The Arcata Eye site is apparently well-known on the Internet, so I am late finding it. It describes itself as ‘America’s most popular small-town newspaper’ and has a section called Police Log. I suppose this is fictitious, but it’s a very good read. Here’s an example:

bq. Monday, July 28 12:29 a.m. 12:08 p.m. Baby birds were reported stuck to the the wall of a trailer park recreation hall. A woman said management wouldn’t let her children rescue the birds. An officer arrived, collected the birdies and turned them over to wildlife rescue personnel.
12:11 p.m. A woman reported an ex-roommate ordering magazine subscriptions in her name. …

bq. 10:06 p.m. Got a pair of rottweilers? Be sure and lock them in a camper shell on 10th Street so they can explode at people who walk past.

bq. Tuesday, July 29 2:45 a.m. A vehicle sat defunct in the westbound lane of 17th Street. The driver told an officer it was out of gas and was waiting for someone to bring him some. It’s fair to surmise that planning may not be the guy’s strong suit, since he hadn’t registered the gasless vehicle since 1999. It was towed; he was cited.

I found this when following up a reference by languagehat, who is an editor, to the weblog of another editor, Theresa Nielsen Hayden, Making Light, because in the comments to her entry By my ear and hand
there was a wonderful sentence illustrating the need for the serial comma or Oxford comma, which I can’t resist quoting:

bq. Planet Ustinov – Monday, C4, 8pm
By train, plane and sedan chair, Peter Ustinov retraces a journey made by Mark Twain a century ago. The highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.

And Theresa has a link to the Arcata police log.

The German language service of the Swiss Federal Chancellery publishes details of books, articles, conferences, judgments etc. on language and law in Switzerland and elsewhere. The details are in German, and you have to register (no charge). Every few months they send an email indicating there has been an update. They are responsible for translation too. DORES gives details, for example, of

bq. Dingwall, Silvia: English in Switzerland – is it legal? In: Murray, Heather (Hg.): anglais, Englisch, inglese, Englais, … English! (= Bulletin VALS/ASLA 77). Neuchâtel: Institut de linguistique 2003, 165 S..
and of

bq. Cotterill, Janet (Hrsg.) : Language in the Legal Process. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2002, 296 S..
(Aus der Linguist-List 13.3371, Dez. 2002)Linguists and lawyers from a range of countries and legal systems explore the language of the law and its participants, beginning with the role of the forensic linguist in legal proceedings, either as expert witness or in legal language reform. Subsequent chapters analyze different aspects of language and interaction in the chain of events from a police emergency call through the police interview context and into the courtroom, as well as appeal court and alternative routes to justice.

and of

bq. Jowett, Ben: Workbook for Lawyers using English as a Foreign Language. Zürich: Schulthess 2003, 74 S..

Here is another description of the latter, at Schulthess.

The Wired Interpreter’s Page is the site of a professional conference interpreter turned IT consultant, subtitled ‘A website for conference interpreters and other language professionals’. It links to Vincent’s Glossblog, ‘Blogging the Web’s flotsam and jetsam on language’, which alas hasn’t been updated for a year, but there are good links. (Thanks to Alison Penfold).

Legal translators nowadays often encounter cross-border leasing schemes. There is an article in German about cross-border leasing at LEGAMedia. Duefinance in Düsseldorf has English materials on cross-border leasing and other German financial matters. They also have a German site. The Guardian had an article about the problems of the procedure. German and U.S. law see the transaction differently, but the U.S. permits it. But what if the U.S. stopped permitting it? Fürth withdrew from a projected scheme last year after Bavarian legislation banned it.

For those who are irritated by the public confusion between interpreters and translators (numerous ‘translators’ who were really interpreters have been killed in Iraq), here is a picture from Lower Saxony – text in German – showing two ‘translators’ sitting in a booth. An overall term in East Germany was Sprachmittler (language mediators), and some academic tomes in West Germany use the term ‘der Translator’ for both. I’m not sure what the English term for both is.

A Google image search for translator is quite amusing. There are a few ‘translators’ in booths there, but they’re outnumbered by handheld devices. This picture of ‘our new translator’ is my favourite. But the mad translator (Kenneth Kronenberg, of the New England Translators Association) looks more like my everyday life.

The BKA is looking for translators – more details on their website (in German – from William J. Hadfield-Burhardt on CompuServe). These are fixed-term jobs, not very well-paid (BAT IVa), requiring two languages in addition to German, and translating in both directions. I think it’s relevant to mention it, though. Deadline is 29th August and they want a passport photo, but it doesn’t say copies have to be certified. They would prefer three native speakers of English and one each of French and Spanish.

ADDED LATER: William says the deadline is going to be extended – I wonder why?