Author archives

Arctic Ocean as a dead end for floating plastics in North Atlantic branch of Thermohaline Circulation

The Arctic Ocean as a dead end for floating plastics in the North Atlantic branch of the Thermohaline Circulation. Science Advances 19 Apr 2017: Vol. 3, no. 4, e1600582. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600582 “The subtropical ocean gyres are recognized as great marine accummulation zones of floating plastic debris; however, the possibility of plastic accumulation at polar latitudes …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Environmental Law

35 Years Of American Death and Patterns of Death in the South in Shadow of Slavery

FiveThirtyEight – 35 Years Of American Death Mortality rates for leading causes of death in every U.S. county from 1980 to 2014: “Researchers have long argued that where we live can help predict how we die. But how much our location affects our health is harder to say, because death certificates, the primary source for …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Government Documents, Health Care

CJPP Launches Criminal Justice Debt Reform Builder

“Criminal justice debt – the result of fees and fines in the criminal justice system – has serious consequences. The Criminal Justice Debt Reform Builder brings transparency to this area of significant legal complexity: it gives easier access to state laws that govern criminal justice debt and suggests policy solutions through the Criminal Justice Policy …

Subjects: Courts, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Paper – Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice

Urban, Jennifer M. and Karaganis, Joe and Schofield, Brianna L., Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice (March 22, 2017). UC Berkeley Public Law Research Paper No. 2755628. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2755628 [via Mary Whisner] “It has been nearly twenty years since section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act established the so-called notice and takedown …

Subjects: Copyright, Legal Research, Libraries

AltGov2 – Trump’s Ambassadors: Financial Disclosures

Trump’s Ambassadors: Financial Disclosures by Russ Kick · April 19, 2017 “Nominees for high-level positions have to file financial disclosures and ethics agreements with the Office of Government Ethics. For some reason, the OGE posts these revealing documents for only the highest-paid officials. Ambassadors don’t earn enough to get posted, so their disclosures have to …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

UAlbany Launches Project to Digitize History of Executions in the United States

“The M. Watt Espy Papers, execution files on more than 15,000 legal executions in the United States since 1608, are getting a digital makeover. Hailed by the New York Times as “America’s foremost death penalty historian,” M. Watt Espy (1933-2009) devoted more than 40 years to cataloging each legal execution since the founding of the …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Legal Research, Libraries

HBR – Using Blockchain to Keep Public Data Public

Harvard Business Review – Data is under attack by Brian Forde is senior lecturer for bitcoin and blockchain at the MIT Sloan School of Management “…The Obama administration drastically increased the openness of government data, codifying it with an executive order that made open, machine-readable data the new default for government information, to ensure that we have transparency …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Climate Change, E-Government, Economy, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

IMF World Economic Outlook April 2017

“World Economic Outlook, April 2017: Gaining Momentum? April 18, 2017: “Global economic activity is picking up with a long-awaited cyclical recovery in investment, manufacturing, and trade, according to Chapter 1 of this World Economic Outlook. World growth is expected to rise from 3.1 percent in 2016 to 3.5 percent in 2017 and 3.6 percent in 2018. Stronger …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

IMF Global Financial Stability Report 2017

“The Global Financial Stability Report – Getting the Policy Mix Right – April 2017 – provides an assessment of the global financial system and markets, and addresses emerging market financing in a global context. It focuses on current market conditions, highlighting systemic issues that could pose a risk to financial stability and sustained market access …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents