I have refrained from blogging about my instincts about Harriet Miers so far, proving that there is a difference between what I will say at the lunch table and what I will post on the internet.

At any rate, now that National Review has posted a copy of her responses to the Senate questionnaires, the blogosphere can become taking her nomination on the merits. Does she understand subject matter jurisdiction? Did anybody ever teach her to eliminate excess commas? The answers are not looking good.

Like Professor Fleischer I was intrigued by her discussion of flag-desecration statutes. I think her view is that the Dallas City Council doesn't have any obligation to interpret or obey the constitution, but that judges do. She doesn't go into this theory in detail but it does seem to be a reasonable interpretation of the oath clause in Art. VI, Cl. 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires oaths of all state judicial and executive officers, but only "members of the several state legislatures" rather than any other legislative officers.

I wonder if anybody will ask her for more information on this.

I realize I'm technically a co-blogger over here, but I rarely post. Very rarely.

Nonetheless, I think it would be somewhat funny to steal Will's thunder by pointing out that the Yale Law Journal has started the Pocket Part, what appears to be the first Law Review -- it's not quite a blog, but it's essentially one -- bloggy-thingy ever.

Law students. Law schools. Law reviews. What's next? Law buildings? Will the madness never end?

Let me be the first Crescatter to welcome Madeleine Albright to the realm of Gilmore guest stars.

On October 26 and 27, food maven Ruth Reichl will deliver the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale. My, Amy's, and Raffi's previous posts about Reichl are here, here, here, and here.

I have recently become interested in former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Joseph McFadden. Unfortunately, I can find virtually no biographical information about him in the Yale library catalog, LEXIS, or Google, other than to learn that he was appointed in the late 50s, served until the early 80s, one some prize in 1976, and had some guys clerk for him. After reading his dissent in Idaho Parks v. Idaho Water Department the class was trying to figure out which he was: "a curmudgeon or a leftist?" as Carol Rose put it. After skimming his other dissents I am beginning to think he was a "curmudgeon," but that is all I know.

And now I fear that this page will rapidly climb to the top of the unhelpful Google rankings, mystifying future searchers too.

Ben Barros has a very intriguing investigation into the conference notes on Berman and Midkiff. This is not only interesting as evidence in the debate about how much of a foregone conclusion Kelo really was, but also because it brings up interesting questions about the degrees to which these conference notes should matter-- to us, or to future Justices who contemplate similar questions. For more on this, see Adrian Vermeule, "Judicial History," 108 Yale Law Journal 1311 (1999).