(Thought about creating a new category: CSO – Completely Sick Obsessions. It’s come to my attention recently that I face absolutely every new challenge in my life with the thought “Hey, I remember when this happened on the Simpsons…” Anyhow…)

Yesterday’s syndicated show was The Margical History Tour and I liked it. Partially because it was clever and pseudo historic, but mostly because the first sketch featured Homer as King Henry the VIII.

“Whaa?” you ask…

To which, I reply, “Dude, you’ve got to check out The Six Wives of Henry VII the next time you’re flipping past it on PBS”. I swear, I’ve caught it like a half dozen times, and every time it sucks me in completely. Partially because I’ve become entranced with the Baroque Cycle and Henry VIII the wheels in motion for most of the European geo-political turmoils of the next half a thousand years when he ditched his wife and the Pope in one fell swoop.

Absolutely fascinating.

Marvel’s sueing a video game manufacturer for copyright infringement. Scott Kurtz touched on this in PvP last week.

IMO, it’s a difficult case – A huge part of the attraction of the game in question is to be able to live out one’s favorite characters, and the folks who built City of Heroes must have known that; but overriding that is every kid who’s seen Star Wars and played Luke versus the Stormtroopers, every kid who’s read the X-Men and pretended they had claws, etc, so on, and so forth. Marvel’s real gripe, I guess, is that they didn’t come up with it first.

Cory Doctorow (Whose “Life and Death in the Magic Kingdom” is a phenomenal read, and available free at his website) weighs in in the Wired article:

“Asking City of Heroes to police their users to ensure that they don’t replicate Marvel characters is like asking a school to police its students to make sure none of them show up for Halloween in a homemade Spider-Man costume. It’s unreasonable bullying, and it is bad corporate citizenship…

“Can you imagine a game where every tweak to your character requires sign-off from the game company’s copyright and trademark lawyers? Marvel is supposed to be a company that stands for fun, imagination and storytelling, but this lawyer-happy thuggery is the hallmark of a Stalinist dictatorship, not a game world.”

More CYOA sytle narrative then game, Psychiatry for Soft Toys is intriguing. (or maybe I don’t get the logic…perhaps our resident Germanic gal has a fresh insight.)

Me and like 2 other people actually liked the second Matrix. But that’s immaterial here. What is material is the scene where the Merovingian (the French dude/program/whatever) keeps discussing “Cause and Effect” – positing the world as a mechanistic system where every action has a definable reaction; Do something for me, I do something for you.

Jaques Chirac seems to have much the same idea: “Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see anything in return. I’m not sure it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favours systematically.”

Blair, quite possibly the finest Briton to sit at 10 Downing Street since Churchill (and, yes, I know I’m slighting Thatcher and drawing down VRWC ire), had a slightly different take: Mr Blair also said that Europe had a big opportunity because the US realised that lasting security against terrorism could not be provided by conventional military force but required a commitment to democracy and freedom.

Democracy was the meeting point for Europe and America. He was not advocating military solutions to achieve it but Europe and America should work together to bring democracy to places denied it

Not because Europe and the US expect a return on investment, but as a matter of basic human rights.