[gweekly] Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Aug 30 09:21:48 PDT 2006
pt1a4.806
pt1b4.806
Weekly_August_30.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, August 30, 2006 PT1***
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
For now I am leaving PT1a and PT1b combined.
Please also let me know if you think these Newsletters are a
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I hope to remove the redundancies between PT1A and PT1B shortly,
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number of eBooks created by Project Gutenberg passed 21,000,
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We are already over 10% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000,
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That means we have averaged ~100 books per week recently,
largely due to Project Gutenberg of Australia!!!
Thanks!!!!!!!
Michael
*
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Editor's comments appear in [brackets].
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*
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
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
***
*eBook Milestones*
21,002 eBooks As Of Today At These Four PG Sites
19,103 Project Gutenberg US [+ 38] [NOT Including PG Australia]
1,202 Australian eBooks [+ 77] [NOT Included in above line]
330 Gutenberg Europe [+ 0] [NOT Included in above lines]
370 PG PrePrint Site [+ 0] [NOT Inclucded in above lines]
21,005 Grand Total [+115]
21,002 [by hand count] [+115]
[Please note we have several counting methods,
and they often differ by several book that we
have to hunt down by hand to reconcile.]
[Pleast note there is some duplication between
these various collections. Volunteers needed
to take these duplications into account.]
~10% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000
75,000+ eBooks at the PG Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc
[Please note that the four collections totals are eBooks that originated
as created, edited, proofread, formatted, etc., by Project Gutenberg and
its 50,000 volunteers, while the Project Gutenberg Consortia Center with
75,000+ eBooks contains entire eBook collections from other sources, all
the production statistics given here are for some 20,000+ eBooks created
by the various teams of Project Gutenberg volunteers, for which we share
the responsibility of maintaining. The Consortia Center eBooks were and
are the responsibility of the donating eLibraries, and we would be happy
to forward any suggestions for correction to those eLibraries, but those
eBooks must be edited by the donating parties, as per their requests.]
*
17,937 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's ~266 eBooks per Month for ~67.80 Months
2,742 New eBooks in 2006 at These Four Sites
27 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders
8,972 totAl from Distributed Proofreaders
Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B]
[Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers]
[Note, PGDP mostly included in US eBooks]
[Note, PGEU has its own Distributed Proofreaders
whose total closely matches their grand total]
We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005
[Including PG Australia]
We Are Averaging ~366 eBooks Per Month This Year!!!
[Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints]
All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 83 eBooks Per Week In 2006
115 This Week
100 Last Week
386 This Month [Aug]
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~12.5 years from Jan. 1994 to Jun. 2006 to go from 100 to 20,100
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 ~2.8 years from Oct. 2003 to Jun. 2006 from 10,000 to 20,000
Not counting the addition of The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center
*
[Daily PrePrints stats at http://preprints.readingroo.ms/]
Please note that sometimes it takes a few weeks for entire
collections to fully appear in the PrePrints Section, thus
the count sometimes jumps by a large number when the files
are eventually completed and added in. Also note that the
PrePrint files are just that, PrePrints, and thus may move
later to other locations, including the main collection or
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center, etc. For example,
on June 14, 200 WAP compatible cell phone eBooks appeared,
and will likely be moved to other collection points later.
The entire process of working out the details just to send
them to the PrePrints Section took well over a month.
Even with the speeded up process of the PrePrints Section,
it still takes a certain amount of time to collect and put
such a large collection online in a proper manner.
*
***Introduction
[Ignore for the moment]
[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:
hart at pobox.com and gbnewby at pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.]
This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
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***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B***
pt1a4.806
pt1b4.806
Weekly_August_30.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, August 30, 2006 PT1***
*******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******
pt1a3.806
pt1b3.806
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General Catalog of Old Books and Authors
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 07.80 months of this year, PG produced 2,857 new eBooks.
It took us from Jul 1971 to Oct 2001 to produce our first 2,857 eBooks!
That's 34 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 Years!!!
115 New eBooks This Week
100 New eBooks Last Week
386 New eBooks This Month [Jul]
366 Average Per Month in 2006
266 Average Per Month in 2005 Counting 216 PGEu
248 Average Per Month in 2005 Not Counting PGEu
336 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
2857 New eBooks in 2006
3186 New eBooks in 2005 Counting 216 PGeu
> 2970 New eBooks in 2005 Not Counting PGEu
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
17,937 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 67.80 Months!
~265 books per month!
21,002 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
17,063 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
3,939 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
[Incl. PGAu, PGEu & PrePrints]
1,202 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
[This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted
at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ]
330 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Europe
370 Items in Project Gutenberg PrePrints
~75,000+ Project Gutenberg Consortia Center
http://www.gutenberg.cc
You may also want to look at Project Runeberg [Scandinavian]
http://runeberg.org
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Project Gutenberg began operation on July 4, 1971
Project Runeberg began operation on December 13, 1992
Distributed Proofreaders began October 22, 2000
[Became an official PG-US site in 2002]
Project Gutenberg of Australia began in August, 2001
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center started in 1997]
[Became an official PG-US site in 2003]
Project Gutenberg of Europe started January 12, 2004
[Posted first books February 26, when we met in Brussels
to address people at the European Union Parliament.
Project Gutenberg PrePrints Started January 25, 2006
http://preprints.readingroo.ms
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PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
Since starting production in October 2000,
Distributed Proofreaders has contributed
8,972 Books to Project Gutenberg.
27 added this week.
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
The PGCC collection at http://www.gutenberg.cc has doubled
in size from the listings below, but we don't have exactly
matching collection sizes yet for a new breakdown.
There are ~160,000 separate downloadable files,
and presuming 50% are reduntant or are required
at the level of more than one file per book:
The number of individual eBooks now is about 80,000.
Thus the grand total of eBooks at Project Gutenberg
is 21,000+ created by Project Gutenberg volunteers,
plus 80,000 donated from over 100 other eLibraries,
to create a downloadble library of 100,000+ eBooks
!
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PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings
of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as:
[This list is being updated as the moment, you can get
the entire list on the collections pages at gutenberg.cc]
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 at 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
Renascence 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
*
The new overall collection size, which has reduced the
need to account for duplications and eBooks with files
for each chapter, etc.
75,000+ Unique eBooks
***
Please also note that over 25,000 eBooks are listed via
The Online Books Page, of which over 6,300 are from PG.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar
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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 #238 of 2006
This Completes Week #34 and Month #07.80 [364 days this year]
126 Days/18 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
8,998 Books To Go To #30,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
84 Weekly Average in 2006
61 Weekly Average in 2005 [Counting 216 PGEu]
57 Weekly Average in 2005 [Not Counting PGEu]
78 Weekly Average in 2004
79 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
42 Only ~42 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers List
[Used to be well over 100]
[This listing usually from the previous week]
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***
Statistical Review
In the 34 weeks of this year, we have produced 2857 new eBooks.
It took us from 07/71 to 10/01 to produce our FIRST 2857 eBooks!!!
That's 34 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2857
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 are now in new catalog format]
The Yellow God, by H. Rider Haggard 2857
[Subtitle: An Idol of Africa]
Moon of Israel, by H. Rider Haggard 2856
Elissa, by H. Rider Haggard 2855
Sir Francis Drake Revived, by Philip Nichols 2854
Oct 2001 Quo Vadis, The Time of Nero, by Henryk Sienkiewicz[quvdsxxx.xxx] 2853
[Title: Quo Vadis, A Narrative of the Time of Nero]
[Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin]
Oct 2001 The Hound of the Baskervilles by A. Conan Doyle 25[bskrvxxx.xxx] 2852
Sixes and Sevens, by O. Henry 2851
Oct 2001 The Wars of The Jews, by Flavius Josephus [warjexxx.xxx] 2850
[Title: The Wars of The Jews or the History of the Destruction of
Jerusalem]
Oct 2001 Against Apion, by Flavius Josephus[Tr. Wm. Whiston[agaapxxx.xxx] 2849
Oct 2001 The Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus [taofjxxx.xxx] 2848
Oct 2001 Josephus' Discourse to the Greeks Concerning Hades[hadesxxx.xxx] 2847
[Title: An Extract out of Josephus's Discourse to The Greeks Concerning
Hades]
Oct 2001 The Life of Flavius Josephus, Tr. by Wm. Whiston [lfjosxxx.xxx] 2846
Oct 2001 Sir Nigel, by Arthur Conan Doyle [A. C. Doyle #24][nigelxxx.xxx] 2845
The Fatal Boots, by William Makepeace Thackeray 2844
Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, by William Makepeace Thackeray 2843
Black Heart and White Heart, by H. Rider Haggard 2842
The Ivory Child, by H. Rider Haggard 2841
(Note: These three are our first eBooks in Flemish/Dutch:)
Sep 2001 De Franse Pers, Heinrich Heine [#3/Flemish/Dutch][fpersxxx.xxx] 2840
[Language: Dutch]
Sep 2001 Franse Toestanden, Heinrich Heine[2/Flemish/Dutch][ftoesxxx.xxx] 2839
[Language: Dutch]
Sep 2001 De Beurs lacht, Heinrich Heine [#1/Flemish/Dutch][fbeurxxx.xxx] 2838
[Language: Dutch]
Sep 2001 Lendas do Sul, by J. Somoes Lopes Netto [lendaxxx.xxx] 2837
[Language: Portuguese] (Note: Our First eBook in Portuguese!)
Sep 2001 Abraham Lincoln and the Union, Nath'l W Stephenson[alatuxxx.xxx] 2836
[Author: Nathaniel W. Stephenson]
Sep 2001 The Canadian Dominion, by Oscar D. Skelton [cndndxxx.xxx] 2835
Sep 2001 The Portrait of a Lady, Vol 2, by Henry James[#37][2pldyxxx.xxx] 2834
Sep 2001 The Portrait of a Lady, Vol 1, by Henry James[#36][1pldyxxx.xxx] 2833
Sep 2001 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, V1, by Andrew Lang #28[1mrarxxx.xxx] 2832
Sep 2001 A Bundle of Ballads, by Henry Morley [bndbaxxx.xxx] 2831
Sep 2001 Reginald, by Saki (H. H. Munro) [Saki HH Munro #5][rgnldxxx.xxx] 2830
Sep 2001 Fanny and the Servant Problem, by Jerome K. Jerome[fnyspxxx.xxx] 2829
Sep 2001 Under the Deodars, by Rudyard Kipling[Kipling #19][undeoxxx.xxx] 2828
/
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet?
If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,540,879,049 that would be 21,002 x 65,408,790 = ~1.37 Trillion !!!
With 21,002 eBooks online as of August 30, 2006 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.73 from each book.
[1% world population x #eBooks] 65,408,790 x 21,002 x $.73 = ~$1 Trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
[By the way, the US "popclock" is about to turn to 300 million people.]
[Just turned 299.6 million this week!]
A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.48 Value Per Book To 100 Million
With 21,002 eBooks online as of August 30, 2006 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.48 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.59 when we had 17,063 eBooks a year ago.
Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population = ~100,000,000 people.
Next Decade's Target: 15% Of The world Population = 1,000,000,000 people.
At 21,002 eBooks in 35 Years and 01.80 Months We Averaged
597 Per Year
50 Per Month
1.64 Per Day
At 2857 eBooks Done In The 238 Days Of 2006 We Averaged
12.0 Per Day
84 per Week
366 Per Month
If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S.
you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear,
are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope.
However, for those keeping track of how quickly the U.S. reaches a
300 million population level, and who noticed the passing of 298M,
just two weeks ago. . .the U.S. is already 1/6 the way to 299M, so
it will probably be 10 more weeks to 299M and 22 more to 300M.
Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment,
who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the
districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that
all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details].
*
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 4th was
the first Wednesday of 2006, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2005 and began the production year of 2006 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B***
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
IZON MISTAKENLY E-MAILS CUSTOMER DATA
Verizon Wireless mistakenly e-mailed an Excel spreadsheet containing
information on more than 5,200 subscribers to about 1,800 customers of
the company. The e-mail was supposed to include an electronic order
form for a Bluetooth wireless headset as part of a promotional offer.
The Excel file did not contain highly sensitive information such as
credit card or Social Security numbers, but it did include names,
e-mail addresses, and cell phone models and numbers. Even with such
relatively benign information, identity thieves have a head start on
committing fraud, according to security experts. James Van Dyke, the
principal analyst at Javelin Strategy and Research, noted that a
skilled con artist could use the information in the spreadsheet to
contact someone on the list, posing as a representative of Verizon, and
possibly obtain more sensitive information. A spokesperson from Verizon
said the company takes seriously its obligation to protect consumer
data and has implemented new measures to prevent a recurrence of this
kind of incident. The company also encouraged customers to add
passwords to their accounts.
CNET, 25 August 2006
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6109883.html
DETAILS SURFACE ABOUT UC DEAL WITH GOOGLE
[This reports seems to have been "sanitized" compared to earlier
such reports that made it sound as if the entire contract between
Google and whole University of California system had been leaked.
In addition, it seems to not quite state flatly that if the deal
requires UC to ONLY provide EXCLUSIVE copies to Google, then the
deal they made with Yahoo's Brewster Kahle would be void. . .and
what would the legal implicaions be?]
Details of the recent deal in which the University of California will
join Google's book-scanning project have been released through an
open-records request. Under the deal, the university will provide as
many as 3,000 books per day to the search engine for digitization,
eventually totaling at least 2.5 million books. The university and
Google will keep copies of the digitized works, but the university is
bound by a number of restrictions on how it can use its copies. For
example, the university must prevent other search engines from scanning
the books. Critics of the project, including Brewster Kahle, cofounder
of the Internet Archive, said Google is getting more than it should
from the arrangement. He faulted the university for "spend[ing]
millions of taxpayers' dollars to benefit a single corporation's
interest in building a private library." Daniel Greenstein, director of
the California Digital Library and one of the brokers of the deal, said
that Google's business model and its interests align well with the
university's goal of providing free "public access for the public domain."
Chronicle of Higher Education, 25 August 2006
http://chronicle.com/free/2006/08/2006082501t.htm
DELL PRIORITIZES BATTERY REPLACEMENTS
[This on top of several other reports of poor quality control
and other woes for Dell after Michael Dell took a more "hands
off" approach to running his company.]
Dell has announced certain prioritizations for its recall of 4.1
million laptop batteries. After reports of some batteries overheating
and possibly catching fire, Dell reached a voluntary agreement with the
Consumer Product Safety Commission to replace the batteries. Troy West,
vice president and general manager of Dell's federal segment, said
that priority will be given to customers in national security, health
care, public safety, and emergency management services for replacement
batteries, though he refused to say when the recall would be complete.
Early bulk shipments of replacement batteries were sent to the
Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, and Fort Hood, Texas. West also said that several thousand
replacements have been sent to a parts hub in Kuwait that is
distributing them to defense contractors.
Federal Computer Week, 25 August 2006
http://www.fcw.com/article95806-08-25-06-Web
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION EXPOSES LOAN DATA
The U.S. Department of Education said it is working to fix a computer
problem that allowed student borrowers to see loan information for
other students. According to the agency, the problem resulted from a
routine software upgrade by Affiliated Computers Services Inc., a
contractor to the agency. Evidently, that upgrade caused student loan
data for borrowers to be accessed by others when using the Education
Department's Web site. A spokesperson from the Education Department
said that four users of the Web system had notified the agency since
last Sunday of the problem. The breach was said to have affected only a
"limited number" of the 6.4 million students who borrowed money under
the Federal Direct Student Loan program. Those with loans through other
lenders are not affected. The agency said it has temporarily turned off
the features of the student loan Web site that were leading to the
problems and would keep those features off until the problem is resolved.
Houston Chronicle, 23 August 2006
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4136336.html
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*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
*QUOTATION OF THE WEEK
"When nations create secure, secret, or classified documents,
the object is more to preserve their secrecy from their own
population than from their stated enemies. To them, the real
enemies are their own people, [the people who could vote
them out of office."
Noam Chomsky
Paraphrase of statement on Alternative Radio as on WILL-AM
~6:30PM, 08/26/06
/
"Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of
'emergency'. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini.
In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe,
and 'emergency' became the justification of the subsequent steps.
This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement
that demagoguery attains." ---Herbert Hoover
*STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
1/8 of the official population of the United States
is composed of immigrants.
/
85% of Americans Graduate from High School
28% of Americans Graduate from College
That means about 1/3 of the high school grads finish college.
However, equally true is that about 1/3 of the high school grads
have never attained the reading skills required to read a dozen,
or so, books required of them every single year.
President White of the University of Illinois says that colleges
are dropping the ball by graduating only 28% of of Americans for
whom 85% have already managed a high school diploma. He said at
the opening of the Fall semester than government should spend an
increasing amount on education to fill this gap.
Let's look into these statistics a little more:
28% / 85% = ~1/3 of all high school students graduate college.
When I was a kid the percentage of college degress was only some
half as much of the total population. . .~14%, so I would say it
is obvious that college plays an ever incrasing role in lives of
Americans. . .twice as much as it used to, in fact.
However, official US Adult Literacy statistics show that about a
half of all adult Americans would be challenged in reading this,
much less by reading all the materials for a college degree.
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) released by the
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), found little
change between 1992 and 2003 in adults' ability to read and
understand sentences and paragraphs or to understand documents
such as job applications.
December 15, 2005 Contacts: Mike Bowler, (202) 219-1662
or David Thomas, (202)401-1576
If you read far enough in their documents, and add up the totals
they refuse to give you outright, you will see that just about a
half of US Adults could be expected to read such materials while
the other half would be challenged to do so.
As with so many other negative government statistics, these were
presented in a manner that diguised their actual meaning.
However, even more negative is the fact that 85% get high school
diplomas, while only about half of them can read at satisfactory
high school graduation levels.
[I suppose this could also qualify for the doublespeak section.]
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
"Hezbollah suffered defeat."
Multiple sources
MORE DOUBLESPEAK
If Congress were honest about estimating the National Debt,
they would give you figures 2 to 10 times as high.
McLaughlin Group, Sunday, August 27
*QUOTES OF THE WEEK
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
There will be another war between Israel and Lebanon,
simply because no one will stop them.
The Iraq War will continue until officials finally
manage to admit it is another viet Nam.
Or, even more unlikely, until there is a real plan.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
[I think the inflation/growth statistics in the news
were plenty odd enough. However, I should add that
manufacturing costs rose sharply around the world,
up 1.1% in the UK in July alone, though those have
not yet reached the consumer markets.]
*
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.
*
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