"The 2009-2010 edition of the United States Government Manual is now available on GPO Access. 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. The Manual is published as a special edition of the Federal Register (see 1 CFR 9.1)."
Almost every Brooklynite you talk to has a fairly strong opinion about the Atlantic Yards project. Many shudder to think about the traffic and congestion that might beset downtown Brooklyn after the mammoth project that includes an arena is up and running—and the Nets are over there, possibly losing games by the dozens (not to mention the displacement of many local residents). Others like the thought of the borough reclaiming its place as major-league in its own right, separate and apart from its flashier brother just to the west. In any event, the New York state Court of Appeals handed down its long-awaited ruling on the project November 24, holding it lawful for a state economic development agency to seize private land to build an arena. The 6-1 ruling by the New York State Court of Appeals allows the contentious $4.9 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn to proceed. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT story; here for the 60-page opinion.
The court's decision echoes the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo decision, when the court found it was constitutional for a New London, Conn., economic-development corporation to seize private homes and businesses to build a research campus for Pfizer Inc. That decision, Kelo vs. New London, Conn., set off a firestorm of protest, prompting state lawmakers to amend laws to prevent local governments in those states from seizing private land in some cases. The New York judges, writing in Daniel Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corp., ruled that it was lawful under the state's constitution for the state entity to seize the downtown Brooklyn land to improve blighted conditions.
The case Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection is slated for oral argument next Wednesday, involves not only a fascinating and provocative set of facts, but a little-cited legal theory that the petitioners are asking the justices to embrace. The facts, with a little help from this Washington Post story, go like this: In order to combat erosion on beaches along Florida's beaches, the state for years has been pumping in wide strips of sand. Some homeowners challenged the program because it comes with a catch: The new strips of beach belong to the public, not the property owners. The homeowners feared their unmolested waterfront views might, as a result, start to include include throngs of strangers toting umbrellas and coolers . So they sued. In September of last year, the Florida Supreme Court ruled for the state and against the homeowners, ruling that that the homeowners' property rights had not been infringed upon just because their waterfront property lines, in many cases, do not actually touch the water. In other words, no property at all had actually been taken by the state. The ruling was largely based on so-called Florida common law. The homeowners didn't petition for cert on the theory that the program constituted a legislative taking, but that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling ditched 100 years of common law to endorse the popular beach renourishment program, and therefore constituted a judicial taking.
It's this issue that will the high court will take up next week: whether a decision by the judicial branch, rather than the executive or legislative, can create the kind of taking of private property forbidden by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Click here for the homeowners' brief; here for the state's brief. Meanwhile, state and local officials in Florida argue that what happened in Destin was not a taking at all. “The state has not invaded or carved off a single inch of their land,” the city said in its brief. State law prevents any structure being built on the beach in front of their property, or interfering with their access to the water. WSJ Law Blog November 24, 2009
The issue, to be argued before the court December 2, began in 2003 when Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc., a group of five beachfront homeowners in Destin in the Panhandle, protested what a replenishment project was doing to their property lines.
The problem is particularly acute in Florida, which has 825 miles of beaches along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and is a regular target for hurricanes. The state legislature has declared that "beach erosion is a serious menace to the economy and general welfare of the people of this state and has advanced to emergency proportions."
And Florida's Supreme Court ruled in 1909 that waterfront property "may not be taken without just compensation and due process of law." It reaffirmed the position at least six times. In its 2008 ruling in the case from Destin, Florida's Supreme Court found that beach replenishment projects actually protect waterfront property by preserving homeowners' view and access to the water. It found that under Florida law, "there is no independent right of contact with the water." In a stinging dissent, Justice R. Fred Lewis wrote that the decision "butchered Florida law" in depriving waterfront property owners of their connection to the sea. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision by late June. http://www.freep.com/article/20091130/NEWS15/911300315/1001/NEWS/High-court-to-decide-if-property-lines-should-change-with-the-tide
Fun puns from a reader
• A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.
• A will is a dead giveaway.
• A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
• The dead batteries were given out free of charge.
• He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
Uranus was the first planet discovered that was not known in ancient times, though it had actually been seen many times before but ignored as simply another star (the earliest recorded sighting was in 1690 when John Flamsteed cataloged it as 34 Tauri). Sir William Herschel discovered the planet in 1781, and originally called it Georgium Sidus (George's Star) in honour of King George III of England. French astronomers began calling it Herschel before German Johann Bode proposed the name Uranus, after the Greek god. The name didn't come into common usage until around 1850. Uranus has about twenty moons. The first two were discovered by William Herschel in 1787, and named, by his son, after characters from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream, as Titania and Oberon. Two more moons discovered by William Lassell in 1851 were named Ariel and Umbriel; Gerard Kuiper discovered the moon Miranda in 1948. All moons of Uranus are named after characters from Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. http://www.redorbit.com/education/reference_library/solar_system/uranus/116/index.html
Hidden namesakes
John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich was saved from oblivion by the way he liked to snack—with a slab of salt beef stuffed between two pieces of toast. Samuel Augustus Maverick was a Yale grad¬uate, lawyer, Mexican War veteran, and San Antonio mayor who owned so much Texas real estate they named a county after him. In the wee morning hours of Nov. 5, 1605. Guy Fawkes was arrested in a rented storeroom under the House of Lords that was suspiciously packed with 36 barrels of gunpowder. John Duns Scotus was a Scottish theologian and one of the most influential thinkers of the Middle Ages. For his delicately shaded approach to this and similar difficult issues, he earned the nickname Dr. Subtilis, and his theories held sway from his 1308 death through the end of the Middle Ages. Duns Scotus’ followers, the Scotists, dominated theology until another gang of scholars, the Thomists (after Thomas Aquinas), encroached on their turf. These new philosophers ridiculed the hairsplitting sophistry of Dr. Subtilis and his Dunsmen (pronounced DUNCE-men), who were impervious to learning anything new or different. Once upon a time, (the middle of the seventh century), there was a young English princess names Æthelthryth, or, as the Normans would later call her, Audrey, later St. Audrey, then came to be pronounced tawdry. Pantaleon was an unmarried physician and citizen of the pagan Roman empire who could, perform miraculous acts. The emperor condemned Pantaleon to death for practicing black magic. When the Black Death swept through Europe, St. Pantaleon’s stock went up dramatically in places like hard-hit Venice, where a spectacular church was dedicated to him. “San Pantalone” became so identified with Venice that his name was borrowed by the commedia dell’arte for the character of the prototypically greedy Venetian merchant. The commedia dell’arte had story lines harking back to Roman times, but was played out as improvisational farce. The costume signature of Pantalone was a pair of red leggings that reached the feet, a distinctively Venetian manner of cladding the legs that audiences outside the region found remarkable. Over the years and in various languages, the character’s name was borrowed to describe varying fashions of long trousers and related garments. By the mid-1800s, the Anglicized name Pantaloon had comfortably been shortened to “pants.” See the rest of these stories and background for words such as janitor, wimp, frisbee and cardigan. http://www.theweek.com/article/index/103500/The_last_word_Hidden_namesakes
On November 30, 1900 Oscar Wilde (books by this author) died at age 46, after declaring his famous last words: "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."
November 30 is the birthday of Canadian children's writer L.M. Montgomery, (books by this author) born Lucy Maud Montgomery in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, in 1874. Her mother died when she was a toddler, and her father sent her to live with her mother's parents. There were no other children around, just Lucy and her grandparents, and she spent a lot of time reading and writing poems. She left home for a few years to teach, but when her grandfather died, she came home to live with her grandmother, and she stayed with her for the next 13 years. And during that time, she wrote her first novel, about an orphan girl with bright red hair who gets sent to live with a couple from Prince Edward Island who were hoping for a boy instead. It got rejected over and over, so she put the manuscript away in a hatbox and turned to other things. But eventually, she got it back out, read it, decided it wasn't that bad after all, and sent it out again. This time it got accepted, and in 1908, Anne of Green Gables was published and became a classic children's book.
November 30 is the birthday of a writer who described life in the Mississippi River valley, whose most famous fiction and nonfiction is set along the river, and who got his pen name from being a riverboat captain, even though he spent most of his adult life traveling or living on the East Coast. That's Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, (books by this author) born in Florida, Missouri (1835).
The Writer’s Almanac
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809, at Coupvray, near Paris, France. His father, Simon-René Braille, was a harness and saddle maker. At the age of three, Braille injured his left eye with a stitching awl from his father's workshop. This destroyed his left eye, and sympathetic ophthalmia led to loss of vision in his right eye. Braille was completely blind by the age of four. At age 10, he was sent to Paris to live and study at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, the world's first of its kind. At the school, the children were taught basic craftsman's skills and simple trades. They were also taught how to read by feeling raised letters (a system devised by the school's founder, Valentin Haüy). He thought there had to be a better, easier, and faster way for the blind to read, and was determined to invent it.
From age 12 to 15, he experimented with codes, using a knitting needle to punch holes in paper to represent letters. He shared his progress with officials at the institute but wasn't taken seriously. Braille, a bright and creative student, became a talented cellist and organist in his time at the school, playing the organ for churches all over France. When Louis was fifteen, he developed an ingenious system of reading and writing by means of raised dots. Two years later he adapted his method to musical notation. He used a pattern of 6 raised dots to represent letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and mathematical symbols. Louis showed his Braille method to his classmates who liked it and began using it, in spite of the fact that it was banned from the institute. At age 17, Louis graduated, became assistant teacher at the institute, and secretly taught his method. Mr. Braille accepted a full-time teaching position at the Institute when he was nineteen.
Braille later extended his system to include notation for mathematics and music. The first book in Braille was published in 1827 under the title Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them. http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/braille.htm
Find stories about inventions and innovations here: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/index.html
World Ocean Census: A Global Survey of Marine Life
The Deep Sea World Beyond Sunlight - From the Edge of Darkness to the Black Abyss: Marine Scientists Census 17,500+ Species and Counting: Census of Marine Life scientists have inventoried an astonishing abundance, diversity and distribution of deep sea species that have never known sunlight—creatures that somehow manage a living in a frigid black world down to 5,000 meters below the ocean waves. Revealed via deep-towed cameras, sonar and other vanguard technologies, animals known to thrive in an eternal watery darkness now number 17,650, a diverse collection of species ranging from crabs to shrimp to worms. Most have adapted to diets based on meager droppings from the sunlit layer above, others to diets of bacteria that break down oil, sulfur and methane, the sunken bones of dead whales and other implausible foods.
EPA - New Trends Report: Fuel Economy Increases as CO2 Decreases
News release : "For the fifth consecutive year, EPA is reporting an increase in fuel efficiency with a corresponding decrease in average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for new cars and light duty trucks. This marks the first time that data for CO2 emissions are included in the annual report, Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 through 2009."
Britspeak from the novel Starburst by Robin Pilcher
loose covers=slipcovers
strapline=subheading
Robin Pilcher is a British author, the eldest son of author Rosamunde Pilcher. Robin Pilcher has been a cameraman, a songwriter, and a farmer, co-managed a mail order business, and has had numerous other jobs. He lives with his wife and children near Dundee, Scotland, and in the Sierra de Aracena mountain area of Andalusia, Spain, where he plans to establish a writing institute supported by the Pilcher Foundation of Creative Writing. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/robin-pilcher/
In the Food Issue of The New Yorker, November 23, 2009, Evan Osnos writes about China’s sudden romance with wine. The notion of getting rich by selling wine in China has a long history, which is marked almost entirely by failure. When the Changyu winery opened in 1892, the first winemaker was an Austro-Hungarian diplomat named Baron M. von Babo. When he took the job, Baron von Babo boldly ordered a hundred and forty thousand seedlings from abroad in order to start a vineyard. But seventy per cent of them died before they reached Chinese soil. Prospects have sharply improved since the days of the Baron, and, today, China is one of the world’s fastest-growing wine markets. (Chinese buyers are consuming so much that they are affecting wine prices for some of the most expensive bottles.) http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2009/11/red-red-wine.html
Because China is in the thrall of conspicuous consumption, a wine importer said: “In our shops, if we have slow-moving items, we raise the price.”
Silent letters: gnat, gnu, gnash, gnaw See a list at: http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/Materials/ndakota/soup/silent_letters.pdf
Not all silent letters are completely redundant:
Silent letters can distinguish between homophones, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words.
Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word, e.g. vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic *vinyard would.
The final in giraffe gives a clue to the second-syllable stress, where *giraf might suggest initial-stress.
Silent letters arise in several ways:
Pronunciation changes occurring without a spelling change. The spelling was in Old English pronounced /x/ in such words as light.
Sound distinctions from foreign languages may be lost, as with the distinction between smooth rho (ρ) and roughly aspirated rho (ῥ) in Ancient Greek, represented by and in Latin, but merged to the same [r] in English. Similarly with / , the latter from Greek phi.
Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing silent letters e.g. silent in asthma, silent in Christmas. Similarly with alien clusters such as Greek initial in psychology and in mnemonic.
Occasionally, spurious letters are consciously inserted in spelling. The b in debt and doubt was inserted to reflect Latin cognates like debit and dubitable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_letter
From age 12 to 15, he experimented with codes, using a knitting needle to punch holes in paper to represent letters. He shared his progress with officials at the institute but wasn't taken seriously. Braille, a bright and creative student, became a talented cellist and organist in his time at the school, playing the organ for churches all over France. When Louis was fifteen, he developed an ingenious system of reading and writing by means of raised dots. Two years later he adapted his method to musical notation. He used a pattern of 6 raised dots to represent letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and mathematical symbols. Louis showed his Braille method to his classmates who liked it and began using it, in spite of the fact that it was banned from the institute. At age 17, Louis graduated, became assistant teacher at the institute, and secretly taught his method. Mr. Braille accepted a full-time teaching position at the Institute when he was nineteen.
Braille later extended his system to include notation for mathematics and music. The first book in Braille was published in 1827 under the title Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them. http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/braille.htm
Find stories about inventions and innovations here: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/index.html
World Ocean Census: A Global Survey of Marine Life
The Deep Sea World Beyond Sunlight - From the Edge of Darkness to the Black Abyss: Marine Scientists Census 17,500+ Species and Counting: Census of Marine Life scientists have inventoried an astonishing abundance, diversity and distribution of deep sea species that have never known sunlight—creatures that somehow manage a living in a frigid black world down to 5,000 meters below the ocean waves. Revealed via deep-towed cameras, sonar and other vanguard technologies, animals known to thrive in an eternal watery darkness now number 17,650, a diverse collection of species ranging from crabs to shrimp to worms. Most have adapted to diets based on meager droppings from the sunlit layer above, others to diets of bacteria that break down oil, sulfur and methane, the sunken bones of dead whales and other implausible foods.
EPA - New Trends Report: Fuel Economy Increases as CO2 Decreases
News release : "For the fifth consecutive year, EPA is reporting an increase in fuel efficiency with a corresponding decrease in average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for new cars and light duty trucks. This marks the first time that data for CO2 emissions are included in the annual report, Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 through 2009."
Britspeak from the novel Starburst by Robin Pilcher
loose covers=slipcovers
strapline=subheading
Robin Pilcher is a British author, the eldest son of author Rosamunde Pilcher. Robin Pilcher has been a cameraman, a songwriter, and a farmer, co-managed a mail order business, and has had numerous other jobs. He lives with his wife and children near Dundee, Scotland, and in the Sierra de Aracena mountain area of Andalusia, Spain, where he plans to establish a writing institute supported by the Pilcher Foundation of Creative Writing. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/robin-pilcher/
In the Food Issue of The New Yorker, November 23, 2009, Evan Osnos writes about China’s sudden romance with wine. The notion of getting rich by selling wine in China has a long history, which is marked almost entirely by failure. When the Changyu winery opened in 1892, the first winemaker was an Austro-Hungarian diplomat named Baron M. von Babo. When he took the job, Baron von Babo boldly ordered a hundred and forty thousand seedlings from abroad in order to start a vineyard. But seventy per cent of them died before they reached Chinese soil. Prospects have sharply improved since the days of the Baron, and, today, China is one of the world’s fastest-growing wine markets. (Chinese buyers are consuming so much that they are affecting wine prices for some of the most expensive bottles.) http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2009/11/red-red-wine.html
Because China is in the thrall of conspicuous consumption, a wine importer said: “In our shops, if we have slow-moving items, we raise the price.”
Silent letters: gnat, gnu, gnash, gnaw See a list at: http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/Materials/ndakota/soup/silent_letters.pdf
Not all silent letters are completely redundant:
Silent letters can distinguish between homophones, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words.
Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word, e.g. vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic *vinyard would.
The final
Silent letters arise in several ways:
Pronunciation changes occurring without a spelling change. The
Sound distinctions from foreign languages may be lost, as with the distinction between smooth rho (ρ) and roughly aspirated rho (ῥ) in Ancient Greek, represented by
Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing silent letters e.g. silent
Occasionally, spurious letters are consciously inserted in spelling. The b in debt and doubt was inserted to reflect Latin cognates like debit and dubitable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_letter
Monday, November 23, 2009
As a punch line, poutine has a lot going for it. Canadians’ fondness for poutine is often the basis of the punch line, because a description of poutine in its basic form is French fries with cheese curds and brown gravy. Poutine was invented in rural Quebec. In recent years, it has rapidly widened its range. National franchise restaurants in Canada like Harvey’s and New York Fries and Burger King now have poutine on the menu. Canadian chefs with national reputations often do gourmet takes on poutine. Commenting on the results of a nationwide survey last summer, Roy MacGregor wrote that one of the more surprising discoveries was the possibility that “the national food of Canada is now poutine.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_trillin
Pulao, a baked, buttery, sophisticated indulgence, Persian in origin, is a rice dish served at festive occasions. It is served at annaprasan, a rite of passage in which Bengali children are given solid food for the first time; it is known colloquially as a bhath, which happens to be the Bengali word for “cooked rice.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_lahiri
Image searches for Grand Rapids Arch and Crown Fountain compared
Google: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22grand+rapids+arch%22&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22crown+fountain%22&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2
Bing: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%22grand+rapids+arch%22&go=&form=QBIR#
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%22crown+fountain%22&form=QBIR&qs=n#
Feeding by root phylloxera on European grapevines, Vitis vinifera nearly destroyed the French wine industry in the late 1800's. The epidemic was eventually brought under control by grafting V. vinifera varieties onto resistant American, Vitis labruscana, rootstocks. http://fruit.cfans.umn.edu/grape/IPM/phylloxera.pdf
Inadvertently introduced to Europe in 1860 on imported North American vinestocks, phylloxera wiped out a significant portion of European wine grapes in the mid-to-late 1800s. Phylloxera is native to the United States, and native grape species there are at least partially resistant. The European wine grape Vitis vinifera is very susceptible, so when the pest was introduced in Europe it devastated the wine growing industry. A huge amount of research was devoted to finding a solution to the phylloxera problem, and two major solutions gradually emerged: hybridization and resistant rootstocks. Hybridization was the breeding of Vitis vinifera with resistant species. Native American grapes are naturally phylloxera resistant but have aromas that are offputting to palates accustomed to European grapes. The intent of the cross was to generate a hybrid vine that was resistant to phylloxera but produced wine that did not taste like the native grape. Ironically, the hybrids tend not to be especially resistant to phylloxera, although they are much more hardy with respect to climate and other vine diseases. The new varieties have never gained the popularity of the traditional ones, and in the European Union are generally banned or at least strongly discouraged from use in quality wine. Use of a resistant rootstock, promoted by Thomas Munson, involves grafting a Vitis vinifera scion onto the roots of a resistant Vitis labrusca or other American native species. The use of resistant American rootstock to guard against phylloxera also brought about a debate that remains unsettled to this day: whether self-rooted vines produce better wine than those that are grafted. Had American rootstock not been available and used, there would be no V. vinifera wine industry in Europe or most other places other than Chile. http://www.encyclowine.org/?title=Phylloxera
See monument in Montpellier thanking America Jules Émile Planchon was a French botanist who was the head of the botany department at Montpellier University when the phylloxera plague started killing off all the French grapevines. In collaboration with Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet and the American Charles Valentine Riley, he discovered that importing American grape rootstock and grafting French vines onto it made the vines resistant to the organism that was spreading the plague.
http://berlinbites.blogspot.com/2008/07/montpellier-thanks-america.html
homologate (huh-MOL-uh-gayt, ho-) verb tr
1. to approve officially
2. to register a specific model of a motor vehicle to make it eligible to take part in a racing competition
From Latin homologare (to agree), from Greek homologein (to agree or allow)
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback from A.Word.A.Day
From: Govind Mukundan (govind.mukundan@gmail.com)
Subject: homologate
This must be a stress-inducing verb for many individuals. It certainly was for me, in my days as a firmware engineer for a German automobile supplier in Bangalore. At the near end of each (two- to three-year) project, the electronic control units that we wrote software for would be sent for homologation tests. Bugs found during homologation were not taken lightly, and many a sleepless night was spent trying to solve such bugs or prove they were features!
From: Steve Leone-Ganado (steve.ganado@magna.com)
Subject: homologation
For the first time since I started subscribing to AWAD many years ago, the "things you most likely don't do every day" does not apply. I spend my day designing stuff with the intent of getting it homologated for the European market. The word "homologate" is as common in this office as the word gingivitis is in a dental office. The automotive world has a few strange words that outsiders rarely hear of. Some examples are chmsl (pronounced chimsel), jounce, and gimp.
From: Laura Null (tigerpast@verizon.net)
Subject: subserve
For a moment I wondered if this word was derived from my field—service of process. We "serve" individuals named in suits or subpoenas with the documents, and then file an affidavit with the court. If we serve the pleadings on someone else at the same address, who can accept for the person we are serving, we say we "subserved" the pleadings.
From: Jamie Spencer (jspencer@stlcc.edu)
Subject: nettle and Hotspur
I suspect that the British/Australian phrase "grasp the nettle" is a direct borrowing from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One. In it the rebel Hotspur claims "from this nettle, danger, we grasp this flower, safety." I bet even the Brits use it. They know their Shakespeare over there too.
Quote The geek shall inherit the earth. Non Sequitur comic strip, November 21, 2009
November 21 is the birthday of Christopher Reuel Tolkien (1924) (books by this author) born in Leeds, England. He's the youngest son of J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings, and he drew the original maps that appeared in his father's epic fantasy novel. In addition to synthesizing all that complicated information about the imaginary Middle Earth to draw up the illuminating maps, he was also his famous father's test audience. It took J.R.R. Tolkien 12 years to write Lord of the Rings; during that time, Christopher was a teenager and in his 20s, and he constantly provided feedback for his dad's work in progress. Since his dad's death, he's edited and published a number of his manuscripts, including The Silmarillion in 1977, which he completed after years of sorting through and deciphering his father's handwritten notes. Between 1983 and 1996, Christopher Tolkien published a 12-volume work, The History of Middle-earth.
The Writer’s Almanac
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Later that day, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States. Read the Warren Commission Report.
On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied during the Six Days' War, and for respect of the right of all States in the area to "live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries." Read Resolution 242, which remains a cornerstone of efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
On November 23, 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the Willis-Campbell Act, popularly termed the "anti-beer bill", prohibiting doctors from prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
Pulao, a baked, buttery, sophisticated indulgence, Persian in origin, is a rice dish served at festive occasions. It is served at annaprasan, a rite of passage in which Bengali children are given solid food for the first time; it is known colloquially as a bhath, which happens to be the Bengali word for “cooked rice.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_lahiri
Image searches for Grand Rapids Arch and Crown Fountain compared
Google: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22grand+rapids+arch%22&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22crown+fountain%22&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2
Bing: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%22grand+rapids+arch%22&go=&form=QBIR#
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%22crown+fountain%22&form=QBIR&qs=n#
Feeding by root phylloxera on European grapevines, Vitis vinifera nearly destroyed the French wine industry in the late 1800's. The epidemic was eventually brought under control by grafting V. vinifera varieties onto resistant American, Vitis labruscana, rootstocks. http://fruit.cfans.umn.edu/grape/IPM/phylloxera.pdf
Inadvertently introduced to Europe in 1860 on imported North American vinestocks, phylloxera wiped out a significant portion of European wine grapes in the mid-to-late 1800s. Phylloxera is native to the United States, and native grape species there are at least partially resistant. The European wine grape Vitis vinifera is very susceptible, so when the pest was introduced in Europe it devastated the wine growing industry. A huge amount of research was devoted to finding a solution to the phylloxera problem, and two major solutions gradually emerged: hybridization and resistant rootstocks. Hybridization was the breeding of Vitis vinifera with resistant species. Native American grapes are naturally phylloxera resistant but have aromas that are offputting to palates accustomed to European grapes. The intent of the cross was to generate a hybrid vine that was resistant to phylloxera but produced wine that did not taste like the native grape. Ironically, the hybrids tend not to be especially resistant to phylloxera, although they are much more hardy with respect to climate and other vine diseases. The new varieties have never gained the popularity of the traditional ones, and in the European Union are generally banned or at least strongly discouraged from use in quality wine. Use of a resistant rootstock, promoted by Thomas Munson, involves grafting a Vitis vinifera scion onto the roots of a resistant Vitis labrusca or other American native species. The use of resistant American rootstock to guard against phylloxera also brought about a debate that remains unsettled to this day: whether self-rooted vines produce better wine than those that are grafted. Had American rootstock not been available and used, there would be no V. vinifera wine industry in Europe or most other places other than Chile. http://www.encyclowine.org/?title=Phylloxera
See monument in Montpellier thanking America Jules Émile Planchon was a French botanist who was the head of the botany department at Montpellier University when the phylloxera plague started killing off all the French grapevines. In collaboration with Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet and the American Charles Valentine Riley, he discovered that importing American grape rootstock and grafting French vines onto it made the vines resistant to the organism that was spreading the plague.
http://berlinbites.blogspot.com/2008/07/montpellier-thanks-america.html
homologate (huh-MOL-uh-gayt, ho-) verb tr
1. to approve officially
2. to register a specific model of a motor vehicle to make it eligible to take part in a racing competition
From Latin homologare (to agree), from Greek homologein (to agree or allow)
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback from A.Word.A.Day
From: Govind Mukundan (govind.mukundan@gmail.com)
Subject: homologate
This must be a stress-inducing verb for many individuals. It certainly was for me, in my days as a firmware engineer for a German automobile supplier in Bangalore. At the near end of each (two- to three-year) project, the electronic control units that we wrote software for would be sent for homologation tests. Bugs found during homologation were not taken lightly, and many a sleepless night was spent trying to solve such bugs or prove they were features!
From: Steve Leone-Ganado (steve.ganado@magna.com)
Subject: homologation
For the first time since I started subscribing to AWAD many years ago, the "things you most likely don't do every day" does not apply. I spend my day designing stuff with the intent of getting it homologated for the European market. The word "homologate" is as common in this office as the word gingivitis is in a dental office. The automotive world has a few strange words that outsiders rarely hear of. Some examples are chmsl (pronounced chimsel), jounce, and gimp.
From: Laura Null (tigerpast@verizon.net)
Subject: subserve
For a moment I wondered if this word was derived from my field—service of process. We "serve" individuals named in suits or subpoenas with the documents, and then file an affidavit with the court. If we serve the pleadings on someone else at the same address, who can accept for the person we are serving, we say we "subserved" the pleadings.
From: Jamie Spencer (jspencer@stlcc.edu)
Subject: nettle and Hotspur
I suspect that the British/Australian phrase "grasp the nettle" is a direct borrowing from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One. In it the rebel Hotspur claims "from this nettle, danger, we grasp this flower, safety." I bet even the Brits use it. They know their Shakespeare over there too.
Quote The geek shall inherit the earth. Non Sequitur comic strip, November 21, 2009
November 21 is the birthday of Christopher Reuel Tolkien (1924) (books by this author) born in Leeds, England. He's the youngest son of J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings, and he drew the original maps that appeared in his father's epic fantasy novel. In addition to synthesizing all that complicated information about the imaginary Middle Earth to draw up the illuminating maps, he was also his famous father's test audience. It took J.R.R. Tolkien 12 years to write Lord of the Rings; during that time, Christopher was a teenager and in his 20s, and he constantly provided feedback for his dad's work in progress. Since his dad's death, he's edited and published a number of his manuscripts, including The Silmarillion in 1977, which he completed after years of sorting through and deciphering his father's handwritten notes. Between 1983 and 1996, Christopher Tolkien published a 12-volume work, The History of Middle-earth.
The Writer’s Almanac
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Later that day, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States. Read the Warren Commission Report.
On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied during the Six Days' War, and for respect of the right of all States in the area to "live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries." Read Resolution 242, which remains a cornerstone of efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
On November 23, 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the Willis-Campbell Act, popularly termed the "anti-beer bill", prohibiting doctors from prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The ripple effect, where the delivery is the message
Since 2005, a number of public libraries in the Netherlands have set up shop on the sandy beaches of the coast to reach out to vacationers destined for sunbathing and swimming in the North Sea. The project in two coastal provinces Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland is coordinated by ProBiblio, a public library service provider. ProBiblio has thrown out all of the rules to serve this unique audience of beach goers: no fees, no fines, no library cards. You don’t even need an ID. To borrow something from the beach library, all you do is sign your name and address. Each year has been a success, averaging more than 15,000 circulations during the six-week period the beach library operates; only 1 percent of borrowed items has not been returned. About 25,000 people visit a year. Apart from Dutch, German books also are available, since the Dutch beaches are a popular summer destination for German visitors. The beach library has circulated audiobooks, iPods and eBooks and organized a range of activities from yoga classes and creative writing workshops to pirate parties and nature classes. “This year we’ve done a big project with actors who walk along the beach and tell stories to children and grownups. And we’ve had seven writers-in-residence, who post their thoughts to a special blog about their visit as well as read to visitors and give interviews.”
Read about many interesting ways that libraries reach people at: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/nextspace/013/1.htm Thanks, Ginger.
Colum McCann won the National Book Award for fiction on November 18 for “Let the Great World Spin,” a novel featuring a sprawling cast of characters in 1970s New York City whose lives are ineluctably touched by the mysterious tightrope walker who traverses a wire suspended between the Twin Towers one morning. In the nonfiction category, T. J. Stiles won for “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt,” a biography of the man who fathered a dynasty, presided over a railroad empire and, in the words of the judging panel, “all but invented unbridled American capitalism.”
Perhaps the most moving moment of the night came with the presentation of the award for Young People’s Literature, which went to Phillip Hoose for “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice,” a biography of Ms. Colvin, who as an African-American teenager in 1950s Montgomery, Ala., refused to give up her seat on a bus nine months before Rosa Parks took the same stand. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/books/19awards.html
Ineluctable means impossible to avoid.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:ineluctable&ei=VW0FS4yYGIuCnQeclIjBCw&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title&ved=0CAcQkAE
Find four terms all designated by A.M. plus meanings for LL. D., N.B., N.P., p.d., R., and many abbreviations at: http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/moremottoes2.html
NewspaperARCHIVE.com is the world's largest online newspaper archive. Featuring billions of articles from historical newspapers around the U.S. and the world, NewspaperARCHIVE makes exploring history and genealogy easy and fun. Discover fascinating news in archived newspapers hundreds of years old—including obituaries, birth announcements, sports articles, comics, and more—to fill in the life stories you are interested in. And share those stories with others through our community at OurNewspaperARCHIVE. All of our historical newspapers are full-page and fully searchable. Fee-based, reasonable rates. Thanks, Julie.
Preserving the Library in the Digital Age from the Readex Report
by Benjamin L. Carp, Assistant Professor of History, Tufts University
Libraries promote literacy, equity of access (generally free access) and intellectual freedom. They are refuges for people who live the life of the mind, gateways for those in search of knowledge and public spaces vital to healthy communities. The internet and home computers allow each of us to work and play in our own little boxes, not too differently from televisions, video games and private book collections . Libraries celebrate the spirit of coming together to share in the pursuit of knowledge. Thanks, Marianne. http://www.readex.com/readex/newsletters.cfm?newsletter=95&article=99
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Steve Patterson (pattersons@allentownsd.org)
Subject: stalking horse
There is a lovely image of the derivation of this term at cequs.com.
From: Terri Currier (tercurrier@aol.com)
Subject: stalking horse
Stalking horse has another common usage, particularly now in times of economic pressure. When a company filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, it may wish to sell itself as a going concern. To do so, it negotiates a deal with the best bidder it can find, then files the terms of that deal with the Bankruptcy Court for the purpose of luring other interested parties who may overbid the deal at a public auction. This first bidder who sets the "floor" for the bankruptcy auction is known as the stalking horse.
From: Dick Koepsell (koepsell@embarqmail.com)
Subject: stalking horse
In the American west this is a term for a trained horse used to draw in wild horses, as horses will often follow the leader. The use is similar to cat's paw.
From: Bill Mintz (bmintz@aol.com)
Subject: hobbyhorse
In sailing we use the expression to mean the fore and aft bouncing of a boat. Some boat designs are more prone to it than others. Placing too much weight in the bow or stern will cause the same effect.
From: Alex Eliott (rae@khl.co.za)
Subject: hobbyhorse
A hobbyhorse was also the name given to a forerunner of the bicycle in the early to mid-nineteenth century. This pre-bicycle had two wheels but no pedals and was propelled by the rider's feet, much like the pedal-less bikes given to small children today. I would suggest that the phrase "ride one's hobbyhorse" owes much to this historical usage of the term.
From: Ellen Raw (ejraw@meltel.net)
Subject: horse phrases
Just wanted to mention a horse phrase that is common here in rural Minnesota (that I had never heard before, growing up only 150 miles away). So I don't know if it's used very many places, but I think it's interesting. "A horse a piece" means the same as "Six of one, Half a dozen of the other"... Presumably it comes from horse trading, meaning it's basically the same value either way...
From: Andrew Kornweibel (akornweibel@hotmail.com)
Subject: horse words
One of my favourite words is hackneyed, which is derived directly from the suburb I live in, Hackney, in London. They would breed the horses for hire in the area during the medieval times, and they would often be over-used and run into the ground, as well used for carriages (the term "Hackney Carriage" still applies to taxis in London today). Now "hackneyed" means a term which is over-used, and it also goes through to "hack" meaning literary writers employed to churn out copy. All from my little suburb.
On November 19, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln got up in front of about 15,000 people seated at a new national cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and delivered the Gettysburg Address. It was a foggy, cold morning. Lincoln arrived about 10 a.m. Around noon, the sun came out as the crowds gathered on a hill overlooking the battlefield. A military band played, a local preacher offered a long prayer, and the headlining orator, Edward Everett, spoke for more than two hours. At that time, a two-hour speech was quite normal. Everett described the Battle of Gettysburg in great detail, and he brought the audience to tears more than once. When Everett was finished, Lincoln got up and pulled his speech from his coat pocket. It consisted of 10 sentences, a total of 272 words. Unfortunately for Lincoln, the audience was distracted by a photographer setting up his camera, and by the time Lincoln had finished his speech and sat down the audience didn't even realize he had spoken. Lincoln was disappointed in his performance, but the next day Edward Everett told the president, "I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." The Writer’s Almanac
Since 2005, a number of public libraries in the Netherlands have set up shop on the sandy beaches of the coast to reach out to vacationers destined for sunbathing and swimming in the North Sea. The project in two coastal provinces Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland is coordinated by ProBiblio, a public library service provider. ProBiblio has thrown out all of the rules to serve this unique audience of beach goers: no fees, no fines, no library cards. You don’t even need an ID. To borrow something from the beach library, all you do is sign your name and address. Each year has been a success, averaging more than 15,000 circulations during the six-week period the beach library operates; only 1 percent of borrowed items has not been returned. About 25,000 people visit a year. Apart from Dutch, German books also are available, since the Dutch beaches are a popular summer destination for German visitors. The beach library has circulated audiobooks, iPods and eBooks and organized a range of activities from yoga classes and creative writing workshops to pirate parties and nature classes. “This year we’ve done a big project with actors who walk along the beach and tell stories to children and grownups. And we’ve had seven writers-in-residence, who post their thoughts to a special blog about their visit as well as read to visitors and give interviews.”
Read about many interesting ways that libraries reach people at: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/nextspace/013/1.htm Thanks, Ginger.
Colum McCann won the National Book Award for fiction on November 18 for “Let the Great World Spin,” a novel featuring a sprawling cast of characters in 1970s New York City whose lives are ineluctably touched by the mysterious tightrope walker who traverses a wire suspended between the Twin Towers one morning. In the nonfiction category, T. J. Stiles won for “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt,” a biography of the man who fathered a dynasty, presided over a railroad empire and, in the words of the judging panel, “all but invented unbridled American capitalism.”
Perhaps the most moving moment of the night came with the presentation of the award for Young People’s Literature, which went to Phillip Hoose for “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice,” a biography of Ms. Colvin, who as an African-American teenager in 1950s Montgomery, Ala., refused to give up her seat on a bus nine months before Rosa Parks took the same stand. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/books/19awards.html
Ineluctable means impossible to avoid.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:ineluctable&ei=VW0FS4yYGIuCnQeclIjBCw&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title&ved=0CAcQkAE
Find four terms all designated by A.M. plus meanings for LL. D., N.B., N.P., p.d., R., and many abbreviations at: http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/moremottoes2.html
NewspaperARCHIVE.com is the world's largest online newspaper archive. Featuring billions of articles from historical newspapers around the U.S. and the world, NewspaperARCHIVE makes exploring history and genealogy easy and fun. Discover fascinating news in archived newspapers hundreds of years old—including obituaries, birth announcements, sports articles, comics, and more—to fill in the life stories you are interested in. And share those stories with others through our community at OurNewspaperARCHIVE. All of our historical newspapers are full-page and fully searchable. Fee-based, reasonable rates. Thanks, Julie.
Preserving the Library in the Digital Age from the Readex Report
by Benjamin L. Carp, Assistant Professor of History, Tufts University
Libraries promote literacy, equity of access (generally free access) and intellectual freedom. They are refuges for people who live the life of the mind, gateways for those in search of knowledge and public spaces vital to healthy communities. The internet and home computers allow each of us to work and play in our own little boxes, not too differently from televisions, video games and private book collections . Libraries celebrate the spirit of coming together to share in the pursuit of knowledge. Thanks, Marianne. http://www.readex.com/readex/newsletters.cfm?newsletter=95&article=99
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Steve Patterson (pattersons@allentownsd.org)
Subject: stalking horse
There is a lovely image of the derivation of this term at cequs.com.
From: Terri Currier (tercurrier@aol.com)
Subject: stalking horse
Stalking horse has another common usage, particularly now in times of economic pressure. When a company filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, it may wish to sell itself as a going concern. To do so, it negotiates a deal with the best bidder it can find, then files the terms of that deal with the Bankruptcy Court for the purpose of luring other interested parties who may overbid the deal at a public auction. This first bidder who sets the "floor" for the bankruptcy auction is known as the stalking horse.
From: Dick Koepsell (koepsell@embarqmail.com)
Subject: stalking horse
In the American west this is a term for a trained horse used to draw in wild horses, as horses will often follow the leader. The use is similar to cat's paw.
From: Bill Mintz (bmintz@aol.com)
Subject: hobbyhorse
In sailing we use the expression to mean the fore and aft bouncing of a boat. Some boat designs are more prone to it than others. Placing too much weight in the bow or stern will cause the same effect.
From: Alex Eliott (rae@khl.co.za)
Subject: hobbyhorse
A hobbyhorse was also the name given to a forerunner of the bicycle in the early to mid-nineteenth century. This pre-bicycle had two wheels but no pedals and was propelled by the rider's feet, much like the pedal-less bikes given to small children today. I would suggest that the phrase "ride one's hobbyhorse" owes much to this historical usage of the term.
From: Ellen Raw (ejraw@meltel.net)
Subject: horse phrases
Just wanted to mention a horse phrase that is common here in rural Minnesota (that I had never heard before, growing up only 150 miles away). So I don't know if it's used very many places, but I think it's interesting. "A horse a piece" means the same as "Six of one, Half a dozen of the other"... Presumably it comes from horse trading, meaning it's basically the same value either way...
From: Andrew Kornweibel (akornweibel@hotmail.com)
Subject: horse words
One of my favourite words is hackneyed, which is derived directly from the suburb I live in, Hackney, in London. They would breed the horses for hire in the area during the medieval times, and they would often be over-used and run into the ground, as well used for carriages (the term "Hackney Carriage" still applies to taxis in London today). Now "hackneyed" means a term which is over-used, and it also goes through to "hack" meaning literary writers employed to churn out copy. All from my little suburb.
On November 19, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln got up in front of about 15,000 people seated at a new national cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and delivered the Gettysburg Address. It was a foggy, cold morning. Lincoln arrived about 10 a.m. Around noon, the sun came out as the crowds gathered on a hill overlooking the battlefield. A military band played, a local preacher offered a long prayer, and the headlining orator, Edward Everett, spoke for more than two hours. At that time, a two-hour speech was quite normal. Everett described the Battle of Gettysburg in great detail, and he brought the audience to tears more than once. When Everett was finished, Lincoln got up and pulled his speech from his coat pocket. It consisted of 10 sentences, a total of 272 words. Unfortunately for Lincoln, the audience was distracted by a photographer setting up his camera, and by the time Lincoln had finished his speech and sat down the audience didn't even realize he had spoken. Lincoln was disappointed in his performance, but the next day Edward Everett told the president, "I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." The Writer’s Almanac
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
100 Milestone Documents from National Archives and Records Administration- "The following is a list of 100 milestone documents, compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration, and drawn primarily from its nationwide holdings. The documents chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965."
"The list begins with the Lee Resolution of June 7, 1776, a simple document resolving that the United Colonies “are, and of right, ought to be free and independent states...” and ends with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a statute that helped fulfill the promise of freedom inherent in the first documents on the list. The remaining milestone documents are among the thousands of public laws, Supreme Court decisions, inaugural speeches, treaties, constitutional amendments, and other documents that have influenced the course of U.S. history. They have helped shape the national character, and they reflect our diversity, our unity, and our commitment as a nation to continue our work toward forming “a more perfect union.”
Words of wit from the Brits
Gobsmacked is a fairly recent British slang term: the first recorded use is only in the eighties, though verbal use must surely go back further. The usual form is gobsmacked, though gobstruck is also found. It’s a combination of gob, mouth, and smacked. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gob1.htm
Chinwag informal conversation http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/chinwag
Dogsbody someone who is forced to do all the jobs that no one else wants to do http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/dogsbody
Visit http://www.arttatumfoundation.com/ and see eight pianos at Follow the Piano on Flickr, Renee painting a piano on October 13, 2009 at Elephant Paints Piano at Toledo Zoo, and more pianos at bottom of page including one painted by the Walleye hockey team. More information here:
Pianos—not the fancy, grand variety, but pianos that were meant to be played a lot—are donated to an arts organization, placed in a public place to be painted, and then left there for anyone from the most accomplished musician to a curious child to come along and play. The Art Tatum Jazz Heritage Foundation created the Pianos for Art project this year to honor its namesake's 100th birthday and claim a little artistic synergy similar to the It's Reigning Frogs public art campaign in 2001 that featured giant, brightly
painted frogs around Toledo.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091115/ART10/911159983
The 2009 Guidelines Manual (effective November 1, 2009) is available in HTML and Adobe .PDF formats (large file and broken into chapters), which can be viewed, downloaded or printed via the website."
Related postings on sentencing guidelines
Google Scholar Now Includes Free Case Law Database
Use Google Scholar Advanced Scholar Search to find articles, subject specific articles and patents, legal opinions and journals [Search all legal opinions and journals; Search only US federal court opinions; Search only court opinions from individual states].
Via Justia: use Google Scholar to access: 1 US 1 (pre 1776 :), 1 F 2d 1 (1924+), F Supp cases, US State Cases 1950+
Via Justia: Google Scholar also gives alternatives versions of cases http://is.gd/4WOZw including Cornell's LII, Justia, Public.Resource.org
Pew Analysis Shows More Than 60 Percent of Export-Import Bank Loan Guarantees Benefited Single Company
News release: "The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im)—the official government agency subsidizing U.S. exports of goods and services—provided nearly two-thirds of its long-term loan guarantees over the last two years to a single corporate entity, according to analysis released [11/09/09] by Pew’s Subsidyscope project. In FY2007 and FY2008 combined, Ex-Im issued $15.3 billion in long-term loan guarantees. Of that total, almost $10 billion, or an average of 65 percent, went toward the purchase of commercial aircraft made by the Boeing Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined."
Ranking law schools and law firms.
A universe that used to contain one member, it seems—U.S. News & World Report—has suddenly gotten a lot more crowded. Princeton Review now ranks the law schools. The American Lawyer, with its annual A-List ranking, provides a ranking of sorts for law firms. Vault uses prestige as the measuring stick for law firms; Chicago Law prof Brian Leiter provides his own law-school rankings, here. The list, particularly in regard to law schools, goes on and on. Well, let us add one more name to the parade. Law & Politics, the publisher of Super Lawyers and the magazines Minnesota Law & Politics and Washington Law & Politics, unveils its first ever ranking of U.S. law schools, based on one criteria only: how many Super Lawyers each produces. Roughly 5 percent of the lawyers in each state are selected to Super Lawyers lists each year. Click here for how those are chosen.
The top 25 go like this: 1) Harvard; 2) Michigan; 3) Texas; 4) UVA; 5) Georgetown; 6) NYU; 7) Columbia; 8) Florida; 9) Berkeley; 10) Yale; 11) Hastings; 12) GW; 13) BU; 14) UCLA; 15) Penn; 16) Chicago; 17) BC; 18) Northwestern; 19) Stanford; 20) University of Miami; 21) Vanderbilt; 22) SMU; 23) Duke; 24) Minnesota; 25) Wisconsin. Click over to Super Lawyers for the full rankings. We didn't get to peek behind the curtain on the numbers that comprise the rankings, but we can tell you this: that 2,354 Super Lawyers in 2009 were Harvard (#1) graduates, while 492 were Wisconsin (#25 graduates). We're not experts in statistics, rankings or methodologies. Nor do we really have a well-defined opinion on what makes a law-school “good.” But one glaring issue jumped out at us upon hearing of the Super Lawyers ranking: it doesn't take into consideration class size. We know, for instance, that classes at Yale and Stanford are much smaller than classes at Harvard, Georgetown and Michigan, and it's been that way a while. So there are simply more Harvard Law grads in the world than Yale grads—and a ranking that doesn't take this into consideration is, in our opinion, an imperfect one. WSJ Law Blog November 17, 2009
On November 18, 1903, Panama and the United States signed a treaty on the proposed Panama Canal. Read the full text of the Convention for the Construction of a Ship Canal. Visit the website of the Panama Canal Authority.
On November 18, 1976, the largely-appointed Parliament of Spain voted to transition to elective democracy. The vote came almost a year after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, who had governed the nation since 1936. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
November 18 is the birthday of novelist and poet Margaret Atwood, born in Ottawa, Ontario (1939). Her father was an entomologist who spent every year from spring to fall studying insects at a forestry research station in northern Quebec. Atwood said, "At the age of six months, I was carried into the woods in a packsack, and this landscape became my hometown. She had no access to television or movies, and few children to play with. So she spent her time exploring the woods and reading. Atwood's first novel, The Edible Woman, came out in 1969. It's about a woman who finds that she can no longer eat after her boyfriend proposes marriage. Atwood is best known for her novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985), about an imaginary America where religious fanatics have taken over the government. The book became an international best-seller. Her most recent novel is The Year of the Flood (2009), which came out this fall. The Writer’s Almanac
Quote The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God. Andrew Dickson White, diplomat, historian, and educator (1832-1918)
"The list begins with the Lee Resolution of June 7, 1776, a simple document resolving that the United Colonies “are, and of right, ought to be free and independent states...” and ends with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a statute that helped fulfill the promise of freedom inherent in the first documents on the list. The remaining milestone documents are among the thousands of public laws, Supreme Court decisions, inaugural speeches, treaties, constitutional amendments, and other documents that have influenced the course of U.S. history. They have helped shape the national character, and they reflect our diversity, our unity, and our commitment as a nation to continue our work toward forming “a more perfect union.”
Words of wit from the Brits
Gobsmacked is a fairly recent British slang term: the first recorded use is only in the eighties, though verbal use must surely go back further. The usual form is gobsmacked, though gobstruck is also found. It’s a combination of gob, mouth, and smacked. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gob1.htm
Chinwag informal conversation http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/chinwag
Dogsbody someone who is forced to do all the jobs that no one else wants to do http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/dogsbody
Visit http://www.arttatumfoundation.com/ and see eight pianos at Follow the Piano on Flickr, Renee painting a piano on October 13, 2009 at Elephant Paints Piano at Toledo Zoo, and more pianos at bottom of page including one painted by the Walleye hockey team. More information here:
Pianos—not the fancy, grand variety, but pianos that were meant to be played a lot—are donated to an arts organization, placed in a public place to be painted, and then left there for anyone from the most accomplished musician to a curious child to come along and play. The Art Tatum Jazz Heritage Foundation created the Pianos for Art project this year to honor its namesake's 100th birthday and claim a little artistic synergy similar to the It's Reigning Frogs public art campaign in 2001 that featured giant, brightly
painted frogs around Toledo.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091115/ART10/911159983
The 2009 Guidelines Manual (effective November 1, 2009) is available in HTML and Adobe .PDF formats (large file and broken into chapters), which can be viewed, downloaded or printed via the website."
Related postings on sentencing guidelines
Google Scholar Now Includes Free Case Law Database
Use Google Scholar Advanced Scholar Search to find articles, subject specific articles and patents, legal opinions and journals [Search all legal opinions and journals; Search only US federal court opinions; Search only court opinions from individual states].
Via Justia: use Google Scholar to access: 1 US 1 (pre 1776 :), 1 F 2d 1 (1924+), F Supp cases, US State Cases 1950+
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Pew Analysis Shows More Than 60 Percent of Export-Import Bank Loan Guarantees Benefited Single Company
News release: "The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im)—the official government agency subsidizing U.S. exports of goods and services—provided nearly two-thirds of its long-term loan guarantees over the last two years to a single corporate entity, according to analysis released [11/09/09] by Pew’s Subsidyscope project. In FY2007 and FY2008 combined, Ex-Im issued $15.3 billion in long-term loan guarantees. Of that total, almost $10 billion, or an average of 65 percent, went toward the purchase of commercial aircraft made by the Boeing Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined."
Ranking law schools and law firms.
A universe that used to contain one member, it seems—U.S. News & World Report—has suddenly gotten a lot more crowded. Princeton Review now ranks the law schools. The American Lawyer, with its annual A-List ranking, provides a ranking of sorts for law firms. Vault uses prestige as the measuring stick for law firms; Chicago Law prof Brian Leiter provides his own law-school rankings, here. The list, particularly in regard to law schools, goes on and on. Well, let us add one more name to the parade. Law & Politics, the publisher of Super Lawyers and the magazines Minnesota Law & Politics and Washington Law & Politics, unveils its first ever ranking of U.S. law schools, based on one criteria only: how many Super Lawyers each produces. Roughly 5 percent of the lawyers in each state are selected to Super Lawyers lists each year. Click here for how those are chosen.
The top 25 go like this: 1) Harvard; 2) Michigan; 3) Texas; 4) UVA; 5) Georgetown; 6) NYU; 7) Columbia; 8) Florida; 9) Berkeley; 10) Yale; 11) Hastings; 12) GW; 13) BU; 14) UCLA; 15) Penn; 16) Chicago; 17) BC; 18) Northwestern; 19) Stanford; 20) University of Miami; 21) Vanderbilt; 22) SMU; 23) Duke; 24) Minnesota; 25) Wisconsin. Click over to Super Lawyers for the full rankings. We didn't get to peek behind the curtain on the numbers that comprise the rankings, but we can tell you this: that 2,354 Super Lawyers in 2009 were Harvard (#1) graduates, while 492 were Wisconsin (#25 graduates). We're not experts in statistics, rankings or methodologies. Nor do we really have a well-defined opinion on what makes a law-school “good.” But one glaring issue jumped out at us upon hearing of the Super Lawyers ranking: it doesn't take into consideration class size. We know, for instance, that classes at Yale and Stanford are much smaller than classes at Harvard, Georgetown and Michigan, and it's been that way a while. So there are simply more Harvard Law grads in the world than Yale grads—and a ranking that doesn't take this into consideration is, in our opinion, an imperfect one. WSJ Law Blog November 17, 2009
On November 18, 1903, Panama and the United States signed a treaty on the proposed Panama Canal. Read the full text of the Convention for the Construction of a Ship Canal. Visit the website of the Panama Canal Authority.
On November 18, 1976, the largely-appointed Parliament of Spain voted to transition to elective democracy. The vote came almost a year after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, who had governed the nation since 1936. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
November 18 is the birthday of novelist and poet Margaret Atwood, born in Ottawa, Ontario (1939). Her father was an entomologist who spent every year from spring to fall studying insects at a forestry research station in northern Quebec. Atwood said, "At the age of six months, I was carried into the woods in a packsack, and this landscape became my hometown. She had no access to television or movies, and few children to play with. So she spent her time exploring the woods and reading. Atwood's first novel, The Edible Woman, came out in 1969. It's about a woman who finds that she can no longer eat after her boyfriend proposes marriage. Atwood is best known for her novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985), about an imaginary America where religious fanatics have taken over the government. The book became an international best-seller. Her most recent novel is The Year of the Flood (2009), which came out this fall. The Writer’s Almanac
Quote The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God. Andrew Dickson White, diplomat, historian, and educator (1832-1918)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Now Law
Follow up to previous postings on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, the New York Times reports: "The most important new antidiscrimination law in two decades—the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act—will take effect in the nation’s workplaces next weekend, prohibiting employers from requesting genetic testing or considering someone’s genetic background in hiring, firing or promotions. The act also prohibits health insurers and group plans from requiring such testing or using genetic information—like a family history of heart disease—to deny coverage or set premiums or deductibles."
Related: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the Commission or EEOC) proposes to revise its Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations and accompanying interpretive guidance in order to implement the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. The Commission is responsible for enforcement of title I of the ADA, as amended, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of disability. Pursuant to the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, EEOC is expressly granted the authority to amend these regulations, and is expected to do so, in order to conform certain provisions contained in the regulations to the Amendments Act."
In this, the last installment in this series on the best-known American country house, Fallingwater, Jim Atkins, FAIA, and his wife, Dr. Sook Kim, travel to Bear Run in western Pennsylvania to experience the magnificently maintained and recently restored country retreat designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, now open to the public thanks to the diligence of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. This Frank Lloyd Wright creation is much more magnificent and enjoyable than any promotional literature or this article series can possibly convey. No picture can adequately provide the complete magic of the place itself. One can experience it to its fullest only in real time. Every architect and for that matter everyone interested in great architecture should see it, be inside it, and personally take in its wonderful atmosphere at least once. This magnificent masterpiece was not created by luck or chance, it did not achieve reality with any ease of deliberation. It came about almost by accident. It was the child of two arrogant, driven men who had a score to settle; two extremely talented individuals, who, by the sweat of their own dogged determination and will, made it what it is. See detailed description and many pictures: http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/1113/1113rc_fallingwater.cfm
Established in 1998, the National Toy Hall of Fame, housed at Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, recognizes toys that have inspired creative play and enjoyed popularity over a sustained period. The hall annually inducts and showcases new and historic versions of classic toys beloved by generations. Anyone can nominate a toy to the National Toy Hall of Fame.
The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found. Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC. Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1226500/Is-lost-Persian-army-Compelling-remains-uncovered-Sahara-Desert.html
Pew Center on the States Reports on States in Peril
Stateline.org: "California’s financial problems are in a league of their own. But the same pressures that drove the Golden State toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country. This examination by the Pew Center on the States looks closely at nine states, in addition to California, that are particularly affected by the recession. All of California’s neighbors–Arizona, Nevada and Oregon–and fellow Sun Belt state Florida were severely hit by the bursting housing bubble, landing them on Pew’s list of states facing fiscal difficulties similar to California’s. A Midwestern cluster of states comprising Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin emerged, too, as did the Northeastern states of New Jersey and Rhode Island."
Read the executive summary
Read more about the states profiled
Read more about how the states were assessed
Download the full report: Beyond California - States in Fiscal Peril, November 2009
World Justice Project Rule of Law Index
"The Rule of Law Index is a new tool, created by the WJP [World Justice Project Rule], which measures countries’ adherence to the rule of law...The Rule of Law Index is the first index that examines the rule of law comprehensively. Other indices cover only aspects of the rule of law, such as human rights, commercial law, and corruption. Because the Index looks at the rule of law in practice and not solely as it exists on the books, the Index will be able to guide governments, civil society, NGOs and business leaders in targeting efforts to strengthen the rule of law."
Find useful legal news updated each weekday at: http://commonlaw.findlaw.com/
Olives are the fruits of the olive tree which is indigenous to the Mediterranean countries but also cultivated nowadays in other areas, even in America and Australia. There are many different kinds of olives. Some are used for making oil, while others are for eating (these are usually large in size). There are also some varieties which are used for both oil and consumption. The olive tree (El olivo) blossoms in spring and shortly afterwards the olive fruit starts to grow. They are a bright green colour to begin with and this lasts until the time when they ripen. This varies amongst the different types of olive but is usually towards the end of autumn. The olive is a fruit with fleshy skin. Olive oil is the natural juice of the olive, a pure product which is obtained with machinery or by natural means. The oil of the olive is found in the fleshy part of the fruit. Olives reach their maximum oil content when they are fully ripe but the finest oil is obtained from the olives that are just beginning to ripen. In Spain there are over 260 types of olives.
The olive tree belongs to the Oleaceae family and has a life span of around 300-400 years. The precise origins of the olive tree are shrouded in doubt; Persia, Jordan, the Valleys of the Nile each have their advocates. The best that we can say with certainty is that cultivation began a very long time ago in the near East and spread slowly westward to Spain along the shores of the Mediterranean. http://www.elolivo-olive-oil.com/The-Olive-tree-and-its-fruit-the-Olive-sp-7.html
The stock ticker—a machine that tracked financial data over telegraph lines and stamped it on strips called ticker tape for the sound the printing made—had barely been around two decades before Wall Streeters realized that throwing its ribbony paper out the window was a fun way to celebrate. They first did it on Oct. 29, 1886, inspired by the ceremony to dedicate the Statue of Liberty. By 1899 two million people turned out to make Admiral George Dewey, hero of the battle of Manila Bay, the first individual honored with a ticker-tape parade. Former President Teddy Roosevelt got one in 1910 upon returning from his African safari. But it wasn't until 1919, when Grover Whalen was made New York City's official greeter, that ticker-tape parades took off: from 1919 to 1953 he reportedly threw 86 of them, many at the urging of the State Department. The luminaries he feted in his early years included Albert Einstein in 1921—the only scientist ever honored with a ticker-tape parade—as well as the U.S. Olympic team in 1924 and Charles Lindbergh in 1927. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1935808,00.html
On November 17, 1989, riot police put down student protests against the communist government in Czechoslovakia. The incident started a series of non-violent protests that finally forced the communists from power two weeks later.
Learn more about the Velvet Revolution. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
On November 17, 1936, Scribner's Maxwell Perkins wrote a letter to Thomas Wolfe that chronicled one of the most famous conflicts between editor and novelist in the history of American publishing. Perkins had helped to discover the young and unknown Thomas Wolfe (books by this author) (along with Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) and helped shape Wolfe's manuscripts into book form. He sat down with Wolfe—and his first manuscript, O, Lost, written in just 20 months—and helped him cut more than 60,000 words; the finished product, published while Wolfe was in his 20s, was still 544 pages long and now entitled Look Homeward, Angel (1929), from a poem by John Milton. The Writer’s Almanac
Follow up to previous postings on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, the New York Times reports: "The most important new antidiscrimination law in two decades—the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act—will take effect in the nation’s workplaces next weekend, prohibiting employers from requesting genetic testing or considering someone’s genetic background in hiring, firing or promotions. The act also prohibits health insurers and group plans from requiring such testing or using genetic information—like a family history of heart disease—to deny coverage or set premiums or deductibles."
Related: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the Commission or EEOC) proposes to revise its Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations and accompanying interpretive guidance in order to implement the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. The Commission is responsible for enforcement of title I of the ADA, as amended, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of disability. Pursuant to the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, EEOC is expressly granted the authority to amend these regulations, and is expected to do so, in order to conform certain provisions contained in the regulations to the Amendments Act."
In this, the last installment in this series on the best-known American country house, Fallingwater, Jim Atkins, FAIA, and his wife, Dr. Sook Kim, travel to Bear Run in western Pennsylvania to experience the magnificently maintained and recently restored country retreat designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, now open to the public thanks to the diligence of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. This Frank Lloyd Wright creation is much more magnificent and enjoyable than any promotional literature or this article series can possibly convey. No picture can adequately provide the complete magic of the place itself. One can experience it to its fullest only in real time. Every architect and for that matter everyone interested in great architecture should see it, be inside it, and personally take in its wonderful atmosphere at least once. This magnificent masterpiece was not created by luck or chance, it did not achieve reality with any ease of deliberation. It came about almost by accident. It was the child of two arrogant, driven men who had a score to settle; two extremely talented individuals, who, by the sweat of their own dogged determination and will, made it what it is. See detailed description and many pictures: http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/1113/1113rc_fallingwater.cfm
Established in 1998, the National Toy Hall of Fame, housed at Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, recognizes toys that have inspired creative play and enjoyed popularity over a sustained period. The hall annually inducts and showcases new and historic versions of classic toys beloved by generations. Anyone can nominate a toy to the National Toy Hall of Fame.
The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found. Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC. Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1226500/Is-lost-Persian-army-Compelling-remains-uncovered-Sahara-Desert.html
Pew Center on the States Reports on States in Peril
Stateline.org: "California’s financial problems are in a league of their own. But the same pressures that drove the Golden State toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country. This examination by the Pew Center on the States looks closely at nine states, in addition to California, that are particularly affected by the recession. All of California’s neighbors–Arizona, Nevada and Oregon–and fellow Sun Belt state Florida were severely hit by the bursting housing bubble, landing them on Pew’s list of states facing fiscal difficulties similar to California’s. A Midwestern cluster of states comprising Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin emerged, too, as did the Northeastern states of New Jersey and Rhode Island."
Read the executive summary
Read more about the states profiled
Read more about how the states were assessed
Download the full report: Beyond California - States in Fiscal Peril, November 2009
World Justice Project Rule of Law Index
"The Rule of Law Index is a new tool, created by the WJP [World Justice Project Rule], which measures countries’ adherence to the rule of law...The Rule of Law Index is the first index that examines the rule of law comprehensively. Other indices cover only aspects of the rule of law, such as human rights, commercial law, and corruption. Because the Index looks at the rule of law in practice and not solely as it exists on the books, the Index will be able to guide governments, civil society, NGOs and business leaders in targeting efforts to strengthen the rule of law."
Find useful legal news updated each weekday at: http://commonlaw.findlaw.com/
Olives are the fruits of the olive tree which is indigenous to the Mediterranean countries but also cultivated nowadays in other areas, even in America and Australia. There are many different kinds of olives. Some are used for making oil, while others are for eating (these are usually large in size). There are also some varieties which are used for both oil and consumption. The olive tree (El olivo) blossoms in spring and shortly afterwards the olive fruit starts to grow. They are a bright green colour to begin with and this lasts until the time when they ripen. This varies amongst the different types of olive but is usually towards the end of autumn. The olive is a fruit with fleshy skin. Olive oil is the natural juice of the olive, a pure product which is obtained with machinery or by natural means. The oil of the olive is found in the fleshy part of the fruit. Olives reach their maximum oil content when they are fully ripe but the finest oil is obtained from the olives that are just beginning to ripen. In Spain there are over 260 types of olives.
The olive tree belongs to the Oleaceae family and has a life span of around 300-400 years. The precise origins of the olive tree are shrouded in doubt; Persia, Jordan, the Valleys of the Nile each have their advocates. The best that we can say with certainty is that cultivation began a very long time ago in the near East and spread slowly westward to Spain along the shores of the Mediterranean. http://www.elolivo-olive-oil.com/The-Olive-tree-and-its-fruit-the-Olive-sp-7.html
The stock ticker—a machine that tracked financial data over telegraph lines and stamped it on strips called ticker tape for the sound the printing made—had barely been around two decades before Wall Streeters realized that throwing its ribbony paper out the window was a fun way to celebrate. They first did it on Oct. 29, 1886, inspired by the ceremony to dedicate the Statue of Liberty. By 1899 two million people turned out to make Admiral George Dewey, hero of the battle of Manila Bay, the first individual honored with a ticker-tape parade. Former President Teddy Roosevelt got one in 1910 upon returning from his African safari. But it wasn't until 1919, when Grover Whalen was made New York City's official greeter, that ticker-tape parades took off: from 1919 to 1953 he reportedly threw 86 of them, many at the urging of the State Department. The luminaries he feted in his early years included Albert Einstein in 1921—the only scientist ever honored with a ticker-tape parade—as well as the U.S. Olympic team in 1924 and Charles Lindbergh in 1927. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1935808,00.html
On November 17, 1989, riot police put down student protests against the communist government in Czechoslovakia. The incident started a series of non-violent protests that finally forced the communists from power two weeks later.
Learn more about the Velvet Revolution. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
On November 17, 1936, Scribner's Maxwell Perkins wrote a letter to Thomas Wolfe that chronicled one of the most famous conflicts between editor and novelist in the history of American publishing. Perkins had helped to discover the young and unknown Thomas Wolfe (books by this author) (along with Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) and helped shape Wolfe's manuscripts into book form. He sat down with Wolfe—and his first manuscript, O, Lost, written in just 20 months—and helped him cut more than 60,000 words; the finished product, published while Wolfe was in his 20s, was still 544 pages long and now entitled Look Homeward, Angel (1929), from a poem by John Milton. The Writer’s Almanac
Monday, November 16, 2009
Libel tourism is a term first coined by Geoffrey Robertson QC to describe a form of forum shopping in which plaintiffs choose to file libel suits in jurisdictions thought more likely to give a favourable result. It particularly refers to the practice of pursuing a case in England and Wales, in preference to other jurisdictions, such as the United States, which provide more extensive defences for those accused of making derogatory statements.[1] According to the English publishing house Sweet & Maxwell, the number of libel cases brought by people alleged to be involved with terrorism almost tripled in England between 2006 and 2007.[2] A critic of English defamation law, journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft, attributes the practice to the introduction of no win no fee agreements, the presumption that derogatory statements are false, the difficulty of establishing fair comment and "the caprice of juries and the malice of judges."[3] Wheatcroft contrasts this with United States law since the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case. "Any American public figure bringing an action now has to prove that what was written was not only untrue but published maliciously and recklessly."[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism
A blunder finished off the Berlin Wall New regulations were to make it much easier for East Germans to travel. The intention was to announce the changes overnight and phase in the new rules the next morning. Instead one of the Politburo members, Guenter Schabowski, blurted out the plans during a televised press conference—and compounded his error by adding the new rules would come into force "immediately". The order wasn't to be published until 0400 in the morning. But Mr Schabowski didn't notice. He went into an international press conference. East Berliners were rather quicker off the mark. Tens of thousands of them started turning up at the border demanding to be let across. But the guards hadn't been told anything—their standing orders were to stop anyone crossing. The guards asked their headquarters for orders but the government ministries in charge of security told them nothing. With radio and TV reports bringing more people on to the streets, Politburo member Hans Modrow says it was the border guards themselves who decided what to do. "With hindsight it's the border guards we must thank, not any of us in the Politburo. They ignored their standing orders. They said, 'Open the border.'" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8347753.stm
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership is celebrating collecting, banking and conserving 10% of the world’s wild plant species by banking its 24,200th plant species. The 10% target was set in 2000 when Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership was formed. While this accomplishment is being celebrated, a new challenge approaches—collecting and banking a quarter of the world’s plants by 2020. http://www.kew.org/news/kew-millennium-seed-bank-partnership-top-banana-celebrate-banking-10-percent.htm
The bank is based at Wakehurst Place in Sussex because of fears that Kew Gardens, in west London, would be vulnerable to flooding. It is a truly international project, which relies on botanists across the world to donate everything from the seeds of rare flowers in Lebanon to roots from Bostwana. Once the specimens arrive at the bank, they are cleaned and counted. Ideally the plant-hunters will have collected 20,000 seeds for each type of plant, but they also have to ensure they do not take so many seeds that they endanger a species. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/15/kew-millennium-seed-bank-hits-target
Compare counties with the same name. Go to http://www.naco.org/Template.cfm?Section=Find_a_County
Enter name of county (Champaign, for example), then click on search for matches. You will find two counties, one in Illinois and one in Ohio.
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Ohio. Urbana was named after a town in Virginia. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Urbana,_Ohio
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois. The city was named after Urbana, Ohio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbana,_Illinois
Urbanna is a town in Middlesex County, Virginia. A common misspelling of Urbanna is Urbana. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanna,_Virginia
The 1680 Acts of Assembly at Jamestown ordered local officials to establish 20, 50-acre port towns, at a cost of 10,000 pounds of tobacco each, through which all trade would take place: Varina, Charles City, Surry, Jamestown, Patesfield, Nansemond and Warwick along with plantations in Elizabeth City, Norfolk, Yorktown, New Kent, Gloucester, Tappahannock, Stafford, Accomac, Northampton, Lancaster, Northumberland—and the small part of Ralph Wormeley’s Rosegill that would, in 1705, be named Burgh of Urbanna, “City of Anne.” The town was named in honor of England’s Queen Anne. http://www.urbanna.com/pages/allHistory.html
Did Paul Klee knowingly or unknowingly "tweet" the first Twitter? Did Twitter find its birth place in Paul Klee’s "Twittering Machine" painted in 1922? In an alchemical combination of musical tones, nature symbolism, and a magical sigil of lines; Paul Klee may have concocted a spell for the Twitter meme.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-11705-NY-Holistic-Body--Spirit-Examiner~y2009m8d10-Did-Paul-Klee-create-Twitter-in-1922-with-magic
Meme is a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation). "Memes are the cultural counterpart of genes" A meme is an idea or practice that spreads from person to person. http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/meme
Sigil is a seal or a signature. http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/sigil
Rudolph, part 2 The Rudolph post-war demand for licensing the Rudolph character was tremendous, but since Robert L. May had created the story as an employee of Montgomery Ward, they held the copyright and he received no royalties. Deeply in debt from the medical bills resulting from his wife's terminal illness (she died about the time May created Rudolph), May persuaded Montgomery Ward's corporate president, Sewell Avery, to turn the copyright over to him in January 1947. With the rights to his creation in hand, May's financial security was assured. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was printed commercially in 1947 and shown in theaters as a nine-minute cartoon the following year. The Rudolph phenomenon really took off, however, when May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and melody for a Rudolph song. Marks' musical version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (turned down by many who didn't want to meddle with the established Santa legend) was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies that year, and went on to become one of the best-selling songs of all time (second only to "White Christmas"). A TV special about Rudolph narrated by Burl Ives was produced in 1964 and remains a popular perennial holiday favorite in the USA. The story of Rudolph is primarily known to us through the lyrics of Johnny Marks' song; the story May wrote is substantially different in a number of ways. Rudolph was not one of Santa's reindeer (or the offspring of one of Santa's reindeer), and he did not live at the North Pole. Rudolph dwelled in an "ordinary" reindeer village elsewhere, and although he was taunted and laughed at for having a shiny red nose, he was not regarded by his parents as a shameful embarrassment. Rudolph was brought up in a loving household and was a responsible reindeer with a good self-image and sense of worth. Moreover, Rudolph did not rise to fame when Santa picked him out from the reindeer herd because of his shiny nose. Santa discovered the red-nosed reindeer quite by accident, when he noticed the glow emanating from Rudolph's room while delivering presents to Rudolph's house.
http://www.xomba.com/rudolph_the_red_nosed_reindeer_creation_and_montgomery_ward_stores
On November 15, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first Constitution of the United States.
On November 16, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act into law. In addition to creating an oil pipeline across the state, the Act also quashed all environmental-legal challenges in regard to its construction. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
A blunder finished off the Berlin Wall New regulations were to make it much easier for East Germans to travel. The intention was to announce the changes overnight and phase in the new rules the next morning. Instead one of the Politburo members, Guenter Schabowski, blurted out the plans during a televised press conference—and compounded his error by adding the new rules would come into force "immediately". The order wasn't to be published until 0400 in the morning. But Mr Schabowski didn't notice. He went into an international press conference. East Berliners were rather quicker off the mark. Tens of thousands of them started turning up at the border demanding to be let across. But the guards hadn't been told anything—their standing orders were to stop anyone crossing. The guards asked their headquarters for orders but the government ministries in charge of security told them nothing. With radio and TV reports bringing more people on to the streets, Politburo member Hans Modrow says it was the border guards themselves who decided what to do. "With hindsight it's the border guards we must thank, not any of us in the Politburo. They ignored their standing orders. They said, 'Open the border.'" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8347753.stm
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership is celebrating collecting, banking and conserving 10% of the world’s wild plant species by banking its 24,200th plant species. The 10% target was set in 2000 when Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership was formed. While this accomplishment is being celebrated, a new challenge approaches—collecting and banking a quarter of the world’s plants by 2020. http://www.kew.org/news/kew-millennium-seed-bank-partnership-top-banana-celebrate-banking-10-percent.htm
The bank is based at Wakehurst Place in Sussex because of fears that Kew Gardens, in west London, would be vulnerable to flooding. It is a truly international project, which relies on botanists across the world to donate everything from the seeds of rare flowers in Lebanon to roots from Bostwana. Once the specimens arrive at the bank, they are cleaned and counted. Ideally the plant-hunters will have collected 20,000 seeds for each type of plant, but they also have to ensure they do not take so many seeds that they endanger a species. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/15/kew-millennium-seed-bank-hits-target
Compare counties with the same name. Go to http://www.naco.org/Template.cfm?Section=Find_a_County
Enter name of county (Champaign, for example), then click on search for matches. You will find two counties, one in Illinois and one in Ohio.
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Ohio. Urbana was named after a town in Virginia. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Urbana,_Ohio
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois. The city was named after Urbana, Ohio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbana,_Illinois
Urbanna is a town in Middlesex County, Virginia. A common misspelling of Urbanna is Urbana. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanna,_Virginia
The 1680 Acts of Assembly at Jamestown ordered local officials to establish 20, 50-acre port towns, at a cost of 10,000 pounds of tobacco each, through which all trade would take place: Varina, Charles City, Surry, Jamestown, Patesfield, Nansemond and Warwick along with plantations in Elizabeth City, Norfolk, Yorktown, New Kent, Gloucester, Tappahannock, Stafford, Accomac, Northampton, Lancaster, Northumberland—and the small part of Ralph Wormeley’s Rosegill that would, in 1705, be named Burgh of Urbanna, “City of Anne.” The town was named in honor of England’s Queen Anne. http://www.urbanna.com/pages/allHistory.html
Did Paul Klee knowingly or unknowingly "tweet" the first Twitter? Did Twitter find its birth place in Paul Klee’s "Twittering Machine" painted in 1922? In an alchemical combination of musical tones, nature symbolism, and a magical sigil of lines; Paul Klee may have concocted a spell for the Twitter meme.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-11705-NY-Holistic-Body--Spirit-Examiner~y2009m8d10-Did-Paul-Klee-create-Twitter-in-1922-with-magic
Meme is a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation). "Memes are the cultural counterpart of genes" A meme is an idea or practice that spreads from person to person. http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/meme
Sigil is a seal or a signature. http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/sigil
Rudolph, part 2 The Rudolph post-war demand for licensing the Rudolph character was tremendous, but since Robert L. May had created the story as an employee of Montgomery Ward, they held the copyright and he received no royalties. Deeply in debt from the medical bills resulting from his wife's terminal illness (she died about the time May created Rudolph), May persuaded Montgomery Ward's corporate president, Sewell Avery, to turn the copyright over to him in January 1947. With the rights to his creation in hand, May's financial security was assured. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was printed commercially in 1947 and shown in theaters as a nine-minute cartoon the following year. The Rudolph phenomenon really took off, however, when May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and melody for a Rudolph song. Marks' musical version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (turned down by many who didn't want to meddle with the established Santa legend) was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies that year, and went on to become one of the best-selling songs of all time (second only to "White Christmas"). A TV special about Rudolph narrated by Burl Ives was produced in 1964 and remains a popular perennial holiday favorite in the USA. The story of Rudolph is primarily known to us through the lyrics of Johnny Marks' song; the story May wrote is substantially different in a number of ways. Rudolph was not one of Santa's reindeer (or the offspring of one of Santa's reindeer), and he did not live at the North Pole. Rudolph dwelled in an "ordinary" reindeer village elsewhere, and although he was taunted and laughed at for having a shiny red nose, he was not regarded by his parents as a shameful embarrassment. Rudolph was brought up in a loving household and was a responsible reindeer with a good self-image and sense of worth. Moreover, Rudolph did not rise to fame when Santa picked him out from the reindeer herd because of his shiny nose. Santa discovered the red-nosed reindeer quite by accident, when he noticed the glow emanating from Rudolph's room while delivering presents to Rudolph's house.
http://www.xomba.com/rudolph_the_red_nosed_reindeer_creation_and_montgomery_ward_stores
On November 15, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first Constitution of the United States.
On November 16, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act into law. In addition to creating an oil pipeline across the state, the Act also quashed all environmental-legal challenges in regard to its construction. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
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