Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Hey LBB, did you hear that Bush's 2009 budget kills the funding for the RIF [Reading Is Fundamental] program? Doesn't that suck?
- Wonk-a Wonk

Dear Wonk-a Wonk,
( x-posted from Ask The Little Bald Bastard cuz it's important. )

I'm working as an intern with a policy group called Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. We're working to replace partisan election of appellate judges in Pennsylvania with a Merit Selection plan. We're about to introduce bills in the PA House and Senate, and we just launched a new blog at JudgesOnMerit.org. If you have any interest in judicial reform, please check it out.

You're welcome.

Thanks to opadit for the screenshot.

  For once, hard work has a tangible payoff. I was doing a little preemptive Spring cleaning, getting rid of accumulated crap in the basement of the Bald Cave, and I came across a small box of rejected Venue Photo Poll questions that I must have saved for use as Ask The Little Bald Bastard questions. After some sorting to remove questions that were too obviously dated or obscure, I'm left with a few dozen queries that I'll be answering some time in the near future. So dial in for a snapshot of the last fifteen minutes of a Venue meeting circa 2002. If you happen to recognize a question that you submitted, feel free to claim it in a comment.

There's a new question and answer up at Ask The Little Bald Bastard. If you liked The Polar Express, you probably shouldn't read it. Really, it's kind of mean.

If you hate to leave Livejournal, you can grab the feed at asklbb. Provided that it updates sometime this week. One never knows.

...who would appreciate a smoke signal when I update Ask The Little Bald Bastard? I know a bunch of you subscribe to asklbb (and I love you all), but I know it doesn't always grab the feed updates in a timely manner. Would I be wasting your time if I gave a wave when I answer a new question?

  Our Criminal Procedure professor made us get together in groups and write up sample exam questions on Miranda, the Sixth Amendment and the Exclusionary Rule. In the interest of anonymity, we were told to turn in the assignment under a team name. I threw out some ideas, and we settled on "Mirandapants and The Unreasonables" as our team name.

  My brain does stupid things when it's supposed to be productive. Below is the track listing for The Unreasonables' long-out-of-print 1963 album "Scrupulously Honoring My Baby."

No More Questions! (Invocation Proclamation)
You Can't Exclude My Heart
Deliberately Eliciting Your Love
You've Got My Love In Custody (Better Not Interrogate It)
Voluntary Waiver of Heartbreak
You Got No Right (To Treat Me So Bad)
Post-Indictment, Call My Lawyer Blues
Knowingly, Intelligently and Voluntarily In Love
Can't Impeach My Baby's Testimony
That Poisonous Tree (Don't Eat the Fruit)

I am so sorry.

LAW SCHOOL MUSICAL
(some NSFW language)



(x-posted to asklbb)

  For those of you who are subscribed to the asklbb feed, I've added two updates today, and Livejournal hasn't discovered them yet. If you care.

My wife is on a train to New York City, and I am home alone. Dance for my amusement, Internets!

  For those of you who don't subscribe to asklbb, there's a new entry up at Ask the Little Bald Bastard. I'm proud of it, in a weird sort of way. I think it strikes a good balance between philosophical, scientifical, and moderately amusing. I hope you'll check it out, and let me know what you think.

[x-posted to asklbb]

  I went and Simpsons-ized myself too. Had to add my patchy facial scruff myself.

...would anybody notice?

  I have, however, been keeping up a fairly steady stream of updates at Ask The Little Bald Bastard. The fact that I've posted at all is just this side of remarkable; summer classes have been a lot more work-intensive than I expected. Thanks to some abrupt staffing changes, my no-stress, no-responsibility summer job has become much more of a burden than it should have been.

  If you haven't already, now would be a good time to add asklbb to your friends list. I'm going to try adding illustrations to a few more entries in August, once finals are over. The first one went over fairly well, at least in my house, so I figure it might be worth repeating.

  And hey, thanks to the 22 people who've already signed up. Early adopters get the best presents when present-giving time comes.

  I am effectively washed out of the write-on contest for the law review. I've been sick twice in the 10 days since I got the competition materials, first with a nasty cold and then a bout of something intestinal. Both of them left me bed-ridden and unable to function, effectively wiping out half the allotted time, including most of both weekends.

  I'm not technically out of the running; I have until 5 pm Friday to finish my analysis, write and edit a 3,000 word note. But with work, three nights of classes with their attendant reading, and two major written assignments due the following week, there's no way I'm going to put together a note that will be good enough to get me on the law review.

For perhaps the fourth time in my adult life, I left the house without a belt today. My pants aren't exactly falling down, but they're uncomfortably vague around my middle. - 5

I also left the house without my cellphone this morning. Chances are that I will received no calls before I can retrieve it, but my absentmindedness is still annoying. - 2

Today is my 2nd wedding anniversary. My wife is smart, beautiful, sexy, witty and wonderful. + 1,000

I got my grades for the Spring quarter and, through some fluke of tortured mathematics, my GPA improved enough that I'll be keeping my scholarship next year. + 2

Final Score: +995 Not bad for a Tuesday.

  Reports of my popularity were exaggerated. It turns out that my attempts to include a hit counter in the individual posts resulted in double and triple counting pageloads on the front page. The increased traffic that I was seeing in the wake of Blog Like It's The End Of The World 2007 was completely artificial.

  In the interest of veracity, I've attempted to roll the counter back to pre-stupidity levels. It should reflect the actual number of pageloads, more or less.

*sigh*

  It's been a week since I participated in Blog Like It's The End Of The World 2007. I've found a bunch of neat blogs to read, and the average daily traffic at Ask The Little Bald Bastard has increased fourfold. I have no doubt that it will drop off shortly, but it's nice while it lasts.