Wow!!! I'm #10 on Google!. How the heck can that happen! Who in the right mind would come here?

I discovered the funniest thing today: It turns out there's two Calblogs. This is funny because I was just contemplating the matter of property rights in the blogosphere. Albeit in a slightly differed category than this situation - I was pondering who owns the posts published on a team blog? Surely, if the blog's owner were paying the contributors, the matter would be given some attention, just as it is in traditional media. I was about to write Eugene and ask him if they had any agreement on that at The Volokh Conspiracy.

But anyway, as for this deal with Justine and I: I'm not upset or anything. I mean, the name is my property, but it's not like I use it much. It's like that old car that you couldn't force yourself to take the lousy offer the dealer made on trade-in when you bought your new one: you brought it home, stuck it in the garage, and never did get around to selling it. So, save for an occasional spin down to the beach to keep things loose and spinning, it just sits there taking up space. The wife keeps prodding you to shed that large piece of excess baggage, even throwing out such enticing ideas as using the money from the sale to convert the half of half of the garage now empty into a comfy, opulent yet elegant office/den, where you can sit in that buttery-soft chestnut leather on hand-carved Black Hickory wingback you've always wanted, and puff away on your Cohibas with no noise from the kids and no harping about the smoke from her. (Reality check: How many of you have previous cars that would even nearly cover the cost of this sort of conversion. And how many of you have wives that would actually allow you to use either the money or the garage space for anything that you are even remotely interested in?).

And I'm not looking at this as some chance to strong-arm somebody. That's not my way. And frankly, as a fellow blogger, fostering a friendship with her is far more important then the exacting some windfall profit.

But the primary focus of my fascination at this moment is the question of what possessed Justene to choose a name that someone else had already laid claim too? Perhaps she has some emotional attachment to the name, which predates her Blogger blog. And, not envisioning the blogosphere, or her blog in particular, to be as big as they have become, she just used the Or perhaps it was CalNewsBlog when she first started it, and then, leaving everything alone, she just changed the label on the skin, without considering the possibility of the name’s previous commitment?

But that was the old Blogger blog. She’s gone bigtime now, and has a proper Movable Type powered board. And look, she’s taken CALBLOG for her domain name as well. Whatever happened with those people who were buying up all the URL's with popular corporate names?

And do I even own the Calblog name? What does one have to do to establish ownership of a blog name?

Whatever. A little sleep and a little phone conversation with Justene, and everything will seem much clearer.

Welcome aboard David. It would be interesting to see some follow-up on this story to see if anything came of these revelations. My guess is no.

This really impeaches the whole credibility of criminal justice system. What we have is a "two-tier" system. Those that can afford a good defense, and those that can't. If you are accused of a crime and your attorney doesn't, as a matter of routine, insist on independent testing of all forensic evidence, you either can't afford it or you've got a bad attorney.

Good post T.J. Welcome to the blog.

I seem to be a trend-setter here. I have been a proponent of a Condoleeza Rice VP bid in 2004 since Bush 43's election. Lee Bockhorn writes about it in this Weekly Standard article. I would disagree with Lee on her ability to attract a substantial black vote; but neither of us have much to back our opinions up though. However, I'm sure there will be much polling among the black electorate in the next year and a half.

Bockhorn also downplays the question of Cheney's health. The question at this point is not whether or not he'll be fit to run in 2004, but 2012 (for a second term as President; he'll be 71, Reagan was 73). He does correctly queestion conservative's trepidation about her stand on abortion. But the GOP, if it hopes to win elections, must embrace the measured position of Kay-Bailey Hutchenson, which reflects the mainstream of American Society.

In this Tech Central Station article. Glenn Reynolds explores the subject of international space law, which has been quite neglected of late. I am particularly interested in the sanctity of private property rights in the absence of territorial rights:

Freedom of enterprise. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids "national appropriation" of territory on the Moon or other celestial bodies, but it does not say anything about private property. Most (though not quite all) legal commentators agree that the Outer Space Treaty does not bar private property rights in those resources, and some argue that, properly interpreted, it actually provides affirmative protection for private parties who want to engage in, for example, asteroid mining.

Out of that hotbed of progressive thinking, Texas, we now have pay-by-the-mile auto insurance, I like the idea of insurance only charging for miles driven. But the author, Aaron S. Edlin, advocates confirming the miles driven with GPS systems. The next step then would be to charge not just for how much you drive, but where you drive, and the compilation of large databases on all your travels. Do you think the goverment snoops can keep their fingers out of something like that?

Here we learn that Nigeria wants to enter the space race. More power to them. But I did notice this rather ludicrous statement in the BBC article:

"But Nigeria is ideally sited for a space port. Its position just north of the equator means any rocket can harness maximum benefit from the Earth's rotation, which helps catapult the vehicle into space, when it makes the leap into orbit.

That is just bunk. There is a reason the US has a launch facility on the East Coast (Kennedy) and another on the West Coast (Vandenburg): Due to the rotation of the Earth, the West Coast is the best place from which to launch a polar orbiting sattilite, while the East Coast is best to launch equtoral orbiting sattilites. Most communications and weather sattilites are of the latter type.

Misfiring vehicles launched from Nigeria will fall on densely populated West Africa, not a good thing. For the record: The best place on Earth from which to launch a sattilite is in Africa however; the top of Mt Kenya.

Just refered this to Kathleen Parker. I'm also going to post at Terran BBS. May the blog revolution continue!

This is the first entry of this blog. It is dedicated to libertarian thinking and California politics.