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From hart at pglaf.org Wed Apr 26 09:39:19 2006 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart) Date: Wed Apr 26 09:39:22 2006 Subject: [gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter Message-ID: pt1a3.406 Weekly_April_26.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, April 26, 2006 PT1** *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******** Please note some previous miscounts still not corrected, but the grand totals should be fairly accurate, just have to go back and fix the interim counts. * Editor's comments appear in [brackets]. Newsletter editors needed! Please email [email protected] or [email protected] Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email [email protected] * 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 6 New This Week From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 3 New This Week From PGEu [European Copyrights, Life + 50 and 70] 9 New This Week From PG PrePrints 55 New This Week To Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright 73 New This Week [Including PG Australia, PG Europe and PrePrints] [I'm sure there are a still few bugs in the new accounting] *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones*
19,231 eBooks As Of Today!!! 769 to go to 20,000!!! 18,788 570 293 150 19,231
at www.gutenberg.org[+61] Australian eBooks [+6] [Included in above line] Gutenberg Europe [+3] PG PrePrint Site [+9] Grand Total of all four sites [Corrected +6]
73 New eBooks This Week ~96% of the Way to 20,000 ***550+ eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971*** 16,163 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's ~258 eBooks per Month for ~62.75 Months We Have Produced 1,083 eBooks in 2006 769 to go to 20,000!!! 42 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders 8,348 total from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] [Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers] We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005 [Including PG Australia] We Are Averaging ~294 eBooks Per Month This Year [Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints] All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 68 eBooks Per Week In 2006 73 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2003 to 2006 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~2.5 years from Oct. 2003 to Mar. 2006 from 10,000 to 19,000
[The above changes due to the opening of Project Gutenberg sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org] [Now including totals from Australia, Europe and PrePrints] [Apologies, it will take a while to integrate everything not all statistics may be totally equalized yet] [PGEu Statistics Are Counted Monthly Not Weekly]
[Daily PGEu stats at http://dp.rastko.net/default.php] [Daily DP stats at http://www.pgdp.net] BTW, we just started a new "PrePrints" site at PG, so if you come across eBooks that aren't ready for primetime, but that should be saved for upgrading, we have a place to put them. http://preprints.readingroo.ms/ new site * ~75,000 eBooks at the PG Consortia Center http://www.gutenberg.cc * ***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. Note bene that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B. [Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us: [email protected] and [email protected] if you would like to volunteer.] This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter FREE INTERNET REFERENCE SITE LivingInternet.com provides a 700-odd page reference about the Internet "to provide living context and perspective to this most technological of human inventions", and has received input from many people that helped build the Internet. It currently receives about 3 thousand visitors a day, many from educational institutions. Now in its 7th year of operation. http://www.livinginternet.com/ TEXT TO SPEECH Dolphin Producer is a new software package which will convert a text document into a fully synchronized text and audio DTB at the push of a single button. The DTB can then be played back using Dolphin's EaseReader software player - which is included in Dolphin Producer. The DTB can also be played back on any other DAISY DTB software or hardware player, as well as any MP3 player - The choice is yours. http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk or http://www.dolphinusa.com *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
COPYRIGHT LAW UPDATE FAVORS COPYRIGHT HOLDERS Despite pressure from a number of quarters to introduce restrictions on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress appears to be headed the other direction. Drafts of the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 are circulating among lawmakers, and a spokesperson for the House Judiciary Committee said the bill will likely be introduced soon. The bill adds a number of new layers to copyright law, including increasing fines for certain copyright crimes; criminalizing attempted copyright violations, even if they fail; and allowing copyright owners to impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale, or receipt of items involved in" violations. Jason Schultz, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said of this last provision that the recording industry has long wanted the ability to obtain server logs that would indicate "every single person who's ever downloaded" certain files. Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry Association, welcomed the bill, saying that it gives government officials needed authority to prosecute intellectual property criminals. CNET, 23 April 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6064016.html COMPANY TO PAY $4.5 MILLION IN E-RATE FRAUD CASE Houston-based NextiraOne has agreed to pay $4.5 million to settle charges that it defrauded the government and the Oglala Nation Educational Coalition through the federal E-rate program. The work for which NextiraOne was under investigation took place at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. According to a complaint by the Department of Justice, NextiraOne billed the government for products and services it did not deliver; submitted fraudulent invoices; and charged inflated prices for other products. The E-rate program, designed to extend Internet access to schools and libraries that could not otherwise afford it, has come under fire for what some have described as rampant fraud. Under the settlement, NextiraOne will pay a criminal fine of $1.9 million and will return $2.6 million to the government. ITWorld, 21 April 2006 http://www.itworld.com/Man/2681/060421erate/ TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR CHARGED WITH E-RATE FRAUD Federal charges have been brought against a technology director in South Carolina for defrauding the E-rate program, a federal program to fund technology improvements in disadvantaged schools. Cynthia K. Ayer was indicted on 12 counts of mail and wire fraud for funneling contracts worth $3.5 million to her company, Go Between Communications. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Ayer's actions netted her more than $450,000 of E-rate funds. Ayer faces fines of $250,000 and a lengthy prison term if convicted. The E-rate program has been riddled with accounts of fraud and abuse, and Ayer's case is just the latest in a string of prosecutions against 11 individuals and 10 companies. Thus far, settlements with some defendants have totaled $40 million in fines and restitution, and two individuals have been sentenced to prison terms. Internet News, 20 April 2006 http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3600671 NATIONAL ARCHIVES GOES TRANSPARENT The National Archives and Records Administration has made public the details of a secret agreement made in 2001 with the CIA and said it will adjust its procedures to function in a much more transparent
manner. The secret deal gave the CIA the authority to insist that certain materials in the archives be removed, with no record of the documents' having been in the archives or why they were removed. Allen Weinstein, who currently heads the archives but did not when the deal was made, said he just learned of it and has acted quickly to invalidate it. "Classified agreements are the antithesis of our reason for being," he said. A spokesperson from the archives noted that it routinely archives classified materials and keeps them secret. Adding another layer of secrecy is unnecessary and inappropriate, she said. Steven Aftergood, director of a project at the Federation of American Scientists that tracks government secrecy, applauded the announcement, particularly Weinstein's role in it. "He did not attempt to deny the existence of the problem," said Aftergood, "and he did not attempt to evade responsibility for it." Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 April 2006 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/04/2006041901t.htm SETTLEMENT REACHED IN ANTISPYWARE CASE In a settlement announced by prosecutors in Washington State, Zhijian Chen of Oregon will pay about $84,000 in fines, restitution, and attorneys' fees following a scheme in which Chen sold consumers fraudulent antispyware services. Chen was charged with sending e-mail that led recipients to believe their computers were infected with spyware and that a product called Spyware Cleaner, made by Secure Computer, could clean their machines. Chen then collected a commission when users bought the product. State Attorney General Rob McKenna said, "We will not tolerate those who try to profit by preying on consumers' fears of spyware and other malware." New York-based Secure Computer as well as a number of officials from the company are also named in the lawsuit against Chen. Associated Press, 19 April 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060419/ap_on_hi_te/spam_lawsuit To SUBSCRIBE to Edupage, send a message to [email protected] 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 Senate Inquiry: New Hampshire "Denial of Service" Attack on Democrats' Phones This past week saw some interesting revelations in the case of similar "political dirty tricks" in recent elections as were mentioned in the famous "All the Presidents Men" stories by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post that brought down President Nixon. Revealed were dozens of phone calls to The White House
on the day before the mid-term 2002 elections, by man who was convicted, and the fact that National Party funds were used to pay over $2.5 million in and perhaps even super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff was
the Republican legal bills, involved.
James Tobin, head of the New England branch of the Republican National Committee, later a director of President Bush's second presidential campaign, was convicted re: jamming the phones of of five locations of various Democratic efforts to get voters out on election day. In addition, was a similar attack on a local firefighter's effort to give transportation to polls. www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=138550 * Follow Up On "General's Revolt" Apparently the Generals lined up by the the administrtion to counter the "Revolt of the Generals" have been given a list of talking points or script suggestions for their appearances in the media. Why it is OK for the generals to support one side of the issue but not the other seems to be the elephant in the middle of the room being ignored. * The War of Classified Materials, April 25, 2006 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart is being quoted as saying, "When everything is classified, nothing is classified," in a recent flap over the various levels of secrecy and governmenk leaks. In a rather stunning double whammy from opposite directions, recent coverage by Dana Priest, National Security Correspondent writing for The Washington Post, won a Pulitzer Prize for her columns revealing the wide ranging government wiretaps without court approval, while her alleged source, Mary McCarthy, was being fired from the CIA. Sources from the Post, including McCarthy, have said that McCarthy didn't even have access to the information she allegedly leaked. Apparently the Bush administration has tightened up the classified information business to the point where less and less information is unclassified, thus relying more and more on leaks, unscheduled on-the-spot declassification, etc., to provide information to the public and the mass media. As a result of this tightening of the informational purse strings, more and more Washington sources are simply saying, "I can't talk to you any more," and the reporters are learning not to keep notes via any of the standard means that can be found to uncover sources. Thus computers are OUT these days as a tool for working on articles since the government routinely siezes all computers and files in an ongoing investigation of these matters. Apparently the number of classified documents doubled during Bush's
re-election campaign in 2004 and has continued to rise, according to Lucy Dalglish, speaking on The News Hour. * Recently Revealed: Was Chicago Bulls Player Fired and Blacklisted for Giving President Bush a Letter Concerning Iraq During a White House Visit by the Team After Their First Repeat as NBA Champions? Craig Hodges, a member of the first two Chicago Bulls Championship NBA basketball teams, claims he was not only fired by the Bulls for speaking out on political issues as an African-American, but also blacklisted by the entire NBA as a result when he could not even get a tryout with any one of the NBA franshices afterwards. The court case Craig Hodges vs. the National Basketball Association alleges "the owners and operators of the 29 NBA member franchises have participated as co-conspirators" in "blackballing" him from the entire National Basketball Association "because of his outspoken political nature as an African-American man." Hodges was a 10 year NBA veteran, the last four years with the Bulls, and he played in the majority of the Bulls' games during their second consecutive NBA Championship. classdat.appstate.edu/AAS/Soc/rosenberge/MyFiles/NYTIMES/NYTSPRTB.IZ * Trying to look up "American Dreamz" ? only local media found: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA Free preview planned of `American Dreamz' The American dream is alive and well. What could be more free than a free movie? The University of Oregon Cultural Forum and the Bijou Art Cinemas, 492 E. 13th Ave., will present a free showing of the Paul Weitz film "American Dreamz" Tuesday at 8 p.m. Vouchers are available at the Cultural Forum office in the Erb Memorial Union, 1222 E. 13th Ave. If any are unclaimed, they will be available at the door. Weitz ("In Good Company," "About a Boy") wrote and directed the film for Universal Studios. It will open nationally on April 21. advertisement The movie stars Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Klein, Jennifer Coolidge and Willem Dafoe. In the film, "American Dreamz" is a popular singing competition.
"Imagine a country where the president never reads the newspaper, where the government goes to war for all the wrong reasons and where more people vote for a pop idol than their next president."
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK Around 6AM Sunday morning two widely separated estimates for the cost of health care per person in the US on the radio. NPR said $800 per month, $9,600 per year. 94.5 said $11 per month or $132 per year.
WILL-AM WLRW-FM
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK Congressman Chistopher Smith, R-New Jersey, re: Google.cn: "China's search engine, is guaranteed to take you to the virtual land of deceit, disinformation and the big lie."
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK Replicators that can build copies of themselves will appear this year! *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK In 1960 people in the U.S. spent about 5% of their money on health care. In 2005 people in the U.S. spent about 16% of their money on health care. In the same period that health spending tripled per person, spending on education failed to even double. The U.S. has a universal education plan, but not universal health care, so why is spending on universal education lagging behind? The U.S. is regularly outclassed by one or two dozen other countries in standardized educational testing. The Common Sense Budget Act of 2006 cites the following: (E) research conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics shows that middle school students in the United States rank 18th in science test scores and 19th in math test scores internationally, behind students in such countries as the Republic of Korea, the Slovak Republic, Singapore, the Russian Federation, and Malaysia. . . . [Longer lists available on request] Medical: Schools:
The U.S. spends about $1.8 Trillion per year. The U.S. spends about $0.5 Trillion per year.
Sources:
The weekend news programs on NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC.
BTW, if the $1.8 Trillion medical figure is accurate, along with the $9 Trillion GDP, then medical is 20%, not the 16% cited. 3.6% on Education. On the international math tests the U.S. ranked 24th and 28th for recent tests among middle schools, 12th for grade schools. In science the U.S. was 17th. Down from 3rd for 4th graders. [More data available on request] * Oldest Ice Core Dated At 1 Million Years, As of April 18, 2006 Japanese scientists are examining a 1 million year old chunk of ice removed from a spot 3 kilometers under the Antarctic ice cap surface. The previously oldest ice cores from about 650,000 years ago revealed that we now have much higher levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere than any time previously measured in this manner. www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/18/old.ice.reut/index.html * Exxon's CEO Lee Raymond Receives $1 Billion In Total Compensation After a little over a decade at the wheel of the largest oil company, it appears that Lee Raymond's total compensation for that period will be approximately one billion dollars, with hearly half of that coming in various forms of separation pay and bonuses. In papers filed with with the Securities and Exchange Commission this past month, it was revealed that Mr. Raymond will receive nearly $.5 billion in total retirement compensations along with his previous pay bonuses over the years, this in addition to his yearly salaries from the last 12 years or so. Nearly $.4 billion of this was revealed in the recently filed SEC documents. Raymond's final annual paycheck totaled over $50 million, or $140,000 per day, or nearly $6,000 per hour, waking or sleeping. . .four times the pay of Chevron's CEO, Exxon's nearest competitor. During Raymond's reign, Exxon stoct is reported to have gone up 500%, but don't forget that most people forget that to go up 100% doubles, so they usually miss by 100% in such reports. There is a shareholder revolt of sorts going on to pass resolutions condemning such exorbitant pay practices, which Exxon encourages the shareholdes to vote against. abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1841989 *
Kate Moss returned to her career as a supermodel this week with a reported $2.5 million shoot for Nikon. * By the way, for those interested, the official U.S. population estimates just passed 298 million, though many say estimations of this nature leave out as much as 5% of the population, with the obvious exclusion of the 11-12 million immigrant workers now being mentioned so much in the news. Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries. [This one is getting a little out of date, as the US population is obviously no longer 6% of the world. In fact, rounding to the nearest percent, the US will soon fall from 5% to 4%.] "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 America 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 think this is now much greater] 1 would be 79 years old or more. Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years, but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure to expire within that 63 year period. 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: [email protected]
19,231 eBooks As Of Today!!! 769 to go to 20,000!!! 18,788 570 293 150 19,231
at www.gutenberg.org[+61] Australian eBooks [+6] [Included in above line] Gutenberg Europe [+3] PG PrePrint Site [+9] Grand Total of all four sites [Corrected +6]
73 New eBooks This Week ~96% of the Way to 20,000 ***550+ eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971*** 16,163 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's ~258 eBooks per Month for ~62.75 Months We Have Produced 1,083 eBooks in 2006 769 to go to 20,000!!! 42 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders 8,348 total from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] [Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers] We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005 [Including PG Australia] We Are Averaging ~294 eBooks Per Month This Year [Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints] All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 68 eBooks Per Week In 2006 73 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2003 to 2006 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~2.5 years from Oct. 2003 to Mar. 2006 from 10,000 to 19,000
[The above changes due to the opening of Project Gutenberg sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org] [Now including totals from Australia, Europe and PrePrints] [Apologies, it will take a while to integrate everything not all statistics may be totally equalized yet] [PGEu Statistics Are Counted Monthly Not Weekly]
[Daily PGEu stats at http://dp.rastko.net/default.php] [Daily DP stats at http://www.pgdp.net] BTW, we just started a new "PrePrints" site at PG, so if you come across eBooks that aren't ready for primetime, but that should be saved for upgrading, we have a place to put them. http://preprints.readingroo.ms/ new site * ~75,000 eBooks at the PG Consortia Center http://www.gutenberg.cc * ***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. Note bene that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B. [Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us: [email protected] and [email protected] if you would like to volunteer.] This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter FREE INTERNET REFERENCE SITE LivingInternet.com provides a 700-odd page reference about the Internet "to provide living context and perspective to this most technological of human inventions", and has received input from many people that helped build the Internet. It currently receives about 3 thousand visitors a day, many from educational institutions. Now in its 7th year of operation. http://www.livinginternet.com/ TEXT TO SPEECH Dolphin Producer is a new software package which will convert a text document into a fully synchronized text and audio DTB at the push of a single button. The DTB can then be played back using Dolphin's EaseReader software player - which is included in Dolphin Producer. The DTB can also be played back on any other DAISY DTB software or hardware player, as well as any MP3 player - The choice is yours. http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk or http://www.dolphinusa.com *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
COPYRIGHT LAW UPDATE FAVORS COPYRIGHT HOLDERS Despite pressure from a number of quarters to introduce restrictions on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress appears to be headed the other direction. Drafts of the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 are circulating among lawmakers, and a spokesperson for the House Judiciary Committee said the bill will likely be introduced soon. The bill adds a number of new layers to copyright law, including increasing fines for certain copyright crimes; criminalizing attempted copyright violations, even if they fail; and allowing copyright owners to impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale, or receipt of items involved in" violations. Jason Schultz, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said of this last provision that the recording industry has long wanted the ability to obtain server logs that would indicate "every single person who's ever downloaded" certain files. Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry Association, welcomed the bill, saying that it gives government officials needed authority to prosecute intellectual property criminals. CNET, 23 April 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6064016.html COMPANY TO PAY $4.5 MILLION IN E-RATE FRAUD CASE Houston-based NextiraOne has agreed to pay $4.5 million to settle charges that it defrauded the government and the Oglala Nation Educational Coalition through the federal E-rate program. The work for which NextiraOne was under investigation took place at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. According to a complaint by the Department of Justice, NextiraOne billed the government for products and services it did not deliver; submitted fraudulent invoices; and charged inflated prices for other products. The E-rate program, designed to extend Internet access to schools and libraries that could not otherwise afford it, has come under fire for what some have described as rampant fraud. Under the settlement, NextiraOne will pay a criminal fine of $1.9 million and will return $2.6 million to the government. ITWorld, 21 April 2006 http://www.itworld.com/Man/2681/060421erate/ TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR CHARGED WITH E-RATE FRAUD Federal charges have been brought against a technology director in South Carolina for defrauding the E-rate program, a federal program to fund technology improvements in disadvantaged schools. Cynthia K. Ayer was indicted on 12 counts of mail and wire fraud for funneling contracts worth $3.5 million to her company, Go Between Communications. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Ayer's actions netted her more than $450,000 of E-rate funds. Ayer faces fines of $250,000 and a lengthy prison term if convicted. The E-rate program has been riddled with accounts of fraud and abuse, and Ayer's case is just the latest in a string of prosecutions against 11 individuals and 10 companies. Thus far, settlements with some defendants have totaled $40 million in fines and restitution, and two individuals have been sentenced to prison terms. Internet News, 20 April 2006 http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3600671 NATIONAL ARCHIVES GOES TRANSPARENT The National Archives and Records Administration has made public the details of a secret agreement made in 2001 with the CIA and said it will adjust its procedures to function in a much more transparent
manner. The secret deal gave the CIA the authority to insist that certain materials in the archives be removed, with no record of the documents' having been in the archives or why they were removed. Allen Weinstein, who currently heads the archives but did not when the deal was made, said he just learned of it and has acted quickly to invalidate it. "Classified agreements are the antithesis of our reason for being," he said. A spokesperson from the archives noted that it routinely archives classified materials and keeps them secret. Adding another layer of secrecy is unnecessary and inappropriate, she said. Steven Aftergood, director of a project at the Federation of American Scientists that tracks government secrecy, applauded the announcement, particularly Weinstein's role in it. "He did not attempt to deny the existence of the problem," said Aftergood, "and he did not attempt to evade responsibility for it." Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 April 2006 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/04/2006041901t.htm SETTLEMENT REACHED IN ANTISPYWARE CASE In a settlement announced by prosecutors in Washington State, Zhijian Chen of Oregon will pay about $84,000 in fines, restitution, and attorneys' fees following a scheme in which Chen sold consumers fraudulent antispyware services. Chen was charged with sending e-mail that led recipients to believe their computers were infected with spyware and that a product called Spyware Cleaner, made by Secure Computer, could clean their machines. Chen then collected a commission when users bought the product. State Attorney General Rob McKenna said, "We will not tolerate those who try to profit by preying on consumers' fears of spyware and other malware." New York-based Secure Computer as well as a number of officials from the company are also named in the lawsuit against Chen. Associated Press, 19 April 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060419/ap_on_hi_te/spam_lawsuit To SUBSCRIBE to Edupage, send a message to [email protected] 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 Senate Inquiry: New Hampshire "Denial of Service" Attack on Democrats' Phones This past week saw some interesting revelations in the case of similar "political dirty tricks" in recent elections as were mentioned in the famous "All the Presidents Men" stories by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post that brought down President Nixon. Revealed were dozens of phone calls to The White House
on the day before the mid-term 2002 elections, by man who was convicted, and the fact that National Party funds were used to pay over $2.5 million in and perhaps even super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff was
the Republican legal bills, involved.
James Tobin, head of the New England branch of the Republican National Committee, later a director of President Bush's second presidential campaign, was convicted re: jamming the phones of of five locations of various Democratic efforts to get voters out on election day. In addition, was a similar attack on a local firefighter's effort to give transportation to polls. www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=138550 * Follow Up On "General's Revolt" Apparently the Generals lined up by the the administrtion to counter the "Revolt of the Generals" have been given a list of talking points or script suggestions for their appearances in the media. Why it is OK for the generals to support one side of the issue but not the other seems to be the elephant in the middle of the room being ignored. * The War of Classified Materials, April 25, 2006 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart is being quoted as saying, "When everything is classified, nothing is classified," in a recent flap over the various levels of secrecy and governmenk leaks. In a rather stunning double whammy from opposite directions, recent coverage by Dana Priest, National Security Correspondent writing for The Washington Post, won a Pulitzer Prize for her columns revealing the wide ranging government wiretaps without court approval, while her alleged source, Mary McCarthy, was being fired from the CIA. Sources from the Post, including McCarthy, have said that McCarthy didn't even have access to the information she allegedly leaked. Apparently the Bush administration has tightened up the classified information business to the point where less and less information is unclassified, thus relying more and more on leaks, unscheduled on-the-spot declassification, etc., to provide information to the public and the mass media. As a result of this tightening of the informational purse strings, more and more Washington sources are simply saying, "I can't talk to you any more," and the reporters are learning not to keep notes via any of the standard means that can be found to uncover sources. Thus computers are OUT these days as a tool for working on articles since the government routinely siezes all computers and files in an ongoing investigation of these matters. Apparently the number of classified documents doubled during Bush's
re-election campaign in 2004 and has continued to rise, according to Lucy Dalglish, speaking on The News Hour. * Recently Revealed: Was Chicago Bulls Player Fired and Blacklisted for Giving President Bush a Letter Concerning Iraq During a White House Visit by the Team After Their First Repeat as NBA Champions? Craig Hodges, a member of the first two Chicago Bulls Championship NBA basketball teams, claims he was not only fired by the Bulls for speaking out on political issues as an African-American, but also blacklisted by the entire NBA as a result when he could not even get a tryout with any one of the NBA franshices afterwards. The court case Craig Hodges vs. the National Basketball Association alleges "the owners and operators of the 29 NBA member franchises have participated as co-conspirators" in "blackballing" him from the entire National Basketball Association "because of his outspoken political nature as an African-American man." Hodges was a 10 year NBA veteran, the last four years with the Bulls, and he played in the majority of the Bulls' games during their second consecutive NBA Championship. classdat.appstate.edu/AAS/Soc/rosenberge/MyFiles/NYTIMES/NYTSPRTB.IZ * Trying to look up "American Dreamz" ? only local media found: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA Free preview planned of `American Dreamz' The American dream is alive and well. What could be more free than a free movie? The University of Oregon Cultural Forum and the Bijou Art Cinemas, 492 E. 13th Ave., will present a free showing of the Paul Weitz film "American Dreamz" Tuesday at 8 p.m. Vouchers are available at the Cultural Forum office in the Erb Memorial Union, 1222 E. 13th Ave. If any are unclaimed, they will be available at the door. Weitz ("In Good Company," "About a Boy") wrote and directed the film for Universal Studios. It will open nationally on April 21. advertisement The movie stars Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Klein, Jennifer Coolidge and Willem Dafoe. In the film, "American Dreamz" is a popular singing competition.
"Imagine a country where the president never reads the newspaper, where the government goes to war for all the wrong reasons and where more people vote for a pop idol than their next president."
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK Around 6AM Sunday morning two widely separated estimates for the cost of health care per person in the US on the radio. NPR said $800 per month, $9,600 per year. 94.5 said $11 per month or $132 per year.
WILL-AM WLRW-FM
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK Congressman Chistopher Smith, R-New Jersey, re: Google.cn: "China's search engine, is guaranteed to take you to the virtual land of deceit, disinformation and the big lie."
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK Replicators that can build copies of themselves will appear this year! *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK In 1960 people in the U.S. spent about 5% of their money on health care. In 2005 people in the U.S. spent about 16% of their money on health care. In the same period that health spending tripled per person, spending on education failed to even double. The U.S. has a universal education plan, but not universal health care, so why is spending on universal education lagging behind? The U.S. is regularly outclassed by one or two dozen other countries in standardized educational testing. The Common Sense Budget Act of 2006 cites the following: (E) research conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics shows that middle school students in the United States rank 18th in science test scores and 19th in math test scores internationally, behind students in such countries as the Republic of Korea, the Slovak Republic, Singapore, the Russian Federation, and Malaysia. . . . [Longer lists available on request] Medical: Schools:
The U.S. spends about $1.8 Trillion per year. The U.S. spends about $0.5 Trillion per year.
Sources:
The weekend news programs on NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC.
BTW, if the $1.8 Trillion medical figure is accurate, along with the $9 Trillion GDP, then medical is 20%, not the 16% cited. 3.6% on Education. On the international math tests the U.S. ranked 24th and 28th for recent tests among middle schools, 12th for grade schools. In science the U.S. was 17th. Down from 3rd for 4th graders. [More data available on request] * Oldest Ice Core Dated At 1 Million Years, As of April 18, 2006 Japanese scientists are examining a 1 million year old chunk of ice removed from a spot 3 kilometers under the Antarctic ice cap surface. The previously oldest ice cores from about 650,000 years ago revealed that we now have much higher levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere than any time previously measured in this manner. www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/18/old.ice.reut/index.html * Exxon's CEO Lee Raymond Receives $1 Billion In Total Compensation After a little over a decade at the wheel of the largest oil company, it appears that Lee Raymond's total compensation for that period will be approximately one billion dollars, with hearly half of that coming in various forms of separation pay and bonuses. In papers filed with with the Securities and Exchange Commission this past month, it was revealed that Mr. Raymond will receive nearly $.5 billion in total retirement compensations along with his previous pay bonuses over the years, this in addition to his yearly salaries from the last 12 years or so. Nearly $.4 billion of this was revealed in the recently filed SEC documents. Raymond's final annual paycheck totaled over $50 million, or $140,000 per day, or nearly $6,000 per hour, waking or sleeping. . .four times the pay of Chevron's CEO, Exxon's nearest competitor. During Raymond's reign, Exxon stoct is reported to have gone up 500%, but don't forget that most people forget that to go up 100% doubles, so they usually miss by 100% in such reports. There is a shareholder revolt of sorts going on to pass resolutions condemning such exorbitant pay practices, which Exxon encourages the shareholdes to vote against. abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1841989 *
Kate Moss returned to her career as a supermodel this week with a reported $2.5 million shoot for Nikon. * By the way, for those interested, the official U.S. population estimates just passed 298 million, though many say estimations of this nature leave out as much as 5% of the population, with the obvious exclusion of the 11-12 million immigrant workers now being mentioned so much in the news. Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries. [This one is getting a little out of date, as the US population is obviously no longer 6% of the world. In fact, rounding to the nearest percent, the US will soon fall from 5% to 4%.] "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 America 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 think this is now much greater] 1 would be 79 years old or more. Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years, but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure to expire within that 63 year period. 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: [email protected]
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