Rees Morrison’s Morsels #117 – additions to earlier posts and short takes

Visitors from 29 non-US sites in the last 100. About 80 percent of the readers of this blog come from the United States. But a significant number of international visitors also come. For example, SiteMeter tells me that of the last 100 visitors (at about 9:00 AM on Friday, August 14, 2009, there were visitors from 29 sites around the world. Many are in different countries, but some, like Australia, have multiple visitors in that group (See my post of Sept. 25, 2008: this blog and posts about it, with 41 references.).

A project to identify best practices for appointing a panel of external counsel. From Legal Strat. Rev., Summer 2009 at 41: “the general counsels of FTSE 100 companies are working together to determine best practice for appointing a legal panel. It is part of the Chief Legal Officers Programme for General Counsel, operated by John Jeffcock, CEO of Winmark Europe (See my post of April 18, 2009: law firm panels with 6 references.).

598 intellectual property blogs collected by one site. Mikk Putk in Estonia added this blog to his collection of almost 600 blogs that concern themselves with patents and other intellectual property. I am astounded at the enormity of material available, at least theoretically, on blogs (See my post of Dec. 31, 2007: intellectual property licensing with 12 references; Oct. 2, 2008: costs of patent litigation, with 13 references; Jan. 23, 2008: patents related to law department management with 7 references; Feb. 19, 2009: invention review committees with 7 references; March 25, 2008: patent activities except litigation with 49 references; and Aug. 19, 2009: trademarks with 33 references.).

Sophists have got it right, not Platonists. “The sophists believe with Keynes that truth, small t … is always contingent, always arguable, always the result of a particular set of assumptions being true for now, not forever.” Deirdre McCloskey, How to Be Human Though an Economist (U. of Mich. 2000) at 128. Platonists, taking the opposite view, believe that the one Truth, with a capital t, is out there. I side with the Sophists (See my post of Aug. 20, 2006: foxes and hedgehogs; and Sept. 22, 2008: postmodern philosophy.).