WOLves

CIA World Factbook 2005 Now Available

CIA Press Release

The World Factbook 2005 is now available on the Central Intelligence Agency Web site (http://www.cia.gov). The World Factbook remains the CIA's most widely disseminated and most popular product, now averaging more than 6 million visits each month. In addition, tens of thousands of government, commercial, academic, and other Web sites link to or replicate the online version of the Factbook.

Although this reference site provides information as of 1 January 2005, it will be updated biweekly throughout the year to provide wide-ranging and hard-to-locate information about the background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The nine primary information categories and the 139 subcategories for most entities include geographic coordinates, gross domestic product, number of mobile cellular telephones, natural resources, legal systems, political parties, illicit drugs, mortality rates, and much more. Included among the 271 geographic listings is one for the "World," which incorporates data and other information summarized where possible from the other 270 listings.

The World Factbook 2005 contains six appendices with reference information ranging from abbreviations and descriptions of international organizations and groups to cross-referenced lists of country data codes. The 2005 edition includes 15 reference maps, which are available in both JPEG and PDF formats. Many country maps and flags have been updated to reflect changes and refinements over the past year.

Six new entries have been added to The World Factbook 2005. In the people category, a major infectious diseases field has been added for countries deemed to pose a higher degree of risk for travelers. In the economy category, entries have been included for current account balance, investment (gross fixed), public debt, and reserves of foreign exchange and gold. The transnational issues category has a new refugees and internally displaced persons entry. Revision of some individual country maps, first introduced in the 2001 edition, is continued in this edition.

"Rank Order" pages are available for natural gas production, consumption, exports, imports, and Internet hosts. The "Rank Order" pages enable Web site visitors to select and view data from among 37 data fields in the geography, people, economy, communications, transportation, and military categories. Most of the information is rank-ordered from highest to lowest for all countries where data is available. Individual pages can be readily viewed, and instructions are provided for downloading and saving the data into a database or spreadsheet.

Printed copies of The World Factbook 2005 will be available for purchase in July from the Government Printing Office (http://bookstore.gpo.gov) and the National Technical Information Service (http://www.ntis.gov). Ordering and pricing information for both domestic and international customers will be available on the GPO and NTIS Web sites.

The World Factbook 2005 is available for download in Zip file format for both high-bandwidth users and low-bandwidth users via the "Download This Publication" link on the Factbook home page or directly from http://www.cia.gov/cia/download.html.

House Members Announce Formation of the Future of American Media Caucus

Aim To Inform Colleagues on Wide Array of Media Policy Issues Currently Being Debated In Congress

Not the first Time Canada has Tried to Suppress Citizen Journalists

If you've been focused on other things, you may not be aware that recently an American blogger has been banned from Canada for reporting on a government inquiry. Instapundit has more with background here.

The Toronto Sun reports: CANADA'S attorney general is probing possible breaches of a publication ban set up to protect explosive testimony at the AdScam inquiry. Justice spokesman Patrick Charette said federal lawyers are looking into the Internet sites reproducing excerpts of Montreal ad exec Jean Brault's testimony and providing a link to a U.S. blog featuring more extensive coverage of the hearing.

This is not the first instance of Canada's strange relationship with freedom of speech. In the summer of 2003, hundreds of websites in several countries that questioned the validity of radical feminism in today's culture and promoted true gender equality were labeled as "hatemongering" and "terrorist."

A recap of that event, plus commentary appears at the activist blog, the DesertLight Journal.

Let the Jocularity Ensue...

I dunno just read it.

Winer and Scoble and copyright issues

Yep, I know this is late -- so sue me! ;>)

If I had four keyboards and could type on them all simultaneously with both hands and feet,  I still could not blog all the stuff that's going on here at Schuett's Greasy Spoon. The cooking is the least of it!

Anyhoo, this is just an observation on EFF. Dave and Robert have been kicking around the issues, but, from a whole 'nother perspective, it looks like EFF may be going the way of Amnesty International (which was once entirely about human rights and is no longer) and the ACLU  Both are simply leaning toward leftist/feminist ideology these days.

For those of you kids who think collectivism and socialism is a fine thing, why not Google Stalin and check out what he got up to back in the day?

Sure, this is harsh. But it looks like there are those who would prefer that nobody be able to own the products of their labors, and that bothers me. It shouldn't matter if you're Apple or Microsoft or Bobby's Little Toolshed. I am all in favor of Creative Commons licensure for things like stories and blogs and things that could benefit from simply being dispersed all over.  I don't write software, but I recognize that is an entirely different thing than a novel or news writing.

Yes, Open Source also has its place, but do we need the gov to tell us when we may or may not share?

If Bobby comes up with a script that will magically solve the spam issue, he should be able to own that script and charge money for the use of it, just as Apple or Microsoft would. If Apple or Microsoft came up with something, the same rules should apply to them, because they are all businesses.

They are not charities or government entities, and I think sometimes people forget that.

April Fool's Day Looms!

Actually, it's already here in other places.

I have BEEG stuff to announce, but it's gonna hafta wait. I do not announce anything important on 4/1!

Watch this space!!!

American Idol #4 and other things…

Yes, my Michigander bud Dean Esmay has made it safe for us oldies-but-goodies to admit they watch it. Yes, we do. I found it by accident in the middle of Season #2, one day when I was channel surfing for something that wasn’t Law and Order.

That was the year they were sooo close, that everybody was holding their breath Clay vs, Ruben. Skinny white guy vs. hefty black guy. Some were attempting to make a racial issue out of it, but in the end, I think somebody said, it’s down to the pre-teen and teenaged girls with their cell phones. Who do they love?

I missed Season #1 entirely, and never have had much an impression of Kelly Clarkson. She was off-key and amateurish when she appeared on #2, and her subsequent single reminded me of an asthmatic trying to sing. Maybe somebody thought it was sexy – who knows?

Last year – Season #3 was entirely forgettable. I even forgot Fantasia, the winner, until I saw her on a daytime talk show while languishing in an $8 special-offer hotel room in Laughlin Nevada last week. I thank the Powers That Be in the American Idol machine that made her get rid of that nose ornament. She was always picking at it – that I remember! She’s a serious blast from the past tho, the era of Aretha, Gladys Knight, and Tina Turner.

This year I’ve seen so many good performances it’s really worth watching!

We are such addicts of this show, we stayed up to watch it waaay late, on Nevada time, no Eastern feed on the satellite dish, despite the fact we awakened at 4 a.m. in Prescott AZ, and drove for several hours, and spent the day walking miles to dump our nickels and quarters in their less-than-forthcoming machines. We were beat, but we saw it, by golly!

(Sayonara, Laughlin! Guess that will be our last trip. We’re certainly no high rollers, but we’re in the long tail…)

Anyhoo, I digress.

I agree with Dean –– Bo Bice maybe, but really anything goes this time. If either Bo or Constantine can manage to sneak in a good ol’ Bob Seger tune, or one by Seger's east-coast affiliate, Springsteen, then maybe we might have something!  Bo could kick ass on Night Moves. Whew!

I will always be a loyal fan of Bob Seger. Why? He was my first.

First interview, that is, as a high school journalist who had no idea whatdaheck was goin’ down…

;>)

BTW -- whazzup w/Simon?  I've almost always agreed with him until this time. He's gettin' soft, me harties!

All kidding aside, the American Idol series is so much like like the writing biz it isn't funny...most submissions, any publisher will tell you, are pure crap. The excellent, the wonderful, the not-to-be-put-down book are as hard to find as the American Idol.

If somebody did the same thing with books, they would need to go through thousands before they found 12 that would be readable, and maybe only one that would be a bestseller.

What is News and What is Not?

Interesting commentary over at the Blog Herald  on Google News, and its (albeit temporary) inclusion of a Nazi site, while ignoring some of the A-list bloggers.

Well, back in 2003, I was actually reporting news on my activist blog, and try as I might, I could not get Google to get past the idea that all blogs were simply personal journals and nothing else. Now they’ve gotten past that issue and recognized that a blog can contain any kind of content, I haven’t even tried to submit that blog to Google News.

That’s because over time, the focus of the DesertLight Journal has changed. Instead of publishing reports contributed by activists all over the world, it now includes much more commentary, with a US-centric approach. It’s become a jumping-off point, at times, for discussion in  other places, such as forums and listservs.

Does that kind of conversation constitute news? I’m not really sure. It does appear that the definition of what is and what is not news is changing. I’ve always defined news as something happening, and the reporting of same. Does the reporting at some point become the news? Doe the commentary on the reporting also become news?

Heck, I dunno. These larger questions are bit much for this early in the morning ;>)

Snail a dollar!

If you’ve ever wanted to help out a good charity, but your means aren’t such that you can afford to send a big donation, this campaign is for you!

Just put a 1 dollar bill in a card or note (or even a blank sheet of paper) and mail it to

Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men
PO Box 252
Harmony ME 04942

Our goal is $100,000 by Father’s Day. You can help us make our goal by
1.) sending your dollar
2.) repeating this message on your blog or e-mail groups where you belong.

Volunteers are standing by to open those envelopes! Let’s put them to work right away!

DAHM is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS. Here’s their website

They are the only nationwide agency serving male victims of domestic violence. As awareness of the full problem grows, and men needing help become more willing to ask, DAHM's resources are ever-more depleted. They depend entirely on private donations to keep the service running. They are restricted from accessing any of the billions of dollars in federal, state, or local government funding because they help men.

Most state and federal funding is reserved for member programs of state domestic violence coalitions. DAHM has been refused membership in their state’s coalition, because their services are primarily focused on male victims.

It’s up to the private sector now to help men!

All Day Irish!

Yes, we looove the Irish! My husband’s half-Irish on his mother’s side, and so for fairly obvious reasons we named our son Sean. (Here with  pics of his firstborn)

Ironically, last week while I was sitting in a motel room awaiting the birth of our springtime girl, I first heard about Ned Kelly, who was Irish, even though he did his thing in Australia, and they claim him. I also like Australians a lot, but that’s another thing.

My bud Phil Dillon the Prairie apologist has some neat stuff on his blog today, and actually this is the post that sparked all my Irish thing of the moment.

The Census bureau has good Irish stuff here.

I’m cooking corned beef and cabbage, although on the actual Emerald Isle the meal is ham and cabbage. Plus, of course, some good potatoes.

In days past, when we had boys all over and lotsa plates to fill, I’d spend most of the day cooking everything green I could think of. Horses doovers, jello, salad…Today my only extra thing will be a cake with green sprinkles.

And a special prayer for Irishmen everywhere.