CLIFFORD SHOEMAKER, THE LAWYER who subpoenaed blogger Kathy Seidel, got spanked by the judge for his efforts. "I find that Clifford Shoemaker violated Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1) and Rule 45(c)(1).... The 11(b)(1) violation may also violate Virginia’s Rules of Professional Conduct .... Clifford J. Shoemaker’s action is an abuse of legal process, a waste of judicial resources and an unnecessary waste of the time and expense to the purported deponent." Read the whole thing. Worse yet, everyone who googles him will find out about this -- and that he lost a motion to quash to a blogger acting pro se. Ouch!

JONATHAN CARD is setting up a Space Law Wiki.

BECAUSE WHO NEEDS NEWS, ANYWAY: LA Times to cut 250 jobs, including 150 news jobs. Earlier discussion of newspapers' economic travails is here.

Meanwhile, reader Joseph Beaulieu writes:

If only AP was as skeptical of the L.A. Times as it is of the Bush Administration ...it wouldn't have left this uncommented upon:

"The number one reason that people cancel the L.A. Times is, they tell us, they don't have enough time to read the paper that we give them every day," Stanton said. "We're going to be more picky about the stories we choose to write long and a lot more picky about the ones we write shorter."

Yeah, that's it. People are complaining about too much news. They're doing too good a job! That's their problem!

ANOTHER GROSS FACTUAL ERROR AT THE SUPREME COURT. Following up on similar huge errors from Justice Stevens in Heller. Plus, another Stevens Heller error here. What gives?

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE on how the press is reporting on improvements in Iraq. By talking about problems in Afghanistan!

IN COLOMBIA, A MAJOR HOSTAGE RESCUE and another embarrassment for the FARC terrorists: "Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos has confirmed that former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was held captive by the FARC, was rescued during a military operation on Wednesday. Santos said no one had been hurt in the rescue."

The Counterterrorism Blog says the operation was something right out of a spy thriller. More on the rescue here.

TOM MAGUIRE: "Larisa Alexandrovna tries her hand at rebutting Jonah Goldberg's essay on Obama's patriotism problem, and hilarity ensues."

CULTURAL SUICIDE.

TRAILER PARK: A whole bunch of new movie trailers.

WINNING OVER the Felon-American community.

COLLEGES PUSHING PHONY DIVERSITY:

In September of 2000, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Idaho were both embarrassed when they were forced to admit that they had doctored promotional photographs to make their campuses look diverse. In both cases, non-white faces were added to real student photographs of all-white groups.

At the universities involved, officials insisted that they meant well, but just about everyone agreed that Photoshop diversity isn’t the real thing. But what if photos, even real photos of real live students, convey a false impression? . . .

The findings: Black students made up an average of 7.9 percent of students at the colleges studied, but 12.4 percent of those in viewbooks. Asian students are also more likely to be found in viewbooks than on campus, making up 3.3 percent of real students on average and 5.1 percent of portrayed students. . . . Looked at another way, he found that more than 75 percent of colleges appeared to overrepresent black students in viewbooks.

So why are black students more prevalent in viewbooks than on campus?

“Black equals diversity for many people. If you show African American students, people think that means your institution is diverse,” said Timothy D. Pippert, an assistant professor of sociology at Augsburg, who led the study. “They are defining diversity as that face.”

Read the whole thing.

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