GeekPol's evil twin

The Fair and Balanced Sadly, No examines the actual Fox trademark for Fair and Balanced. What they find is that Bill O'Reilly was too lazy to read what was actually trademarked and why...

FAIR & BALANCED
IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: entertainment services in the nature of production and distribution of television news programs.

As Jesse points out, WHOOPS!!!1! It's kind of hard to enforce a trademark for TV programs against a Fair and Balanced book.

It's Fair and Balanced because it's true.

Marc Perkel, the gracious host of The Almighty Bartcop, now has himself a new blog, which isn't Fair and Balanced yet, but that doesn't worry me much. Anyways, he links to Smokin' Joe Conason, who reports that Ahnold met with Ken Lay in 2001 on ways to stick California ratepayers with the costs of his power market manipulation that resulted in the fiscal crisis California now has.

Fair and Balanced is everywhere. Why, you can even go somewhere such that your cursor is Fair and Balanced.

Fair and Balanced observation: The one who Googled for "Paducah whores" and found me didn't exactly get what s/h/it was looking for, eh?

Fair and Balanced look at crooked politics: It's been around a bit about who Ahnold has hired to run his campaign to get 20% of the vote: former governor Pete Wilson, who's arguably more hated in California than Gray Davis, and wife beater Don Sipple, among others.

Well, 'among others' apparently refers to the group that hatched a scheme to help disgraced former California Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. The scheme was to use money from a settlement over insurance companies' bilking of policyholders after the 1994 Northridge quake. That money was put into a P.R. campaign that essentially amounted to Chuck Quackenbush campaign ads. Sipple was part of that group as well. Quackenbush ended up resigning over that flap and left California altogether. The Sacramento Bee rightly asks about how well we could trust Ahnold's promise to clean up California gummint when he's so apparently willfully ignorant about the scandals caused by his own team.

It's Fair and Balanced because it's true.

Right now we at GeekPol take another fair and balanced look at Kentucky, where I followed a dry hole of a story about Tina Conner, a nursing home operator who gave some sugar to current (and outgoing) Governor Paul Patton (term limits). This year is the end of Patton's term, and the general race in a state that went solidly for Shrub in 2000 (and Clinton in 1996) is a close one. The Democratic candidate, Attorney General Ben Chandler, is in a virtual dead heat with Rep. Ernie Fletcher. And Chandler is being effective by running against Shrub in the way that Mary Landrieu succeeded in 2002. Well, look at the quote...

"It's hard to believe that just three years ago, Kentucky had a surplus, had an economy that was growing," Mr. Chandler, 43, said Monday at a campaign event outside a shuttered I.B.M. plant in Lexington. "What has changed is the team in charge in Washington. And my opponent is in the starting lineup."

He has mocked his [removed by GeekPol for accuracy] opponent, Representative Ernie Fletcher, as "the job terminator." He jokes that Mr. Fletcher's motto is "leave no job behind," a jab at President Bush's vow to "leave no child behind."

It's Fair and Balanced because it's true.

Another Fair and Balanced GeekPol opinion coming your way... Resetting that WaPo editorial, we fairly balance it against the news of a heat death of a local soldier who was stationed in Iraq. Since the WaPo is going to make fun of over 3000 French people who die in the heat, do they make fun of our soldiers dying as well?

Why, oh why can't Len Downie support the troops?

MORE: And talk about lousy timing - they have to print that editorial right before most of the Northeast U.S. is plunged into a blackout while the temps are in the mid 90's. Why oh why does Len Downie hate America?

Another Fair and Balanced observation: South Knox Bubba is funnier than I am. Nice touches to his FoxNews parody, like...

Is George Bush the Messiah? Vatican scholars study startling new evidence

This being Fair and Balanced Friday, I'll start off by taking an execrable WaPo editorial (link via Atrios) and making something Fair and Balanced out of it. In short, the piece (and probably its writers) are a bit unbalanced, so we'll just have to balance it out with a few facts that they're too lazy to cite.

First of all, Shorter WaPo editorial board: Those Eurotrash are such heat wimps, har har har.

Now then, let's get into some specifics...

Okay, so maybe it's a bit warmer than usual. Temperatures across the continent have shot up into the 90s and once or twice have topped 100 degrees in London and Paris. But is this really hot -- hot enough to close businesses, hot enough to cancel trains (the tracks might buckle), hot enough to wax nostalgic for the summer rain to which some Europeans, notably residents of the British Isles, are more accustomed?

Fact: This is the first time ever that it's been at least 100 degrees in London. It's not the first time in Paris, but suffice it to say that it's not an annual occurrence over there. More fact: That 100 degree temperature in London is about 30 degrees higher than normal And if you've never experienced it, you're going to talk about it. Little geography lesson for the WaPo here... London sits at 51.5 degrees north, at least comparable with Calgary, Alberta Canada. Paris is at 48 degrees and 48 minutes north, which in the US is comparable with Seattle, a place known (among other things) for its lack of air conditioning. Seattle and Paris have about the same summer climate (it doesn't rain in Seattle then, either), and they both have the same disdain for air conditioning. So when U.S. conservatives start squawking that those filthy Euros can't take the heat like the real people in Dallas or Houston, remember two things.

1) Dallas and Houston are not comparable to London or Paris in any way.
2) While there have been heat-related deaths in France on a rough pace with those of Chicago in 1995, Houston gets a few per year as well. Not on a pace with France, but France isn't in the tropical latitudes like Houston is.

It's Fair and Balanced because it's true

Rev up your Fair and Balanced posting abilities, because this Friday is Fair and Balanced Friday. Take it away, Neal...

To repeat. This Friday is Fair And Balanced day. Use the slogan at will. I will not be keeping track of the uses on this site, because it made me tired last time, but I still trust that you will spread the virus in funny and creative ways. We cannot let Fox News beat us, people. If they sue one, they can sue all. Al Franken has resources. Fox News' next victim might not be so lucky.

Indeed.

Well, thanks to Faux News, a good chunk of the blogiverse is now Fair and Balanced. Thank you Roger Ailes (not the hip suave blogger).

Scoobie Davis has answered a poll on the 20 worst American figures in American history (no foreigners which excludes the usual gang of Osama, Saddam, Adolf, Stalin, yadda yadda.). I agree with most of his list, and I like the way he goes back to fill it out, but I've got a few substitutions I'd like to make.

Roger Taney for Strom Thurmond. The denial that blacks are human in the Dred Scott decision trumps anything Thurmond may or may not have believed. Also Robert Hanssen for John Walker. Walker was a silly boy by Islamic fundamentalist standards while Hanssen got a bunch of our agents killed. And when it came to frightening Americans out of their gourds for no good reason, A. Mitchell Palmer (Wilson's AG starting in 1919) still makes John Ashcroft look like an amateur. I'd probably replace Harry Anslinger with Palmer, who stoked reefer madness in the '30's.

Edit:Ecch. Misplaced modifier. It was Harry Anslinger who stoked Reefer Madness in the '30's. Palmer died in 1936.