Friday, July 29, 2005

Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!)

Protecting your intellectual property at home and abroad
Growing global trade in pirated and counterfeit goods threatens America's innovation economy, the competitiveness of our leading companies and small manufacturers, and the livelihoods of their workers. Bogus products - from CDs, DVDs, software and watches to electronic equipment, clothing, processed foods, consumer products, and auto parts - are estimated to account for up to seven percent of global trade and cost legitimate rights holders around the world billions of dollars annually.

Developed over the last year, the Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!) is the most comprehensive initiative ever advanced to smash the criminal networks that traffic in fakes, stop trade in pirated and counterfeit goods at America's borders, block bogus goods around the world, and help small businesses secure and enforce their rights in overseas markets. STOP! underscores the Administration's continuing commitment to level the playing field for American businesses and workers. And it builds on the Administration's solid track record of real results in combating global piracy and counterfeiting.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Supreme Court

For questions about the Supreme Court appointment the recent (July 6) CRS update on the SC Appointment Process will come in handy. The July 20 issue of Al's Morning Meeting also contains interesting tidbits for people whose focus is on the SC these days.

E-Podunk

e-Podunk is celebrating its 5th anniversary, a good occassion to revisit this useful site. From the "about us" section: "ePodunk provides in-depth information about more than 25,000 communities around the country, from Manhattan to Los Angeles, Pottstown to Podunk. Our listings also include geocoded information about thousands of parks, museums, historic sites, colleges, schools and other places across America."

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Currently in Congress 1 - 15 July 2005

The latest issue of Currently in Congress is available on the U.S. Mission to South Africa's IRC webpage: http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhic00.html

Highlights: Answer Africa's Call Act, to implement measures recommended in the Commission for Africa; a resolution condemning the London bombings; a bill to reduce and prevent debris in our ocean's which threaten marine life and navigation safety; improving infrastructure and education for technology in the nation's minority institutions of higher education; a resolution honoring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who recently retired from the Supreme Court bench; and of course appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 06.

Hearings include a review of the US relationship with the WTO, North Korean nuclear negotiations, native american land claims in New York, small business development centers, the national security implications of the possible merger between the China National Offshore Oil Corp. and Unocal, and money laundering in the Middle East.

Previous issues (including 15-30 June which wasn't posted to this blog) are archived on the website.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Pew Report on Islamic Extremism


Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics


Concerns about Islamic extremism, widespread in the West even before this month's terrorist attacks in London, are shared to a considerable degree by the publics in several predominantly Muslim nations, most notably Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia. Most Muslim publics are also expressing less support for acts of terrorism in defense of Islam and less confidence in Osama bin Laden.

Yet, the latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted this spring among more than 17,000 people in 17 countries, finds that Muslim and non-Muslim publics have very different attitudes with regard to the impact of Islam on their countries.

While publics in predominantly Muslim countries voice concerns that Islamic extremism can lead to violence, fewer personal freedoms, internal divisions, and retarded economic development, the balance of opinion is that Islam is playing a larger political role in their nations, and most welcome that development. Turkey is a clear exception: there the public is divided about the desirability of a larger political role for Islam. [...]

Finding people on the web

http://www.searchsystems.net/ a good search engine for finding people in public databases in the U.S. Most searches are free of charge.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

news.myway.com

news.myway.com draws on AP, Reuters, New York Times, CBS, MSNBC,USA TODAY, and FOX News to provide an attractive ad-free interface to current news. Stories can be displayed by source or by topic. It's a useful one-stop site for assembling news compilations for high level visits, etc.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

2005 SLA POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS FROM SLA CONFERENCE, TORONTO

URL for access to these POWERPOINTS is:

http://www.sla.org/content/Events/confpresentations/05confpresent.cfm

Powerpoints include Money Laundering, International Business, Best of the Web, etc.

Stephen Perry, IRO, BUENOS AIRES

Friday, July 8, 2005

FROM FREEPINT: EXPLANATION OF GOOGLE ANSWERS

TIPS ARTICLE http://www.freepint.com/issues/300605.htm#tips
"An Insider's View of Google Answers" By David Sarokin Somewhere in the world is a person who wants ... no, needs! ... some obscure piece of information. Perhaps it's the number of Cessna 152s registered in the US; a transcript from a WWII war crimes trial; or details about the annual wheat harvest in Iran. Information that they cannot find, but that I can. The challenge is, how can we find one another? Amazingly, it's not that hard. The questioner simply states the question, offers a fee for an answer, and -- if the fee is reasonable -- the deal is done.
Article at: http://www.freepint.com/issues/300605.htm#tips

Roubini Global Economics Monitor

The note below from Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics was forwarded to me - the RGE website, www.rgemonitor.com is impressive! (Roubini's note:)"Following the tragic terrorist attacks in London today RGE Monitor (www.rgemonitor.com) is providing continuous and extensive coverage of the Economic and Financial Implications of Terrorism with up to the minute news, research, commentary and analysis on the economic and financial implications of terrorism. Our coverage also includes related coverage such as the debate on the Causes and Preventive Strategies of Terrorism (http://www.rgemonitor.com/151) where we aggregate the best thinking on this crucial topic.

Google Maps and gCensus

Google maps is an amazing resource: double click on the area you're interested in to select it (ie. center it) and use the slide or the plus/minus icons to zoom to the desired level of detail. To look at adjacent areas, just drag the map the way you would a paper map across a table top! Jimmy Palmer's gcensus.com has taken the Google map technology a step further and added U.S. Census data, all the way down to the block level.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

Hudson Institute on U.S. Aid

Carol Adelman et al. of the Hudson Institute recently released a white paper,
America's Total Economic Engagement with the Developing World , that addresses aspects of American generosity often overlooked by critics who measure aid solely in terms of Official Development Assistance(ODA)as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI). From the Hudson Institute's June 29 announcement:

Hudson Institute released new private international giving numbers today in a white paper, "America's Total Economic Engagement with the Developing World," by Dr. Carol Adelman, Mr. Jeremiah Norris and Ms. Jeanne Weicher. Updating their research on American generosity, the authors found at least $62.1 billion in U.S. private donations to developing countries in 2003, the last year numbers are available. This philanthropy, from U.S. foundations, corporations, non-profits and volunteerism, universities and colleges, religious organizations and individuals is over three and one-half times U.S. Official Development Assistance (ODA) of $16.3 billion.

Watching America with RSS feed

Watching America, which was described here in March of this year, now also offers an RSS feed

Friday, July 1, 2005

GPO Access and Thomas

(excerpted from LLRX)"The Government Domain: GPO Access and THOMAS for Legislative Research
Peggy Garvin compares and contrasts the features and content of these two resources, to assist researchers in determining which to use for specific tasks."

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Al's Morning Meeting

Al's Morning Meeting from thePoynter Institute is (excerpt):"a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis." Although intended for journalists, much of the information will be of interest to IRCs - including today's issue on Fourth of July resources. You can also subscribe to Al's Morning Meeting via email

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

USG RSS feeds



Firstgov's U.S. Government RSS Library provides an overview and links to USG feeds on a variety of subjects, including data and statistics, military, education and international relations.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Open CRS


Here's a new site devoted to collecting and making available CRS reports. It seems to have missed a couple of important collections - U.S. Embassy Rome and the Foreign Press Center - but perhaps those will be added as well. From the "about" information: "A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports."

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Latest report from Pew Global Attitudes Project



(headline from latest report of the Pew Global Attitudes Project):U.S. Image Up Slightly, But Still Negative: American Character Gets Mixed Reviews
The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, released June 23, was conducted among nearly 17,000 people in the United States and 15 other countries from April 20-May 31. From the introduction: "Anti-Americanism in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, which surged as a result of the U.S. war in Iraq, shows modest signs of abating. But the United States remains broadly disliked in most countries surveyed, and the opinion of the American people is not as positive as it once was. The magnitude of America's image problem is such that even popular U.S. policies have done little to repair it. President George W. Bush's calls for greater democracy in the Middle East and U.S. aid for tsunami victims in Asia have been well-received in many countries, but only in Indonesia, India and Russia has there been significant improvement in overall opinions of the U.S.

Attitudes toward the U.S. remain quite negative in the Muslim world, though hostility toward America has eased in some countries. Many Muslims see the U.S. supporting democracy in their countries, and many of those who are optimists about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East give at least some credit to U.S. policies. But progress for America's image in these countries is measured in small steps; solid majorities in all five predominantly Muslim countries surveyed still express unfavorable views of the United States."

Thursday, June 23, 2005

David Rumsey map collection

David Rumsey's map collection contains more than 150,000 maps and is one of the world's largest. Around 1998 Rumsey decided stopoed adding to the collection and turned his efforts to digitizing and making the collection available to others. The result is at www.davidrumsey.com - an amazing resource for history buffs and researchers. There is a short article about the collection in the July Issue of Technology Review.

UN Pulse

"UN Pulseis a service of the UN Dag Hammarskjöld library, and appears to be regularly updated. Also offers and RSS feed. From the "about" info: UN Pulse alerts you to selected just-released UN online information, major reports, publications and documents. Created and maintained by a team of reference librarians at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York, UN Pulse is updated as new information is published and received."

Full-text book searching

Greg Notess's article Searching Books Between the Coversin the May/June issue of Online magazine review the state of full-text book searching, and includes a comparison of Amazon's Search Inside the Book and Google Print.

Lugar Report on WMD Threats and Responses

Following excerpted from Richard Lugar's website:
Lugar Releases New Report on WMD Threats and Responses
"During the next ten years the world faces a 29 percent chance of a nuclear attack and the prospect of four new nations being added to the nuclear weapons club, according to a new survey of non-proliferation and national security experts compiled by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar. Over the same period, the experts rated the risks of a major chemical or biological attack as both greater than 30 percent, while the prospects of a dirty bomb attack were pegged at 40 percent.

The unique survey of 85 top international scholars, policy makers, diplomats, and technicians probed the attitudes of experts on both proliferation threats and international responses. The Lugar Survey found that 79 percent believed that their own country was not spending enough money on non-proliferation objectives. None of the experts surveyed believed that their country was spending too much on these goals."
http://lugar.senate.gov/reports/NPSurvey.pdf

Guide to Internet Research for Lawyers

Glenn Bacal's impressive Guide to Internet Research for Lawyers is useful for anyone doing legal research. "Completely updated with an edge and now with many new features, including annotated guides to best IP blog and news sites; IP sites for beginners; amusing IP sites; politically oriented IP sites; most useful websites for law students, and more!"
http://www.ali-aba.org/aliaba/glenbacal_2002.htm

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Currently in Congress 1-15 June 2005

The latest issue of Currently in Congress is available on the U.S. Mission to South Africa's IRC webpage: http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhic00.html

Highlights: The House scraps a PATRIOT Act provision, curtailing the FBI's ability to search library and bookstore records; the Central America Free Trade Agreement bill edges closer; Congress votes to remain a member of the World Trade Organization; Congress puts pressure on Saudi Arabia's efforts to curb terrorism in that country; and six judicial nominees are confirmed under the bipartisan compromise to avoid filibusters and the nuclear option, but the confirmation of Dina Powell to be Asst. Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs is delayed. Hearings include: Guantanamo Detainees, oversight of the Diversity Visa lottery, future agriculture and food biotechnology developments, reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, third world debt, and oversight of the IMF.

Previous issues are archived on the website.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Language Map

The MLA Language Map displays the locations and numbers of speakers of the thirty languages most commonly spoken in the United States.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Del.icio.us

Social bookmarking through del.icio.us is a concept that is getting much attention these days. The idea of saving bookmarks to a server on the web, so that they can be used from any web connected computer, is not new - Furl, for example, has been around since 2003. What makes social bookmarking different is that you can see what other people have been bookmarking, and let others see what you have been bookmarking. De.licio.us also allows you to annotate and provide subject tags for bookmarks, which is a potentially powerful feature; by subject tagging and sharing bookmarks in this fashion, communities of social bookmarkers will be generating new subject collections of blogs and websites.

I was curious to see how many hundreds of thousands, or at least thousands, of del.icio.us users had bookmarked ircworld. To do that, I registered with the service, bookmarked ircworld (my small but growing collection of del.icio.us bookmarks are at http://del.icio.us/osloirc and clicked on the "1 other person" (?!) who had bookmarked ircworld. I was then able click through to that individual's subject collection of bookmarks.

Another useful feature; when you find del.icio.us bookmark collections that look especially relevant to your interests, you can subscribe to the rss feed that is generated by each del.icio.us page, and thus be alerted to new additions.

In the past I've used bookmarks minimally, relying almost exclusively on search engines to find information. I find however that del.icio.us bookmarklets increase the convenience and utility of adding, organizing and using bookmarks, and the social aspect (along with the inclination every librarian has to build collections) makes it fun! You really need to try it to understand how it works and why it might be useful.

Debbie Weil's deliriously enthusiastic entry about Del.iciou.us at Blogwrite is admirably lucid and an good introduction. For an example of the trail an avid social bookmarker leaves behind, see Weil's collection of bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/wordbiz

Inevitably, there is similar service called de.lirio.us, but I haven't figured out what the difference is.

Peanut Butter Wiki

Wiki is a software technology that enables collaborative publishing/editing of documents on the web. The best known example is surely Wikipedia, but one could easily imagine other uses on a smaller scale ...f.ex. putting together a conference agenda, or creating some kind of online forum in which to interact with PD audiences. Peanut Butter wiki is a free webbased application that allows you to set up your own Wikis; to get a sense of how it works, see http://ircworldwiki.pbwiki.com You can get the userid/password by reading my posting about this on the eurirc listserv, or by sending me an email)
p.s. - please sign the guestbook!