First?

Use of the phrase "black hole" has certainly become a tar baby that is best avoided, but that's no excuse for Commissioner Price's niggardly refusal to extend his colleague the benefit of the doubt.

You've got to ask yourself one question about BEING "FIRST" ON AN ATL POST: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Re: The "Tangled Tale" link:

Earmarks are spending projects slipped into legislation without attribution to any congressional member, without peer or public review, and usually specific to one locale, but paid for by taxpayers everywhere.

Therefore, the purported lobbying effort to insert substantive provisions into pending bills to provide for litigation remedies for aggrieved consumers or persons are not “earmarks” at all.

It would appear that this tort reform group is trying to invoke the negative imagery surrounding “earmarks” to sway readers to its point of view, but in so doing misleads.

Lat, can we get the dang ATL Idol contestant bios already?

#5, go away

#3, get serious, "black hole" has not become anything close to a tar baby other than by those like Price who are looking for a fight. There is nothing that is even remotely racially sensitive about the term. We really need to stop being such hypersensistive pansies in this country.

The "reform" group also unwittingly admitted that it is trial lawyers who are trying to pass tort reform by expanding liability. http://www.tortdeform.com/archives/2008/07/president_of_institute_for_leg.html

3, 7 - isn't this just the pot calling the kettle stainless steel?

"Law school grads 'are tragically unprepared to do anything useful.'"

Fortunately, those of us who are litigators at firms are never asked to do anything useful. Thus, it is a perfect marraige.

I had a law professor who objected to the word "manhole" as "sexist".

Her last name was "Wildman", but I (privately) called her "Wildperson".

The class was crim law, after the "manhole"-sexist tirade I never attended another class instead preparing for the exam with BAR-BRI and got an "A".

"Black hole" is no more "racist" that man hole" is sexist.

When are we all going to grow up?

#7 doesn't get it.

Blackhole is a racist term now!

"Lat, can we get the dang ATL Idol contestant bios already?"

That would be cheating.

ATL should force us to vote "blind" based on the merits of each candidate’s writing and not legal pedigree.

Blackhole: that section of the city suburban folks don't go near.

Ann Althouse is insufferable!

11, line 2 - I am such a loser, I laughed out loud at that

So, if I say there is a snowstorm and describe it as a "white out," am I a racist?

Black people need to stop looking for race baiting excuses. Actually, blacks need to stop blaming everyone for their shortcomings.

18 = Jesse Helms back from the dead.

Does this work? Why no comments on the latest post?

Tried to comment multiple times on above post. Must leave it here:

Becker: Did not make the first cut, so he is going in one leg down. Plus the nom de plume is dated. He is too dated for this crowd.

Marin and Sophist are ringers—bloggers on other sites, but no in the law.

Exley is doomed based in the "clitigator reference alone.

Frolic I eliminate with the first line “I'm an Ivy League girl with a Midwestern attitude.” (Reminds me of a line I once overheard at a Club Med “do you want to have sex with a Corn-fed man”?) anyhow, no.

Alex has the crisp writing style that I predict will sweep the polls and win the competition.

Unless he also withdraws from threats from other contestants. (Or did the former #6’s spouse put the kybosh on the drop in household income?)

Lat--comments on meet the finalists post still not working.

ATL Idol: Meet the Finalists--comments not working.

Yeah that weird tort-reform package has nothing to do with earmarks, those are actually entire laws that do things that the chamber of commerce lobby doesn't like. It's not like they're appropriating 100 million for a bridge to nowhere under the guise of some unrelated law...

I think comments are now working on the Meet the Finalists post.

Defense Attorneys have an interest in seeing more lawsuits filed as well. What a sham.

Black ho is racist. Black hole is not racist.

how do I visit these blogs? whenever I click on any of the links the browser just timesout after about 10 minutes of trying to access them

Scrabulous is down!! Someone help!

LOLZ 7 is stupid.

Scrabulous has now been replaced by Hasbro's "Scrabble for Facebook (beta)" - we are saved!

Any site that decries the banning of asbestos as an "earmark" for trial lawyers is an obvious shill for industry. Banning a well-known carcinogen from the marketplace is a public health issue, not something that is a giveaway to trial lawyers.