Legal Commentary

College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 9 - Week and Weekend of Saturday, October 25, 2008

Posted on October 21, 2008
YPPSYS (tm)College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 9 - Week and Weekend of Saturday, October 25, 2008. Odds are taken from the College Football Prediction Tracker from Monday, October 20. We do this all in good fun and disclaim any and all liability for any reliance of any kind on our prognostications...

Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law Online (MPEPIL)

Posted on October 20, 2008
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law Online (MPEPIL, www.mpepil.com) has just launched as Oxford University Press's newest online product. This monumental reference work, originally published in 1991, has been fully updated and released in an easy-to-navigate online environment...

Most Popular Christians : Patron Saints of Learning and the Environment : Religion and Ecology : Law, Religion and Learning

Posted on October 19, 2008
To be mutually and symbiotically effective, both the law and organized religion must maintain a realistic approach to the basic issues of modern everyday life, such as religion and ecology, or law, learning and religion.An effective blend of these requires a clear understanding of the history of law and religion, but who today has such knowledge?In this day of global learning and planetary environmentalism, we might for example ask: who is the Christian patron saint of learning? or the patron saint of ecologists? and what relevance do these patrons have for believers today? Are such religious figureheads relevant for modern problems?Full in the spirit of learning, N...

Understand the Present Financial Crisis by Peering into the Past : Archaeology Websearch Blog : Digging the Internet

Posted on October 16, 2008
You can't live by law alone.To fully understand the current financial crisis, it is instructive to peer into the past to see that the ups and downs of civilization are part of a process that has been going on for millennia.For those of our readers interested in the history of mankind,we have developed theArchaeology Websearch Blog : Digging the Internetas a specialized webtool for searching the Internetin the areas of ancient history, archaeology, and anthropology,broadly defined...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Stressed? Archaeology Travel Photos Might Give You Ideas for a Cultural Vacation

Posted on October 16, 2008
This is a slide show of the Archaeology Travel Photos group at Flickr, which as of this date is approaching 1000 members who have uploaded nearly 12000 photos from around the world. We have no control over the photos, but many of them are outstanding photos of archaeological sites by vacationing photographers...

LawPundit Blog Subscribers RSS Feeds Are All Working Again

Posted on October 15, 2008
Dear LawPundit RSS subscribers:Although we asked you to change your subscriptions feeds in this posting, especially your Blogline aggregator feeds, all LawPundit RSS feeds are now working again, so no more changes are necessary.http://feeds.feedburner...

Viagra et al. Frozen : FTC and Chicago Judge Shut Down World's Biggest Spam Ring

Posted on October 15, 2008
Here is welcome news to all Internet users.Via an ABA Journal Law News Now posting concerning Internet Law, Debra Cassens Weiss alerts us to a case where a federal judge in Chicago has frozen respective assets and issued a temporary injunction against a Viagra and similar product spam operation responsible for sending billions of those Viagra and other messages that clog the world's mailboxes...

College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 8

Posted on October 15, 2008
NOTICE: SPRS (Sport Pundit Rating System) Name Change to YPPSYS (tm) viz. YPP-SYS (tm) We have discovered that confusion might be remotely possible between our SPRS college football prediction system and something called Thompson SPRS which we noted for the first time on October 12, 2008 at The Prediction Tracker summaries but which we have been unable to find online...

Passing and Rushing Statistics Show that the Nebraska Cornhuskers Suffer Under Poor Offensive Playcalling by the Coaching Staff

Posted on October 13, 2008
One of the excellent and useful sports websites online is College Football Football Statistics (cfbstats.com).Using that website, one can isolate grievous mistakes that coaching staffs are committing - one would presume - without being aware of what they are doing, otherwise they would change and correct their errors...

SPRS Football Rating System Name Change to YPPSYS (YPP-SYS)(tm)

Posted on October 12, 2008
SPRS (Sport Pundit Rating System) Name Change to YPPSYS (tm) viz. YPP-SYS (tm)We have discovered that confusion might be remotely possible between our SPRS college football prediction system and something called Thompson SPRS which we noted for the first time today (October 12, 2008) at The Prediction Tracker summaries but which we have been unable to find online...

Cairn of Barnenez (Tumulus of Barnenez) in Brittany (Bretagne, France) to be Submitted to UNESCO for Status as a World Heritage Site

Posted on October 10, 2008
Jane at The Modern Antiquarian writes: "Barnenez will make you gasp in wonder. It's so big and grand." Barnenez is a Breton megalithic site in Brittany (Bretagne, France).A Breton FarmerCopyright © by Yvon 2008 (published by LawPundit with permission)...

Fact Check the U.S. Presidential Debates and Other Political Statements

Posted on October 09, 2008
Fact check the U.S. Presidential debates and other "facts" at factcheck.org.Hat tip to Lessig Blog.Fact Check is:"[A] nonpartisan, nonprofit "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U...

Lessig Blasts Crony Capitalism in the STANFORD Magazine September/October 2008 Issue : Change Congress : A Movement to End Congressional Corruption

Posted on October 09, 2008
In his article, "How the Founders Failed", in the most recent issue of STANFORD Magazine (September/October, 2008), which just arrived per snail mail, Lawrence Lessig really lets "crony capitalism" have itIn that article - as excerpted from a speech that Lessig, the C...

College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 7

Posted on October 08, 2008
College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 7(week and weekend of Saturday, October 11, 2008)The odds used below are those posted at the College Football Prediction Tracker on Wednesday, October 8, 2008. The unique system used for game prognostications is SPRS, which uses primarily our own derived NAYPPA system (based on yards per play stats from cfbstats...

LawPundit Blog Subscribers Please Change RSS Feed

Posted on October 07, 2008
Dear LawPundit subscribers:Please change your RSS subscription feed to LawPundit toeither to the newly burned LawPundit RSS feed at FeedBurner athttp://feeds.feedburner.com/lawpundit/ClQyor to the RSS XML Atom feed athttp://www.lawpundit.com/blog/atom...

Blawg Review #180

Posted on October 05, 2008
THIS IS THE 180th EDITION OF Blawg Review.Today, on German-American Day, October 6, 2008, a day proclaimed by the President of the United States, LawPundit, as a law blog domiciled in Germany and authored by an American expatriate, born in Germany, raised in the United States, and formerly lecturing on Anglo-American law at the University of Trier Law School in Germany, is honored to host the 180th edition of Blawg Review...

Porsche, Volkswagen, Germany and the European Union squabble over the Veto Powers of the German State of Lower Saxony over VW Management

Posted on October 04, 2008
Porsche has recently increased its stake in Volkswagen (VW) to 35.14%, giving it a controlling interest in VW. Furthermore, it is rumored that Porsche may try to increase its controlling interest in VW to 50% or more in the coming months, although, of course, no one knows for sure...

India Patents at the India Patent Blog of Senthil Kumar

Posted on October 03, 2008
In view of the increasing importance of the Indian and Far East economic spheres, we would like to point to a new patent blog on patents from India at the India Patent Blog of Senthil Kumar.

The Global Top 100 Law Firms for the year 2008 : Profits per Partner : Most Lawyers : Most Revenue

Posted on October 02, 2008
The Global 100 Law Firm rankings for the year 2008 are available at Law.com,ranked by 1) Most Profits per Partner , 2) Most Lawyers, and 3) Most Revenues.As written at Law.com:"[t]he Global 100 is a joint project of The American Lawyer and Legal Week, a sibling publication...

Attention! (Achtung!) German-American Day Blog Posters: Please Note that LawPundit will host the 180th Blawg Review on October 6, 2008

Posted on October 02, 2008
LawPundit - an English-language law blog by an American expatriate domiciled in Germany - will host the 180th edition of Blawg Review on Monday, October 6, 2008, a day which is celebrated as German-American Day in the USA.If you have a blog posting that is somehow related to German-American Day this year, or if you have a legally-related blawg posting - for example on German-American law or transatlantic relations - that you would like to see linked or referred to in some way, please go to the Blawg Review and follow their submission instructions...

Administrative Message to LawPundit Subscribers whose RSS Feeds may not have been working the past two days

Posted on October 02, 2008
Dear LawPundit Subscribers,The posting Eight Things All RSS Publishers Should Remember at CuteWriting has as its number one rule: 1. Using FeedBurner? Know the feed limit.Google owned FeedBurner, which burns and handles our RSS feed, can not fetch more than 512 KB of content at any one time...

New UK Rules for Company Name Registrations under § 69 of the Companies Act 2006 enter into force October 1, 2008

Posted on October 01, 2008
The trade mark blog Class 46 alerts us that:"New rules enter into force in the UK today under section 69 of the Companies Act 2006. These rules enable businesses to object to opportunistic company name registrations and are intended to equip brand-owners with similar powers to those conferred by various dispute resolution policies against cybersquatters or ?opportunistic? domain name registrants...

How Do You Grade the Work of Law Students? Is Student Performance in Part a Function of the Professor's Competence in Teaching the Materials?

Posted on September 30, 2008
At the ABA Law Journal Law News Now, Debra Cassens Weiss writes about Greta Van Susteren and her law school grading practices during her tenure as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law School 1984-1999.What interested me is this quotation:"This may be a little bit bizarre, but in a setting, at least at Georgetown, if someone is not doing well, I think it's the professor's fault...

World Financial Markets Seek a State of Equilibrium as the Values of Assets Seek to Reach Realistic Levels

Posted on September 30, 2008
All things in the universe seek a state of equilibrium, and this applies equally to the world financial markets.At the National Post, Terence Corcoran has written an article that Financial markets go up and down as they should. As a result, the proposed financial bailout (A US "Legislative Proposal for Treasury Authority to Purchase Mortgage-Related Assets"), as rejected by US Congress in the person of the U...

Learn from Golf, Gene Sarazen and 1929 : Don't Panic, Take it Easy and Go to the Links As the World Financial Markets Struggle for Inevitable Balance

Posted on September 30, 2008
We read this story about the 1929 stock market crash many years ago in a type of businessman's chain letter and were glad to find it again online at the Aircraft Resource Center:Here is the story in the approximate version that we heard it 30 years ago:"The question:Over a generation ago, in 1923, who was:1...

Bavarian State Elections Point to Populist Turmoil in German Politics : Free Voters Coalition Comes out of Nowhere to Win 10% of the Bavarian Vote

Posted on September 30, 2008
The populist emergence of Sarah Palin of Alaska as the Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party in America is not an isolated phenomenon of the USA.The state elections just held on Sunday in Bavaria, Germany closed with a dramatic populist result as the ruling conservative CSU party (Christian Social Union) for the first time since 1962 failed to obtain an absolute majority of the Bavarian vote...

College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 6

Posted on September 29, 2008
The odds used below are those posted at Yahoo Sports on Monday, September 29, 2008. The unique system used for game prognostications is SPRS, which uses primarily our own derived NAYPPA system (based on yards per play stats from cfbstats.com) plus the Massey Ratings strength of schedule (SoS) for making college football predictions, although we handle SoS differently here than for a full season...

College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 5 (Part 2)

Posted on September 29, 2008
We became used to that kind of playcalling under former head coach Callahan. One might consider looking at the University of Tulsa game films and the offense that Gus Malzahn runs there. Why is a top offensive coach like that not running the Cornhusker offense?Are the Huskers competitive again? We doubt it...

College Football Game Predictions and Results - 2008 Season - Week 5 (Part 1b)

Posted on September 29, 2008
The Florida Gators (5.8, 3.5, SoS=147) (Gainesville, Florida) are favored at home by 23 1/2 points over Mississippi Rebels (6.5, 4.3, SoS=46) (Oxford, Mississippi). Our ratings make Florida about a 1.2 rating point favorite x 9 = 11 points plus the 3-point home field advantage = 14 scoreboard points...

Federal Circuit Affirms District Court Set Aside of the $1.5 Billion Jury Verdict in the MP3 case of Lucent Technologies vs. Gateway, Dell & Microsoft

Posted on September 26, 2008
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in that district court's set aside of a $1.5 billion jury verdict for Lucent Technologies in a highly significant industry standard ISO 11172-3 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) patent case which we wrote about previously as follows:1) Patent Insanity in the USA Continues as Jury Awards Record MP3 Verdict "Only one word accurately defines the current state of US patent law and its judicial consequences - and that word is "comedy"...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.