Continuing with the Thai theme from last week, today's recipe is for Tom Yam Kung which is one of the most well-known of all Thai dishes. The recipe calls for galangal, which is a rhizome, similar to ginger, and is used extensively in Thai cooking. Look for it in an Asian foods specialty shop. The recipes also calls for bird's eye chiles (sometimes called "mouse dropping" chiles) which are very small and very hot Thai chiles. They are most commonly green, but red ones can be used in this recipe. If you cannot find bird's eye chiles, substitute your favorite hot chiles instead.

Tom Yam Kung
(Hot and Sour Prawn Soup)

12 oz raw prawns (shrimp)
1 tablespoon oil
3 lemon grass stalks, white part only, bruised
3 thin slices of galangal
8 cups of chicken broth
5-7 bird's eye chiles, stems removed, bruised
5 kaffir lime leaves, torn
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 oz straw mushrooms, or quartered button mushrooms
2 scallions, sliced
3 tablespoons lime juice
cilantro leaves for garnish

Peel and devein the prawns, leaving the tails intact and reserving the heads and shells. Heat the oil in a large stockpot or wok and add the prawn heads and shells. Cook for 5 minutes or until the shells turn bright orange.

Add one stalk of lemon grass, the galangal and chicken stock to the pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the stock and return to the pan. Discard the shells and flavorings.

Finely slice the remaining lemon grass and add it to the liquid with the chiles, lime leaves, fish sauce, mushrooms and scallions. Cook gently for 2 minutes.

Add the prawns and cook for 3 minutes or until the prawns are firm and pink. Remove from heat and add the lime juice. Taste, then adjust the seasoning by adding more lime juice or fish sauce if needed. Garnish with a few cilantro leaves and serve hot.

A lot of women profess to find men in suits hot. Why is that?

When I say "a lot," I mean "nearly all." (And yes, this post is about heterosexual women, and it contains a lot of generalizations.) It might not be as universal as, say, the notion that men prefer women with breasts. But it is a very large percentage. It's enough that I think it easily qualifies as a mainstream attraction rather than some offbeat fetish (although even mainstream attractions can be fetishized). I don't know any women who would say they only find men attractive when they're in suits, but I also don't know any women who say they find men in suits unattractive. But I was curious about it. I have some theories. (Note that I don't give all these theories equal weight.)

1. It's about as far away from naked as a man can get, and as we all know from "Seinfeld," male nudity is "bad naked." 2. Relatedly, it's about as good as most men can look. A suit hides a lot of imperfections. Shoulder pads make him look like he has broad shoulders. 3. It makes women think about marriage and weddings. 4. A suit provides decorations to play with -- something tactile to grab and flirt and play with, such as a tie. (And is a loosened tie hotter than one drawn all the way up?) It draws out the undressing process, which can act as a tease/foreplay. 5. A suit connotes power and strength and responsibility and a job and all that macho he-man provider crap. Relatedly, women may be able to assess the quality of a suit (based on tailoring, style, fabrics, etc. -- things I don't understand very well) and draw inferences about the man's wealth. 6. And since people love to discuss modern attractions in terms of evolutionary psychology, I'll also throw in the theory that it has something to do with which caveman had the best mammoth pelt or something.

I realize there are a lot of stereotypes in here about what women find attractive in a man, and how a suit fits those notions. But I'm not crazy -- women do find men in suits hot. (At least, I assume it's the men in suits, and not just the suits, regardless of whose head is sticking out of the collar. But I've seen women get weak-kneed at the sight of a disembodied suit before.) Even if the reason is simply that most men are more attractive in suits than when dressed casually, why is that? What is it about the suit that makes them attractive? The suit doesn't change the guy's size or hairline or facial features, after all.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with liking guys in suits. This post isn't attempting a normative judgment, or an attack, or a defense. I'm just curious about this. So my theories above aren't my way of saying what women should feel, merely my suppositions about what they feel. I welcome your comments or additional theories.

1. I mentioned here the suit by the NIT against the NCAA over post-season college basketball tournaments. Well, the update is that the parties have settled the case, with the NCAA buying the NIT. I'm not sure what this will mean for March Madness, although NCAA honcho Myles Brand says the selection committee that picks the NCAA tourney will not be picking the NIT as well, so it doesn't look like the tournaments will be combined in some way. I'll keep an eye on this and update later on.

While gathering that link, I ran across this story about the Tennessee basketball program committing a minor violation of NCAA rules by posting a hand-lettered sign, on an ordinary sheet of paper, with a recruit's name on it in the locker room. This is part of a new set of rules designed to end the practice of putting a recruit's name on a jersey, or flashing it on the scoreboard, as an inducement to get the kid to come to school there. I think the NCAA has its head in the sand on this one. A spokesman discussed the purpose of the rule: "It was also an intent to make your visit similar to how it would be when you're there at school. When you're a student at school, you're not going to have signs and bands playing for you when you walk in the gym." I don't know if that guy has been to any actual sporting events in the last, oh, ever, but that's exactly what happens. Still, I don't see any real harm in banning JumboTron demonstrations with a recruit's name, but they're going a bit overboard with the Tennessee thing. Next thing you know, the NCAA won't let the schools hold up a sign with the recruit's name on it when they pick the kid up at the airport.

2. Speaking of reductio ad absurdum arguments, I saw one at NRO's Bench Memos. Ed Whelan here and here discusses this Slate piece about John Roberts. The Slate essay is by three legal ethics experts, and they contend that Roberts should have recused himself in the recent Hamdan case about Guantanamo detainees. Roberts voted for the government's position in the appeal before the DC Circuit. It turns out that he had at least two interviews with high-level administration officials about his Supreme Court nomination while the Hamdan case was pending. Whelan says that the professors' argument logically means that Roberts should have recused himself in every case involving the government from the time he knew he was on the "short list." Moreover, he says, adopting the professors' recusal standard would allow the President to say he is considering elevating one of the liberal Justices to Chief Justice, thereby causing their recusal (and presumably leading to wins for the government before the Supreme Court).

There are at least a couple of things wrong with this. I'm not taking a position on the question whether Roberts should have recused; I'm recusing myself from that issue. But Whelan misreads the professors' position. First, with regard to current Justices, I think the "rule of necessity" would apply in the event one of them was being considered for elevation. That rule says that recusal is not required when the potentially-recused judge (or court) is the only one available to hear a case. We're not going to disqualify half the Court on the chance that one of them might be elevated. After all, Rehnquist didn't recuse himself from any government cases when he was being considered for Chief, did he? Simply put, a different standard applies when strict application of the recusal standards would deprive the Court of a quorum. Whelan's suggestion that the professors' argument (about a lower court judge) requires that is fanciful and inaccurate.

Second, Whelan asserts that the professors' standard would require Roberts to recuse in every case involving the government, which of course make up a huge percentage of the DC Circuit's cases. The professors explicitly disavow that Roberts would have to recuse in "routine" cases. Why is Hamdan different? They say it's because the President is a named defendant in that case, owing to his personal written finding that there is reason to believe that Hamdan is a terrorist, and his personal approval of military tribunal procedures. The President, of course, is the one who made the ultimate decision to nominate Roberts to the Supreme Court. In routine cases, the President has nothing to do with the litigation, or at best is named in his official capacity. It was the "official capacity" distinction that drove Justice Scalia's decision not to recuse in the Dick Cheney Duck Hunt case. In Hamdan, though, the President was being sued personally.

I won't get into whether that's a tenable distinction, or whether or how the recusal statute applies, or even whether "appearance of impropriety" is the proper test under that law, let alone whether Roberts's actions create such an appearance. But Whelan skips over the professors' distinction and acts like their argument has no stopping point. He can argue over whether the professors' distinction would actually put the brakes on the slippery slope, but he should have at least addressed that issue from the Slate piece, instead of making it appear that the professors were arguing for a ridiculously extremist reading of the recusal standard.

3. Speaking of ridiculous, people are upset at the news that the city of New London, Connecticut, having won its controversial takings case in Kelo, is now charging the plaintiffs back rent for the time period of the litigation, dating back to 2000 or so. Okay, I'll agree that this isn't going to go over well in the Kelo household, but really, assuming the taking was valid, as the Supreme Court held, what's the problem? The city took title back then, and (I'm pretty sure) the plaintiffs weren't paying property taxes. (Clearly, the city can't get both taxes and rent; the residents can't be both landlords and tenants.) Basically, the (former) homeowners have to pay either property taxes or rent, and doesn't that depend solely on when title transferred? I'll second what one of the commenters to the Reason post said: The plaintiffs' lawyers should have told their clients this would happen before they even filed suit, and at a minimum, the plaintiffs should have figured it out when they were living property-tax-free for the last five years. Yeah, I'll agree it's not cool on the city's part, but it's not the city's job to let people live on city land for free (leaving aside any possible obligation -- statutory, fiduciary, or other -- the city has to collect taxes or rent). Whether or not the Kelo plaintiffs should have lost, they did, and this is the price of defeat. Pay up.

4. Speaking of people looking for a handout (sorry, bad analogy, but I needed a transition!), Centinel has a great post up about panhandlers in Dallas. When I was living in downtown Crackton (obscure reference from this "Simpsons" episode), I used to run into panhandlers a lot. (For previous discussions of my interactions with pedestrians in downtown Crackton, see this post and this follow-up.) I recall getting stopped by plenty of white people, so it wasn't all a race thing. I think they were almost all homeless, though. I would usually just say something like, "No, I don't have it," or "No, I'm sorry" and keep walking. Most of them weren't too energetic about it and would kind of just mumble at me as they remained on the curb. I don't think either one of us expected anything in those interactions, but it was like we were going through the motions just in case. I didn't get a lot of the guys wanting to tell me stories, but there were some. I remember one guy who wanted directions to a homeless shelter (query how many people who aren't homeless know where one is), and after I told him I didn't know, he asked for money. I figured he wanted me to think he was serious about going to the shelter, and maybe he was, but at the time it seemed like he wasn't very interested in finding the shelter. (If he truly was, I'm sure he could dial 911 for free from a public phone and the police would help him out.) I think I'm going to find out where a shelter is, so I can give directions if I need to, and see if they ask for money after that.

Every once in a while, someone had a hard time taking no for an answer. I never had anyone get real aggressive with me, but I've had to listen to a few harangues as I walked away. One tactic of mine, used on guys who seemed nice but persistent (as opposed to mean and crazy and aggressive), was to stop walking for a second, look at the petitioner, and say something like, "Listen, I'm not like these other folks. If I had it, I'd give it to you. I just don't have it on me right now." That always worked, at least long enough to defuse it and let me keep walking. And, since I don't carry much cash and hate carrying change, it was often true.

When I was at Duke, panhandling in a little shopping district, popular with students, became an issue. The merchants there hated the panhandlers because (they feared) the panhandlers either (a) drove students away, or (b) were able to get money from the students and thus kept coming back. So they started a program of setting up donation jars inside the stores, with the money going to local homeless shelters and advocacy organizations. That way, bleeding heart students could donate money with the assurance that they weren't being swindled for drug money, all with the comfort of not having to deal with actual homeless people.

I'm not unsympathetic to homeless people. The problem is that it's almost impossible for me to tell the "good" ones from the "bad." Plus, you know me -- I'm a statist liberal! So I think the solution is to throw money at big government programs! Seriously, I think we could do much better at funding shelters and drug treatment clinics and job training centers, even if all those depends on people wanting to stop being homeless.

5. Speaking of throwing money at liberal government programs, a quick word about public radio. I don't mean to keep picking on NRO's Ed Whelan, but he's the latest to make a mistake I see a lot: conflating NPR with "public radio." In a post criticizing a story on the radio program "Marketplace," Whelan calls it "NPR Marketplace." Actually, "Marketplace" is produced by American Public Media, which, like National Public Radio, is a content provider for public radio stations. The stations are free to purchase whichever shows they want from various content providers, or to make their own. So, "Marketplace" and NPR are in competition with each other for airtime on public radio stations. Granted, lots of people, including listeners, use "NPR" as a shorthand for all public radio, something I'm sure NPR isn't terribly upset about. I'm sure it's the "national" that causes the confusion, but it's not as if anyone thinks the National Football League -- or for that matter, "National Review" -- is a public, governmental entity. But anyway, the point is that whatever faults or merits NPR has, producing "Marketplace" isn't one of them.

6. Speaking of lessons and lectures, incoming law students should check out posts here and here from the excellent PrawfsBlawg about what professors should say to students entering law school. I've been trying to goad Fitz into sharing his lessons for law school. (I'm afraid my advice would only apply, at best, to the nerdiest of nerds.) So stay tuned in case he gives in on that. Seen also at PrawfsBlawg is a post seeking to quantify (on a scale of one-to-ten) the importance of law clerks. Since I am one, the number is obviously ten.

What I'm doing at work: I was going to say "winding up," and then I was going to say "winding down." I'm not sure if there's a difference. I'm working on a few things, some of which I will finish and some of which will have to be handed over to my successors. In contrast to my last job, I won't be handing anything in on my last day, so I feel good about the way I've paced things. Substantively, there's not a lot of detail I can share. I'll have some post-clerkship wrap-up thoughts some day. I will say that I have done more civil and administrative cases that I would have hoped for, but I found them to be a lot more interesting than I would have expected. It's nice to see words I wrote in the Federal Reporter. It's frustrating to think of all the words I wrote this year that aren't in there.

What I'm doing at home: Winding down/up there as well. My "plan" not to unpack some boxes a year ago now looks like genius. I realize I have a lot of stuff I can do without. But a fair amount of my time consists of me staring at my stuff and dreading having to pack and move it yet again. And hoping I don't bring along an uninvited guest. Last night when I got home, I opened the door to see a little lizard clinging to the inside of the door! My attempts to shoo it outside only drove it inside and under my couch. I swept under it with a broom, and even moved the furniture around, to no avail. I'm sure this will end badly. Hmm. I was going to follow that with the line "Everything ends badly. Otherwise they wouldn't end." But I wasn't sure of the source of that quote. Upon researching, I quickly discovered it's from the movie Cocktail, which confuses me, because (a) I've never seen it, and (b) that's neither a film nor line that have achieved cult-quoting status. Odd. Anyway, it appears that the reptiles are out to get the boys of BTQ.

What I am reading: I just finished A Confederacy of Dunces, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ignatius J. Reilly is one of the most indelible fictional characters I've ever run into. His mother annoyed me, and I didn't find her transformation believeable, but I liked Gus Levy, and I think I've known too many Myrna Minkoffs in my time (like Ignatius, one is enough!). Now I'm thinning out a pile of magazines and debating what to read next.

What I am watching: The two new shows on the FX network, "Starved," which I'm not sold on yet, and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which I enjoy a great deal. Also, "Six Feet Under," which is wrapping up its run. Not sure what to make of how it's ending, but I have always liked the show. Oh, and Shaun of the Dead, which I think has been showing literally every day on one of the Cinemaxes; I've seen pieces of it at least a dozen times. I love it, but two scenes are real delights for me. One is the fight scene set to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now," because I like that song and the scene is so nutty. The other is when Shaun ascends the kiddie slide to scout out the street in front of the Winchester. He goes up, he comes down. "Is the coast clear?" "No." "How many?" "Lots." Very well done.

What I am listening to: The new "Oxford American" cd, which isn't as good as the last one but has some nice cuts on it. Also, for no particular reason I dragged out my box of mix tapes. My box of mix tapes previously made an appearance in this post about my car being broken into; that's a favorite of mine, by the way. Anyway, my new(er) car has a cd player, so I hadn't listened to these tapes in a year, but I guess I just got a hankering for some of the songs on them, even though they're almost all copied from cd's I own. I know -- goofy. But I guess I prefer the way I mixed them up. So it was like catching up with old friends. It was nice. And this post's title comes from the Violent Femmes song "American Music," which is on one of the tapes. Oh, and I just bought Fountains of Wayne's "Welcome Interstate Managers." Why, oh, why didn't I buy this thing two years ago? It's a flippin' sweet album. It's on heavy rotation.

What I am thinking about: I shall decline to answer on the ground that the case or controversy could come before the Court in the future.

What I am not thinking about: A whole lot of things I really ought to be spending some serious time thinking about. Maybe one day I'll get on the ball. But my distractions are just too darn distracting!

(previous bio posts, or at least most of them)

Last week, Slate ran an article by Michelle Leder on the impending implosion of the designer jean market. At the risk of exposing myself to potential sanctions from the SEC I have to say that, despite Ms. Leder's doomsday predictions, the market is not due for any kind of serious collapse. Not soon anyway. Had she known that Scott will soon be entering the lucrative world of private practice (to the tune of a six-figure salary), she would have realized that his new-found wealth and well-known interest in high-end denim is sufficient to hedge against any near-term decline in the denim market. Trust me, on that basis alone designer denim should be given a "strong buy" rating. And that's to say nothing of my own meager contributions to the market.

I was reading this provocative post by Prof. Balkin, and noticed a reference to The Insular Cases, a series of hundred-year-old Supreme Court cases dealing with the application of the Constitution in various newly-acquired territories. It got me wondering why we don't see any cases called "The [X] Cases" anymore. I remembered reading a few in law school, which gave me the impression that this used to be a common naming device for Supreme Court cases. But upon research, it appears that I may have read all most of the others. I was able to find The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1863), concerning claims to ships captured during a Civil War blockade; The Slaughter-house Cases, 87 U.S. 36 (1873), adopting a limited reading of the Fourteenth Amendment; The Legal Tender Cases, 79 U.S. 457 (1870), dealing with the constitutionality of paper currency (this is one I didn't read in law school); and The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), which struck down antidiscrimination laws as beyond Congressional power.

There may be a few other "Cases" cases out there, but clearly the practice ceased to be very popular about a century ago. So I got to thinking about why that might be. I think one answer has to do with the way the Court decides cases now. After the "Judges' Bill" of 1925, the Court had much greater control over its docket; it was able to refuse to hear a lot of cases. One reason to use a collective name is if you're faced with multiple parties in a consolidated action. But if you're able to pick and choose which parties to hear, you don't have to deal with as many of those (and the potentially intricate factual distinctions among those cases). Civil practice and Supreme Court convention also seems to have evolved toward designating a "lead" party and referring to the whole matter by one name. (For example, we call four cases Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka instead of collectively "The School Desegregation Cases.") We're more likely now to see an "et al." without reference to whatever additional parties might be before the Court.

So it appears that the "Cases" cases are but a relic of a bygone era. But they needn't be! I say, Bring back the "Cases" cases! Isn't it easier to remember what a case called "The Slaughter-house Cases" is about than something called "Esteban v. Louisiana," or even "The Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Live-stock Landing and Slaughter-house Company"? And would "United States v. Stanley" be as memorable as "The Civil Rights Cases"? I think the "Cases" nomenclature serves the useful purpose of helping us remember important cases by their subject matter. But it also signifies cases that are important within their little subject matter milieu; perhaps that's why we read most of them in law school. Most of these cases are landmarks, resolving (often finally) major legal questions. I think one sign that a case might have "Cases" status is the significance of the issue presented, and whether a set of cases can cover the field and settle the matter. In contrast, take the current Court's incrementalist approach to, well, nearly everything. Even if Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker had all issued on the same day, we probably wouldn't call them "The Sentencing Cases," because (a) there are so many other sentencing cases the Court hears, especially capital cases, and (b) they certainly didn't resolve everything -- or even some of the biggest issues. (This may be another reason the Brown cases aren't "Cases" cases.)

I should also say that I think "Cases" status depends on the plurality inherent in the name: it has to involve more than one case decided at once. Therefore, calling a case by a shorthand name doesn't count. Roper v. Simmons isn't a "Cases" case just because it's easier to remember it as "the juvenile death penalty case" and it affected many other pending cases. It was only one case, and thus it can't be a "Cases" case. I won't even count cases with pretty standard accepted nicknames. In my Administrative Law class, we talked about "Air Bags," "Benzene," "Hot Oil and Sick Chicken," and "Steel Seizures," but that was just because the official names were complex, and even though lawyers in that field would know what those nicknames stood for. Those cases met none of the other factors leading to "Cases" status. I'm torn about New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), a/k/a "The Pentagon Papers case," even though U.S. v. Washington Post was a companion to it, because it's more commonly known as "The Pentagon Papers case" rather than "The Pentagon Papers Cases," but that may just be my perception. (Google backs me up 10,000-to-50.)

Thus, it seems like the best criteria for affording "Cases" status are (a) an official name that might be harder to remember later on, (b) a multitude of parties, and (c) clear landmark status, if not the only major case on a given subject. So what are some candidates for "Cases" status? With the exception of The Insular Cases, the designation appears to have been given by the Court, so this is all probably idle thought. However, perhaps if the usage becomes more common within the wider legal community, the Court might adopt it as well.

I can think of a few leading candidates from within the last few years. I think we're more likely to remember "The Ten Commandments Cases" rather than Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky. Likewise with "The Affirmative Action Cases" as opposed to Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. Both of those examples have hard-to-recall names, multiple parties, landmark decisions, and the Court is extremely unlikely to revisit those issues soon.

An even better example may be "The Detainee Cases" of June 28, 2004. The official names are Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld v. Padilla. There are factual differences among those cases (scroll down here for a thumbnail), and while the Supreme Court will almost certainly have to revisit some of the lingering issues involved with detainees in the war on terror, these cases seem to fit the bill otherwise. It's going to be difficult for the average reader to remember the unique facts of each case; the names are tricky, especially with "Rumsfeld" making an appearance in two of them; there are multiple parties involved; and the cases are certainly landmark rulings. I haven't checked much of the literature out there on these cases, but people are going to have to come up with some shorthand for naming these cases. Instead of coming up with some new style, why not go with the time-tested "Cases" designation?

I'm probably forgetting some good examples, so feel free to make suggestions in the comments. And also, let me know if you think my definition is flawed or if I have missed any of the actual Supreme Court-designated "Cases" cases. Don't bother telling me this isn't going to catch on; I know. Pretend it will and help me think of good candidates.

What I am doing at work: For the first time this year I am working on some interesting projects. I've been asked to research and write an opinion letter addressing the issue of whether the legislative police have the authority to record incoming phone calls without obtaining the consent of the person on the outside end of the call. We are frequently the subject of unwanted, harassing, or threatening phone calls and the police want to record the conversations to build the evidence for the prosecution of the persons who are making the calls. A related issue pertains to recording and storing harassing electronic communications and what means may reasonably be used to identify the senders of threatening emails. I am also codifying (the technical process of converting bills into statutes) new laws concerning the crime of stalking. Last week I completed an opinion letter setting out options for enacting legislation that would make the prospect of getting off under the insanity defense much more difficult.

What I am doing away from work: Very little. Writing, going to the gym, doing general housecleaning and some online shopping

What I am reading: Patrick O'Brian's The Far Side of the World; Moby Dick; GQ (nice interview with my hero Johnny Knoxville)

What I am listening to: The Killers' Hot Fuss; Rock of Ages: The Definitive Def Leppard

What I am watching: Dog the Bounty Hunter; Entourage

What I am thinking about: How very bright the future is

What I am not thinking about: How very dark the past was

Most recent mistake: Going to Wal-Mart on Saturday morning - why do I do that to myself?

(via the Hipster)