Congratulations to Miriam Wittes on her bat-mitzvah!

LAW FIRM ECONOMICS: The Economist foresees a less gilded future for large law firms. So does Larry Ribstein.

10 Years of the Claremont Review of Books.  Congratulations – special double sized celebration issue.

How Wars End and Peace Gets Made:  Policy Review essay by Henrik Bering on Gideon Rose’s book.

The SEAL sensibility.

WALKING ON ANOTHER WORLD: This makes me sad.

I, FOR ONE, WILL GIVE GENEROUSLY TO OUR NEW ROBOTIC OVERLORDS: Are robots the future of charity fundraising?

DIDN’T YOU PEOPLE EVER WATCH THE SHOW?: Robots evolve to look out for their own.  But that’s always how it starts, isn’t it? (H/T Emily Jones, UVA.)

WHERE IS HAROLD KOH WATCH, CONT.: Lawfare’s Ben Wittes, after referencing an earlier post of mine at Volokh on UN special rapporteurs asking the US to justify its targeting of OBL, posts the following exchange between press questioner and State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner:

QUESTION: But did it abide by international laws?

MR. TONER: Again, I’m not going to get into a discussion here. That’s – that can be debated elsewhere.

If not the Department of State, then where?

GOODNIGHT MOON: As read by Mankiw, Dingman, Ager.  Funny, I would have figured that if Professor Mankiw were going to read a children’s book aloud, surely it would be … If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

IN THE MAIL: Say Her Name, Francisco Goldman’s moving novelistic tribute to his deceased young wife.  Frank is an old friend, one of the marvelously gifted writers of his generation, and this book merits the many glowing reviews.  Bittersweet, it’s an offbeat but good Mother’s Day gift.

THE WAGES OF WEAKNESS: Why Pakistan knew it could hide OBL and get away with it.

RENTING VERSUS BUYING AS HOUSING POLICY: “A new academic article in Real Estate Economics turns this conventional wisdom on its head. Using data from 1979 to 2009, the authors demonstrate that renting was the superior investment strategy for most of the past 30 years… Unless someone possesses the cash necessary to buy a residence, he or she will be renting one way or another. The choice is between renting the property directly or instead renting the capital necessary to buy the property.” I defer to Megan McArdle as to the argument in the article.

VAMPIRES BEFORE TWILIGHT, BEFORE BUFFY, BEFORE BRAM STOKER: Toby Lichtig in the Times Literary Supplement reviews scholarship on how and when vampires entered the European imagination. “By 1741 the term was commonly used as a synonym for a “cruel exactor or extortioner”. In keeping with the characteristics of the creature it signifies, the etymology of the word is harder to pin down, “vampire” having been variously attributed to the Chuvash word väpär, meaning “bad ghost”; the Tatar ubyr (“witch”); and, perhaps more tenuously, to the ancient Greek king Amphiaraus.”

WHERE IS HAROLD KOH WATCH:  Over at Volokh, I discuss how the Obama administration seems to be losing the narrative over something you might not have thought possible to lose, killing OBL.  When even the UN’s demanding information, think about regaining the initiative.  Hint:  Secretary Clinton, call your lawyer! Koh’s the right official to impose some order on the administration’s international law chaos – smart, knowledgeable, articulate, revered, and he’s already said most of what needs to be said as the “considered view” of the United States on international law. And for heaven’s sake, get Eric Holder out of the way.  Perhaps Congress should be asking Koh to testify – Monday morning, say?

FIXING THE CIA: “Despite the CIA’s success in tracking down Bin Laden, the CIA can still use some fixing.”  I agree.  My two suggestions are, first, get the analysts out from behind the barbed wire university campus in Langley at least to be seen, if not heard, at conferences, think tank meetings, university symposia, etc..  Second, draw the CIA’s lawyers into the process of public legitimacy, much in the way that the JAG, and senior DOD and DOS counsel, have played a role in increasing political legitimacy for government policies by going out and debating them.  You don’t have to reveal operational issues by putting out the broad legal criteria for some very important things – and engaging with them in public.  We’re long past the day when the agency can just refuse to comment … on anything.  A lot, sure – everything, no.

“UNWILLING OR UNABLE:” Former State Department lawyer Ashley Deeks explains the international law behind the US willingness to enter Pakistan without consent to attack OBL.  (H/T Lawfare.)

CHINA’s DEMOGRAPHICS:  Is China cooking the books on its recent census data? Will it get old before it gets rich? China’s Economic Observer says that China has reached its labor force peak and is on track to repeat Japan’s fate – except that Japan’s per capita income is $40,000 a year, while China’s is $4,000:  “China’s labor age group of the 15-64 years old will reach its peak in 2013, and then start to decrease. Changes to the 19-22 years old age group are key to a country’s demographic health, because they are the most active part of the population and what business needs most. In 2009, this age group attained an historical high of 100 million but will rapidly decrease to 58 million by 2019, a drop of 43% over just 10 years.”

AMERICAN PRIMITIVES EXPLAINED FOR YOU: Professor Herfried Munkler of Berlin’s Humbolt University, interviewed in Der Spiegel, explains American celebrations at the death of Bin Laden.  He adds: “For European observers, these kinds of public gatherings are indeed somewhat embarrassing, because they demonstrate a kind of unthinking naïveté, and also because there is something provocative about them.”

Added:  Professor Bainbridge says “the Germans are annoying me.” Me too. Not all, of course; Professor Bainbridge quotes a bracing 2008 interview with former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.