Nurse practitioners operating independently of actual M.D.s?  Well, it is likely that such nurse practitioners and physician assistants are in effect doing that now, even though operating in the context of a medical practice.  My worry certainly is the oversight and the liability concerns.  If I go to a nurse practitioner's office and as a result I am injured, is that medical malpractice, or just general malpractice?  It's an important distinction, as it is much more difficult and expensive to sue a doctor for medical malpractice than, say, a motorist for an automobile accident.

Here's a lawsuit going somewhere to happen.

Is BP putting its money where its mouth is?  We'll see.  As a lawyer that handles claims all the time, what is important is NOT that money is being reserved, or set aside, but instead whether claims will be quickly, properly, and fairly administered and paid.  Interestingly, "The fund will be controlled not by BP, but by an independent, third party...."  Attorney Kenneth Feniberg is supposed to be "in charge" of the fund, whatever that means.  Here's a bio on Feinberg from his firm's web site:

Kenneth R. Feinberg has been key to resolving many of our nation's most challenging and widely known disputes. He is best known for serving as the Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, in which he reached out to all who qualified to file a claim, evaluated applications, determined appropriate compensation, and disseminated awards. Mr. Feinberg shared his extraordinary experience in his book What Is Life Worth?, published in 2005 by Public Affairs Press. Just a few years later, Mr. Feinberg became Fund Administrator for the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund following the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. Mr. Feinberg also has served as Special Master in Agent Orange, asbestos personal injury, wrongful death claims, Dalkon shield, and DES (pregnancy medication) cases.

Clearly, this guy has a lot of experience with mass tort/accident/injury situations.  Let's see if he can get it done.  In the meantime, the oil continues to fill up the Gulf.  Ugh.

For those dozens of you who have checked back at this site over the past several years, you will note a new template and a (somewhat) new direction. 

When I started this blog back in 2003, I was railing about Big Insurance and its efforts at tort reform.  As those efforts largely were proven unsuccessful, I broadened the scope to include general legal stuff that interested me, and later just blogged on any subject that caught my eye.

Now, I have decided to integrate the blog more closely with my law firm website and get serious about blogging once again.  I have also -- after playing website developer games for over two months, dumped the website developer, and made content and feature changes in the firm's web site myself.  I was able to do in three days what they couldn't do in two months.  There's a whole frustrating story there for the telling.  Some day....

In any event, I hope you'll check out the site, and especially the new FAQs/Videos page, which has a bunch of Q & A on legal matters, as well as some videos, one of which I posted here a few weeks ago.  I have also posted the videos on Youtube, here, here, here, here, and here.

Constructive comments about the site and this blog are welcome.  Remember -- I'm doing this myself, so be kind if you can!

Well, I guess I had it wrong the whole time. This video certainly convinces me that them Palestineans were in the right after all!

Here is the first video for my law firm web site. For anyone who views this, I would really like to know if there are technical problems. Specifically, does the audio stay in sync with the video?

ELECTRIC CARS FOR RETAIL SALE IN 2011. In Israel. 350 mile range. Sales and maintenance pricing equivalent to gas-powered equivalent vehicles. (To view video scroll across to the story "Electric Cars By Next Year"). When will they hit Tennessee? Marty Peretz wrote it up, too.

Earthquake in Grand Cayman. Apparently, there are no casualties or damage, though. Thank goodness....

Here's a scholarly article -- with citations to authority -- demonstrating the true state of affairs leading up to and immediately following the establishment of Israel. The piece is especially noteworthy for its use of recently declassified British Mandate sources. Not surprisingly, it reiterates the truth always known, but covered up recently via use of the Big Lie propaganda technique. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the accurate history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. An excerpt:

As the Jews set out to lay the groundwork for their nascent state while simultaneously striving to convince their Arab compatriots that they would be (as Ben-Gurion put it) “equal citizens, equal in everything without any exception,” Palestinian Arab leaders pledged that “should partition be implemented, it will be achieved only over the bodies of the Arabs of Palestine, their sons, and their women.” [Fawzi Qawuqji, the local commander of ALA forces] vowed “to drive all Jews into the sea.” Abdel Qader Husseini stated that “the Palestine problem will only be solved by the sword; all Jews must leave Palestine.”

[Citation: Ben-Gurion, Bama’araha, Vol. 4, Part 2, p. 260; Hebrew translation of Hajj Amin Husseini’s interview with Le Journal d’Egypt on Nov. 10, 1947, HA, 105/105a, p. 47; Radio Beirut, Nov. 12, 1947, in Foreign Broadcasts Information Service (FBIS), European Section: Near & Middle East and North African Transmitters, 13 Nov. 1947, II2, 5; “Fortnightly Intelligence Newsletter No. 64,” issued by HQ British Troops in Palestine (for the period 2359 hrs 10 Mar.-2359 hrs 23 Jan. 48), PRO, WO 275/64, p. 4; Arab Press Service (Cairo), FBIS, European Section: Near & Middle East and North African Transmitters, Dec. 16, 1947, II1; “Weekly Summary for the Alexandroni Brigade, Mar. 2, 1948,” HA 105/143, p. 105; “In the Arab Public,” Mar. 30, 1948, HA 105/100, p. 14.]

And on the subject of Arab departures from their homes:

[I]n early April [1948] a Jewish delegation comprising top Arab-affairs advisers, local notables, and municipal heads with close contacts with neighboring Arab localities traversed Arab villages in the coastal plain, then emptying at a staggering pace, in an attempt to convince their inhabitants to stay put [Citation: Ezra Danin, Zioni Bekhol Tnai (Jerusalem: Kidum, 1987), Vol. 1, pp. 216-17; Zafrira Din, “Interview with Josh Palmon on June 28, 1989,” HA 80/721/3.] . . . .What makes these Jewish efforts all the more impressive is that they took place at a time when huge numbers of Palestinian Arabs were being actively driven from their homes by their own leaders and/or by Arab military forces, whether out of military considerations or in order to prevent them from becoming citizens of the prospective Jewish state. In the largest and best-known example, tens of thousands of Arabs were ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa on the AHC’s instructions, despite strenuous Jewish efforts to persuade them to stay [Citation: I have documented the Haifa episode at some length in “Nakbat Haifa: the Collapse and Dispersion of a Major Palestinian Community,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 37, No. 4 (October 2001), pp. 25-70].

Read the whole thing.

And I thought nobody knew who I was. But would I even want the job if I got it?

It never ends:

The nursing home industry, lending new meaning to the term audacious, is pushing legislation to limit its liability in Tennessee courts at a time when violations for neglect and abuse of residents are higher than ever before. It may seem outrageous to many, but inside Tennessee’s ethically challenged legislature, the measure’s chances of passage are better than even.

When I first blogged here in 2003, I advocated against limiting liability in medical malpractice cases. We've seen over the last five years that the only group that has benefited from that spate of legislation has been Big Insurance. Now, the "forces of darkness" are at it again, trying to screw the old and infirm by sliding this legislation through with lots of cash and legislative insider connections. They're even using the same threat: protect our profits or we may have to close nursing homes.

Anyone who wants to register their opinion with their legislator can locate him/her here.

UPDATE: Comment below: "I notice you haven't jumped into either the medical profession or the nursing home business but instead have chosen, ahem, to be a lawyer." It's funny, that comment. I keep saying, when I see some other type of work that is really lucrative, "I picked the wrong line of work again!" Seriously, though, regardless of whether I decided decades ago to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a nursing home proprietor [and who tells mommy and daddy when they're groing up, "I want to be a nursing home operator when I grow up!"], that does not excuse a doctor when he screws up, or a nursing home when it maltreats its residents.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I love all the folks that bash trial lawyers. They're the same people for whom trial lawyers are their best friends, when they need help.

YET MORE TO SAY: I do have to say this to the commenter who said that consumer law benefits lawyers always, but consumers only sometimes. Unless the comenter is referring to insurance defense lawyers who defend cases by the hour, that statement is just not true. I handle most or all of such cases on a contingent fee, i.e., I make no fee unless the client recovers. Thus, the client will make a recovery before I get paid. It's just a terrible distortion of the way things really are to paint all trial lawyers as profiting while their clients are losing. In my practice, and every other trial lawyer I know and respect, that just ain't the case. Like it or not, most trial lawyers are in this business to make a living by helping people solve their problems. Putting aside the top 1 or 2% of the lawyers who make the big money in the plaintiff's bar, most of us work for very modest wages. Frankly, what is extraordinary to me is what the big firms are paying the top 1 or 2% of law school graduates these days -- $150,000 and up. Now that's obscene [and how do I get some of that?]!

Surprise! Study: Inkjet printers are filthy, lying thieves

I've been using Canon single-ink cartridges for several years, and the nice thing about the Canon cartridges is that they are clear; You can visually confirm they are empty. So I ignore the low ink warnings, which do start up many, many pages before the out-of-ink message flashes. And when that message comes up, I can see that the particular color is, in fact, empty.

Crisis? What Crisis: Malpractice Rebate for Md. Set at $84 Million

Maryland's Republican Governor in 2004 called the legislature into a special session to push through the subsidy, based on hysterical premium increases and threats that doctors would have to stop working in the state. Overreaction? History suggests exactly that.

Note that Maryland's Medical Mutual Liability Insurance Society planned to pay two-thirds of the rebate to the state and one-third to the physician shareholders of Medical Mutual, despite the fact that the surplus funds were generated by a taxpayer-financed subsidy. While the new Maryland Insurance Commissioner has mandated that all the rebate go to the state, guess who remains screwed: you guessed it, the taxpayers who had to pay it out in the first place.

I'm glad I don't live in Maryland any more.

It has bothered me for some years how the Republicans and right-wing types have been referring to the other party as "the Democrat Party" in a perjorative fashion. Now it bothers me even more. According to Marty Peretz, the practice hasn't been used in half a century, and was a product of Joe McCarthy "who, with his twisted mouth often oozing the charming brew of beer and saliva, would snarl out the words "Democrat Party," as if they referred to vermin."

Boy, that'd make me proud, if I were a Repub.

Resports -- largely unreported -- of routine torture in U.S. facilities in Afghanistan:

When Captain Carolyn Wood assumed control of the prison in the summer of 2002--she ran it until taking over Abu Ghraib a year later--interrogation tactics came to include beatings, anal violation with sharp objects, blows to the genitals, and "peroneal" strikes (an incapacitating blow to the leg with a baton, a knee, or a shin). We know about these tactics because an internal Army investigation into two prisoner deaths was obtained by The New York Times. These detainees--a 22-year-old taxi driver and the brother of a Taliban commander--were found dead and hanging from the wrists by shackles. A coroner's report said the two men died after being subjected to dozens of peroneal strikes. According to the coroner's report, the "pulpified" legs of one of the corpses looked as if they had "been run over by a bus."

Dammit, that's not who we are, or need to be. At least, so I thought.

Sad news from Grand Cayman. Back in August 2006, I got a chance to dive with a Grand Cayman policeman named Paul, who was from England. Last weekend, he was hit by a car and critically injured. My thuoghts and prayers go out to him and his family. My log of that August 2006 dive follows:

Got a 3d dive for this day. I hooked up with Paul, a CI policeman from London originally. He's been here about 9 months, I believe. He's a good diver, and blows his air even faster than me! We surface swam out to the far buoy, and dropped down on the Nicholson, a sunken landing craft that I last dove in 2003. Right next to the Nicholson was a half eaten carcass of a nurse shark; the rear was intact, but everything in front of the dorsal fin was eaten away. All I could see was the white fibrous tissue.

On the Nicholson, we swam into the small cabin toward the stern, and then up and out through a hatch above us. A close fit; I took it real easy going up through it.

Then it was a short swim to the mermaid. From the bow of the Nicholson, we swam at a 10:00 angle. Some fish were hovering around me, and wouldn't be shooed away. Strange. Then I felt a gentle nip under my left arm on my torso. A grouper or red snapper had actually nipped at me! That was a first for my 80 or so dives in GC. A grey angelfish and one of those yellow trimmed jacks were also getting too close for comfort. I spend some energy paying attention to them and trying to get them away from me, because they were FOLLOWING me. Territorial, or just looking for a food handout, I don't know.

We got to the mermaid, and it was again an anti-climax. As we left the mermaid, the fish finally laid off. We swam back toward the ladder with Pau leading. I think he thought I was short on air [I wasn't], and we avoided the rain, which had started and stopped while we were down. A good dive, except for the aggressive fish!

This news only underscores the new philosophy I've been trying to inculcate: Carpe the diem; you never know what's going to happen tomorrow, or the next week, or the next month.

Glenn has posted at times on red light traffic cameras. Courtesy of the Howard Stern Show [he doesn't endorse, he just reports], here's a product that defeats the camera system. Seems a good way to thwart the inevitable mistakes these automated systems make. And by the way, how does one cross-examine an automated camera, if one contests one of these tickets?

Is this Photoblocker spray legal? Who knows? I recommend you speak with your jurisprudential professional before using it, though

All of a sudden, conservatives everywhere are shocked, SHOCKED, at Ann Coulter. While I agree wholeheartedly with Sean Hackbarth's sentiments, I nevertheless must say, "too little, too late." As one of the commenters to the linked open letter said, this invective is nothing new for Coulter. Like it or not, she is one of the leading faces of the conservative movement.

You lie down with dogs, and you get up with fleas.

Well, I've started an entirely new blog, called FlickMaven.com. Certain distinguished bloggers -- clearly sick to death of listening to my off-the-cuff movie, TV and media reviews -- suggested that I do a blog containing all those (ha!) controversial views. So go link. Enjoy. Click through. Etc.

Gee, thanks for all the comments, and to Instapundit for the shout out. Just responding to a few of the commenters:

It's not, in my opinion, a question of tailoring your ideology to whatever will get you elected, so much as it is choosing the candidate whose ideology connects with the maximum number of voters. The two concepts are radically different. Also, it's not just ideology anymore; it's also electability, i.e., that certain something that causes a voter to want to vote for a particular candidate. Bill Clinton had that quality; Hillary does not. I still don't believe Obama has it, at least enough to both win a nomination and a general election.

I apparently misspoke when I said that McGovern won his home state -- it was Massachusetts. My point is even more strongly made, though. McGovern stood for deeply felt left wing ideology in favor of withdrawal from Vietnam under any circumstances. As a result, he didn't even carry his home state. It was one of the most lopsided victories in recent memory.

I agree that Edwards is being ignored to a certain extent. Whether he is OK with being under the radar screen, only his campaign can say for sure. I just think that, whether its deliberate or a by-product of the MSM hysteria over Hillary v. Obama, it's smart for him to lay low. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Whether Edwards is more vulnerable to attack than Hillary is highly debatable. Of all the candidates in the field, he's got that certain something I alluded to earlier. People LIKE him, just like they LIKED Bill Clinton. That could carry him very far. He's also the most "populist" of the candidates, which bodes well in a general election campaign, should he get the nomination.

Whether this race is "fun" is in the eye of the beholder. Some people like to watch train wrecks, too.

Dudley Smith is right that Edwards is just as subject to "inexperience" criticism as the other candidates, except maybe Richardson. It's mostly a wash; the only ones who have presidential experience are, uh, ex-presidents. Perhaps being a governor helps in the public mind, inasmuch as the past two presidents were state governors. I disagree that Edwards is a Jimmy Carter clone, for no other reason than I just don't see it.

As to charges that Edwards is an unserious "huckster," again, I just don't see it that way. He's smart, educated, and his positions on the issues are mostly where I like them. He made a successful career helping those who needed help against the unlimited resources of Big Insurance. I love those perople who deride trial lawyers; they're always the ones who run to lawyers when they need 'em. By the way, what makes a candidate a huckster, anyway? Is ANY candidate exempt from such a characterization?

Hillary/Obama on the ticket? Matching primary adversaries is certainly not new, but if that happens, then the Republicans will take the general in a 1972-like landslide. For any Democratic strategists out there, that ticket is the fervent dream of any die-hard Republican out there. For God's sake, don't give them what they want.

As to Bill Clinton not being the focus of right wing hatred, I disagree strongly. For years, I would see bumper stickers around town that said, "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Bush." The right wing-funded litigation was going after Bill, not Hillary. Ken Starr persecuted [literally] Bill, not Hillary. And, the Republican Congress impeached and tried the President -- not the First Lady -- for no other reason than he was unfaithful to his wife, and in the face of a 65% approval rating. No, they were after Bill, because they just couldn't bear to have been beaten by a Democrat. Especially a Democrat that they had targeted, on which they had attempted political homicide, and who just wouldn't go away when a lesser man would have quit. Clinton's perserverence, and the continuing efforts by the Right to downplay his two Administrations, simply reinforce my theory that the Republicans will do anything -- anything -- to win.

And finally, the Catholics and Jews issues are red herrings. He didn't piss the Catholics off, a blogger associated with the campaign irked a virulently pro-Catholic pundit. Edwards was reported in a Peter Bart op-ed in Variety [that bastion of journalistic accuracy] to have said that "Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace. . .was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities." I disagree with that assessment [that's not the greatest short-term threat to world peace, whatever "world peace" is], but it's not an anit-Israel comment, and it's not an anti-semitic remark, either. Assuming he even said it.