When in the course of human events a Virginia man buys a rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence and is then sued by the state of Maine, which claims that the document must be returned as it is part of an official town record and should never have been sold to begin with, whom shall the Supreme Court of Virginia deem to have proper ownership over such document?
The Virginia man, as it turns out. Here's the AP story; here's a link to the opinion,
The backstory, according to the AP: Richard Adams Jr., who founded UUNet Technologies Inc., the first commercial Internet service provider, purchased the document from a London book dealer in 2001 for $475,000. Years earlier, an estate auctioneer had found the print in the attic of the daughter of Solomon Holbrook, who had served as the clerk of Wiscasset, Me., until his death in 1929. The daughter died in 1994.
Maine contended the document never should have been sold because of a state law which presumes that public documents remain public property unless ownership is expressly relinquished by the government. Virginia's high court disagreed, saying that a lower court did not err in ruling that Maine didn't prove the document was ever an official town record. Adams's attorney argued that Wiscasset's town clerk copied the text of the Declaration of Independence into the town's record books on Nov. 10, 1776. It's that transcription, not the document upon which it was based, that is the official town record, the attorney said. And that's the argument the court ultimately bought.
WSJ Law Blog February 27, 2009

Free Resources from Gale to Celebrate Women’s History Month, March 2009
You’ll find new bios, updated timelines, a calendar, and much more. Direct to Gale’s Women History Month Resources

About.com Co-Founder Looks to Challenge Google on Search
Google has a potential search rival in Dorthy.com, a Web site that takes a different algorithmic approach to search. About.com co-founder Jim Anderson has been named Dorthy.com’s new chief technology officer, and will use his experience in AI and natural language processing to try to refine the new site’s search process. Source: eWeek

The National Trust for Historic Preservation lists “America’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations” for 2009: http://press.nationaltrust.org/content/view/353/162/
How many have you seen? I’ve seen three so far. One of our muse readers is from the city listed as having 500 walking tours.

A Desire Path (or Desire Line) is ”a term in landscape architecture used to describe a path that isn’t designed but rather is worn casually away by people finding the shortest distance between two points.” Gaston Bachelard shows how the human use of an architectural or pre-determined flow through space will sometimes over-ride the intentions of its creator in his 1958 book, The Poetics of Space. See pictures at http://shapeandcolour.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/gaston-bachelard-the-poetics-of-space-desire-paths/

Direct election of senators Article I, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote." The 17th amendment changed that. It was added to the Constitution in 1913. The following year marked the first time all senatorial elections were held by popular vote. The 17th amendment restates the first paragraph of Article I, section 3 of the Constitution and provides for the election of senators by replacing the phrase "chosen by the Legislature thereof" with "elected by the people thereof."
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Direct_Election_Senators.htm Senators serve six-year terms and are divided into three “classes,” so that only one class, or one-third of the Senate, is up for election every two years. With two-thirds of its membership carrying over after each election, the Senate is a “continuing body.”
http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-senate

A canopy of trash envelops our planet. Orbiting swarms of junk careen into each other like billiard balls, creating unpredictable sprays of debris, which in turn meld with other space garbage to weave a moving net around the atmosphere. All told, there may be millions of pieces of man-made debris in orbit. Tracking network monitors about 18,000 of the largest objects, issuing warnings whenever one of them passes too near a spacecraft or satellite. See entire article and slideshow of space trash at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123568403874486701.html

Quote The olive tree does impart a sense of peace. It must be, simply, the way they participate in time. These trees are here and will be. They were here. Whether we are or someone else is or no one, each morning they’ll be twirling their leaves and inching up toward the sun. Frances Mayes in “Under the Tuscan Sun”