Miscellaneous

Ann Althouse is a law professor

Posted on June 16, 2009
Ann Althouse is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. (According to her Wikipedia entry she worked for a while at Sullivan & Cromwell, and I can't help wondering if her time there overlapped with my time in the mailroom of that firm. Might have...

Words the NYTimes uses that nobody

Posted on June 15, 2009
Words the NYTimes uses that nobody else does. Just for fun I decided to see whether I use any of these.I used "sui generis" in reference to a blog that bears that name. (It's a good blog-- I used to have it on my sidebar, and I'll put it back next time I'm revising it...

It is not comforting to me that

Posted on June 14, 2009
It is not comforting to me that we seem to be leaving the makeup of the Supreme Court to the admissions committees at the Yale and Harvard Law Schools.".

Took a bike ride out to the West

Posted on June 14, 2009
Took a bike ride out to the West Seneca campus of Houghton College today. It's on the block, and I was curious about what it might look like. Not a very pretty ride, through the poorest neighborhoods in the city. ("and what did you see, my blue-eyed son? And what did you see, my darling young one?" "I saw an 84 Firebird with handicap plates on it...

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I should have posted this last

Posted on June 13, 2009
I should have posted this last week, when I first saw it, but the fact that it has stayed with me this long means that I really have to mention it now, before it is lost to the shifting sands. I love the NYTimes, for all its stuffiness, but since Russell Baker retired you'd have to say that it is a publication that is sense of humor-deprived...

As good an explanation for what's

Posted on June 13, 2009
As good an explanation for what's happening in the New York State Senate as I've seen. (Via Making Light.)

Naturally enough, I think of Bruce

Posted on June 12, 2009
Naturally enough, I think of Bruce Eaton as a jazz guy, but he has written a book about Big Star, and apparently Bruce was a punk rocker.There were some great clubs in Buffalo back then-- The Continental was the one I knew best, but Bruce played with Alex Chilton at McVan's, which was also a magnificently seedy venue...

One of the things that I haven't

Posted on June 10, 2009
One of the things that I haven't mentioned here about EGA's cancer diagnosis is that she found a lump some five months before she was sent for further testing. Being EGA, when she found the lump she went immediately to the University clinic, and was told that it was probably nothing...

I made this Rhubarb Ice Cream over

Posted on June 08, 2009
I made this Rhubarb Ice Cream over the weekend, and was quite pleased with the results. (I've had good results with Kevin Weeks' recipes pretty generally.) Rhubarb is a funny ingredient-- apart from using it in as a pie filling I haven't worked with it much, but I'll bet there are a lot o cool things it could be used in...

Six hundred miles apart Captain

Posted on June 07, 2009
Six hundred miles apart Captain X and I were standing in front of televisions yelling, "Stop the race!". Like Newton and Leibniz we'd independently arrived at a trifecta play that had just pulled around the far turn and was barreling down the home stretch, with just about a furlong to go...

I have a pretty complete Neil Young

Posted on June 06, 2009
I have a pretty complete Neil Young set for the period covered in the gargantuan "Archives Volume 1", on vinyl. And I have "Decade" on CD. I've always kind of wanted to see "Journey Through the Past", but I'm thinking that a 10 disk Blu-ray set is kinda like a swimming pool-- it's better if someone you know owns it...

Good article in the New York Law

Posted on June 05, 2009
Good article in the New York Law Journal by Edward M. Spiro and Judith L. Mogul on motions to transfer pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1404(a). Forum non conviens motions have been a staple item in our practice for years, and the law has evolved substantially...

Cory Doctorow makes a good point

Posted on June 04, 2009
Cory Doctorow makes a good point when he notes that search algorithms are editorial decisions, and I think that this is something that many of us know on at least a subconscious level. When I hear about a new search engine I make a point of trying for a few days, and I'm in the habit of checking back with some I've tried in the past to see what kind of different results I might get...

A couple of weeks ago I was talking

Posted on June 03, 2009
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a colleague who practices full-time in New York about the quality of the judiciary. The conversation arose in the context of a discussion about the note of issue-- the device in New York practice which signals that a case is trial-ready...

The Second Department declines

Posted on May 29, 2009
The Second Department declines to apply the doctrine of primary assumption of risk in a case where the plaintiff was injured while riding a bicycle on a paved public roadway. The plaintiff was the last bicyclist in one of several groups of eight riders cycling on a 72-mile ride...

Captain X lent me Steve Matteo

Posted on May 28, 2009
Captain X lent me Steve Matteo "Let It Be" from the 33 1/3 series (the Beatle's side, not the Replacements-- there are 33 1/3 books on both). For a long time "Let It Be" was the only Beatles' album I owned, so it's fair to say that I'm pretty deep into it...

The New York Law Journal reports

Posted on May 27, 2009
The New York Law Journal reports that the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court may be administrative complication at the Second Circuit. There is currently one vacancy created by Judge Chester J. Straub to takingsenior status, although Southern District Judge Gerard E...

Judge Sonia Sotomayor works for

Posted on May 26, 2009
Judge Sonia Sotomayor works for me. A. has appeared before her, and was impressed, and everything I've ever read by or about her her has likewise been impressive. If I were advising the President I'd keep the short list they used here in my top drawer-- he could go on picking women, and the Court would be the better for it...

In a group of at least 23 randomly

Posted on May 22, 2009
In a group of at least 23 randomly chosen people, there is more than 50% probability that some pair of them will both have been born on the same day. For 57 or more people, the probability is more than 99%, and it reaches 100% when the number of people reaches 366.

There's always a lot of talk in

Posted on May 21, 2009
There's always a lot of talk in Buffalo about cultural tourism, and most of the conversation is about buildings and art. That's fine-- I like both. Buffalo has plenty of attractive, significant buildings; the unique Olmsted system of parks and parkways is well worthwhile, and our arts scene is deep and varied...

Privacy cases in the US are different

Posted on May 20, 2009
Privacy cases in the US are different from the way they do it in the rest of the world-- here they mostly arise in the context of Fourth Amendment jurispudence, a clumsy tool for the job. In People v. Weaver, a case just handed down by the Court of Appeals, we have an example of how easy it is for an apellate court to get it wrong (although the Court of Appeals ultimately got it right)...

I reckon I'm as knowledgeable as

Posted on May 19, 2009
I reckon I'm as knowledgeable as most knowledgeable Beatles fans, but Beatles Anecdotes has got tidbits I never knew."On the Fab Four?s 1965 tour of the U.S., Byrd David Crosby introduced George Harrison to both the sitar and the music of sitar legend Ravi Shankar...

My preview of the Thursday in the

Posted on May 18, 2009
My preview of the Thursday in the Square/Rocks the Harbor shows, including useful links to the homepages of the artists Buffalo Place has booked this year is up at the Spree blog. Bottom line: best lineup in years. Pick hits: Los Lobos, George Clinton and Neko Case at the Square; The Robert Cray Band with the John Hammond Trio and Indigenous, and Great Big Sea with Kathleen Edwards and Jeremy Fisher at the Harbor.

It's true enough that "[t]he one

Posted on May 17, 2009
It's true enough that "[t]he one genuinely unprecedented element of the band's sound is [Dylan's] singing voice, which at this point is a wonder on the order of a wrecked 67 Saab that still manages to start even though the rust has penetrated clear through to the steering wheel...

"So, who do you like in the Preakness?"

Posted on May 16, 2009
"So, who do you like in the Preakness?" A asked as we were taking LCA to dance. "I don't know if I'm going to play it," I said. "Why not?" asked LCA."The filly is 8-5. That's no kind of play. She probably is the best horse. Mine That Bird is going to be under a different jock-- Calvin Borel is on the filly-- and people are saying that he got a great ride and a break from the track that he probably won't get today...

Actual Robin Trower lyric heard

Posted on May 14, 2009
Actual Robin Trower lyric heard today on the way to work: "We're living in the day of the eagle/The Eagle of Love". So that clears things up. What day is it? The day of the eagle. Which eagle? The Eagle of Love, of course.The song itself is vintaqe Robin Trower-- in fact, it is vintage Robin Trower, since it is the opening cut from "Bridge of Sighs"...

The Hon. David B. Saxe describes

Posted on May 13, 2009
The Hon. David B. Saxe describes the internal workings of the Appellate Division, First Department. I love this sort of inside baseball, and not just about law-- descriptions of how people go about their jobs in general are fascinating to me. I was before Judge Saxe pretty regularly back when he was on the trial bench-- he had a deserved reputation of being a law guy, and he was pretty hands-on as well...

Suzanne Vega is the ?Mother of

Posted on May 12, 2009
Suzanne Vega is the ?Mother of the MP3?, and Lena Soderberg is why we have digital imaging, sort of. I wonder if there are more examples of this sort of thing? It seems to be a reflection on the essentially romantic nature of scientists, doesn't it?

Neddie Jingo expresses exactly

Posted on May 05, 2009
Neddie Jingo expresses exactly how I feel about Yes. A great deal of my music listening occurs in the car, and quite a bit of that time is spent listening to XM Radio's "Deep Tracks". Mostly this works out okay-- it is not as good as my iPod on Shuffle, for reasons I will get into, but they play album cuts from roughly the LBJ Administration through Bush pere, more or less, and that's pretty much where my rock listening is centered...

Jack Kemp was never iconic for

Posted on May 04, 2009
Jack Kemp was never iconic for me, but I understand why he would be a figure comparable to Mickey Mantle for anyone who grew up in Western New York, the guy who brought the city the only national championship it has known. By the time I caught up with his career he was a conservative congressman who was working what seemed to me then to be the fringes of the lunatic Right...

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