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APM’s Marketplace aired a story yesterday on the Dutch’s new war against the water. The players are the same: overflowing rivers threatening Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and other below-sea-level cities.

This time, the enemy is shifting climate patterns and increasing water runoff.

The solution: floods.

[From Marketplace: Dutch plan for flooding: Higher ground]

Since recently completing my J.D., I’ve been wondering what’s next for me. I’m beginning the job search, and I’ve got some ideas about where I might be. However, the future still seems a bit uncertain.

One idea that keeps coming back to mind is setting out on my own as an attorney. I’m not necessarily looking at the idea of being an attorney but of creating a law firm for the internet age.

An internet-based law firm certainly has a lot of advantages, after all. There’s very little overhead — no office space, for one. There are also, of course, a number of major problems. For anything more than a one-man operation, it is important to have a number of tools that allow people connected only by the ethereal to coordinate their activities and to collaborate effectively.

I’ve been playing with some tools to get a sense of what might be necessary. If there’s anyone that’s worked with this type of decentralized office space (law firm or not), feel free to leave a comment telling me what works and what doesn’t.

If Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) has been losing money for the last few years, how exactly is it still in business?

[From Ford's Losses Narrow; Buyouts Planned - washingtonpost.com]

There is presently a debate in Maryland over whether to allow speed detection cameras in Howard County. I, for one, applaud the effort to install these cameras, and hope to see them installed statewide.

Worse, the use of only intermittent traffic police only encourages risky behavior, since many drivers tend to think they can “beat the system”. Even if a driver is caught, the penalty is usually not sufficient to deter subsequent behavior.

The unblinking eye of the speed camera changes that equation. The camera will be in the same place at the same time. If there are enough cameras, then the incentive to speed disappears and behaviors change.

According to the Washington Post (see linked article, above), a Federal Highway Administration study showed that the use of red-light cameras caused a substantial decrease in drivers ignoring intersections (though, as the Post notes, incidents of rear-end collisions increased dramatically).

Issues of privacy, raised by many [speeders] argue that the . However, from a legal perspective, I don’t see where privacy becomes an issue. The cameras sole function is to catch individuals who are in violation of posted speed limits; there is no difference between a camera (mechanical device) observing the behavior and a uniformed officer (biological device) doing the same.