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GAO’s conclusions on sectarian violence declared secret by Pentagon
US auditor queries military Iraq casualty figures, Yahoo! News, Sep 7, 2007
Continue readingAn independent US government auditor on Friday cast doubt on US military statistics expected to show a huge dip in sectarian violence in Iraq under the current troop surge strategy.
Comptroller General David Walker said there was a "significant difference" of approach between the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which he heads, and Pentagon evaluations of violence in Iraq...."We could not get comfortable with (the military's) methodology for determining what's sectarian versus nonsectarian violence," Walker told senators....
Walker was unable to go into further details, as the rest of the GAO's conclusions in the report on sectarian violence have been declared secret by the Pentagon, and urged senators to read the classified version of the study.
UNESCO whitepaper on Open Source Digital Archival and Preservation System
- Towards an Open Source Repository and Preservation System: Recommendations on the Implementation of an Open Source Digital Archival and Preservation System and on Related Software Development, Kevin Bradley, Junran Lei, and Chris Blackall. Paris: UNESCO, 2007.
This is an interesting and worthwhile whitepaper. It examines existing open source tools and evaluates them for constructing a digital archival and preservation system compatible with the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). Their aim it to develop a single package open source repository system based on existing open source platforms. Its model organization is a small- to medium-size cultural heritage organization with a low, but not non-existent, capital investment budget aiming to manage between 1TB and 20TB of data.
One of the recommendations of the whitepaper is to "Encourage the development of federated and cooperative approaches through the adoption of standard data packages."
Although the report does not examine LOCKSS because its goal was to be able to support standalone preservation repositories that are not dependant on remote storage facilities or systems, it does have as another key finding that the system should "Make multiple copies, and check and verify them regularly" -- just as LOCKSS does
This from the executive summary:
This Document defines the requirements for a digital archival and preservation system using standard hardware and describes a set of open source software which can be used to implement it. This report defines the requirements for a digital archival and preservation system using standard hardware and describes a set of open source software which could used to implement it. There are two aspects of this report that distinguish it from other approaches. One is the complete or holistic approach to digital preservation. The report recognises that a functioning preservation system must consider all aspects of a digital repositories; Ingest, Access, Administration, Data Management, Preservation Planning and Archival Storage, including storage media and management software. Secondly, the report argues that, for simple digital objects, the solution to digital preservation is relatively well understood, and that what is needed are affordable tools, technology and training in using those systems.Continue reading
C-SPAN series on Presidential Libraries
Presidential Libraries: History Uncovered began this week. It is broadcast at 8PM Eastern Time on C-SPAN, and on C-SPAN Radio Saturdays at 3pm ET The series offers what presidential historian Richard Norton Smith predicts will be "a kind of history that people don't get out of their textbooks." The series covers Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton. The first show (September 7 on TV, and September 8 on radio) was on Hoover. More material is online at the above link.
More about the series here:
C-SPAN Libraries series opens door to presidential history, by Jeannie Kever, Houston Chronicle Sept. 6, 2007.
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Public Libraries Can’t Fill Digital Divide Alone
Public Libraries Can't Fill Digital Divide Alone, Senate Committee Told
Jennifer Pinkowski -- Library Journal, 9/7/2007
Public libraries alone cannot fill the digital divide that plagues rural Arkansas, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Library System director David Burdick told United States Senators and officials from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on August 28. Burdick testified in Little Rock at the Central Arkansas Library System's downtown branch before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee in a field hearing on the accessibility and affordability of broadband in Arkansas organized by Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR).
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Lunchtime Listen: Checks and Balances
In his new book Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, Charlie Savage documents how the Bush administration has expanded presidential power and limited the checks and balances of Congress and the courts. In an interview with Terry Gross he outlines many of the key points of his book:
- Charlie Savage, In Pursuit of the Imperial President, Interview of Charlie Savage by Terry Gross, Fresh Air, (September 5, 2007)
A transcript is available on LexisNexis and Factiva and the audio is also available as a podcast.
Savage describes some of the expanded executive powers this way:
...the ability to unilaterally pull out of a treaty without consulting the Senate as Bush did in the anti-ballistic missile treaty in December of 2001, which means some future president who doesn't like NATO or the UN could just say, 'We're out,' and we would be out. The ability to impose martial law over the objections of a state governor. The ability to hold a US citizen without trial or without charges perpetually by naming them an enemy combatant. The ability to keep all matters of documents and government activity secret from lawsuits and from Congress in a much broader fortress of secrecy than previous presidents have enjoyed. A much more aggressive use of the ability to shut down lawsuits simply by uttering the magic words 'state secrets.'"
And he says that the implications reach far into the future:
...the Bush administration could leave office entirely tomorrow and the agenda will already have been completed.... The strategy was, 'We are going to permanently expand the power of the presidency as an institution for all future presidents to wield. We are going to throw off the restraints that were imposed in the '70s after Watergate and Vietnam. We are going to magnify the powers that the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. dubbed "the imperial presidency," which had arisen just in the first couple of decades of the Cold War, peaked under Nixon and were sort of brought under control again after Watergate and Vietnam.'
Charlie Savage covers national legal affairs for "The Boston Globe" and won a Pulitzer Prize for investigation into President Bush's use of executive signing statements.
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