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."