End of term

Follow the wrap of the Supreme Court's 09-10 term on SCOTUSBLOG . You can also keep up-to-date with any developments on Elena Kagan's confirmation. Check out the sister site - SCOTUS WIKI for stats on the Supreme Court. These stats rival those kept by baseball.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Optical Illusions And Visual Phenomena

Do those phosphenes that arise from looking too long into the Sun while you are on the beach puzzle you? If so, then here are some more straightforward, man-made optical illusions that offer interesting insight into, and raise intriguing questions about, human visual perception.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Human Rights Watch Film Festival

There is still time to catch a film at the New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival. The line-up includes a film about immigration reform, genocide in Cambodia and the Mexican criminal justice system.


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Elena Kagan's Documents

Senate confirmation hearings for former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, U.S. Supreme Court nominee, are scheduled to begin June 28. While the media has featured and critiqued a small number of the documents released this month from Kagan's time working in the Clinton administration and as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the best way to discover and assess the nominee as attorney and thinker is to read some of her writings for yourself.

A clear explanation of the Kagan documents released so far from her Clinton years--with links to pages of topical documents in full text--is at the National Archives web site. In addition, CBS News has posted five of Kagan's law clerk memos, culled from the Thurgood Marshall papers at the Library of Congress. For her background and qualifications, check out Kagan's Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire here.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Google Voice for Students

Do you have too many phone numbers? Google Voice has a nifty solution and is now available to anyone with a .edu email address without knowing anyone with an invite. Some of the cool features include getting voice mail sent to e-mail, sending free text messages, and reading voice-mail transcriptions.

How it works - You get a new phone number, and can forward all your other phones to the new one, and get all your messages in one place. And once you stop being amused by the way the transcription sometimes turns your friends' words into things they didn't really say, you might find it useful.

Check out Google's site and this Youtube clip and another for demos. To get an invite, just visit google.com/voice/students and enter an email address that that ends in .edu.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Unusual And Marvelous Maps

While we would not recommend them as current guides to Summer travel, these antique maps, which show sea serpents and other monsters devouring ships over huge expanses of the ocean, fascinatingly reflect to us how the world appeared to our forebears.

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Your Brain on Computers

The New York Times recently published a series of articles (Your Brain on Computers) discussing the effect computers appear to have on our brains. The comments "highlights" are worth reading for the different perspectives.

It is food for thought. Technology is a wonderful tool, but it is worth a moment to think about how and why we use the technology that we do.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Legal Twitter

This is a list of the top 100 legal Twitter feeds, some of which are very useful and informative. Depending on your interests, you may choose to follow one or two of the people listed here on Twitter.


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the Kindle in Colleges

Think it would be great to have all your textbooks in Kindle format? It seems like a great idea, but apparently, the Kindle has not yet gained favor in college campuses. Read this for an interesting discussion.


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You have the right to remain silent

We are all familiar with the Miranda Warning from television. Today the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an opinion (Berguis v. Thompkins) that tilted the warnings procedure towards the police. Criminal suspects must explicitly invoke their right to remain silent. Check out the SCOTUSwiki for the background of the case with supporting documents; and SCOTUSblog for an initial analysis of the deicison.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat