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December 07, 2007
The Environment: "All we are saying is give nukes a chance?"
Will climate change concerns turn out to be a renaissance for nuclear power? We think so--nuclear's "new day" is beginning to accelerate piece by piece. So watch for pitched battles on this issue. Two days ago, with much fanfare and by an 11-8 vote, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved a bill which would require U.S. limits on greenhouse gases. See AP's "Senate Panel OKs Global Warming Bill". Measures offered by a Republican senator to expand the use of nuclear power--on the argument that reactors, unlike coal-burning
plants, produce no carbon dioxide--were defeated in the committee. However, nuclear energy as way to combat global warming is expected to emerge again when the full Senate considers the bill. The pro-nuclear lobby which slowly evolves over the next few months should be an interesting coalition of peace, love and heavy industry. See at Wired.com a feature-interview about a journalist and environmental activist who is re-thinking nuclear power: "Former 'No Nukes' Protester: Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Power". Finally, visit Mark Hertsgaard's San Francisco Chronicle op-ed piece of two years ago: "Nuclear Energy Can't Solve Global Warming".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
Depositions: "Stop me before I coach again."
For litigators/trial lawyers, from Evan Schaeffer's fine and enduring Illinois Trial Practice Weblog, see "Depositions: How to Stop Coaching". We could go on and on about this but--well, just be quiet and read it.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
DOJ won't investigate Nifong in Duke case.
Which makes sense. See today's Duke Chronicle.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2007
Trends for 2008: The hot, the un-hot, and possibly dying.
Via our friend Tom Kane at The Legal Marketing Blog, see Robert Denney Associates' 19th annual 4-page, single-space and interesting "What's Hot and What's Not Hot in the Legal Profession". HOT: IP, corporate investigations/SOX-related/white collar, global warming/environmental, "animal law", China, UAE markets (it's what we've been telling you). COLD: Medical malpractice, workers compensation, insurance defense (upside = a legal mind is a terrible thing to waste). NOT too cool right now: Martindale-Hubbell (still needed?) and mandatory retirement (annoying to baby boomers; see Dennis Hopper commercials).
Posted by JD Hull at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
Driving instructor sues Borat and Fox studio.
A cast member files in SDNY for fraud, emotional distress and punitive damages, alleging he was paid $500 in cash to give Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) a driving lesson--during which Cohen drove wild and crazy down residential streets, drank booze and "yelled to a female pedestrian he would pay her $10 for 'sexy time'". [Reuters-UK]
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
Subprime mortgage rate freeze
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of thousands of strapped homeowners could get some relief from a plan negotiated by the Bush administration to freeze interest rates on subprime mortgages that are scheduled to rise in the coming months.
"There is no perfect solution," President Bush said Thursday as he announced an agreement hammered out with the mortgage industry. "The homeowners deserve our help. The steps I've outlined today are a sensible response to a serious challenge."
Read the full article here.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2007
Blawg Review this week: Heavenly.
Beauty awakens the soul to act.
--Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
You need inspiration? Well, WAC? does; we need a miracle every day. Blawg Review, consistently first-rate and tasteful, often literary, cannot be much finer or heroic than it is this week. A double-Blawg Review of the Year winner, Colin Samuels at Infamy or Praise is an admirer of The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri's epic poem written between 1308 and 1321. At Blawg Review, Colin now brings to a close his Divine Comedy theme and narrative tracking Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise (or Heaven), guided first by the Roman Epic Poet Virgil, then by Dante's Life-Long Love Beatrice--and
finally of course by The Yank Lawyer Colin.* In the third cantica, Paradiso--that's Blawg Review #137 for us folks in bow-ties with PDAs and Harvard Bluebooks--Beatrice guides Dante through the nine spheres of Heaven. Dante even sees the face of God, but can find no words to report his experience: All'alta fantasia qui mancò possa ("at this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe") XXXIII, 142. In 2005, Colin first hosted BR with Inferno-themed Blawg Review #35 and became the 2005 Blawg Review of the Year winner. Hosting again in 2006, he decided to stay with Dante's great work, and published a Purgatorio-themed Blawg Review #86--and again, won the "best review" award. The engravings appearing on Colin's posts in all three installments are by the renowned French artist and book illustator Paul Gustave Doré, and from the illustrated editions of The Divine Comedy published 1857 and 1867.
*Virgil, a pagan, may not enter Heaven, so Dante's fellow Florentine Beatrice takes over. Lawyers, each with a back-stage pass to the Cosmos, may go anywhere.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2007
Michelle Golden is all over your 2008 marketing budget.
See Michelle Golden's article "What's In a Plan? Marketing Plan & Budget Development". Note especially the emphasis she puts on investing in Existing Clients and Influential People/Referral Sources versus New Business. It's what we've been trying to tell you.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2007
Sarkozy to France: Get off your derriere and back to work.
Speaking of picket lines and protests, nearly 19 million French viewers heard words to this effect in a televised interview on Thursday. WAC? still loves Paris above all places and the French above all Europeans. However, and as we've suggested, it's high time for the French--the West's high-minded guardians of culture, conscience and taste--to start working again. Between 1901 and 2002, the French (population about 60 million) won 44 Nobel prizes, fourth behind the US (pop. 287 million), UK (60 million) and Germany (83 million). Why not excel once again in the world's marketplaces as well? Begin by chucking the 35-hour work week, a madness the French president thinks is killing the country. So in Saturday's Financial Times, see "Sarkozy Urges France to Work Harder", and for a list of President Sarkozy's specific proposals, designed in large part to increase French consumer purchasing power, see Reuters.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
Blawg Review #137 -- Blawg Review in Paradiso
This week's excellent Blawg Review is brought to you by Colin Samuels at Infamy or Praise. The Divine Comedy's third cantica, Paradiso, provides the theme for Blawg Review #137. Infamy or Praise also hosted an Inferno-themed Blawg Review #35 (2005 Blawg Review of the Year winner) and a Purgatorio-themed Blawg Review #86.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
Karl Rove speaks at Duke tonight.
Together at last. Get ready. Duke has a history of odd-but-fun theater at public figure speaking events; when Hunter Thompson appeared at Page auditorium in the 1970s, serious bikers got word of it and attended. HST, drunk and feisty, was pulled off the stage by a faculty member, and first amendment noises followed. For Rove's talk, which if we're lucky will be equally as demented, expect an angry-but-funny Halloween with students in orange jump suits. What really makes this interesting: Peter Feaver, an ex-National Security Council staffer and conservative Duke political science professor, will moderate. See "Protesters Prepare for Rove" in Duke's daily, The Chronicle, and The Independent Weekly (Durham-Chapel Hill-Raleigh).
Posted by JD Hull at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2007
Any funny scab TV writers out there?
So Mitt Romney walks into a doctor's office with a frog on his head. The receptionist asks him what's wrong. The frog speaks up, and says "hey, can you guys get this wart off my ass?". Despite the ongoing writers' strike, Carson Daly has crossed the picket line to tape his show. See the Louisville Courier-Journal and Defamer. WAC? may apply.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
California FedEx court: drivers are employees, not ICs.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Supreme Court of California on Thursday denied the final appeal of FedEx Corp.'s domestic ground unit, which tried to overturn a lower court's ruling that FedEx drivers are employees and not independent contractors. [more]
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)