Fall in love with a Bullfighter. And the fact that it comes from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. (Ahem: OS X, please!) [via The Screen Savers] Great FAQ too, e.g.:

Q: Does Deloitte own the Bullfighter name?
Yes. We registered it, at least. The paperwork was started last year. Don't ask.

Just back from the ultrasound appointment. 17 weeks along as of tomorrow and all is well. The baby's right on target as far as size, and already has picked up some of mommy's yoga—(s)he treated us to some surprisingly accomplished plough-like postures. The genetic counseling was thankfully benign. Some family history discussion (during which we did rule out, I hope, the possibility that hubby and I are related), some pictures of chromosomes. No Franken-babies. Thanks to Janell Grenier for sending along this great little script that puts an automatic update about where things are in the pregancy on your site. You have to be able to use PHP to run it and I don't think that's me, but I pass it along because it's a neat doohicky.

We used a different examining room and machine today than we did for my last ultrasound, and unfortunately this time the quality of the picture printouts stank. But just so you get the idea of what things look like at this stage,

Our Bundle of Joy

There have been some interesting Orange County, CA weblog developments recently. Here's one:

Real estate, commercial and otherwise, has been a critical part of the local economy for quite some time. There's a group of local realtors ("The Great Team") who have been maintaining a quirky and informative Web site (Grow-A-Brain), and now they have a blog in the same tradition. It's called The Future of Real Estate, and it deftly interweaves the authors' interest and expertise in real estate topics with their appreciation of cuisine, travel, current events, local color, ETC. This is a nice example of how a business-related blog need not be dry and soulless. Of course, they also link to their main business site and their current listings. (Wow, check out the architechture on 10102 Sunrise Lane, North Tustin. Neoclassical meets postmodern in the California sun, with a little hint of Japan thrown in for good measure; see the arch, left front.)

Martin Röll, on where blogging is heading, in an interview with Eamonn Fitzgerald: "In three years, Six Apart will buy Google and go public. ;-)"

Per the U.S. Supreme Court's per curiam dismissal today, the California Supreme Court's Kasky v. Nike, Inc. opinion will stand. A link to the opinion and some other thoughts are in my April 30 post, and discussions of the U.S. Supreme Court's (non)action are available from John Maltbie, Howard Bashman and the SCOTUSBlog.

John Maltbie has a good summary of Batzel v. Smith (PDF), a new 9th Circuit decision limiting the libel liability and protecting the online speech rights of Web site managers. I'm still writing a brief and haven't had the chance to do more than skim the opinion, but Judge Gould's dissenting fears that the ruling "licenses professional rumor-mongers and gossip-hounds to spread false and hurtful information with impunity" are being widely reported. (Shouldn't that be "mongerers," by the way?)

I definitely will want to consider how this decision might bear on some of our panel's responses to Phil Wolff's questions, still in process. For now, more from:

• Reuters: "Court Limits Defamation Scope in Internet Case"
• Out-Law.com: "Defamation victory for web site and listserver operators"
• Ars Tecnica: "Starting vicious rumors over listservs ruled OK"
• c | net News.com (Declan McCullagh): "Libel ruling favors site operators"
• MSNBC: "Court limits scope on Net defamation"

Mindsay, from Adam Ostrow and Brian Klug, lets you blog through AIM or Yahoo Messenger.

Enough to raise a child from birth to age 17 is one possible answer. A filter-free library is another. In the wake of yesterday's CIPA decision (PDF), Susan Hildreth (photo), city librarian for the city and county of San Francisco, has a quarter million fewer ways to take care of business: "San Francisco is ready to lose $250,000 to retain unfettered access." (The Sacramento Bee, "Libraries learn: No filters, no funds")

Ms. Hildreth also has been vocal about the Freedom to Read as threatened by the USA PATRIOT Act—the same that recently prompted Geoffrey Nunberg to remind us that "no one is more adept at [the acronym] game than legislators." ("Letter Perfect")

This might just get me to finally pick an aggregator, any aggregator: here's the syndication channel for new law related books available at Amazon, courtesy of Chris Pirillo—who has created 160+ such channels! Surely one or two will suit your interests?

What's up with things that go bump in the RSS night these days? (See Doc, on TLAs.) As Shelley points out, if you blinked you might have missed it. Look for Echo, coming to a blog platform near you. (Some further reading, courtesy of Technorati.)

Here's a neat resource compiling patient survey information about the quality of care in California hospitals: Calhospitals.org, a project of the California Health Care Foundation. "Whether you are having surgery or delivering a baby, choosing a hospital is one of the most important decisions you can make." (Interesting to learn my local bastian gets only an average rating, despite the rave reviews it seems to receive anecdotally.)

Labour MP for West Bromwich East Tom Watson, in an interview yesterday with Lance Knobel: "There will be dozens of MPs blogging by the next election. I'm getting readers of mine contacting their MPs, asking why they don't start a blog."

Meanwhile, another Tom charts a related news cycle.

From the Berkeley Daily Planet:

While the court ruled Monday that colleges may consider race in admissions, it did not require the practice. So in California, public institutions like the University of California and California State University will remain subject to the voter-approved Proposition 209, which bans affirmative action in public admissions and hiring.
Private institutions like Stanford University, which are not subject to Proposition 209, will be allowed to continue with admissions policies that weigh race as one of many factors.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Asserting that California's 1996 initiative banning affirmative action as it applies to university admissions is now unconstitutional, some Hispanic lawmakers in the state Assembly said Tuesday that they are discussing whether to create a ballot measure that would reintroduce the practice of taking race into account in college admissions.

Just was wondering if there was a 401(k) blog. Doesn't look like it. There is the entertaining and informative Tax Observer that launched earlier this year, but ?? —no updates since February. Bonus link: Mad Kane's "owed."

So, I see the migration to Dano has munged up my comments. Working on it.

[Update]: All unmunged, comment away.

Lunch today with blawger and office building co-dweller Mike O'Sullivan.

Want them. (Got to be a way to link those iChat AV/iSight features to a blog interface, wouldn't you think?)

John Healey and the L.A. Times have more today on Altnet/Streamwaves plans to offer an industry-sanctioned, for-pay service on Kazaa. ("Streamwaves Aims to Get Kazaa Users to Pay;" earlier post.)

As my pregnancy percolates, I'm amazed to learn how much genetic testing has become part of the normal course of prenatal affairs. (At least for those who have attained my wizened state; could be worse, I s'pose.) Lil' BH (Baby Howell) thus far has been nuchal translucencied and AFP'd. Against its mom's better judgment (and certainly against its dad's, who gets bonus points for joining in these festivities), BH's parents will undergo some ominous sounding genetic counseling later this week. (Cue Michael Nyman.) The only silver lining involved is another ultrasound, and front row (in my case, horizontal) seats for some more amazing feats of tight-quarters aqua ballet.

With so much national legal news today, I thought you might also be in the mood for a bit of local color. Here in Los Angeles, the city council is refusing to take lap dancing sitting down: "An ordinance that would prohibit lap dances at strip clubs was agreed to in concept Wednesday by the City Council but will be reviewed for further study by city staffers.[*]" ("L.A. Council approves lap dance ban in concept," AP; Reuters also reports that "the council embraced the measure in principle...")

*Bet they didn't have too much trouble scaring up a couple of volunteers.

So says NBC News, with the Supreme Court opinion on undergraduate admissions policies expected soon to follow. Howard Bashman's and the SCOTUSBlog will be good places to go for more as this continues to unfold.