Bags: packed.

Itinerary: grueling.

Company: ecclectic.

see you next week

Gather No Spoofs

Chris pointed me toward a good Rolling Stone opinion piece by David Kushner about the peer-to-peer network seige. Chris has more at his place about the cluelessness of things like the Berman/Coble bill (PDF, via Politech), and the article itself offers examples of why these sorts of measures are a huge waste of time.

with, bear

Hmm, am having the fun of Blogger refusing to update my template. Sorry if your sidebar link just vanished. Hopefully it will let me bring things up to speed later.
--Better now.

Commendations, Pack Your Bags

The Blawg Patrol has had such a smashingly successsful week that the Bureau's jet is fueling to take the field unit to the Azores. Who knows what they may dig up there, but they've earned it so off they go. Here are some of ways they've been strutting their stuff this week, but first don't forget we've already had an interim report featuring three fine blawgers. The home office also has been behind on its paperwork and meaning to highlight Jennifer Granick (The Shout: Opinions on Everything), of Stanford Law School and Donna's blogroll. Now that's done, back to the unit.

Agent Altreuter reports in that Strike Team Charon is the brainchild of Mark, a Connecticut lawyer in private practice. (If Mark has no objection to use of his last name, I'll add that later and remove him from the "deep cover" division.) Mark's a gamer and compadre of Dorothea's (Hi Dorothea, you Paynt-splattered goddess, you), and I'm enamored not just of his writing but also his comment-comments: "Report in!" ... "1 casualty" ... "[x] victims in the mayhem"

Ernie, Rick: ready? Agent Cooper has tracked down The LitiGator, a Radio, um, URL maintained by "Michigan lawyers specializing in civil litigation." More from their inaugural 7/6/02 post:

We are a Michigan litigation law firm.  Our postings will naturally follow our work and our other interests, which include legal applications of technology, politics, social and moral issues, and other discrete areas.

We do not call this a "blog", because we don't happen to like the term.  If we have to name it, it will be called a weblog or web-based log.

Hopefully no one will object to "blawg..." ;-] (I'd encourage them to stop worrying and learn to love the "blog," especially in light of what William Safire [via Scripting News] and Geoffrey Nunberg have to say on the subject. By the way, Rick, there's no question: you're Hot.)

The stewardess (we'll never keep good staff if I keep throwing that sort of language around!) flight attendant has been instructed to provide Agent Cooper with all the snacks he desires, as an added bonus for his double blawg-spot this week. I'll let him introduce you to Sam Heldman in his own words:

Sam Heldman works in the Washington, D.C. office of an Alabama law firm; his weblog focuses on the Alabama court of appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (which includes Alabama), and the National Labor Relations Board.

(The culprit must have realized Agent Cooper was hot on his trail because he also sent in an email confession. Always appreciated.) Sam mentions being "a little queasy in the effort to balance candor and style, on the one hand, with not-alienating-people on the other." I liked his post on the subject, and enthusiastically recommend Rebecca Blood's The Weblog Handbook if these sorts of things are on your mind. These reviews help explain why.

Finally, the home office urges the field unit (who're now too schnockered somewhere over the Atlantic to pay any attention, but oh well), and any as yet unapprehended blawgers, to consider their blawging roots and hang awhile with witty and prolific blawger Burt Hanson (BurtLaw's Law And Everything Else), who's been at it since 2000. Bring a biscuit for Mathilda.
--Later: There's little chance you'd neglect him either, but just wanted to note Dodd Harris has been around the blawg a few times himself (ok stop; those groans were audible), firing things up as he did in November '00.

That George Partington

In case you were wondering about how WorldCom was clued enough to generate this -- Blogging: Electronic Postings And Links Bring Vital Information To The Surface -- and just who was the primum mobile within the organization, Jeneane explains and comments. I second those emotions, and Hot Damn, it's been exhilarating connecting by phone this week with Jeneane and Chris. Just as it was pure joy to meet up with Frank and Mrs. Frank last month. It's high irony, as Chris has deliciously pointed out, that it takes a global Internet backbone and technology I can never hope to fully grasp to ultimately connect people in the most low tech of ways. I'm more fired up about that one thing, and the promise it holds for individuals, business and society, than anything else that comes to mind right now. (Except maybe the fact I'm about to enjoy a few days' vacation and catch seriously up on my reading. A close second.)