The Sixtus.Net blog points out that the abbreviation of ‘Windows Installer XML’ (WiX) sounds a bit rude in German.

I’m glad to know I’m not the only person with a dirty mind.

Die Times Online (Registrierung kostenlos, juristische Themen, dienstags) berichtet über die Methoden des Versorgungsausgleichs in England.

An article in the Times Online (registration free) (‘Never mind that cat, what about the pension?’) on a new pensions advice company set up by lawyers (www.penfam.co.uk).

It succinctly summarizes the methods available now (a few years ago, there was no public discussion of pensions splitting).

bq. Since 1996, through a succession of Acts, the Government reformed this area, bringing in a series of options for sharing pensions. There are now three choices: the husband keeps the pension and the wife is given a lump sum; some of the pension is “ear-marked” for the wife to have when the husband retires; and pension-splitting, which enables the wife to have some of the pension in her own name.

Vabanque is a weblog (in German) on the cultural study of bank robbery.

The last-but-one entry is on Dmitri Todorov, who was in prison for 30 years after the first bank robbery with hostages in Germany. I see there is a TV programme about him tomorrow evening, and there is a 30-minute radio programme from Radio Z to download.

Via plasticthinking, via muepe.de.

I think I’ll have to stop reporting on new German blawgs – they are shooting out of the ground like weeds. Via jurabilis (April 5th) I found Christian Säfken’s weblog (he also has a joint blog called Glücklich Altern, together with a medical doctor, but how old are they, I want to know?), but then I see in Handakte WebLAWg ‘nichts Neues’ – already mentioned on April 3rd (Ätsch! as the Germans say).

At the same time, Rainer Langenhan asks how many German legal weblogs there are. Ralf Zosel replies: 17 at a guess, referring to the list at JuraWiki.

That list directs my attention to m.e.p.Histo-bLog (its web address is inappropriately blog.rechteinfach.de), immateriblog and Die Berliner Sicht der Dinge. However, it includes JurText, which I don’t think is a real blog. And it omits Law-Blog.

LATER NOTE: Rainer Langenhan points to two others:
muepe.de and
ragoertz.blogg.de

At least in England and Wales, more categories of people can now sit on juries.
Joshua Rozenberg, the legal editor of the Daily Telegraph, writes:

bq. Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, all registered electors aged between 18 and 70, except people with a mental illness and those convicted of a criminal offence, must now serve on a jury if summoned.

This means that lawyers (including judges), clergy (including bishops), doctors and peers will be able to sit.

Joshua Rozenberg used to be the BBC’s legal correspondent and wrote a critical assessment of the English legal system, In Search of Justice, in 1994, which I found extremely useful for putting some flesh onto the system when I was teaching English law for translators. He has written a more recent book (March 11th 2004!) called Privacy and the Press, which I don’t know.

(Via UK Criminal Justice Weblog)