Happy Fair and Balanced Day!

This is the most important post of today, so I will lead off with it. Thus, if Comcast gets attacked by a giant network eating worm again I will have already posted it: Happy Birthday Christine!

That said, I can get on to the unimportant stuff:

Here is the actual text of Fox's "Fair and Balanced" attack on Franken. I particularly like this bit: Franken has recently been described as a "C-level political commentator" who is "increasingly unfunny." FNC is supposed to be a news channel and they don't put a source for these wonderful quotes? Shame! Franken has physically accosted Fox News personalities in the past, and was reported to have appeared either intoxicated or deranged as he flew into a rage near a table of Fox News personalities at a press correspondents' dinner in April 2003. Um, ok. Sordid gossip is "news" for whoever wrote this thing. Besides, we want details, folks, details! He is not a well-respected voice in American politics; rather, he appears to be shrill and unstable. Right. Unlike FNC. One commentator has referred to Franken as a "parasite" for attempting to trade off of Fox News' brand and O'Reilly's fame in the Preliminary Cover of his Book. Well, yes, but FNC have done their absolute best to help him along, now, haven't they? Defendants' use of the Trademark also tarnishes the mark by associating the mark with Franken's sophomoric approach to political commentary. Yeah, FNC was doing well enough tarnishing the mark on their own! I'm not particularly enamored with Al Franken, but this suit is such a pathetic sham, it's embarrassing to watch... which means that all of us will be paying very close attention to it.

I got the above link via Mark Evanier, who is still on about The Dick Van Dyke Comic Book, and has even set up a new section on his site for these mysterious books. Hmmm, twelve issues. Pretty good for a book that never actually existed.

Speaking of unfair and unbalanced, here's the follow-up article by the Dallas Observer to the Castillo case. You may recall, they covered the case back when it was still in infancy. I'm curious, if that comic book is so obscene, why is it still listed on Amazon.com, and therefore available for purchase even in Texas? Yeah, yeah, I'll shut up now.

The Leaky Cauldron is reporting that Steve Kloves, the writer who adapted the first three Harry Potter books to film, has been asked to condense the 636-page Goblet of Fire into a film version of only 2 1/2 hours. That'll be a job. Again, I say we'll just have to wait for the definitive TV mini-series in another couple of decades.

I want to mention WildGuard again. This is a comic book for which you get to vote for members of the team. Go, check out the website. Todd Nauck is a great artist (and I should get his permission to post his sketch and thus promote his book even more, hmmm). Anyway, go and vote. There are profiles of all the possible team members, and the whole thing looks fun.

There were some good comments on Metafilter about the power outage yesterday:

"Unconfirmed reports of a plague of locusts heading from the south."
"The grid was taken down by the 50-foot tall Son of En-Ron! Someone call Godzilla and Gamera! We need their help!"
"How exactly was Gray Davis responsible for *this* power crisis?"
"Let's make some babies."
And best of all: "I welcome our new Amish overlords."

Via the Bitter Shack of Resentment

You may have noticed that I've added a few links to my blogrolls. First up is Legomancer, who is eerily similar to me in many ways. I also added Mr. Hassle's Long Underpants for her interesting stories on working in an emergency room. She may think that she lacks "imagery" in her posts, but her matter-of-fact stories are just as strong writing as the others she admires. I also added a link to the American Library Association and to the ALA Banned Books Week page. Down below in the politics section, I've added Blah3.com, mostly because their amazing coverage of the Fair and Balanced Movement got me to read the blog, and I liked it. I continue to update my memorial page for the coalition soldiers who have died in this Iraq war.

Angry memory of the day. I was in the band during High School (I played clarinet, sousaphone, trombone, and bassoon at different times). This event had to have happened in my Freshman year, because I remember having my clarinet with me, and I didn't switch to sousaphone for marching band until later. We were going to a football game, I think, and I was in my uniform. The uniforms were brand new that year. The band was still fundraising to pay them off. It was early evening, and there were very few people around as I walked to the school to get a ride to the event. I was in a bit of a hurry, as I didn't want to be late. When I got to the track at the high school and was starting to cross it, a dog came racing out at me. It attacked me, growling and barking. I kept my clarinet (in its case) between me and the dog, spinning around as the dog continued to attack. Then I saw the dog's owner, a kid who had been harrassing my little sister, standing with a friend, both laughing their heads off at me. If I hadn't been in that lovely, expensive and brand new band uniform, I would have gone after the kid if I could have. I shouted at him to call his dog off, but he just urged the dog on. I got more and more angry, but there was nothing I could do. Even then I didn't want to hit the dog with my clarinet case, as I was afraid it would break the case and damage the clarinet. Not to mention the fear that if I missed, the dog would manage to get in and damage the uniform. I wasn't that frightened of getting bitten, but that was a factor too. Finally, just as I had decided to hit the dog if possible, a rock came flying out of nowhere and hit the dog in the head. Another rock followed, hitting the dog in the side. It yipped and took off, and I turned to see a very angry jogger approaching the no-longer laughing boys. They took off running after the dog, and I deflated. The jogger came up to me to check if I was ok, and after assuring him that I was, I hurried on to the event. I regret to this day that I didn't call the police on that kid, with that man who saved me as my witness. But I figured it was just a fight between kids, and not worth bothering the police over... and I didn't want to be late. Later on, that same kid managed to provoke my little brother into a fight, then took him to court over the "injuries" he got (which were, exactly none. But little bro got a hanging judge). If I had reported the dog attack, perhaps that would have helped my brother later on.

Why the angry memory? I don't know. I've been replaying a lot of painful memories in the hours I am sitting around awake with my shoulders stinging and throbbing in sunburned agony. As the latest layer of skin peeled off, the layer underneath it was just as badly burned as the first layer, and hurts twice as much as it is exposed to air. Maybe my subconscious figures if it can get me worked up enough about the past, I'll stop feeling the current pain. Considering how lousy I feel over a week after first getting the sunburn, I suspect that I would've been put in the burn unit of the hospital if I had gone in. It's just as well, I have no health insurance at the moment.

I have to wonder if anyone is still bothering/has the time to read my whole blog, as I've been spitting out an amazing amount of text thanks to the sunburn.