I never thought I'd be involved in a hot-coffee lawsuit, but Gamepolitics covers my intervention and objection to the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas class action settlement over the Hot Coffee Mod, which I predicted before the suit was even filed.

(Played GTA IV between 1 and 3 last night, and it was totally worth it.)

Britney Spears just hired the law firm that repped me in my divorce. Los Angeles divorce lawyers have a nice racket in that the local courts hold lots of open-call hearings that have no set schedule, and permit the attorneys to run up the clock by sitting around for literally hours waiting for the case to be called; a hearing can be docketed for 9 am and get heard five or six hours later. Permits all sorts of gamesmanship, especially when one spouse is responsible for both attorneys' expenses. (Thankfully, I had a post-nup where I bought my way out of that law, or the divorce would have been more of a financial disaster than it was.)

Related in the Britney Spears divorce context.

If my brother were bald (and didn't have a beard), he'd be the spitting image of Eli Lake, the New York Sun writer.

I'd previously posted about the missing Agam sculpture, and it turns out that it was taken down when the paint faded after exposure to the Chicago elements, restored, and was recently remounted, but it seems they botched the coloring, in part because Agam failed to entirely cooperate. If Agam had sold the work after 1990, he'd have a legal cause of action under the Visual Artist Rights Act to have the restoration done under his auspices, but he didn't, so he doesn't. He's threatening to sue under an attenuated theory of copyright violation.

Next time I'm in Chicago, the Harris Bank branch at LaSalle and Monroe Streets also has a big Agam; I wasn't previously aware of this, and will have to check it out.

The donut hole came up in the ABC Pennsylvania debate, and Obama, given a firm opportunity to clarify his position when Gibson pointed out his inconsistency on taxes, refused to take a firm position, even as he pandered on other expensive propositions. We can thus infer that there is not going to be a donut hole, but Obama doesn't want to acknowledge it.

CLINTON: I'm certainly against one of Senator Obama's ideas, which is to lift the cap on the payroll tax, because that would impose additional taxes on people who are educators here in the Philadelphia area, or in the suburbs, police officers, firefighters and the like.

So I think we have to be very careful about how we navigate this. So the $250,000 mark is where I'm sure we're going. But beyond that, we are going to have to look and see where we are.

GIBSON: Very quickly, because I owe Senator Clinton time, but do you want to respond?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, I just have to respond real quickly to Senator Clinton's last comment. What I have proposed is that we raise the cap on the payroll tax because millionaires and billionaires don't have to pay beyond $97,000 a year. That is where it is capped. Now, most firefighters, most teachers, you know, they're not making over $100,000 a year. In fact, only 6 percent of the population does.

And I've also said that I'd be willing to look at exempting people who are making slightly above that.

But understand the alternative is that, because we're going to have fewer workers to more retirees, if we don't do anything on Social Security, then those benefits will effectively be cut because we'll be running out of money.

GIBSON: But, Senator, but that's a tax. That's a tax...

OBAMA: Well, no, no, look...

GIBSON: ... on people under $250,000.

OBAMA: Let me finish my point here, Charlie. Senator Clinton said she certainly wouldn't do this, this was a bad idea. In Iowa, when she was outside of camera range, said to an individual there she'd certainly consider the idea and then that was recorded. And she apparently wasn't aware that it was being recorded.

So this is an option that I would strongly consider, because the alternatives, like raising the retirement age or cutting benefits or raising the payroll tax on everybody, including people who make less than $97,000 a year...

GIBSON: But there's a heck of a lot of...

OBAMA: ... those are not good policy options.

GIBSON: There's a heck of a lot of people between $97,000 and $200,000 and $250,000. If you raise the payroll taxes...

OBAMA: And that's...

GIBSON: ... that's going to raise taxes on them.

OBAMA: And that's why I've said, Charlie, that I would look at potentially exempting those who are in between.

But the point is we're going to have to capture some revenue in order to stabilize the Social Security system. You can't get something for nothing. And if we care about Social Security, which I do, and if we are firm in our commitment to make sure that it's going to be there for the next generation, and not just for our generation, then we have an obligation to figure out how to stabilize the system.

And I think we should be honest in presenting our ideas in terms of how we're going to do that and not just say that we're going to form a commission and try to solve the problem some other way.

CLINTON: Well, in fact, I am totally committed to making sure Social Security is solvent. If we had stayed on the path we were on at the end of my husband's administration, we sure would be in a lot better position, because we had a plan to extend the life of the Social Security Trust Fund and, again, President Bush decided that that wasn't a priority, that the war in Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans were his priorities, neither of which he's ever paid for.

I think it's the first time we've ever been taken to war and had a president who wouldn't pay for it.

But when it comes to Social Security, fiscal responsibility is the first and most important step. You've got to begin to rein in the budget, pay as you go, to try to replenish our Social Security Trust Fund.

And, with all due respect, the last time we had a crisis in Social Security was 1983. President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill came up with a commission. That was the best and smartest way, because you've got to get Republicans and Democrats together. That's what I will do.

And I will say, number one, don't cut benefits on current beneficiaries. They're already having a hard enough time. And, number two, do not impose additional tax burdens on middle-class families.

There are lots of ways we can fix Social Security that don't impose those burdens, and I will do that.

OBAMA: That commission raised the retirement age, Charlie, and also raised the payroll tax. And so Senator Clinton -- she can't have it both ways. You can't come at me for proposing a solution that will save Social Security without burdening middle-income Americans and then suggest that somehow she's got a magic solution.

CLINTON: But there are more progressive ways of doing it than, you know, lifting the cap. And I think we'll work it out. I have every confidence we're going to work it out. I know that we can make this happen.

A sometime-subject of posts in this blog, blogger Melissa Lafsky, isn't happy with the recent Atlantic article by another sometime-subject of posts in this blog. Gottlieb wins without having to respond by virtue of Lafsky's sentence "So I shrugged, chocked the piece up to yet another woman existentially disappointed by men, and went back to my inner harmony." Say what you will about Lori Gottlieb, she'd never settle for writing a sentence like that.

May 22 - Indiana Jones
June 20 - Get Smart
July 2 - Hancock
July 18 - The Dark Knight
August 8 - Pineapple Express

Maybe?
May 2 - Iron Man
June 27 - Wall-E
July 25 - Step-Brothers
August 15 - Tropic Thunder
August 29 - Barcelona

When I had cable, my TiVo handily picked out the shows I wanted to watch, knowing when they would have new episodes.

Comcast jacked up my rates to $100/month, and I didn't want to pay that, so no more TiVo. Which is fine: there's nothing good on HBO any more, and I'll save lots of time not watching the NBA playoffs.

And look what I've learned! There are five or so shows that I watch, and they all put new episodes on the Internet. The problem is that they do it with weird schedules. Some post the same day; some wait a day or two; some wait two weeks. And I don't know when they're broadcasting new episodes. And they're all on different websites.

What I need is a TiVo-like Internet widget that I can tell it: fetch these shows, and then sends me an e-mail (or, better yet, a personalized RSS feed) telling me "The latest Simpsons episode is at Hulu." Anyone invent this gadget yet?

Talking about:

• the Vioxx Settlement in WLF Backgrounder;


• cy pres settlements on the front page of Class Action Watch;


• and Zombie Litigation in the April Liability Outlook,


• ...a shorter version of which appears in today's National Review Online to coincide with Pope Benedict's visit.

Slim: Why did you buy a book on Christian pop culture?
Me: It's an ironic knowing look by a secular Jew, and looked humorous.
Slim: I grew up in Texas. I can give you critiques of Christian pop culture.
Me: It's by a blogger I read, and he was looking for a one-day push in sales, so for a few bucks I supported him. He'll buy my book one day.
Slim: That's completely unenforceable. You're just revealing yourself to be a sucker.

Don't do that, do this.

Related: my joke provoked linguistic discussion that got dugg.

• Better Gmail 2. Adds nice features to gmail, and I really notice when I'm using Gmail at a browser (I'm looking at you IE) that doesn't have this extension.


• Tab Mix Plus. Undo closed tabs and other nifty features.


• Delicious. I care not so much about the social features (what is everyone else bookmarking?), perhaps because my politics are different than the mass of delicious users, but this is a very handy means of quickly providing multiple tags to pages for future bookmark reference. With so many projects in my queue, it's handy when I see a ssrn abstract or news article to be able to quickly make a note of it and have it filed away to retrieve a year or two later when I finally get around to writing about the topic. I'd reread Walter Olson's Reason piece on the importance of statutes of limitations in February 2007, and might've forgotten to cite to it over a year later in my most recent Liability Outlook except that I was able to flag it in just a few seconds at the time.

Separately: Digg, Delicious, etc., should go the next step and really allow users to categorize themselves. Digg or Stumbleupon is worthless to me because its readership is dominated by people who don't share my interests. If I could ignore "pages most dugg" and instead look at "pages most dugg by users who also characterize themselves as libertarians (or members of the Federalist Society or whatever)" that would be interesting, and might make me want to bother using Digg.

Rep. Darrell Issa is getting grief for some clumsy remarks he made at the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund hearing (1:42:00 or so in the video), and issued a clarifying statement.

My latest Liability Outlook examines the problems of retroactive lawmaking and litigation, especially reviver statutes, and even Obama fans will find something to like:

The controversy over whether and how to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations at the Democratic National Convention shows the danger of changing rules midstream and upsetting settled expectations. Reviver statutes not only obviate statutes of limitations, which are a critical aid to justice, by "reviving" claims that have expired or never existed, but they can also pose the danger of undoing the benefits of future prospective legislation. In evaluating laws, the issue is not merely one of retroactivity, but of the importance of promoting legal certainty. For example, the FISA Amendments Act, S. 2248, while ostensibly acting retroactively to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's antiterror surveillance program, works to protect settled expectations.

I'm not one to tattoo slogans on my forehead, but if I were, I'd assuredly get it centered.

The hearing is now on-line. I'm at the 55:18 mark; Maxine Waters is at the 2:10:20 mark. John Conyers is somewhere in between.

Things I should've said: that a dictator did a good job in the past hardly means that a dictatorship is a good idea. But one can be dumbfounded by the stupidity of some questions.