More Tort Reform Update: The Bloviator has a post on a proposal by an Illinois attorney/physician for tort reform in Illinois. The Bloviator, also a lawyer, isn't impressed. And rightly so. Apparently, the crux of the proposal (which isn't backed by any state medical organization) is that patient's should sign away their right to sue when they come in to see a physician. That does seem like a recipe for disaster, and I doubt the "act" will get very far. They did have at least one good protest sign, though: "Lawyers Need a Pro-State Check-up."

UNRELATED: Ross also explains the origin of the term bloviate. Turns out it comes from the most famous son of my hometown, Warren G. Harding. I especially like the quote from Mencken on Harding's writing style:

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

That's all the more biting when you consider that before he entered politics, Harding published the town's newspaper, The Marion Star, still in print, and still the only newspaper in town. (And that's my old pediatrician on the front page today!) Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Ross.