Unfairly Unbalanced

New Harry Potter artwork from Marta Department of Mysteries II. See other images are artdungeon. Lots of spoilers for the book in there, so go at your own risk. Her newest art can be found at her livejournal.

More letters from soldiers in Stars & Stripes: Here and Here.

And here's a bit about this blog. I know I'm not fond of this kind of entry, so I'm sorry I'm posting it, but there's some junk I need to say. Please feel free to skip this crap if you aren't interested in self-pitying, self-referential nonsense.

One: This is my web log, so it contains my opinions. Feel free to disagree, but realize that it takes a whole lotta work to ever change my opinion on many subjects. You can write comments that disagree, but if I think you are wrong, I'm going to say that, and you may not like it. It makes me look a bit nasty in many cases, I know, but I tend to dig in and get truly obnoxious when I think people are missing my point. It's not personal. Really. I may say some nasty things, but they are directed at your attitude and opinion, not at you. And that leads me to point Two: I am not a "nice" person. While I try very hard to respect everyone, I can be a monster when I let go of that. And I've done that recently, while arguing about the Castillo case with Rich. I told him to "go burn a book", and while I feel that the underlying principles support my side of the story, I think I went way overboard in arguing with him. That's why I wrote my Ramblings on Censorship post. To fully explain my side of the story. But I never apologized to Rich, and I would not blame him if he never visited this blog again. It's a bad thing, when you have only a handful of readers, to insult and drive off the ones who are most likely to expose you to another way of thinking. So that leads me to my Third and final point: I know this isn't much of a blog. A "Slimy Mollusc" as Truth Laid Bear puts it, nowhere near the A-list of blogs. I'm gratified to have any readers at all. Heck, I'm surprised to have any readers who aren't my immediate family. I'm sorry when I offend. It's an easy thing to do in this arena. I apologize to those who I've antagonized with my pitbull attacks. I cannot say I won't do it again, as it's my nature, but I'll try to continue to work on being reasonable instead of loud.