Better late than never, I think. If you want to read the tax bill that just passed the House and is now on the way to, if not already on, the President’s desk:
“Middle Class Tax Relief Act of 2010” (Yes, that is what it’s called. Just sayin’)
Bill Summary & Status, 111th Congress (2009 – 2010), H.R.4853
As if bibliophiles didn’t have enough to do in December, here are more things to do FOR or WITH the bibliophiles in your life:
1) Museum of Contemporary Craft, exhibit: Object Focus: The Book (through Feb 26, 2011)
2) Holiday Author Event, Oregon Humanities, December 20, 2010: Ursula LeGuin, Brian Doyle, Guy Maynard, Live Wire, etc., etc., etc.
This shouldn’t really be “news,” but it is! And it may be really big news when it can be said of all appellate court judges, not just federal court judges.
From the Law Librarian Blog:
Justice Scalia Uses an iPad, Justice Kagan a Kindle to Read Briefs
Portland State University (PSU) and the PSU Millar Library will be closed from Saturday December 18 through Sunday December 26, 2010, due to budget reductions.
PSU affiliates will continue to have access to the Library’s extensive online resources and to 24/7 online chat assistance through the Oregon Libraries Network (L-Net) (a service funded by the Oregon State Library and staffed by Oregon librarians, and others around the U.S.).
If you want to speak out to your elected officials about budget priorities:
Use the Oregon Legislature’s Find Your Legislator tool to locate contact information for your state and federal elected representatives.
The Sunlight Foundation releases a beta version of a House (Congressional) Staff Directory.
(Note: Clicking on the Members List (at bottom of the search screen) seems to work better right now, at least for me.)
The have a lot of additional news on government transparency at their blog.
Online, FREE, access to cases from the Supreme Court of California (annotated).
Read many more great legal research tips at Legal Research Plus.
Governor Kulongoski and the 2009 Oregon Legislature created an Electronic Portal Advisory Board (EPAB) (see ORS 182.126 et seq).
The Board includes state agency staff, legislators and members of the public. The Board will advise the Governor on how the State of Oregon manages and operates its web portal services. For a number of years the State has provided the Oregon.gov portal site.
You can read more about the EPAB and the Portal at Data Oregon dot Gov, Open-Oregon (and the 11/10/10 post), EISPD (and their e-Gov website), and the Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) (including their acronym guide at their Publications webpages).
On December 9, 2010, the Oregon Supreme Court decided:
Barbara L. Hopkins v. SAIF Corp., et al., (WCB 0407794) (CA A138825) (SC S058081)
“… On review from the Court of Appeals in a judicial review from an order of the Workers’ Compensation Board. Hopkins v. SAIF, 232 Or App 439, 222 P3d 1140 (2009)….
(If you want to call your federal and/or state Legislator(s), use the Find Your Legislator tool at the Oregon Legislature’s website.)
I always wince a bit when I hear people say that someone in “Washington D.C.” steals their tax dollars. Yes, sometimes it’s true that a crime against us taxpayers has been committed, but sometimes our communities get a lot of those dollars back, though only after Congress takes out money for fighting wars, national security, diplomatic missions, economic development, social security, medicare, corporation subsidies, international medical aid, etc., etc., etc.
If you’re at all curious about which states get how much “return” on the federal tax dollars sent to federal coffers, here are a few places to start off your research. More serious and thorough research will take more work:
1) Federal tax dollar to D.C. and federal tax dollar back to Oregon: The Tax Foundation has this chart that shows Oregon, in 2005, received back $.93 of the federal tax dollars they paid in federal taxes.
Librarians tend not to get their whatsits in a twist when it comes to information leaks. Maybe because leaks, censorship, privacy, and related issues are things we think about and deal with every week, every year, decade, century, in our libraries, our databases with patrons’ personal information, with literature, with book-buying, with library boards, parents, etc.
1) Unshelved Librarians (from 12/7/10)
2) You can also find a link to a Gallagher Law Librarian blog post on:
