saw it coming

The Browning family murders are the big news in Maryland. I believe it also went national with mentions on Drudge and other sites. A boy (who has apparently confessed to the crime) is charged with shooting his entire family (Mother, Father and two brothers) while they slept. Nobody is denying that this is a tragedy and a horrible event, but frankly I’m getting tired of hearing the same damn thing every time a story like this hits the news.

This event has spurred two of the typical responses to a story like this. First, a flood of comments from people who knew the kid/family and ‘never saw it comng’ (more on this in a bit). Second, a rash of discussions about gun control. Would people feel better if he used an axe or a knife? No? I didn’t think so. The gun didn’t cause the crime to happen. But enough on that. Lets talk about the ‘never saw it coming’ comments.

For the past few days there have been quite a few stories in the papers and on the local news about how the accused murder was a nice kid, an honor student, nearly an eagle scout, and on and on. Basically the stories all followed theme of “He was such a great kid that we never saw anything like this coming.”

Well yeah, except for those times where he talked to the kids on his bus about killing his parents.

Police say ‘no explanation’ why Browning family murdered

Police may be confounded by the boy’s actions, but students who rode the school bus with Browning say the teen recently began talking about killing his parents, but none of them took him seriously.

“He talked about how rich his father was, how he wanted some of that money,” said one middle schooler, whose father asked The Examiner not to publish her name. “He didn’t like his father because he used to always yell at him and stuff. He called his mom a ditzy, dumb blonde. We thought he was kidding.”

So yeah, if you ignore that minor detail, nobody saw it coming.

That brings me to another story from the Baltimore Examiner:

Kids Who Kill Offer Little Warning

Browning, who turns 16 on Saturday, had no history of violence, mental health problems or drug problems, according to court documents. His father was a highly regarded business attorney, and the family lived in an affluent suburb. Browning played golf and lacrosse, was active in his church and was close to becoming an Eagle Scout.

See? There was no warning. Well, except for him saying he was going to kill his parents.

Narasimhan noted that because mental health records are confidential, it’s impossible to know for sure whether Browning was suffering from mental illness or had shown other warning signs, such as bullying at school or cruelty to animals.

Really? No other warning signs like bullying at school? Lets jump back to the first news story for a second:

The students said Nicholas Browning used to pick on his younger brothers on the bus — and would punch Gregory, 14, when he wouldn’t listen.

Sounds a bit like bullying to me. Not ‘extreme’, but a form of bullying nonetheless. Actually, I think you’d be hard pressed to find siblings that don’t tease each other at some point. However, add this behavior to his previous statements and you start building some warning signs.

So lets recap: He picked on one brother, hit the other brother, stated he wanted his fathers money, called his mom a ditzy, dumb blond and openly talked about killing his parents to other kids on the bus. So other than all that, this is a complete shock.

And finally, I’ve noticed quite a few references in these stories to ’sealed mental health records’. I won’t be surprised in the slightest if its eventually revealed that this kid was on some type of ADD/ADHD or anti-depressant medication.

This is news?

My usual routine in the morning is brew some coffee and get the kids ready for school while glancing at the news every once in a while. For quite a while that new show have been Fox & Friends.

I you’ve spent any time on the Internet at all, its pretty obvious that there are many people who absolutely depise Fox News. With a passion. It doesn’t matter if its actually Fox News, Fox Sports or just a Fox affiliate, you put ‘Fox’ in the name and people have a fit. Call it FDS (Fox Derangement Syndrome).

So this morning I decide to see what the big deal is. Instead of Fox News, I turn on CNN.

For the past 45 minutes, CNN has been little more than an infomercial for Domino’s Pizza and their new ‘Pizza Tracking System’. Live shots with interviews from a Domino’s store, screen shots of the web site, anchor’s gushing about how easy and convenient online ordering is and how the ‘pizza tracker’ makes it even better. Over and over and over. For the past 45 minutes Domino’s has been their lead ’story’. Even now, after the pizza was delivered (uniformed Domino’s guy and well labeled Domino’s delivery vehicle shown in a live shot of course), they manage to cut to shots of people in the studio munching on pizza (alway managing to have a Domino’s logo in the shot somehow).

This is not news, this is a commercial. I’ll stick with Fox & Friends. It has its moments of fluff as well, but at least they don’t try to pass it off as a news story.