Blawg Review Incites Riot Over Best of the Blogs
The Editor ‘n’ Chef (yes, Chef) of Blawg Review was NOT amused by the BOBs selection of best blogs. But no matter. December 26, 2005, gentle readers, is the Big Day — noooo, not Boxing Day or the Day of the Ninja, rather it is the day when Blawg Review releases the winners of the first ever Blawg Review Awards. Tune in for Best Blawg & Best Law Blogs
Car-Blawging
Once again, InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds is happily hyping his hybrid Highlander — this time, in Popular Mechanics. As I’ve said before, Toyota couldn’t pay for that kind of positive press, so I hope the company will be sending its deserving engineers on some exotic vacation in gratitude.
Oh, Chery, Chery!
The IP blawgers are out in force on issues involving China’s Chery Automobile Company. Bob Sloss at IP Blawg questions whether the mysterious and quiet end to the lawsuit GM filed against Chery for “extreme similarities” between a Chery product (the QQ) and a GM-Daewoo joint venture vehicle will have any deterrent effect on potential pirates. IP Dragon, focused on China-related IP issues, points out that Chery’s IP woes have only changed focus from the GM suit over a vehicle, to a trademark suit over the name of that vehicle — QQ — which another Chinese company registered in 1999.
In other IP news, Bill Heinze at I/P Updates advises that Ford has filed an “unfair import” complaint asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate the importation of “certain automotive parts”. Respondents include major players in the aftermarket parts and distribution fields.
Speed Doesn’t Kill. The Idiots Driving the Cars Do.
KipEsquire of A Stitch in Haste blogs eloquently over a high-speed chase in NYC that almost took Kip and Diamond (his lovely female companion) out of the breathing population. Kip has great pictures of “the wreck”, “the 25 police cars” that responded, and the “perp-walk”. (I’m figuring a high-speed chase in Manhattan constitutes about, what, maybe 37 miles an hour?) Best of all, Kip nobly put himself between Diamond and the danger.
Citing to a Cato Report that proclaims speed doesn’t kill, Professor Bainbridge advocates eliminating speed limits and turning rural interstates into kin of the German autobahn. (Obviously, the good Prof. has his BMW back after its little mishap with thieves.) Lots of interesting and dicey comments to this post, and here’s mine: The Germans also have significantly higher vehicle performance, testing, and repair standards than we do — and they don’t let clipped or rebuilt salvage cars back out on the roads.
Which, of course, brings us to the question of why we have mandatory auto insurance posed by Martin Grace, the RiskProf. Similarly, Walter Olson at Overlawyered points to a new law in Alberta, Canada allowing a fetus to sue mom for “damage suffered in car accidents.”
Update: I just found out that Professor Bainbridge went shopping for a new BMW M3 right around Thanksgiving. His big debate was, what else? the automatic versus stick. He went with the Tiptronic rather than the manual — ooohhh, bad call, Prof! How will you ever hold your head up around the sports car crowd? But, he has a point: 30 minutes of stop-and-go traffic every day can really take the edge off the joy of manhandling. However, I still think a wine-loving, car-enthusiast would have sacrificed his own comfort for the ensemble.
To complement his new ride, a touch of BMW trivia from the Car Club of British Columbia. When is a BMW a “bimmer” and not a “beemer” or “beamer?” Ahem. Has everyone forgotten the airplane engines? You know, the neat little rondelle? Even remembering that, all I know is that GNRM won’t be driving either for the next several months.
GM & Ford– Ups and Downs
Conglomerate’s Gordon Smith wonders whether GM needs Jerry York. York is a consultant to Kirk Kerkorian’s company (you remember, Billionare v. DCC) and he will take a seat on GM’s board of directors. Smith cites to a quote in the WSJ by an analyst that GM’s management needs a “sense of urgency”, but he wonders aloud whether GM’s management really needs “additional motivation to turn things around”. Um, probably not. The good news is that shares of GM stock jumped (in the right direction) at the announcement.
Professor Bainbridge cynically suggests that the “level playing field” Wagoner and GM really want is a single payer universal health system to move responsibility for health care costs from manufacturers to taxpayers. Prof. B. predicts GM will back the next version of Hillarycare to be proposed. (Manufacturing certainly does make interesting bedfellows.)
No matter what anyone says, however, I give GM tremendous credit for being the first (and still only) major automotive enterprise to reach out to the public and make key company players visible and available to the vehicle-buying public through its FastLane Blog.
Carpundit outs Ford over the debacle created when the company pulled its advertising from all gay and lesbian magazines due to pressure from the American Family Association. As CP puts it, “I suppose one argument is that gays don’t buy domestic cars anyway“, and then makes an important correction: “Yes, I forgot about Jaguar and Land Rover. Chances are good (really good) that there are more gay-owned Range Rovers than AFA member-owned ones.”
In my own backyard, Ronald Burdge at Lemon Law writes about Consumer Report’s vehicle ratings, and notes that the Asian automakers are way out in front.
Finally, TalkLeft scares us with civil rights abuses for jay-walking in Dallas. I haven’t heard of anyone being arrested for jay-walking since I saw it happened to friends in East Berlin way back in ‘84. Is there an analogy to be drawn here?
Blawging
According to Robert J. Ambrogi, BlawgWorld should be scrapped, and he’s not the only one who thinks so. Ambrogi worries that blogging is becoming “a vanity press”, and our legal kin at Blawg Review definitely agree.
While James Hassett of Law Firm Business Development wonders if lawyers should blog and gives a meaty analysis of why the answer is “YES!”, Professor Maule of Mauledagain cites information that puts the category of lawyers in forth place on the blogging front, muses about why lawyers like to blog and suggests that Ann Althouse hit the blawging nub when she said that, in comparison to writing law review articles, blogging is fun. Meanwhile, Ernie the Attorney is being meaningful and having fun by creating a Louisiana Law wiki to help Louisiana Lawyers.
Going to law school: On the highway to hell?
Noting that it is “that time of year again”, David Giacalone of f/k/a posts about the dearth of law school exam prayers, but he was rescued by Jeremy Richey who posted a Celtic Blessing (hey, a little extra help never hurt); Adam Letourneau at Law, Eh? Law School in Canada discusses the differences between the U.S. J.D. and LL.B. degrees traditionally offered by Canadian law schools. Adam also has a great list of links to Canadian law-related sites.
Additionally, I wanted to let everyone know that another author will be joining the AutoMuse blawg. A. Kierstein, a car-enthusiast and law student at UC Hastings will be joining me in the quest for where the law and the car collide.
My Shingle, which turned 3 on Saturday, Contratulations! talks about the benefits attending a first tier law school can have on solo practice. She also gives support and practical suggestions to solowannabee who is struggling with the going it alone idea.
Climb into the Minivan, Kids, We’re going to the Bar Exam!
Norm Pattis at Crime & Federalism thinks the Bar Exam has a proper place in the tasking of new lawyers, and he mocks Kathleen Sullivan for failing the exam. On the other hand, Daniel Solove of Concurring Opinions is feeling used by the WSJ. After picking his brain about his thoughts on the problems of the Bar Exam, the article focused on Kathleen Sullivan’s failure to pass the California BE. OK, I confess. I had absolutely no idea who Kathleen Sullivan is/was, so I had to look her up. Isn’t the net wonderful? Turns out, she’s the Dean of Stanford Law School and, now that I know that, I will promptly permit myself to forget that fact. My head is already stuffed with useless facts (most of which I learned to pass the bar, and, yes, I am one of those weird people who understood the Rule Against Perpetuities); and I could frankly care less whether Dean Sullivan failed the bar exam or wears her underwear inside out.
The Practice
Alaskablawg has a poingnant post about a guilty verdict and all that passed during the two month trial and continues to pass without waiting. Arbitrary and Capricous writes about a positive CLE experience. Now there’s a thought. Jim Calloway of Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog takes on the debate over full backup v. data only backup and points us to a CLE paper on trust accounting.
Blonde Justice posted a terrifyingly realistic re-write to a Law & Order opening that ends with the old lady in central booking, not going home for milk and cookies.
Essence of Law — The Engine that Drives Everything
I am pleased to announce the inaugural issue of the Cato Institute’s blog-that-isn’t-quite-a-blog, Cato Unbound. Here is the Editors’ description of what CU is:
Cato Unbound is a state-of-the-art virtual trading floor in the intellectual marketplace, specializing in the exchange of big ideas. To be sure, there is no shortage these days of online forums for hashing out the issues of the day. All too often, however, the advantages of instant analysis and communication are compromised by obsession with the trivial and ephemeral. Here at Cato Unbound we try to step back, take a deep breath, and focus on the larger picture.
The inaugural edition featured Nobel laureate, James M. Buchanan’s, provocative response to the question of what three amendments he would add to The Constitution.
Jerry Monaco blawgs about the rise of legal formalism and the attack on jury nullification, while Walter Olson writes about recently enacted legislation he believes overcriminalizes any act encouraging illegal immigrants to remain in this country. Crime & Federalism’s Norm Pattis encourages lawyers to read two recent textbooks to get a grip on understanding DNA evidence before they go into the courtroom. While your head is still tufted with fumes, try this peyote issue Norm Oman from Concurring Opinions sets before us regarding the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). As Norm says, “It recently occurred to me that this law creates a neat little legal paradox: It is entirely possible that you could be sent to prison for engaging in some activity only to find that “on the inside” you had a legal right to engage in precisely the activity that put you there in the first place!”
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Eugene Volokh discusses whether or when wartime anti-war speech is immoral. Pointedly, he notes that what is protected by The Constitution may not necessarily be moral. Likewise, at the VC, Professor Orin Kerr continues to probe Judge Boggs’ concurrence which attempted to determine the validity of a probable cause claim by quantifying the likelihood of finding evidence.
The ContractsProf Blog discusses a forthcoming law review article that argues the “Lex Mercatoria“, the extra-legal law merchant of the middle ages, was merely a fable. Does this mean corporations really shouldn’t overstate their earnings?
Lawsuits: CEOnistas — Is anyone taking their BMWs and Hummers away?
Andrew Lavoott Bluestone chronicals recent happenings in the land of legal malpractice and ethics, and f/k/a provides a look at the censure of a New York family law judge. The saddest part about David’s post was the thought of all of the people who came to the court seeking justice and were rebuffed, and rudely, too.
On a much more entertaining note, Lisa Stone at Inside Opinions: Legal Blogs writes that all is not well in the hundred-acre-woods, where Mickey is duking it out with Pooh over who gets the biggest “smackeral of hunny”. Oh, but Disney’s plays even rougher by giving Christopher Robin a sex change. That should be tough for a bear of very little brain to figure out.
While Pooh is scratching his head over that one, John Harding at the California Divorce Blawg discusses a state appellate decision allowing two fertility doctors to refuse to artificially inseminate an unmarried lesbian because it would have violated their religious beliefs. The decision was apparently based on the woman’s marital status rather than her sexual orientation.
Both Kevin Thompson of Cyberlaw Central and Evan Brown of InternetCases.com discuss the 7th Circuit decision of BMG v. Gonzalez which found that downloading copyrighted songs from a filesharing service could not be considered “fair use” under copyright law. George Lenard at George’s Employment Blawg tells us that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a workplace retaliation suit brought by a woman who was transferred to a less desirable position, but within the same job classification, ten days after she filed a sexual harassment complaint.
Credit Cards — Yes, you can put your new car on credit.
J. Craig Williams at May It Please the Court warns of a new and clever credit card scam. Full details of just how this scam works are given at Esqlawtech. David Gulbransen, to whom I owe a VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU!, at Preaching to the Perverted reminds us that it’s always Christmas time for Visa.
Tail Lights
opinionistas has a wonderful post about the tyranny of Queen Bee, the dragon-lady partner who seems all too like a vicious version of Rita Skeeter. George Wallace at A Fool in the Forest ponders on the passage of time, as a pirate, er insurance defense lawyer, looks at 50. (I think Jimmy Buffet has this one covered.) And so, go gently into that good night with your tail lights a-blazin’.
Next week, the Wired GC will be hosting Blawg Review #37. WGC really hits hard by telling us there’s a new general counsel for Coors Brewing and suggest that, “This may be one corporate legal department where attendance at keggers are part of “other duties as assigned.”” And I thought I had a great job!
Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.