Weirdness...

Via boingboing.net comes the story of how the State of Oregon has sent cease-and-desist letters (see here) to folks who have decided to mirror Oregon Revised Statutes (known colloquially as "the law") on other web sites.

The position of the Oregon Legislative Counsel is that, by already having a web site, their public access obligations have been fulfilled. However, there are over half a million HTML errors at the site, which futher does not meet Section 508 accessibility requirements and has no metadata. In related news, the state isn't sending cease-and-desist letters to Thomson West, which has also made a copy of the statues.

Restricting access to the text of the law of a jurisdiction seems a bit beyond the pale to me, and all too widespread. I seem to recall there are government regulations out there - mostly in the area of engineering requirements - that actually require payment of a fee to access such regulations.

And so the road seems opulently paved with good intentions.

Cheers...

Weird Wednesday...

I managed to complete one of two translations today, and recently finished the first pass through a second. Both involve the new project, so my productivity was again on the low side.

Galina's been having a regular parade of contractors through the place to look at the various and sundry jobs that need doing before we leave for Colorado. (I am really not going to be in any mood to leave this house once we finish all the work, because between having developed a fondness for the place, it sure would be nice to actually use some of the improvements that we've arranged for!)

I called the mother-in-law today, in Moscow. She's doing well, but a visit to a doctor a couple of weeks ago revealed a need for hospitalization for the ills of old age that affect her. She says she hopes she can survive until May 20, which is the soonest a hospital stay could be arranged for her.

Cheers...