D: All Things Digital, which kicks off next Tuesday, now is sold out. From the Web site:

This conference sold out quickly, but you can catch some of our guests on CNBC's "Power Lunch." Or get an executive summary when CNBC airs a special based on D on July 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Arrangements are being made to record D and make it available on a delayed webcast. Visit this site as the conference date approaches for more information.

(Links added.) I'm still kind of flabbergasted to be going. (Here's why. No, I don't really get the wine thing either.) Sadly, this means I won't personally be able to welcome our six Los Angeles summer associates when they start work next week, but I have the feeling we'll all recover.

Proposed California spam legislation that would allow the recovery of at least $500 per violation passed the state senate yesterday. In Washington, the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law also approved a bill that would permanently extend the ban on Internet taxes scheduled to expire in November. (More.) [both via ILN]

you say they taught you how to read and write
they taught you how to count
i say they taught you how to buy and sell
your own body by the pound

(Everclear, Everything to Everyone)

That's really apropos of nothing except the song has been chorusing through my head since my drive in this morning. (Richard Sheridan would be proud...) It does however provide a germane backdrop against which to mention some ongoing research funded by the Law School Admission Council, and pursued by Boalt Hall professor Marjorie Shultz and others, aimed at going "beyond the LSAT and GPA to find additional ways of predicting who will become effective lawyers." Thus far the project has identified 26 Factors in Effective Lawyering, and Boalt alums are asked to take a survey to help the researchers measure performance on these effectiveness factors. (They left out the old familiar "grinding all obstacles into a chalky gray powder suitable for mixing with water and patching walls," but given the refined professionalism to which we all now adhere, this is hardly much of a surprise.)

That there is much to be learned from Ernie the Attorney. (Nicely done, Jerry!)

From the PGA Tour:

TOURCast: Free Today. Golf history. Annika Sörenstam has teed off. Don't miss a single shot. Every player, every hole, every shot, FREE all day long on TOURCast.

TOURCast seems to be overwhelmed at the moment, but Annika has gone par-par-par on 10, 11 and 12.

And birdie 13!!

LawMeme confirms there was an explosion this afternoon at Yale law school. They link to news coverage, and here's more. Thank goodness and knock wood, I see no reports of injuries.

McDonald's and Burger King have veggie burgers. Reeses has various odd (but enticing) limited editions. Oreos come inside-out. Soon, it will be Raining Frogs and Fishes.

Spanish pay music site Puretunes ("No Rules. No Limits.") markets itself as authorized but doesn't specify by whom. Not the major record labels apparently. The Los Angeles Times reports on a provision of Spanish copyright law—requiring "artists and record companies to be paid equal royalties when there is no agreement on how to divide the payments from the sale of their work"—that could enable Puretunes to deeply undercut competitors' pricing: "For the price of four songs at the iTunes Music Store, someone with a fast Internet connection could download more than 400 from Puretunes." ("Spanish Site Brings Pay Into Play;" more from c | net; Reuters)

c | net reports on the Future of Content conference last month at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This year's theme: "Cooperation & Rivalry in the Digital Age: The Changing Dynamics of Content Creation & Distribution." ("How tech shapes entertainment's future")

Dave Winer is working and teasing.

Console your favorite Buffy fan, today may be tough: "'Buffy' saved television a lot." (Los Angeles Times, "RIP 'Buffy': You drove a stake through convention")

To Marty Schwimmer, for the one year anniversary of the preeminent Trademark Blog.

To Frank Paynter, for the resumption of his dance-this-mess-around interview series, this time with Ryan Irelan.

To Doc (more, yet more, even more), Dave, Scoble and Professor Lessig for writing brilliantly lately about transparency, competition, and how coming to the party might just score you a tastier slice of cake.

To Chris Locke, for elucidating matters of HTML and haute cuisine.

To the ladybug who even now is gamely ascending the exterior face of my thirtieth-story window without the aid of oxygen or crampons. (Matthew Weathers has some lovely photos of the challenging terrain.)

L.A. Times writer John Healey in an article profiling Grokster attorney Michael Page: "The key is to find analogies that help extend a well-established principle to new technologies."

Berkeley organizational behavior professor David I. Levine, in an L.A. Times article examining Sun's iWork program: "Humans were designed to communicate and be affectionate and break bread together. . . . It's going to take a long time to figure out how to break bread over the Internet."

(Weblogs: A Multigrained Solution)