Today, I'm 30 weeks pregnant. That leaves just 10 to go. (Feels a little like going for the land speed record in a ferret ball.)

Spotted on last night's final Bill Maher show of 2003:

Not Seen Every Day

Michael Moore on national television in a Four Seasons Resorts baseball cap. Moore has a new book in the offing: Dude, Where's My Country? (At the Four Seasons? Notsomuch...)

Seen Perhaps More Frequently

An elected representative doing what could have been years of self-damage in the span of a five minute interview.

Watch Maher's Transcripts page for Episode 20.

The well known law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP has a Research Services department. The Research Services department, as of August 28, has a weblog: "The KERBlog!" The KERBlog has some rockin' goals:

Create an amorphous web presence to instantly share timely, refreshing, relevant, intelligent, and insightful library and research oriented links and observations with each other. Provide an unobtrusive yet obvious megaphone for those professional shout-outs we need to share. Reconnect our massive info-services intelligencia and our collective professional expertise and experience.

Yesterday, KERBlogger Tim had a fascinating post about "a mortal work of art." Welcome! KERBlog on!

David Weinberger: "Don't think our lawyers won't come after you. And believe you me, we have lawyers."

Catherine, this is unbelievably poignant writing, the kind of thing that cements even further my conviction that it's worthwhile for people to read what's on the scattershot collective mind of those in the legal field—whether or not it has anything to do with specific cases, firms, analyses, practices, or the more mundane aspects of what we do. (Of course, I think your "Blog v. Blawg" post has everything to do with "the law and lawyering," but I can be kind of meta that way.) Thanks. I'll be ecstatic if you stick to blogging, as long as I can stick to calling you a blawger.

Mike Shecket writes Diary of a 1L, and is pretty darned excited about the whole thing. [Via JD2B]

Here's the Google News roundup of coverage on Colorado Judge Edward Nottingham's determination (PDF) that the Do Not Call list violates the First Amendment. An FTC appeal will surely follow, but, in the meantime, here also are some suggestions for productively passing the time when the phone inevitably rings.

The Return of the King trailers apparently are available: "1.9 of 8.3 MB loaded."

[Update] No dice, Monday apparently. The One Ring has more (and as they put it, "!!!MUCHO SPOILERS GRANDES!!!").

I'm not sure what to make of this exactly. Turns out the pediatrician I was supposed to meet with tonight, but couldn't due to an accident near Long Beach, is so sought after he holds regular, weekly "get to know you sessions" with the myriad expectant moms seeking to hire him. (Sexist of me to assume it's always the mom, I know.) I can just catch up with him during the next belly session, traffic permitting...

More from Intel on "One Unwired Day."

David Opderbeck, a visiting associate professor teaching intellectual property law at Seton Hall, writes Law, Science and Technology:

Information is and should be free, unless it is protected by a limited statutory monopoly rooted in the Constitutional bargain designed to encourage innovation in the arts and sciences, or it is kept as a trade secret.

Professor Opderbeck's blog is an excellent resource for current news, information, and perspectives on IP issues, and another welcome addition to the ranks of academic blawgers.

Tomorrow is National Free WiFi Day! [Via JD Lasica]

Jeralyn Merritt is the guest columnist at Eric Alterman's Altercation today, and offers a piece entitled Federal Judges Come Out Swinging.

Bye, Legalguy, we'll miss you.

Most succinct characterization of yesterday's 9th Circuit determination: "En banc panel of the 9th Circuit Court rules that the three judge panel was smoking crack." [Via blogdex]

Most interesting footnote from a brief (Ted Costa's, PDF) in support of en banc review: "See also Howard Bashman . . . and Eugene Volokh . . . " (P. 15, n.5, links added; next stop: blogs in the Table of Authorities!) [Via Christine Niles]

Reach out and vote someone: from today through October 3rd, L.A. County registered voters can "Touch the Future...With TOUCHSCREEN" at any of 12 different early voting locations (PDF).

Maureen at Reenhead: "I'm beginning to think that CNN is reporting certain things just because they're bloggable."

(This is one of those been around but "new to me" blawgs.) Kevin Werbach is a highly intelligent and generous person and weblogger I've read and mentally thanked a dozen times, yet never realized he's a blawger too. A 1994 graduate of Harvard Law School, and former Counsel for New Technology Policy at the FCC, Kevin wrote a seminal paper for the FCC on The Internet and Telecommunications Policy. He continues to be a thoughtful voice on spectrum policy, a subject on which he just presented to the 31st Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy in Washington, D.C. It's an honor to welcome Kevin to the B&B blawgroll—with thanks to my friend, colleague, fellow expectant parent, and Reed Smith L.A. office managing partner Peter Kennedy for helping me put two and two together.

James Hilsy: "I go to a great Law School."

Captain Indignant:

I should point out that you can now buy Gary Coleman for Governor products, including the instant classic "Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout Davis?" thong.

(Link added.)

Between 1994 and 1999, the [9th Circuit] reheard 65 cases with the 11-judge panels, according to a [University of Pittsburgh School of Law professor Arthur Hellman] study. The larger panel reversed or altered the outcome of the three-judge panels 49 times, according to the study.

[Via CNN, links added]

Yesterday was the last day to register to vote in the October 7 California election, which according to the 9th Circuit is going forward (PDF). Rick Hasen: "The en banc court did the Supreme Court a tremendous favor." Howard Bashman: "[T]he decision is written in a way that makes U.S. Supreme Court review extraordinarily unlikely."

Jacob W. writes One Maven (with confidence, I might add). He writes of (non)promises, gunners, and law student bumperstickers, and is otherwise wittily observant—a vital school supply that's tough to find in the student store.

So, Carry-On Baggage's template doesn't validate, and its RSS is funky, "like cheese you left in the fridge too long." Worth every penny I paid for them, I suppose! (It's still a neat service, cuts out several intermediate steps to posting photos.)

Did you notice this week's episode of K Street (originally aired September 21) is all about the P2P wars? "The firm prepares to pitch their services to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)." Starring, among others, Senator Orrin Hatch, Rep. Mary Bono, and Branford Marsalis as themselves. By the end of the show, James Carville thinks he has hit on the "money" solution to improving the music industry's image. (It has to do with parking tickets.)

Well, I suppose it's no surprise that the highlight for me of this afternoon's en banc oral argument in the recall case was Mark Rosenbaum's accidental reference to "this Circus" instead of "this Circuit"—it broke the whole courtroom up, but good. Thank goodness for him it happened just as he was wrapping up, and he was able to smile, fold up his notes, and get out, amid the still dying chuckles from the huge panel.

I spent the time, uh, productively, setting up Carry-On Baggage, The Bag and Baggage Moblog, in one browser tab, while monitoring C-SPAN in another. In honor of today's proceedings, Chief Judge Schroeder is the first/test moblog post. Pretty nifty service they've got there at TextAmerica.

"Randy Roberts is a law student, web designer, redesigned the ABA E-Commerce Law Division website, and volunteer as an editing assistant for the ABA's Antitrust Section - Corporate Counseling Committee." (Link added) Randy also founded and maintains the Law and Policy Institutions Guide. The site is undergoing some additions and renovations, and now includes a reference page for blawgs. Someone check my work, but it seems to me that makes blawging an institution. (QED)

The EFF is concerned about proposed voting equipment standards now pending before the IEEE: "[T]he standard fails to require or even recommend that voting machines be truly voter verified or verifiable, a security measure that has broad support within the computer security community." [Via Dan Gillmor]

And Howard Bashman has a comprehensive discussion of what to expect in connection with tomorrow's en banc hearing before the Ninth Circuit in the recall election case.

File these under Southern California culture watch.

Not Your Mama's Yoga Class

The cover story and accompanying piece in today's Los Angeles Times Magazine examine the shift in the world of yoga from "5,000-year-old Hindu spiritual practice that attempts physical purification" to, as YogaFit® advertises on its YogaButt® video, "real yoga for real people." Pick your poison: WalMart, Target, or Marks & Spencer?

The Show We Love To Hate

Seeing as how I've derived immoderate pleasure from deciding which real world acquaintances best match the show's characters, it pains me to mention that The OC is on hiatus until October 30. Until then, I'm taking solace in The Pool House, the Official yet snarky, fun, and Blog*Spot hosted weblog [via Biz Stone], and Matt Coker's The OC Watch, from OC Weekly:

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3 ("Yet another thing The O.C. gets right about Newport Beach is mommy hotness.")
• Episode 4
• Episode 5
• Episode 6
• Episode 7

Jon Healey in today's Los Angeles Times business section ("Music Fans Starting to Tune In to Fee-Based Sites"):

The revolution isn't solely about free songs. It's also about having entree to a vast, reliable collection of recorded music that isn't controlled by radio programmers, record-store stockers or major-label executives.

Sean Parker's vision, as quoted in All the Rave by Joseph Menn:

Ultimately, Napster could have evolved into a bazaar, where subcultures discovered each other. You wouldn't find an isolated person, but a person who had an interest in different genres, with their own taste, who was part of a community, and that user was a destination in that community....It could lubricate the social discovery of music and accelerate it and usher in, I thought, a new golden age of music.

I've been wondering what the Incompetent Attorney has been up to lately, haven't you?

I'm on a big case and I've been reading e-mails all week. I read about how drunk you were last night. I read about that time you did that really bad thing with that person. I read about your aunt who lives in Philadelphia.

Everything IA posts—from Attorney Arrogance to Zesting—is gold, I must get over there more often (as of course should you).

Paul attends the University of Edinburgh and will be studying law and politics there for the foreseeable future. He writes An Oasis—"Just trying to get a little pizza in an uncivilized world"—, an ecclectic mix of politics, business, culture, you name it. Paul is also demonstrably intelligent. Of a recent emarketing conference, he writes: "[W]hatever you do don't trust the opinion of just anyone who manages to get a speaking gig at one of these events." More good stuff over there, enjoy. [Via Blawg.org]