Google to Launch Government Search Site
Google to Launch Government Search Site, By Kim Hart Washington Post, June 15, 2006; D01. http://usgov.google.com
The government search site joins similar engines that target the same audience. The five-year-old FirstGov.gov, a government-sponsored site powered by Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, is geared to help citizens locate federal, state and local information without sifting through individual agency sites.... Other similar search engines include http://govspot.com , http://searchgov.com and http://govengine.com... More than 87 million unique visitors used Google's search engine in May, compared with 443,000 that searched FirstGov, according to Nielsen-NetRatings.Continue reading
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.
GPO’s Essential Titles List feedback needed by Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Recently, the Government Printing Office (GPO) sent out to various library listservs a proposed revision of the Essential Titles List. We at FGI urge you to read through the documents and spreadsheets and comment to the GPO by Tuesday, August 1, 2006. Unfortunately, at this time, comments are only being accepted from depository libraries, but I'm sure Judy Russell, the Superintendent of Documents, would also appreciate hearing comments from the general public as well -- AND of course you're welcome to leave comments here and we will forward them on! For those unfamiliar with this, digital/online is the primary means of "dissemination" of govt publications to depository libraries these days. However, the Essential Titles for Public Use in Paper Format "remain available for selection in paper format, so long as they are published in paper by the originating agency. These titles contain critical information about the activities of the U.S. Government or are important reference publications for libraries and the public." Essential titles include such items as the "Budget of the United States Government," "Code of Federal Regulations," "County City Data Book," and "Supreme Court Decisions." Before giving your comments, please look over the following documents::
Captured documents made available
ODNI News Release No. 7-06, March 16, 2006, Office of Director of National Intelligence.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announces the initial public release of documents and media captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The materials have been posted to the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office websiteAudio, video and text files are available and searchable by keyword. The press release points to Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center at http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm which redirects to http://70.168.46.200/. New documents are being added every week.
The documents contained on this site were captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom and represent a dramatic departure from previous document release efforts which have historically taken place decades after the cessation of hostilities. ...The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available.There is a story about this here: Army puts files seized in Iraq on Web, by Alan Bjerga, (Jun. 12, 2006) SiliconValley.com.
The U.S. Army is the process of posting online 48,000 boxes of Arabic-language documents captured by U.S. troops during the war with Iraq.Continue reading
Do you have some ID?
Do you need government-sponsored identification to fly in a plane in the U.S.? John Gilmore wanted to fly in the U.S. without showing government sponsored identification and without submitting to an extensive search. His appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was rejected. At issue were the Transportation Security Administration directives, which are unpublished, change frequently and are often not available in writing. They are also not available to air travel passengers who often face confusing and conflicting situations. However, as part of the Court's decision, they did state that the current law "requires that airline passengers either present identification or be subjected to a more extensive search." While Gilmore lost his appeal and hasn't flown in the U.S. since, he did issue a challenge to the Department of Homeland Security's privacy advisory committee in San Francisco: mail your driver's license home and "attempt to fly home without identification." One person took him up on the challenge. He made it. Continue reading