Except for the names and a few other changes
Watched
American Idol at Joe's place last night.
Brooke was worried about forgetting the lyrics to "I Am... I Said," so she wrote them on her hand.
Joe Maribeth suggested that if you're going to be playing the piano, you might want to write the lyrics on the
back of your hand.
Neil Diamond told Brooke that since she's from Arizona, she should change the line "New York City born and raised," to "Arizona born and raised." Good one Neil. Except you don't
contrast Los Angeles with
Arizona by saying that "palm trees grow and the rents are low" in Los Angeles. Also, Los Angeles and Arizona do not make up "two shores." Otherwise brilliant.
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers are suing
RDR Books over the unauthorized
Harry Potter Lexicon. I went through some of the plaintiff's exhibits and I thought they were mostly pretty weak, until I came to
this one.
My personal impression from the exhibits is that when the
Lexicon is presenting material drawn from the seven novels, the reorganization and paraphrasing falls within what should be allowed (with possible isolated exceptions, such as the entire quotation of the various songs).
However, the
Lexicon evidently also includes closely-paraphrased material from Rowling's
Quidditch Through the Ages and
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I think that could be a serious problem.
Note that while the novels are novels,
Quidditch Through the Ages and
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them purport to be reference works about the Harry Potter universe.
Fantastic Beasts evidently has
entries in alphabetical order. If the
Lexicon closely paraphrases
Fantastic Beasts entry for entry, then where's the transformative value?
The
Lexicon is not a perfect substitute for the Harry Potter novels. Probably not many readers will buy the
Lexicon for the plot summary and then not buy the novels. But if the
Lexicon effectively contains much of the content of
Fantastic Beasts, I think there's a serious likelihood that you might buy the
Lexicon and figure you don't need to buy
Fantastic Beasts. I think Rowling could win on those grounds.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
The Honorable Henry Waxman
8436 West Third Street, Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA 90048.
(310) 652-3095.
Dear Mr. Waxman,
I am writing as one of your constituents to register my total opposition to Barney Frank’s mortgage bailout plan, and any other plan to use tax dollars to rescue housing lenders and borrowers from financial difficulty of their own making.
Unsustainable mortgages of the type addressed by the Frank plan could never have occurred without willful negligence and a degree of deception on both sides of the table. Such reckless borrowers and lenders deserve each other perfectly. What they do not deserve is one thin dime of taxpayer money once they find they have double-crossed each other.
Although the Frank plan is represented as aiding borrowers, in reality it would enable lenders to offload bad mortgages for 85% of the home’s supposed value. Of course, lenders will only accept this deal because in their estimation the mortgages are worth even less than that. So when the Financial Services committee supposes that only 1-2% of the new FHA mortgages will default, they are displaying much the same willful financial obtuseness as the original lenders did.
I have heard Barney Frank acknowledge that his plan will rescue the imprudent and undeserving, but he justifies this on the grounds that “the economy” will suffer without a bailout. As you know, Los Angeles has a high percentage of renters, and also many homeowners who did not gamble recklessly and dishonestly in the housing market. We too are part of “the economy.” For us to see our taxes go up or our government’s deficit increased, while the federal government blithely underwrites the worst loans made by the most imprudent lenders to the least responsible borrowers, would be the most perverse policy I can imagine.
Please safeguard the public purse from Barney Frank’s costly, immoral bailout plan.
Regards,
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
Maribeth says she saw a bumper sticker saying, "Irony is
Andrew Jackson's face on a central bank note."
In other news, a hundred or so economists are
petitioning the Edinburgh City Council not to sell
Adam Smith's house to the highest bidder.
