Weekly_June_01.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, June 1, 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 1 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 68 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones 16,363 eBooks As Of Today!!! 13,301 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 We Have Produced 1407 eBooks in 2005 We Are ~64% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000 We are ~27% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000 3,637 to go to 20,000!!! We have now averaged ~482 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 67 eBooks Per Week This Year 69 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. 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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 05.00 months of this year, we produced 1407 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to Aug 1998 to produce our first 1407 eBooks! That's 21 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 Years! 69 New eBooks This Week 50 New eBooks Last Week 207 New eBooks This Month [May] ~281 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 1407 New eBooks in 2005 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 13301 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 53.00 Months! About 250 books per month 16,363 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 12,808 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,555 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 441 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. Sorry, the site seems to be down for an upgrage at the moment: "Username for 'DP is unavailable for a Site Upgrade' at server 'www.pgdp.net' " 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 #147 of 2005 This Completes Week #21 and Month #05.05 [364 days this year] 217 Days/34 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 3,637 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. 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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 21 weeks of this year, we have produced 1407 new eBooks. It took us from 7/71 to 2/98 to produce our FIRST 1407 eBooks!!! That's 21 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #1407 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] Aug 1998 El Verdugo, by Honore de Balzac [de Balzac #30][vrdugxxx.xxx] 1425 Aug 1998 Castle Rackrent, by Maria Edgeworth [Edgeworth #1][rkrntxxx.xxx] 1424 No Thoroughfare, by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins 1423 Going into Society, by Charles Dickens 1422 Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy, by Charles Dickens 1421 Aug 1998 London's Underworld, by Thomas Holmes [lndwdxxx.xxx] 1420 Mugby Junction, by Charles Dickens 1419 Aug 1998 Country Sentiment, by Robert Graves [csentxxx.xxx] 1418 Aug 1998 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac [Balzac #29][ssoilxxx.xxx] 1417 Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, by Charles Dickens 1416 Doctor Marigold, by Charles Dickens 1415 Somebody's Luggage, by Charles Dickens 1414 Tom Tiddler's Ground, by Charles Dickens 1413 Aug 1998 Masterman Ready, by Captain Marryat [Marryat #1][mmrdyxxx.xxx] 1412 Domestic Peace, by Honore de Balzac [Tr.: Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell] 1411 The Commission in Lunacy, by Honore de Balzac [Tr.: Clara Bell] 1410 Aug 1998 The Soul of the Far East, by Percival Lowell [#1][sofrexxx.xxx] 1409 Aug 1998 The Natural History of Selborne, by Gilbert White [tnhosxxx.xxx] 1408 A Message from the Sea, by Charles Dickens 1407 The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, by Charles Dickens 1406 The Collection of Antiquities, by Honore de Balzac [Tr.: Ellen Marriage] 1405 Jul 1998 The Federalist Papers, by Hamilton, Jay & Madison [federxxa.xxx] 1404 Jul 1998 A Start in Life, by Honore de Balzac [Balzac #25][stlifxxx.xxx] 1403 Jul 1998 Where the Blue Begins, by Christopher Morley [wtbbgxxx.xxx] 1402 Jul 1998 Tarzan the Untamed, Edgar R. Burroughs [Tarzan #7][tarz7xxx.xxx] 1401 [Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs] Jul 1998 Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens[Dickens#38][grexpxxx.xxx] 1400 (Alt. version, ostensibly from 1867 Edition:) [grexpxxa.xxx] Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy 1399 (Author note: sometimes spelled Tolstoi) Jul 1998 Dore Lectures on Mental Science, by Thomas Troward[dorelxxx.xxx] 1398 Jul 1998 The Ruins by C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney[ruinsxxx.xxx] 1397 Jul 1998 Rienzi, last of the Roman Tribunes, by E. B.Lytton[rienzxxx.xxx] 1396 Letters on Literature, by Andrew Lang 1395 The Holly-Tree, by Charles Dickens 1394 Jul 1998 Amours de Voyage, by Arthur Hugh Clough [mrvygxxx.xxx] 1393 The Seven Poor Travellers, by Charles Dickens 1392 * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet??? With 16,363 eBooks online as of June 01, 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 64,451,036 x 16,363 x $.95 = ~$1 trillion] [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] With 16,363 eBooks online as of June 01, 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 12,808 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 16,363 eBooks in 33 Years and 11.00 Months We Averaged ~482 Per Year 40.2 Per Month 1.32 Per Day At 1407 eBooks Done In The 147 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) SPREADING SPYWARE THROUGH AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM A business based in Russia is adopting the affiliate-program approach to spreading spyware around the globe. Called iframeDOLLARS, the company is offering Web site operators 6.1 cents for every computer on which the Web site installs code that exploits vulnerabilities in Windows and Internet Explorer. Microsoft has issued patches for the weaknesses, but unpatched computers remain at risk. The malicious code includes backdoors, Trojans, spyware, and adware. Operators of the iframeDOLLARS site claim to have paid out nearly $12,000 last week alone, which would translate to nearly 200,000 infected computers. Although spyware expert Richard Stiennon called the tactic "brazen" and said iframeDOLLARS might be making quite a bit of money from its scheme, Dan Hubbard, the head of security at Websense, gave iframeDOLLARS less credit. He noted that the company has been around for a while, trying various methods to install malicious code, and he said a number of others have tried similar affiliate programs to accomplish the same thing. TechWeb, 24 May 2005 http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/163700705 HOUSE TAKES TWO STEPS AGAINST SPYWARE The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed two separate bills this week designed to address the growing problem of spyware. HR 29, introduced by Mary Bono (R-Calif.), would impose stiff fines on anyone found guilty of distributing computer code that results in browser hijacking, modifying bookmarks, collecting personal information without permission, and disabling security mechanisms. Violators can be fined as much as $3 million per incident. One of only four Representatives who voted against Bono's bill, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) had introduced another bill, HR 744, that also prohibits installing spyware. Lofgren's bill, which passed 395 to 1, would impose fines and jail time to anyone found guilty. Both bills now go to the Senate, which failed to act on a spyware bill sent by the House last year. Senators have said they will not allow a similar situation this year. CNET, 23 May 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5717658.html FBI TRIES AGAIN TO REPLACE COMPUTER SYSTEMS After spending several years and $170 million on a failed computer system, the FBI said it now has a new system in the works, the first part of which will be operational by the end of 2006. After September 11, 2001, federal officials identified a need for a computer system that would allow various agencies to share information efficiently to help prevent similar attacks in the future. The FBI's Virtual Case File, designed to meet that need, was riddled with problems and ultimately was not viable. At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee meeting, FBI Director Robert Mueller conceded that Virtual Case File would not be implemented and expressed his regret that so much time and money were wasted on it. The new electronic information management system will be called Sentinel. Reuters, 24 May 2005 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8593132 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 Just one note at the moment concerning the revelation of Mark Felt, Deputy Director of the FBI being the "Deep Throat" source of great amounts of information and leads for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they created what may have been the biggest news story in over a century, covering the Watergate break-in of the offices of the Democratic National Committee as part of the "dirty tricks" of the 1972 presidential campaign. Obviously there have been many references to the movie made from Woodward and Bernstein's book "All The President's Men," starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, and, no doubt, many of these have now been checked out from libraries, rented from Blockbuster, or gleaned from other sources. However, there is another movie, also starring Robert Redford, "Three Days of the Condor," in which Cliff Robertson plays the FBI Deputy Director in more detail than is presented in "All The President's Men," and also presages to an alarming degree the plans for destabilization and invasion of the Middle East countries in a remarkable prediction of the Gulf Wars. * Speaking of the FBI: Before 9/11 the FBI was about 4% military people. After 9/11 the FBI has recruited over 50% from military people. * Dick Cheney was the Auburn's commencement speaker last weekend when he told them he dropped out of Yale. That means three out of the four major candidates of the last elections were chosen by Yale, and weren't both presidential candiates from Yale's most secret society, Skull and Bones? * An unnamed 11-year-old boy at Rawlinson Road Middle School in Rock Hill, S.C., was stopped by Assistant Principal Dianne McCray, who asked what was jingling in his pocket. He handed over ten 3.5" nails, left over from a Boy Scout trip. The administrator turned the boy over to the school police officer, who arrested the boy for possession of "weapons" at school. "Is a pencil a weapon?" demanded the boy's father. Apparently so: state law says anything "that can be construed or used as a weapon on school grounds can be classified as unlawful," says a police spokesman. (Rock Hill Herald) * Meanwhile in California, The Governator seemed to have picked up $2 billion budget dollars from various sources, a privitization move similar to those of Bush or United Airlines of recent days. However, quick response time by those affected seems to have had some powerful results and The Governator has rescinded his plan, but is expected to resubmit it in other guises in the future. Fights over a wide variety of pension plans have now spilled out into other states as it appears to be open season on what is now being called "Economic Warfare" or "Class Warfare" as goverments target the working class pension plans, etc. * In local news, one of our high schools was recently the scene of massive aggravation on the part of hundreds of parents who would have liked to have seen their children graduate. Initially it was said that there weren't enough seats for all of the parents and family members who showed up, and thus the doors were closed on hundreds of people who showed up at the very last minute [some argument about if they were actually late, and some were let in who were already in line at the last minute; however there were still hundreds left outside]. After some deep research and investigation it was finally out in the open that there actually were enough seats for everyone in a space that had room for well over 2,000, and apparently the only people who were trying to get in totalled well under 2,000. The real question thus became whether those closing the door had some ulterior motive, perhaps just overzealous use of power some had over the event, or perhaps other reasons still hidden. At any rate, at least one person who managed to get through then was maced when the doorkeepers called the police, and when being maced wasn't enough to drive them away from the graduation, then the person was tasered. It just makes you wonder. . . . *STRANGE WORDS OF THE WEEK "But the pension fund was just sitting there!" Highly predictive Doonesbury title from Gary Trudeau, on April Fool's Day, 1979. DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK Privatizing the pension funds will do much more good than harm. "Countries are not coerced into privatizing their national enterprises.... It does more good than harm." *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK A few years from now all this news will turn out to be simple politicking, and will appear much more obvious when termed as "class warfare." *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK Add another log to the billion dollar scandal fire, as AIG has admitted that it cooked the books in various ways to make it appear as if AIG is worth $4 billion more than it actually is with an apparent loss of even $2 billion more in real terms as things start to fall apart. * In related news, it appears that Andersen Inc's conviction concerning their role in the multi-billion dollar Enron scandal was not kosher, as it seems some questionable jury instructions may have been given. Will the entire trial have to take place again with a new jury with better instructions? * "Put The Bad News Out With The Trash" Trash Day in Washington, D.C. By the way, are you aware that goverment agencies have a statistical bias towards giving reports that are favorable to them early in the week, when it can get the widest possible coverage in the current "news cycle," and only giving out the news that reflects badly on them late in the week, when it can get only the narrowest possible coverage? A recent example was the FDA report that many more drugs were recalled, which was held up for 5 days until it landed at 6:00 PM Friday evening, just before the Memorial Day weekend, where it was buried along with an assortment of other "trash," rather than getting the full news cycle. If you really want to see what the goverment is hiding from you, watch and listen to the Friday and weekend news, these stories will usually be quite passe by Monday, at least that's what they are hoping. Also watch and listen to news from other countries when possible, or you may never see how the world is reacting to your own nation's politics. * The malpractice premiums paid by hospitals doubled in 2002, and appears to have doubled yet again since then, however, the rate of payouts from these funds only increased by 12% in 2002, when 63.2% of premiums were paid out to cover malpractice claims. The premiums for individual doctors is also rising, but half as quickly. What is not made obvious in these reports is that "that the average medical malpractice premium in California was $7,200 in 2000, as compared with the national average of $7,843," leaving some concern over making mountains of molehills in terms how much is paid by each individual doctor, especially when considered as a percentage of gross income. This is not much when compared to the property taxes we all have to pay, even if indirectly, which may average half that much. Rates have been going up around 3.5% per year since 1991, which isn't much different from general inflation. Bills in major states are now pressuring for a cap of $ 1/4 million on any amount of pain and suffering caused even by proven malpractice and some have even passed and been made into law. [See California] There is also increasing pressure forcing medical workers to buy their malpractice insurance from a smaller and smaller group of vendors now licenses by various states. Example figures from Missouri: www.insurance.mo.gov/reports/medmal/ * 15 billion cigarettes are made daily. At $2.50 a pack, this is 10 cents per cigarette, or $1.5 billion dollars per day!!! * Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries. "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. 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