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When you don't have time to read or write you make lists
- These tape men are awesome.
- Blawg Review #7 is up and good. Mr. Richey did a great job frontin' for blawg students everywhere. Thanks JR!
- Blawg Review #6 also looked really good, although I still haven't been able to read most of it. Working 40 hrs/week and commuting an additional 10 has a way of seriously cutting down on surf-time.
- This Rojo thing looks like a possibly cool replacement for del.icio.us—sort of like del.icio.us on steroids. Anyone tried it?
- Legal Lies at Stay of Execution is a must-read for law students and future law students, although I haven't yet read it. It has made f/k/a unhappy, but really, I have no idea what they're talking about. Do you think I should read the things I link to?
- At first blush (and again, I haven't read much about it), this fillibuster deal seems like a big fat loser for Democrats because doesn't it basically mean they're going to have to confirm the nominees they previously blocked? Doesn't it give the Republicans almost everything they wanted (up/down votes on nominees) while giving Dems almost nothing? What am I missing?
- I learned a new word yesterday:
asportation |ˌaspərˈtā sh ən| noun Law, rare
the detachment, movement, or carrying away of property, considered an essential component of the crime of larceny.
ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from Latin asportation-, from asportare ‘carry away.’
It strikes me as a rather odd word. Doesn't it seem like it should also be a verb? “My car was asportated” is rather simple, but as a noun I guess you'd have to say “Someone has committed asportation of my car.” Strange.
- I have a strong preference against links that open in new windows. I have a variety of options when I click a link—open in new window, new tab, or in the same window—but web authors who set their links with a “new window” target play a power game in which they attempt to manipulate the choice I make on that click. Don't these hatas know I will always win!?
Posted May 24, 2005 07:04 AM | lists meta-blogging
"I have a strong preference against links that open in new windows."
I am just the opposite -- I like them. But, sometimes I set links to open in new windows and sometimes I don't. I find it annoying when I click on a link and lose the page I am on. I am now in the habit of right-clicking and selecting "Open Link in New Window."
Someone needs to do a survey and see what most people prefer. I am all about making my readers happy on account of my link attributes.
Posted by: JR at May 24, 2005 08:19 AM
I am one of those hatas. I open links within my blog posts in (the same) new window, but other links on my blog (like the blogroll) open up in the same window. If people don't like it, they can always right click. I do the same as JR and always right click and open in a new tab -- I don't like navigating away from what I'm reading by accident.
Posted by: CM at May 24, 2005 08:40 AM
I think the filibuster deal was good on a couple of fronts. Owen goes to the 5th Circuit. Can she make that court any more conservative than it already is? Brown won't ever wind up on the SC now and Pryor has already been sitting on the 11th Circuit and seemed reasonable during the Schiavo thing. Also, Lindsey Graham has hinted that either Brown or Owen doesn't have the 51 votes anyway. Myers and Saad will probably get withdrawn.
What this does do is preserve the filibuster for the Supreme Court. Imagine the alternative. If only 51 votes were required to ultimately get a judge on the SC after a win by Frist on the nuclear option, James Dobson would be appointing the next 1-3 Justices.
This also shifts the balance of power in the Senate from the extreme right to the middle. Those 14 signers to the agreement basically say, for the time being, what "extraordinary circumstances" means and that the nuclear option is off the table. This is a concession to the Democrats that not every nominee deserves the "up or down vote" that Dobson's puppets have been screaming for.
Finally, the agreement emphasizes the "advice" part of Art. III, Sect. 3, telling the president he needs to seek their advice rather than just throw up every extreme nominee he can. The Senate is saying that they hav a co-equal responsibility in approving judicial nominees and are not just a rubber stamp for the Executive.
We'll see how long this holds, but it's good for now.
Posted by: Steve at May 24, 2005 08:54 AM
It's hard to please all the people all the time.
Most powersurfers, who like to control their own options when using a browser, still have those options and know how to get where they want and back again. Setting a weblog's default to open external links in new windows is not an attempt to play a power game with those readers who will manage to open links however they damn well please.
For others with less experience with internet browsers, it is often frustrating that default browser settings navigate the reader away from the site they have selected and, after following successive links, move the reader further and further away from the website that started them on a serendipitous journey. Setting external links to open in a new window could be an attempt to help these readers rather than to interfere with the choices of the experienced web surfer.
Posted by: Editor 'n' Chef at May 24, 2005 09:20 AM
Don't read Legal Lies.
Well, read it - what the heck.
I love the "why do we pay associates $125K when there are smart, well-trained, experienced Indians who can do the same work, better, for far less."
Yeah, I'll take that pay cut, just because I'm Indian.
Posted by: Three Generations at May 24, 2005 09:27 AM
1. Yes, yes they are.
6. I think it's a good deal; with the deal, the dems at least get to stop two of the nominees--and they made Frist look like a chump. But more importantly, it saved the filibuster for what this showdown was really about: Supreme Court nominations. Bush didn't re-nominate any of these candidates because he cares much about them; nor did Frist float the nuclear option because he strongly believes in Owen. This was a shrewd move to test the waters for the Supreme Court. It was floated so that the filibuster couldn't be used when Rehnquist steps down and Bush nominates a truly conservative candidate. I think that is why this was a more of a victory for the dems than many think.
8. New windows all around. I *hate* links that open in the same window. Although, most of time, I actually click on my wheel and open them in a new tab anyway. Yay tabbed browsing!
Posted by: -Dave! at May 24, 2005 11:59 AM
I'm with -Dave! on the new windows issue. That's why I hate Haloscan comment windows that open with javascript links. They won't open in a new tab with a middle-click like regular links.
Posted by: Steve at May 24, 2005 12:22 PM
"Brown won't ever wind up on the SC now..."
I agree with you, but I'm uncertain what this has to do with that. If anything, this provides evidence that she's not "outside the mainstream." Republicans would have a fairly strong case to make to the electorate if she were filibustered that "if she's not outside the mainstream then (May 2005), she's not outside the mainstream now."
If your point is that she will have just been put on the Circuit Court, such a move certainly wouldn't be unprecedented. Justice Thomas had been on the DC Circuit Court for just over a year before being nominated to the SCOTUS.
Posted by: Matt Schuh at May 24, 2005 01:00 PM
i'm with you on the window tab thing. i like movable type comments - where it'll default to opening in a new window if you just left-click, but you can open in a new tab, too.
Posted by: monica at May 24, 2005 03:58 PM
Matt, Odds are Brown won't get the 51 votes based on what I've been reading today. My point was, if the deal wasn't made, we would have had no chance to filibuster her in either case. I think the Democrats will be able to refute the "not outside the mainstream then and now" argument. To keep the Senate from breaking down the Democrats and 7 Republicans allowed a vote on her for the D.C. Circuit while reserving the right to filibuster her in the future. I think a sharecropper's daughter whose vision of the law means creating more and more sharecroppers would fall under the "exceptional circumstances" exception.
I don't think this will happen, though, because there are probably at least 6 GOP senators who will vote against her.
Posted by: Steve at May 24, 2005 06:29 PM
Legal Lies is getting a lot of attention, good and bad. The one thing I want to make clear is that the Indian comment refers to the smart, well trained Indians living in India, who can work for far less than Americans and still be paid in the top tier of professionals in their country. I was talking about outsourcing -- to India, Turkey, Eastern Europe -- because I think it's going to have a huge impact on the business model of big law firms. And I think it probably should.
I've already explained this to Gideon, and I think we're on the same page, but it's important to me that the post isn't read as advocating some kind of bizarre racism within the US legal market.
Posted by: Scheherazade at May 25, 2005 05:09 PM
