Blawg Review #179 is the greatest thing since Blawg Review #178

Blawg Review celebrates inventiveness on a regular basis, not just by covering the best intellectual property-related legal blogging but also by showcasing the creativity of its hosts. Blawg Review #179, hosted by the proprietors of the Securing Innovation blog, manages to achieve both in high style.

This week's Blawg Review commemorates el Día del Inventor, the Argentine holiday which recognizes the invention of the ball point pen by Buenos Aires native Laszlo Biro. His invention has become so ubiquitous the world over that in many Commonwealth nations, users refer to all ball point pens as "Biros". Equally ubiquitous it seems are "Bic" pens, a further development on Biro's original invention made by Marcel Bich. Even in an increasingly paperless society, there's a sound basis to claim that the the ball point pen is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sliced bread, incidentally, was invented by Iowan Otto Frederick Rohwedder, who apparently has no national holiday in his honor. Perhaps that's because he was unable to pinpoint which development his invention was the greatest since.

At any rate, this is a day to recognize the spirit of invention and Blawg Review #179 delivers. Highlights include early reviews of the upcoming inventor-in-jeopardy movie Flash of Genius from an IP attorney's perspective, transferring wealth to patent trolls in the midst of a financial crisis bailout with an as-yet-untrademarked name, and the launch of a new blog devoted to furniture law.

Andis Kaulins will host next week's Blawg Review at his LawPundit blog.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (186)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Register (from Monday, September 22; link good at time of posting):

The first ever British spy to purposely appear as such on TV had his false moustache fall off during filming, it has been revealed.

The Telegraph reports today on the embarrassing disguise failure, which took place during the recording of an interview for BBC TV's The One Show.

Beeb journo Justin Rowlatt was questioning the spook, identified only as "John", when it became clear that all was not well with the government-issue fake face fungus sported by the incognito intelligence officer.

"He was sitting behind a rather grand desk at the Foreign Office and everything was going fine," Rowlatt told the Telegraph.

"Then I noticed that he was touching his upper lip occasionally ... the edge of the moustache was peeling away ... he was aware of what was happening."

For a while the cameras rolled, obtaining some no doubt priceless footage, but then Rowlatt took pity.

"When we had a break in the filming I said to him, 'John, the old moustache is coming off.' He said, 'Oh God, I thought that might happen.'"

The luckless spy was apparently a veteran Secret Intelligence Service (aka MI6) officer who had tangled with enemy counterintelligence operatives on many occasions. According to Rowlatt, he recovered well from what could have been (but evidently wasn't) a sticky situation, nonchalantly trousering the shoddy government moustache and maintaining a stiff (though now unclad) upper lip.

[Previous TGIS]

Random Thought (13)

I missed yesterday's "OneWebDay." I was on another web at the time and didn't get the message until this morning.

[Previous Thought]

I'm mostly there already -- I just need the "ter".

It always seems to me that Peter Black of the Freedom to Differ blog is a bit ahead of the curve. I like to think that it has something to do with the fact that he's located in Australia, where his day begins eighteen or so hours ahead of mine; sure that's a stretch, but it allows me to continue dismissing the mounting evidence that I'm just a little dim compared to him.

Today's Blawg Review #178 makes that self-deception a touch more difficult. In a Blawg Review first, Black published the entire thing piece-by-piece using Twitter, a microblogging platform which is being rapidly adopted by legal academics, students, and practitioners. Except me, of course. Yes, I know, if I try it, I'll get it and love it and wonder how on Earth I could've made it so this far without it. I'm still not going to do it, at least not yet. No one needs to know where I am and what I'm doing minute-by-minute. It just isn't that interesting, frankly. Weekdays, I'm at home, then in my car, then at the office, then in my car, then at home. Weekends, simply drop the office part and add another few iterations of "at home" and "in my car". There you go -- the past, present, and future whereabouts of the world's dullest man.

Notwithstanding my own Twitter ennui, I can certainly appreciate the enthusiasm of those Twitterers in the legal blogging community and the utility the platform offers them. Blawg Review #178 is a great example of what can be done with this new tool, but for those of us still wedded to "macroblogging", Black helpfully offers #178 in that format as well. In either medium, highlights include an abundance of perspectives on the American financial crisis, the legal implications of hacking Caribou Barbie's e-mail, and the irony that is the RIAA's complaint about a "vexatious" attorney.

The proprietors of the Securing Innovation blog host next week's Blawg Review, no doubt using a method which will make Twittering seem as quaint as calligraphy.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (185)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Thursday, September 18; link good at time of posting):

It wasn't the preferred way to enter the Knoxville Museum of Art, but Richard Anthony Smith told police he was on a mission. The 25-year-old Knoxville man called 911 from his cell phone before dawn Wednesday saying he was trapped in an air conditioning duct leading from the museum roof, Knoxville police spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.

Police and firefighters reached the roof, found a rope and cable and followed them to a vent shaft. Peering inside, they spotted Smith about 45 feet down.

"Mission failed," he told them.

Hoisted up and read his rights, Smith told police he was a "special agent from the United States Illuminati, badge number 0931" and had rappelled onto the museum from a helicopter, a police report said.

He said he was following orders to "defuse and confiscate" a Soviet-made nuclear warhead, specifically a "MERV6SS-22AN" warhead, according to the report. The bomb supposedly was hidden in a blue, plastic cow sculpture in the museum basement, he said.

However, Smith told officers his "agency" called while he was in air-vent limbo to say it made a mistake and the bomb might be in a Memphis museum instead.

[Previous TGIS]

Givin' Us the Business

When noted business blogger Anita Campbell is scheduled to host Blawg Review, it's something I look forward to and (unlike a few things in life) that anticipation never ends in disappointment. So it is with Blawg Review #177 this week -- it's straightforward, no-nonsense, and highly informative. All business, for want of a better term. Campbell succinctly packages the best legal blogging of the past week and presents it in a digest which is a pleasure to read. Highlights include tying-up the loose ends left by today's employees and employment laws, finding ourselves all aflitter about Twitter, and handicapping the odds of shareholder push-back as the government moves into the marketplace to rescue the economy.

Australian legal blogger Peter Black hosts next week's Blawg Review.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (184) . . . The Sequel!

This week's bonus joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Register (from Thursday, September 11; link good at time of posting):

An Oz state government minister was yesterday obliged to resign after it was revealed he'd thrown a few shapes to techno music in "very brief" underwear during a drunken late night party in his in his Parliament House office, the Guardian reports.

Matt Brown apparently strutted his stuff three months ago while he was New South Wales housing minister. Three days ago, he was sworn in as the state's police minister, but his tenure - as brief as his pants, evidently - was terminated by state premier Nathan Rees after reports of the debauch surfaced.

Brown initally assured Rees that "absolutely nothing untoward" had happened at the bash, but the latter told Fairfax Radio Network: "I subsequently put it to former minister Brown late last night that there are too many reports of you in your underwear for me to ignore."

[Previous TGIS]

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (184)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Beautiful Game (from Tuesday, September 9; link good at time of posting):

Stupid injuries are the best. Gotta love rich athletes absolutely humiliating themselves.

Enter Fabian Espindola.

He's a pretty good soccer player for Real Salt Lake in Major League Soccer.

In a game against Los Angeles Beckhams Galaxy, Espindola scored an apparent 6th-minute goal. So excited he attempts one of his customary back-flips, only to break his leg on the landing.

Ouch.

"I'm embarrassed, "said Espindola, who celebrated goals with a flip since his days as a youth player in Argentina. "I'm never going to do that again. I don't know what happened. I've done it a million times. If I would have known I never would have done it."

Even worse, his goal was disallowed for offsides.

[Previous TGIS]

A Literacy Day Event to Write Home About

When it comes to legal literacy, Hanna Hasl-Kelchner has literally written the book. It's fitting, then, that she hosts Blawg Review #176 at her Legal Literacy blog on International Literacy Day. She notes:

Today, September 8th, is International Literacy Day. We typically think of the 3 Rs (reading, writing and ‘rithmetic) as a minimum requirement for literacy yet millions of people throughout the world are still denied this basic education. To address the problem the United Nations issued a General Assembly resolution ushering in the United Nations Literacy Decade and reaffirming every individual’s unalienable right to education.

Hasl-Kelchner offers the best of last week's legal blogging for those of us who aren't still hooked on phonics. Highlights include blogging your way to the top of the Google rankings, reading comically bad copyright propaganda, and tasking a think tank to revamp dispute resolution.

Anita Campbell hosts Blawg Review next week at her Small Business Trends blog.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (183)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Register (from Thursday, September 4; link good at time of posting):

The lapsed website of the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has been snapped up by an opportunistic German marketeer.

Up until recently nhtcu.org redirected to the official website of Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). SOCA was created in April 2006 with the merger of the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU).

NHTCU became SOCA's e-crime division, and its former website was redirected to the official SOCA site. But recently this registration was allowed to lapse allowing a German marketeer Uwe Matt of digitalsuccess.biz to buy the domain on 2 August.

. . . .

The content of the site has since been changed to include a link back to the SOCA website, though not an automatic redirection. At no point did the site host malware. The German marketeer who bought the site claims his intentions are strictly honourable.

. . . .

Sophos speculates that Matt may have bought the site simply in order to snap up a domain with a high search engine ranking at a bargain price. The concern is that there is nothing to stop the sale of the domain to someone with more nefarious designs.

[Previous TGIS]

5 Blogs & 5 Blawgers

Today is the anniversary of King's lesser-known "I have a meme" speech.

Well, actually it's not. It is, however, the day the Blawg Review Editor chose to honor the recently-passed Blog Day with a meme: "The idea is to post links to five great blogs (other than law blogs) on your blawg and tag five of your favorite blawgers to do the same under the post title '5 Blogs & 5 Blawgers'."

In the sidebar of the main page, I maintain a blogroll of fifty different sites which I highly recommend. Although the list of feeds I read regularly has grown to more than three hundred, I've always kept that list to just fifty. For a new site to be added to the list, someone already on it has to rest on their laurels, give up their blog, or otherwise fall from "Fifty Recommendations" grace. That's a pretty tall order, frankly. As result, there are a number of other sites always waiting in the wings. In response to the Editor's call, here are five of those -- five blogs which are consistently great reads but for one reason or another haven't yet made that list of fifty:

• The House Next Door -- Dozens of contributors provide a running commentary with a focus on popular culture.
• Iowahawk -- David Burge regularly offers the best political satire available anywhere, as this past week's Homeric tribute to Obama's convention performance ably demonstrates.
• The Inquisitr -- Former TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley has struck out on his own and the result is anything but a strikeout.
• Pajiba -- QuizLaw scribes Dustin Rowles and Seth Freilich (and others) maintain this site, which bills itself as "Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People". It has those, certainly, but also offers some of the more to-the-point, insightful, and reliable assessments of current movies and shows, together with a number of thought- and argument-provoking "best of" and "worst of" lists.
• U.S.S. Mariner -- This site is not just the best web coverage of the Seattle Mariners, but probably the best coverage of any baseball team in any medium. That the site's writers have managed to unfailingly provide such deep insight for what is inarguably the worst team in baseball this season makes their achievement that much more remarkable.

I'll tag Ann Althouse, Anne Reed, Justin Patten, Jordan Furlong, and Ron Coleman to continue the meme.

UPDATE: Jordan Furlong has posted his "5 Blogs & 5 Blawgers" list at his Law21 blog. I've already added a couple of new links from his list to my own reading list.

UPDATE II: Anne Reed has her list posted at her Deliberations blog. Welcome back, Anne!

If they meant him to take the day off, they should've called it "No Labor Day"

While many of us were in full kick-back-and-relax mode, Jaime Spencer was hard at work preparing Blawg Review #175, which is now available at his Austin DWI Lawyer blog. Spencer posts the best of last week's legal bogging, including a few thoughts on paying for the privilege of being a new associate, how to wrangle a gubernatorial pardon in Texas, and the FBI's contributions to jail overcrowding by arresting a blogger who jumped the gun by streaming tracks from a long-overdue Guns N' Roses album. Hanna Hasl-Kelchner hosts Blawg Review next Monday at the LegalLiteracy.com site.