Legal Commentary

There's No School Like Old School

Posted on July 14, 2009
Walter Olson's decade-old Overlawyered blog is, by most accounts, the original legal blog and is thus the forebear of not just Blawg Review but each and every blog collected in its weekly posts. It's fitting, then, to have Olson host Blawg Review #220 this week, marking his second go-around with hosting duties...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (227)

Posted on July 10, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Yahoo! Rivals.com (from Wednesday, July 8; link good at time of posting):It was assumed he was called "King James" because he reigns on the basketball court. But maybe LeBron James earned that nickname due to his tyrannical ways (in dealing with embarrassment)...

Gmail Finally Walks Down the Aisle

Posted on July 08, 2009
Back in April 2005, I wrote a post called "Always a Beta, Never a Bride" which described the semi-permanent "beta" labels Google associates with many of its products. Gmail was a notable example, having been in beta at that point for a year (since April 2004)...

Unsilent Partners

Posted on July 07, 2009
I'm pleased that Mike Semple Piggot, of Charon QC and Insite Law Magazine fame, has agreed to work together with me on a new project, Unsilent Partners. At Unsilent Partners, he and I will discuss legal, current, and other topics of interest to US and UK audiences, usually focusing on one topic per week...

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Everything Old Is News Again

Posted on July 06, 2009
From the beginning, Blawg Review has encouraged its hosts to showcase their own professional and personal interests, to give some color and flavor to their posts. Some of the more notable and memorable posts in Blawg Review's long (by blogging standards) history have been idiosyncratic ones, personal in the most charming sense...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (226)

Posted on July 03, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Wednesday, July 1; link good at time of posting):The sheriff of Oregon's most populous county has flunked his police certification course.A passing score is an average of 75 on three written tests; Multnomah County Sheriff Bob Skipper got a 66, said Eriks Gabliks, deputy director of the state agency that certifies police officers...

I've been waiting a long time for "Patience" to get bumped from a list of virtues.

Posted on June 29, 2009
When Peter Black hosted the Twitter-centric Blawg Review #178 in September 2008, the microblogging service was something of a novelty, and particularly so in the legal community. Since then, Twitter's user base has grown at an astonishing rate, 1,382% between 2008 and 2009 according to Nielsen Online...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (225) . . . The Sequel!

Posted on June 26, 2009
This week's bonus joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Reuters (from Wednesday, June 24; link good at time of posting):A monkey urinated on Zambian President Rupiah Banda as he spoke to journalists at a news conference on Wednesday.Banda softly shouted: "You (monkey) have urinated on my jacket," and paused as he looked up to see the animal playing in a tree just above his chair...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (225)

Posted on June 26, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (via Venkat Balsubramani) (from Sunday, June 21; links good at time of posting):A man who allegedly wanted to buy some marijuana was arrested after he mistakenly sent a text message to a Salem police officer, authorities said yesterday...

The Right Sort of Daddy Issues

Posted on June 22, 2009
Fathers' Day has always been more about quiet appreciation than applause and attention. If there's any defining characteristic of the American Fathers' Day, it's been relaxation. Dads are expected and encouraged to take it easy and enjoy a well-deserved day off...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (224)

Posted on June 19, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Tuesday, June 16; link good at time of posting):After being told by her daughter that a man in their home was an armed intruder, a 77-year-old woman pulled a gun on him and sent him running, according to court documents...

A Blawg Review Host Deserving of the Royal "We".

Posted on June 15, 2009
I'll confess that I know little about the Magna Carta apart from the fact that it was a larger-caliber version of the original Carta, with improved penetration and stopping power. It seems that John Bolch knows a bit more about it than I do, which is fortunate since he's the one who's hosting the Magna Carta-themed Blawg Review #216 this week at the Family Lore blog...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (223)

Posted on June 12, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Deadspin (from Wednesday, June 10; link good at time of posting):Reebok belatedly discovers that they gave a shoe contract to [Marcin Gortat,] a white guy with an "Air Jordan" tattoo on his leg...

Enjoy some pun in the sun down by the seashore.

Posted on June 10, 2009
If nautical nonsense be something you wish, forego Spongebob this week and check out Blawg Review. Commemorating World Oceans Day, Carolyn Elefant hosts a pun-filled Blawg Review #215 at her My Shingle blog. Yes, I know that World Oceans Day was on Monday; I would've done something then, like perhaps write an introductory post for Blawg Review #215, but I was a bit underwater with professional and personal commitments...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (222)

Posted on June 05, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Jerusalem Post via Joel Rosenberg (from day, June ; link good at time of posting):A six-year-old girl helped put a knife-brandishing robber under arrest Tuesday night after the man had already successfully stolen money from two grown men...

Smoke Yourself Fit with Blawg Review

Posted on June 02, 2009
The inimitable Charon QC hosts Blawg Review #214 this week. The occasion is the anniversary of the declaration of war between the United States and Great Britain. Not the first war, the American Revolution in the 1770s and 1780s, and not the most recent one, when Geeklawyer hosted Blawg Review #203 back in March...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (221)

Posted on May 29, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Inquisitr (from Wednesday, May 27; link good at time of posting):Residents in Conisbrough, England have changed the name of their street after deciding that Butt Hole Road no longer appealed to them...

Blawg Review Throws in the Towel

Posted on May 25, 2009
Blessed are the geek: for they shall inherit the earth.--Matthew 5:5 (Revised Internet Edition)Memorial Day coincides this year with Towel Day. As Blawg Review #213 host Kevin Thompson points out, "Towel Day is also a memorial, but a geeky one," which arose after the untimely death -- er, "permanent existence failure" -- in 2001...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (220)

Posted on May 22, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Canadian Press (from Monday, May 18; link good at time of posting):The Belgian bodybuilding championship had to be cancelled after anti-doping officials showed up and all the competitors fled...

What kind of Blawg Review do you usually have here?

Posted on May 18, 2009
Elwood Blues: What kind of music do you usually have here?Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western.The Blues Brothers (1980)If someone had suggested before this morning that the best legal blogging produced in an entire week could be reduced to a country and western song, it might have seemed unlikely...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (219)

Posted on May 15, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Beautiful Game blog (from Friday, May 8; link good at time of posting):[Previous TGIS]

Universal health coverage? Heated debate. HealthBlawg's Blawg Review? Unanimous acclaim.

Posted on May 11, 2009
I confess to a healthy amount of skepticism about both the Obama Administration's first hundred days in office and its next fourteen hundred or so days. Notwithstanding, I'm a great believer in David Harlow's ability to sum up the President's first hundred days in the White House while gathering the best legal blogging of the last seven...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (218)

Posted on May 08, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Times Online (from Monday, May 4; link good at time of posting):From a distance the large ship on the horizon looked like the perfect target, ripe for a successful spot of piracy.But as the Somali pirates sped toward the vessel sailing near the Seychelles, they were horrified to see two boats and a helicopter set off from their target and launch their own counter-attack...

This Blawg Review might just start a movement of its own.

Posted on May 04, 2009
Dan Harris has come to accept that despite his varied and considerable talents his previous efforts to bring about world peace via Blawg Review hosting have come to naught. Undaunted, he returns today with Blawg Review #210, which he promises will be sarcastic, mean-spirited, petty, and low-brow but not snarky...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (217)

Posted on May 01, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Asbury Park Press (from Thursday, April 30; link good at time of posting):A Florida man faces misdemeanor charges for possession of drug paraphernalia after he placed his keys and other belongings, including a pot pipe, in a tray at a courthouse security checkpoint...

I'm the damn paterfamilias!

Posted on April 30, 2009
If you've not taken some time to read through this week's Blawg Review #209, hosted by John Hochfelder at his New York Injury Cases Blog, don't hesitate a moment longer. Many editions of the carnival of legal blogging have been excellent, memorable ones; until this week, though, none of them prompted me to call my father just to chat...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (216)

Posted on April 24, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Inquisitr (from Monday, April 20; link good at time of posting):Ever heard of the Washington Natinals? Neither had anyone else until Friday when Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn fronted a game at Nationals Park sporting jerseys with the name ?Natinals? printed on them...

Earth Day: Celebrating My Second-Favorite Planet After Gallifrey

Posted on April 22, 2009
When I was young, the only people I can recall discussing "Earth Day" were pushing zero population growth and/or anti-immigration policies. Or they were named "Ed Begley, jr." Needless to day, a broader environmental consciousness seems to have taken root in America these days and Earth Day is now closer to being a national day of observation than are actual holidays like Columbus Day or Labor Day...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (215)

Posted on April 17, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Reuters (from Monday, April 13; link good at time of posting):A Polish politician has criticized his local zoo for acquiring a "gay" elephant named Ninio who prefers male companions and will probably not procreate, local media reported Friday...

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (214)

Posted on April 10, 2009
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Wednesday, April 8; link good at time of posting):One Colorado woman's love for tofu has been judged X-rated by state officials.Kelly Coffman-Lee wanted to tell the world about her fondness for bean curd by picking certain letters for her SUV's license plate...

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