If you want to get bloggers to link to something, talk about blogs. This is a site that purports to provide linking information about the 297 most influential political blogs. Apparently your circles are bigger if you are linked by more sites, and your position on the map (right or left) is dependent on the character of the sites that link you (the more uniquely conservative your links, the further right your positioning).

If I understand it right.

Here’s the pretty map, with this blog’s position:

Smack dab in the middle of the conservatives. Seems about right.

Will Justice Scalia author the majority opinion in the gun rights case?

That’s the speculation.

A guy can dream. But I think Allah has it right when he says:

What’s strange is that, per O’Shea, there’s likely to be a majority on the threshold question but then all kinds of splits within the court on the subsidiary questions — and Scalia, being more of an absolutist on this issue, is unlikely to represent the majority on all or most of those subsidiary questions. Roberts himself, or Kennedy, would seem to be a better bet. Is that a hint that maybe the Court’s not going to reach those subsidiary questions at all, and will content itself with a simple ruling on the individual rights issue?

That would be consistent with the recent Roberts Court pattern of deciding cases on the narrowest grounds possible.

Judge Alex Kozinski has hired Mark Holscher of Kirkland & Ellis to represent him in the upcoming judicial misconduct investigation.

I have met Holscher on more than one occasion. He and I are both former law clerks for the Hon. William D. Keller, and he would drop by the chambers from time to time when I was clerking.

Holscher has an impressive reputation. He defended Wen Ho Lee, and as the Wall Street Journal Law Blog explains, that representation concluded quite successfully:

After Lee spent 278 days in solitary confinement, the charges against him were dropped, and he received a formal apology from Federal District Court Judge James Parker, who branded the government’s prosecution of the case an “abuse of power.”

Holscher also represented Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Well, you can’t win ’em all. But then, Cunningham could’ve done much worse.

Judge Kozinski has made a great choice and I have no doubt he will be pleased with the quality of Holscher’s representation.

UPDATE: JRM notes that not all charges against Lee were dropped. He pled guilty to a felony charge — but one which was incredibly minor compared to what he was originally charged with.

And the judge did indeed apologize to him, for confining him in such unpleasant conditions — based on upon representations from the Government that the judge came to question.

The Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece titled Smearing Judge Kozinski.

The letter from Marcy Tiffany referred to in the piece may be read here.

Over the weekend, I received the CD of material that Cyrus Sanai says he downloaded from Judge Kozinski’s server/website. I am publishing more of that material in this post, including video material that I was previously unable to publish.

Last week, I published several images that Mr. Sanai had e-mailed me. I concentrated on publishing the material that had been mentioned in the initial L.A. Times article. Mr. Sanai was unable to e-mail me video files, and accordingly he mailed me the disc.

In my earlier post, I said:

[T]he images on Judge Kozinski’s web site are the story of the day, and I believe they are news. I believe that the only way for the public to evaluate them properly is to have the opportunity to look at them firsthand. Accordingly, I have uploaded some of these images to my site, so that interested readers can view them.

After I received the CD, I considered very carefully the question of whether to publish more material. After all, the story is now several days old. The material is unlikely to change people’s minds greatly. The people who were shocked by the previous material will be shocked by some of this material; the people who weren’t shocked by any of it are unlikely to be shocked by the material here.

However, as with the images I had received from Mr. Sanai by e-mail, I was struck by how different some of the material was from the text descriptions offered in the newspaper. As with some of the items in the previous post, there were some items — but not all — that appeared more innocuous and/or humorous in context. There is also at least one movie file that seems pornographic, with little discernable humorous value — but it’s still not illegal, or any different from hundreds of thousands of similar videos floating around the Internet.

I still think there’s no substitute for looking at the actual material. This is likely the last post I will publish about this material, but I think it helps complete the coverage, and sheds more light on the controversy.

So, after much thought and internal debate, I have decided to round out the public record with respect to the images that were specifically described by the L.A. Times, as well as the files that Mr. Sanai had specifically mentioned to me. In addition, I’m going to include some of the more innocuous material, including some of the specific items described by Ms. Tiffany in her e-mail. I’ll try to give you an overview of the nature of the material as a whole: how extensive it is, and how much it concentrates on sexual or pornographic themes.

I am tucking most of this within the extended entry. Regular readers who are offended by such material, or bored with the story, are welcome to skip to the next post.

However, there are a few things that I want everyone to see.

The original article said:

Some nonsexual material on the website might also be considered demeaning to women: There was mock mathematical equation presented as “proof that girls are evil,” and a photo of a 1950s-era mother and her daughter sharing a book titled, “Becoming a Bitch.”

Let’s take a look at the equation:

Here is the “Becoming a Bitch” image:

Different people will have different reactions, but again, there is no substitute for viewing the actual material.

Also, mentioned by nobody, but one of the funniest things I saw on the whole CD, was this notice of appeal by a particularly angry pro per (explicit language warning).

Also on the disc was the best commercial for a lawyer I have ever seen. The lawyer screams:

I cannot rip out the hearts of those who hurt you! I cannot hand you their severed heads! But I can hunt them down and settle the score! I’ll squeeze them for every dime I can! Every single dime!

View it here. I have watched it several times, and never tire of viewing it.

Now, on to the more explicit material.

As with my previous post, I’ll warn you that there are depictions of nudity and/or sexual activity. In some cases, even my descriptions are explicit. If you click on “more” you will see the explicit descriptions. If you click on a link to a file, you may see something very explicit. You are warned.

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