In einer Pressemitteilung des Bundesministeriums der Justiz (BMJ) ist zu lesen,daß die Vergütungen für Rechtsanwälte, Sachverständige, Dolmetscher und Übersetzer seit rund 10 Jahre unverändert geblieben waren. Mit dem Kostenrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz, das am 1. Juli 2004 in Kraft tritt, werden sie „den allgemeinen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen maßvoll angepasst. Die Erhöhungen haben sich an den Preissteigerungen der vergangenen rund 10 Jahre in Höhe von durchschnittlich ca. 1,4 Prozent pro Jahr orientiert, die nun ausgeglichen werden.“

Bei der Vergütung für Sachverständige, Dolmetscher und Übersetzer wird das nicht mehr zeitgemäße Entschädigungsprinzip abgeschafft. Statt dessen wird die gerichtliche Tätigkeit von Sachverständigen, Dolmetschern und Übersetzern künftig auf der Basis eines leistungsgerechten Vergütungsmodells honoriert werden, das sich am Leitbild des selbstständig und hauptberuflich Tätigen orientiert. Leistungen werden klar definierten Honorargruppen mit festen Stundensätzen zugeordnet, deren Höhe sich deutlich stärker an den auf dem freien Markt üblichen Entgelten orientiert. Streitigkeiten über die konkrete Höhe des Stundensatzes innerhalb des bisher geltenden weiten Rahmens werden damit künftig vermieden.

Na denn…

I read in this morning’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer that a watchdog group sued Attorney General John Ashcroft on Wednesday for classifying previously public documents pertaining to a whistleblower’s claims of security lapses in the FBI’s translator program.

This reminded me of a rather bizarre Senate hearing (thank you, C-Span) with John Ashcroft a couple of weeks back about those memos which allegedly said it was all right to torture prisoners. Here the highlight of that hearing (for all those who thought the Theatre of the Absurd was dead):

SENATOR: Did you ever alert him to the fact that he was outside international law and treaty, as quoted in several reputable papers, when it came to adminstering persuasive measures on POWs, up to and including torture?

ASHCROFT: It would be a breach in public safety to answer that question.

SENATOR: Would be a breach in public safety because the memos are written with an understanding of confidence or because they’re incriminating?

ASHCROFT: Yes.

SENATOR: Yes to what?

ASHCROFT: To the answer of that question. The answer is yes.

“Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they’re fast, funny and totally biased.” (Time article)

I have been so busy with a sudden spike in work and arcane financial aid forms for my daughter’s college that I almost missed the tremors — no, the earthquake which took place in Canadian cyberspace.

CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, has started to enforce the strict Canadian presence requirements for the .ca TLD by pulling the plug on non-Canadian residents’ sites.

Typographi.ca, one of my favorite sites, seems to have fallen victim to this enforcement. On Saturday I read that “Typographi.ca is back online, thanks to Stephen’s Great Aunt in Alberta” — but as of this moment the site remains dark.

To get an idea of the reach of these closures, visit http://www.cadns.ca/cgi-bin/SD.cgi?okr=1. The total stands at 8,774.

I had been visiting my in-laws in Queensland and stayed in Sydney for two more days to see friends. The night before I was to fly back to Hong Kong I sat in my room in the Harbour Rocks Hotel when the phone rang. It was my mother-in-law who strongly urged me not to fly the next day. When I asked her why, she told me about huge demonstrations in Hong Kong and the danger that China might move in any minute and take over the colony. I turned on the TV, and there the whole Tienanmen Square story unfolded. I had to fly back, of course, but since I only changed planes at Kai Tak airport I never saw what was going on outside.

more…

I remember that right after 9/11 we all were asked to remove our shoes when going through airport security. This is no longer the case. Still, some people continue to remove them, and at Kansas City International Airport (MCI), TSA screeners suggest that one might take off one’s shoes and send them through the x-ray machine together with the carry-on luggage. Mind you, they suggest this; it is not required. I never remove my shoes and they never trigger the screening gate metal detector I have to walk through.

Since the beginning of the year, I have been taken aside and searched at MCI security not fewer than four times. This has happened in different terminals and with different airlines. It has also happened without the screening gate metal detector being triggered. So what is going on? What does Kansas City know that security personnel in Miami, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Washington/Dulles doesn’t care about?

First I thought that perhaps I would fit some undisclosed Kansas City profile of a pontential security risk. But more recently I have come around to thinking it might be the shoes. I overheard two security guards whisper to each other “shoes?” — “yes.”

If it is indeed my shoes that cause these searches, wouldn’t you think that the airport should make it mandatory that people take them off? If it is optional, passengers should not be inconvenienced for taking the option not to remove their shoes.

But then again, perhaps my searches were triggered by a completely different factor, like my seat number, the first letter of my last name, etc.