[gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Jan 25 09:32:12 PST 2006
pt1a3.106
Weekly_January_25.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, January 25, 2006, PT1*
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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
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*Flashback
*Weekly eBook update:
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*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
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*eBook Milestones*
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15,229 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's ~250 eBooks per Month for ~61 Months
We Have Produced 179 eBooks in 2006
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All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 60 eBooks Per Week In 2006
83 This Week
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
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***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:
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
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS UNDERTAKES DIGITIZATION PROJECT
In February, the Library of Congress will begin transferring large
collections of vinyl records and video recordings to a single location
where they will be archived and digitized. The library has nearly 4
million separate items, currently stored in several states, that will
be moved to a facility in Virginia that had been set up in the 1960s as
a headquarters for government officials in the event of a nuclear
attack. The library's holdings will be stored on 57 miles of shelves,
and starting early next year, the library will begin making digital
copies of the collection. Because many are covered by copyright, the
digital copies will not be available online. Researchers will be able
to request digital copies of specific recordings, however, and library
staff will pull the original and make a digital version.
Federal Computer Week, 13 January 2006
http://www.fcw.com/article91968-01-13-06-Web
GOOGLE PONDERS STARTING AN ONLINE BOOKSTORE
At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), officials from Google
said they are considering launching an online bookstore, though they
were quick to say such a venture would depend on permission from
copyright holders. Google has been embroiled in ongoing legal disputes
with publishers and other copyright holders over its effort to scan
millions of texts, creating what CEO Eric Schmidt called "the world's
largest card catalogue." Despite Google's contention that the scanning
project does not violate copyright, many copyright holders disagree and
have challenged the project in court. An online bookstore would be a
fundamentally different proposition, according to Google officials, and
such a plan would only go forward with the express permission of
copyright holders. During the CES, Google unveiled an online video
store, the company's first offering that allows consumers to pay for
premium content.
BBC, 10 January 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4598478.stm
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*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
[As requested adding sources, etc., when possible.
Remember, the subject is not the article's subject,
the subject is the manipulation of the world news.]
"EARMARKING"
You've probably heard the term, but not the details.
Earmarking is a way that elected U.S. legislators
can put "pork barrel project" into bills with no
relationship to the subject matter of the bills
and without anyone getting a chance to read the
bills again before voting on them. These usually
are attached to bills most likely to be passed,
recently even the huge approprations bills.
Only 1% of these ever make the news outside the
various consituencies receiving the benefits,
but once in a while attempts to sneak projects
through get national attention, such as recent
efforts by Alaska's Senator Stevens to build
the famous "Bridge To Nowhere" that not even
the people who were to receive the benefits
were willing to put up with, or his proposed
drilling for oil in ANWR [The Alaska National
Wildlife Refuge] that was so controversial in
last years appropriations bill that nearly
stopped U.S. government funding entirely.
[Try searches for ANWR, oil drilling, Ted
Stevens, appropriations, etc. for details,
and you'll see just how much major media
have avoided all this.]
Senator Barack Obama [D-IL] has proposed a
bill to force all bills to be put online
for at least 72 hours before voting so the
earmarks have a chance to be detected and
then possibly removed.
Republicans have charged that Democrats
have used earmarking, along with lobbying,
in the same manner as have Republicans,
but figures show that the number of both
earmarks and lobbyists have multiplied
tenfold over the last decade since the
Democrats were in power.
The number of earmarks was ~14,000 in 2005,
up from 1,439 in 1995.
As for lobbyists, they managed to kill bills
that would have required they identify who
paid them, how much, who they represent and
what issues they have lobbied for or against.
Ten years ago only ~100 companies had lobbyists
representing them to Congress, today there are
50 lobbyists for every member.
Wired Magazine reported that Microsoft alone
has raised its number of lobbyists in D.C.
over 50 in the last decade.
Public Citizen reported the pharmaceutical
industry employes as many many lobbyists
as their are legislators. Their average
salaries: $300,000 to $400,000 per year.
Of these, 23 are former Congressmen, and 340,
over half, are former government employees.
The Wall St. Journal reports the number of
lobbyists in D.C. doubled between 2000-2005.
~14,000 lobbyists are registered under a
10 year old law that apparently is not
monitored all that well.
According to The Washington Post, there
might be 14,000 more disclosure documents
that were not filed in this period,
"including documents that should have
come from 49 of the nations' 50 largest
lobbying firms."
Estimates are that some of these lobbies,
such as for the drug companies, may have
spent $1 billion over this ten year period.
And this is only for national legislators:
according to The Center for Public Integrity
state legislators are outnumbered by their
lobbyists 5 to 1 nationally, and as much as
18 to 1 in New York, 13 to 1 in Florida,
12 to 1 in Illinois, 10 to 1 in Ohio,
and 9 to 1 in California and Michigan.
Nor is this limited to the U.S., ~15,000
lobbyists are at work in Europe, 40% of
whom are registered to the EU Parliament.
Source: Time Magazine, Wired, Public Citizen,
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wall St. Journal,
New York Times.
*
Iraqi General's Death By Sitting On Him After Stuffing
Him Headfirst Into A Sleeping Bag Declared Not Murder
Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer Jr., was fined
$6,000 and reprimanded for killing Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed
Hamed Mowhoush, a loyalist to Saddam Hussein, suspected
of abetting the Iraqi insurgency near Syria.
The Washington Post revealed General Mowhoush was beaten
harshly "by a secret group of Iraqi paramilitaries,
code-named `Scorpions,' who worked with the CIA.
Welshofer was convicted of negligent dereliction of duty
and of negigent homicide rather than murder, meaning he
did not intend to kill General Mowhoush, but should have
known that tying him into a sleeping back headfirst, and
then sitting on his chest while questionning him, could
lead to his death.
Source: The Washington Post
*DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
Bush versus Google
The Bush administration claimed that other unspecified
search engine and information providers had acceded to
administration demands for access to information, when
demanding that Google provide such information.
However, when the other information providers answered
press queries, it turned out that not all the sources,
perhaps not any, had provided complete access.
[Exact quotes below]
Plenty to read about all this:
Los Angeles Times:
http://tinyurl.com/a7wtt
Baltimore Sun:
http://tinyurl.com/aq6fz
Lower Hudson Journal News (NY):
http://tinyurl.com/b9k3x
USA Today:
http://tinyurl.com/9lqpq
The Columbian (Clark County, WA):
http://tinyurl.com/8rf2n
Chicago Sun Times:
http://tinyurl.com/93bf5
Unofficial Google Weblog:
http://tinyurl.com/afuvl
"The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google
to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.
"The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child
protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court."
*
"The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have
agreed to release the information, but not Google."
San Jose Mercury News, 01/19/06
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/13657386.htm
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
Other U.S. auto makers will follow Ford's lead, and even more
auto plants will be closed, costing up to 100,000 lost jobs.
*STRANGE QUOTES OF THE WEEK
FORD Motor Company Calls Its New CutBACKS of 14 Plants:
"THE WAY FORWARD"
Source: Detroit News
[Since when is cutting BACK a way FORWARD?]
[This sounds suspiciously like the terminology used by
Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged to describe the plans of an
assortment of non-competitive industrialists as desire
to slow down so we can catch our stride.]
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
2/3 of Americans say prevention of terrorism trumps privacy.
1/2 of Americans say Bush's wiretap policy is wrong.
Source: BBC, 01/23/06
*
America's #2 Bank Says Bankruptcies Are Causing Decline In Profits
Bank Of America reported its first decline in earnings in years as
resulting from the increasing number of bankruptcies in America.
Profits were listed as $3.77 bn for 2005, $3.85 bn for 2004.
This from gross revenues of $14.12 bn for 2005, which leaves
the net income as $.27% of the gross. [= 3.77/14.12].
This might be due to new laws making it much more difficult to
declare bankruptcy, with much less debt protection, which may
have sparked a surge in bankruptcy filings, and the bank says
bankruptcies have fallen off since.
Source: BBC, 01/23/06
*
Steve Jobs bought 50% of Pixar for $10 million,
sold it for $3.7 billion. [Some do not report
this was only 50%]
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
*
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 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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