Too many worthwhile things around to write about.  Too little time.  So in the spirit of mashability, here’s the dump.

From the inimitable Frank Pasquale, Seton Hall law’s finest, over at Concurring Opinions, comes that shocking detail that, for all the raping and pillaging that banks have accomplished over the past two years, the top executives have somehow managed to survive.

For a bit of perspective on the resultant inequalities, check out the Institute for Policy Studies’ findings on bank employment and compensation since 2008:

Since the beginning of 2008 . . . the 20 U.S. banks that have received the most bailout dollars have laid off 160,000 workers. The 100 top executives at these 20 banks, in 2008 alone, collected a combined $791.5 million in personal compensation.

2009 was not a bad year for top bankers, either.

This is exceptionally good news for the caviar market.  It’s not so good for the sturgeon.

Mike at Crime & Federalism  notes that BP is still in charge of stopping the gush of oil into the Gulf, based upon the “you made the mess, you clean it up” theory of paternalism.  As the oil continues to spew, our hopes for the survival of our planet are based on the chances of BP hitting a spot the size of a dinner plate from two miles away.  But then, that assumes it will even work.

Independent experts warn that relief wells, like any well, are not without risk.“More oil could leak than before, because the field is being drilled into again,” says Fred Aminzadeh, a geophysicist at the University of Southern California. Ira Leifer, a geochemist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, voices similar concerns: “In the worst case, we would suddenly be dealing with two spills, and we’d have twice the problem.”

Of course, other experts feel confident that the relief well, after a few attempts (since everyone agrees that nailing it the first time would be like winning the lottery),  None, to my knowledge, has chosen to back up their confidence with a little wager.  It’s not like anyone voice this concern when top hat and top kill and top chef were going to save the day, but who could have possibly anticipated that there wouldn’t be another magic bullet solution to save America, yet again, from itself?

Addendum: Let’s assume, just for giggles, that they somehow plug the gusher before destroying life on this planet as we know it. Imagine how the bureaucracy of BP deals with the “legitimate” claims of fishing guys, when they demand “proof” of loss for this year’s (not to mention the next 10) catch.  I remember only too well law firms trying to get compensation for losses due to our offices being shut down after 9/11.  “So sir, you are required to prove by two independent sources how many criminal defendants would have retained your services during this period of time, in triplicate?”  Yup. Nothing to it.

Back at Concurring Opinions, Brandon Bartels brings us an interview of two academics, neither of whom is a lawyer, who explain why their “empirical study” of judicial elections leads them to conclude that their detractors, like that evil Sandra Day O’Connor, are poopyheads.

My favorite part of the Q&A is this:

2.  Your research is empirical—you analyze data from state supreme court elections to test claims put forth by judicial reform advocates (i.e., opponents to judicial elections). Judicial reform advocates have typically relied on normative arguments related to judicial independence and the need for judicial impartiality. Are these (and other) arguments grounded in reality?

BONNEAU: Based on all the evidence to date, the answer is no.  It is not only our work that highlights this, but also that of people like Jim Gibson and Eric Posner and his colleagues.  So, for example, one of the claims made by reformers is that voters don’t know what they are doing.  We find that, other thing being equal, voters are able to distinguish between challengers with prior judicial experience (“quality” challengers) and those who have no such experience.  That is, challengers to incumbents who have prior experience perform better, on average, than those that do not.  Another example:  reformers argue that nobody participates in these elections.  We find that voter participation is quite high, given a competitive election.  When voters are given a meaningful choice, they participate.  One final example:  reformers argue that these elections are exacting a toll on the legitimacy of the court system.  In a series of studies, Jim Gibson has shown that is just not true.

HALL:  This is an excellent question that goes directly to the disjuncture between political scientists and other scholars and practitioners concerned with judicial reform. The reform community, based almost entirely in the legal community, readily accepts normative accounts of judging as entirely apolitical and also assumes that any lifting of the purple curtain will attenuate judicial legitimacy. Similarly, the reform community casts the selection process simply as choosing competent technicians and has the tendency to rely on a normative ideal when evaluating the success or failure of judicial elections.

These normative assumptions are contradicted by modern social science. In fact, judges often have significant discretion and rely on their own political preferences to make decisions. Also, voters have participated in partisan judicial elections for decades without any observable adverse consequences and consistently have shown an unwillingness to relinquish their power over the selection process to political elites. Finally, an apolitical selection process is fiction, just as judges are not mere technocrats. In fact, regardless of who chooses judges, these actors seek to forward their own agendas by placing like-minded people on the bench. The federal judicial appointment process illustrates this point well. Finally, when compared to a normative ideal, all American elections fail. State supreme court elections perform as well or better than elections to other major offices in the United States.

Voters are able to distinguish between candidates with prior judicial experience and those without, dispelling once and forever the myth that voters are wholly incapable of making simplistic yet critical decisions based upon wholly irrelevant yet discrete factors.  This bodes well for Judge Gregory Galler, who need not concern himself with that day in judge school he inadvertently slept through. since he is, without question, an experienced jurist.

While the entire post is worth a read, provided words like “normative” don’t make your head explode, but the best comes at page 18 of Melinda Gann Hall’s curriculum vitae, under the heading, OTHER EVIDENCE OF PROFESSIONAL IMPACT.  Hey, it’s better than the pages where she lists herself as “discussant” (as opposed, no doubt, to “conversant”, which carries all the obvious negative connotations).

And finally, I was informed that I was  because another blogger decided to use a post of mine to launch a post of his.  Now hear this: The plane is departing Fantasy Island.  It’s a big internet out there, and I can’t stop anyone from writing about me any more than the really important and smart blawgers can stop me from writing about them.  But one side does not a duel make. 

The worst part about this slide into lunacy is that the blogger, after manufacturing the duel, whines, “I’m inclined to call it tiresome and repetitive.”  Anti-hallucinogens will make you feel that way, you know.  You’re welcome to any delusions you like, but keep me out of it.  I’ve got my own.