Randomness in a can.

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 08:01:02 GMT

Uh oh. Powerpoint makes you dumb.

According to the NYT at least. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14POWER.html

Of course, Aaron's Linkerator doesn't work for this link. Bah.
Linkerator: http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:02:55 GMT

New Hampshire's New Mottos

This first is from my friend Tiffany:

New Hampshire: The Great mender of Cherries.

And my favorite: New Hampshire: The Great Revirginifier.

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 01:24:44 GMT

Useful quotes worth storing for posterity:

"I pray for WISDOM to understand my man, LOVE to forgive him, and
PATIENCE to deal with his moods. Because, Lord, if I pray for STRENGTH
I'll beat him to death. Amen."

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 02:54:52 GMT

We are a product of our environment.

Back to rant, so I rant I go.

I've been ruminating and being bothered over life in general again. Part of this has to do with never seeing the sun anymore (NH generally goes into some form of deep freeze, where the sun baaaarely comes out at all. I feel like I'm in Alaska), part of this has to do with finals, and part of this has to do with the fact that I'm lonely.

I've been really frustrated with the fact that humanity and I haven't been seeing eye-to-eye. I feel like I'm either headed down this irreversible path of destruction, or I'm right, and everyone else is wrong. Over the past few weeks I've done a fine job alienating folks by doing things that seem completely normal. It really can do something terrible to a girl's sense of place and identity.

Tonight though, after cancelling a social gathering on account of freak snowstorm, I actually put my me v. them theory to the test. For giggles, and as a way to meet folks who aren't affiliated with the law-scene, I signed myself up for match.com. I've also filled out a personality profile (which I personally consider fairly accurate), and use that as a gague for potential dates. For the most part, it nets me guys in faraway states such as NY and MA, and by the time I find something within driving range, the compatability scale is usually way in the 'Unclear Match' category. I call it ironic.

For giggles, I keyed in my old zipcode in Cali, and saw something amazing. Lots and lots of hits. Lots of Excellent matches. Folks who had personality and interesting things to say. Personality profiles that described an interesting, well-rounded individual instead of a inbred townie who can't spell. And they were all within an hour of my old address.

Granted, this isn't a complete fix. For the next year, I have to adapt, as somewhat of a survival tactic. New England really does play favorites. And they really do consider you an outsider. Showing my California colors doesn't help establish my place as someone who will get anywhere in this winter nightmare. Despite my best intentions, I think its time for a little adaptation. And a lot of silent reminders that its only one. more. year.

Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:34:07 GMT

For those of you who don't feel like going to law school, but would like to learn about fair use, here's a primer that explains fair use quite nicely:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/start.html?pg=13/

Two major issues: Al Franken was sued on Trademark grounds not, (C). Fair use however, still applies, its just found under a different statute.

Second, Whether or not a fact is published in a scholarly tome is really irrelevant. You'd probably get the same milage out of a true fact that was published in a newspaper, or possibly even a blog. A fact is a fact, is a fact. And facts just ain't copyrightable.

Wed, 05 Nov 2003 01:29:46 GMT

Watching America Rocks the Vote:

So far, Wesley Clark and Howard Dean rock. I'm not so happy about the fact that Wesley Clark is avoiding the whole answer about don't ask don't tell. Aside from that, they have content.

Al Sharpton's a funny mofo. I still won't vote for him. A quote: "Mr. Bush believes in hallucinations." hee hee.

Dennis Kucinich is a socialist. A fucking hard core socialist. Its scary.

John Kerry, John Edwards and Carol Moseley Braun, and Joe Liberman are boring, uneventful humans that take up oxygen on this planet. There is absolutely nothing of merit from any of these candidates.

By the way: Kerry Just admitted to using Marijuana. Edwards used. Dean used. Braun won't answer (which means yes).

By the way, when asked which of the fellow candidates they'd individually like to party with: Al Sharpton.

Funny shit. I'm still pro-Dean. He's the only candidate who really bothered to answer shit. And his stupid campaign video was actually catchy.

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 23:43:25 GMT

BEST MUSIC EVAH

Four reasons to listen to Jim's Big ego:
1) They have mp3s of every song.
2) They won't sue you for downloading them.
3) They're quirky as hell -- in that justifiably sexy way like Cake and TMBG and Cibo Matto.
4) They're damn fucking good, and they play on the east coast.

www.bigego.com

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 07:01:46 GMT

A BA Primer your mother could love

For any current, or aspiring law students, this article is spectacular at explaining the principal reasons as to why businesses incorporate in Delaware, what the fundamental concept of the Business Judgment Rule is, and why the courts are so damn funny towards the corporations. For the non-law folks, read the article anyway. Disney could potentially face pain -- and that's always enjoyable.

In fall 1996, Michael Eisner, the chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Co., decided he had made a big mistake. Just a year earlier he had hired Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz as Disney's president. Ovitz had flopped, badly. The men needed to find a way to disengage without unduly embarrassing either of them.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/ideas/articles/0,15114,526338,00.html

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 05:33:10 GMT

Booty, Baseness and Blogging

A friend of mine who runs his own website (www.houseoftom.com) and I, had a bit of a cosmic disagreement on the nature of blogsphere, specifically, if you disclose your sexual history and/or their mental state on your blog. His side: [H]onestly, who DOESN'T write about "that special someone" in their journals? Conversely, who doesn't write about "that crazy someone" in their journals? I'm not publishing anything libelous, I'm not naming names. Finally, when (if) I do meet a good woman again I would only post the nicest of things. Like JPGs and AVIs. :)"

My side: I think its rather immature. I don't go so far as to say wrong (That'd be a morality play, and fuck that noise), but its insanely unrespecting of the other side -- especially when that other a) isn't likely to read your blog and b) can't defend him/herself. Its something akin to discussing a close secret of a friend, or your recent colonoscopy -- Sure, its details in your life, it affected you in some way, but some things are better kept internalized, or at least relegated to a small number of friends -- rather than the wold.

I always thought of this as a violation of the kiss and tell principle: If we kiss, you don't tell. Does that even exist outside of my warped brain? Did men systematically report this in their local paper, before blogs existed? Did women?

I personally try hard to make my blog less about the minutae in my life, and more about things that I figure someone could benefit from. Maybe its some internal fear of being tracked down and having my words used against me. Maybe its because I still (despite everyone's worst opinions;) still have a modicum of tact.

Question for the reader: Are some things better left unsaid?

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:52:44 GMT

I love Itunes. Love it. Love it so much I want to buy an ibook right now, just so I can bask in Appley goodness. I need money. Does anyone have money? I need to start the 'Carey needs an ibook' fund.

Needs.

Thu, 16 Oct 2003 02:31:35 GMT

This week: I want a man. A million dollars. A vacation. And a BFG.

Sat, 11 Oct 2003 04:20:03 GMT

Just wanted to let the men in my life know:

You all need Queer Eye for the Straight guy. Move to NYC, Get on the show and get better. Please.

Thu, 09 Oct 2003 02:18:48 GMT

Blatant propaganda that's funny

http://www.napster.com/bits

I personally reccomend Jail break and The Deal ;-)

Sun, 05 Oct 2003 18:21:32 GMT

There is heaven. Occasionally I come across something wonderful and fabulous fostered only by the benevlolence of strangers. So is the case for the Portsmouth Wifi project. These guys are great, and they have installed high-speed free wifi hotspots in the downtown Portsmouth area. So far they're up to two, but when you have the luxury of sitting in a nice coffee shop (Cafe Brioche -- which as a side note, makes some really excellent baklava, and their cappuccinos are fabulous) and being plugged in and jacked in to the net, you don't complain.

Thanks guys!

http://www.portsmouthwifi.org/hotspots.asp

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 04:35:10 GMT

OMG.

http://www.e-michael.jp/gallery.htm

[Melts into a puddle of cute on the floor]

Sun, 28 Sep 2003 05:16:03 GMT

http://mockery.totallyboning.us/boonga.mp3

I don't know how to answer this, other than by referencing you to this link: http://mockery.totallyboning.us/boonga.htm

Sat, 27 Sep 2003 23:28:52 GMT

Television can be better than lawschool.

No, really, it can. Bravo just put on some of the best TV I've seen in a long time. 'Animation Festival: The Animated Century' went through 100 years of animation throughout the world. While the subplot explaining the history is a bit lame, the overall history is amazing. It crosses borders, generations, and the various connections between art, politics, society and censorship.

The coverage of anime is skimp, but everything else is eye-opening. Positively worth a watch if it comes on again. I feel more intelligent just for watching it.

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:07:54 GMT

More annoying behavior from Verisign:

Yet more stupidity, brought to you from the folks who send you 'automatic' renewal letters in the mail to choose them in domain renewal -- despite the fact that you were registered with someone else. (http://www.politechbot.com/p-03298.html)

Now, Verisign has decided that they want everyone who misspells, typos, or fubars on a .com or .net name, needs to be directed to their for-pay 'search engine' -- http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=www.kljqkljqeoi.com&host=www.kljqkljqeoi.com

That's just an example. ICANN is pissed. Especially since Verisign has effectively told them to shove off: http://www.webadvantage.net/tip_archive.cfm?tip_id=281&&a=1

Now, we wait. ICANN is proposing a hack-around, loaded on all the rootservers of the world. Yippie.

Why do we let these fucks have control?

Sun, 14 Sep 2003 00:53:20 GMT

I send this little blurp off to you to illicit some opinion on the matter. In my very limited view and understanding of IP, I think Prof. Volokh misses a few key elements in his fast and dirty explanation of IP:

1. He gives a lot of credence to the idea of reward for essentially sweat of the author's brow and effort. At least in the realm of copyright, the court doesn't seem to look at it this way (post-Feist), and I'm curious if IP can still be justified as something 'earned' by putting out effort, akin to their physical property cousins.

2. In the end, he's arguably advocating for some sort of /moral/ right to IP. Does any form of IP actually advocate for a moral right granted to the IP holder? I know in some of the classes, its been discussed as something /other/ countries recognize, but not so for this one...

3. I have a hard time seeing the parallels he draws. An idea is not like physical property -- an idea can exist in multiple places all at once without being depleted by the various users. A person's bed or his well or whatnot is fininte. Maybe I'm missing the connection here, but I think in the example he posits he sorta glosses over this difference substantially.

http://volokh.com/2003_09_07_volokh_archive.html#106337694122641243

[Eugene Volokh, 10:20 AM]
The conceptual plausibility of intellectual property: I've recently gotten some messages asking why intellectual property makes sense at all. Sure, they say, it's good to have property in land and in tangible items -- but the concept just doesn't make sense for expression (copyright) or inventions and ideas (patent).

I want to speak briefly to this. I think the concept does make sense, and cannot be quickly dismissed on conceptual or moral grounds. The analogies between tangible property and intangible property are indeed fairly significant. Intellectual property may yet been shown to be pragmatically unsound, in some or even all of its parts; I'm certainly not an unconditional defender of intellectual property law. But the sound arguments against it, like the arguments for it, are more complex than some suggest. (The impatient may want to skip to item 2 and the well example in item 4 below, which may be less familiar than the other materials.)

1. Property as a right to use plus a right to exclude. You own your house, and you own your car. This means (oversimplifying) that you have a right to use this property, and a right to keep others from using it. As it happens, the right to exclude is usually necessary to make the right to use work -- if others could use your car without limit, there'd often be times when you couldn't use it. But as we'll see shortly, that needn't be so. (Not all property interests involve a right to use plus a right to exclude, but let's set that aside for now.)

In lay usage, people often think of property as being necessarily something physical; but law generally doesn't require this. In particular, copyright and patent are treated as property because, like property in land or goods, they are (not unlimited) rights to use a work or an invention, plus (not unlimited) rights to exclude others from using it. That's really what it means to say that they are "intellectual property."

2. Property as a limits on others' freedom of action. From this follows another important point: All property that has a right-to-exclude component is a limit on others' freedom of action. If you own your land, this limits my freedom to walk on it.

Now we often don't perceive this as limits on freedom of action, because we're used to it, and aren't much troubled by it. But sometimes we do sense it: For instance, when there's talk of taking public beaches (i.e., beaches open to all, with no individual having a right to exclude others) and turning them into someone's private property, people might say "Hey, that means I won't be free to go to that beach any more." Likewise, homeless people who want to take shelter on private property may be keenly aware that the owner's right to exclude interferes with their liberty to go onto that property.

These limits may be legitimate, because we might conclude that you shouldn't have a moral or legal right to walk onto my property. (After all, my right to life is also a limit on your freedom not to kill me, but a justifiable one.) But that just means the question is "Which forms of property are proper limits on others' freedom" -- not that some forms of right-to-exclude property are limits and others aren't.

So copyrights and patents are certainly limits on others' freedom. They keep me from copying your computer program on my computer in my office from disks that I lawfully own. But in this respect, they are similar to, not different from, property rights in tangible items.

3. Why have property? Property feels right to many of us because of a sense that each of us should own the fruit of our labor. (Incidentally, that's why copyright and patent feel right to many people, too.) But this is at least not the whole story, because some property -- such as land -- wasn't created by its owners.

Say there's a large stretch of land that's commonly owned, such as the West of the U.S. once was. (Ignore the complications raised by the presence of American Indians.) The government decided to open the land for private ownership. It didn't have to do it; it could have kept it as a giant park, and no-one's property rights would have been harmed. But it gave or sold the land to people who didn't create it, thus limiting the freedom of action of all others.

The reason for this was incentive: If people have the right to exclude others from their land, they'll have more incentive to invest effort in improving the land -- build homes, plant crops, and so on. We could have had open parkland with everyone free to sleep and pick fruit anywhere, but few shelters or orchards. Instead, we limited people's freedom, and got more homes and hotels (though ones that cost money to sleep in) and agriculture (though you need to buy apples from people, not just gather them).

So far, the argument tracks copyright and patent law quite well. The theory of intellectual property is likewise that giving people the right to exclude others from new works or inventions will give people an incentive to invest effort in creating and inventing. We would have less legal freedom of action -- you'll be more limited in what you can do in your own office or garage -- but we'd have more wealth, because there'll be a lot more works and inventions, albeit ones that it may cost you money to use.

4. The rivalrous and the nonrivalrous, and the example of the well. There is, of course, an important distinction: Only a limited number of people can sleep in your house, or eat your apples. If people were free to come on your land and consume your crops -- "rivalrous goods" -- then you (and the people whom you sell rights to) wouldn't have a place to sleep or food to eat. But if people were free to copy your book or reproduce your invention, you'd still be free to do the same yourself, since these items are "nonrivalrous." So no need for property law here, right?

But that makes sense only if you see property law as focused solely on securing the rights to use. If property law -- in land and in goods -- also legitimately protects the right to exclude, not just as a way of protecting the right to use but also as a way to give people enough incentive to invest time and effort, then intellectual property law does make sense even if such property is nonrivalrous.

Consider an example: Imagine that there are a few hundred farmers living out in relatively well-irrigated countryside. Each farmer can dig a well, which will amply serve the farmer and many nearby farmers; that's just the property of a well -- even a small well provides lots of water, much more than one farmer would need. Moreover, the water table is huge, and the farmers aren't going to exhaust it. But, it turns out, the well takes a lot of money to dig (the money goes for renting equipment and paying laborers).

Say that you create a well on your property, and start charging your neighbors, who don't have such wells, for access to it. Many of your neighbors are willing to pay; your well is closer and more convenient than other competitor wells. But some others just come and take the water for free. "This water is nonrivalrous," they say. "If I take the water, I'm not going to interfere with your or your customers' right to use it, nor will I really interfere with any work you do on your land on the way to the well."

You'd be upset, but that's not my concern. My concern is that if this starts happening, and other neighbors see that they can take water without paying, other farmers won't drill as many wells: They'll know that if they do spend the money to dig the well, they probably won't be able to recover this investment. Maybe they'll find some less effective and more expensive ways of getting payment (for instance, they may invest more money into putting up very high-tech fences -- technological self-help rather than reliance on law), but this will still mean many fewer wells built, and much more expensive water.

Even for the nonrivalrous good, destroying the right to exclude has taken away much of the incentive to invest. It hasn't taken away all the incentive; even destroying all property wouldn't take away all the incentive to invest effort. But it has taken away a lot, likely enough to make society on balance considerably worse off.

I give this as an example because the well is tangible property, not intangible property. Most of my pro-property readers would have no trouble concluding that the well owner should have the right to protect the property. But why? Here there's a situation where tangible property really is nonrivalrous. (There are other, more limited, examples of this, too, having to do with excess capacity in mostly empty theaters, airplanes, and so on, though there the excess capacity is much more limited, and removing the right to exclude eventually will remove the right to use.) Others' use of the well doesn't interfere with my right to use.

This scenario, I think, shows that there indeed is more to property than securing the right to use; there's also the need for an incentive to create new works (plus perhaps a moral right to have exclusive control of the fruits of one's labor, but actually I'm not relying on this here). And if this is so for tangible property, then this may be so for intellectual property too.

* * *

Now this has been an extremely limited defense: I've only shown that intellectual property is conceptually similar to tangible property in many ways, even though intellectual property limits others' freedom of action (so does tangible property), and even though intellectual property is nonrivalrous.

There are many other criticisms of intellectual property that can be made. Perhaps, for instance, it limits others' freedom of action too much. Or perhaps, at least in certain fields, there really isn't much need for intellectual property as an incentive to create. But it is these criticisms, which often turn on complex empirical judgments, that have to be the heart of an attack on intellectual property law -- the merely conceptual criticisms that I outline above do not suffice.

Thu, 11 Sep 2003 02:46:46 GMT

Oh yes!!!

And hooo-ray for finally finding a professor that groks the DMCA.

I just got done with Copyrights in the Digital Age -- a class I was interested in, but didn't sign up for (my schedule this year is hellacious, and I can't afford more than 15 units at a time). The professor and I had gotten into a side conversation about the DMCA and he encouraged me to audit the course. It rocked! Its so nice to be able to ask the really tough questions about the law and policy behind all this shit, and to have someone with answers. We ended up spending 2.5 hours babbling over random DMCA ugliness, Palladium nasties, and general copyright, privacy and IP law. He reminds me much of my old advisor.

Yay. Happy me. I like the bits.

Thu, 11 Sep 2003 02:34:00 GMT

My friend Jingjing sent this along to me. Normally, I don't post forwards, but gah. I _had_ to post this.

My personal favorite by far:

4.She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School
Essays:

1.Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2.His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3.He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4.She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5.She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6.Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7.He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8.The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a
surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9.The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10.McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11.From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12.Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13.The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14.Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35mph.

15.They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16.John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17.He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18.Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19.Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20.The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21.The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22."Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night.

23.He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping
on a land mine or something.

24.The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

25.It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

26.He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

27.She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

28.Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

29.She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

30.It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it

I am not useless.

Sat, 06 Sep 2003 01:32:34 GMT

So yay. Two good things:

1) I'm a rep for Westlaw. (People now think I'm smart)
2) My patent glossary that I slaved on for over two weeks is finally up online and available for free perusal at: http://www.ipmall.info/hosted_resources/patent_searching_glossary.

I love this. I now feel useful and complete.

Musings

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 06:12:35 GMT

Law school starts on Monday. Met the new crop of folks coming in -- some good, some bad, some undecided. Mostly this is going to be an insane year, full of schedule-fuck, and no sleep. I like those schedules, and invariably I thrive in them.

This of course, freaks some folks out, but I guess ya just move on and deal. It bothers Neko, but fortunately her tiny cat-brain only remembers fleeting moments of time. She remains for the most part, relatively ignorant of my horrid abuse of her as a caregiver. Thank god I'm not reproducing.

Went to a local bar this evening, to hear a friend play and do something on a Friday night that didn't involve a book, a computer, or sleep. The Green Martini, which exists exactly two blocks from my house (!) is rather freakin cool. I'm pissed I never bothered checking it out on my own before hand. Its the kind of bar where you could easily haunt it during the week and the weekend -- reading, conversing, drinking or flirting. Most of the folks seemed really relaxed and even the townies didn't act like it. Its nice to meet the intelligent set here in Concord. The other bars (which shall remain nameless) just weren't cuttin it. This place will be yet another useful thing to know when I need a late night escape from studying in my apartment, but I don't want to drive. Also functional: They serve coffee, and breakfast at 12am on weekends. Hells ya.

Tomorrow I explore the beauty of Vermont, and all its greenity. M promises a fun motorcycle ride, a fair and her parents 25th wedding anniversary. I'm jazzed. Its enough that I'll be free from NH for two days. After my joy, comes the drudgery of existence. I must schedule my life, and that folks, doesn't make me happy. *Sigh* Fantasy for two more days . . .

Oh, and apparently I'm now known by another name -- Aggravation Bitch :-) I must figure this curiousness out.

Al Franken wins round one: Fox, as always is neither fair, nor balanced.

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 01:56:59 GMT

Absloutely diggin this. Yea, they own a TM, yea it covers the media. But honestly. Take a joke guys.

Franken Wins "Fair, Balanced" Round

by Joal Ryan
Aug 22, 2003, 6:15 PM PT

It's open season on the words "fair," "and," and "balanced."

A federal judge in New York ruled Friday that Saturday Night Live alum Al Franken does, too, have the right to use "fair," "and" and "balanced," in that order, in the title of his new book.

In siding with Franken, the judge rejected an argument by Fox News that the comic was infringing on its trademarked slogan, the aforementioned "fair and balanced."

"I addition to thanking my own lawyers," Franken said after the ruling, "I'd like to thank Fox's lawyers for filing one of the stupidest briefs I've ever seen in my life."

Fox News had sought an injunction to stop the publication of Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, a sacrilegious and/or justified skewering of right-wing-skewing personalities, including President Bush, pundit Ann Coulter and Fox News' own Bill O'Reilly.

The book went on sale Tuesday, its publisher, the Penguin Group-owned Dutton, pushing up the launch after Fox News filed suit last week. Late Friday, Franken's tome was Amazon.com's top seller, besting the apolitical, but no-doubt riveting, The South Beach Diet.

In rejecting Fox's argument, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin called the network's lawsuit "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."

It was not, however, without its entertainment value.

Just as Fox News' commentators are not known to mince words, neither do its lawyers. The suit said that Franken appeared to be "shrill and unstable," not to mention "increasingly unfunny." It noted the shouting match between him and O'Reilly at a press correspondents dinner in April to charge that Franken's behavior showed him to be "either intoxicated and deranged." In an apparent oversight, it did not make fun of him for that Stuart Smalley movie.

When he read the "personal attacks," Franken cracked last week, "I thought for a moment I was a Fox commentator."

Franken said his book, and its title, would be seen in the courts for what it was--parody. And that's just what Judge Chin said, ruling that the smart aleck's tweaking of Fox News was protected by the First Amendment.

On Friday, Fox News did not rule out an appeal.

"We don't care if it's Al Franken, Al [Grandpa Munster] Lewis or Weird Al Yankovic," Fox rep Paul Schur told the Associated Press. "We're here to protect our trademark and our talent."

The Fox News suit argued readers might confuse Franken's book for an official Fox News publication. The network trademarked the phrase "fair and balanced" in 1998.

Earlier, Paul Newman defended Franken with some satirical prose of his own. In a New York Times op-ed piece, the Oscar-winning Hollywood legend wrote that the Fox suit had inspired him to sue the Department of Housing and Urban Development because its commonly used acronym, HUD, might confuse audiences who associated him with the movie character also known as Hud.

"Newman claims piracy of personality and copycat infringement," he wrote.

Thu, 07 Aug 2003 08:48:00 GMT

Alright. The California election has reached a stage beyond absurdity. Its farce. Pure and unbridled farce.

Gary Coleman on California ballot

Wednesday, August 6, 2003 Posted: 10:32 PM EDT (0232 GMT)

Gary Coleman's campaign treasurer says his name "resonates with the voters."

(CNN) -- Gary Coleman, child star of the sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," has placed his name among a host of other celebrities in the running for California governor.

Coleman's candidacy was engineered by the East Bay Express, an Oakland-area newspaper, which paid his $3,500 filing fee, collected the necessary petition signatures and is promoting his candidacy in protest of the scheduled vote aimed at recalling Gov. Gray Davis.

Coleman's campaign treasurer, Steve Buel, editor of the East Bay Express, told CNN that the actor's name "resonates with the voters."

Buel said he had no trouble getting the necessary 65 petition signatures from Independent voters in Alameda County, which he gathered at a recent Oakland A's baseball game.

The Alameda County Registrar of Voters confirmed Wednesday that a representative for Coleman filed the necessary petition signatures and paid the required fee at the courthouse in Oakland, California. He registered as an Independent.

California voters will decide October 7 whether to recall Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, and who should replace him.

"I thought (the recall) was a joke. They thought it was a joke. And I thought, hey, why not," Coleman, 35, told CNN. "I'm probably the least qualified for the job, but I'll have some great people around me."

"It's true that there is a farcical quality to the entire recall effort. But Gary's candidacy is no more farcical than that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Arianna Huffington, or the comedian Gallagher," Buel said.

Schwarzenegger, Huffington and Gallagher have all announced they will seek to replace Gov. Davis.

Schwarzenegger's announcement came at a Wednesday afternoon taping of NBC's "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.

Coleman, speaking shortly after film star Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he was running for governor, predicted that Schwarzenegger would win -- and Coleman said he would vote for the "Terminator."

"Now that Arnold is in the race, there is no race. Gray Davis needs to pack his bags," he said. "I'm going to stay in the race, but I'm not going to campaign."

On Diff'rent Strokes from 1978 to 1986, Coleman played Arnold Drummond, who, along with his brother, Willis (played by Todd Bridges), was adopted by a wealthy man after their mother, the man's maid, died.

His trademark retort, "Whatchu talkin' 'bout," became a well-known catch phrase.

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. . . This was the same Gary Coleman who, a few years ago, participated in one of the funniest phone sex bits I've heard in many a year. http://webathon.ugo.com/ -- 976-GARY still works, at least on the internet.

Oh, I pity the poor voters.