At the Purple Dog Café...

... you can howl and bark and whine all night.

"Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger's site."

I wouldn't have noticed this blog if I hadn't read about the attempt to shut it down.

The Vatican rejects Caroline Kennedy.

Obama picks Catholics as ambassador, but these are Catholics who support abortion, and the Vatican says no.

32 million extra males.

In China.

Stylish thrift.

Supposedly thrift is the style now, says the NYT, quoting some wife of a Cincinnati plastic surgeon who has taken to borrowing DVDs from the library and growing her own vegetables, blah blah blah.

Maybe times are hard for plastic surgeons, though. If there's one thing people with real financial troubles can skimp on, it's plastic surgery.

In San Francisco, Cooper Marcus, 36, has started choosing recipes based on the ingredients on sale at the market. Mr. Marcus canceled the family’s subscription to Netflix, his premium cable package and a wine club membership. He uses a program on his iPhone to find the cheapest gas and drives out of his way to save 50 cents per gallon.

“It seems a little crazy,” he laughs, then adds: “I’m frugal and loving it.”

I guess greenness isn't the style anymore or Marcus would be ashamed to say he was driving a lot more just to save some money.

Kellee Sikes, 37, a consultant in Kirkwood, Mo., no longer uses paper napkins. Ms. Sikes uses organic cloth ones until they get threadbare and then uses them as cleaning rags.

Oh, bullshit. It takes years for cloth napkins to reach the rag stage. They do make great rags, though, but this napkins-to-rags stuff doesn't fit the trend story. Unless that "organic" cloth is really crappy, in which case, it's not to frugal to buy it.

When they are no longer useful, she puts them in the in-ground waste composter in the backyard. She plans to start burying her dogs’ feces there, which saves on the cost of sending refuse to a landfill.

Oh, now they've deteriorated to the point where they are not even usable as rags? Spare me. And TMI about the dog shit.

“I recently heard a phrase: ‘Never waste a crisis,’ ” Ms. Sikes said. “I love it. This is a chance for us to re-examine what’s important.”

Never waste a crisis... Yeah, somebody said that recently. But it sure as hell wasn't about resisting spending money.

Judges Posner and Wood don't think much of Wisconsin's diploma privilege.

Uh oh!

Defending the privilege in her brief to the court, Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Sloan Lattis asserted that the privilege is justifiable because it is an “undisputed fact that only Wisconsin law schools systematically instruct in Wisconsin law.” Brief of Defendants-Appellees, at 35.

However, Judge Richard Posner immediately pounced on the assertion as being unsupported by the record....

Stating that he doubted there is any Wisconsin content taught in Wisconsin law schools, Posner observed, “They use standard casebooks, which are national.”

Later, he called the contention that there is such content “a complete fiction,” and bluntly said, “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe the courses are any different from those in Indiana or Illinois.”

Judge Diane Wood also said, “It is totally fictional that students learn Wisconsin law at Marquette or Wisconsin any more than they would learn in North Dakota or Oklahoma.”

Posner even questioned whether the privilege could be upheld, assuming it could survive a commerce clause challenge, suggesting that it could be struck down on equal protection grounds as “completely arbitrary.”

Wood and Posner also both challenged the state’s defense that the burdens of taking the bar exam are too “incidental” to violate the commerce clause.

At the Peach Blossom Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

I may need to take a nap in the window seat....

About that AutoAdmit litigation.

The latest.

... Anthony Ciolli, a University of Pennsylvania Law School graduate and former chief education director at AutoAdmit, can press ahead with his lawsuit against Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley, who worked as counsel at San Francisco-based Keker & Van Nest, two Yale Law School students and others.

Ciolli's lawsuit claims that he was wrongly included as a defendant in a case brought in June 2007 by the two law students, who alleged that AutoAdmit defamed them on its discussion board. He also claims that Boston-based Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge rescinded its offer of full-time employment because of the alleged connection between him and the statements about the women.....

Named as defendants in his suit are Heide Iravani and Brittan Heller, the former Yale law students; and ReputationDefender, a public relations firm that represented the students. Also named are Lemley; Keker & Van Nest; the Los Angeles-based law firm Rosen & Associates; and attorney David Rosen. Lemley and Rosen were attorneys for the students.

Ciolli's lawsuit alleges wrongful initiation of civil proceedings, abuse of process, libel, slander, false-light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contract and unauthorized use of name or likeness.

A huge reason not to sue someone: He'll sue you back. How awful!

"He's a serial exaggerator. If I was being unkind I would say he's a liar, but it's a habit he ought to drop."

"You should not exaggerate and lie like this when you are the vice president of the United States," said Karl Rove. Funnily, the headlines say Rove called Biden a liar. And really, I guess he did... if he was being unkind.

"We don't know what to believe about the Iranian program. We've heard many different assessments and claims over a number of years."

Hillary Clinton, on the job as Secretary of State, thinking about Iran.

White House attacked...

... by bees.

I've heard about it. And now it's real: insect politics.

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I! Insects don't have politics.... they're very brutal. No compassion.... no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. I'd like to, but.... I'm an insect.... who dreamed he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake."

"Many gay men in the ’70s and ’80s [said Jack Wrangler] helped show them that a man can be gay and still be a man."

From a porn star's obituary.

But here's the oddest thing about Jack Wrangler (who died at age 62):

In 1977, at a restaurant in Manhattan, Mr. Wrangler met [Margaret] Whiting, who was famous for hits like “That Old Black Magic” and “Moonlight in Vermont." Although she was 22 years older, they bonded.

“They lived together for about 20 years before they got married in 1994,” Mr. Schwarz said. “Their relationship had nothing to do with sexual orientation; it was based on mutual affection and respect.” Ms. Whiting survives him.

I've spent 10 minutes looking — rather unsuccessfully — for the right Margaret Whiting clip to embed. I should be looking for Jack Wrangler!

Here's the — pretty clean but NSFW — trailer for "Anatomy of an Icon," the documentary about him.

Stupid, but beautiful.

The outdoor class:



Today, on Bascom Mall, in Madison, Wisconsin.

2 good dogs.

Photo (and post title) by Meade.

IN THE COMMENTS: Trooper York said:

Oh crap not another Blogging Heads!

Ha ha. Funny, the dog on the right is actually named Mickey!

Breast implants.

The career move.

"We have developed a magnetically levitated micro-robot."

"We are the first in the world to make such a floating robot equipped with micro-grippers. It can enter virtually any space and can be operated in a sealed enclosure by a person outside, which makes it useful for handling bio-hazardous materials or working in vacuum chambers and clean rooms."

And what else? Really. I'm afraid. What else?

"I think it's Althouse's popularity among conservatives that really gets a lot of liberals."

"They can’t fathom how such supposedly narrow-minded right-wingers could appreciate the work of a blogress who doesn’t share our political sentiments and often criticizes our party’s candidates. Her popularity on the right shows that we welcome and appreciate those who don’t toe the conservative line, who hold different points of view than our own."

"Ivan Karamazov said that if God does not exist everything is permitted..."

"... and traditional legal thinkers are likely to say that if legalism (legal formalism, orthodox legal reasoning, a 'government of laws not men,' the 'rule of law' ... and so forth) does not exist everything is permitted to judges — so watch out!"

Richard Posner in "How Judges Think" (quoted by Jac).

TANGENTIALLY RELATED: Christopher Hitchens and Dr. William Lane Craig debate the question “Does God Exist?” and Craig gives 5 arguments for the existence of God, the third one being:

3. The Moral Argument; If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. Rape isn’t just culturally unacceptable, it’s actually wrong.

How to lose weight with brown fat: Stay chilly!

Turn down the heat. Go out underdressed. You must be "at the verge of shivering, for prolonged periods."

"I’ll be very, very sexy under 18 pounds of chiffon and lace and velvet."

"And nobody will know who I really am."

"He was drinking straight from a bottle of Grey Goose..."

"... and when the deejay started playing M.I.A.'s 'Paper Planes,' he got up, started dancing like a loon and kept on yelling, 'Shots!'"

Aw, leave Michael Phelps alone! What's wrong with drinking in a club? If you go out dancing, why not dance like "a loon"? Let him drink from a bottle of Grey Loon and dance like a goose if he wants. What business is it of yours?

[T]he athlete skeeved out onlookers when he persisted in PDA-ing with his girlfriend, cocktail waitress Caroline (Caz) Pal.

"They wouldn't stop making out! They were literally sucking face, and not caring that anyone was watching," says our snitch, who added that Phelps danced up such a storm that he briefly went shirtless, changing out of his T-shirt in the club and putting on a zip-up hoodie with nothing underneath.

Literally sucking face, eh? Who are these people who go to clubs and are nevertheless susceptible to the skeeves?

You know my position on public display of affection:



So just yell — good-naturedly — "Get a room!" and go find a love of your own. Or sublimate usefully.

IN THE COMMENTS: Mr. Forward has a poem:

Swims like a fish
Dances like a loon
Drinks Grey Goose
Sings off tune
Affection in Public
Isn't so wrong
At least he wasn't
Kissing his bong.

"Our special operations people have been itching to clean them up."

"Them" = the pirates.

Retired U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley, who was special envoy to Somalia in the 1990s, said U.S. special operations forces have drawn up detailed plans to attack piracy groups where they live on land, but are awaiting orders from the Obama national security team....

The veteran diplomat, who also was ambassador to Pakistan, said teams of Army Delta Force or Navy SEALs "could take care of the pirates in 72 hours" if given the order to strike.

"They have plans on the table but are waiting for the green light," Oakley said.

Should Obama turn them loose?

Green light?
	Yes.
	No.
pollcode.com free polls

"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah."

That is so blatantly wrong it's embarrassing. But, to be fair, it's some Obama aide speaking only anonymously, not an official statement from the White House.

Adorable pony alert.

This link goes to a photo essay about a bike ride in the Madison area, and there's a lot more to it than the amazing cuteness of the pony. But, damn, what a cute pony!

"Turkish anchor wears blackface to report on Obama’s visit."

"It is unclear whether this is a spoof or whether the anchor is trying to 'show respect' to Obama, as others have suggested."



Bizarre! Incredible.

"As much as [David Brooks] might like to draw a clear line between his view of morality vs. what 'philosophers' do by using 'reason'..."

"... he himself is doing philosophy and relying on reason."

Jac dissects the oddly popular David Brooks column "The End of Philosophy."

And: The cartoon. ("No more abstract reasoning for me. Yay!!!!)

"I have it on pretty good information from the marines on detail in Iraq that they showed Saddam the movie."

"Over and over again – which is a pretty funny thought. That's really adding insult to injury."

So say Trey Parker and Matt Stone, about their movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut" (which depicts Saddam as Satan's gay lover.) They also say they received an autographed photograph of the overthrown dictator.

"But it grieves my heart, love/To see you tryin' to be a part of/A world that just don't exist ..."

"It’s all just a dream, babe/a vacuum, a scheme, babe/that sucks you into feelin’ like this."

Is "To Ramona" really the 24th best Bob Dylan song ever? I don't know, but it's meant a lot to me over the years.

It remains one of the best songs based on a woman’s first name, up there with Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” and John Lennon’s “Julia.”

Now, let's all laugh.

A question about sexting.

CNN reports:

Phillip Alpert found out the hard way. He had just turned 18 when he sent a naked photo of his 16-year-old girlfriend, a photo she had taken and sent him, to dozens of her friends and family after an argument. The high school sweethearts had been dating for almost 2½ years. "It was a stupid thing I did because I was upset and tired and it was the middle of the night and I was an immature kid," says Alpert.

Orlando, Florida, police didn't see it that way. Alpert was arrested and charged with sending child pornography, a felony to which he pleaded no contest but was later convicted. He was sentenced to five years probation and required by Florida law to register as a sex offender.

"You will find me on the registered sex offender list next to people who have raped children, molested kids, things like that, because I sent child pornography," says Alpert in disbelief, explaining, "You think child pornography, you think 6-year-old, 3-year-old little kids who can't think for themselves, who are taken advantage of. That really wasn't the case."

My question: When did nudity become pornography?

Somali pirates, U.S. crew, Rush Limbaugh, and Barack Obama.

I was listening to the beginning of the Rush Limbaugh show as I was cooking lunch this morning, and he was going on about the U.S. crew that was taken hostage by pirates off the cost of Somalia today. He'd slotted the story into his Obama-doesn't-know-what-to-do template and was riffing away about Obama's indecision and what he must be fretting about and how he'd probably want to apologize to the pirates and so forth. The big show was steaming along. (I thought a good ending would be: hostage crisis... it's Jimmy Carter all over again.)

And then he was slipped the news that the U.S. crew had taken their ship back, defeated the pirates. And Rush should have turned that big show around instantly. It should have been: Yay, America! Americans don't lie back and wait to be rescued. We're ready to fight. We're self-reliant. The government isn't the answer to everything. There were lots of great alternate Rush Limbaugh templates to mobilize right then. This is why we need to have our own guns. This is why the bitching about Bush after Katrina was all wrong. Etc. etc.

But Rush couldn't turn that big show — that big container ship — around. He couldn't let go of Obama doesn't know what to do, and I felt a little sad about my radio hero.

Come on, Rush, be agile! I thought you knew how to do that. Eh, enough about Rush, I want to celebrate the American crew. Go America. And to the rest of the world: Look on and admire. Learn something.

Another pay-attention-to-me-while-I-lose-weight celebrity move.

Kathy Ireland pushes her stomach way out for a People Magazine photo. Gasp! The erstwhile bikini model gained 25 pounds! Please care now so you'll care about the next round of photos when she sucks in her stomach. Did you know how easy it is to take the before and after photographs the very same day?

"I think that Professor Althouse is being particularly tone deaf in her reading of Scalia's dissent in Lawrence..."

Lots of comments on my Chicago Tribune op-ed over at Volokh.

Many of them make me want to say: Did you read the whole column before you popped off in the comments?

Ironically, I'm getting the same response that Scalia gets and that I was defending him against.

"If Iowans choose to open the hood on the Iowa Constitution, it could invite all sorts of tinkering, law professors and state lawmakers said today."

When I first read that, I missed the comma after "tinkering." Tinkering law professors! The worst!

So... anyway... this is a column by Jennifer Jacobs in the Des Moines Register dealing with the aftermath of the state court decision finding a state constitutional law right to same-sex marriage. Iowa voters have the power to call for a constitutional convention, where various constitutional amendments would be proposed and, if adopted, would be submitted, separately, to the voters for ratification.

A constitutional convention is a heady thought for Iowans who see that as a possible way to put the brakes on gay marriage in Iowa.

“I’m inclined to hope they succeed, if that’s their strategy,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, who has saluted Friday’s Iowa Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. “There’s a lot of good, progressive issues that we could pursue: a woman’s right to choose, guaranteed health care for all Iowa citizens, workers’ rights — so if there are people that want to help us get to a constitutional convention, that’s kind of my dream world.”...

Anything and everything – conservative issues, liberal issues – could eventually come to pass after such a convention, Iowa lawmakers and constitutional scholars pointed out.

“It’s truly a wild card — or a trump card, depending on how you look at it,” said Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton.

Drake Law School professor Mark Kende said: “Politically, Iowa has moved a little bit left. One concern might be if you’re on the right and you want to get rid of the gay marriage decision, but the state is moving left, what are you opening up? On the other hand, there’s a tradition of more effective campaigns on the right. Even if you’re fewer in number, the right can be more passionate and vocal and organized.”

There hasn't been a constitutional convention in Iowa since 1857. What would it be like today to put everything up for grabs?

Conventions were more popular early in the nation’s history, said Todd Pettys, a law professor at the University of Iowa.

“We’re a lot more cautious about it now,” Pettys said. “People say, 'Who knows what these people are going to cook up and what if it catches fire briefly and we sort of drive ourselves off a cliff?’”

You may think you'll get the one thing you want, but there will be fights over other things, and who knows where the people will end up when they are asked to inscribe all sorts of new rights into the state's highest law? Do you think the conservative arguments — for cutting out rights that the state courts have found — will do better than the liberal arguments — for giving the courts new texts to expound?

It would be fascinating to watch one state's people struggling to decide what they want in their constitution. Will they understand that the question is how much power they want for their courts and how much they want to keep for their own democratic choice? You don't get to vote on the constitution too often. It's a democratic choice to deprive yourself of democratic choice — if you make new rights — or to get it back — if you withdraw rights.

***

By the way, how would you like a national constitutional convention?

"Is it possible that there might be something really ugly at the core of contemporary liberalism?"

A question for Camille Paglia. An excerpt from her answer:

Liberalism... has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power...

...Liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases on the right are on the uneducated fringe, but on the left they sport Ivy League degrees.... It's a comfortable, urban, messianic liberalism befogged by psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Conservatives these days are more geared to facts than emotions, and as individuals they seem to have a more ethical, perhaps sports-based sense of fair play.

***

Paglia's point aligns with something Justice Scalia often says. Here's a passage from a case we talked about in my Conlaw2 class yesterday:

The virtue of a democratic system with a First Amendment is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly. That system is destroyed if the smug assurances of each age are removed from the democratic process and written into the Constitution. So to counterbalance the Court's criticism of our ancestors, let me say a word in their praise: they left us free to change. The same cannot be said of this most illiberal Court, which has embarked on a course of inscribing one after another of the current preferences of the society (and in some cases only the counter majoritarian preferences of the society's law trained elite) into our Basic Law.

Living in the material world.

"...Dhani Harrison, George Harrison’s son, suggested that Apple Corps was dissatisfied with the price Apple, the computer company, was charging for iTunes downloads, and hinted that the Beatles might sell digital downloads through a system of their own."

***

Met them all there in the material world
John and Paul here in the material world
Though we started out quite poor
We got Richie on a tour
Got caught up in the material world

Tonight's Adam Lambert: "Mad World."

"But why?" — Werner Herzog.

(Via Bloggingheads.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo said:

That clip makes me think how my own life would seem so much more meaningful and important were I to have a narrator and some choral music in the background.

"Shortly before 6 a.m., we saw Pogo heading straight for the downtown buildings some 7 miles away.

"Dr. Aingly explained that even if he caught Pogo and returned him to his family, he would immediately head right back for the buildings.

"But Why?"

Encounters At the End of Minnesota
A Werner Herzog Film

MayBee said:

The penguin goes every summer to live alone among the grizzly bears.

The Czech version of Althouse + Meade.

In the email:

Dear Ann,

I am sure you must have received tons of emails recently, after your blogger love story was published in the New York Times last week. I read the text, too and I could not help but smile.

Me and my boyfriend met on a blog, too. We both blogged for one of the Czech dailies and one day, an admiring comment appeared below one of my texts. I knew who the author was - a co-blogger. He kept returning and leaving more and more comments. I thought at first he was just kidding me – so exaggerated it seemed to me at first...To make the story short: we started sending private messages to each other and chatting on ICQ. We found out we had many things in common and I thought I found my (male) alter ego. We decided to meet in the end, which was not that easy as each of us lives in a different part of the country, about 3.5 hours on the train away. We have been together since. :-)

We decided to publish our love story on the blog about a month after our first date and just like in your and Meade’s case, we received a lot of supportive and surprised comments – our readers suspected something (my boyfriend left lots of hints in his blogs) but could not make the link between us. It was fun to observe....

I think it is rather funny that your story was published on 3 April - that is exactly 11 months after me and my boyfriend met in person for the first time. Although we have not announced anything officially, I’ve received a ring from him and plan to move to the city where he lives in autumn.

I would like to wish you and Meade a lot of luck and happiness.

Best regards,
Anna Leskova, Czech Republic

http://leskova.blog.idnes.cz
http://dulique.blogspot.com

(unfortunately, my both blogs are in Czech...)

It's my dear hope that endless numbers of bloggers and commenters will read and write their way to love.

Don't forget the key step: email. You can love the blogger/commenter to the depth of your heart, but at some point, you need to show up in person and see if the physical presence aligns with what you think you love. To make that happen send email.

There isn't too much litigation in Wisconsin.

Says the University of Wisconsin Law School.

"The notion that somehow civil justice is hurting business in the state is just totally unfounded," said UW law professor emeritus Marc Galanter....

Galanter said one intent of the report was to look at what he called the "consistent drumbeat" put forth by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce... that claimed excessive litigation was hurting the state's business climate.

A Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce spokesman responds:

"It should come as a surprise to no one that the UW Law School is trying to say that we don't have enough litigation in Wisconsin... They have a vested interest in trying to graduate as many future lawyers as they can accommodate. So they have an interest in expressing that point of view."

"I will never forget the sight of our table... with Brando on his left and that childhood friend, who just happened to be Dylan, on his right."

"At first... the Seder progressed normally without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary. But after about 45 minutes, 'the rabbi figured out that ours was not your average Seder table.'"

"'Mr. Brando, would you please do us the honor of reading the next passage from the Haggada?' he asked. Marlon replied, 'It would be my pleasure.'"

Brando rose and delivered the passage "as if he were reading Shakespeare on Broadway. Mouths fell open and eyes focused on the speaker with an intensity any rabbi would covet. When he was done, I think people actually paused, wondering if they should applaud."

Next... the rabbi approached another member of our table: "Mr. Dylan, would you do us the honor of singing us a song?"

"Althouse is presumed to be in some sort of more powerful, dominant position..."

Jezebel opines.

"As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night."

"Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."

"I look after your body only because we need you for information."

The report of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"I am Jiverly Wong shooting the people."

"The first I want to say sorry I know a little English I hope you understand all of this. Of course you need to know why I shooting? Because undercover cop gave me a lot of ass during eighteen years... Cop bring about this shooting. Cop must responsible. And you have a nice day."

Here's the PDF of Wong's letter. It is clear that the man was insane.

"George Orwell once observed, brilliantly, that every joke is a tiny revolution."

"So are the best political blogs – that’s why so many powerful people want to silence them."

(Link via Instapundit.)

"At one point, the Wisconsin state capitol building in Madison was evacuated as a precaution as the plane flew over the city."

I'm just seeing this story. Strange how one can be in a city and have no idea some strange possibly terrorist madness is going on around you.

ADDED: When I was considering buying a condo, I wanted a particular one that looked out directly onto the state capitol building, and I thought about how it could be a terrorist target. I also thought about how it might not be good for the mind to have the government looming so conspicuously and constantly in view.

"Okay, you convinced me to try it!!! I've started a blog and written my first post. (Incredibly easy.)"

Working on an old computer yesterday, I happened across the first email I sent after starting my blog (on January 14, 2004).

Just before that I fretted:

I think a problem with professional [blogs] & humor is that you have to be concerned about your reputation too much. I'd like to do one, but also worry about mixing the personal with the professional (in front of the whole world!).

And, hearing of a quirky blog written by a sociology professor, I said:

It is exactly the sort of thing I'd love to do, but I'm too chicken to do it.

I felt that starting to blog was pretty far out of reach for me, but then, an hour later, I just did it.

Barney Frank called Justice Scalia a "homophobe." If that "inflamed you, think hard about why Frank chose to portray Scalia the way he did."

I have an op-ed this morning in the Chicago Tribune. Read it! Conclusion:

I suspect Frank would like to soften us up for future judicial nominations. Back in 2007, Barack Obama told us about "the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges": "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled or old."

If Obama delivers nominees who've demonstrated their heart and empathy by reaching outcomes that accord with liberal political preferences, will liberals forget that we need to test the soundness of their legal reasoning? If Frank succeeds in getting people to believe that judicial opinions are the kind wishes of good hearts, we will rubber-stamp these seemingly good people.

If we do that, we will have forgotten what law is, and our rights will depend on the continued beneficence of the judges we've empowered.

IN THE EMAIL: "You are a radical and a rascal and you should be on the Bill O'Reilly show."

"Did Robert Gibbs really need to wake Obama at 4:30 am with news of the North Korean missile launch?"

"We knew the launch was coming and Obama had no imminent decision to make. Waking the president to tell him things so he can return to a troubled sleep that leaves him less sharp the next morning strikes me as a PR-oriented tradition we can do without."

***

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?"

"I cannot play with you. I am not tamed."

Link by Meade.

"Should I stay with my girlfriend after she gave up sex for religion?"

For some reason, I read that as: Should I stay with my girlfriend after she gave up religion for sex?

I thought that was a more interesting question!

IN THE COMMENTS: Paddy O. said:

"I wonder how many married men would have agreed to marry their wives if she told him in advance that she would never, ever have sex with him, even after they were married."

I would have. I would have been heartily disappointed in some ways but the chance to spend my life with my wife far outweighs the delights of sex.

That's how much I love her. I would be willing to give up even that. Sometimes that's not always a choice. If there was an accident, or something happened that physically prevented sex, that would in no way mean I'd see the relationship as over. It would just mean living the life as it was handed to me, and being the better person for walking with her throughout my life.

As far as the article goes, of course he should break up with her. Unless he's on the same page spiritually they will run into problems no matter what. Good for her that she's taking a step to find more wholeness and inner peace, and it'll be better for her to get away from this guy and find someone who is a much better match.

Stanley Fish on the Ward Churchill verdict.

"The verdict did not surprise me because I had read the committee’s report and found it less an indictment of Churchill than an example of a perfectly ordinary squabble about research methods and the handling of evidence. The accusations that fill its pages are the kind scholars regularly hurl at their polemical opponents. It’s part of the game. But in most cases, after you’ve trashed the guy’s work in a book or a review, you don’t get to fire him. Which is good, because if the standards for dismissal adopted by the Churchill committee were generally in force, hardly any of us professors would have jobs."

"The cupola of the 18th-century Santa Maria del Sofraggio church was broken in half like an eggshell, revealing the stucco patterns inside the dome."

Many are dead, and historic buildings are damaged in the earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy.

"Those are winter harem pants. Do you hear me? HAREM PANTS. For WINTER."

"It's ridiculous. If Jeannie dreamed of becoming a lawyer in, like, Milwaukee or something, she'd have ten pairs of those made. But you do not live in an oil lamp."

AMBER: Are they that bad?

ALEXIS: Honey, they give you Grandpa Crotch.

AMBER: ... Okay, let's get out of here.

ALEXIS: Finally.

Girlfriends don't let girlfriends wear horrible pants.

Bob Dylan on Barack Obama: "He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real."

From an interview with The Times Online's Bill Flanagan:

First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage - cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

BF: In what way?

BD: First of all, Barack is born in Hawaii. Most of us think of Hawaii as paradise – so I guess you could say that he was born in paradise....

BF: What in his book would make you think he’d be a good politician?

BD: Well nothing really....

BF: Do you think he’ll make a good president?

BD: I have no idea. He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that … Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.

Which celebrities do you think have a Google alert on their names?

Billy Bob Thornton?

What do you do on a long drive when you are overcome with sleepiness?

That was me sleeping in the reclined front seat of my car in the parking lot of a McDonald's in El Paso, Illinois yesterday.

Mickey Kaus on Sniggergate.

"Sniggered? You make the call!"

ADDED: I accept the apology.

"I give you Jane Althouse Eyre…"

"Reader, I married him... "

Meade reads the paper.

A late night post.

I'm back in Madison now, after 500 more miles of driving.

Yesterday:

Let me supply the missing links for that NYT article about the Althouse + Meade love story.

Here's the whole article. What follows are the bits that could do with links to the various blog posts and comments that are mentioned:

... the March 22 announcement on her blog...

“Does she know the guy?” sniggered Mickey Kaus, the Slate blogger, in a bloggingheads.tv interview....

... Andrew Sullivan (who also snickered at her betrothal last week)...

... about three years ago, when Ms. Althouse and her ex had a blog-spat, Mr. Meade, whose marriage was then unraveling, commented on Mr. Cohen’s behalf...

In a January post, Ms. Althouse listed lessons from Clint Eastwood’s film “Gran Torino.”...

The next morning, she posted a harsh review of “The Wrestler,” but didn’t mention the date itself....

On Friday, Feb. 13,... the commentariat buzzed with suspicion. “I think the professor has a boyfriend.” Another wrote: “Has anyone seen Meade lately?”

The next morning, Valentine’s Day, Ms. Althouse posted a photograph of the cafe with the caption, “In the Heartland.”...

On Feb. 28, Ms. Althouse posted a photo of a skillet on a stove, with the headline: “You cook breakfast. I’ll blog it.”...

Two weeks ago, Ms. Althouse put up a series of photos. The final was a close-up of her hand, trying on Tiffany sparklers. The commentariat went wild....