From Rainer Langenhan’s newsletter

Keyword map: enter a word in the lower of the two fields (not ‘web search’) to get a map of associations and combinations of the word. The idea is to help you find other combinations to enter into search engines to find what you’re looking for. Doesn’t handle umlauts.

This site represents the relations between search engines.

Nextlinks at Leipzig University allows you to enter a URL and find similar or related URLs. It’s new, and it concentrates on Germany. – Of course, Leipzig University has a lot more available for terminology work.

The monthly update of the LLRX.com site has just appeared. Entries include:

Karen Lasnick and Julie Weber of Bryan Cave discussing how weblogs were used in their firm.

An update of: European Union Law: An Integrated Guide to Electronic and Print Research
By Marylin J. Raisch

Cindy Carlson on Boolean searching

Handakte WebLAWg links to the latest version of the UK Yearbook (2004) online.

I can remember when this book was only available as an expensive hardback. I remember once or twice buying it, despite the expense, to teach British background studies. The best thing was the maps. Now the whole thing is online. It used to be called Britain Yearbook, now it is UK Yearbook. Here is the best page to see what’s on offer. And here are the colour maps as a PDF file.

I love the way the Commonwealth is coloured green – it was always pink when I was at school.

The German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitution Court) recently decided that a German court could refuse to serve process in an American case where punitive damages were claimed. There was a time when such service was routinely refused in Germany; later, there was a change in the other direction; this present case relates only to a preliminary injunction and its effects are not clear.

There is an article on this subject by Bettina Friedrich in the new edition of the German Law Journal:

bq. … From the perspective of a German-trained attorney (and her clients), the most perplexing elements of American Procedural law are pre-trial discovery, disclosure of documents, written witness-statements followed by cross-examination, class-action suits and punitive damages. … From the perspective of an American-trained attorney, the perplexing element is that German Procedural Law is not familiar with these elements. …

bq. [3] For the German-trained lawyer, the ideas related to these elements often stem from novels like Jonathan Carr’s “A Civil Action,” movies like “The Pelican Brief” and “The Firm,” or Court TV. Their unfamiliarity renders them inherently suspicious. This suspicion influences debates about service of judicial documents and recognition of foreign judgments, particularly when punitive damages are at stake. The inconsistent fear of “Americanization of procedural rules” is used as a “striking argument” in debates related to the (new) Sec. 142 (3) Zivilprozessordnung (German Civil Procedure Code – ZPO). … It is a permanent topic in International Arbitration, particularly in discussions related to the ICC Rules. It is of particular interest if the ICC Rules provide for disclosure of documents in an “American style.”

The German Law Journal has been online for four years now and is still looking for funding so it can remain free of charge. It would also like to introduce a paper edition.

There is an interesting Christmas market in the old town in Fürth, but it hasn’t started yet.

However, the Nuremberg Christkindlsmarkt (Christchild market) did open on Friday. It can be seen here (German and English). It starts with a teenage schoolgirl dressed up as a sort of angel, called the Christkind but rather too old for swaddling clothes, reciting a rather weak speech about the Christmas spirit. (Why not have a boy for once?). She doesn’t have to go to school for the next few weeks but has various official duties. Here is an excerpt in German and translation from the website (translation NOT by me!):

bq. In jedem Jahr, vier Wochen vor der Zeit,
Da man den Christbaum schmückt und sich aufs Feiern freut,
Ersteht auf diesem Platz, der Ahn hat´s schon gekannt,
Was Ihr hier seht, Christkindlesmarkt genannt.

bq. Dies Städtlein in der Stadt, aus Holz und Tuch gemacht,
So flüchtig, wie es scheint, in seiner kurzen Pracht,
Ist doch von Ewigkeit. Mein Markt bleibt immer jung,
Solang es Nürnberg gibt und die Erinnerung.

bq. In every year, four weeks before the time
When Christmas trees we decorate, and everyone awaits the feast,
Here on this square, just as of yore, this market does appear,
Which up and down the country they call Christmas Markt.
This little town is built from wood and canvas
Its splendour’s short, will soon be gone,
But yet it is eternal. My market is forever young,
As long as Nuremberg does exist, as long as you remember it.

The booths sell a restricted range of things: Christmas decorations, prune figures, mulled wine, toys. Apparently in the old days, many other things were sold, such as braces and shoelaces, but these were banned. I wonder if that was in 1933, which is the date when the Christkind’s Prologue and the market as it is today were created – part of the Third Reich propaganda of Nuremberg as the traditional city of German Christmas.

Meanwhile, there is a more everyday Christmas market in Fürth on the Fürther Freiheit. One presumably Christmassy touch is a pen with some sheep. They were soaking wet to the touch but didn’t seem disturbed by it.

At Elektro Götz you can get electric lights for dolls’ houses that really work. I don’t know where you plug them in, though.

Elektro-Götz hat echte Elektro-Lampen für Puppenhäuser, allerdings braucht man noch eine Steckdose dazu.

You can even get a TV, but I have a feeling it doesn’t work.
Der Fernseher funktioniert aber wahrscheinlich nicht.