The following is a guest post by Francisco Macías, Senior Legal Information Analyst. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,— from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth If you’ve read …
As mentioned in my previous post, during my day-to-day work at my cool job, I never know what I’m going to stumble upon. It so happened that, as I was gathering information for my post on sumptuary laws, I came across a page of ‘legal curiosities’ compiled by the UK’s Law Commission and published by …
The following is a guest post by James Martin, a Collections and Outreach Specialist, in observation of Constitution Day on September 17, 2011. The need for a united policy during the War of Independence led the thirteen states to draft and approve an organic document for a national government. In 1776, the Continental Congress created …
This month marks the ten year anniversary of Italian scholar Barbara Frale’s discovery of lost medieval documents relating to the trial of the Knights Templar. Frale, a scholar of medieval paleography, was doing historical research at the Vatican Secret Archive when she uncovered a fourteenth century manuscript which recounts a previously unknown chapter in the history …
It has been said that “he who controls the definition controls the argument.” It is perhaps for that reason that we strive to find authoritative sources that provide the definitive meaning of a word. In the realm of the Spanish language, it is an accepted practice to consult the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española …
In my previous post, which I wrote as a guest blogger (before I had the privilege of joining the club – AKA the Law Library’s blog team), I spoke about the awesome Law Library of Congress tradition known as Power Lunch. I recently attended a Power Lunch talk on China’s family planning policy (commonly known as …
In a related theme to gruesome, violent ads (commercials) being removed from programming in the UK, as described in my previous blog post, the UK has censored an entire film (movie). The Human Centipede II has failed to get a certification (rating) from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The BBFC is an independent, non-governmental …
In my morning perusal of the newspapers the other week I came across an article saying that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK’s independent regulator for advertising in the media, has banned two film (movie) trailers for the movie The Mechanic, one of which was aired during the show Glee. The ASA has a …
The old Schoolhouse Rock lesson “I’m Just a Bill” provides a quick introduction to the legislative process. However, there is more detailed information available through the Law Library of Congress on the legislative process. There is a Legislative Process page in THOMAS which contains links to very detailed guides: the House of Representatives’ “How Our …