Blogger has a helpful and only partially tongue in cheek "Official Stance" on the Mom issue, courtesy of Biz Stone: "Our experts here at Blogger Support have come up with a list of suggestions to help you navigate around the dreaded 'Mom Scenario' (or prevent it altogether)."

(My Mom's computer shy, but she likes it when I read posts to her occasionally. And show off pictures of her handiwork.)

Displacement of Concepts is by a group of lecturers from the University of East Anglia and the Norwich Law School, writing about "technology, innovation, law, economics, cyberspace, intellectual property, and other things of interest to the humans inhabiting the information society." [Via Donna Wentworth] Very interesting stuff to this human, and most likely you too.

Justene Adamec: "I have a letter from an attorney threatening to sue me and 'my agents' for invasion of privacy, misrepresentation and interference with economic relations all because of the comments to this post." As Steve Glover points out in response to commentary from Right on the Left Beach [via Kevin Murphy], the post and its comments live on in Google's cache as (at present) the #2 result for "Infotel Publications." Some of my initial thoughts on how this kind of question might be affected by the 9th Circuit's Batzel v. Smith decision (PDF) are included here.

[Update] Unsurprisingly, lots of posts are flowing on this, and McGehee has a good round up.

Just noticed that Beth has named her Aibo "Whuffie." Oh my, that's good. And in pulling in that link, I see she's not alone...

Tomorrow the baby is full term. While many folks sensibly get the nursery together some time in their second trimester, we seem to have skipped that step in order to finish up construction. The good news: there's now a room for BH and her/his necessaries. The bad news: it's a trifle on the spartan side...

The doctor now requires a weekly visit. And never before in 13 years of practice have I had to tie up sufficient loose ends to be out of the office for more than two weeks at a stretch (that was when I got married). All is thus a little daunting at the moment, but wonderful. Enormous thanks to all who have written to share hard won birthing and parenting wisdom, and just to express support and good wishes. It means the world to me.

Though next week will be my last in the office for awhile (I'm noticing how difficult it would be instead to say, "at work"), and there is much to get done there and on the home front, it's my plan to keep right on a-posting whenever time and connectivity permit. If things should go suddenly quiet here for a couple-few days—you'll know why!

And oh yeah—we're still completely out to lunch on 1) names, 2) whether BH is male or female, and 3) the requisite vitals: date and time of birth, and birth weight. Suggestions? Guesses? (As of last week, the doc thought the baby already was 5 ½ pounds, and they're supposed to gain ½ pound a week from this point.) My official due date is December 6. There's a B&B t-shirt in it for whoever is closest on 2 and 3, and I'll certainly come up with something (even) more glamorous for anyone who submits a name we actually use. (Fast forward five years: "Mommy, how'd you decide on my name?" "Well, Gnudist, ...")

Marc Canter: "Slimeballs like this guy – need to just go away. [¶] I was on a board that got sued by Boies firm.  And there was nothing funny going on – except that they didn't hit their numbers and the stock was tubing."

Well, it certainly was no picnic selecting which of the 46 blawgs currently awaiting TNB status would fit the twin requirements for today's selection: i.e., not achingly dull, and not a waste of cyberspace. There are many worthy contenders, but the B&B staff (no less diligent for being fictitious) have been busy tabulating results and comparing notes, and have chosen to feature:

Mithras, of the Fables of the Reconstruction blog. [Via Jonas] Mithras is "your basic, harmless Philadelphia pervert with a law degree who likes to beat people and talk about politics. Kind of like Ben Franklin, except not an Ambassador and I don't look good in half glasses." Whether you find Mithras a waste of cyberspace may depend on your political leanings and language tolerance, but "dull" is not a word that jumps immediately to mind. Through Mithras, one can find Zombies and an Interview with the PATRIOT Act, and, really, what more could one need?

Bradley Huggins Consulting Group writes Law Firm Management News. [Via the Blawg Ring] The site filters a wide variety of resources on employment, technology, and other management issues pertinent to running a law firm.

(Some might suggest I should have tried to pick a more scintillating TNB in response to Kirkpatrick's comment below. The on-deck circle will undergo some rigorous scrutiny with this in mind for tomorrow.)

Stewart Kirkpatrick: "Lord help us, there are even blawgs, lawyers blogs, or – to use a more appropriate term – achingly dull wastes of cyberspace." Yes, well, not all haggis is good either.

And this while he's sojourning in Florida! There's a very nice profile of Howard Bashman and How Appealing in today's Daily Journal. (As is always the case with DJ articles, while I would dearly love to provide a link the paper does not make its articles available online except by subscription.) This follows just fifteen days after Tyler Cunningham's two Daily Journal articles on legal blogging. Today California; tomorrow—can we make it Tahiti?

Kerry Sipe, online news coordinator for the Virginian-Pilot, is using his laptop and a WiFi connection to blog live from the Washington, D.C., area sniper trial of John Allen Muhammad. [Via Howard Bashman, Ernie Svenson] According to the latest entry, the defense team is up today: "John A. Muhammad's defense attorneys will begin to present their case at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday when court reconvenes after the Veterans Day holiday. At that time, Judge LeRoy Millette will rule on defense motions that the murder and terrorism charges against Muhammad be struck." Poynter's Howard Finberg has a great post, quoting Sipe, on Courtroom Coverage Convergence:

Since there was to be no TV or audio allowed by the court, I felt that real-time online reports would be the next best way to satisfy the intense interest in the trial. I have not seen it done in quite the intensive way I am trying to do it, though I did find one case on the Internet of a television station that did online reports of a trial. [...]

The blog had been up for only a few minutes yesterday when I began to get e-mails about it. I've heard from about a dozen readers who think it's great to get able to get news about the trial while it happens.

Poynter also links to the AP coverage, and its Convergence Chaser blog looks well worth revisiting. Ryan Pitts of the Dead Parrot Society likewise has a good report on "beat blogging."

Cory Doctorow: "The Digital Identity World has posted complete audio, in a variety of formats, of all the presentations, along with the slides and so forth. ... Link" Cory says he's pleased how our DRM panel fares in MP3 audio. Only the iPod will tell!

Held in Contempt's Heather:

I always scoffed in my head at those people who swore that they didn't have a spare second in their day when they had a baby, thinking to myself, all babies do is sleep! And eat! And poop! How much time could that take up? HAH! I was on crack, I say. Crack.

24 ½ days and counting...

A couple of tech industry issues are headed (in the first instance) and potentially headed (in the second) to the U.S. Supreme Court:

Intel v. AMD:

In this case, AMD seeks to use 28 U.S.C. Section 1782 to compel discovery of documents for use in an investigation currently being conducted in Europe for alleged antitrust violations. [SCOTUSBlog]

Intel, the world's biggest computer chip maker, is trying to beat back an attempt by rival AMD to get its hands on confidential Intel documents and pass them along to antitrust enforcers at the European Commission. [¶] AMD says the documents will bolster its claim that Intel uses anti-competitive tactics — such as illegal rebates, withholding technical information and threatening computer makers that use AMD products — to protect its market share in Europe. [the L.A. Times]

In re Aimster:

[T]he issues of law presented are:

1. Whether, under the Copyright Act and this Court's decision in Sony, Petitioner's provision of Internet service, obviously capable of noninfringing use, constitutes per se contributory infringement if there is some evidence of infringing use; and

2. If so, whether, or to what extent, a court may use its power under the Copyright Act's injunction clause to order Petitioner affirmatively to monitor and prohibit Internet communications and file attachments (encrypted by the sender and decrypted by the recipient), consistent with the Copyright Act's fair-use clause, and also with: (a) the First Amendment's speech, press and association clauses; (b) the Fifth Amendment's takings clause; and (c) the safe harbor clause of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. [Petition for Writ of Certiorari of John Deep, link added; via Ernest Miller and Derek Slater]

The BlogBloke is a former litigator turned mediator, advocate, and "part-time journalist/geek." [Via the Blawg Ring] BB is also a Blogcritics contributor and has instructions for anyone seeking to add an RSS feed to a Blogger blog.

Penn State is among the first colleges to consider offering students "free" Napster access, by building the cost into a per-term technology fee. ("Getting in tune with colleges: Music services hope free downloads will lure students;" syndicated from the L.A. Times, Jon Healey) I guess law students should be happy there's no Kazaa equivalent for legal research; if there were, Lexis and Westlaw might not be so willing to underwrite student access in reliance on the paying customers they stand to gain with each graduating class.

From the "off the deep end" department: "If voters can elect a wrestler and an actor as governor, why can't they elect a rock and roll guitar player, too? The Motor City Madman says there's a 50-50 chance he'll run." (Via the Oakland Press; link added. Don't forget your copy of Kill It & Grill It!)

Hooray for Amazon's two new beta services: Gourmet Foods and Sporting Goods. Here's a related L.A. Times article. One of the participating vendors is Dan's Chocolates, with whom I've had good gift ordering experiences before. A few cool things about Dan's:

• Customize a chocolate box with a photo of your choice
• Send chocolate and flowers in one fell swoop
• Every sale results in a donation (percentage unspecified, unfortunately) to a charitable partner of your choice

Another great participating vendor: Mendocino Mustard.

The Yale Journal of Law & Technology writes YJoLT, the journal's weblog, where articles from the journal are posted with volume and page references, along with the ability to comment and discuss. In the current issue:

• "Mine Your Own Business!"
• The Case of Pharmaceutical Patents in Argentina
• Message Deleted?
• Copyright's Digital Reformulation

Disputation is written by a law student at Georgetown who, like me, is a bit perplexed by the legal situation set up on Episode 9 of the OC. (Among other things, there seems to be some confusion on the writers' part about who's the plaintiff.) Love the "snap jar notes." [Via Dispositive]

Much family, friend, and baby stuff going on here this weekend. (How did I forget to register for Panther?)