We’ve been known to worry about language here on Slaw. And so I thought that our readers might enjoy Language Log, a blog by linguistic profs Mark Liberman and Geoffrey Pullum. They offer an enjoyable mix of science and popular culture, applying humour or scorn depending on the requirements of the occasion.

They talk about law from time to time, as in “The Supreme Court Fails Semantics,” where they criticize the U.S. Supreme Court’s analysis in Morse v. Frederick [PDF], the “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” case, or “The right to do process,” in which they . . . [more]

The Office of the Correctional Investigator, perhaps one of Canada’s less well known bureaucracies, released a report last February on “Deaths in Custody” done by Thomas Gabor, a criminologist at the University of Ottawa. (There’s also a PDF version.)

There are about 15 “non-natural” deaths a year in Canadian prisons. The report analyses the various causes and the response of corrections authorities to the recommendations of coroners and boards of investigation. . . . [more]

Slawyer Steven Matthews has just announced that he’s going out on his own with a new company, Stem Legal Web Enterprises.

The vision behind Stem is this: to offer an outsourced service for law firms to increase online profile and web-driven business opportunities.

Things will kick off in August, he says, heralded by a new blog to keep us up to date. We wish him luck. . . . [more]

Lexum is hosting the 8th International Conference Law Via The Internet – Access to Law and the New Web Reality [français] in Montreal on October 25 and 26. You’ll notice that Slaw is listed as a friend of the conference. Indeed: CanLII is a great institution and the themes of the conference are dear to our hearts:

• Free access to law: impact on emerging countries
• The identity of legal doctrine in the Internet age
• Legal blogs and wikis
• Electronic libraries of law articles
• The future of traditional legal doctrine in the Internet age.
• Problems linked with proliferation of

It appears that the Legislation Act, 2006, S.O. 2006, c. 21, Sched F. has been proclaimed in force 25 July 2007. A colleague (Clare Mauro) and I were visiting the page for something else and noticed this date in red at the top. We did not notice this proclamation date in any recent editions of the Ontario Gazette but may have missed it. If we didn’t miss it, presumably the proclamation may be announced in tomorrow’s Gazette.

As was stated by John Gregory in his 21 October 2006 posting on SLAW:

This is a comprehensive statute on

Friends of yours? Bloggers here at Slaw? Whatever else they may be, these critters are also one of the creations of Levitated. Their full name is combinatoric critters, because they’re composed from a kit of parts that the computer draws on, making critters on the fly. You can play with them in their natural forest habitat, a click on one changing it to a different assemblage of parts. As well, a click on one of the trees gives you — and the critters — a different tree type. The page linked to just above explains all of this in some . . . [more]

The much anticipated Iphone went on sale last week (June 29), south of the 49th (Wikipedia entry). So far, sales have reportedly been solid with 500 000 sold in the first few days. Reviews have been good as well, (more reviews) As for those of us in the Great White North, no date seems to have been given as to when we can anticipate laying out 500 plus dollars, but we know that will be giving this money to Rogers. If you just cannot wait, it seems that several entrepreneurs have cracked the . . . [more]

The Globe and Mail and the Beeb (and others) reported a couple of weeks ago that the French government has ordered its officials not to use BlackBerrys for fear that their communications are insecure. BlackBerry servers are located in the United States and Britain.

Now that RIM can sell in China, I wonder if the Chinese government will be interested. Seems there’s a possibility they’ll manufacture in China and perhaps locate a server or two there… . . . [more]

Every two years a Joint Study Institute is hosted in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or Australia. Details of the 2008 Joint Study Institute, to be hosted in the U.S., have been announced. For more information about the Institute, click on “Read more” in the message below.

American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)
2008 Joint Study Institute: “Harmonization and Confrontation:
Integrating Foreign and International Law into the American Legal System”
Wednesday, June 25 – Saturday, June 28, 2008 Washington, DC.

Sponsored by AALL, the Australian Law Librarians’ Association (ALLA), the British and Irish Association of Law Libraries (BIALL), the Canadian . . . [more]

On Sunday, July 8, Slaw will celebrate its second birthday, so while you’re dozing in the hammock, mowing the lawn, taking the kids swimming, or just chilling, cast a happy thought our way. And, perhaps an eye, too: We’re toddling now, and you’ve got to watch us all the time or who knows what we’ll get into.

And sometime today we published our 2000th post, a month ahead of our 1000th post anniversary. Our membership has grown and strengthened, we’ve kept up the flow, and, I hope, we’ve made ourselves as near to indispensable as a blog might . . . [more]

The European Commission is now providing free access to its Taxes in Europe Database, a handy research tool covering the main taxes in force in the EU Member States. The database will be updated every year. . . . [more]

If you haven’t done so already you might like to check out the British Library’s Turning the Pages feature. This is software that enables you to leaf through old and rare volumes rather as if they were physically in front of you. The Library has just announced that it is licensing the Turning the Pages Toolkit to museums and libraries for no cost.

The user has to download a client application to see the full beauty of the software, only available for Windows Vista, alas. However, a few books can be seen using Shockwave instead, which still gives you a . . . [more]