Over at my solo blog, I just put up a post about the midnight (ET) launching of De Novo, a new group blog I'm part of that's basically the successor to En Banc, which closed about a month ago. We're launching with something we're calling a "symposium," basically a collection of essays on legal education that we've been fortunate enough to be able to collect from some of our favorite legal bloggers, including Will right here (whose entry will appear later this week), who wrote a fantastic post on why he's going to law school that I can't wait to see the wonderful reaction it'll get from readers, because it's quite good. We're hoping the essays start some sort of conversation. It's an experiment. We'll see what happens. More explanation at my solo blog; or, soon, over at De Novo. I'll continue posting here like I've been, as long as Will and the rest of the gang will continue to have me. And at my solo blog, and, quite frankly, pretty much anywhere if you ask nicely enough. :) Enough self-promotion. I owe you something good tomorrow (that I won't post anywhere else) for tolerating this long-winded link elsewhere.

I've just gotten around to adding the Waddling Kitchen to the blogroll, and WT vindicates my choice:

Cooking for one is a real challenge. More accurately, it's a challenge if you care at all about being efficient. If cooking 5 separate meals per work week doesn't bother you, then cooking for one is theoretically simple - you find five meals you're interested in eating, and cook them in turn. However, it's clear that cooking in this kind of ad hoc way presents several problems. You end up buying too much food, it's hard to think of five discrete meals every single week, and it takes a lot of time. Unless you happen to be home all day, and few people who are cooking for one can afford to do that, there has to be a better answer. Otherwise, it's all to easy to stumble out of your front door in the direction of the nearest pizza joint, which for me happens to be exactly 5 yards due west of my apartment.

As America dithers about what to do to fight the obesity epidemic, contemplating better labeling and other, more activist stances, the European experiences with such approach as taxes on fattening foods and bans on advertising to children are worth noting.

From The Economist:

Yet the [British] government swiftly swatted away the idea of a fat tax, and Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, has said that she is sceptical about an advertising ban. Mr Reid [health secretary] says the government wants to be neither a “nanny state” nor a “Pontius Pilate state which washes its hands of its citizens' health”.

Why this ambivalence? Not because of doubts that obesity is a serious problem. It increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Rather, because it is not clear that the government can do much about it. There's no evidence that making fatty foods more expensive would put people off them; and in Sweden, where advertising to minors is already banned, children are as porky as they are in any comparable country.

The dollar is strong against the peso, but weak against the euro. Unsurprisingly, tourists are flocking from Europe to Argentina. (Ironically, my family is currently in Europe-- of course, this is my fault, since once upon a time they were supposed to be visiting me.)

Still, if any reader is planning to go to Argentina in the near future, take me with you.

The 2004 NCAA brackets are here. The Big Ten offers up Michigan St.(7), Wisconsin(6) and Illinois(5). My favorite underdog, Florida A&M is stuck with the opening-round game (16 v. 16). Thinking of gambling on the games? Then listen here first.

Does anyone know where I might be able to find a somewhat cheaper version of this device that Wired profiles, the Magellan GSC 100? It's got the GPS navigation technology and works absolutely worldwide. It also handles email (storing 100 messages [so few!]) and will cost roughly $1000. After that, there's a $50 activation fee, a $30 monthly fee that gets you 10 emails sent and 30 checks for new emails, and a charge of 1-cent per character sent after that. At that price, wouldn't a cheap laptop with a modem be a better way to go?

Working worldwide (some unknown place in Kazakhstan) is essential, so I think what I'm in the market for must be somehow satellite based. I think I'd probably have the ability to plug it into a phone line that could make local calls, though. I don't need the ability to email from random mountain tops, but it would be nice. Time restrictions are ok, so long as I can compose and read messages while off-line. Restrictions on the total number of emails sent and charges by length don't work well for me. Reasonably small is good, but I could probably go as heavy as 10 or 15 pounds without a problem (but smaller and GPS navigation would be a great bonus).

Any recommendations?

In his essay The Law Can't Stop at the Church Door for today's Washington Post, Stephen H. Galebach hopes for government intervention to help the Catholic Church manage the problem of clergy abusing children. Galebach, who is both a Catholic and an attorney, criticizes the legal system for standing silently during the past few decades and allowing the Church to retreat behind at claim of "church autonomy" when it was criticized, particularly for hiring and shuffling around priests who were known or highly suspected of being child abusers. He suggests that if there is a systemwide coverup, RICO would be a useful tool for targeting those who hid abuse cases.

I don't think the doctrine of "church autonomy" is much of a problem anymore (he does note, however, that the doctrine was never endorsed by the Supreme Court). As I understand it, Employment Div. v. Smith would require the Catholic Church to follow the mandatory reporting guidelines for suspected abuse.

The concern, though, with requiring the Catholic Church to be as open as a prosecutor might find ideal, is that after having two millennia to get their act together, the Catholic Church is very adept at being secretive if it should desire to hide things. The Crimen Sollicitationis is a 1962 memo from the Holy Office of the Vatican that explains how the crime of solicitation by clergy should be handled. It requires that anyone who knows that a priest is an abuser step forward and report him, on pain of excommunication. But the report was to be made within the church and the charge investigated through an entirely secret tribunal. It presents a compelling image of information sworn to always be hidden. After the Crimen Sollicitationis was uncovered two years ago, bishops disclaimed any knowledge of it and its recommended procedures. Not surprising: the first instructions require that it "be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia as strictly confidential." How is anyone to know how widely distributed this memo really was?

I worry that aggressively prosecuting RICO and other means against the Catholic Church might trigger a retreat into deep secrecy. Greater secrecy might aid the small fraction of the clergy who are abusers. Maybe RICO or other forceful government action would actually be a cleansing of the Augean stables, but that's not a reaction that can be presumed. But the other problem with backing off on prosecuting and trusting the Catholic Church to handle it in its own way, even if that were a trustworthy move, is that granting them separate rules runs into the First Amendment: entanglement and favoritism to a particular religious institution.

I certainly bear no great love to the Republican Party, nor any real delusions that Republican politics will harbor my Libertarian leanings. [As Jacob Levy notes, it would be nice if Republicans remembered they were supposed to make up for their social conservatism by being pro-trade.]

But Matthew Yglesias and Chris Lawrence have good posts on why Libertarians are rarely really motivated about defecting to the Democrats. Yglesias writes:

The Democratic Party's attitude toward topics like the drug war, free speech, gay rights, etc. all too often seems to be -- "one day we will have utterly vanquished the Republican Party and then it will be safe to do something about this stuff."

I've been meaning to post on Waddling Thunder's delicious encomium to bread for a while now, but Heidi reminded me to finally do it. [In related news, while Krispy Kremes are bad for you, apparently they aren't that bad for you.]

Anyway, I found WT's post sufficiently mouth-watering that there's now some rather garlicky mayonnaise sitting in my refrigerator begging to be paired later tonight with some of this crumbly baguette (home of today's Obama sighting).

Still, while I don't champion the Atkins diet at all, I do know folks who've been both happy and healthy by doing little things like avoiding bread and carbs during the day (when, supposedly, they will make you crave more bread and carbs) or eating less bad bread and more salads (during the numerous times when truly good food is noplace to be had).

Anyway, bread is good, gimmicks are bad, but knowing thyself is also good.

[Oh, and while Waddling Thunder's normal blog is good, the Waddling Kitchen is far better.]

Now you can re-read your favorite Science Fiction novels and advance the sum of human knowledge at the same time. Link via LanguageHat.

Senate candidate Barack Obama dropped by Hyde Park's Bonjour Bakery at noon while I happened to be there (Obama is the Senate candidate with the groovy campaign song and impressive cv). It was a quiet stop — ten or so campaign volunteers standing around with Obama pins and pamphlets — to encourage people to come out and vote in support, not a time for tricky questioning or involved speeches. A more elderly Obama supporter said that a trip to Bonjour Bakery was former Senator Paul Douglas's habit on the Sunday before an election.

Obama shook the hands and greated everyone who was standing around for him, starting with the volunteers who'd organized this stop. When he came to Will and me, he asked us if we were students at the university and if we were registered to vote in Illinois. Yes, yes. Get your friends to vote, he encouraged us. You need to wear a warmer jacket, he advised me after shaking my hand. Well, yes, it didn't look like such a cold day when I looked out this morning.

So, go vote on Tuesday if you can, for Obama if you will. And if you know how to figure out what polling place to go to (I don't know where my registration card is), drop me an email.

UPDATE: Thanks to Maureen Craig for pointing out the "Where do I vote?" feature on the sidebar of ChicagoElections.com. Not bad -- I vote at the fire station just down my street and around past Jimmy's.