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Welcome to Issue #161 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 visit Inter Alia and fill out the subscription form -- it's free!

An Election Weblog worth following
The closer we get to the election, the more we start to see election weblogs appearing all over the Internet. It's nice to see that Technorati is cutting through the noise with Election Watch 2004, featuring continuously updated entries from liberal and conservative election bloggers alike.

Compare health care quality
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Information has launched a new version of Quality Check, a site that lets doctors and consumers compare the quality of medical care at over 16,000 facilities nationwide. You can compare up to 6 organizations at the same time.

News That Comes to You
I never thought I'd say I like a news site as well or better than Google News, but it's true -- Topix.net is a terrific news resource. The folks over at Topix launched a new version of the site this week, with a new front page and a bunch of improved features. Topix crawls over 7,000 news sources (which makes Google's 4,500 pale in comparison), but that's not the best part: you can receive an RSS feed for just about anything on the site, whether it be a specific news topic, keyword search, or even your own zip code. Topix has an aggregated feed for every zip code in the country. If you're not into the RSS thing, Topix will mail you an alert based on your keyword search. Gary Price has more in a review at SearchDay. Topix really has the right idea.

Blawgs of the Week
Time again to review the law-related weblogs I discovered in the past week. First, Bonnie Sucha, a reference librarian at the University of Wisconsin Law Library, is publishing the WisBlawg, which features legal research and Internet news and information, with an emphasis on Wisconsin. Gerry Oginski, a lawyer in Great Neck, New York, is blogging over at New York Medical Malpractice, "for those who are interested in the rights of injured victims." Capital Defense Weekly has been covering capital cases since 1997. True Believer is a blog devoted to the attempt "to bring a little balanced discussion to the national banter surrounding driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs." The site also features McCoy's DUI Encyclopedia, which looks to be an interesting resource. Finally, a group of Puerto Rican lawyers are posting items of interest to the Puerto Rico Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Searching in your own backyard

I need a new suitcase. While I know of a great luggage store on the other side of town, I'd rather find a place closer to home. I just don't know of any luggage stores in the neighborhood. Enter local search, which along with search personalization is the hot new search idea. Google has been doing
local search for awhile, but in my opinion not very well. Not as well, anyway, as Yahoo's Local Search appears to do, from what I have seen. Here's why I like Yahoo's local search better:

When I type in "luggage" and "Dallas, Texas 75229", I get a listing of 32 possible businesses. I can click on a link and see a map of the results, and I can also refine my search to narrow or expand the distance to the business. You can also customize by category, rating (not really up and running yet), price, atmosphere, and other options). When you click on an individual result, you'll see a detailed business listing, another map with that specific location, and an easy way to find ATMs, hotels, parking, public transportation, or restaurants in the area.

Chris Sherman has a lengthier review of the new search over at SearchDay.

Not to be outdone, Ask Jeeves has announced its intention to add local search and new smart search features, which are expected to debut next month.

Help Desk

Tired of Google only showing 10 search results per page? You can change it. Just head over to the Google Preferences Page, and you can raise the count up to 100 results. You can also make the change through the Google Toolbar by clicking the Google Button and choosing Search Preferences Page.

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!

Election Law @ Moritz
The faculty at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University have published an e-book on election law, which forms the cornerstone of Election Law @ Moritz; the site provides information and insight on the laws governing federal, state, and local elections. Looks like good stuff.

Supreme Court Opinions
This page should already be well-known to those who regularly visit the Supreme Court website, but a refresher never hurts. This page provides access to recent opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court, dating back to 2001. You'll also find links to Sliplists, Counsel Listings, and other information about SCOTUS opinions.

Association of American Law Schools
The aim of AALS is "the improvement of the legal profession through legal education." There's not a lot of content here; you probably need to be a member to enjoy the benefits of the organization. But you can learn about the association, faculty recruitment, publications, sections, statistics, as well as upcoming workshops and conferences.

OmniMedicalSearch.com
OmniMedicalSearch.com is a meta-search tool for medical search engines. The site focuses your search on 15 medical search engines; you can also search for recent medical news or images here. A terrific application of the meta-search concept.

The Tax Lawyer
This site is a joint effort by the ABA Section of Taxation and Georgetown University Law School. Articles back to 1998 are available, but you must be a Section member to read them in their entirety. Otherwise, you'll just be able to read the abstracts of the articles. Even if you're not a section member, you can still subscribe to the Tax Lawyer for $84/year.

U.S. Equity Indexes
The Russell Indexes, 21 in all, are subsets of the Russell 3000, which represents 98% of the investable U.S. equity market. Each index will show you different benchmark information about different types of stock.

With all the people starting their own weblogs nowadays, you don't often see that someone is shutting theirs down. But it's true: the CIA has asked President Bush to discontinue his blog.

Those interested in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens will need to keep the following links close at hand:

Well, that’s it for Issue #161 – 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.

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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.