Category Archives: Blogs

A Fool for a Client

The mind boggles.

Blogger unmasked, court case upended: As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.

Was Lindeman Flea?

Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.

In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.

With the jury looking on in puzzlement, Lindeman admitted that he was, in fact, Flea.

So, here's a little tip for anyone who finds themselves involved in a lawsuit: don't blog about the case (or, at least, have every posting approved by your lawyer). And if you do have a blog, maybe you should mention this fact to your lawyer…

P.S. I'm sure someone in the blogosphere will try to spin this case as some sort of attack on bloggers' inherent right to anonymity. It isn't.

(Thanks to DF for the link.)

Posted in Blogs | 6 Comments

W. David Stephenson Is Back

W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security et al. is back after months of darkness. He's got a new feed address too.

Unfortunately, the very useful archives (lots of info on disaster preparedness and on the ways in which citizen-based preparedness might be better than current centralized top-heavy models) have yet to emerge from what sounds like a painful transition from Userland to WordPress.

Fear of transitioning from my very customized MT 2.x to WordPress has kept me from making the move, although WP would I think be easier to use (and would standardize me with most of the other blogs I run).

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Insiders’ Gossip About Wolfowitz

Amazingly, there's a blog at which World Bank insiders discuss the Wolfowitz scandal and share juicy gossip about possibly forged emails and the like. It's currently called World Bank President – Scrutinising Paul Wolfowitz, outgoing World Bank president.

Founded in January 2005, when former World Bank president James Wolfensohn announced he would be retiring, the original mission of the blog was to “shine a light on the medieval process for choosing the head of this very powerful institution.” In particular, the author(s) were unhappy about the ability of the US government to pick the Bank's President. Then they were unhappy with what they got. Then they went on hiatus.

Now they're back, with a new name.

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Best Blog Post Title of the Week

Ann Bartow, An Important Copyright Case About Photos of Naked Women, As Discussed By Men

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Stuff You Find Online

Ex MI6 agent and continuing thorn in the side of the UK spy establishment Richard Tomlinson has a blog entitled MI6 v Tomlinson.

Posted in Blogs, UK | 1 Comment

Brian Leiter Cares About Rankings

E-mail from Brian Leiter:

I am writing to ask if you would be willing to use your blog to help establish my law school ranking site as a result for those searching my name; oddly it is not at present. You can simply cut and paste from the post here:

http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2007/04/law_school_rank.html

Thanks so much, and sorry for the bother.

That link takes you to this text:

So, dear reader with a blog, please post a link to Brian Leiter with the hyper-link to www.leiterrankings.com, for the benefit of all those souls in Cyberspace in search of my law school ranking site. 

Which all reminds me: Over a year ago, I stopped promoting this blog by sending out emails when I thought I had something worthy of attention. Traffic and links soon sagged — I lost maybe a third of it. But I'm much happier.

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