I am a little late to the party on this one, but will chime in anyway.

Halley ("Read Me"): "Weblogs work the way women work, they invite conversation and interaction in order to solve problems. They are not designed with women in mind, but they are all about cooperation, conversation and transparency. They are perfectly suited to a woman's view of business."

This is a compelling essay (and I'm a huge fan of all things Halley), but I can't go along with its generalizations on gender lines. My days are too filled with encounters that blow such stereotypes to out of the water. Like:

• men who were built for collaboration, women who can't stand it;
• moms who can and do run big businesses, happily married to dads who can and do run the home front; and
• couples who arrive at dynamic and mutually respectful divisions of domestic labor without judicial intervention of any kind

—to name just a few. Of course there remain enormous distances for women to cross in business and beyond. Of course the world is full of societies with values radically different from those I see every day. It is, however, a mistake to ignore how much Western corporate culture has changed and is changing still, and an even bigger mistake to make assumptions about a person's abilities, tendencies, likes, wants, needs or desires based on his or her gender. Reading a good cross section of weblogs is excellent proof of this concept.

Yeah, I know: "Just you wait 'til that baby is something more than a mere wardrobe inconvenience, and this might all begin to look a little different." But my take on this partly explains why I'm reluctant to find out if our kid-to-be is a boy or a girl. That, and I always liked Christmas gifts to be a surprise. =0

Microsoft Watch: "[I]t seems as if Microsoft corporate is beginning to take more of an active interest in how its employees are expressing their opinions in their Web logs. On Tuesday, as part of its ongoing series of discussions about Microsoft and community, the company is holding an internal panel to discuss employee Weblogging."

Robert Scoble has more: "From when I compared notes with Beth Goza afterward, it was similar to a panel session that happened a week ago at the Weblogger conference. No more or less sinister than that."

Speaking of more or less sinister panels from last week's conference, I'm assembling the feedback from my panel to Phil Wolff's questions and hope to post it this weekend. Sorry for the delay, but I still need to be writing and editing other things at the moment.

The firm's summer program is in full swing, and as we were going over one of her writing projects one of our summer associates just reminded me of this oldie but goodie. (Here's a techie twist on the classic.)

I see from the signage on the Convention Center that Erotica L.A. starts tomorrow.

Senator Orrin Hatch: "If there is no effective, non-intrusive way to stop pirates, I'm all for destroying their machines." (As quoted in John Healey's piece in today's Los Angeles Times Business Section, "Deep-Six Computers to Sink Net Pirates?")

Marty Schwimmer on Hatch's comments. [via Dave Winer, who's part of the reading list for Digital Democracy Day at Internet Law 2003]

Dave Winer's question to Senator Hatch, two years ago today. [ditto]

At Internet Law 2003 (at Harvard's Program of Instruction for Lawyers), that is. Reading lists and pointers to the real-time blogging thus far, thoughtfully provided by Donna Wentworth and John Palfrey, are at that link.

From Hiawatha Bray's Boston Globe column on the Weblog Business Strategies Conference ("Companies get into weblog act"):

An idea this useful can't be left to mere hobbyists.

The best blogs don't just deliver authoritative information; they resonate with the personalities of their creators.

Tim Ireland has news of a newly launched blogger in the UK Parliament: Richard Allan. (Oh where, oh where, are our Congresscritters?)

I am in the midst of a nasty-busy week, fyi. Things could get a little quiet here for the next few days.

As reported by the Dallas Business Journal, FareChase and American Airlines have settled their dispute over whether FareChase's software improperly accessed fare information from the American Airlines site. [via ILN] More on the case, including a copy of FareChase's opening brief on appeal, is at CIS.

John Healey of the Los Angeles Times reports in today's Business section on Muse.net, an application that seeks to deliver anytime, anywhere access to your digital media collection ("Standards for Personal Jukeboxes").

Janet Eastman of the Los Angeles Times reports in today's Calendar section on what may be the world's, uh, neatest vacuum cleaner ("Sweeping Changes").

Blawgs, blawgs, everywhere! Please welcome these new additions to the B&B blawgroll:

Academic

• BizLawTech, the blawg for the Institute of Business, Law and Technology (IBLT) at the Touro Law Center. BizLawTech is maintained by the Institute's director, Professor Jonathan I. Ezor. (RSS feed.) [via Tom Mighell]
• D. Gordon Smith is a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. [via Jack Bogdanski]

Political (New Category)

Careful what you wish for. (I asked for blogging politicians; I got 'em!)

• Howard Dean, as you no doubt already know, is Governor of Vermont and running for President. [via Rick Klau]
• Tara Sue Grubb ran for Congress last year, and is "planning a caucus for the Internet Bill of Rights." She's also CEO of Policlicks. [via Dave Winer]
• Tom Watson is a Member of the UK Parliament. [via Dave Winer]

Practicing

• Stan Abrams is with the Chinese firm of Lehman Lee & Xu. His posts about Chinese law and culture are truly fascinating. [via Blawg.org]
• In case Stan's blog merely whets your appetite for things Asian (and it should), head next to the American Lawyer in a Japanese Law Office: "Life is better with an accent." [via the Blawg Ring]
• Business Lawyer is informative, witty and sharp: "This is a weblog by an attorney who doesn't go to court. So if you are looking for juicy tales of courtroom theatrics, you won't find any here. Try cable." Yes, I can see I'll be checking back here often.
• Michael Heng is a lawyer in Germany. [via the Blawg Ring]
• KC Lawyer is the blog of the firm Herron & Lewis. [via the Blawg Ring]
• A.J. Levy writes Out-Of-The-Box Lawyering, and is a lawyer, author and creative thinker. [via Ernie Svenson]
• There's a blawger in the house: Mike O'Sullivan writes the Corp Law Blog, and practices corporate securities and M&A law with Munger, Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles—which means we're in the same office building. Mike! We should have lunch. [via Tom Mighell]
• Patent Pending is the new blog of an old favorite: the once and future Incompetent Attorney.
• Lyle Roberts writes the 10B-5 Daily when he's not too busy being a securities litigation partner in Wilson Sonsini's Reston, VA office. [via Howard Bashman]

Learning The Craft

• Biting Tongue offers this observation about law firm summer associate programs: "[T]he more they wine and dine you, the more likely they are to work you to death if you sign on after your JD." [via the Blawg Ring]
• Chae Chae once upon a time had the pleasure of knowing an unusually durable hamster. [via the Blawg Ring]
• Cicero's Ghost is alive (dead?) and well, and has discovered the profession's dark secret: "The Bluebook is the Devil's work." [via the Blawg Ring]
• Donald writes of civil rights law at All Deliberate Speed, and might appreciate a nice pair of boxers.
• Heidi is in her first year at Tulane. [via Ernie Svenson]
• jd2bindc just took the LSAT again and realizes full well this was not entirely sane. [via Blawg.org]
• Tom of Damocles' Sword is mixing law school with border patrol training—specifically, "a .40 mm Beretta Brigadier 96D." Yipes! [via the Blawg Ring]
• My Waste Of Time follows a law student who currently is summer clerking in Manhattan. [via the Blawg Ring]

Giving It A Rest

• David Giacalone is a retired attorney and mediator, and a prolific writer on client-centered legal ethics. There's a wealth of good stuff on his site. [via Ernie Svenson]

Blawgers At Large

• Sascha Kremer writes Vertretbar.de. [via the Blawg Ring]
• Andrew Owens writes Owens Rhetoric and is enthusiastic about art and policy. [via the Blawg Ring]
• WeirdOfTheNews has a new home and name, The Legal Reader.

Integrating

• Larry Bodine now posts insights and resources to the LawMarketing Blog, in addition to heading up the LawMarketing Portal and related endeavors. [via Ernie Svenson]

Managing The Chaos

• Al-Muhajabah writes The Niqabi Paralegal, on legal issues facing Muslims in the U.S. and other things. [via Blawg.org]

Conglomerates

• The Censorware Project is down as I post this, but it was alive and well yesterday and presumably will be again. It's a collaborative effort examining a host of Web filtering and privacy issues. [via Jerry Lawson]
• The Commons Blog, as part of Information Commons, is a project of the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy. This is via Donna Wentworth, who has more on why this site is emminently blogrollable.