As the official handbook of the Federal Government, the United States Government Manual provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-official agencies, international organizations in which the United States participates, and boards, commissions, and committees. The manual begins with reprints of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. See at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gmanual/index.html

Small spaces, big ideas by Joann Petaschnick Nine ideas for designing small spaces, including light, reflections, proportion, scale and planning with cutouts.
http://www.gmtoday.com/content/m_west/2009/April/mwest_0409_p60.asp

Welcome to All About Birds, with information on 585 species, bird of the week, bird sound of the week, and opportunities to read a blog and ask questions.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1189

Down a winding road, through a tunnel of trees, sunlight escapes through the foliage to light the way to Lake Macbride, the home of the Macbride Raptor Project. At this peaceful lake, Iowa’s birds of prey have been living and rehabilitating since 1985. Patients of the Raptor Project are sick or injured birds of prey, also known as raptors, said Jodeane Cancilla, the project’s coordinator. “The majority of bird injuries are the result of human activities, whether intentional or unintentional,” she said. One resident of the center, Spirit, is a full-grown bald eagle. After damaging her wing in 1989, Spirit was given a home at Macbride. A few other permanent residents include Wannago, a great horned owl that lost her left eye, Aquila, a golden eagle with back and hip injuries, and Aura, a turkey vulture raised by humans. If raptors do fully recover, they are released back into the wild near the location they were found, Cancilla said. The center is a collaboration between University of Iowa Recreational Services and Kirkwood Community College. The Macbride Nature Recreation Area consists of 480 acres of land and is maintained by approximately 55 volunteers. http://www.dailyiowan.com/2009/09/04/Sports/12676.html

Nontroversy is a contraction of non and controversy, and exists when people try to make something seem controversial. It can also be a controversy that has been exploited to the point that it is no longer newsworthy, thus losing complete credibility.

A new worm called Koobface has passed malware and spyware to PCs through social networking sites Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Bebo and Twitter to steal sensitive data from hard drives. Computers infected with Koobface also infects other PCs.
Malware research firm Trend Micro described Koobface as composed of as many as 26 separate functional pieces, each of which is designed to use you and your computer in different malicious ways. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7016746433?New%20Worm%20Infects%20PCs%20Thru%20Social%20Networking%20Sites

Q. What is an electric pig? A. a garbage disposal
http://www.answers.com/topic/electric-pig

Q. What is Norsk? A. Norsk or Norwegian is a North Germanic language with around 5 million speakers in mainly in Norway. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/norwegian.htm

Judith Jones read the French edition of what would become Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, in a pile of submissions slated for rejection. Her enthusiasm persuaded Doubleday to publish the book in the United States.
http://books.google.com/books?id=YsJsGSN_R9kC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=frank+diary+doubleday+rejected&source=bl&ots=HbAlXH8vyY&sig=JvW0pjlvv9QGlSXXP3UWKE0dNdk&hl=en&ei=LbPYSsDRJY6OMcCVzN4H&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CB8Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=frank%20diary%20doubleday%20rejected&f=false

Judith Jones brought Julia Child's ground-breaking 1961 book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking to the American public after the manuscript had been rejected by other publishers. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/julia-judith/article1231084/ Considerations: amount of meat for a French dish is smaller than American, because French assume it will be part of a three-course meal. So recipes had to be refigured. Certain ingredients were not easily available (duck confit) and substitutes were offered. French and American flours are different consistencies, and French use baker’s ovens for their bread. Proofreading was a “perfect horrible” job, and Julia Child found errors such as ¼ cup instead of ¼ teaspoon and errors of omission (forgot to say cover the pot) while going through fifteen pounds of galleys for Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Judith Jones picked the title, and publisher Alfred Knopf said: “I’ll eat my hat if anyone buys a book with that title!”

Check the accuracy of political statements:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/
Check the accuracy of political statements and rumors on many other subjects:
http://www.snopes.com/

Welcome to the Art of the Prank, produced and edited by Joey Skaggs. You will find insights, information, news and discussions about pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming & reality hacking around the world. http://artoftheprank.com/

New on LLRX: Competitive Intelligence - A Selective Resource Guide - Updated and Revised October 2009: Sabrina I. Pacifici's completely revised and updated pathfinder focuses on leveraging selected reliable, focused, free and low cost sites and sources to effectively profile and monitor companies, markets, countries, people, and issues. This guide is a "best of list" of web, database and email alert products, services and tools, as well as links to content specific sources produced by government, academic, NGOs, the media and various publishers.

New on LLRX: Legal Implications of Cloud Computing - Part Two (Privacy and the Cloud): As a follow-up to last month's article that provided an overview of cloud computing in the context of significant legal issues, this article by Tanya Forsheit reviews the issues of privacy and cross-border data transfers.

Electric Power Monthly (10/15/2009): "Net generation in the United States dropped by 7.6 percent from July 2008 to July 2009. This was the 12th consecutive month that net generation was down compared to the same calendar month in the prior year. The Commerce Department reported that real gross domestic product decreased 0.7 percent from the first quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2009. Continuing to reflect this decline, industrial production in July 2009, as reported by the Federal Reserve, was 13.1 percent lower than it had been in July 2008, the 13th consecutive month that same-month industrial production was lower than it had been in the previous year. The decline in net generation is also consistent with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) population-weighted Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index (REDTI) for July 2009, which was “approximately 13.3 percent below average consumption.” NOAA attributes the low value to temperatures that were cooler-than-average in the northeast."

On October 21, 1876, the West Publishing Company, founded by John B. West, published its first law reporter, The Syllabi, which promised to provide Minnesota lawyers with legal intelligence that was "prompt, interesting, full, and at all times thoroughly reliable."
On October 21, 1977, the European Patent Institute (EPI) was established by the European Patent Organisation pursuant to the European Patent Convention. The EPI serves as a non-governmental professional organization for patent lawyers in Europe.
On October 22, 1685, the Edict of Nantes, which permitted religious freedom in France, was revoked by King Louis XIV, prompting thousands of French Protestants— Huguenots—to flee the country.
On October 22, 1962, President John Kennedy announced a naval blockade of Cuba. After six days of negotiations, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba, ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/