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Gary’s Thursday Roundup: NLRB, Internet Archive, Ancestry.com, U.S. Census, and Much More (17 Items)
Hello From DC (I mean Shakeytown, it Was My First Quake) Everyone. As we prepare for our next event around hear and elsewhere along the east coast I thought it might be a good time to share a mountain of news, new resources, and other goodies with all of you. The material comes from posts Shirl Kennedy and I made to our INFOdocket.com site. This is just a small amount of what we post seven days a week. Plus, we also provide FullTextReports.com. New reports are listed in the left rail (Thanks Jim and James) We both hope you find and item or two of interest in the following update. More very soon. (-: 1. Hurricane Irene: FEMA’s National Situation Daily Update Available Online & Natl. Hurricane Center Mobile Resources 2. New Web Site: Feds Launch Performance.gov, Now Publicly Accessible 3. Acquisitions: Bloomberg is Buying BNA for $990 Million 4. US Department of Labor Improves Enforcement Databases Including Visualization/Animation Tools 5.U.S. History: “Rare Footage Unearthed Online” 6. New From the Internet Archive: “Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive” 7.“Google Forfeits $500 Million Generated by Online Ads & Prescription Drug Sales by Canadian Online Pharmacies” The full text of the statement from the USDOJ and FDA 8. Washington Post Op/Ed: “Don’t Kill America’s Databook” (U.S. Census Statistical Abstract) 9. NLRB — Acting General Counsel Releases Report on Social Media Cases 10. Back to School 2011-2012: Facts About Schools, Students and Teachers From the U.S. Census 11. 1940 U.S. Census to be Free on Ancestry.com 12. Government Information: GPO Releases API For FederalRegister.gov (Formal Announcement) 13. Teen Dating Violence: A Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography From the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress 14. Update: More Digitized Historic U.S. Government Economic and Banking Documents and Reports via FRASER 15. A Look at a Few Resources Using U.S. Department of Agriculture Open Data 16. Cook County, IL: New online database lets anyone see who has outstanding warrants 17. Federal Agencies Take Action to Digitally Document Nearly 50 Endangered Languages Continue reading
New Mobile Resources From the State Department, NLM, and USDA
Here are links from INFOdocket. New State Department"Smart Traveler"iPhone App Available http://infodocket.com/2011/06/14/new-state-department-iphone-app-available/ Travel info. iPhone app; Free. "Digitized Medical Books: National Library of Medicine Releases “Turning the Pages” iPad App" http://infodocket.com/2011/06/16/digitized-medical-books-national-library-of-medicine-releases-turning-the-pages-ipad-app/ iPhone app; Free "Food Safety Questions? USDA Releases Mobile Version of “Ask Karen” Virtual Assistant" http://infodocket.com/2011/06/14/food-safety-questions-usda-releases-mobile-version-of-ask-karen-virtual-assistant/ Mobile Web; FREE Continue reading
Data breach at USDA
USDA exposes citizen data These data breaches at various government entities have been happening so frequently that they don't even seem all that shocking anymore. But, of course, exposure of American citizens' data is serious business, especially when it's related to those citizens' receipt of federal aid. Since I'm not a hacker, I have to wonder: how did the private information of so many people became available to the public via the open Web? What measures are in place, or are lacking, in terms of protecting this information at the federal level? The USDA owes us an explanation. Continue reading
USDA redefines hunger
Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry. By Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post, Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page A01 The USDA has eliminated the term "hunger" from the categories it uses to describe impoverished households. The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security." This is absolutely horrendous that in the world's richest country (to say nothing of the 820 million hungry people in the rest of the world!), 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people!! -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. This is a good time to review Jessamyn's post from a few months back entitled, "reduce, reuse, and recycle... food." If the numbers above sicken you, please consider donating food and/or time to your local Food Not Bombs and/or donate food at your local food bank. Documents quoted:
- Household Food Security in the United States, 2005. US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- The State of Food Insecurity in the World. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
reduce, reuse, and recycle… food
Food recovery is a more sophisticated way of saying "food recycling", making use of unwanted or unused food. The most common methods of food recovery [pdf] are field gleaning, perishable food rescue or salvage (from wholesale and retail food sellers), food rescue (for prepared foods) and nonperishable food collection (food with long shelf lives). Some of these tactics are familiar to Food Not Bombs workers, food shelf volunteers or dumpster divers. What you may not know is that under President Clinton, some United States Department of Agriculture agencies (Rural Development, the Farm Service Agency, and the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service) and AmeriCorps created a Summer of Gleaning project working with food recovery groups in twenty-two states to help recover food that would have otherwise been thrown away. They were aided in this program by the passage in 1996 of the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act which creates a federal-level protection from liability for accidental damages for people and non-profits who donate food in good faith to help feed the needy.
A person or gleaner shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability arising from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of apparently wholesome food or an apparently fit grocery product that the person or gleaner donates in good faith to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to needy individuals.The USDA created a Citizen's Guide to Food Recovery which includes a handy state food recovery resource directory as well as a list of state food recovery law citations (sadly unhyperlinked). Other government agencies have also published information on food recovery
- The EPA even got into the act, dealing with the related issue of reducing food waste, mainly via composting and food bank donations.
- The USDA created a Best Practices Manual For Food Recovery and Gleaning in the National School Lunch Program
- The FDA created a list of links to resources for Food Emergency and Salvage Information in the case of a natural or man-made disaster situation.
- The USDA Economic Research Service published the results of their research on food recovery and farmer's markets in Increasing Food Recovery From Farmers' Markets: A Preliminary Analysis
- The Department of Transportation joined with the USDA and private sector organizations to try to address the logisitcal issues involved in transporting available food to the people who need it. It's unclear what the results of this program initiative were.
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