New Jersey Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Employee Email Privacy
EPIC: "The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a female employee whose employer read emails that she sent while using Yahoo Mail on a company-owned laptop. The employee, Marina Stengart, had exchanged emails with her attorney regarding a possible discrimination lawsuit against the employer. The employer then pulled the emails off of the laptop's hard drive and used them to prepare a defense to the discrimination suit. The New Jersey Supreme Court found that "Under the circumstances, Stengart could reasonably expect that e-mail communications with her lawyer through her personal, password-protected, web-based e-mail account would remain private, and that sending and receiving them using a company laptop did not eliminate the attorney-client privilege that protected them. " The Supreme Court of the United States is set to consider employee privacy in City of Ontario v. Quon, in which EPIC submitted a "friend of the court brief."

Top U.S. 25 cities in 2009 with energy efficient buildings
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/downloads/2009_Top_25_cities_chart.pdf

A billionaire wine collector has accused Christie's International PLC, the world's largest auction house, of knowingly selling dozens of counterfeit bottles of high-priced wine for over two decades. In a lawsuit filed March 30 in U.S. District Court, New York, Florida-based energy tycoon William Koch claimed that Christie's had sold him at least 33 bottles of counterfeit wine, including a $4,200 bottle of rare 1870 Lafite that he claimed may have been corked after World War II. The complaint against Christie's is the latest in a string of lawsuits Mr. Koch has filed against auctioneers and wine sellers over the past five years in his attempt to police the growing presence of counterfeit wines in the marketplace.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304252704575156420591361494.html?mod=djemlawblog_h

The genetic code of a small, noisy songbird is providing scientists with clues to the nature of human speech. The genome of the male zebra finch devotes a lot of genetic code to hearing and singing songs, according to an analysis in the journal Nature. Much of that code controls brain circuits that are similar to the circuits people use for vocal learning. "There are striking parallels," says David Clayton, from the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A young male zebra finch learns to sing much the way a child learns to talk, Clayton says. "The rudimentary steps are very similar," he says. Young male zebra finches produce something called a subsong, "which has been likened to the babbling of a human infant." By listening to an older male, usually its father, Clayton says, the zebra finch eventually learns to produce a precise and sophisticated song that it will use for the rest of its life. Intrigued by the similarities between these birds and humans, researchers have been combing the zebra finch genome looking for genes that seem to play a role in learning songs. And they have found more than 800 so far, says Wes Warren, assistant director of the Genome Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125389423

German words are worth every syllable. Where else can you find a single word, schadenfreude, for example, that conveys the whole concept of 'pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others'? Note: German nouns are capitalized, so often you'll see these words written the same way in English.
poltergeist (POHL-tuhr-gyst) noun
A ghost that reveals its presence by making noises or throwing objects.
From German Poltergeist, from poltern (to make noise, rattle) + Geist (ghost, spirit).
gotterdammerung (got-uhr-DAM-uh-roong, -rung) noun
Complete destruction of an institution, regime, order, etc.
From German Götterdämmerung (twilight of the gods), from Götter, plural of Gott (god) + Dämmerung (twilight). Götterdämmerung was the name of the last of Richard Wagner's four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The German word Götterdämmerung is a translation of the Old Norse Ragnarök which in Scandinavian mythology refers to the destruction of the gods in a battle with evil, resulting in the end of the world.
zeitgeist (TSYT-gyst) noun
The defining spirit of a particular period: the general cultural, political, intellectual, and moral climate of an era.
From German Zeitgeist (spirit of the time), from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit). A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Ēostre derives from Proto-Germanic *austrō, ultimately from a PIE root *au̯es-, "to shine" and closely related to the name of the dawn goddess, *h2ausōs, whence Greek Eos, Roman Aurora and Indian Ushas. The modern English term Easter is the direct continuation of Old English Ēastre, which is attested from the late 9th century.] Ēostre is the Northumbrian form while Ēastre is West Saxon. Bede states that the name refers to a goddess named Ēostre, who was celebrated at the Spring equinox. In the 19th century Hans Grimm cited Bede when he proposed the existence of an Old High German equivalent named ōstarūn, plural, "Easter" (modern German language Ostern). There is no certain parallel to Ēostre in North Germanic languages though Grimm speculates that the east wind, "a spirit of light" named Austri found in the 13th century Icelandic Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, might be related. Eostre is attested only by Bede, in his 8th century work De temporum ratione, where he states that Ēostur-monath was the equivalent to the month of April, and that feasts held in her honor during Ēostur-monath had died out by the time of his writing, replaced by the "Paschal month." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre

How to boil eggs The rule is use your oldest eggs for hard boiling. Older eggshells become more alkaline, which helps separate the shell from the membrane holding it to the white. The main thing is the air pocket in each egg. It grows larger with age (air penetrates the porous shell). The size of this pocket is the key to popping off a shell cleanly.
1. Take eggs out of the fridge for an hour. This chases the chill and reduces the chance of breaking.
2. Don’t drop eggs into boiling water. Cover them with cool water (to one-inch above them) and place on the burner on high. The pot should be big enough to cushion bumping during boiling.
3. Cover and heat on high for six minutes or time to reach a boil.
4. Immediately take off heat and move the covered pot to a cool burner. This allows the egg to continue cooking, but it will not overcook, resulting in rubbery whites.
5. Lightly sprinkle the eggs with salt. This will help with peeling. Remove from hot water after 30 minutes. http://www.cantonrep.com/carousel/x1838116437/The-fine-art-of-perfect-hard-boiled-eggs