There could be trouble in U.S.-Swiss relations, judging from an article in today's WSJ by Carrick Mollenkamp. The issue concerns the U.S. government's recent court filing asking UBS AG to turn over the identities of 52,000 private accountholders. The filing was made on Thursday, a day after UBS agreed to settle a parallel criminal inquiry and cough up information on 250 U.S. citizens who used the bank to evade taxes.
On Friday, UBS responded (click here), arguing that the U.S. government's filing puts it in a pickle. Swiss law, UBS argued, “strictly prohibits UBS and its employees from disclosing to the [IRS] the account information located in Switzerland.” The bank said the U.S. government's petition “simply ignores the existence of Swiss law and sovereignty.” UBS also argued in the filing that the IRS's demand would require the rewriting of tax treaties between the two countries
WSJ Law Blog February 23, 2009

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a fascinating case called Salazar v. Buono, on appeal from the Ninth Circuit. Initially, the lower courts--first a federal judge in San Francisco and then the Ninth Circuit--had ordered the federal government to take down an 8-foot cross mounted on federal land in California as part of a war memorial because, they held, the maintenance of the cross violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This opinion was handed down by the Ninth Circuit in 2004. However, while the first appeal was pending, Congress passed a law transferring the land into private hands. The lower court ruled the maneuver violated its original ruling, and in a 2007 opinion penned by Judge Margaret McKeown, the Ninth Circuit ruled: That land exchange . . . would leave a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve. The issue we address today is whether the land exchange violates the district court's permanent injunction. We conclude that it does, and affirm the district court's order permanently enjoining the government from effectuating the land exchange and ordering the government to comply with the original injunction. Click here for the Bloomberg story; here for the AP's take; here for the Ninth Circuit's 2007 opinion.
WSJ Law Blog February 23, 2009

If we had it to do all over again, would we appoint Supreme Court justices for life? Allow the chief justice to keep the job forever? Let the court have the final word on which cases it hears and those it declines? That's the lead to an interesting article out today in the Washington Post. A group of prominent law professors and jurists thinks 'no' is the answer to all of the above questions, and in a letter to congressional leaders says that Congress could rethink the way the Court does its job.
WSJ Law Blog February 23, 2009

Will electronic legal information be permanently available? Will online information be removed and some libraries not have its print equivalent?
http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202428344754

Interesting words from novels:
snowlight, starshine, starglasses, starburn (think sun for star)

Authors whose nonfiction works read like fiction: Tracy Kidder and John McPhee. Can you think of others?

UNESCO designates Iowa City as the world's third City of Literature
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has designated Iowa City, Iowa, the world's third City of Literature, making the community part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Iowa City joins Edinburgh, Scotland, and Melbourne, Australia, as UNESCO Cities of Literature. Other cities in the Creative Cities Network--honoring and connecting cultural centers for cinema, music, crafts and folk arts, design, media arts and gastronomy, as well as literature--include Aswan, Egypt; Santa Fe, N.M.; Berlin, Germany; Montreal, Canada; Popayan, Colombia; Bologna, Italy; Shenzhen, China; and Seville, Spain. Since 1955 graduates and faculty of the University of Iowa have won more than 25 Pulitzer Prizes in literature.
More than 1,200 emerging and established writers from more than 120 countries have been in residence at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program, which has enjoyed long-standing support from the U.S. Department of State. Iowa City is home to 11 literary presses as well as several literary blogs. The highly respected Center for the Book preserves and extends the art of bookmaking.
http://www.news-releases.uiowa.edu/2008/November/112008unesco.html
The Writing University: http://writinguniversity.uiowa.edu/
UI Pulitzer Prize winners: http://www.iowalum.com/pulitzerPrize/winnerTimeline.htm