• Mark Lilla: pick either faux populism or intellectual conservatism, you can’t have both [WSJ] #
• P.J. O’Rourke on where conservatives went wrong [Weekly Standard] #
• And how exactly did those mountain goats get up there without wings? [Flickr "Roger 80" h/t @coolpics] #
• Scotland authorities trawl social networking sites, then slap teen with £200 fine for posing with sword on Bebo [Massie] #
• “Victims’ rights” sound like lovely idea but can undermine fairness and practicality of criminal justice system [Greenfield] #
• Bizarre Czech case: driver hits, then tries to murder pedestrian, victim survives only to be sued by car’s owner [Feral Child] #
• Auto bailout would leave Big 3 in interest-group coils, bankruptcy could cut the knots [Bainbridge h/t @erwiest] #
• ACORN as the gang that couldn’t intimidate straight [PoL] #
• “Talked about in CivPro” I hope favorably [@sqfreak] #
• More public stirrings against traffic cameras [Jeff Nolan] #

The traffic camera automatically recorded the license plate of the vehicle going too fast, so the owner (in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa) was automatically mailed a ticket. The only problem: the vehicle was being towed by a tow truck at the time. (Stumblng Tumblr, Aug. 5).

More from commenter Cathy Gellis: “I know someone who canceled her Fastrak/EZ Pass automatic toll account and was charged when the device passed through a toll while being mailed back.”

“A new high-tech aerial photography system that can spot an illegal porch from 5,000 feet is being marketed to tax assessors as a way to grow revenue.” Backers say the system can help assessors spot not only unauthorized building additions but also cases in which taxpayers claim farmstead exemptions but aren’t farming enough of their land to qualify. (Richard Degener, “Taxes could get sky-high with aerial technology”, Press of Atlantic City, Sept. 29).

• One for your “firefighter’s rule” file: firefighter perishes in blaze, his widow sues security alarm company [SF Chron, San Pablo, Calif.]
• And another: Nassau County, N.Y. cop injured by drunk driver while on duty is suing the county over Long Island Expressway design and signage [Newsday; Kenneth Baribault]
• Stop fighting over the $60 million in fees, judge tells feuding lawyers, your lawsuit has been over for four years now [Legal Intelligencer, corrugated paper antitrust class action]
• Public-health prof: red-light cameras “don’t work” and instead “increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop” [Bruce Schneier via Instapundit]
• Criminal prosecution of political attack ads? Time to rethink campaign finance law [Bainbridge]
• Teenagers send each other racy cellphone videos, and then their legal nightmare begins [Des Moines Register]
• Sounds interesting but haven’t seen a copy: “How To Get Sued: An Instructional Guide” by well-known blawger J. Craig Williams [Giacalone, Ambrogi]
• Mississippi AG Hood goes after MillerCoors over caffeinated alcohol drinks, but Anheuser-Busch hired Mike Moore and sprung big for DAGA, hmmm [Alan Lange, YallPolitics]/li>

Turns out their economic appeal for municipalities isn’t so closely related to whether drivers are plowing through cross traffic against the stop light: “In Los Angeles, officials estimate that 80% of red light camera tickets go not to those running through intersections but to drivers making rolling right turns”. (L.A. Times via Bainbridge and Drum).

• Ninth Circuit, Kozinski, J., rules 8-3 that Roommates.com can be found to have violated fair housing law by asking users to sort themselves according to their wish to room with males or other protected groups; the court distinguished the Craigslist cases [L.A. Times, Volokh, Drum]
• Class-action claim: Apple says its 20-inch iMac displays millions of colors but the true number is a mere 262,144, the others being simulated [WaPo]
• U.K.: compulsive gambler loses $2 million suit against his bookmakers, who are awarded hefty costs under loser-pays rule [BBC first, second, third, fourth stories]
• Pittsburgh couple sue Google saying its Street Views invades their privacy by including pics of their house [The Smoking Gun via WSJ law blog]
• U.S. labor unions keep going to International Labour Organization trying to get current federal ground rules on union organizing declared in violation of international law [PoL]
• Illinois Supreme Court reverses $2 million jury award to woman who sued her fiance’s parents for not warning her he had AIDS [Chicago Tribune]
• Italian family “preparing to sue the previous owners of their house for not telling them it was haunted”; perhaps most famous such case was in Nyack, N.Y. [Ananova, Cleverly]
• Per their hired expert, Kentucky lawyers charged with fen-phen settlement fraud “relied heavily on the advice of famed trial lawyer Stan Chesley in the handling of” the $200 million deal [Lexington Herald-Leader]
• Actor Hal Holbrook of Mark Twain fame doesn’t think much of those local anti-tobacco ordinances that ban smoking on stage even when needed for dramatic effect [Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times]
• Six U.S. cities so far have been caught “shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners.” [Left Lane via Virtuous Republic and Asymmetrical Information]

• Raising ticket revenue seems more important to NYC authorities than actually recovering stolen cars [Arnold Diaz/MyFoxNY video via Coyote]
• Subpoena your Facebook page? They just might [Beck/Herrmann]
• Rhode Island nightclub fire deep pockets, cont’d: concert sponsor Clear Channel agrees to pay Station victims $22 million, adding to other big settlements [ProJo; earlier]
• Manhattan federal judge says “madness” of hard-fought commercial suit “presents a cautionary tale about the potential for advocates to obscure the issues and impose needless burdens on busy courts” [NYLJ]
• Wooing Edwards and his voters? Hillary and Obama both tacking left on economics [Reuters/WaPo, WSJ, Chapman/Reason, WaPo editorial]
• Sad: if you tell your employer that you’re away for 144 days on jury duty, you actually need to be, like, away on jury duty [ABA Journal]
• New at Point of Law: Florida “three-strikes” keeps the doctor away; court dismisses alien-hiring RICO suit against Tyson (and more); Novak on telecom FISA immunity; fortunes in asbestos law; Ted on Avandia and Vioxx litigation; new Levy/Mellor book nominates Supreme Court’s twelve worst decisions; and much more;
• U.K.: “Lawyers forced to repay millions taken from sick miners’ compensation” [Times Online]
• Outside law firm defends Seattle against police-misconduct claims: is critics’ beef that they bill a lot, or that they’re pretty good at beating suits? [Post-Intelligencer]
• Cincinnati NAACP is campaigning against red-light cameras [Enquirer]
• Omit a peripheral defendant, get sued for legal malpractice [six years ago on Overlawyered]