OK, this is just awesome. Someone spent a long time on that. Don't miss the disclaimers and waivers and privacy policy.

Not entirely thrilled with the slant, but I'm extensively quoted in the Chicago Tribune, and I even had another sentence in the quote in an earlier edition.

Also: lots of GTA coverage on blogs and in the news. The game of telephone is fascinating; the Times made a minor error in summarizing events, and the blog coverage repeating the Times summary confused all sorts of issues. It's not just the amateur gaming bloggers getting things wrong: a short piece on the Wired website had at least five errors in as many paragraphs.

With absolutely no evidence to back this up, I strongly suspect that an earlier draft of "Wall-E" had a much, much, darker ending, and that that ending got focus-tested and Disneyized out of the movie.

I can't blame them: the charming ending they have versus the Strangelovian ending I imagine it originally having probably makes a $200-million difference not including the merchandising and theme-park possibilities. But rewrite the last ten minutes to be more internally consistent with the satiric message of the movie, and it would be one of my all-time favorites. That said, even with the nod to commercialism, it's one of the best movies I've seen this year, was quite entertaining and even moving. I saw nods to bits of Star Wars, Titanic, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, 2001, Matrix, Sleeping Beauty, City Lights, Terry Gilliam—and a lot of Idiocracy. Thumbs up. I'd be curious what my readers think of my theory of the ending.

Leaving New York Wednesday, it took me 40 minutes to get from Lexington to 9th Avenue going down 37th Street, which is supposed to be an express cross-town street. It was because movie trucks were blocking most of the street; they were filming on 38th Street.

But thumbs up on Chinese Mirch (28th & Lex), which is a wonderful, if New-York-priced Chinese-Indian fusion restaurant.

Press coverage has been interesting: the New York Times got a tiny detail wrong, and it's fascinating to see all of the other press coverage that is clearly getting its information from rewriting the Times story (and repeating the mistake, and often exacerbating it as in a game of telephone) rather than original reporting. Wired, in particular, botched the story, as has the Guardian.

I can't see the video (it was a phone interview anyway) , but here's a transcript. I discuss Exxon Shipping v. Baker, expected to come down today.

If you're here because you googled Theodore H. Frank after seeing press coverage of the Grand Theft Auto class action, you probably want to be at my other blog, Overlawyered, which has what you're looking for.

Slim, who makes a hobby out of talking people out of going to law school, and this guy, defending the plight of the third-tier law student, could have an interesting debate. But she would win, and it wouldn't be close.

I agree with Sulahry that once one gets down to #80 vs. #100, ranking amongst law schools matters little. But the gap between #22 and #2 is pretty large.

His big argument why it's alright to go to a lower-tier law school? He has a friend with phenomenal people skills who went to a lower-tier law school, got out, and started attracting business as a rainmaker because clients like him. And with all of that schmoozing, very little of which has to do with legal skills, he is making nearly $200,000 three years out of law school. Sulahry doesn't seem to realize that this refutes his own argument: if you have extraordinary people-skills before you go to law school, you can go to a mediocre law school and make almost as much as the bottom-of-the-class schmendrick from Harvard who's reviewing documents for Skadden.

It's probably accurate that someone who has extraordinary people-skills talent can succeed regardless of what law school he or she goes to. But someone with skills like that can succeed and make big money in sales or business without going to law school at all, so it's not an argument for saying that it's worthwhile to go to a #80 law school. Someone with entrepreneurial abilities like that shouldn't be spending three years of his or her life and $100,000 in loans to get the law-school credential. And someone without those entrepreneurial skills isn't going to be helped much by the credential.

Contrary to those who say Obama didn't contradict himself at all on Israel, Reuters quotes an Obama adviser saying Obama didn't mean what he said to AIPAC because he just didn't know what he was talking about:

Democrat Barack Obama misused a "code word" in Middle East politics when he said Jerusalem should be Israel's "undivided" capital but that does not mean he is naive on foreign policy, a top adviser said on Tuesday.

Rubin and Kaus aren't impressed, though one commenter just detects a pander.

Time to flip-flop on the status of Jerusalem after Wednesday's speech to AIPAC was criticized by the left-wingers who control today's Democratic Party? Approximately 24 hours. I'd be much more impressed if he told AIPAC he was going to split Jerusalem or CNN it would remain undivided, but that would require Obama to lower the pander quotient. Someone's going to be disappointed come January.

The headline is "Actress has a crush on Obama", but given that the senator is repeatedly writing lengthy e-mails to a high-school graduate half his age, perhaps it buries the lede that Obama has a crush on an actress?

Johansson is somewhat shocked that he keeps up their back-and-forth correspondence. “You’d imagine that someone like the senator who is constantly traveling and constantly ‘on’ — how can he return these personal e-mails?” she asks.

(Separately, I question the accuracy of this website, but, hey, it's on the Internet, so it must be true.)

(And welcome Kausfiles readers.)

Earlier on Obama.

Update: Obama denies.

Yes, the five seconds they quoted me didn't leave them time to flash my name on the screen. They left my name off. As well as any supporting detail to show that this wasn't just ipse dixit. But they did have music and flashy graphics. This is why I don't watch tv news.

Double-windsor knot courtesy of Slim.

California-only, and with 300-mile range for the hybrid version, we can't drive it cross-country to take back with us.

Updating my summer movie list:

• Iron-Man very very good, perhaps best comic-book movie ever (aside from the questionable legal machinations over corporate control);


• Indiana Jones was teh suck;


• I may be willing to give the Hulk movie a shot if it gets good reviews;


• Same with Hellboy II;


• Now that I know Robert Smigel wrote it (warning: link has far too many spoilers) with Judd Apatow, I'm intrigued by the "Zohan" Sandler vehicle.

Corrections and Clarifications: "The name of Ted Frank of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research was spelled incorrectly on page 1A Saturday in an article about a credit card lawsuit. Frank also was incorrectly quoted as saying updated legislation concerning credit card disclosure information is a step in the right direction because Congress did not cap the damages for a class-action suit. The story should have said Frank believes the updated legislation has problems because Congress did not cap damages, but that it was a step in the right direction."

Wow, I didn't realize I wasn't just in Saturday's paper, I was on the front page of Saturday's paper. Albeit with my name spelled wrong.

Alas, this is the best YouTube video of "Who Do You Love?", but YouTube does produce this late effort: