Oh, the things law school is teaching me.
"Because of California’s proposition system where anybody can just pay $250,000 to get anything on the ballot, nobody ever incorporates in California anymore. [No credible business that is.]" Referring to unpredictable legal environment, post Prop. 211 scare.

My point: Often esoteric seeming issues of political procedure have profound consequences for society.
Also, yet another reason everybody incorporates in the State of Delaware...

"A resource is prone to overuse in a tragedy of the commons when too many owners each have a privilege to use a given resource and no one has a right to exclude another. By contrast, a resource is prone to underuse in a 'tragedy of the anticommons' when multiple owners each have a right to exclude others from a scarce resource and no one has an effective privilege of use." Michale A. Heller & Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Can Patents Deter Innovation? The Anticommons in Biomedical Research, 280 Science 698 (1998).

Because you might enjoy this, and it is pretty much spoiler free:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3776326015773116485&ei=t2dTS86cFabsqAOgza2bBA&q=princess+tutu&hl=en#

Its hilarious - more so if you have seen it.

Literally 5 minutes into day one of my Patent Litigation class, I answer a question about how the general public perceives the PTO.

Professor: "No. Actually the exact opposite. You're one of those people who reads things. You probably read Patently-O every day. You are a nerd." The class laughed, especially the ones who knew me.

I was completely shocked. 5 minutes into class and I am already pegged with a ridiculous degree of accuracy. For the record, my browser homepage is patentdocs.org, and not patently-o, but those are practically the same thing. I found patentdocs.org by following a link on patently-o. . . .
Really, just WOW!

Prologue: I think the professor saw my shock and surprise and thought I was embarrassed, because later in the class she backtracked saying she probably shouldn't start the name calling on the first day. - Oh contrare, I think its fantastic and an accomplishment to be pointed out as a nerd like that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13beijing.html?hp

We live in interesting times.

“Now when I pull this out don’t be scared. We aren’t going to read every page.”
Then my professor proceeds to pull out a 5 inch D-ring binder, filled with paper. A second shock came when we got ours and found out every page was double sided.

I decided to scan it instead of lugging around such a behemoth. I have scanned around 420 pages so far, one side, and have about an inch left to go. This sucker is over two reems of paper (500 pages).

On another note, this is why electronic document formats are so useful. I can carry that entire thing around, easily, on a flash drive the size of a penny. (not to mention electronically searchable). I'll take the pdf please.

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/TeleviseTheTrial

The judge is taking public comment until Friday.

Personally, this trial obviously has historical importance, regardless of what the outcome turns out to be. The best way to record and fairly present the arguments of both sides is to televise the trial. I think most would agree on televising the trial for the purposes of informed debate.

Court Quote:
“The device's label is 'misleading' because the device is not inherently effective, its results being attributable to the psychosomatic effect produced by the advertising and marketing of the device. A kiss from mother on the affected area would serve just as well to relieve pain, if mother's kisses were marketed as effectively as the Acu-dot device.” 483 F. Supp. 1311 (N.D.Ohio 1980)

Placebo's Sold Here!
They Really Work!

How much should I charge for mommy's kisses homeopathically placed in a bottle?
It could be the next big [comfort of home over-proce$$ed, bottled, and ma$$ marketed] thing.

The below posting looks FANTASTIC. Spend 3-6 months conduct ecological surveys, swimming, and taking pictures.

I used to be a lifeguard, environmental marine research is certainly not new to me, nor is hard work.
Je etude francais trois ans. Je n' parle pas tres bien mais c'est suffie. (probably)

If it is possible, this is definitely what I want to do after passing the bar before I get my results back confirming I passed. The only concern I have is I just might decide to never come back...

( Coral reef post under cut )

This article best represents the issue:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly

I noticed the "ugly" myself and immediately deactivated my account, although not even I noticed the changes to the Facebook apps privacy settings discussed in the article above.
My horrified shocked reaction, personally, was because of the change to publicly post everybody's friends list to EVERYBODY ON THE INTERNET. According to the above article, there is a very difficult way to disable this. Before I deactivated my account I looked for over an hour for some way to do this, including searching Facebook help, Googling, you name it. I didn't find it and I am convinced it wasn't there when I looked and suspect it was only just added. Probably because of the rush of people like me to deactivate our accounts who cited the friends list issue as the reason for our deactivation.

Too little, too late. I have never been a big fan of Facebook, but saw some use in it and at least I could block the many apps, and features I didn't like. I've seen a gradual, and sometimes not so gradual, slide from Facebook's beginning exclusively within networks of universities, to its current commercial atrocity and enough is enough. I am pissed, Facebook has lost all credibility with me.

*Sigh* but I am also the primary web coordinator for the Biotech Law Group's Facebook page.... What am I supposed to do about that now? Maybe I'll have to resign, or maybe something can be worked out. At least there isn't anything planned until January.