Friday April 22, 2011 is Earth Day.

This year’s theme is A Billion Acts of Green^®, a “people-powered campaign to generate a billion acts of environmental service and advocacy . . .” in advance of the global Earth Summit in Rio in 2012.  One easy Act of Green you could pledge, adding to the 100,504,172-and-counting Acts already submitted, would be to turn off the library study table lamps and carrel lights whenever you leave.  We will thank you and so will the Earth.

For complete information about Earth Day, visit Earth Day Network.

You can follow the ongoing Kagan confirmation hearing via webcast from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s web page.

You can find same-day hearing transcripts from C-SPAN on the University of Michigan Law Library’s Elena Kagan web page. The Michigan page also includes biographical information about Kagan, links to her authored works, transcripts of speeches and links to her confirmation hearings for her nomination as Solicitor General.

The Law Library of Congress offers a similarly comprehensive web page here.

The full text of Bernie Madoff’s plea allocution, read by him in open court in front of a number of his victims and in which he explains his Ponzi scheme, is available here.

Monday March 16 (James Madison’s birthday) marks the celebration of Freedom of Information Day in the United States.  The day was designated in a 1986 Congressional resolution signed by President Ronald Reagan.  Freedom of Information Day is now part of the related celebration of “Sunshine Week.”  According to sunshineweek.org:

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know. Sunshine Week is led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and is funded primarily by a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami. Though spearheaded by journalists, Sunshine Week is about the public’s right to know what its government is doing, and why. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.

Additional information about Sunshine Week and  Freedom of Information Day is available from the First Amendment Center.

In celebration of Presidents Day, here’s an opportunity to bone up on your store of presidential knowledge (and trivia).  Visit Whitehouse 101, where you will find “facts and fun for all ages.”