On December 15, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it has turned down another case relating to President-elect Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president. The suit, filed by Cort Wrontowski of Connecticut, argued that Mr. Obama could not serve because he held dual citizenship at birth, due to his father’s Kenyan citizenship. The suit tested uncharted legal waters, asserting that dual citizenship at birth cannot be construed as “natural-born” citizenship, as is required by the Constitution for the office of the president. Mr. Wrontowski’s case, dismissed without comment from the court, closely resembled a similar case filed by a New Jersey man. The Supreme Court also dismissed that case. Several other court cases surrounding the controversy over Mr. Obama’s eligibility to serve as president are still progressing. Berg v. Obama, filed by a Pennsylvania deputy attorney general, argues that Mr. Obama was not born in the U.S., but in Kenya.
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2008/12/16/top_stories/doc494746935b940026145198.txt

Just about everyone seems to have been victimized by Bernie Madoff’s alleged massive Ponzi scheme. Now add a law school to the list. New York Law School filed an investor lawsuit on December 16 against J. Ezra Merkin, chairman of lender GMAC Financial Services, one of his funds—Ascot Partners—and its auditor over investments made through Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Here’s a story from DJ Newswires, and here’s the suit. WSJ Law Blog December 17, 2008

Pew Internet Survey: The Future of the Internet III
News release: "Some 578 leading Internet activists, builders, and commentators responded in this survey to scenarios about the effect of the Internet on social, political, and economic life in the year 2020. An additional 618 stakeholders also participated in the study, for a total of 1,196 participants who shared their views..."
The Future of the Internet III - "A survey of experts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, and the structure of the Internet itself improves. They disagree about whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives. December 14, 2008"

New on LLRX.com: E-Discovery Update - My E-Discovery Holiday Wish List
E-Discovery Update: My E-Discovery Holiday Wish List - Conrad J. Jacoby's holiday wish is for the legal community to finally develop one or more judicially accepted standards that can be used to craft consistent ways of requesting and producing information. With baseline procedures in place, both producing and requesting parties, as well as judges, will be able to make more informed decisions about the need for discovery and the way in which such discovery should be conducted.

Google Foresakes Algorithm Based Search Engine Results
UK Register: "Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement--and nobody has yet grasped its significance. Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm."
CNET: Does it matter if Google's search results are fixed?: "Google wants its search results to become more pragmatic, not for any political, social or even intellectual reason. The company simply thinks it's better for business. Advertising business. Most of us won't notice or care and will continue to depend on Google because it's so dominant, so fast, so very much our rolling dictionary of the world."

What do xero (dry) and penta (five) have in common? Both are Greek prefixes found in a dictionary of prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms at the following Web link:
http://www.spellingbee.com/pre_suf_comb.pdf

A British archeologist has dug up a 2,000-year-old human skull with a well-preserved but shrunken brain in a muddy pit at the University of York in northern England. The oldest preserved brains were found in a peat bog in a Florida farm in 1986. The brains were 8,000 years old. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7013393438

U.S. News Profiles Best Careers and Ahead-of-the-Curve Careers
Best Careers, 2009: "U.S. News profiles 30 careers that offer strong outlooks and high job satisfaction. Here's what's new in 2009...as well as a look at 13 cutting-edge careers, viable now and poised for future growth. They stem from megatrends like globalization, digitization, and the wave of environmentalism sweeping the world."

To your health Blueberries revive memory—eat them. A study by British scientists indicates that they activate the part of the brain which controls learning and memory.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7450032.stm