a swiss magazine looks at lawyers blogging

It really is enjoyable to hear from visitors from around the globe. The web is a nonspatial place, where country borders find difficulty in limiting communication with people from all corners of the world. We've been fortunate to have been linked to by an online magazine from Switzerland this week. The magazine is Jusletter, which is the "first legal on-line technical periodical of Switzerland." They come out with a new issue every week, and this week's issue includes the following article:

Weblogs – ein Informations- und Wissens-Managment-Mittel für Juristinnen und Juristen?
In den USA werden sog. Weblogs auch von Juristen als Informationsbeschaffungsmittel benutzt. Was aber sind Weblogs genau? Und eignen sie sich auch wirklich für Juristinnen und Juristen? Welche Vorteile bringen Weblogs?

Autor: lic. iur. Franz Kummer

The magazine publishes in German. Fortunately, Altavista's Babelfish is around to translate it into English for us.

Weblogs - an information and a knowledge Managment means for lawyer inside and lawyers?
In the USA become sucked. Weblogs also of lawyers as provision of information means uses. What however are Weblogs exact? And are they also really suitable for lawyer inside and lawyers? Which advantages bring Weblogs?

Author: lic. iur. Franz Kummer

Ok, the translation may not be perfect. I'm not sure exactly what they were trying to express with the first sentence in the synopsis of their article. But, it's interesting to see that legal weblogs are being looked at by the Swiss, and in a positive manner. To read the article, cut and paste the following URL into the appropriate box in Babelfish, and choose "German to English" in the drop down box next to it:

http://www.weblaw.ch/jusletter/Artikel.jsp?ArticleNr=1948&Language=1

To our Swiss visitors: Dank für das Besuchen!

arts & letters daily

A site that we had on our list to the left has closed down. Arts & Letters Daily was an interesting place to find some of the more thoughtful and unusual articles on the web. The company that owned it, University Business LLC, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and the site will be auctioned off as one of the assets of the company later this month. We are replacing it with two new sites, which are associated with the former editors of Arts & Letters Daily. One is SciTech Daily Review, and the other is Philosophy & Literature. I'm sorry to see the old site go. Thank you Tran Huu Dung and Denis Dutton, for all your hard work.

lawyers, guns, and honeys

The Vice President of Iraq has proposed that Saddam and George W. duel to resolve their differences, and that the U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan be the referee. The respective Vice Presidents would be standing by as Seconds, in case both leaders died at the same time. Alternatively, Italian porn star turned politician (or is it the other way around?) Ilona Staller, has offered to give herself to Saddam in exchange for world peace. The U.N. Secretary General is "amused".

I think they are both good ideas, assuming all participants are willing adults. ~

[the links to Ms. Staller's sites were intentionally omitted]

a hacker oriented introduction to lawschool

LawMeme has a very enjoyable look at the Eldred v. Ashcroft case in the guise of an introduction to law school for programmers and web designers. Law School in a Nutshell, Part 1, and Law School in a Nutshell, Part II, are both fun, and educational. Very nicely done.

Law Clerk Remembrances

Law clerks sometimes have access to a side of a judge that few of us ever see. I ran across two publications today that view Supreme Court Justices from the perspective of someone who clerked for them. These aren't modern memories, but rather ones that date back to the Court of the 1930s. One is a memorandum about clerking for Harlan Fiske Stone in 1934. The other is a book about clerking for James C. McReynolds in 1936. The job titles are the same, but the experiences of each writer seems very different.

Bots Bad at Law Enforcement

Glenn Reynolds' article at Fox News, Stop, in the Name of 'Bots , judges the increasingly human-free efforts to police peoples' activities, from red-light cameras to software programs that search peoples' hard drives for files infringing on copyright. His verdict? I'd say he finds the human directors of those efforts guilty of incompetence, and failure to take personal responsibility for the actions of their machinery.

West Memphis Three

I was unfamiliar with the West Memphis Three until I came across a book review this morning entitled The facts of a dark fairy tale. The story is one about three eight-year old boys who were kidnapped and murdered, and three teenaged boys who were convicted of the crimes. A synopsis of the case, from a web site dedicated to helping Free the West Memphis Three presents a chilling portrait of what may have happened.