It's easy to forget how, in March, the hills of northern California are dusted with what a southern Californian might take for an obscure species of mold.

Big theatrical doings tonight, and the fun of meeting the Shugarts.

Dave Winer: "Lawyers and programmers working together. Power." Congratulations on the launch of the new Weblogs at Harvard hosting service!

Done at 10.5 hours, six days since last charge. That's more like it!

Kevin Marks is adding his voice to important local political controversies. Just saw a neat looking resource featured on The Screen Savers: Minutes-n-Motion, a $9.95 per month service that says it

applies the most powerful parsing (categorizing) engine since computers were invented to research public records. eNeuralNet technology is applied to government bodies at all levels. Minutes-n-Motion will unleash volumes of data buried so deep within archives that until now, they were considered inaccessible.

Available cities in California to date include San Francisco, Berkeley, Laguna Beach and Aliso Viejo.

California Senator Deborah Bowen's anti-spam bill, which would permit private individuals to recover the greater of actual damages or $500 per violation (see previous discussion), cleared its first legislative hurdle by passing the Senate's Business and Professions committee Monday. USA Today and the San Jose Mercury News have more.

In another development that bodes well for reducing the world's overall spam volume, not to mention the future of political campaigns, "Gary Hart is BLOGGING." [via Glenn Reynolds and Jenny Levine]

LexisONE's current Sites of the Month features legal weblogs, "or blawgs as the kids say."

• Ditzy Genius is on her way to law school, and offers entertaining and intereresting quotes, articles and observations on her blog. [via the Blawg Ring]
• The Amazon Lawyer promises and delivers "a legally-inclined stew of a blog:" Alice Cooper, aviation and a whole lot more. [via Blawg.org]

The California Milk Advisory Board can't be sued for falsely touting the happiness of California cows, said a Superior Court judge in San Francisco on Tuesday. [Court Throws Out "Happy Cows" Ad Suit] This is not because the cows necessarily are happy, as portrayed in ads like "Sprinkler," Adweek's September '02 Best Spot, but, according to the Chronicle, because "[T]he government is exempt from the false advertisement laws that apply to private individuals." The California Milk Advisory Board stands by its ad claims, (e.g., Cows on Waterbeds), PETA has other ideas (Unhappy Cows), and Sean Carter had a column last May (Happy Cows Make PETA Sad).

Something is topsy-turvy when Reuters can report that "The U.S. military has adopted an open stance towards blogging, and to soldiers' access to electronic communications in general," and Kevin Sites and Joshua Kucera are taking hiatuses (—hiati?). Advantage: military. More discussion and links from JD Lasica (who passes along word of CNN's preference for a "more structured" approach), Dan Gillmor (who observes today that "The future of news is becoming more and more obvious during this war," and wonders "how well we in the business of news will respond") and Jeff Jarvis ("CNN proves it is out-of-date").

The FTC: "Online registration [for the national do-not-call list] will be available nation-wide in July."

(Loving the graphics.)

Nice: Daily Rotation's customizable Quick Loading Headlines From Legal News And Information Sites (a pithy idea in need of a pithier title—"Please Don't Squeeze The Blawgs?"). A great many blawgs already, and you can submit your own.

[Update]: Ah, I get it. They're Daily Rotation, and this is the Daily Whirl. Pith reigns.

About 9 hours down. 2 bars still left!

Still swimming through cases, records and arguments here at B&B. It's going to be that kind of few weeks. This does not, of course, slow down my Dad, who has all my direct numbers and as of today ... switched. It's been a breeze for him, and he already sounds like an old hand at OS X. (This has not been without its bittersweet moments for me, however: "I see, the 20 gig iPod. And what else?") Between my real papa, my blog papa, what feels like a sizeable chunk of Orange County, and Ernie—who's bound to crumble any day—I'm wishing with some fervency that Apple had an Associates program.

Here's a tip for anyone tempted to follow my paters familias down the rosy (and yet not thorn free) Mac path. I guess it would work with XP too. First thing when you get your new baby out of the box, set up a dummy user account you don't intend to use. Call it "Stupid." As time goes on, "Stupid" retains only the factory settings (plus Software Updates? not sure), just in case something should go awry. I forget where I read/heard this suggestion or I'd credit it. It has come in handy on a couple of occasions.

And before leaving behind the subject of father-daughter technobonding, I must note RB has another blogdaughter, this time for real: Mirage's Blog. Can't tell? "don't question me...."

Ernie's in Belize, Donna's in Rio at iLaw, Los Angeles is in a late March overcast, and I'm in a brief. Donna's iLaw coverage already is great, so enjoy. Despite the fact the only palm trees I'll be appreciating are the ones along the freeways, I have much going on and things may get a little quiet around here. (I'll miss you!) Next week, if you are interested in the Intel v. Hamidi oral argument scheduled for Wednesday morning, April 2nd (more), I am planning to go, and should have something here about the proceedings by that afternoon.

I thought Rebecca Blood's Weblog Handbook was full of great advice and insights, and now she has a slimmed down version—all the flavor, half the calories: Ten Tips For A Better Weblog. [via Anil's Daily Links]

About 7 hours down. 3 bars still left!

Steve Martin on Kate Hudson's presentation of the Scientific and Technical awards, including the award to Alias|Wavefront for Maya:

Y'know, they always get a beautiful young woman to present the awards to the science and technology people. It's Hollywood's way of taunting them with something they'll never have.

Digital humor from Steve Martin's opening remarks at the Oscars:

• On the first Oscar broadcast in HDTV: "Hi to the three guys at Circuit City!"
• On The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers: "Now that was a great download...Sorry! Theatrical experience."

The AOL for Broadband commercials airing with the Oscars are hysterical. (Six Million Dollar Man, Sharon Stone; others? We'll see.)

It might surprise you to learn that traditionally conservative Orange County, California is home to its share of peace activism these days, as the Orange County Peace Coalition and Orange County Register's Bulletin Board illustrate. Writes Nick Schou in OC Weekly: "For the past year, protests against the Bush administration's proposed war in Iraq have been spreading throughout Orange County faster than the local flag-waving spectacles that occurred in the wake of Sept. 11." That might be an exaggeration (the flag-waving was truly enthusiastic), but the demonstrations have had their impact; I understand beach parking in Laguna yesterday was grievously compromised.

Related reading: Geoffrey Nunberg, "The Syntax of Protest."

Blogging telemarketers: an oxymoron? (Or just a regular one. I mean, if lawyers can blog...) Check out the Federal Trade Commission's graphically whimsical introduction to the much anticipated national Do Not Call registry. Bonus link: general techniques for tormenting telemarketers, from AntiTelemarketer.com.

Why isn't there a more effective spam filter for your physical mailbox (not to mention your front door)? I haven't tried Private Citizen, but if it actually delivers for $10 a year it's one of the world's great bargains.

*Title courtesy of the Advertising Slogan Generator.

This week's blawgroll updates include a student, a teacher, a journalist, an Indiana lawyer and a Steve.

• Mike chronicles his experiences at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in the Law Student's Journal. He also makes the generous offer, "If you have an interesting journal or would like to start one," of possible hosting and a Movable Type setup. [via The Blawg Ring]
• Rick Hasen is a professor at Loyola Law School (Los Angeles), a former civil appellate practitioner and author of the Election Law Blog. [via The Paper Chase]
• Drew Clark is Senior Writer for National Journal's Technology Daily, and writes a blog filled with great information on technology, intellectual property and other issues. (Since Technology Daily is subscription only, the ability to preview Drew's articles on his blog is a real plus.)
• Indiana lawyer Marcia Oddi provides an eclectic mix of administrative law, technology, biology, agriculture and more. Her blog is brand new as of March 16. [via Howard Bashman]
• Steve also keeps us up to date on things agricultural, as well as myriad other southwest Virginia legal developments on his SW Virginia Law Blog. [via Howard Bashman]

Roger Winters, Electronic Court Records (ECR) Program Manager for the King County Superior Court (Seattle, WA): "Today, I participated in a demonstration of blogs for the members of the Washington State Bar Association's 'Electronic Communications Committee,' known familiarly as 'EC2.'"