After I posted that last pic of Darkseid for President, it occurred to me that I hadn’t specified a running-mate.
Then I thought it would have to be one of Darkseid’s two chief henchbeings – either the ruthless tyrant Granny Goodness or the master torturer Desaad.
And then it occurred to me that our two current front runners look a hell of a lot like Granny Goodness and Desaad already:
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Hmmmm …
“In order to have any real impact, the strike will have to be at least as long as the ’88 strike, which lasted six months.” – J. Michael Straczynski, on Nov. 1st
“As the WGA strike begins its 4th week, I’ve been told positive news about today’s resumption of contract talks between the writers and the producers. … a very reliable source tells me that there appears to be a deal seemingly in place between both sides. “It’s already done, basically,” the insider describes. – Nikki Finke, today
I should point out that these two reports are not necessarily inconsistent.
For some interesting debate on the respective merits of Ron Paul versus None of the Above as libertarian choices in the current presidential campaign, see here and here.
As for those favouring yet a different direction, a third option is available:
So, what do you get if you cross Dodes’ka-den with batteries not included?
This, apparently.
The Romantics are suing the makers of the game Guitar Hero for including a cover of their song “What I Like About You” in the game.
Why? Did the game makers use the song without permission? Nope. They had permission.
So what’s the problem? Well, it turns out that the cover sounded too much like the original, and so “infringed the group’s right to its own image and likeness.” (I’d always thought “image and likeness” was a Biblical phrase, not a legal one.) “I was very upset,” explained the lead singer of this band that borrowed its name from an 1894 play by Edmond Rostand, “because the band had worked very hard over many years to develop and use its distinctive sound.”
Well, who wouldn’t be upset if somebody took away from them something they’d worked many years to develop and use? But I don’t see how this applies in the current case. Has the Romantics’ distinctive sound really been taken away? Did they go to practice one morning and suddenly find out that they sounded different?
And even if I believed in IP – which I don’t – I have trouble seeing how the Romantics have much of a case when they gave Guitar Hero permission to do a cover in the first place. Covers that sound a lot like the originals are not a particularly unusual phenomenon; indeed there are cover bands – and not just amateur ones either – that specialise in sounding like the originals. (For example, doesn’t the Swingin’ Swamis’ version of “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” sound a lot like Mari Wilson’s more famous version – which of course is also a cover?) It seems to me that when you give permission to do a cover, it’s a reasonable expectation that you might get an imitation of the original unless you specify otherwise.
I suspect what’s really going on here is that Guitar Hero turned out to be more lucrative than the Romantics expected, and they’re kicking themselves for not asking for a better deal up front – so they want to rewrite the contract retroactively. Money quote (literally), from a spokesman for the band: “The sales of this game are huge …. We’re all for good commerce. We just want to share in it.”
Just finished watching Razor (excellent, by the way), our last dose of Galactica until March or April, when Sci-Fi will start giving us the first half of season four. As for the second half, it remains to be seen whether it’ll ever get made; the writers’ strike has placed the show’s continuation in jeopardy. (See the story here; for background from Ron Moore see here, here, and here.)
Or at least that’s how everyone online seems to be describing it – even those sympathetic to the strike. But how is this situation supposed to be specifically the writers’ doing, or the strike’s doing?
Yes, it’s true that the writers could quickly get BSG out of danger by cancelling their strike. But it’s equally true that the media companies could quickly get BSG out of danger by giving in to the writers’s demands. It takes two sides to make an impasse; the fact that responsibility for the impasse is being assigned one-sidedly, to the writers, shows how pervasive is the assumption that whatever the employers want is the default reality. That fact by itself is presumptive reason to support the writers’ side; when one side in a dispute has acquired that kind of default status, that’s evidence that it has been enjoying an unfair power imbalance in its favour.
P.S. – Galactica fans will know why I picked this particular photo to illustrate this post ….