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Driving canines, flip-flopping on the gas peddle, beating a breathalyzer (with a penny?), and much more —at Seattle911, a police blog.

As little as we know about our own (Oregon) city or state’s traffic laws, we know even less about our destination city’s laws.

So, if you’re heading to Seattle (or anywhere in Washington State, for that matter), here is some wonderful Q & A to read before venturing out in your car, on your bicycle, or even at all: KCLL Klues blogs about Seattle traffic law Question & Answer websites: Conveyance Quandry? Consult a Traffic Blog!

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Some articles speak for themselves:

From: Law – “Finding Accurate Law Text Online Nearly Impossible” (from the Indiana Law Blog):

Excerpt: ‘… It sounded easy. Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s counsel, Denley Chew, slapped down some $2 bills and challenged a room of lawyers and legal researchers with laptops and iPhones to find the authoritative text of the landmark Fugitive Slave Act online.

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It’s a new month (August!) and the funniest judge in the country is still on the bench and online:

In “A Ticket to Walk: Cap’n Crunch and the Other Terrorists” the good judge learns not to trust the law on the Internet, that cereals with the word “fruit” (or even frute or froot) in their names don’t necessarily contain fruit, and that “[a]ll that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to get too caught up in fantasy baseball.”

Justice Bedsworth, of the California Court of Appeals, returns with his not to be missed Criminal Waste of Space column in the Orange County Lawyer Magazine.

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We’ve had a rash of restaurant and wait-staff questions, on subjects from music licensing, to tip-pooling, to “can a restaurant owner deduct credit card company charges from their wait-staff wages when a customer pays the bill with a credit card?” (The latter is definitely one of those “just when you think you’ve heard everything” questions.)

This post originally started out as one on a new Restaurant Law book we just got in the library, but, as usual, it took on a life of its own.

This post could also be combined with the previous one on Small Business Resources, but we’ll stick to food, so to speak, for the moment.

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It is not unusual for someone to think it is easy to find a dissertation or thesis: sometimes it is, and sometimes not. “The Internet Tubes” have made the search a little easier than in the past, but “they” (the Internets, that is) have complicated it in a few other ways, namely, if the document is not in the Usual (i.e. Old Days) Repositories For Such Things, the world of places one has to search for another repository has expanded exponentially. The upsides are that you may be more likely to find what you are looking for AND you will find some other very interesting titles while you search.

1) Check with your local reference librarians (most have some kind of online reference so you don’t even have to get up or break a sweat).

2) Subscription databases (check also with your local libraries)
a) Dissertation Abstracts Online (Dialog)
b) ProQuest UMI Dissertation Publishing (and see their sidebar about searching Google for dissertations)

3)Miscellaneous

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Legal Research Plus blog has had (at least) two very interesting posts this past week:

1) Writing the book on citing unpublished and non-precedential opinions, July 27, 2009, by Paul Lomio:

Excerpt: ‘Today’s mail brought Volume 10, Issue # 1 (Spring 2009) of The Journal of Appellate Practice and Procedure. This issue contains Professor David R. Cleveland’s book-length (116 pages) article “Overturning the Last Stone: The Final Step in Returning Precedential Status to All Opinions.”…’ (link to full post)

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I’ve always said that the smaller the footnote or the simpler the question, the more time it will take to find the footnote’s supporting document or a citable document to answer the question.

We were recently asked how many states have three-strikes laws. Now, you would think this would be straightforward, but it’s not. There are many studies, many articles, many commentators, and many, many assumptions.

We find reports from a few years ago, tons of stuff from California on their recent legislation, some excellent research out of Hawaii on their 2009 legislative action to repeal their 3-strikes law, but nothing that can be used as a reliable current citation for all 50 states. I have charts from 2000, writers and journalists who say there were 23 states in 2004, 26 states in 2004 (Wikipedia, unfootnoted), and a fairly reliable study from 2006 that says 25 states. But nothing actually or even relatively official or authoritative (e.g. government or think-tank or nonprofit) from 2007 forward.

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Building Codes Division proposes rule for quick approval of small wind turbines

Excerpt: “(Salem) — In its continuing effort to be flexible with the onset of new technology and advance sustainability, the Department of Consumer and Business Services, Building Codes Division (BCD), in conjunction with its Electrical and Elevator Board and the Oregon Department of Energy, has proposed a rule that would allow manufacturers to install small wind turbines quickly, yet safely. The rule provides a streamlined process of certification for small wind turbines as an alternative to the lengthy national certification process….” (link to full media release)

Look at the BCD website, under What’s New, for more announcements.

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