Weekly_May_25.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, May 25, 2005 PT1** *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971****** Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart@pobox.com or gbnewby@pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart@pobox.com Please note that we are still in the process of correcting our statistical program data. Last week we subtracted a few that we thought had been in a duplicate count situation, but either that correction didn't stick or some new similar problem has occured. As always, the total count should be the consideration of some attention as to possibly being off by a few eBooks. Please note that PT2 of this Newsletter is currently in flux, as we shift from to an automated PT2 sender. The situation with Monthly Newsletters is in flux to an even greater degree. Our apologies as we make changes. * HOT REQUESTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS Cellphone as PDA Redux: Following up on several discussions concerning cell phones used as PDAs, eBook readers, etc., it now appears that the major players realized this is the new wave, as more and more of the major players, including Google, have made their services available in cell phone formats. * Wanted: People who are involved in conversations on Slashdot, Salon, etc. * Ipod & IP: A Public Radio Commentary by Bill Hammack This year I joined the iPod generation. Unlike the youth of American mine is filled mostly with public radio - and the occasional Ella Fitzgerald tune. At first I found it great: I mean no moving parts, just this tiny sliver of a thing, so anytime I exercise I can listen on demand to public radio. Then one day it all stopped. You see I purchase some of the public radio shows. And for some reason the IPod software stopped downloading it. Turns out that the permissions got goofed up: IPod thought I was illegally downloading them, which I wasn't. But it got me to thinking is it really a fantastic thing to have all this intellectual property tied up electronically? Sure it seems convenient, but what's the downside? The courts have dealt with this in the past. When VCRs first arrived on the scene Hollywood studios tried to curtail their use by suing the electronics giant Sony, a major manufacturer. The Supreme Court wisely held that individuals had the right to use VCRs to make complete copies of television shows for personal use. Technological advances have made this issue even more acute. If you had a VCR tape of a show, you could make copies, but they were never as good as the original, and further duplication of that copy made even worse copies. Now, of course, the digital revolution has erased the difference: A computer can make a copy identical to the original - plus a billion more! This, of course, has the entertainment industry terrified, especially when combined with the Internet, which provides unlimited distribution of these digital copies. While I understand the fears of the entertainment industry, I hope the courts and legislators continue to resist restricting too much our ability to copy files. When everything turns into electronic form we run the risk that every embodiment of thought or imagination may be subjected to some kind of commercial control. For example, as books become electronic, readers may lose the rights they've had since Gutenberg's time. The publishers of an electronic book can specify whether you can read the book all at once, or only in parts. And they can decide whether you read it once or a hundred times. So, the risk is this: The literary and intellectual canon of the coming century may be locked into a digital vault accessible only to a few. As the Courts and Congress regulate digital copying, I think they should keep in mind an aphorism from T.S. Eliot about literary creativity: "Good poets borrow," he said, "great poets steal." Copyright 2005 William S. Hammack Enterprises Reprinted with Bill's personal permission. * TABLE OF CONTENTS [Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.] *eBook Milestones *Introduction *Hot Requests, New Sites and Announcements *Continuing Requests and Announcements *Progress Report *Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report *Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report *Permanent Requests For Assistance: *Donation Information *Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections *Mirror Site Information *Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks *Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet? *Flashback *Weekly eBook update: This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter Corrections in separate section 3 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 47 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones 16,294 eBooks As Of Today!!! 13,140 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 We Have Produced 1289 eBooks in 2005 We Are ~63% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000 We are ~26% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000 3,706 to go to 20,000!!! We have now averaged ~481 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971 We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Are Averaging About 282 books Per Month This Year We Are Averaging About 68 eBooks Per Week This Year 50 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~1.25 years from Oct. 2003 to Jan. 2005 from 10,000 to 15,000 * ***Introduction [The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments, News, Notes & Queries, and 2. Weekly eBook Update Listing.] [Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us: hart@pobox.com and gbnewby@pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.] This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter *** ***Continuing Requests New Sites and Announcements * Darwin!!! Would anyone like to work on reproofing our Darwin collection and creating a compilation file as requested by our readers. We could also use some help making some new editions of "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" and "Frankenstein." * Project Gutenberg of Canada needs your help! Please email: pgcanada@lists.pglaf.org To subscribe to the pgcanada list, please visit: http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/pgcanada * v0.2 version of PodReader is out, and it interfaces to PG. This allows users to browse the catalog on their Desktop, pick a book, and have it downloaded to their iPod in the correct format...this is a good plus for PG users since it makes it a lot easier to get to PG documents. http://homepage.mac.com/ptwobrussell/podreader.html * We have been invited to peruse the various eBook collections of the Internet Archive for potential Project Gutenberg eBooks. http://www.archive.org Don't worry, many of the numbers listed are out of date, but you should get all the files when you pass through to the original sites. Click on "texts" to get started, feel free to pick up any of the eBooks you would like to work on. Many Thanks To Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive! * REQUEST FOR RUSSIAN TRANSLATOR We are trying to start up a Project Gutenberg Russian Team, and we need someone to translate simple email messages from members of Project Gutenberg who want to provide a service to the Russian Team, but who do not know Russian. . .these people will be helping with scanning, finding books, etc. The messages will be in MS Word's .doc format in Cyrillic, we need them translated into English, also in a .doc file. Thanks!!! Contact Jared Buck <JBuck814366460@aol.com> * Please visit and test our newest site: www.pgcc.net [also available as www.gutenberg.us and www.gutenberg.cc] The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center [PGCC] Please let us know of any eBook collections that would be suitable for inclusion: public domain or copyrighted, for which we must ask permission. [or listed as copyrighted with permission] You should see some significant changes this week. * There is a new experimental online reader available. Start from any bibliographic record page, e.g. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300 Basically this paginates the .txt file and remembers your last position in a cookie so you can later resume reading where you left off. Please test it. It should work with any book that has a text file where the encoding is known. * MACHINE TRANSLATION We are seeking as much information as possible on the various approaches to Machine Translation. Any brand names or contact information would be greatly appreciated. *** Please use our new site for downloading DVD and CD images, etc. http://www.gutenberg.org/cdproject and The PG bittorrent tracker is up and running. Aaron Cannon has placed the CD and DVD there if anyone wants to test. You can access it by visiting http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu:6969 *** Please checkout the various Project Gutenberg FAQs, etc. at: http://www.gutenberg.org/about * We're building a team to read our eBooks into MP3 files for the visually impaired and other audio book users. Let us know if you'd like to join this group. More information at http://www.gutenberg.org/audio *** Project Gutenberg Needs DVD Burners So far we have sent out 15 million eBooks via snailmail!!! We currently have access to a dozen DVD burners. If you have a DVD burner and are interested in lending a hand, please email Aaron Cannon <cannona@fireantproductions.com> We can set you up with images, or snail you these DVDs for you to copy. You can either snail them directly to readers whose addresses we can send you, or you can do a stack of these and send the whole box back for reshipping. We can also reimburse you for supplies and postage if you wish. Please note that we can only use DVDs which are burnt in the dvd-r format, as we have had some compatibility issues with the dvd+r format. *** Project Gutenberg is seeking graphics we can use for our Web pages and publicity materials. If you have original graphics depicting Project Gutenberg themes, please contribute them! To see some of what we have now, please see: ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/images *** PROJECT GUTENBERG IS SEEKING LEGAL BEAGLES Project Gutenberg is seeking (volunteer) lawyers. We have regular need for intellectual property legal advice (both US and international) and other areas. Please email Project Gutenberg's CEO, Greg Newby <gbnewby AT pglaf.org> , if you can help. This is much more important than many of us realize! ***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders In the first 04.75 months of this year, we produced 1338 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to Jan 1998 to produce our first 1338 eBooks! That's 20 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 Years! 50 New eBooks This Week 39 New eBooks Last Week 138 New eBooks This Month [May] ~282 Average Per Month in 2005 336 Average Per Month in 2004 355 Average Per Month in 2003 203 Average Per Month in 2002 103 Average Per Month in 2001 1338 New eBooks in 2005 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 13232 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 52.75 Months! About 250 books per month 16,294 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 12,760 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,534 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 440 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia * PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE: Since starting production in October 2000, Distributed Proofreaders has contributed 6,864 eBooks to Project Gutenberg. For more complete DP statistics, visit: http://www.pgdp.net/c/stats/stats_central.php * Check out our website at www.gutenberg.org, and see below to learn how you can get INSTANT access to our eBooks via FTP servers even before the new eBooks listed below appear in our catalog. eBooks are posted throughout the week. You can even get daily lists. Info on subscribing to daily, weekly, monthly Newsletters, listservs: http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/subscribe-howto or http://www.gutenberg.org/subs.shtml *** *Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report Please note the addition of the Internet Archive marked with <<< below. PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as: Alex-Wire Tap Collection, 2,036 HTML eBook Files Black Mask Collection, 12,000 HTML eBook Files The Coradella Bookshelf Collection, 141 eBook Files DjVu Collection, 272 PDF and DJVU eBook Files eBooks@Adelaide Collection, 27,709 eBook Files Himalayan Academy, 3,400 HTML eBook Files Internet Archive ~30,000 eBook Files [In Progress] <<< Literal Systems Collection, 68 MP3 eBook Files Logos Group Collection, ~34,000 TXT eBook Files Poet's Corner Poetry Collection, 6,700 Poetry Files Project Gutenberg Collection, 15,035 eBook Files PGCC Chinese eBook Collection ~300 eBook files <<< Note Name Change Renaisscance Editions Collection, 561 HTML eBook Files Swami Center Collection, 78 HTML eBook Files Tony Kline Collection, 223 HTML eBook Files Widger Library, 2,600 HTML eBook Files CIA's Electronic Reading Room, 2,019 Reference Files =======Grand Total Files=========~137,142 Total Files===== Average Size of the Collections 8,067.18 Total Files These eBooks are catalogued as per the instructions of their donors: some are one file per book; some have a file for each chapter; and some even have a file for a single page or poem. . .or are overcounted for reasons I have not mentioned. . .each of which could cause the overcounting or duplication of numbers. If we presume 2 out of 3 of these files are overcounts, that leaves a unique book total of ~45,714 Unique eBooks If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts, that leaves a unique book total of ~34,286 Unique eBooks *** Please also note that over 23,000 eBooks are listed via The Online Books Page, of which over 5,300 are from PG. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar listing which is now in limbo. If anyone knows what is happening with the IPL, please let us know. Inquiries, made months ago, and again recently, have not turned up any current information. You can try a new IPL service at: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.60.00/ It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page. Still looking for more Internet Public Library info. *** Today Is Day #140 of 2005 This Completes Week #20 and Month #04.75 [364 days this year] 224 Days/34 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 3,706 Books To Go To #20,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 67 Weekly Average in 2005 78 Weekly Average in 2004 79 Weekly Average in 2003 47 Weekly Average in 2002 24 Weekly Average in 2001 41 Only 41 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list [Used to be well over 100] *** Permanent Requests For Assistance: DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS NEEDS CONTENT, PROOFERS AND SCANNER TYPES Please visit the site: http://www.pgdp.net for more information about how you can help a lot by simply proofreading just a few pages per day, or more. If you have a book that has been scanned, but not yet run through OCR (optical character recognition) or proofed, and you would like the Distributed Proofreaders to work on it, please email dphelp@pgdp.net and we will get things started. Also, DP is seeking public domain books not already in the Project Gutenberg collection. To see what is already online, visit http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/GUTINDEX.ALL (a text file) listing Project Gutenberg eBooks and is available for downloading. Do you have Public Domain books you would like to see in the archive? Can they be destructively scanned? If so send them to the Distributed Proofreading Team! Please email dphelp@pgdp.net with your geographic location. You will be given the address of the nearest high-speed scanner. [Note that the high-speed scanner requires destruction of the book(s) which will not be returned.] We have high-speed scanners currently located in the east, west and central portions of the US to make shipping easier. Please make sure that any books you send are _not_ already in the archive and please check them against David's "In Progress" list at: http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html to ensure no one is currently working on them. It would also be helpful if you obtain copyright clearance before mailing the books, and send the 'OK' lines to dphelp@pgdp.net Do you like to work on an entire book at once but don't have the time or technology to do the scanning, OCR, and initial proofing yourself? Distributed Proofreaders has the perfect solution! Just send us email telling us that you are interested in post-processing and we will help find a project you would like to work on. Please contact us at: dphelp@pgdp.net if you would like to know more about the Distributed Proofreaders. ***Donation Information We Have Included Quick and Easy Ways to Donate. . .As Per Your Requests! We Are Looking For Volunteers To Add eBooks In More Languages, as well as in more formats, including music, artwork, movies, etc. *** QUICK WAYS TO MAKE A DONATION TO PROJECT GUTENBERG A. Send a check or money order to: Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation 809 North 1500 West Salt Lake City, UT 84116 USA B. Donate by credit card online: NetworkForGood: http://www.guidestar.org/partners/networkforgood/donate.jsp?ein=64-6221541 or PayPal to "donate@gutenberg.org": http://www.paypal.com /xclick/business=donate%40gutenberg.org&item_name=Donate+to+Gutenberg Project Gutenberg's success is due to the hard work of thousands of volunteers over more than 33 years. Your donations make it possible to support these volunteers, and pay our few employees to continue the creation of free electronic texts. We accept credit cards, checks and transfers from any country, in any currency. Donations are made to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (PGLAF). PGLAF is approved as a charitable 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal Revenue Service, and has the Federal Employee Information Number (EIN) 64-6221541. For more information, including several other ways to donate, go to http://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html or email donate@gutenberg.org *Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections *Mirror Site Information Mirrors (copies) of the complete collection are available around the world. To find the sites nearest you, go to: http://www.gutenberg.org/MIRRORS.ALL *Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks http://www.gutenberg.org/find allows searching by title, author, language and subject. Use your Web browser or FTP program to visit our master download site (or a mirror) if you know the file's name you want. Try: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs or ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/ and then navigate to the appropriate directory and look for the first five characters of the file's name. Note that updated eBooks usually go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.) *** Statistical Review In the 20 weeks of this year, we have produced 1338 new eBooks. It took us from 7/71 to 2/98 to produce our FIRST 1338 eBooks!!! That's 20 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #1289 Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ### A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright [Note: books without month and year entries have been reposted] The Country Doctor, by Honore de Balzac 1350 Jun 1998 Russia, by Donald Mackenzie Wallace [rsdmwxxx.xxx] 1349 Jun 1998 A Master's Degree, by Margaret Hill McCarter [amsdgxxx.xxx] 1348 Jun 1998 A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson, by Edouard le Roy[anphbxxx.xxx] 1347 Jun 1998 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx [mar18xxx.xxx] 1346 Jun 1998 The Vicar of Tours, by Honore de Balzac[Balzac#16][vcrtrxxx.xxx] 1345 Jun 1998 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan, Balzac [#15][sdpdcxxx.xxx] 1344 Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac [Tr.: Katharine Prescott Wormeley] 1343 Jun 1998 Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen [Austen #8][pandpxxx.xxx] 1342 Jun 1998 The Altruist in Politics, by Benjamin Cardozo [ltpltxxx.xxx] 1341 Jun 1998 Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume I [1aadwxxx.xxx] 1340 Jun 1998 Salome,by Oscar Wilde[No Accents][Oscar Wilde #21][salmexxx.xxx] 1339 [Language: French] Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde 1338 Jun 1998 Shelley, by Sydney Waterlow [Percy Bysshe Shelley][wshlyxxx.xxx] 1337 Shelley, by Francis Thompson 1336 The Ancien Regime, by Charles Kingsley 1335 Jun 1998 Paul Kelver by Jerome K. Jerome [JeromeKJerome#13][pklvrxxx.xxx] 1334 Jun 1998 R F Murray: His Poems with a Memoir by Andrew Lang[rfmurxxx.xxx] 1333 May 1998 Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie 3[ppikgxxx.xxx] 1332 May 1998 ABC's of Science, by Charles Oliver [abcosxxx.xxx] 1331 May 1998 The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman[samboxxx.xxx] 1330 [Also contains: The Story of Little Black Mingo] * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet??? With 16,294 eBooks online as of May 25, 2005 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.95 from each book. 1% of the world population is 64,436,750 x 16,294 x $.95 = ~$1 trillion] [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] With 16,294 eBooks online as of May 25, 2005 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.61 from each book, This "cost" is down from about $.78 when we had 12,760 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 16,294 eBooks in 33 Years and 10.75 Months We Averaged ~481 Per Year 40.1 Per Month 1.32 Per Day At 1338 eBooks Done In The 140 Days Of 2005 We Averaged 10 Per Day 67 Per Week 282 Per Month The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks' production; each production-week starts/ends Wednesday noon, starts with the first Wednesday of January. January 5th was the first Wednesday of 2005, and thus ended PG's production year of 2004 and began the production year of 2005 at noon. This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week. *** *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] DATABASES GO PORTABLE As handheld computing devices become increasingly common, organizations that maintain a variety of databases are modifying their content to allow for easy access by handheld devices. Chemical Abstracts Service, which is a division of the American Chemical Society, is finalizing a "mobile" version of a database that contains data on roughly 25 million molecules, allowing users of handheld devices to access molecular weights, boiling points, and other information in a format designed for portable devices. The final database will be available to the public later this year. Medical sciences already have a broad range of databases designed for handhelds, and many librarians see the trend continuing for other fields. As for the upcoming chemistry database, reactions are mixed, even at single institutions. At Yale University, David Austin, associate professor of chemistry, said the database will be extremely valuable, whereas Glenn Micalizio, assistant professor of organic chemistry, said he sees little value in it, given widespread access to laptops and desktops. Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 May 2005 (sub. req'd) STUDENTS SHOW EASE OF IDENTITY THEFT Graduate students at Johns Hopkins University set out to see how much personal information they could collect on as many individuals as possible, using only the Internet and $50. The 41 students were in a course taught by Aviel D. Rubin, professor of computer science and technical director of the university's Information Security Institute, who divided them into groups of three or four and instructed them to use only legal, public sources of information. The exercise mimicked the activities of data brokers, such as ChoicePoint and LexisNexis, and the students were able to collect and aggregate vast amounts of information, even with limited time and budgets. Although Rubin was pleased that fewer Social Security numbers were among the data collected than he had anticipated, privacy advocates insisted that such information remains easy to obtain, posing enormous risk of identity theft. Even without Social Security numbers, the data collected represented for some individuals a very broad picture of who they are, where they live, and activities in which they participate. Such access to personal information worries many, including Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who conducted a similar experiment, instructing his staff to try to steal his identity. Aside from information they discovered about Stevens, they were told they could buy his Social Security number for $65. New York Times, 18 May 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/technology/18data.html You have been reading excerpts from Edupage: If you have questions or comments about Edupage, send e-mail to: edupage@educause.edu To SUBSCRIBE to Edupage, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU and in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName or To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 *** *HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA Libraries are beginning to require fingerprint identification to insure patrons actually match the library cards they have, and so parents can censor the items checked out by children, and can regulate their Internet access. Current example: Naperville, Illinois. * The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Mexican Jose Medellin, an inmate of Texas' death row, has been illegally held for years without access to a proper defense or to the Mexican Consulate. In addition, it would appear the defense lawyer assigned to him had already been suspended. * The list of billion dollar companies defaulting on their pensions plans is enormous, including Bethelhem Steel, National Steel, Polaroid, Kaiser Aluminum, US Airways, etc. Billion dollar insolvencies since 1990: Bethlehem Steel, LTV, Wheeling-Pittsburgh, Metals USA, McLoedUSA, Global Crossing, Winstar, Covad Communications, 360networks, ICG Communications, PSINet, Exodus Communications, Lernout & Hauspie & Dictaphone, Safety-Kleen, Laidlaw, The IT Group, Enron Corp., Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Reliance Group Holdings & Reliance Financial, NationsRent, ANC Rental, Burlington Industries, Chiquita Brands, Polaroid Corporation, Hayes Lemmerz, Federal-Mogul, W.R. Grace & Co., Owens Corning, Armstrong World Industries, USG Corporation, Lodgian, The FINOVA Group, Inc., Comdisco, Fruit of the Loom, Pillowtex, Warnaco, Kmart Corp., Ames Department Stores, Service Merchandise, Bridge Information Services, Imperial Sugar, The Loewen Group International, Inc., Vlasic Foods, AMF Bowling, Harnischfeger Industries, Inc., Vencor, Inc., Sun Healthcare Group, Inc., Mariner Post-Acute & Mariner Health, Genesis Health & Multicare, and Integrated Health Services. *STRANGE WORDS OF THE WEEK "Monopolies are a terrible thing, unless you have one" Rupert Murdoch, major media player. "There exists in America a control of news and of current comment more than any monopoly in industry." "Beware of the military-industrial-Congressional complex." U.S. President Eisenhower [as related by Daniel Ellsberg] "Bribes were tax deductible in Europe until a few years ago." James Wolfensohn, outgoing President of the World Bank, being replaced by Paul Wolfowitz, Iraq War architect. DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK The White House is chastising Newsweek both for not fact checking to a greater level of accuracy initially, then for not making an earlier public retraction and apology for the article concerning flushing the Koran down the toilet. This is in just about an identical manner as worldwide pressures were brought upon The White House for never going through the process of initially checking their facts on presumed weapons of mass destruction and not making an earlier public apology and a retraction of the U.S. incursion into Iraq based on the alleged presence of WMDs. *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK The media continue to be gobbled up by "Merger Mania." Ever wonder why so much of North American media content looks as if it were all written by clones? There are ~1,800 newspapers, ~11,000 magazines, ~11,000 radio stations, ~2,000 TV stations and ~3,000+ book publishers in the United States: Companies owning a controlling interest in the major players: 50 in 1984 26 in 1987 10 in 1996 6 in 2002 Today about 90% of the media voices have been silenced by takeovers, just compared to the number we had 20 years ago. . . . Source: NOW with Bill Moyers. Politics & Economy. Massive Media | PBS * You know that clean fresh air smell you get when you hang laundry out to dry on a beautiful day? Sooner than you think it will be illegal for you to get that smell directly, you'll have to get it from a box of Tide, Cheer, All, etc. . .as it will be illegal for most Americans to hang laundry out to dry. *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK 23 of President Clinton's Circuit Court judge nominations were kept from an up or down vote by the Republicans in his administration, plus the nomination of Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court was blocked, and it was no big item in the news. 6 of President Bush's nominations have been similarly blocked, and it is the biggest political football in America today. 98% of President Bush's nominations have been approved. * There are more "Paycheck Loan" businesses in the U.S. than McDonald's. Some victims of these services have paid over $10,000 on ~$2,500 loans. However, the new bankruptcy laws encourage even more of these. * "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south 8 Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male 70 would be non-white 30 would be white 70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States 80 would live in substandard housing 70 would be unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education 1 would own a computer I would like to bring some of these figures more up to date, as obviously if only 1% of 6 billion people owned a computer then there would be only 60 million people in the world who owned a computer, yet we hear that 3/4 + of the United States households have computers, out of over 100 million households. Thus obviously that is over 1% of the world population, just in the United States. I just called our local reference librarian and got the number of US households from the 2004-5 U.S. Statistical Abstract at: 111,278,000 as per data from 2003 U.S Census Bureau reports. If we presume the saturation level of U.S. computer households is now around 6/7, or 86%, that is a total of 95.4 million, and that's counting just one computer per household, and not counting households with more than one, schools, businesses, etc. I also found some figures that might challenge the literacy rate given above, and would like some help researching these and other such figures, if anyone is interested. BTW, while I was doing this research, I came across a statistic that said only 10% of the world's population is 60+ years old. This means that basically 90% of the world's population would never benefit from Social Security, even if the wealthy nations offered it to them free of charge. Then I realized that the US population has the same kind of age disparity, in which the rich live so much longer than the poor, the whites live so much longer than the non-whites. Thus Social Security is paid by all, but is distributed more to the upper class whites, not just because they can receive more per year, but because they will live more years to receive Social Security. The average poor non-white may never receive a dime of Social Security, no matter how much they pay in. *** *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists For more information about the Project Gutenberg's mailing lists, including the Project Gutenberg Weekly and Monthly Newsletters: and the other Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists: The weekly is sent on Wednesdays, and the monthly is sent on the first Wednesday of the month. To subscribe to any (or to unsubscribe or adjust your subscription preferences), visit the Project Gutenberg mailing list server: http://lists.pglaf.org If you are having trouble with your subscription, please email the list's human administrators at: help@pglaf.org