In a recent speech, the Chief Justice of New South Wales explained why the width of the space shuttle's booster rockets cannot be much bigger than the width of two horse's behinds. JJ Spigelman AC, in the speech to the Law Society of New South Wales, uses two clever technological anecdotes on his way to positing that the legal profession in Australia should put aside state jealousies in favor of the emergence of a national profession. He further discusses the importance of electronic access to the NSW courts provided by CourtLink. Interesting reading.

One year ago today: "I predict that a year from now a lot more government information will be available in rss feeds."

A comfortable prediction, perhaps, but it's nonetheless gratifying to see so much activity surrounding syndication of government information. I continue to author four rss feeds containing updates about West Virginia Supreme Court decisions and rules. The states of Arkansas, Illinois, Texas, Utah, and Virginia now provide government information via RSS. The Canadian government is on board, as are various agencies of our own federal government. The recent RSS Winterfest highlighted some other uses of rss in government and law enforcement.

As syndication of government information expands worldwide, I highly recommend Ray Mathews' weblog: RSS in Government as an excellent resource for tracking the impact of this technology on the free distribution of public information.