With Facebook friends like these...

Gosh, Daisy sure seems like a nice girl. Do you---do you think she really likes me?


The best part about this is that when I first received the request from this porn spam / identity theft bot, "she" had three friends. When I returned three minutes later to memorialize her for this blog post, she had 11. Of those 11, I'd bet six of these guys knew she was fake but figured "fuck it, at least now I can come back whenever I want and look at this twat shot."

By my calculations that leaves five dudes who might really think she's real and that maybe, if they play their cards right, they just might get to dive in... and of those, I'd say at least two pathetic colonoscopy bags who are so blinded by their own deluded self-absorption that they truly believe A) this sluttily appealing, morally bankrupt girl is real; and B) they are just "so money" that of the tens of millions of men on Facebook, she just can't contain her inhibitions and dreams of spreading her legs for THEM.

Which makes it all the more hilarious that they might surrender vital personal information in the process.

FDsys Search Strategies

The Government Printing Office, the agency that publishes our nation's official documents, has almost completed its migration to FDsys, the new Federal Digital System that will ultimately replace the current GPO database of government publications, GPOAccess. The migration to FDsys was slated for completion at the end of 2009, but the date has been pushed back to April 2010. More content will be added in the next few months, but you don't have to wait to use the many good collections already available.

On this blog, we've kept you up-to-date with the latest additions to FDsys, but we have not yet provided any search strategies to help you locate and utilize the content. There are, however, two good articles online at LLRX.com, a excellent source for the latest law and technology information.

For an introduction to basic FDsys search techniques, see

The Government Domain -- Congressional Documents on FDsys: the Basics.

And for more advanced strategies, see

The Government Domain -- Congressional Documents on FDsys: Advanced Techniques

Happy searching!


Who says the exodus to online journalism is dumbing down newspaper readership?

I do. And apparently so does the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:


Faculty, staff and students can now access personal library accounts

Access your library account from campus and home! You can now see everything you have checked out, renew your books, and save searches of your research interests online.

· Access your account through Stella, the online catalog, from Stanley or the library's public home page.

· Select login and enter your last name and your G number (with the G included).

You will now be logged into your personal library account. On the left are Help instructions for renewing books and setting up your preferred searches. Be sure and log out (click on "Log Out" above the search box) when you are finished, especially if you are on a publicly-accessible computer.

If you have any questions or need further information about this new feature, please don't hesitate to ask the Reference Librarian on duty or any of the staff at the Patron Services desk.

Enjoy the thrilling adventure of escaping slavery--from the comfort of your own living room!

Monopoly? Not in this economy. Chutes & Ladders? Pfffft. Behold--Amazon.com has really hit a home run with this one!

Kudos on the artwork too. The black silhouettes (complete with hobo stick) tip-toeing for their lives. Also note the celebratory dance of freedom (or perhaps she's just been shot). And what a raw deal for all those slaves who missed out on what appears to have been the "Caribbean Cruise to Freedom" option. Thanks for nothing, Harriet Tubman!

Keep an eye out for other great games from Amazon, including Hungry Hungry Auschwitz Prisoners!

Thanks to Black Static for the heads-up.

RALS 2010 at BYU

Here is the info, with even more at this link.

2010 Conference of Religiously Affilliated Law Schools

J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

Room 472

Thursday, March 18, 2010

9:00-9:15 am Introduction
Associate Dean Kif Augustine-Adams, BYU

9:15-10:15 am Plenary Session
H. Reese Hansen, President, Association of American Law Schools and Howard W. Hunter Professor Law, BYU

10:15-10:30 am Break

10:30 am-12:00 pm Panel: The Role of Ministering As Well As Administering in the Law School Community

Scott Cameron, BYU (Chair)
Lindsay P. Watkins, Project Manager, Law School Survey of Student Engagement
Wendy C. Archibald, BYU

12:15-1:30 pm Lunch: Hinckley Alumni Building
Welcome: Dean James Rasband, BYU Law School

1:45-3:15 pm Panel: Sacred Texts Part I: The Role of Sacred Texts and Traditions in Informing Our Understanding and Engagement of Jurisprudence

David Dominguez, BYU (Chair)
John Welch, BYU
Steven Goldberg, Georgetown U.
[Other speaker invited]

3:30-3:45 pm Break

3:45-5:15 pm Panel: Judges, Kings, Prophets, and Lawyers in Biblical and American Perspectives

Samuel Levine, Pepperdine U. (Chair)
Zach Calo, Valparaiso U.: Catholic/Anglican Perspective
David Vlatto, Penn. State U.: Jewish Perspective
Robert Cochran, Pepperdine U.
Mark Graber, U. of Maryland

5:30 pm Box Dinner

5:30 pm Tabernacle Choir Rehearsal in Salt Lake City

6:15 pm Buses depart
8:00 pm Tabernacle Choir Rehearsal
9:45 pm Busses return to Provo

Friday, March 19, 2010

8:15-9:00 am Continental Breakfast, BYU Law School

9:00-10:30 am Plenary Session: Relevant and Reliable Rankings Criteria for Religiously Affiliated Law Schools
David Thomas, BYU

10:30-10:45 am Break

10:45 am-12:15 pm Sacred Texts Part II: Texts, Law and Life

Thomas Folsom, Regent U.: "Disintegrating Norms in Cyberspace: Future Law and the Relevance of Ancient Sacred Texts (Is There a Common Morality for a Global/Tech Era?)"
Collin Mangrum, Creighton: "Religious Text as Authoritative Sources for Legal Reasoning: The Israeli Experience"
Hank Chambers, Richmond: "Biblical Interpretation and Ignoring Text"

12:30-2:00 pm Lunch: Wilkinson Student Center

2:15-4:00 pm Practicing Religion in the Classroom, Court Room, and Marketplace

David Koelsch, U. of Detroit-Mercy: "Promoting Consolation Among Law Students and Attorneys: Incorporating the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola into the Law School Curriculum"
Sherman Cohn, Georgetown U.: "Teaching Jewish Law at Georgetown"
Kristin Gerdy, BYU: "Clients, Empathy, and Compassion: Introducing First-Year Law Students to the ‘Heart’ of Lawyering"
Bill Piatt, St. Mary’s U.: "Catholicism and Constitutional Law: More Than Privacy in the Penumbras"
Rodney Dale Chrisman, Liberty: "Seeking Filthy Lucre: The Historic Christian Teaching on the Goodness of Commercial Activity as the Overarching Purpose of the UCC"

4:00-4:15 pm Break

4:15-5:00 pm Closing Session/Idea Exchange for the Future

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Optional Activity Tour of LDS Humanitarian Services Center Exchange in Salt Lake City

Registration
The cost of the conference is $175.00 per person, which will cover the lunches, dinner and continental breakfast, and the Thursday excursion to Salt Lake City. Guests may attend and participate in the meal and excursion functions for a fee of $75.00. You may register online by clicking here, or you may download a printable PDF, and send it with your check (made out to Brigham Young University Law School) to:

Adrian Selle
Room 405
J. Reuben Clark Law School
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah 84602

Senate Executive Documents & Reports

A student approached the reference desk recently, trying to locate a Senate Executive Report. These reports contain committee recommendations regarding the ratification of proposed treaties, or recommendations on proposed nominations. Beginning in 1979 these reports were published in the Serial Set, but the document we needed was issued in the 90th Congress, 1968. To locate this older report, we needed to look outside of the Serial Set in a unique collection called Senate Executive Documents and Reports (SED). This collection is indexed in Congressional Universe (aka Lexis/Nexis Congressional), but to locate the report itself, we had to search the SED on microfiche. The fiche are filed by Congress, session, and report number. For example, in this citation -- Exec.Rpt. 5, 73-2 -- we would look for the 73rd Congress, session 2, report number 5.

If you’re ever doing treaty research and need to find a Senate Executive Report, stop by the Reference Desk so we can help you locate it on microfiche on the first floor of the library at KF 39.

We can also help you to find Senate Executive Documents (renamed “Treaty Documents” in the 97th Congress, 1981) in this collection. These documents are issued by the Senate when the President asks them to ratify a treaty. They generally contain the text of the Presidential communication supporting ratification of the treaty and the text of the treaty agreement itself. Like the Executive Reports, these documents are also published in the Serial Set beginning in 1979; the older documents can be found in the SED microfiche collection.

Street sledding

Proof that you don't have to be smart to be a lawyer (in case there was ever any doubt):

Civility and the Practice of Law

by Heather Kushnerick, Special Collections Librarian

In honor of the 20th anniversary of the Texas Lawyer’s Creed, materials from the Special Collections Department of The Fred Parks Law Library on legal ethics and professional responsibility will be on display in the library lobby until the end of April, 2010. Items on display include works by Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, and Frederick Pollock. The Texas Lawyer’s Creed was promulgated by the Texas State Supreme Court in 1989. It is an authoritative statement on professional standards for all Texas lawyers. To read the text of the Texas Lawyers creed, please go to the State Bar of Texas website.

I'm BAAAAAAACK (for better or for worse)

Although it is against my better professional judgment to once again take up the reigns of this rambling mess, I feel empty inside without it. Plus, the 120-character Twitter allotment isn't nearly enough room for the daily rants I have in my head.

It's been quite a journey since I began this blog in January 2007 in an effort to distract myself from the idea of suicide while I waited my first semester law school grades. But, law students everywhere, hear this: consider this proof that you too can get through law school (and maybe even with a decent GPA), graduate, get a job, and study for and pass the bar exam (all at a cost to you of a mere six-figure debt!). And if that doesn't sound like 3+ years of sexy fun, then I just don't know what sexy fun is anymore.

Someone recently accused me of being "the grumpiest Facebook status updater ever." I have been called this (and worse) by many people, and not just recently. And I kind of take a shine to it. But whatever the underlying psychological reasons may be, I need an outlet to bash the moronic things I encounter or observe on a daily basis... so let's get to it.

A sportswriter / general shennanigan-haver pal Twittered today regarding the Gilbert Arenas suspension:

"Arenas suspended indefinitely. That sound you hear is Earl Boykins crawling out of a duffle bag."