INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
November 10, 2002
Tom MighellWelcome to Issue #89 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!
If you didn’t visit Inter Alia this week, you missed out on TEN stories you aren’t reading in this issue. That’s TEN potentially very helpful computer or research tips (or fun stuff) for you to use! What are you waiting for?
I'm going out of town next week, so you won't be receiving issues of the newsletter until December 1 -- in the meantime, I'll be posting to Inter Alia before I leave, and maybe while I'm gone...who knows? See you back here on December 1!
And away we go…..
News Update
A Review of Google News
A Chicago Tribune reporter takes Google News out for a test drive.Search Engine Updates
Greg Notess discusses new features at the major search engines in this month's issue of Online Magazine.The quest for the perfect search result
The folks over at Search Engine Watch recently conducted an interesting experiment, by choosing ten web pages submitted by readers as the "perfect search result," and then trying to guess the search query that would make that result make it into the top 10 of the major search engines. Not surprisingly, Google, Yahoo!, MSN Search and AllTheWeb got the best scores.Best sites for business
Time Magazine has a nice listing of the most useful sites for business people who don't have time to search for them on their own.Compare old web pages
Have you used the Wayback Engine yet? If not, what are you waiting for? It's a great way to view old, no-longer-used web pages. Now, you can use a program called DocuComp to instantly identify the differences between any two historical web page versions in the archive. Very cool.Stop spyware in its tracks
I have written before on spyware, that pesky software that Internet marketers want to install on your computer so they can spy on your surfing habits. Law.com provides a nice guide to sites that can help get rid of the nasty pests.
The Business and Politics of Medicine
Now that the dust is settling on the mid-term elections, Congress may finally get around to dealing with healthcare issues like Medicare and prescription drugs (after all that Iraq stuff and homeland security, of course). This week, my friend and law librarian Sharon McClelland offers a selection of links to follow when you want to learn more about what happens when business, politics, and medicine collide.
As you might imagine, there are two major areas where sites on this topic are to be found: the academic world, and the federal government. Let's start with the schools, and the Health Policy Cyber Exchange at Duke University. This site truly provides one-stop shopping for all your health policy information needs. What's What in Health Policy provides links to federal government sites, journals, and state health policy portals, not to mention an alphabetical list of all university-related health policy sites. Other topics include HealthCare System Profiles and Key Health Policy Issue Areas. If you take only one website from this article, make this your site.
Not to be outdone, Georgetown University's Institute for Health Care Research and Policy provides research centers on Aging, Health Insurance, Alcohol Marketing and Youth, and more. The resources are not quite as extensive as Duke's, but the topics are definitely more specialized.
Another nationally recognized university site is University of Houston's Health Law and Policy Institute. In fact, US News and World Report voted this site as the best program in the nation. At the site, scroll down the right side for links to Health Law News, Research, Publications and Conferences, and the Health Pathfinder, which provides even more links to nearly every health issue imaginable. Also available is Health Law Perspectives, featuring current articles such as "Baby Boomers' Impact on Nursing Homes."
On to the government, where of course health law and policy are made. But first another university site, because one of the best places to find links to state and federal health laws is Cornell's Legal Information Institute. Here you can access laws and regulations on public health as well as food and drugs, and the links to State Statutes on Health Law are outstanding, as always. Other federal government sites that include information on health law and policy are the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the National Library of Medicine, and the NationalInstitutes of Health Grants and Contracts.
You can also find a number of organizations on the Internet devoted to health law and policy, including the non-partisan National Academy for State Health Policy. The main page includes topics such as Access for the Uninsured, Children's Health, and Long Term Chronic Care. Within these areas you can find many documents, including Excel spreadsheets on topics like "Medicaid Managed Care Programs Overview" and "State Websites." Try the Find it Fast menu to get quick access to about twenty important health policy topics. The National Conference of State Legislatures: Forum for State Health Policy is designed primarily for legislators, but you non-legislators out there can still find items of value. Under the Contents heading there are links to state health notes, reports, and details about individual state health projects. The News heading contains notices of upcoming events, and the Related Areas pull-down menu takes you to content-rich pages on topics such as Long-Term Care, Health Insurance/Managed Care, and Mental Health/Substance Abuse.
Another great organization on health law is the American Health Lawyers'
Association. As with most of these organizations, the premium services are provided to paying members, but you can still access a lot of information here, including some impressive articles written by AHLA members. You just have to pay a little more than members. There's also a job bank, a listing of health law websites, and a great section of Practice Groups for you to browse. There are a number of e-mail listservs available here on some interesting health law topics; however, I cannot tell if you have to be a member to subscribe.Finally, a big fat health law and policy site. Health Hippo is billed as "a collection of policy and regulatory materials related to health care." Just click on one of the topics (including Advance Directives, Reproductive Rights, Vaccines, Medical Devices, and much more), and you'll get a page chock full of links to laws on the subject, news and reports, cases, bills, and testimony. One problem with Health Hippo is that it has no "About Health Hippo" page, or any indication about the currency of the information provided. Still, there are some terrific resources here.
Interested in health law and policy? Know of site I didn't mention? Drop me a line at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net, and I'll mention it in an upcoming issue!
Help Desk
All of us have programs,documents, websites, and folders that we access frequently, right? How many of you still click your way through folders or sub-folders to get to those oft-used items? Add 'em to your start menu! Just right-click a blank area on your taskbar and select Properties. Click the Start Menu Programs tab (or Advanced for those using Windows2000 or ME), click Add, and either type the location of a file or URL, or browse to locate the item on your hard drive. Click Next and select Start Menu from the Select Program folder. Click Next, type a name for your shortcut, then click Finish and OK. You're done!
Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net – I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!
Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet
Trademark Metasearch
This page is associated with Martin Schwimmer's Trademark Weblog, which I plan on reviewing in an upcoming issue. It deserves its own mention, however, because it allows you to search trademark databases worldwide from one place. Just enter your search term(s), and select the databases you want to search (including U.S.A., Canada, Hungary, Brazil, Finland, United Kingdom, European Community, WIPO, Japan, and France). I keyed in "iPod" and got back a listing of trademark filings for the Apple Computer audio device. Click on "Details" for each filing and get specific information from that particular database. This is a valuable resource if you do frequent international trademark research.National Center for Health Statistics Warehouse
When you think about a warehouse, your mind probably pictures a vast space that stores a lot of stuff. The National Center for Health Statistics warehouse is no different; you'll find a tremendous amount of information and statistics on health issues. There is tabulated data available in tables, graphs and charts, both nationally and for each state. Specific issues include health and aging, mortality, natality, and healthy women. You'll need Excel (and possibly PowerPoint) to view some of the files on this site.Physician.info
All right, so we're heavy on health information this week. Physician.info is a very simple site with a HUGE number of links. Just click on a state where you want to find a doctor, and you'll be taken to a long listing of physician locators, both statewide and national. Because it includes national physician finders, there's a lot of duplication on these pages. But you'll also find a number of local sites worth visiting. Badly designed, but a great idea.SBA Headline News
A part of the Small Business Association, SBA Headline News is just that -- links to press releases of interest to small business owners. You can receive them in HTML, PDF, or plain text. If you have clients who are small business owners, it pays to check a site like this every now and then, so you can pass along the latest. You'll earn more work in the process.Statistics.com
You know, when a site just has one commonly-used word in its URL, that's a pretty big thing on the Internet. To be known as www.statistics.com, you had better be the top dog of statistics websites. It turns out that this site is owned by an....advertising company? To be fair, the owner also owns another company that makes statistical resampling software. But all of the entries here are preceded by advertising. Hmm. Once you get past the ads, you'll find a nice collection of links to statistical data on the Internet, on topics such as agriculture, crime, environment, health, sports, education, military, and more. Statistics.com acts more like a directory of sites, with links to data found on other websites. The information to be found through this site is undeniably useful.
And now for some fun sites:
Call me Koma -- your mindless diversion of the week is learning your Hawaiian name.
As if Forbes Magazine doesn't have enough lists, here's a list of the Forbes Fictional Fifteen, the fifteen richest fictional characters ever. Santa Claus tops the list with $Infinity -- Richie Rich is a distant second at $24.7 billion.
Curling is not a sport that I follow with any regularity -- it appears to be a combination of bowling and shuffleboard, only really, really cold. If you've never played the game before, here's your chance.
Well, that’s it for Issue #89 – I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.
Tom Mighell
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