One of the best things about living in (or just following) Santa Barbara is reading Nick Welsh's Angry Poodle Barbeque column each week in the Independent " one of the best free newsweeklies anywhere. This week's column, El Corazn del Perro, is a classic.

As I hole up in my ivory tower writing about trademark fair use reform this summer, it's nice to know that the issue might matter in the outside world. In a pair of signs yesterday, I ran across two different news articles showing how seriously our overbroad trademark rights are constraining free expression.

At a recent American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Denver, several new studies were discussed that showed promise in fighting prostate, brain and pancreatic cancer.

The hedge fund coalition that I chair, the Coalition of Private Investment Companies (CPIC), recently submitted a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which we laid out our case for why the Commission should drop proposals to further restrain short selling.

Well this is a bit odd. South Carolina's Governor Sanford, the man who seemingly cannot find the off switch to his interview button, has been cleared of wrongdoing, the state saying that he was in Argentina on business for the state, and whatever he did on his private time while there had no bearing on his trips.

June 28 will be remembered as the day TV pitchman Billy Mays died. But Mays' death is not the only reason June 28 is important in the world of cheesy late-night product pitches. It was on June 28th in 1984 that Ronald Reagan's FCC chairman Mark S. Fowler "officially repealed the rule that prevented broadcasters from scheduling more than sixteen minutes of commercials in an hour."

Today new benefits go into effect that will make monthly student loan payments more manageable and affordable for millions of students and borrowers struggling to stay afloat in this tough economic climate. These benefits were enacted as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, a law I sponsored in 2007 that made historic investments to help more Americans earn a college degree. With the economy against this year's college graduates, this relief couldn't come at a better time.

I have always thought that the "compartmentalization" of our scientists prevents maximum technological development. Prime examples: Bell labs pointed a huge microwave communications receiver skyward during testing and accidentally discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation for cosmologists; or NASA infrared satellite photometry reveals Mayan sites long covered by jungle. We may be witnessing another variation of this theme when clinical doctors, rather than funded researchers recently reported the first HIV cure to both people that were listening.

The Supreme Court has spoken in Ricci v. Stefano, the New Haven firefighter's case. An employer developed what it thought was a purely job-related exam and said that they would promote the people who did well on the test. Initially it seems reasonable that advocates for groups that did poorly on an exam would advocate against an exam culture. But thinking about it a bit more, I found myself surprised.

Or at least, it may feel that way to one Harry Mason Reid, currently Senate Majority Leader. With the election -- at last -- of Al Franken, the Democrats have the "filibuster-proof supermajority" of which much has been said. However, I think such things as the recent House vote on Waxman-Markey (the "climate change bill") show that there is no such thing as party unity within Team Blue.

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