Wednesday, September 28, 2011

News, records, and analysis of legislation, litigation, and regulation affecting the computer, internet, communications and information technology sectors and many helpful links are found at: http://www.techlawjournal.com/ You may subscribe to daily e-mail alerts and see top stories from 2002 onward. The web site has been continuously published since March of 1998. The TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert has been published since August of 2000. Tech Law Journal is an independent, for profit, news publishing business located in Washington DC. There is no affiliation with any other publisher, company, interest group, political party, or other political entity.

Certiorari is a Latin word meaning "to be informed of, or to be made certain in regard to". It is also the name given to certain appellate proceedings for re-examination of actions of a trial court, or inferior appeals court. The U.S. Supreme Court still uses the term certiorari in the context of appeals.
Petition for Writ of Certiorari. (informally called "Cert Petition.") A document which a losing party files with the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to review the decision of a lower court. It includes a list of the parties, a statement of the facts of the case, the legal questions presented for review, and arguments as to why the Court should grant the writ.
Writ of Certiorari. A decision by the Supreme Court to hear an appeal from a lower court.
Cert. Denied. The abbreviation used in legal citations to indicate that the Supreme Court denied a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the case being cited.
http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/certiorari.htm

It's Cert., to Be Sure. But How Do They Say It? Let's Count the Ways
Black's Law Dictionary actually considers certiorari a five-syllable word, with the "o" pronounced separately, as occurs in "ratio." According to Charles Harrington Elster, the pronunciation editor of Black's, this usage follows English rules, which, he says, quite clearly prescribe that vowels at the end of accented syllables are long, and that "i" at the end of a word is always long. But Elster is willing to grant the justices, and everyone else, a pass on that point, chalking it up to the phenomenon known as syncope -- the loss or omission of a sound in the middle of a widely-used word. Syncope is why most Americans say "chok-lit" instead of sounding out each letter in "chocolate." Read about the dispute on pronunciation between attorneys, justices and editors at: http://sobek.colorado.edu/~mciverj/WP_Certiorari_120301.html

Soaking Beans: Beans can be cooked without soaking, but they will take much longer to cook. There are two ways of soaking them to reduce the cooking time:
1. Soak the beans in plenty of water for 6 to 10 hours.
2. The quicker method is to boil the washed beans in plenty of water in a large saucepan for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat, cover the pan, and let the beans soak for 1 hour.
Always drain and then cook in fresh water.
Lynn Rossetto Kasper Weeknight Kitchen September 21, 2011

Viz. is an abbreviation of videlicet, which itself is a contraction from Latin of "videre licet" meaning "it is permitted to see." Both forms introduce a specification or description of something stated earlier; this is often a list preceded by a colon (:). Although both forms survive in English, viz. is far more common than videlicet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viz.

The motto of Government Attic, a Web site providing federal government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, is Videre licet. See at: http://www.governmentattic.org/

Throughout major league baseball, tobacco spit mixes with the shells of sunflower seeds and bubblegum wrappers on dugout floors On paper if not in practice, smokeless tobacco has been banned by the minor leagues and by the NCAA, a reflection of the rising concern about oral cancer and other illnesses linked to tobacco. Now, with support from Commissioner Bud Selig, Major League Baseball is weighing whether to strike down one of baseball's grittiest traditions and prohibit tobacco use in the majors. But as baseball's regular season wraps up September 28, followed by playoff openers Friday and Saturday, it's clear that many players — whose union would have to agree to such a change — will resist. Smokeless tobacco, long entwined with baseball history, has been part of their baseball upbringing, even as health warnings about it have increased. And a ban at the major league level, while pragmatic for the sake of health and appearance, isn't a popular idea in team clubhouses.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/story/2011-09-26/baseball-cant-kick-tobacco-habit/50559914/1

The Top 10 Books Lost to Time
Before the Iliad and the Odyssey, there was the Margites. Little is known about the plot of the comedic epic poem—Homer’s first work—written around 700 B.C. But a few surviving lines, woven into other works, describe the poem’s foolish hero, Margites. “He knew many things, but all badly” (from Plato’s Alcibiades). “The gods taught him neither to dig nor to plough, nor any other skill; he failed in every craft” (from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics).
It is unfortunate that no copy of Margites exists because Aristotle held it in high acclaim. In his On the Art of Poetry, he wrote, “[Homer] was the first to indicate the forms that comedy was to assume, for his Margites bears the same relationship to comedies as his Iliad and Odyssey bear to our tragedies.” Read about the other nine lost works (Bible, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Herman Melville and others) at:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Top-10-Books-Lost-to-Time.html

Sept. 28 Word of the Day
Quorum KWOR-um (noun) A select group; the number (as a majority) of officers or members of a body that when duly assembled is legally competent to transact business www.merriam-webster.com
This Day in History Sept. 28, 1787: The newly completed U.S. Constitution is voted on by the U.S. Congress to be sent to the state Legislatures for approval.
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/newsnow/x1987955149/Morning-Minutes-9-28-11

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