The Earth Portal

Self-described as a comprehensive resource for timely, objective, science-based information about the environment, the Earth Portal was selected as one of Library Journal's "Best Free Reference" web sites of 2008. The Earth Portal covers the natural environment of the earth as broadly defined, from air and water to living organisms and interdisciplinary topics, including related law and policy. All content is governed by the Environmental Information Coalition (EIC), a group of scientists and scholars and the institutions and agencies for which they work. Well organized and easy to navigate, the site consists of three components: the Encyclopedia of the Earth (with a great topical browse feature); Earth Forum (commentary and discussion); and Earth News (international in scope). For environmental law background or personal interest, this is a great place to start.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

The World's Ten Smallest Animals

We follow up our list of the weirdest animals of 2008 with that of the ten smallest animals. If you've ever wanted to see the smallest lizard, or--*cough, cough*--the smallest cat, then have a look.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

It was a dark and stormy night...

The results of the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest are released. Most likely you think of Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip when you see the phrase "it was a dark and stormy night", but the phrase is actually part of the first sentence of the novel Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. The complete sentence is:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

The contest is an international literary parody contest that honors the memory if not the reputation of Bulwer-Lytton. The goal of the contest is simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels.

The results are usually very funny. An example, the 2009 winner for the Detective entry:

She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.

Eric Rice
Sun Prairie, WI

So if you would like a smile, check out the present and past winners.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Spring OCIs?

There is some talk of moving the summer associate recruiting process from the 2L Fall Semester (often, in reality, summer) to the 2L Spring Semester. There is no telling whether this idea will catch on.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

SCOTUSblog: Super Stat Pack

Want a statistical overview of the Supreme Court term that has just ended? Then check out SCOTUSblog "Super Stat Pack". The statistics include:

Opinion Tally
Justice Agreement
Decisions by Final Vote
Frequency in the Majority
Opinion Authors by Sitting
Circuit Scorecard
The Court’s Workload
Grant Rates by Conference
OT08 Questions Presented and Results (with embedded links to slip opinions)



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Bill Jackets in the News

There has been a lot of controversy recently related to bill jackets in the New York State Senate.

Bill jackets are, not surprisingly, jackets--or folders--for bills. As Bill Manz writes in Gibson's New York Legal Research Guide, "Engrossing a bill involves affixing to it the certifications of passage from each house and enclosing the bill in a folder known as a 'bill jacket.' The house of origin transmits the engrossed bill to the governor's office."

Related to the turmoil in the New York State Senate, that body's bill jackets are being kept under lock and key by the Secretary of the Senate, which probably prevents any bills passed by the Senate from really being official. And two Republican Senators are suing to compel the Secretary to release the bill jackets.

Anyone who has made an appellate argument in New York knows that, in addition to keeping bills warm and giving them an imprimatur of 'officialness,' bill jackets are also the main source of legislative history for New York State laws. Some bill jackets from the last decade are available for free on the State Archives website. Others can be a little harder to find.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

The Redistricting Game

How may future lawyers, legislators or policymakers really understand how congressional redistricting works--and how it affects political power and the outcome of elections? Grasping these concepts would never be fun if it weren't for the Redistricting Game.

This free game, developed at the University of Southern California's Game Innovation Lab for the USC Annenberg Center for Communication, lets you play the "redistricting game" by redrawing maps of congressional districts in fictional states within a browser window. Watch the results both on the map and in the facial expressions of the fictional representatives affected by your moves, and work toward approval of your plan. Players can work through five missions, including basic population equality, partisan Gerrymander, and Voting Rights Act. Each mission comes with eye-opening quotes.

Check out this game and play the real world variables to understand how the system really works.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Independence Weekend Hours

For those of you studying for exams or the Bar Exam, make sure to take a break to celebrate the 4th of July. I will be doing the same. This means on Friday, July 3rd and Saturday, July 4th the Library will be CLOSED. We will be open on Sunday, July 5th from 10am-8pm.

Check the Library's Hours web page for our new extended hours starting Monday, July 6th.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Sleeping on a Complex Decision May Be a Bad Choice

The venerable piece of advice that one should “sleep on” a complex decision before acting upon it may not help you to make the best choice, after all. So say two studies that question the evidence for unconscious decision-making. Read more about these findings here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

In this Corner .... Microsoft Bing: Interesting New Search Engines from Microsoft and Google

Microsoft recently launched their new search engine, Bing. While there are similarities between Bing and Google, Bing has added a few features like page preview. When you hover your mouse to the right of your search result, a preview of the page is displayed. Click here for more information about Bing.

Another search engine of interest is Google Wave which is expected to launch later this year. Google Wave, is a self described "new tool for communication and collaboration on the web." ""A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more." Click here to view the Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat