Breaking the law
Glenn Reynolds, as Professor of Law, who had completely lost the plot during the debate on Iraq war is regaining his senses and has digged up this masterpiece in the comfort of his American study room:
There are too many laws — many of them contradictory or obscure — for any person to actually avoid breaking the law completely. (My Criminal Law professor, when I was a law student, announced to us that we were all felons on the first day of class. There were too many felonies on the books for us not to be: Oral sex in Georgia? Oops!) And given that many laws are dumb, actually following all of them would probably bring society to a standstill, just as Air Traffic Controllers and pilots can make air travel grind to a halt by meticulously following every safety rule without exception.
The other problem is that law is like anything else: when the supply outstrips the demand, its value falls. If law were restricted to things like rape, robbery, and murder, its prestige would be higher. When we make felonies out of trivial crimes, though, the law loses prestige. As the old bumper stickers about the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit used to say: It’s not a good idea. It’s just the law.
· Instawisdom [ MSNBC via Samizdata]
Whatever you do; fail to recall that dangerous report by Dr Allan Buckingham whose finding that fixed Big Brother Speed Cameras fail to slow the rate of deaths on Antipodean roads is making waves in Staysafe committee rooms. How come pollies have helped to create a culture of speedometer watchers and revenue raisers? Hu has been doing all the advising all those years, well late John Newman good tell you great yarns about the character who bewitched some parliamentarians, but not all!
· Are you sitting comfortably, driver? You're nicked [SMH 2004AD]

Preachers v Practicers Nifty on Terror: Whatever you do; do not mention the past
Lawyers have a duty to speak up against the growing threat to civil liberties in Australia, former premier Neville Wran has told the NSW Law Society rent a AAA crowd dinner.
Past articles in SMH do not seem to look kindly at current and past state Premiers...
· We should not remain silent while freedoms are, however gradually, taken away [SMH ]