Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging. And that’s a good thing. Two weekends ago I ran in the 210 mile Reach the Beach Relay in New Hampshire. This past weekend I threw a suprise party for my wife (that was a huge surprise, when she found out three days in advance). And next weekend I am organizing the inaugural running of the Paine to Pain 1/2 Marathon trail race here in Westchester.

In playing blog catch-up, these are some of the things that caught my eye with interest:

Scott Greenfield doesn’t mind the huge federal bail out of Wall Street, but he wants something in return;

An intentional running down of pedestrians is an accident for insurance purposes, rules a New York appellate court (No-Fault Paradise);

Kevin Underhill summarizes the legislation giving the Treasury $700B to spend as they choose with no oversight;

David Newdorf says litigation is like running a marathon, at law.com. My question: How did this guy get inside my head and how do I get rid of him?

TortsProf has the 9/19/08 edition of the Personal Injury Law Round-Up;

Blawg Review #178 comes up from down under, which follows, naturally, Blawg Review #177 (in case you weren’t around, like me, and want to see what folks were talking about last week).

What personality traits to bloggers have? A new study tells us (Running a Hospital; Clinical Cases and Images);

McCain v. Obama on tort “reform” at the North Carolina Trial Law Blog (via TortsProf);

Brett Trout has a great piece on why some blogs get high Google rankings, discussing how search engine optimization is vastly different than blog optimization;

Blogger Hans Poppe comes home with a $5M verdict (Poppe Law Blog);

The story of med-blogger Flea and the dangers of anonymous blogging was revisited by Sam Solomon at Canadian Medicine. The post is adopted from a presentation he gave;

TortsProf with the September 5, 2008 edition of the Personal Injury Law Round-Up;

Blawg Review #176 is up at Legal Literacy;

And the 200 mile Reach the Beach Relay is being run this weekend across New Hampshire, starting at Cannon Mountain in Franconia and ending about 24 hours later at Hampton Beach State Park. So if you live along the course, keep an eye out for a familiar face.

TortsProf has the 8/29/08 edition of the Personal Injury Round Up, in case you missed it due to Labor Day / vacation;

Jamie Spencer’s Austin DWI Lawyer hosted the Labor Day edition of Blawg Review # 175;

Philip Morris v. Williams heads up the Supremes for the third time, on the issue of a punitive damage award. California Punitive Damages has the briefs (via TortsProf);

Walter Olson at Overlawyered on the proper way to blog and comment on blogs;

Gov. Sarah Palin — Republican VP nominee and arch anti-abortion crusader — had an amniocentesis while pregnant. But if she had no intention of ever aborting, why have it? (Dorf on Law)

More Palin:

• Knocked up before marriage? Bad.
• At age 17? Horrible.
• A mother putting you and your boyfriend on the national stage at the same time because of her political ambitions? Priceless.

I still consider my pre-Iowa caucus picks of Obama/Biden and McCain/Romney to be alive.

With Senator Joe Biden being picked today by Barack Obama, I am three for three in the presidential sweepstakes for the major parties.

My call before the Iowa caucuses, with Guiliani and Clinton riding high:

Reps: McCain/Romney
Dems: Obama/Biden
Indep: Bloomberg/ Gary Hart (who correctly predicted an attack like September 11 and tried to warn)

As much as this New Yorker would like to see Clinton v. Giuliani v. Bloomberg, neither Hillary nor Rudy will get their party nominations.

But no, I went with a little, niche personal injury blog. I coulda had my name in bright, twinkly lights at places like Instapundit, Daily Kos, Andrew Sullivan, Talk Left and other nifty places. I coulda been a star. I coulda been somebody…

Justinian Lane at TortDeform has has been doing Inter Alia, a round-up of tort “reform” stories on the web. Certainly a valuable resource. (And he links this week to, inter alia, a tort “reforming” Chamber of Commerce that has brought it’s own lawsuit;

Walter Olson provides the flip side of Lane with his round-up from the conservative side, focusing on toxic cases at Point of Law;

Bill Childs has put this week’s Personal Injury Law Round-Up up at TortsProf with a link to, inter alia, the Big Foot hoax and subsequent lawsuit;

An Olympian Blawg Review is up at Chicago IP Litigation Blog;

And those four links provide a little round up of round-ups, and enough reading material for a week.

P.S. I usually stay out of presidential politics — because once you get started you can’t stop — but before the primaries I made these predictions: McCain/Romney and Obama/Biden: Presidential Politics and the Iowa Caucus