A WSJ piece cites recent studies that show discrimination plaintiffs lose at a higher rate in federal court than other plaintiffs and more often get tossed out of court on summary judgments. But the fact that more workers have standing to sue doesn't mean they will be warmly received in court, if previous patterns hold steady. From 1979 through 2006, federal plaintiffs won 15% of job-discrimination cases. By comparison, plaintiffs in other cases not involving alleged job discrimination enjoyed a 51% win rate, according to this study due to be published later this month by the Harvard Law & Policy Review, the official journal of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. Defense lawyers say that companies are quick to settle discrimination suits that appear credible. Cases that aren't settled, they claim, often are frivolous and should be dismissed. Says Lawrence Lorber, a partner at Proskauer Rose: "If it's a real case, they settle. Employers aren't dumb."
Many companies, looking to avoid costly and drawn-out litigation battles in this era of economic uncertainty, are looking to get rid of their litigation portfolios through any means possible. And that largely means settling. But this doesn't appear to be the case out at Google, where the number of patent challenges against Google rose to 14 last year, from 11 in 2007 and three in 2006. According to this Bloomberg story (HT: AmLaw Lit Daily), the company is going on the offensive to fight patent claims, a strategy it hopes will deter frivolous lawsuits.
UBS has agreed to immediately provide the U.S. government with the identities and account information of some U.S. customers . The bank will pay $780 million. Click here for the WSJ story; click here for the NYT article. Click here for a copy of the deferred-prosecution agreement. WSJ Law Blog February 19, 2009

The New York Post apologized, sort of, for its controversial editorial cartoon that many saw as portraying President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee. The paper posted a statement on its Web site under the heading "That Cartoon" reiterating its support for the cartoon's content, while apologizing "to those who were offended by the image." http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-popost206042290feb20,0,4987794.story

Descendents of Geronimo are asking a secret society at Yale called Skull and Bones to give back Geronimo's, well, skull and bones. Here are stories from Fox News and the Yale Daily News. According to reports, the complaint (not yet available), filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., alleges that members of Skull and Bones long ago invaded Geronimo's grave to steal his skull for, as Fox puts it, “fraternal” (and, it seems, skull-related) “rituals.” A handful of others, including Yale, are reportedly named in the complaint. The descendents say they are investigating claims that in 1918, members of Skull and Bones, including Prescott Bush, the father of George H.W Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush, invaded Geronimo's grave at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, and stole his skull, some bones and other items buried with him.
WSJ Law Blog February 18, 2009

The Internet Public Library (IPL) is maintained by students from a consortium of colleges and universities with programs in information science. http://www.ipl.org/
Example of information at IPL:
Q: Which Presidents lost the popular vote but still became President?
A: There have been four cases of this happening thus far. In 1824, John Quincy Adams was awarded the presidency by the House of Representatives, despite not having won the popular vote or the electoral college vote (neither he nor opponent Andrew Jackson had an electoral college majority). In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes became President despite losing the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden, because Hayes had a one vote advantage in the electoral college. In 1888, in a much more clear-cut example of a candidate losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college vote, Benjamin Harrison was elected President over Grover Cleveland. Finally, in 2000, George W. Bush became president after losing the popular vote to Al Gore, but winning the electoral vote.
http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/POTUSFARQ.html#question9b

1824: John Quincy Adams received more than 38,000 fewer votes than Andrew Jackson, but neither candidate won a majority of the Electoral College. Adams was awarded the presidency when the election was thrown to the House of Representatives.
1876: Nearly unanimous support from small states gave Rutherford B. Hayes a one-vote margin in the Electoral College, despite the fact that he lost the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden by 264,000 votes. Hayes carried five out of the six smallest states (excluding Delaware). These five states plus Colorado gave Hayes 22 electoral votes with only 109,000 popular votes. At the time, Colorado had been just been admitted to the Union and decided to appoint electors instead of holding elections. So, Hayes won Colorado's three electoral votes with zero popular votes. It was the only time in U.S. history that small state support has decided an election.
1888: Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote by 95,713 votes to Grover Cleveland, but won the electoral vote by 65. In this instance, some say the Electoral College worked the way it is designed to work by preventing a candidate from winning an election based on support from one region of the country. The South overwhelmingly supported Cleveland, and he won by more than 425,000 votes in six southern states. However, in the rest of the country he lost by more than 300,000 votes.
2000: Al Gore had over half a million votes more than George W. Bush, with 50,992,335 votes to Bush's 50,455,156. But after recount controversy in Florida and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Bush was awarded the state by 537 popular votes. Like most states, Florida has a "winner takes all" rule. This means that the candidate who wins the state by popular vote also gets all of the state's electoral votes. Bush became president with 271 electoral votes. http://people.howstuffworks.com/question4721.htm

Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, "All that glisters is not gold." Fool's gold is another name for pyrite, also known as iron pyrite or iron sulfide. Its shiny yellow luster has many fooled into believing they have struck gold while holding a mineral of little value. The name pyrite is from Greek pyrites (of fire), from pyr (fire) because it produces sparks when struck against a hard surface. Some related words are fire, pyre, pyrosis (heartburn), pyromania (an irresistible impulse to set things on fire), and empyreal (relating to the sky or heaven, believed to contain pure light or fire.). A.Word.A.Day

With a reported one third of the currency in circulation being counterfeit, the U.S. Secret Service was commissioned on July 5, 1865 in Washington, D.C. as the "Secret Service Division" of the Department of the Treasury and was originally tasked with the suppression of counterfeiting. The legislation creating the agency was on Abraham Lincoln's desk the night he was assassinated. At the time, the only other federal law enforcement agencies were the United States Park Police, U.S. Post Office Department - Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations, now known as the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the United States Marshals Service. The Marshals did not have the manpower to investigate all crime under federal jurisdiction, so the Secret Service was used to investigate everything from murder to bank robbery to illegal gambling. After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress informally requested Secret Service presidential protection. A year later, the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for protection of the President. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service

Keepers (books I would read again)
The Child Buyer by John Hersey
“All’s fair in love, war and free enterprise.”
Life: a User’s Manual by Georges Perec
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson