Index to Unused & Probably Unusable

In light of my relocation to Powerblogs, this post will no longer be updated. I leave it intact in order to facilitate searches of my blog posts from early summer 2005 (when I first began blogging) until I moved to the new site, and as a relic. The Mark I blawg will remain in place on blogspot, as a possible backup site should Powerblogs ever become unavailable.

In reverse chronological order, then, all the posts at U & PU (mark I), up through the last one, as of today, August 17, 2005. (with a parenthetical description when necessary or if I felt like it)

(Later-than-last post:) I win! Also, Powerblogs is the new place. (The final post, for real this time. Unless I post again in the future. Used in order to redirect readers who came to the old blog after Howard Bashman's announcement that I had won his contest involving the best Dumb-Ass Question for Judge Roberts, for (non-)use at his confirmation hearings.)

Change your bookmarks/ blogrolls/ RSS settings/ minds: New Address for U & PU (self-explanatory; perhaps the final post to appear at the blogspot address, unless the powerblogs site becomes unavailable. I may edit this post from time to time to make it easiest to find the new blog, to explain the interruptions in service [I can't, but it's powerblogs' fault, not mine], and to put similar announcements in a visible position.) (my exhortation to my regular readers, both of them, to please follow me to the new site at unused and unusable at power blogs dot com)

Thoughts on the Bar; forthcomng posts; a word of thanks. (Congratulations are always in order when people take the Bar exam. I also give a further preview of future posts, some of which either are brewing or have come into being. The Scalia post has drawn the most interest; the Words post has shown up on the new site. Class action litigation is a topic I'll return to over and over again, but it may not ever be a single big post. Oaths, as I've written, is going to be a post sometime soon - as soon as I'm happy with it. I also sent out a word of thanks to Mike of C&F, and to all of you: the readers and commenters.)

WOTD: Esquire. Also: Fn. 4 (my Word of the Day was Esquire, which drew some outstanding comments, including one which presages my eventual post on the Oaths we take. I also deal with Carolene Products' Famous Footnote Four, giving some good sources on that Most Well-Known Constitutional Footnote.)

Seeking: an anonymous blogger (as it turned out, her name was Opinionista. Thanks, Lawgirl of On Firm Ground blog, who I accidentally thought was her even though I'd already said she wasn't... I simply must learn to read comments more carefully.)

Here's my guess about the President's announcement tonight: Clement's it. (as I had done so many times, I went with public opinion [and against good sense] to guess that the hottest pick of the moment, "the other Edith," Judge Clement, would be that evening's nominee for the Supreme Court. I maintained a perfect record of predictions: 0.)

Who's In, Who's Out, and Who's Down (maybe this is just too current-events-y, but I wanted a space to react to some recent confirmations, resignations, sentencings and deaths.)

A trademark comment! On a linguistics blog! (I heap encomia on Language Log, not that this is anything new, this time for Nunberg's excellent and biting analysis of the Dykes on Bikes trademark registration - and its denial by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, on the grounds that some people somewhere once thought that the word Dyke was necessarily offensive Or something. It's a pretty stupid decision, I have to say. Anyway, it was nice to see a linguist stepping into the trademark field- where they should venture more often, along with copyright, patents, and other areas where clarity and intelligence about language would be useful.)

Becker - Posner blog steps into the Gay Marriage debate - with reasoning (I praise a post by Posner on the Gay Marriage issue, for discussing outrage, rationality, and the hypothetical costs associated with either outlawing or legalizing gay marriage. I also plug Jack Balkin's book, and blog.)

Index: get your index here! (announcing the existence of this page; pretty important-sounding announcement, considering how short a period it was before I made the jump to Powerblogs)

Hot hot news: Return to Flight, and other ephemera (about the impending launch of Shuttle Discovery; Bernie Ebbers' [former WorldCom CEO] sentencing and why he did a Bad Thing, and why Enron and Arthur Andersen likewise had done Bad Things; and a fantastic article by John Carroll about media abuse of the legal system, corresponding to a failing of many of us legal observers, including myself regarding the Scrushy case, the topic of Judge Caroll's article.)

Placeholder 2: Things to write about in time (contains a working list, subject to change, of the major topics I'd like to hit in the next few weeks and months. I'd love to hear that a topic fascinates you, or that you've read something pertinent, or that you can't stand it when people write about it.)

I change my mind: I think Rehnquist will jump (my Most Incorrect Post to date. As of July 15th, it looks like Rehnquist will stick out for a year or more, depending on his health)

Calling London: hello, we love you. (my maudlin and perhaps inappropriate post-7/7/05 post, in memoriam to the city victimized by extremists who cloaked themselves in the mantle of Islam while negating its most fundamental teachings. That makes them the _opposite_ of fundamentalists, but accurately describable as terrorists or mass murderers, depending on your Terror/Crime outlook.)

In defense of Roberts (Owen Roberts, not Bush appointee Judge Roberts.)

Open Letter to Leo Stoller, Stealth (tm) Trademark holder (a funny little sarcasti-gram I sent to the addressee)

On confirmation: in theory. 4th of July commentary. (a reaction to the "incompatible" positions taken by Democrats and Republicans in light of the predicted and impending battle over the Presidential nominee to replace Justice O'Connor on the Supreme Court. I scorned the view put forward by Prof. Bainbridge that the Democratic position couldn't be reconciled with the Republican one, which had during Ginsburg's confirmation hearings had been held by Democrats. He called it a "subtle point and a good debater's one" but thought I was wrong, because Biden was not in his view capable of such fine distinctions. On the basis of our correspondence, Prof. B. is going to allow comments on his blog. Wahoo! Meaningful change, and an opportunity for improved dialogue in the blogosphere. Good stuff.)

Blogs worth noting (First episode: Magic Cookie, Kip Esquire, White Collar Crime Prof Blog, Crime and Federalism, Ninomania)

A letter to Oyez: O'Connor's legal philosophy (critiquing the frequently-put-forward theory that because O'Connor's methods often yielded unpredictable results by those who weren't paying attention, she was therefore unprincipled and lacked a judicial philosophy. I feel that if you know how a judge is going to vote before you get to the briefing stage, let alone oral argument, that means they've prejudged it. In my view, that's bad. In my view, judges who are too predictable are unethical. In my view, cases should in fact be decided based on their facts, histories, and consequences. But then, I'm not a judge.)

O'Connor's out (my take on Sandra Day O'Connor's decision to resign, on the importance of her tenure on the Court [she was the first female, but her role does not begin or end there], and its general implications for the Court.)

Why I've got to stop reading Volokh Conspiracy (a blatantly untrue but useful study, for my own benefit, of what's wrong with reading things that make me angry. I don't approve of incivility, Leiter's views to the contrary, unless it is well and truly merited. There are reasons to get mad at what one reads, to get hopping mad, to write angry letters, and sometimes even to fire them off. Blogging should not generally provide that kind of reason.)

Blogging the Scorecard: Which was the "Best" Circuit? (Howard introduced me to the idea of a Grade for a Circuit, based on its success in having its reasoning upheld after Supreme Court review. His criticism of existing methodology - particularly the poor and poorly thought-out summaries by non-lawyers and those who are unfamiliar with appellate litigation - made me more interested in the subject. Goldstein and Howe produced this excellent analysis of the October 2004 term.)

Tom Cruise is a punchline (I have nothing to add to this title.)

Time to overrule Brown (not because I favor color-blind law -- I don't -- but because Brown suffers for its reasoning, necessary though it may have been. We should put the law of race on a firmer foundation, by replacing Brown's outmoded and sometimes embarassing logic with something a bit more powerful and accurate.)

Why Scrapple Face isn't worth reading (my almost-serious analysis of what's wrong with the eponymous humor site, which takes quite a lot of potshots at liberals, some justified and some in my view wrongheaded. But its greatest sin is not partisanship, it would be failure to be funny. Not a universal failing, but too often true. Criticizing someone you hate is not enough to make one amusing; one has to be either accurate or hilariously inaccurate. Scrapple Face attempts to amuse by painting liberals as "accurately" insane, stupid, or treasonous. Since I happen to believe that such criticisms may be frequently accurate in quality but wrong in quantity, but utterly ignores the insanity, inanity, immorality or impropriety of some conservative positions, arguments, or preferences, I try not to deal with it anymore. After all, there's better humor sites out there, ones that don't think they are infallible. Plus, the comments there are vociferous and largely ignorant.)

Ninomania this isn't (because I have no love for our shortest Justice, although I respect him more than the last time I saw him.)

Depressed? Why, his dog had died. (my third-most-favorite fact pattern, involving what a professor of mine once referred to as a Bad Hair Day for the accused. The guy was just depressed, you know? )

One for the casebooks: Promised a 100 Grand, gets a candy bar (my second-most-favorite silly news story, involving a fact pattern straight out of first year Contracts class.)

Wahoo! Allapattah came down the right way! (I thought everyone was upset about this case. Turns out, it was Kelo, the "public use" disastrous reinterpretation of the meaning of the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment. Well, at least this case was properly decided, reversing the Third Circuit's erroneous decision on class actions - whether each and every potential class member needed to have an amount in controversy in excess of the statutory limit, or just some (or even one). This result tracks my own reasoning on the subject.)

Scalia for Pope (in which I sarcastically agree with Scalia's non-serious comment.)

Anti-Gay activists, God Love them. (because I don't. I took the time to rant and rail against folks who genuinely oppose gay marriage, not because it threatens straight marriage, but because they in fact believe that gays are damned and going to hell for what they do and what they are. In the process, I took note of a particularly silly piece of argument by one of their particularly silly pastors, who made a dumb argument from etymology. Language Log posted about this article too, here: Language Log: Etymology as argument again.)

On Boar's Teeth (one of my favorite silly news stories, with a report on the Wash. State Ct. Appeals decision in an ugly dispute between the insurance company, their insured dentist, and his tort victim.)

Heck and Sartre (random "wittiness")

Bootstrapping and law (post to my first Guest post, at Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground; the One that Started It All (or at least got me some readership)

God in the gaps: 1st Amendment, RFRA, and WFRA (my most link-intensive early post; lots of googling resulted in a fairly useful set of pointers to recent cases on the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses)

Crime & Federalism responds to Orin Kerr re. Scalia & Raich (I love it when people say what I'd like to be able to say)

What's in a Name? Why U&PU? (where I come clean about the silly blog name)

The Good Ones - Highly useful links (the kind of post one simply must get out of the way, so as to not have to interrupt oneself -- a habit I do not have, and abjure -- to say, oh, didn't I mention X website? You should assume the instruction "Read there first" before about half of my posts)

Hot or Not 3: Antiblogs (I soon after gave up this silly naming pattern. I still think antiblogs are a cool thing, as are anti-anti blogs.)

Very Necessary (corresponds to Highly Useful links, above)

Hot and Not: Episode II (more random rantings and ratings - no, not ravings, ratings)

Excellent article by Will Baude on the Medical Marijuana Case (beginning a long tradition of posting plaudits and pointers to perspicacious pundits and pontificators.)

In the vein of TShirt Hell (my first utterly random post. Soon thereafter followed by my second utterly random post, et cetera.)

Hello, as the saying goes, World (my first post, referencing the canonical First Thing in many programming language: mastering the basics sufficiently so as to be able to output the basic, most fundamental thing you can say: hello, I am here. "Hello, World!")