“Soheil Davood claims his paid subscription to JDate.com, billed as ‘the world’s largest Jewish singles community,’ guaranteed that he would find ‘high-quality, successful Jewish personals without wasting precious time.'” However, he claims that “SuperFriendlyGal” didn’t turn out to live up to her name, and (he alleges) after some initially enticing chat dumped him harshly. “Davood, who is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, claims the Web site is ‘defective’ because it was poorly designed and monitored, which exposed him to ‘serious psychological injury.'” (NBC4.TV, Sept. 20)(via Jeff Lewis).
Errin’ on the airwaves
Tom Bray of the Detroit News weighs in on the controversy over the Harvard School of Public Health’s decision to give an award to Erin Brockovich (earlier: Sept. 30) and points out that the glamourpuss toxic-tort-chaser is making a push into TV:
She is listed as the executive producer of an upcoming NBC series titled “Class Action,” which will lionize a team of fictional plaintiff’s attorneys who specialize in class-action lawsuits.
(“Radical parody threatens environmental movement”, Oct. 2)(via Toxic Tort News).
“I am not a puppy. Don’t try to train me”
California’s new law requiring all supervisors to experience sensitivity training to prevent sexual harassment (see Oct. 22, 2004) draws an eloquently annoyed response from Mark Kleiman (Sept. 30)(via Cathy Young, who has her own blog now). His follow-up post (Oct. 3) is equally worth reading, and includes a rude acronym for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
Rehosted (and on MT 3.2)
You can probably tell by the slightly altered style that this is the new version of Overlawyered rehosted on Hosting Matters and powered by the new Movable Type 3.2. A few points:
* I expect to be tinkering further with the style. In particular, I’d like to reduce the wasted space, widen the right sidebar, and give readers a way to increase font size, especially on the sidebar. (Update: I’ve done some of these things in the course of the day, and will be checking out some further suggestions from readers.) Suggestions are welcome, especially from readers who are familiar with Movable Type and stylesheets, I myself being an amateur.
* The new version of MT stores archives using a different filename format. This will result in some broken links for archives and older topical pages, at least temporarily, although I expect to install redirects that will help. All of the archives remain accessible through date-based browsing (see sidebar on front page) as well as through site search (more than one search may be necessary, though).
* I’ve cross-posted a few items I posted over the past two weeks at Point of Law. I trust all of you have bookmarked that site by now, and you should go on visiting it even after regular posting at this site resumes.
P.S. Well, at least we’ve got the serifs back now.
Home stretch on rehosting
I’ve got a prototype of the new Overlawyered (powered by Movable Type 3.2) up and running at Hosting Matters and it shouldn’t be long before we’re ready to switch over, once I can transfer miscellaneous files and resolve some archiving issues. Thanks for readers’ patience during this transition.
Radio shows
I was a guest on Kirby Wilbur’s nationally syndicated radio show last Friday, based at Seattle’s KVI, to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy. Yesterday I appeared on Danny Fontana’s Charlotte-based show and Ron Smith’s popular show on Baltimore’s WBAL to discuss President Bush’s selection of Harriet Miers and other legal issues.
Canada high court OKs tobacco-recoupment suits
The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously upheld a law enacted by the province of British Columbia which announces a retroactive right to recoup from tobacco companies money spent on illnesses due to smoking. (commentary: Edmonton Sun, Ezra Levant). Canada thus becomes the first country to emulate the principle announced by state attorneys general in the U.S., which culminated in the notorious $246 billion state-tobacco settlement. As parents used to say: if you saw your friend jump off a cliff, would you do that too? (cross-posted from Point of Law)
Hiatus and rehosting update
Readers were not shy about recommending hosting services (thanks for all your emails!) and I’ve now decided to go with Hosting Matters, which has many articulate fans and seems to make a specialty of Movable Type-based blogs. It’ll probably be a few days more before the site is back up and running.
In the mean time, you can follow both my and Ted’s postings at the Manhattan Institute site Point of Law, which has been extra-busy lately (see, for example, its reprint of Ramesh Ponnuru’s fascinating National Review article on trial lawyers and social conservatives). I’ve been juggling a number of other deadlines and published a “Rule of Law” op-ed column on Hurricane Katrina and flood insurance last Saturday in the Wall Street Journal (sub) (more on that). (Bumped 9/30).
Something in the water at Harvard?
Why, oh, why, asks Michael Fumento, is the Harvard School of Public Health bestowing its Julius Richmond Award on glamour-puss toxic-tort-chaser Erin Brockovich? (more, more, more, more)(cross-posted at Point of Law; and see later post there).
“Prairie Ho Companion”
More about the Garrison Keillor nastygram (earlier).(cross-posted from Point of Law).