Woody Ray Densen, a state district judge in Houston, was indicted on June 18 by a Harris County grand jury on a felony charge of criminal mischief after he was captured on video tampering with his next-door neighbor's car. According to the Houston Chronicle, Densen was recorded on a surveillance camera walking by his neighbor's 2006 Range Rover and making contact with the vehicle twice on May 23. The next-door neighbor, Adam Kleibert, discovered a series of scratches made by a key to the rear door of his vehicle. The damages totaled nearly $3,000, Kliebert said. Click here for the Houston Chronicle story, which includes the surveillance video allegedly showing Densen in the act. Check it out, LB readers; it's really pretty remarkable. (Hat tip: ABA Journal).
Of cities with 500,000 people or more, Baltimore reported the most homicides in 2008. With 234 homicides - 37 per 100,000 city residents - Maryland's largest city outpaced Detroit, which reported 33.8. Or did it? A Detroit News story claims that the Motor City's police department intentionally underreported its number of homicides. The story suggests that was intentional on the part of city officials. The article, which accuses Detroit police of an intentional “chronic undercounting” of homicides, pointed out that police there count murders differently than almost every other major city in the U.S.
Rather than report anything and everything that might classify as a homicide, Detroit police take a wait-and-see approach on killings that they think may have been accidents, suicides or acts of self-defense.
Most other cities--New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia included--simply follow what the medical examiner says and reports them to the FBI as homicides. Detroit police dispute that method. “There's homicide and there's murder,” said Detroit Police Dep. Chief James Tolbert. “Now when the medical examiner still says it's a homicide and we go on about our investigation and (in the course of) our investigation we present documents to the prosecutor's office, they can say it's self-defense. It's ruled medically a homicide. But in the eyes of the prosecutor's office they will not charge anybody with this.” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy disagrees with that approach. “It is very, very clear in the language,” Worthy said. “Lawful self-defense is still a homicide and it still has to be counted as a homicide and it still has to be reported to the FBI.” WSJ Law Blog June 18, 2009

OpenCongress Project Launches Project RaceTracker
"The RaceTracker project on the OpenCongress wiki tracks every election for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives and state governor. RaceTracker is a free, open-source, fully-referenced, and non-partisan public resource. It is coordinated by the crew at the SwingStateProject."

Monarchs of Britain—some surprises—there is a Danish Line and three different Plantagenet Lines http://www.britannia.com/history/h6f.html

Silent letters
Comb, climb, exhibit, hour, light, sign, scene

Q. What does the prefix hemi mean?
A. It is Greek for half. http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa052698.htm

There are dozens of words starting with hemi—you know about hemisphere. More unusual words are hemidemisemiquaver, a musical note having the time value of a sixty-fourth of a whole note---and hemistich, half a poetic line of verse.

The music for "On, Wisconsin!" was composed in 1909 by William T. Purdy with the idea of entering it in a Minnesota contest for the creation of a new university football song. Instead, Carl Beck persuaded him to dedicate the song to the University of Wisconsin football team, and Beck collaborated with the composer by writing the lyrics. The song was introduced at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in November 1909. It was later acclaimed by world-famous composer and bandmaster, John Philip Sousa, as the best college song he had ever heard. Lyrics more in keeping with the purposes of a state song were subsequently written in 1913 by J. S. Hubbard, editor of the Beloit Free Press, and Judge Charles D. Rosa. Hubbard and Rosa were among the delegates from many states convened in 1913 to commemorate the centennial of the Battle of Lake Erie. Inspired by the occasion, they provided new, more solemn, words to the already well-known university football song. Although "On, Wisconsin!" was widely recognized as Wisconsin's song, the state did not officially adopt it until 1959. Representative Harold W. Clemens discovered that Wisconsin was one of only 10 states without an official song. He introduced a bill to give the song the status he thought it deserved. On discovering that many different lyrics existed, an official text for the first verse was incorporated in Chapter 170, Laws of 1959, and it is contained in Section 1.10 of the statutes. http://www.50states.com/songs/wisconsin.htm

Find your state symbols and songs at: http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/
http://www.50states.com/ohio.htm

June 19 is the birthday of novelist Salman Rushdie, (books by this author) born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India (1947). He was born just two months before India gained independence from Great Britain. His family loved literature and oral storytelling. His grandfather was an esteemed poet who wrote in Urdu, the language of Pakistan. His father had studied world literature at Cambridge in England, and his mother, Rushdie says, was "the keeper of the family stories. She has a genius for family trees; forests of family trees grow in her head, and nobody else can possibly understand their complexity." He's never published the first novel he wrote, and calls it a failure. The first to be published was Grimus, in 1975, and though he got a nice advance for it, the book didn't sell well. He decided to use the money from the advance to travel in India, he said, "as cheaply as possible for as long as I could make the money last, and on that journey of fifteen-hour bus rides and humble hostelries [his next novel] Midnight's Children was born." After he completed the manuscript for Midnight's Children in 1979 and sent it to his editor, he learned that the first reader had reported after reading the thick manuscript: "The author should concentrate on short stories until he has mastered the novel form." But the second reader was more enthusiastic, and the book was published in 1981 to great acclaim. It won the Booker Prize and marked Rushdie as one of the most important fiction writers of his generation. The Writer’s Almanac

The Chicago Tribune is suing the University of Illinois in the hope of uncovering information showing the school gave preferential admissions treatment to hundreds of college applicants who had help from insiders. Click here for the news story from the Tribune. WSJ Law Blog June 16, 2009

New on LLRX.com: Bridging the DiGital Divide: Custom Search Engines Put You in Control - Law librarian, legal research expert and blogger John J. DiGilio's new column focuses on technology trends that leverage the web to achieve more efficient and effective results. Here John recommends using customized search engines to manage the sites you search.

NYT: How Trillion-Dollar Deficits Were Created
"To understand the looming deficits, The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office projections of the budget surplus or deficit for the years 2009-12, President Obama’s current term. The budget office has been making estimates for these years for nearly a decade now. The numbers that appear [here] are the average annual deficit or surplus for this four-year period." Related Times article: America’s Sea of Red Ink Was Years in the Making">How a Sea of Red Ink Spread From a Puddle.
Anatomy of a Crash

A federal district judge in Manhattan ruled on June 17 that Holden Caulfield, the querulous, precocious protagonist of J. D. Salinger’s most famous work, “The Catcher in the Rye,” will exist at least a little longer solely in a state of permanent adolescence, unburdened by the cares and recriminations of age. The judge, Deborah A. Batts, said a new book that contains a 76-year-old version of Caulfield cannot be published in the United States for 10 days while she weighs a copyright infringement.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/judges-delays-publication-of-updated-catcher-in-the-rye/

Frankfurt
In English, this city's name translates into "Frankfurt on the Main" (pronounced like "mine"). A part of early Franconia, the inhabitants were the early Franks. The city is located on an ancient ford on the river Main, which is a shallow crossing. The German word is "Furt". Thus the city's name receives its legacy as being the "ford of the Franks".
Frankfurt is one of only three cities in the European Union that have a significant number of skyscrapers. With 10 skyscrapers (i.e. buildings taller than 150 m (492 ft)) in early 2009, Frankfurt is second behind Paris with 14 skyscrapers, and on par with London which also has 10 skyscrapers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_am_Main

Frankfurter
The word frankfurter comes from Frankfurt, Germany where sausages in a bun originated, similar to hot dogs, but made of pork. Wieners, refers to Vienna, Austria, whose German name is "Wien", home to a sausage made of a mixture of pork and beef. In German speaking countries, except Austria, hot dog sausages are called Wiener or Wiener Würstchen (Würstchen means "little sausage"). In Swiss German, it is called Wienerli, while in Austria the terms Frankfurter or Frankfurter Würstel are used. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dog

We will cruise the Rhine, a “mighty mountain child,” June 21 to July 4—see information below:

The Alpine Rhine: Its two headstreams, the Vorderrhein (anterior Rhine) and the Hinterrhein (posterior Rhine) are fed by tributaries from side valleys before meeting at Reichenau. From here to Lake Constance, it is known as the Alpine Rhine.
Lake Constance Rhine: The river travels 43 miles within Lake Constance from its delta in Rheinau to Stam am Rhein. At Konstanz, it leaves the main basin for the Lower Lake and continues to the island of Reichenau. The length of the river is official recorded from the bridge over the Rhine in Konstanz.
The High Rhine: from Stam am Rhine to the Gates of Basel
The Upper Rhine: from Basel to Mainz
The Middle Rhine: from Mainz to Cologne
The Cologne Bay: bordered by Bergisches Land to the east and Eifel foothills to the west
The Lower Rhine and the Delta: It emerges from the highlands on to the plains and to the Dutch border. The Erft flows into it from the left—and the Wupper, Ruhr, Emscher and Lippe from the right. Immediately beyond the Dutch border, the Rhine divides into several branches. Eventually, the arms flow into the North Sea.
“The Rhine: Culture and Landscape at the Heart of Europe” by Roland Recht

Bordered by Germany, Switzerland and Austria, Lake Constance is about 42 miles long and 8 miles wide. The Rhine flows through it, and researchers estimate that it takes an average of two months for the river to emerge from the lake.
“The first humans to depend on the Rhine for their livelihood were hunters and gatherers who, around 8000 B.C., built the first permanent settlements on the shores of Lake Constance.” Tribes from the Balkan region moved in around 5000 B.C. and, by 800 B.C., the Rhineland was populated by the Celts, the first major culture to settle there. In the early centuries A.D., German tribes (referred to as barbarians) battled the Romans. “Barbarian” is Greek in origin. When people from northern Europe did not understand classic Greek, they were thought to be illiterate. Greeks thought their speech sounded like “Bar-bar-bar.”
Around the year 253, Germanic tribes known as Franks, or Free Men, began to conquer territory along the Lower and Middle Rhine that had been held by Rome for hundreds of years. Tribes from North Africa and Europe poured in with Franks dominating as Rome lost control. In 768, the Frankish king Charlemagne established his court in Aachen near Cologne. His empire was split into three sections by the Treaty of Verdun in 877. The Rhine was a dividing line between the East Frankish Kingdom (now Germany and Austria) and the West Frankish Kingdom (now France).
Powerful knights built castles along the Rhine and were opposed by traders. Various rulers fought among themselves, and groups of merchants in larger cities formed local governments, declaring independence from outside rule. The bubonic plague (Black Death) followed the Rhine trade route in 1348. Ironically, the plague, anarchy and hysteria loosed feudalism’s grip—leading to increased freedom for the survivors.
“The Rhine” (Rivers of the World Series) by Stuart A. Kallen

Who says government doesn’t always know best? And if government says you can’t legally park in your driveway, they must be right. People in Toledo are all upset because they’re receiving parking tickets for doing the unheard of. The criminal act of parking their cars in front of their house. And the acts of criminality have become so rampant that the Mayor has deputized city workers (instead of police officers and the parking division of the city) to roam the hardscrabble streets to issue $25 parking citations to individuals who have committed this heinous crime. Not every citizen is getting a ticket. Only those who don’t have their driveways paved. Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, who surprisingly is facing a recall, says he stands by the Acting Commissioner of Streets, Bridges and Harbor’s decision to ticket citizens who park in their driveways. “Every law in the city should be enforced and I will defer to the director over the media, that’s for dag-gone sure,” Mayor Finkbeiner said in a press conference last night. “I will not second guess her because more times then not she’s right and the citizens that are criticizing her are not right.” http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/06/16/park-in-your-own-driveway-youre-a-criminal/

Official Google Blog: "...Citizentube, a special YouTube blog devoted to chronicling the way that people are using video to change the world. If you've followed news and politics on YouTube, you might have noticed that we started Citizentube as a video channel on the site a few years back, but we soon realized that keeping track of all the phenomenal uses of YouTube by posting our own videos just wasn't fast enough—so now we're blogging, too. We generally focus on two types of posts: the compelling political and social uses of YouTube that we see the community bubble up every day, and our own programming initiatives and partnerships in the political, news, and nonprofit arenas."

MISQUOTES
Media reports stated that Al Gore claimed he "invented the Internet." — Al Gore [C, M]
During a 9 March 1999 interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Gore stated, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system." [4] See Al Gore's Contributions to the Internet and technology: 1999 CNN Interview for more information.

All that glitters is not gold." – The Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare [C]
Actual quote: "All that glisters is not gold."

"Elementary, my dear Watson." — Sherlock Holmes [C]
The complete phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" does not appear in any of the 60 Holmes stories written by Doyle. It appears for the first time at the very end of the 1929 film The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

[C] A corruption or mistranslation of the original phrase, possibly accidental, which became better known than the original.
[M] A deliberate misquoting or made-up quote intended to discredit the alleged speaker.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misquotations

It’s the third week of June and that means my Juneberries (aka serviceberries) are ready to pick and enjoy. The understory shrub or tree, also called shadbush, grows up to 30 ft. tall in clumps and lives 60 years. The flowers bloom at the same time that shad ascend coastal streams to spawn in the East. http://www.yale.edu/fes505b/shadbush.html

The 45th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 45 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. The 45th parallel north is often called the halfway point between the Equator and the North Pole, but the true halfway point is actually 16.2 kilometres (10.1 mi) north of the 45th parallel because the Earth is oblate, that is, it bulges at the equator and is flattened at the poles.[1] In Michigan, the Old Mission Peninsula in Grand Traverse Bay ends just shy of the 45th parallel. When the Grand Traverse Bay recedes below normal level, it is possible to walk out to the exact line. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_parallel_north

The 45th parallel south is a circle of latitude that is 45 degrees south of the Earth's equatorial plane. The parallel is the line that marks the theoretical halfway point between the equator and the South Pole. The true halfway point is somewhat south of this parallel because the Earth is not a perfect sphere but bulges at the equator and is flattened at the poles.[1] Unlike its northern counterpart it passes mostly over open ocean. The exceptions are the southern end of South America where it crosses the Aisén Region of Chile and Chubut Province of Argentina, and southern New Zealand where it crosses the South Island immediately north of Oamaru. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_parallel_south

Shoppers can now buy pasta that's enriched with calcium, ketchup that boasts probiotics for digestive wellness and soda that's host to an array of daily vitamins. Japanese exporter EIWA Confectionery is marketing marshmallows infused with skin-boosting collagen, and Canada Dry has introduced a heart-healthy ginger ale pumped with green tea, thought to reduce the incidence of heart disease. Fortified foods are nothing new. Iodine was first added to salt in Michigan in 1924 in order to help reduce the prevalence of goiter, which had reached an alarming rate of 47% in that state. The measure worked so well that it led to the voluntary iodization of the product for the entire country. It also paved the way for a cascade of similar, mandatory approaches. Brain-and-skin degenerating pellagra was almost completely eradicated within about a decade after breads and grains were enriched with niacin, thiamin, riboflavin and iron in 1943.
In 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made it mandatory to add folic acid to enriched grains such as breads and cereals with the goal of reducing neural-tube defects in babies. Between then and 2004, the number of infants born with neural-tube defects went down by 25%, according a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-sponsored study, which concluded that folic acid fortification was at least partially responsible for the drop. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124267976477131801.html

World Trade Organization: Hyperlinked Map of Disputes Between Members
"The World Trade Organization has recently posted on its website an interactive map that depicts disputes between its member states. The top of the webpage shows a list of highlight-able choices among types of member-state involvement in disputes: as complainant, respondent, or either. The accompanying map shows member-state areas of the world in a color range of whitish pink to red, to indicate the range in the number of disputes (0-100), and non-member-state areas in gray; the United States is bright red." [LC, Wendy Zeldin] Map of Disputes Between WTO Members

Pew Survey: The Social Life of Health Information
"This Pew Internet/California HealthCare Foundation survey finds that technology is not an end, but a means to accelerate the pace of discovery, widen social networks, and sharpen the questions someone might ask when they do get to talk to a health professional. Technology can help to enable the human connection in health care and the internet is turning up the information network’s volume."
The Social Life of Health Information: American's pursuit of health takes place within a widening network of both online and offline sources, June 2009

Federal Agencies Issue Frequently Asked Questions on Identity Theft Rules
News release: "Six federal agencies issued a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) today to help financial institutions, creditors, users of consumer reports, and issuers of credit cards and debit cards comply with federal regulations on identity theft and discrepancies in changes of address. The “Red Flags and Address Discrepancy Rules,” which implement sections of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, were issued jointly on November 9, 2007, by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)."
Frequently Asked Questions: Identity Theft Red Flags and Address Discrepancies

HUD and Fair Housing Partners Report Record Number of Housing Discrimination Complaints
News release: "A record 10,552 fair housing discrimination complaints were filed in fiscal year 2008, according to a report just released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The State Of Fair Housing FY 2008, Annual Report On Fair Housing, which is produced for Congress each year, shows that a large portion of the complaints, 44 percent, were filed by persons with disabilities. Thirty-five percent, or 3,699, of the complaints alleged discrimination based on race."

The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age, by William R. Mills, New York Law School Law Review, volume 53, 2008/2009.
"It is axiomatic that our American common law, based in the principle of precedent and the rule of stare decisis, relies on accurate case reports published in authentic sources. But when citing American court opinions as legal authority, authors, for the past century or more, have given little thought to the accuracy of the case reports or the authenticity of the sources wherein the reports were found. This remains true in the digital age, when authors doing research are increasingly likely to have relied on the Internet as their primary or sole source of case law."

“What’s good for GM is good for the country” is a misquote.
Former GM President and Chief Executive Charles E. Wilson never said those words, and what he did say didn't mean that. In his closed hearing as candidate for Secretary of Defense, on Jan. 15, 1953, Wilson defended his investments and his integrity, saying he never could have risen to the top of GM if he had been crooked. Sen. Robert Hendrickson, R-N.J., asked whether, given his investments in GM, he could make a decision that would hurt the company. Because the hearing was closed, reporters relied on secondhand descriptions from senators and staffers of what Wilson said. "His answer, as quoted by one senator, was 'Certainly. What's good for General Motors is good for the country,' Wilson's actual reply, in full: "I cannot conceive of one, because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country." http://www.freep.com/article/20080914/BUSINESS01/809140308/

Markets and Morals 09 Jun 09 Duration: 44 minutes
Professor Michael Sandel begins the 2009 Reith Lectures by exploring Markets and Morality. Are there some things which should not be sold? Do we need to think of ourselves less as consumers and more as citizens? Contributed by Findlay, Ohio muse reader http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/reith

June 16 is Bloomsday. It is the day on which James Joyce's (books by this author) Ulysses takes place, in 1904. It's named after the main character, Leopold Bloom, and Joyce chose this day for the action of the novel to commemorate the first date he had with his future wife, Nora Barnacle. Today, Joyceans all over the world celebrate with staged readings of Ulysses. Dublin has a long tradition of hosting celebrities, politicians, and international diplomats to do these dramatized readings. In fact, in Dublin, Bloomsday is not just celebrated for a day — it's a weeklong extravaganza. There are Ulysses walking tours, where a person can retrace the steps of the fictional Leopold Bloom, as well as literary-themed pub crawls, musical acts, and museum exhibits. There's also an annual Messenger Biker Rally, where people dressed in Joyce-era clothing ride old bicycles along the route that Leopold Bloom would have walked, and there are large-scale Irish breakfasts and afternoon teas devoted to Ulysses devotees. The Writer’s Almanac

A TANK AWAY FROM TOLEDO, June 12-13, 2009
We went to Jackson, Michigan to see sculptures by Toledo area sculptors Calvin Babich and Todd Kime. http://www.msisculpture.com/2009-10JacksonOutdoorSculptureExhibit.htm. First we visited the Ella Sharp Museum of Art and History and saw a John James Audubon exhibition that runs through August 29. http://www.ellasharp.org/ Lunch was at Clara’s Lansing Station in Lansing. http://www.claras.com/clsmain.html Then we drove to House on the Hill at Ellsworth http://www.thehouseonthehill.com/, a peaceful bed & breakfast set on 50 acres with mowed paths as hiking trails. Dinner was at Rowe Inn Restaurant. The reason for the trip was to meet our grandson in Traverse City and make sure he was settled in for a two-month project--so the next morning we drove there, first stopping on Old Mission Peninsula to admire landscaping at the home of friends. We saw the new Traverse City District Library http://www.tadl.org/ and ate lunch downtown at Hanna Bistro http://www.hannabistrobar.com/

Christopher R. Beha, who spent a year reading and reflecting on all 51 volumes of the Harvard Classics, is presiding over a literary trivia contest: “Each day for the next few weeks I will be giving away a volume of the Harvard Classics from a complete set dating back to 1910.” Beha posts a question relating to the volume that’s up for grabs, and among those who respond correctly, a winner is chosen by “the Randomizer” http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/free-old-books/?hp

Country Analysis Brief: Iraq Source: Energy Information Administration
Iraq was the world’s 13th largest oil producer in 2008, and has the world’s third largest proven petroleum reserves after Saudi Arabia and Canada. Just a fraction of Iraq’s known fields are in development, and Iraq may be one of the few places left where vast reserves, proven and unknown, have barely been exploited. Iraq’s energy sector is heavily based upon oil, with approximately 94 percent of its energy needs met with petroleum. According to the International Monetary Fund, crude oil export revenues represented over 75 percent of GDP and 86 percent of government revenues in 2008.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). http://www.ted.com/ Contributed by Toledo muse reader

Alastair Barnes discovered a seven leaf clover at Coombe Bissett nature reserve, near Salisbury, Wilts, England while out walking his dog with his father Jonathan.
Clovers occasionally have leaves with four leaflets, instead of the usual three - these are considered lucky, while five and six leaf clovers are considered even more unusual.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5481348/Lucky-schoolboy-finds-seven-leaf-clover.html

Q. What’s the difference between St. Martin and St. Maarten?
A. They are separate governments sharing the same island.
Location/Size
The island is in the Caribbean Sea, 18.02 latitude and 63.07 longitude, 150 miles southeast of Puerto Rico. It covers 37 square miles, with Dutch St. Maarten on the South spanning 16 square miles and French Saint Martin on the North covering 21. The island is the smallest landmass to be shared by two separate governments. Capitals - Philipsburg on Great Bay is the capital of St. Maarten. Marigot is the capital of Saint Martin.
Nationalities
As a part of the Netherlands Antilles and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, St. Maarten boasts 140 different nationalities. Saint Martin is a commune of Guadeloupe, an overseas territory of France.
Languages
English is spoken everywhere, but Dutch is the official language of St.Maarten, and French the official language of Saint Martin. On the Dutch side, you can also hear Spanish, Papiamentu, Italian, Hindi, Chinese, and other languages. On the French side, Creole Patois is also spoken
Population
41,000 people live on St.Maarten and 36,000 on Saint Martin
http://www.st-maarten.com/facts.htm

Quote: The drive to achieve had turned into an addiction to praise.
The Lasko Tangent (Christopher Paget series, #1) by Richard North Patterson

CIA World Factbook Launches New Web Site
"On Monday, June 8, the World Factbook team unveiled its thoroughly redesigned Web site. Presenting a cleaner look, improved navigation, and a host of added features, the new site provides visitors with a more user-friendly experience. The CIA first made the Factbook available to the public in 1975 and launched its online presence in 1997. This is the first major redesign of the Factbook site in over a decade. More than 3 million visitors access the online Factbook monthly. The world-renowned Factbook provides visitors with wide-ranging and hard-to-locate information about the background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 countries and other entities."

Special Tax Break on New Car Purchases Available in States With No Sales Tax
The Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department has announced that a tax break for the purchase of new motor vehicles is available in states that do not have a state sales tax. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, taxpayers who buy a new motor vehicle this year are entitled to deduct state or local sales or excise taxes paid on the purchase.

Federal Reserve Board Beige Book, June 2009
June 10, 2009 - Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District. Link to reports by Districts.
"Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks indicate that economic conditions remained weak or deteriorated further during the period from mid-April through May. However, five of the Districts noted that the downward trend is showing signs of moderating. Further, contacts from several Districts said that their expectations have improved, though they do not see a substantial increase in economic activity through the end of the year. Manufacturing activity declined or remained at a low level across most Districts. However, several Districts also reported that the outlook by manufacturers has improved somewhat. Demand for nonfinancial services contracted across Districts reporting on this segment. Retail spending remained soft as consumers focused on purchasing less expensive necessities and shied away from buying luxury goods. New car purchases remained depressed, with several Districts indicating that tight credit conditions were hampering auto sales. Travel and tourism activity also declined. A number of Districts reported an uptick in home sales, and many said that new home construction appeared to have stabilized at very low levels. Vacancy rates for commercial properties were rising in many parts of the country, while developers are finding financing for new commercial projects increasingly difficult to obtain."

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation
Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Summary - May 2009:
Employer costs for employee compensation averaged $29.39 per hour worked in March 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported. Wages and salaries, which averaged $20.49, accounted for 69.7 percent of these costs, while benefits, which averaged $8.90, accounted for the remaining 30.3 percent. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, based on the National Compensation Survey, measures employer costs for wages, salaries, and employee benefits for nonfarm private and state and local government workers.

USDA: Emerging Issues in the U.S. Organic Industry, by Catherine Greene, Carolyn Dimitri, Biing-Hwan Lin, William McBride, Lydia Oberholtzer, and Travis Smith. Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-55) 36 pp, June 2009
Consumer demand for organic products has widened over the last decade. While new producers have emerged to help meet demand, market participants report that a supply squeeze is constraining growth for both individual firms and the organic sector overall. Partly in response to shortages in organic supply, Congress in 2008 included provisions in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act (2008 Farm Act) that, for the first time, provide direct financial support to farmers to convert to organic production. This report examines recent economic research on the adoption of organic farming systems, organic production costs and returns, and market conditions to gain a better understanding of the organic supply squeeze and other emerging issues in this rapidly changing industry."

Legal, Factual and Other Internet Sites for Attorneys and Legal Professionals.
Timothy L. Coggins, Legal, Factual and Other Internet Sites for Attorneys and Legal Professionals, XV RICH. J.L. & TECH. 13 (2009).
"This listing of Internet sites for legal, factual, and other research presents a variety of sources for attorneys, law students, law librarians, and others who use the Web. Initially developed for an Advanced Legal Research course and a continuing education session for legal assistants and paralegals, the listing includes sites for primary authorities, both federal and state, as well as URLs for other types of information such as names of possible expert witnesses and biographical and background information about individuals."

The 2009 Outlook for Hurricane Production Outages in the Gulf of Mexico (06/09/2009): EIA's projections for hurricane production outages of crude oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico for the 2009 hurricane season.
Short-Term Energy Outlook June 2009 (06/09/2009): "Short-term energy projections for supply, demand, and price for the major fuels through 2010 for the U.S. Global oil forecasts are included."
International Petroleum Monthly - May 2009 (06/09/2009): "This report contains world petroleum production data through March 2009; and OECD country petroleum demand, imports, and stocks data through February 2009. Also included are international oil balance data for 2004-2008 and annual petroleum data series for 1970-2008."

The U.S. flag has changed 27 times in the nation's history with designs that included stars in circles, stars in squares and even stars in the shape of an hourglass. Legally, the flag was born June 14, 1777, after the Continental Congress adopted this resolution: "That the Flag of the united states be 13 stripes alternate red and white, that the Union be 13 stars white in a blue field representing a new constellation." The flag of 1818 had 20 stars that formed one great star. The banner of 1876 had 38 stars arranged in an hourglass shape. Other patterns include diamonds, double circles, crosses and even a meteor. Americans were the first to put five-pointed stars on a flag in 1777, said Whitney Smith, executive director of the Flag Research Center in Winchester, Mass.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-06-11-flagday_N.htm

Eponyms
churrigueresque (choor-ee-guh-RESK)
adjective: baroque; lavish; over-the-top
After José Benito Churriguera (1650-1725), Spanish architect and sculptor, whose family was known for extravagant architectural decorations.
rachmanism (RAK-muh-niz-uhm)
noun: the exploitation and intimidation of tenants by landlords
After Peter Rachman (1919-1962), a landlord in London who became notorious for unethical practices including driving out tenants to maximize revenue from his rental properties. Another fellow who got his name in the dictionary for harassing tenants is Charles Boycott (1832-1897), a British land agent in Ireland, whose mistreatment of tenants resulted in his getting ostracized, i.e. he was boycotted.
mausoleum (maw-suh-LEE-uhm)
noun: a large tomb, usually an ornate stone building
After Mausolus, a Persian governor in 4th century BCE. His monumental tomb was considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, after which any grand tomb is now called a mausoleum.
martinet (mar-ti-NET, MAR-ti-net)
noun: a strict disciplinarian.
After Jean Martinet, an army officer during the reign of Louis XIV in France. He was a tough drill master known for his strict adherence to rules and discipline. He was killed by friendly fire during the siege of Duisburg in 1672. A.Word.A.Day

Answer to yesterday’s question: Amsterdam has 90 islands 500 bridges and 50 museums. It’s only naturally flowing waterway is the Amstel River.

Fiat SpA bought a stake in most of Chrysler LLC’s assets, creating the world’s sixth-largest carmaker in Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne’s plan to survive the recession by setting up a global alliance. Fiat, Italy’s biggest manufacturer, will own 20 percent of the newly formed Chrysler Group LLC and is aiming for a 35 percent stake if certain operational goals are achieved, the companies said today in a statement. The United Auto Workers’ union retiree health-care trust fund will be the biggest owner, with 55 percent when Fiat reaches its target holding. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned objections to the transaction by Indiana state pension funds and U.S. consumer advocates, ruling that the challenges didn’t meet the legal standard for an emergency stay of the deal. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aUwZOCifLsZM

America’s top public schools according to Newsweek
Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement, Intl. Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2008 divided by the number of graduating seniors. All of the schools on the list have an index of at least 1.000; they are in the top 6 percent of public schools measured this way. http://www.newsweek.com/id/201160

A descendant of the onetime owner of a famed Van Gogh painting has sued Yale University in an effort to reclaim the artwork from the Ivy League school.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., Pierre Konowaloff alleged that the university should have known the painting—"The Night Café"—had been confiscated from his great-grandfather, Ivan Morozov, a Russian industrialist and aristocrat, during the Communist takeover of Russia in the early 1900s. The 1888 painting was subsequently sold by the Soviet government to a European gallery. Stephen Carlton Clark, a Yale alumnus, bought the painting from a gallery in New York in the early 1930s and bequeathed it to Yale in 1961.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124406037069082321.html

You won't have to leave your chair to see the Gutenberg Bible (1455) anymore.
That and the first printed edition of Homer's works are among ancient books being published online by Cambridge University Library over the next five years.
The money for the project has come from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.

NYX is the resident cat at the Chesterfield County Public Library in Virginia. You may know her through Ann Chambers Theis' wonderful website, Overbooked where of course she has her own page. Nyx was born without eyeballs in May of 2008. She also has a stubby tail, possibly due to an injury. Nyx gets around by echolocation, meaning she produces sounds and is aware of how far they travel when they bounce back. Even when she is still, she has a loud purr. Nyx seems very happy at the library.

Library cats map
http://www.ironfrog.com/catsmap.html

Asterisms are sub- or supersets of constellations which build a constellation itself, or a group of stars, physically related or not. Best known is the Big Dipper as a part of the Great Bear. But there are more than just this one. Full article>>>
An asterism is a distinctive pattern of stars in the sky but not including any of the 88 recognized constellations. Full article>>> http://en.mimi.hu/astronomy/asterism.html

In a way we’re all Big Dippers, part of something much bigger than ourselves.
Sail, a novel by James Patterson and Howard Roughan

List of the 88 constellations as defined by the International Astronomical Union:
http://www.cosmobrain.com/cosmobrain/res/constellations.html

Q. What city has about 90 islands connected with about 500 stone bridges? It has 50 museums, the largest number of museums per square mile than any city in the world.
A. Forthcoming

June 10 is the birthday of Saul Bellow, (books by this author) born Solomon Bellows in Lachine, Quebec, in 1915, two years after his parents emigrated from Russia.
June 10 is the birthday of Judy Garland, born Frances Ethel Gumm in 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where her father operated the only movie theater in town.
June 10 is the birthday of the children's author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, (books by this author) born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928. Maurice Sendak has illustrated more than 90 books. He said: "You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them."
June 11 is the birthday of poet David Lehman, (books by this author) born in New York City in 1948. One day in 1987, he had a sudden inspiration: to create a yearly anthology that would feature the best poems that had been published that year, and each year a different poet would select the poems. Publishers were hesitant because they thought that poetry would automatically lose money. But Scribner finally agreed to publish it, and The Best American Poetry 1988, edited by John Ashbery, was a huge success. David Lehman has served as the series editor ever since, and the Best American Poetry books continue to come out every September and are very popular.
On June 11, 1935 listeners first heard FM radio, when the American inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong gave a demonstration in Alpine, New Jersey. FM was much clearer than AM. Armstrong demonstrated it by playing classical music and the sound of water being poured. The Writer’s Almanac

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg granted a motion filed by Indiana state pension funds to delay the merger between the American and Italian automakers in what the U.S. Treasury Department said was an “administrative extension designed to allow sufficient time for the Supreme Court to explore whether or not a stay is needed, according to several published reports June 8. The Supreme Court move extends a stay already issued by a lower court that was set to expire late afternoon Monday. Fiat, however, has given Chrysler until June 15 to finish the merger.
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2009/06/08/daily22.html

The secret collection John Sisto kept in his Berwyn, Illinois bungalow had letters written by kings, Vatican documents penned by Catholic popes and even a handwritten book preface by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. In all, federal officials found an astounding treasure-trove of about 3,500 ancient artifacts, religious relics, rare manuscripts and other historic items after Sisto's death in March 2007. Federal officials said Monday that the results of a two-year investigation determined that 1,600 of those items were stolen from Italy and shipped to the U.S. to be sold. The items, with an estimated value of $5 million and $10 million, will be returned to Italy later this week, according to FBI spokesman Ross Rice. Sisto's son Joseph said he was aware of his father's large collection of artifacts when he was growing up. John Sisto's father, Giuseppe, would travel Europe and buy the items in estate sales, then ship them overseas in "hundreds of crates" for his son to sell. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-antiquities-09-jun09,0,237014.story

"Neutral facial expressions" are required at departments of motor vehicles (DMVs) in Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia. That means you can't smile, or smile very much. Other states may follow. The serious poses are urged by DMVs that have installed high-tech software that compares a new license photo with others that have already been shot. When a new photo seems to match an existing one, the software sends alarms that someone may be trying to assume another driver's identity. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-25-licenses_N.htm

Part of a Facebook exchange between a North Carolina judge and one lawyer in a child custody trial involved the weight to be given testimony that one spouse had been unfaithful. During a meeting in chambers the day after the Judge Terry had friended lawyer Charles A. Schieck, Terry told the lawyers he believed the testimony but did not see that it made any difference in deciding custody. Schieck responded, "I will have to see if I can prove a negative." That evening, Schieck posted on his Facebook account, "How do I prove a negative?" Judge Terry saw it and responded that he had "two good parents to choose from," to which Schieck posted his "wise judge" remark. The next day, the two shared additional messages on Facebook. In one, Schieck wrote, "I hope I'm in my last day of trial." Judge Terry responded, "You are in your last day of trial."
http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/06/facebook-friend-earns-judge-a-reprimand.html

Public Reprimand of B. Carlton Terry, Jr. by N.C. Judicial Standards Commission
http://www.aoc.state.nc.us/www/public/coa/jsc/publicreprimands/jsc08-234.pdf

Tony La Russa suing Twitter for trademark infringement
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is suing the micro-blogging and social networking site Twitter, Inc., over what the skipper and his attorney describe as trademark infringement, cybersquatting and misappropriation of likeness and name.
The suit, filed in San Francisco about a month ago, concerns the Twitter name page for Tony La Russa (or www.twitter.com/tonylarussa) and the manager’s claim that it was an unofficial and unauthorized use of his name. The fake page allegedly had La Russa’s picture and some vulgar updates, a few of which were Cardinals-related. The suit contains several examples of off-color statements made on the page, two of which make references, directly or indirectly, to the two active Cardinals’ pitchers who died during recent regular seasons, Darryl Kile and Josh Hancock. La Russa sought out ways to remove the address, even asking reporters for information on how to contact Twitter, Inc., and stop the feed of micro-blogs attached to his name, according to the suit.
In the suit his attorney claims that such attempts were fruitless. Only after filing the suit did the address come down on Twitter.com, according to the suit.

On June 5, La Russa told reporters that the case had “been settled.” But over the weekend, Twitter rebuffed La Russa's claim, saying the suit had not settled, and reasserting that its position “will be upheld in a court that will ultimately dismiss Mr. La Russa's lawsuit.” WSJ Law Blog June 8, 2009

Energy secretary Steven Chu, while in London pitched an idea from his former colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Painting roofs white to reflect sunlight can make a huge difference to global warming.
From the Times of London: “There’s a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, Art Rosenfeld, who’s pushing very hard for a geo-engineering we all believe will be completely benign, and that’s when you have a flat-top roof building, make it white. “Now, you smile, but he’s done a calculation, and if you take all the buildings and make their roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of colour rather than a black type of colour, and you do this uniformly . . . it’s the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars on the road for 11 years.” The thing is, secretary Chu actually understated the potential benefits of global whitewashing. The Lawrence research he refers to (which WSJ wrote about last fall) says that white roofs and pavements could mean a one-time reduction of 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide. That, Art Rosenfeld said, translates to removing all the cars in the world for 18 years. Of course, that’s the best-case scenario. Most roofs are sloped, not flat. Using “cool colored” paint on sloping roofs—as California will require starting this summer—would lead to a global reduction on the order of 24 billion tons.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/05/27/steven-chu-white-roofs-to-fight-global-warming/tab/print/

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) charged that top officials at the Library of Congress have interfered with investigations conducted by its independent watchdogs and have frequently admonished investigators for the tone and focus of their investigations. "Your office's attempts to influence and/or control the OIG appear to be in direct contravention of the principles underlying the creation of the Inspectors General," Grassley wrote in a sharply worded letter delivered today to Librarian of the United States James H. Billington. "Independence is the hallmark of the Inspectors General throughout the country." In response, Library of Congress spokesman Matt Raymond said Billington will review the letter and respond in full. He also noted that Billington requested the Library's first-ever audit and called for the establishment of an independent IG. "There are a number of serious factual errors in the events as stated in the letter that we will correct," Raymond said, but would not elaborate. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/06/library_of_congress_officials.html?hpid=news-col-blog

An Illinois muse reader, upon reading the daffodil poem by Wordsworth, remembers visiting Wye Mountain, Arkansas and its daffodil field. Find pictures here: http://starwoodgal.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/wye-mountain-daffodils/

Google Squared Now Live
"Google Squared is a search tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts from the Web for any topic you specify. Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (we call them "Squares" for fun). Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you're interested in. See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square. Save and share Squares with others."

FTC Provides Tips for Saving Money at the Gas Pump and Cooling Your Home
News release: "With summer on the way, hotter days and vacation road trips are coming up fast. Because the costs of cooling your home and filling up your car can add up, the Federal Trade Commission is offering tips to save you money. Saving Starts @ Home: The Insider Story on Conserving Energy, offers energy conservation tips to help consumers save money in every room of the house. For example, for the attic, the FTC explains the ABCs of insulation. Among other tips for the kitchen, consumers find advice on using the newly redesigned Energy Guide labels available for all appliances. At Saving Money at the Gas Pump: A Bumper-to-Bumper Guide, consumers can find tips for improving fuel efficiency from bumper to bumper on a car."

Featured Polish author and artist: Bruno Schulz (1892-1942)
Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Schulz

Links to drawings, articles and writings of Bruno Schulz: http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/web/arts_culture/literature/fiction/schulz/link.shtml

We are all capable of "hearing" shapes and sizes and perhaps even "tasting" sounds, according to researchers. This blending of sensory experiences, or synaesthesia, they say, influences our perception and helps us make sense of a jumble of simultaneous sensations. Oxford University scientists found that people associate lower-pitched sounds with larger and more rounded shapes. One of the team is now working with chef Heston Blumenthal to incorporate words into a new dining experience. Find story and pictures at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8070210.stm

Coming to Shumaker charity sale in Toledo
Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy hardbound 656 pages
Cold Fire by Dean Koontz hardbound 382 pages
Dead Girls Are Easy by Terri Garey softbound 372 pages
witty and entertaining novel by sister of Tampa reader Pam Santamaria
Finding Moon by Tony Hillerman hardbound 319 pages
http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Finding_Moon

Daffodils by William Wordsworth public domain
I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

On June 8, 1867 Mark Twain (books by this author) set off on a tour of Europe and the Middle East. He traveled on a steamship with a large group of American tourists who wanted to go on a Holy Land pilgrimage. He said, "It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale." Twain was just beginning to make a name for himself as a writer, and when he got back from the cruise, his publisher gave him six months to write a 600-page book. And he did: He published The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrim's Progress (1869), which sold the most copies of any of his books during his lifetime.
June 8 is the birthday of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, born in Richland Center, Wisconsin (1867). He designed houses and buildings that complemented the place they were built in. He said, "The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines." The Writer’s Almanac

Bing vs. Google vs. Yahoo: Feature Smackdown - quick, useful guide with accompanying screenshots, includes tools and features for shopping, local, travel, music and health.

More on J.D. Salinger’s lawsuit: Salinger, 90, has sued to enjoin the publication of a sequel of sorts to his most famous and celebrated novel, Catcher in the Rye. The sequel, called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, is written by a purported American living in Sweden named John David California. The novel portrays a 76-year old Holden Caulfield--the famed protagonist of the original work--wandering the streets of New York after having escaped from a retirement home. Reads the lawsuit: “The Sequel is not a parody and it does not comment upon or criticize the original . . . It is a ripoff pure and simple.” Reached by the AP, a man identifying himself as California said that he lived outside of Goteborg, Sweden. He called the legal action “a little bit insane.” Said California: “To me, this is a story about an old man. It's a love story, a story about an author and his character,” adding that John David California was his pen name. “I did not mean to cause him any trouble.” WSJ Law Blog June 2, 2009

Federal regulators and antismoking groups are taking steps that could snuff out electronic cigarettes, the smokeless nicotine products embraced by a growing number of people trying to kick the habit or avoid bans on smoking in public. Electronic cigarettes typically consist of a metal tube containing an atomizer, a battery and a cartridge filled with liquid nicotine. When a user sucks on an e-cigarette, a light-emitting diode causes the tip to glow and the atomizer turns the liquid nicotine into a vapor--thus it is called vaping instead of smoking. The vapor can be inhaled and then exhaled, creating a cloud that resembles cigarette smoke but dissipates more quickly and doesn't have the lingering odor. The American Lung Association, along with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, recently called for e-cigarettes to be removed from the market. The groups say e-cigarettes have yet to be proven safe and that kids may be attracted to the products, some of which come in flavors like chocolate and strawberry. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390176699074609.html

The New Deal gave the country the CCC, the TVA and the WPA. The waning days of the Bush administration produced TARP, for Troubled Asset Relief Program, also currently known as "the bailout." The stimulus package, the name of which is already a source of sniggers, has brought to life the RAT Board, LUST Trust and ARPA-E.
Government spending plans seem to result in a surplus of acronyms. For decades, generations of American history classes have wrestled with memorizing the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Works Progress Administration, later renamed the Work Projects Administration, and dozens of other acronym agencies created under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR.
The problem is, in this era of big government spending accompanied by promises of transparency, outbreaks of acronyms can be variously confusing, awkward and accidentally self-mocking. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390651321174431.html

Monterey Bay Aquarium's ecological tracking program tallies research from around the globe on threatened species and then recommends which fish to buy, and which to avoid. The Aquarium's Web site, www.seafoodwatch.org, is packed with fascinating information, and new research material is constantly added. You'll also find information and links to sites which focus on contamination difficulties with fresh water and salt water fish. Their pocket guide for selecting fish is available in national and regional formats. Here's the link to get the guide. They've also created an App to send recommendations sent to your iPhone. Weeknight Kitchen from the Splendid Table

To your health
Sea Beans grow wild all over coastal North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Sometimes called "poor man's asparagus," sea beans are not seaweed, as it is often mistakenly described, nor is it a bean, which it slightly resembles. Sea Beans can be eaten raw or cooked, with a flavor that can best be described as intensely salty, with a fresh asparagus-like aftertaste. When fresh, Sea Beans are crisp and crunchy like snap peas. If slightly wilted, sea beans can be refreshed with a brief plunge in ice water. http://www.earthy.com/Fresh_Sea_Beans__8_oz_P1513C12.cfm

June 5 is the birthday of spy novelist Ken Follett, (books by this author) born in Cardiff, Wales (1949. After his car broke down, he decided to start writing fiction to earn cash. He wrote under the pseudonym Simon Myles and quickly published a thriller novel, The Big Needle (1974), about drug dealers. It didn't sell spectacularly, but he paid for his car repair and quit his job at a tabloid, accepting an editorial position at the place that published his novel. There, he studied what sorts of things made fiction books big best sellers, and after work at night, he would go home and write his own fiction.
He had his big breakthrough, in 1978, with Eye of the Needle (1978), a spy novel set during World War II. It only took him three months to write the novel. In an interview Follett said that he writes at home from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week, six if he gets "excited." He aims for writing 3,000 "publishable" words a day, and he doesn't rewrite more than once. The Writer’s Almanac

What happened in Judge Gerber's courtroom on Day 1 of GM Bankruptcy? For the most part, it received filings. Lots of filings. Click here for the WSJ's Jeffrey McCracken on those; here for the New York Law Journal's report on the so-called “first-day hearings,” which didn't get rolling until the late afternoon. The AmLaw Daily's Julie Triedman writes that “crankiness” was the emotion of the day. According to the NYLJ: About 110 lawyers filled the benches and lined the walls in a stifling hot courtroom before Southern District Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Gerber yesterday afternoon to get the ball rolling . . . Reporters crowded into overflow rooms. WSJ Law Blog June 2, 2009

According to “Secrecy 101,” a two-part series in the Columbus Dispatch, officials at many schools are working just as hard to keep information from the public.
Specifically, the series argues, colleges around the country are intentionally twisting the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a law passed in 1974 largely designed to keep students' grades private. According to the Dispatch stories, schools are instead using the law to hide information that could hurt the integrity of the schools and their athletic programs. (Click here for the first part of the series, which discusses Ohio State University's efforts to use FERPA as a shield. The second, here, takes more of a nationwide look at a handful of other schools.) WSJ Law Blog June 3, 2009

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (Reuters) - The Organization of American States lifted its suspension of Cuba on June 3, opening the door for the communist-run island to return to the regional group after 47 years. The 34-member hemispheric body, meeting in Honduras, unanimously scrapped a 1962 decision that suspended Cuba as Fidel Castro's revolution took the island toward communism and an alliance with the Soviet Union.
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed1/idUSTRE5526KJ20090603

Google Inc. said it plans to launch a program that will let publishers sell digital versions of their books directly to consumers, a step that would thrust the Internet search giant into competition with e-commerce leader Amazon.com Inc. Google said it aims to build a "digital book ecosystem" to allow partner publishers to sell access to their titles, even if buyers don't have dedicated book readers such as Amazon's Kindle or Sony Corp.'s Reader. The service was expected to launch by the end of this year. Separately, Amazon said that it will launch its large-screen Kindle DX reader on June 10, earlier than initially expected. Google could prove to be a significant challenger for Amazon, which sells e-books specifically formatted to work with its proprietary Kindle. A key
difference would be that the search giant aims to let Google Book Search users
"buy access" to copyrighted books with any Web-enabled computer, e-reader or
mobile phone. Google said it would allow publishers to set their own prices, although the
company reserved the right to discount titles at its own expense. Amazon typically charges consumers $9.99 per e-book, far below hardcover prices reaching about $26. Google said it was still in talks with publishers and specific details of is project remain to be determined. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124395511580877123.html

Among the things that Bill Marler feels passionately about are Washington State University (his alma mater), food safety and negotiation. So after he heard about a dustup on campus over the cancellation of a program requiring all freshmen to read the same book—Michael Pollan’s double-fisted examination of agribusiness, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”—he stepped in to resolve it. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/books/29poll.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

The earliest recorded closure is the cork, which was created by the ancient Greeks circa 600 BC. Read the purpose, history and manufacture of closures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closures

Doctors have issued a warning about excessive cola consumption after noticing an increase in the number of patients suffering from muscle problems, according to the June issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice. “Evidence is increasing to suggest that excessive cola consumption can also lead to hypokalaemia, in which the blood potassium levels fall, causing an adverse effect on vital muscle functions.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090519075420.htm

Tidbits from Encore Provence by Peter Mayle
Designed by Pierre Puget and built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is one of Marseille’s most elegant survivors, the rosy stone mass of the Vielle Charité. There is something about architecture on the grand scale that tends to subdue human speech . . .
La Marseillaise was actually composed in Strasbourg as the battle song of the army of the Rhine. It was taken up and sung by five hundred volunteers from Marseille who were marching to Paris.
Régis had decided that we should exercise our palates—the only form of exercise he ever takes willingly . . .
France has roughly the same population as Britain, but the inhabitants are spread over three times the land area . . .
Laughter is the best background music.

The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on June 4, 1917. Ten facts about the prizes:
1. They're announced each year in April and then awarded at Columbia University in May, during a luncheon at the campus library.
2. Each Pulitzer Prize winner receives a $10,000 award and a certificate, except in the Public Service category, where the winner is given a gold medal. Only a newspaper, not an individual, can receive the Public Service prize for journalism.
3. There are 21 Pulitzer categories. Two-thirds of the prizes (14) revolve around journalism. There are six for letters and drama (fiction, drama, history, biography, poetry, and general nonfiction), and there is one prize given for music.
4. The Pulitzer Prize for fiction used to be called the Pulitzer Prize for the novel. The name was changed in 1948.
5. Poet Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize four times. Playwright Eugene O'Neill also won four Pulitzer Prizes.
6. The Pulitzer Prize is a very American award. Only U.S. citizens are eligible for the non-journalism Prizes. The exception to this is in the history category: a non-American can win the Pulitzer Prize if he or she wrote a book about the history of the United States. Foreign journalists can win Pulitzers if they write for a newspaper published in the United States.
7. The New York Times holds the all-time record for number of Pulitzer Prizes received. The paper has collectively won 101 Pulitzers.
8. Newspapers generally nominate themselves for Pulitzer Prizes. The fee for each entry is $50, and the material that the newspaper wants the prize board to consider must be accompanied by an entry form. An entry has to fit into one of the 21 categories; it can't be submitted on the grounds that it is just generally good. To be eligible, a paper must be published in the U.S. at least weekly.
9. In 2009, for the first time, online-only news organizations were eligible for the Pulitzer. Before, it was restricted to print publications.
10. Decisions about prize winners are made by the Pulitzer board in secret. Afterward, the board does not publicly discuss or defend its decisions.
The Writer’s Almanac

General Motors filed for bankruptcy June 1, listing $82 billion in assets and $173 billion in debts--more than $20 billion of it to the United Auto Workers union, GM's second-largest creditor. Also in Manhattan, on May 31, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge approved the government-supported plan to sell Chrysler to Fiat. http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/06/01/GM_Declares_Bankruptcy_While_Chrysler_Sale_Clears_Two_Hurdles.htm

The once powerful GM earns a place in history as the largest U.S. industrial company to file for bankruptcy protection, and the fourth-largest company overall to do so based on its $82.29 billion in assets as of March 31. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s Sept. 15 bankruptcy filing is the nation's largest with $691.1 billion in assets, and it likely served as a catalyst for GM and Chrysler's downfall, as it hastened the erosion of credit markets, making it impossible for GM to borrow money and difficult for consumers and dealers to finance new vehicles. Washington Mutual Inc. and WorldCom Inc. are the second and third largest U.S. companies to file for bankruptcy protection.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090601/ap_on_bi_ge/us_automakers

General Motors Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection case was assigned to Judge Robert Gerber; signing the filing on behalf of GM was not Weil Gotshal's Harvey Miller but the firm's Stephen Karotkin. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT's story; here for the Detroit Free Press story. WSJ Law Blog June 1, 2009

Document 09-50026 General Motors Corporation voluntary petition filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Southern District of New York on June 1, 2009: http://media.npr.org/documents/2009/jun/gm.pdf

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger claims a man writing under the name of J.D. California is about to publish an unauthorized sequel of "The Catcher in the Rye," violating Salinger's copyright in the novel and its main character, Holden Caulfield. Salinger also sued London-based Windupbird Publishing, Sweden-based Nicotext, and SCB Distributors, of Gardena, Calif. Salinger calls the new book "a rip-off pure and simple." Salinger says the cover of the new book describes it as a "sequel to one of our most beloved classics." His complaint in Manhattan Federal Court continues: "The sequel's author, 'J.D. California,' explains that 'Just like the first novel, he leaves, but this time he's not at a prep school, he's at a retirement home in upstate New York. ... It's pretty much like the first book in that he roams around the city, inside himself and his past.'" http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/06/02/J_D_Salinger_Tries_to_Block_Sequel_to_Catcher_in_the_Rye_.htm

UN Labor Agency Says World Unemployment Could Rise By 50 Million In 2009
"The International Labour Office (ILO) issued new labour market projections for 2009, showing a further increase in unemployment, working poor and those in vulnerable employment...In the Global Employment Trends Update, May 2009 the ILO revised upwards its unemployment projections to levels ranging from 210 million to 239 million unemployed worldwide in 2009, corresponding to global unemployment rates of 6.5 and 7.4 per cent respectively. The Trends report projects an increase of between 39 and 59 million unemployed people since 2007 as the most likely range. Actual outcomes will depend on the effectiveness of fiscal expenditures decided by governments and on a functioning financial sector."

Job Searcher's Guide to Online Job Sites
From the World Privacy Forum: "This guide to online job sites, Job Searcher's Guide to Online Job Sites, is a list of the top job searching sites online. This list gives information about the privacy practices at each site. Because resumes contain such detailed personal and professional information, it is well worth caring about how job search sites handle privacy issues. This guide is updated monthly, and we add new information to the guide monthly."

URL shorteners, such as TinyURL, bit.ly and notlong.com allow users to share and post links in a quicker manner with less likelihood of misdirection. They also add an intermediary between the reader and the site of origin, and the risk of countless dead links if and when the business model of the respective services ceases to sustain a viable return.

Sergio Santos is used to facing challenges as an architect. The 39-year-old Brazilian has designed college housing projects in England, two high-rises in Poland, an office building in Turkey and a mall in Germany. But when he lost his job as an architect in January, he faced one of his biggest design challenges. By March, he realized he could no longer afford to pay $500 a month for the 17-by-15 1/2 room he rented in Boca Raton. So he found a job as a waiter to pay the bills and negotiated with a Delray Beach landlord to rent a room that's smaller than many South Florida closets—5 1/2 by 14 feet. Find picture and story at: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/time-money/home/sfl-small-space-sergio-h052209sbmay22,0,4526594.story

purlicue (PUHR-li-kyu) noun
1. The space between the extended forefinger and thumb.
2. A flourish or curl at the end of a handwritten word. Also known as curlicue.
3. A discourse, especially its summarizing part.
Of uncertain origin, probably from Scots pirlie (curly). A.Word.A.Day

Feedback from A.Word.A.Day
From: Lauren Kern (lauren resourcetec.com)
Subject: A.Word.A.Day
I just wanted to thank you for your always pertinent A.Word.A.Day. My now-fiancé and I were actually united by your words a little over a year ago, and we still find most of them to be deeply applicable to our daily lives. We have collected them for the past year and a half in digital form, and plan to use the most significant (for us) at our wedding! As a bit of an ice-breaker, we're giving each person at the reception a word and a definition--mismatched. They'll then have to find the correct definition for their word from among their tablemates.
From: Brett Beiles (brettb hardyboys.co.za)
Subject: atone Def: To make amends for.
When the novel Atonement was published, the author Ian McEwan said in an interview that the title should be pronounced "at one-ment".
From: Eric Shackle (eshackle ozemail.com.au)
Subject: This week's theme: Words derived from numbers
"Numbers are everywhere", you wrote... As in Column 8, the Sydney Morning Herald's trivia column, which has entertained readers for more than 60 years. But a newspaper now called the Lancaster New Era in Pennsylvania (US) has published a column by The Scribbler for 90 years, barring a few breaks. Can any AWAD reader name a longer-running column?

Full Text: Cyberspace Policy Review
May 29th, 2009 Direct to Full Text Document (76 pages; PDF)
The President directed a 60-day, comprehensive, “clean-slate” review to assess U.S. policies and structures for cybersecurity. Cybersecurity policy includes strategy, policy, and standards regarding the security of and operations in cyberspace, and encompasses the full range of threat reduction, vulnerability reduction, deterrence, international engagement, incident response, resiliency, and recovery policies and activities, including computer network operations, information assurance, law enforcement, diplomacy, military, and intelligence missions as they relate to the security and stability of the global information and communications infrastructure.

Social Security Insurance Recipients by State and County, 2008
May 28th, 2009 Source: SSA Direct to Document
Local area data for the Supplemental Security Income program for aged, blind, and disabled people are the focus of this annual statistical report. The data are for federal SSI payments and for federally administered state supplementation.

Gov Docs: Government Printing Office Publishes Their Annual Report
May 29th, 2009 Direct to Full Text Report (68 pages; PDF)
From a Message by Bob Tapella, Public Printer of the United States:
The U.S. Government Printing Office recorded another strong year of performance in 2008, that stands as a testament to the hardworking men and women of GPO who have worked hard to support the information and production service requirements of Congress, federal agencies, the library community and the American people.

Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology
May 29th, 2009 Source: The Register
In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates. Closing out the longest-running court case in Wikiland history, the site’s Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favor of the move, which takes effect immediately.

Two New Data Files Appear on Data.gov
May 29th, 2009 Source: Data.gov
Two new files have been added to the new Data.gov warehouse.
+ Patent Grant Bibliographic Data (2009)
Contains the bibliographic text of each patent grant issued weekly (Tuesdays) organized by Calendar Year (January through December). Excludes images/drawings.
+ DefenseLINK - Official Web Site of the U.S. Department of Defense
Direct to Defense Dept. Widgets

Britain's only remaining Titanic survivor Millvina Dean has died. Her family planned to emigrate to Kansas in America where her father Bertram would open a tobacco shop. But he was killed along with more than 1,500 other people in the 1912 disaster and the rest of the family, Miss Dean, her mother Georgetta and older brother Bertram returned to England. According to enthusiasts' website Encyclopedia Titanica (ET), on the journey home passengers would queue to hold her, in wonder that such a small child had survived. Born on February 2, 1912, her real name was Elizabeth Gladys Dean, but she was known as Millvina. Miss Dean worked for the government as a cartographer during World War II and then for an engineering company. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5418322/Titanic-Millvina-Dean-was-the-youngest-passenger-on-board.html

The LED (light-emitting diode). is eclipsing the compact fluorescent as the cutting-edge bulb. Wal-Mart Stores has started selling a consumer LED bulb that uses just seven watts of electricity and claims to last for more than 13 years. It costs around $35--a daunting price tag for a light bulb. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124355510568364629.html

“Books are a pretty good escape for your dollar.” Read of new and forthcoming books for summer reading at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203431004574194270481357960.html

Can auto makers boost the overall fuel economy of American cars and trucks by 40% in seven years without forcing everyone into a Smart ForTwo? They've done it before and should be able to do it again, but it could be a bumpy transition. Between 1975 and 1987, the average fuel efficiency of American cars and trucks improved by nearly 68%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124328905234252201.html