Post Election Poll

Election 2004Source: National Annenberg Election Survey Post-Election Polling Shows Public Coming to Believe United States Is “Generally Going in Right Direction,” Annenberg Data Indicates (PDF; 96 KB)"After the re-election of President George W. Bush, the American public has become more optimistic about the general direction of the country and more supportive of him personally and as president, the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey shows."

Errors in English

Paul Brians of Washington State University has created a useful site devoted to "Common Errors in English," which should be of interest to English teachers everywhere! Another useful site is Stewart Clark's "English Matters" ; Clark is a Brit living in Norway and has developed this site with a Norwegian audience in mind, but his nicely organized collection of language resources will also be useful for a more general audience of teachers and non-native speakers of English.

The American Presidency Project

The American Presidency Project

Terrorism Knowledge Base

The MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base is a new and important source of information about terrorism, coordinated by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the website, the "MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base is the one-stop resource for comprehensive research and analysis on global terrorist incidents, terrorism-related court cases, and terrorist groups and leaders. The Terrorism Knowledge Base illuminates the current status of terrorism today. It takes users through the history, affiliations, locations, and tactics of the terrorism entities operating across the world at this moment. The database features interactive maps, biographies on key terrorist personalities, dynamic graphs, and succinct summaries on who is who and what is what inside the shadowy world of terrorism today. "

http://www.tkb.org/

Duelfer Report

The text of the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction(the "Duelfer Report")

Polling Report

PollingReport.com provides a tidy overview of current opinion polls

New CRS Report on Electoral College

Our colleagues at the FPC have made available the CRS report "The Electoral College: How it Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections" (09/28/2004)

LII theme collection: Elections 2004

Librarians Index to the Internet has assembled an Elections 2004 Theme Collection

Chicago Council on Foreign Relations public opinion study

Here's the latest Chicago Council on Foreign Relations' public opinion study:
American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

Nice tool for incorporating xml feeds in html pages

The RSS Digest tool by Peter Cooper is very easy to use: 1. enter the url of the xml or atom feed that you would like to add to a webpage. 2.let RSS Digest generate the code for you and 3. paste the code into the html page where you want the feed to appear. For example, the javascript for the 4 feeds on the left (Resource Shelf, Research Buzz, beSpacific, and Library Stuff) was generated in RSS Digest and pasted into the html template for this page.Please let me know if there are other feeds that might usefully be included here!

FRASER

(excerpted from FRASER™website:

The Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research is the newest project by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to expand on its mission to provide economic information and data to researchers interested in the U.S. economy. On this web site you will find links to scanned images (in Adobe® Acrobat® PDF format) of historical economic statistical publications, releases, and documents.

When used in connection with data contained in FRED® (Federal Reserve Economic Data), FRASER™ allows the researcher to create uninterrupted data series by accessing sources previously available only in printed form and those currently available electronically (on FRED®). In addition, the ability to retrieve series presented in preliminary, revised, and final releases provides a powerful tool in recreating and evaluating previous economic research and policy.

University of Houston Libraries election 2004 guide

http://info.lib.uh.edu/research/websubs/index.html?id=59&fid=108
A guide to websites in following categories:Analyses/Commentaries,Information Sources for Voters, News Sources, Official Campaign Sites, and Polls and Public Opinion

Electoral Vote Predictor

This appears to be a useful site for monitoring electorate opinion and translating results into electoral college predictions... http://www.electoral-vote.com/

beSpacific

The following is excerpted from Sabrina I Pacifici's weblog at www.bespacific.com , which a colleague recently alerted me to. It appears to be a very useful supplement to other alert services such as the Scout Report, Gary Price's Resource Shelf, ResearchBuzz, and so forth..

"beSpacific focuses on the expanding resources in the public and private sector related to law and technology news. Daily postings provide updates on issues including copyright, privacy, censorship, the Patriot Act, ID theft, and freedom of information.
The weblog was launched to the public January 4, 2003. The archives cover entries back to September 2002.
Sabrina I. Pacifici has been an active member of the online legal community for many years. She created the webzine LLRX.com in 1996 and is the site's owner, editor, publisher and web manager. She created the journal PLL Perspectives in 1989, and served as its only editor and publisher until 1996. Sabrina has authored many articles on legal technology topics delivered numerous presentations at professional conferences nationwide, and has been a law firm librarian in Washington, DC for 25 years, the past 20 with a global 50 law firm. She is the web manager of the firm's cyberlaw site and firmwide research intranet, authors in-house blogs, and provides research and practice technology services. "

Department of State launched a new Spanish-language website

The Bureau of Public Affairs released a new website in Spanish at spanish.state.gov. This site features a selection of information from state.gov, including About the State Department, Secretary of State, Background Notes, International Business Support and Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Foreign Policy Attitudes Now Driven by 9/11 and Iraq

"For the first time since the Vietnam era, foreign affairs and national security issues are looming larger than economic concerns in a presidential election. The Sept. 11 attacks and the two wars that followed not only have raised the stakes for voters as they consider their choice for president, but also have created deep divisions and conflicting sentiments over U.S. foreign policy in a troubled time". This new survey was conducted by the Pew Reseach Center in association with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Reports fron think tanks, NGOs and government agencies

http://www.resourceshelf.com/docuticker/
This subsite of Gary Price's Resource Shelf is a great place to look for "annotated links to reports from think tanks, nonprofits and government agencies worldwide."

Ranking words

www.wordcount.org
This is kind of neat, and will be a boon for answering those pesky questions that we all know and dread, e.g. "what is the rank, in terms of frequency of usage in the English language, of the word 'libraries'?" (answer: 4061, of an archive containing 86800), or, what is the 23,923th most common word in English (answer: photon). Regrettably, many of the words that people might be expected to ask about, like lambent, rhodomontade and balanoid, are not yet included in the word count database.

Election site

The electoral college, political parties, and elections: Sites to help you through the voting process
C&RL News, July/August 2004Vol. 65, No. 7
by Beth Jane Toren
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2004/july04/elections.htm

Yahoo unveils local search

Yahoo has unveiled its local search engine at local.yahoo.com, to give local.google.com some competition. Search guru Chris Sherman gives it a good review in SearchEngineWatch

DNC Links

from http://resourceshelf.freepint.com/

DNC: Selected Lists and Compilations
List of Past Conventions (1832-2000)
List of Keynote Speakers (1900-2000)
Most Notable Convention Speeches of the past
2004 Platform Report (PDF)
Review of Past Conventions

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States released its final report July 22, 2004.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.

The Commission has released its final report, available at http://www.9-11commission.gov  in PDF format. The report is also available in bookstores nationwide and from the Government Printing Office.

REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ

REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ
Ordered Reported on July 7, 2004
SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
UNITED STATES SENATE
108th CONGRESS

This version of the report is hosted in the MIT's web site, its size is about 16 MB and it is possible to search text using the Acrobat reader.

http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-textunder.pdf

The original report is available at http://intelligence.senate.gov/

Cape Town IRC compiles brief overview of how Congress works

Too many reporters in South Africa have been writing stories that indicate their utter ignorance of how Congress works, especially how laws are made.

Many of the websites we found that explain this topic are just too detailed for busy journalists, and we weren't sure how their (usually quite big) egos would react to being referred to a kid's site such as http://bensguide.gpo.gov/9-12/lawmaking/index.html.

In the end, we simply put together our own page on the U.S. Congress. Take a look: http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhit40.html.

Mark Dobson
IRC Director--South Africa

[Free e-book] Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Fiction

Dear IRC Colleagus,

Maybe this e-book can be useful for American Corner or for IRC users.

Best

- IRC Jakarta

Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Fiction
by Jeanne Smith
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft7199p0zh/

Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter One— The Trickster Aesthetic: A Cross-Cultural Feminist Theory
Chapter Two— Monkey Business: Maxine Hong Kingston's Transformational Trickster Texts
Chapter Three— Comic Liberators and Word-Healers: The Interwoven Trickster Narratives of Louise Erdrich
Chapter Four— Tar and Feathers: Community and the Outcast in Toni Morrison's Trickster Novels
Chapter Five— Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited

Suggested citation:
Smith, Jeanne Rosier. Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1997.
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft7199p0zh/

IRC Jakarta, Indonesia
email: irc@usembassyjakarta.org

Some public diplomacy items

Bruce Bawer, an American writer resident in Norway for the past few years, has written an article in the latest issue of the Hudson Review called "Hating America." It is a meditation on what he considers to be a prevailing attitude in Norway and W. Europe of irrational belligerence towards the U.S.

Farish Noor, a political scientist and human rights activist, has written a review of Helena Finn's article in Foreign Affairs last year about the importance of cultural diplomacy (The Case for Cultural Diplomacy: Engaging Foreign Audiences)

Interesting reading from two very different perspectives!

Arab Human Development Report 2004

Arab.pdf

I am very late to post this, but anyway let me do it.
ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2003
Building a Knowledge Society
UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
ARAB FUND FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Excerpted from Scout Report, May 14, 2004

Military Campaign Maps
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/milhome.html

Created as part of the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress, this fine digital archive brings together thousands of maps that offer great detail about major military conflicts, including such information as troop movements, defensive structures and groundworks, campsites, local buildings, topography and vegetation. On the site, visitors can also learn about how the maps were digitized, along with specific information about the various technical equipment used to capture the full content of each document. The archive of documents here is not solely historically focused, as there are maps of more contemporary conflict sites, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The entire contents of the archive may be searched in a variety of methods, including through the use of keywords, browsing through a subject list, a creator index, and a geographic location index. From some rather interesting maps of the Brandywine to a Dutch map showing locations of military importance in Pennsylvania and New York, this site will be of interest to historians, cartographers, and many others.

National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism

Excerpted from: Scout Report, May 14, 2004

"...The MIPT is currently funded by a special Congressional appropriation, and is mandated to conduct a host of research programs, including those that examine the social and political causes and effects of terrorism, along with the development of technologies to counter biological, nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Visitors to the site may check out the online virtual library, which includes documents, reports, and public testimony offered on such areas as anthrax, border security, biological weapons, and dozens of other thematic areas. Additionally, there is a conference calendar, a terrorism database, and a special section on publications specifically undertaken by the MIPT."

Firstgov for Kids: The U.S. government interagency Kids' Portal

FirstGov 4 Kids: The U.S. government interagency Kids' Portal
URL:
http://www.kids.gov/

Welcome to the U.S. government interagency Kids' Portal. This site was developed and is maintained by the Federal Citizen Information Center. It provides links to Federal kids' sites along with some of the best kids' sites from other organizations all grouped by subject. Explore, learn, have fun and don't forget to bookmark us!

Warmest Regards,
IRC Jakarta, Indonesia
irc@usembassyjakarta.org

The New Nonprofit Almanac In Brief

This brief overview done by the Independent Sector provides a quick look at the size and scope of the nonprofit sector and the giving and volunteering that support it. You can find facts and figures needed to understand the size, scope, and nature of this sector.

Titles from ADSURLS no.64, 2004

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eGovernment Leadership: High Performance, Maximum Value.  May 4, 2004.
http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/en/industries/government/gove_egov_value.pdf  [pdf format, 112 pages]
Item# 04AD597            MPP Theme: 12DEL                       Geo: Global


Globalizing Cooperative Threat Reduction: A Survey of Options.  [RL32359]  April 15, 2004.
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/RL32359.pdf  [pdf format, 47 pages]
Item# 04AD602            MPP Theme: 02                  Geo: Global


Handbook of Federal Librarianship, 2nd Edition.  2004.
http://www.loc.gov/flicc/pubs/federalhandbook.pdf  [pdf format, 74 pages]
Item# 04AD604            MPP Theme: 12ICG                       Geo: USA


Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2001.  May 2, 2004.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/jeeus01.pdf  [pdf format, 10 pages]
Item# 04AD600            MPP Theme: 12LE                        Geo: USA


The Lessons of the Asian and Latin American Financial Crises for Chinese Bond Markets.  Web-posted May 6, 2004.
http://www.rand.org/publications/OP/OP117/OP117.pdf  [pdf format, 15 pages]
Item# 04AD596            MPP Theme: 4K                  Geo: Asia


Living Together: A New Look at Racial and Ethnic Integration in Metropolitan Neighborhoods.  April 2004.
http://www.brookings.edu/urban/pubs/20040428_fasenfest.pdf  [pdf format, 20 pages]
Item# 04AD603            MPP Theme: 12DID                       Geo: USA


Rebuilding the Supply Chain of Foreign Affairs Leaders.  Web-posted April 29, 2004.
http://www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP244/IP244.pdf  [pdf format, 6 pages]
Item# 04AD601            MPP Theme: 1E                  Geo: USA


Science and Engineering Indicators 2004.  Web-posted May 4, 2004.
Table of Contents:
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind04/start.htm  [sections in html and pdf formats, various pagings]
Full Report, Vol. 1:
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind04/pdf/volume1.pdf  [pdf format, 496 pages]
Full Report, Vol. 2:
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind04/pdf/volume2.pdf  [pdf format, 454 pages]
Item# 04AD598            MPP Theme: 14H                 Geo: USA


Situation of Human Rights in the Darfur Region of the Sudan.  Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  [Advance Unedited Version]  May 7, 2004.
http://www.unhchr.ch/pdf/chr60/ECN420053.doc  [Microsoft Word format, 24 printed pages]
Item# 04AD595            MPP Theme: 12HR                        Geo: Africa


World's Worst Places to Be a Journalist.  May 3, 2003.
http://www.cpj.org/enemies/worst_places_04/worst_places_04.html  [html format, 4 printed pages]
Item# 04AD599            MPP Theme: 12MJ                        Geo: Global

Excerpted from Resource Shelf:

U.S. Military
Source: DOD
Military Casualty Information
"The Department of Defense site lists United States war casualties from the Revolutionary War up through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also lists all active military deaths from 1980 through 2002. The data for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom includes the names of those killed as well as other personal information."
Other sites with military casualty information:
+ America's Wars (fact sheet from the V.A.)
+ State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel (NARA)
+ State-level Lists of Casualties from the Korean Conflict (1951-1957) and the Vietnam Conflict (1956-) (NARA)
+ Statistical Information About Casualties of the Vietnam Conflict (NARA)
+ World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing -- Army and Army Air Forces Personnel (NARA)
See also: Military Assistance Program: Casualty and Mortuary Affairs (DoD Directives, links to related resources, etc.)

Trafficking in Humans

The US Embassy Pretoria Information Resource Center has prepared a useful "infopack" on trafficking in humans: http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhit20.html. The package gives an overview of U.S. legislation and includes a selection of factsheets, reports, journal articles and websites.

Caregiving in the U.S.

(excerpted from http://research.aarp.org/il/us_caregiving.html ) "The purpose of this study – a joint project of the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP and funded by MetLife Foundation – is to update and expand knowledge about the activities caregivers say they perform, the perceived impact of caregiving on their daily lives, and the unmet needs of this population. Its findings are based on a national telephone survey of 1,237 caregivers age 18 or older, including approximately 200 African-American, 200 Hispanic, and 200 Asian-American caregivers. Interviewing was conducted from September 5 through December 22, 2003."

US Public Beliefs on Iraq and the Presidential Election

According to this new survey, conducted by the University of Maryland's Program in International Policy Attitudes, a majority of Americans (57%) continue to believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, including 20% who believe that Iraq was directly involved in the September 11 attacks. Forty-five percent believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found. Sixty percent believe that just before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38%) or a major program for developing them (22%).

Ms.Lebeau's Homepage

Teacher Sue Lebeau has done an impressive job of compiling web resources for students and teachers - see Ms.Lebeau's homepage.

Nancy Snow's website

Nancy Snow is a former intern at USIA and State, was a Fulbrighter in Germany, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the College of Communications at California State University. She has written extensively about public diplomacy, with a focus on "U.S. foreign policy, American persuasion, influence, and propaganda, entertainment and media culture in American society, communications in the public interest, and the impact of global communications theory and practice on democratic participation and community development" - relevant stuff for our line of work, in other words! Her website, www.nancysnow.com contains much interesting reading.

NAFTA Dossier updated

The Benjamin Franklin Library announces that the electronic compilation NAFTA Dossier has been revamped.

All key policy statements were replaced by newer items, current evaluation papers added, as well as more recent hearings and government reports. It links to the latest versions available for every document, with an abstract for each record and, in addition, it has a new design.

English: http://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/bbf/bfdossier_NAFTA.htm
Spanish: http://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/bbf/bfdossierS_NAFTA.htm

U.S. Blue Pages - USG Phone

(excerpted from the "About" section) "The U.S. Blue Pages project is devoted to helping you connect with your federal government agencies and services. The U.S. Blue Pages are funded by the federal government and administered by the U.S. General Services Administration. The U.S. Blue Pages are a multi-agency effort that establishes a standard, easy-to-use format for acquiring key federal telephone listings. The effort includes gathering, validating and formatting information for publication in local telephone directories and this website."

New FindLaw for the Public Launches

FindLaw, a Thomson business and a provider of client development services for the legal profession, has launched a new version of its “FindLaw for the Public” Web site (http://public.findlaw.com/) with many new features, including a redesigned look-and-feel and state-specific legal content. It also offers users improved access to lawyers through searching the West Legal Directory (with one million lawyers listed) to find and research lawyers in their areas.

The new user interface offers tab-based site navigation and expanded topic-specific navigation for more than 40 legal topics. Other new features include expanded content on legal topics, such as bankruptcy law and criminal law and procedure, as well as links to national and state crime-prevention resources.

Historical newspapers

For the occasional historical/genealogical reference query, www.newspaperarchive.com is impressive...although you have to pay to view the articles themselves, it's a great tool for finding references (a lot of inaccuracies however, as is generally the case with OCR generated datbases)

Gateway to Education Materials

"The Gateway to Educational Materials is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites." This site, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, will be a valuable resource for teachers teaching about the U.S.

PEW report about older Americans' use of the Internet

New report from the PEW Internet and American Life report: Older Americans and the Internet
From the report: "22% of Americans 65 and older use the Internet.
The percent of seniors who go online has jumped by 47% between 2000 and 2004. In a
February 2004 survey, 22% of Americans age 65 or older reported having access to the
Internet, up from 15% in 2000. That translates to about 8 million Americans age 65 or
older who use the Internet. By contrast, 58% of Americans age 50-64, 75% of 30-49
year-olds, and 77% of 18-29 year-olds currently go online."

Global Corruption Report

The Global Corruption Report 2004 provides an overview of the state of corruption around
the world. It covers national and international developments, institutional and legal
change and activities within both the private sector and civil society for the period from
July 2002 to June 2003. This year the Global Corruption Report focuses on political
corruption. It presents 34 country reports and the latest research on corruption.

American Dream

For school kids writing about that ever popular topic the "American Dream," this LOC Learning Page and the essay (with links) about "What is the American Dream"? will be useful.

The Potential Impact of Iraq on the Election

This is an election analysis from The Gallup Organization on how the issue of Iraq could influence 2004 Elections. "Although a majority of Americans continue to support the war in Iraq, U.S. military involvement in that country is not the highest priority for them when they are asked about the issues they will take into account on Election Day."

Preview of new govt. openness website...

This is what the soon-to-be-launched website OpenTheGovernment.orgsays about itself:
"OpenTheGovernment.org is a coalition of organizations and individuals concerned with growing government secrecy. We're focused on making the federal government a more open place to make us safer, strengthen public trust in government, and support our democratic principles..." more

American Women's History: A Research Guide

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women.html
(excerpted from Scout Report, March 19, 2004)
Greatly revised and expanded since its last Scout Report mention, (March 13, 1999) Ken Middleton's American Women's History: A Research Guide includes over 2100 citations to print and Internet sources and hundreds of links to digitized primary sources, as well as frequent updates and link checking to ensure the currency of cited resources. The Research Guide now consists of 4 main sections: an index to resources by subject, an index to resources by state, and two Tools sections offering guidance on finding primary sources (e.g. archival, manuscript, and museum collections, historical newspapers and periodicals), as well as secondary sources (e.g. books, articles, theses and dissertations). Some print resources listed under Marriage are bibliographies and historical overviews; examples of online materials are digital photo databases at the Los Angeles and Denver Public Libraries, that include images of weddings and marriage. Shortcuts to popular, quickly available, online resources are provided from the home page.

The Middle East Institute at Columbia University

[pdf] http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/regional/mei/
(excerpted from Scout Report, March 19, 2004)
Founded in 1954, the Middle East Institute of Columbia University has offered a multidisciplinary approach to studying the Middle East, with a particular emphasis on the 19th and 20th century... Alongside detailed information about various public programs for scholars and the general public, the institute's site also provides some helpful educational materials, such as a Research Projects section. Here visitors can download materials on educational outreach for Muslim sensitivity, and peruse other documents on researching Middle East topics on the Internet. The e-Resources section is also worth a look, as it contains a number of archived lectures on very topical themes, including Iran and Israeli and Palestinian nationalism.

The State of the News Media 2004

An Annual Report on American Journalism
Project for Excellence, March 2004
The State of the News Media 2004 provides a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism. The study is the work of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an institute affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Covers issues in the major journalism sectors: magazine, newspaper, network, cable and local TV, alternative and ethnic media and radio. Full text available at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/index.asp

IRAQ: ONE YEAR AFTER

(from EADSURLs no.49)
IRAQ: ONE YEAR AFTER.
Thomas R. Pickering, Eric Schwartz, and James R. Schlesinger.
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Independent Task Force on Post-Conflict Iraq. March 9, 2004.

While noting "significant progress" in the post-conflict reconstruction and political transition effort, the Task Force reports that the planned transfer of sovereignty on June 30, combined with U.S. troop reductions from Iraqi cities and uncertainty about long-term U.S. funding, has created doubts about U.S. staying power. To avoid destabilizing the effort and demoralizing Iraqis, the Task Force urges the Bush administration, the Democratic nominee for president, and Congressional leaders to:
* declare that coalition forces will continue to provide essential security in Iraq until the Iraqi security forces can do so on their own;
* emphasize that the transfer of sovereignty does not signal a diminished U.S. commitment to supporting stability, reconstruction and a peaceful political transition;
* affirm that the United States is prepared to sustain a multi-billion dollar commitment to Iraq for at least the next several years; and
* ensure broad involvement of Iraqis, and promote a leading role for the United Nations in the political transition process.
The Task Force report contains a range of recommendations for enhancing the coalition's effort to help Iraqis become more involved in the future management of their country. These include: increasing incentives for U.S. government service in Iraq; improving management of U.S. assistance efforts; moving quickly to structure the administration and staffing of a new U.S. embassy; promoting job creation; advancing the status of women; implementing a more effective public diplomacy effort; and ensuring transparent and accountable monitoring procedures for the oil industry.

A Year After Iraq War: Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists

This is the latest in a series of international surveys by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. It was conducted from late February to early March in nine nations (U.S., UK, Germany, France, Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan).
"A year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished. Opinion of the United States in France and Germany is at least as negative now as at the war’s conclusion, and British views are decidedly more critical. Perceptions of American unilateralism remain widespread in European and Muslim nations, and the war in Iraq has undermined America’s credibility abroad. Doubts about the motives behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism abound, and a growing percentage of Europeans want foreign policy and security arrangements independent from the United States. Across Europe, there is considerable support for the European Union to become as powerful as the United States... In the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, anger toward the United States remains pervasive, although the level of hatred has eased somewhat and support for the war on terrorism has inched up."

The Vietnam Project

The Vietnam Project

(excerpted from Scout Report, vol.10, no.10)
"A number of online archives exist already to remember major military conflicts (particularly for World War II), so it is fitting that the Vietnam War also have a significant web presence. Designed by a dedicated team at Texas Tech University, the Virtual Vietnam Archive "enables scholars, students and all interested in this remarkable period in our world history to conduct research directly from universities, schools, libraries, and homes."

Elections

Elections 2004

(excerpted from Scout Report, vol.10, no.10)
"Every presidential election in the United States gives rise to greater legions of so-called "spin doctors," and a number of pundits offering their opinions on the chances of each candidate who has thrown their hat in the ring. Fortunately, the University of Michigan Documents Center has developed this helpful and informative website that culls together hundreds of useful websites about the upcoming presidential election of 2004. From the homepage visitors can look through a number of helpful sections devoted to listing sites dedicated to such topics as Policy Issues, Candidates, and Campaign. Within each of these broad thematic areas are contained more specific areas dedicated to links on important subtopics such as campaign finances, media coverage, terrorism, economics, and many others. Scholars will want to take a look at the Academic Research section, which contains links to online periodical databases and some links to sites with recent working papers on the subject."

Source for economic data

(excerpted from Resource Shelf)
EconData.Net
"Place this one in your "must have" file (if it's not already there)! From the site, "1,000 links to socioeconomic data sources, arranged by subject and provider, pointers to the Web's premiere data collections, and our own list of the ten best sites for finding regional economic data." EconData.Net's monthly e-mail update (free) lists new reports and economic resources."

IRAQ: THE INTERIM CONSTITUTION.

(excerpted from EADSURLs no.48)
IRAQ: THE INTERIM CONSTITUTION
Sharon Otterman.
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Updated March 8, 2004.

This document reviews the history of the Iraqi Governing Council (ICG) and its attempts to craft a legal framework for the new government of Iraq, slated to begin after June 30, when the U.S-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) turns over power. There is a brief discussion of major provisions in the new constitution and excellent links to related sources, including one to the text of the constitution on the CPA web site.

http://www.cfr.org/background/background_iraq_const.php

News portal

news search portal
This one-page portal lists search engines, toolbars, RSS feeds, alert services and other useful resources for tracking and finding news items.

American Community Survey

The American Community Survey is a new nationwide survey designed to provide communities a fresh look at how they are changing. It is a critical element in the Census Bureau's reengineered 2010 census plan.

Iraqi Coalition casualty count

This site was developed "to provide information that has been
scrupulously culled from government sources and cross-checked
against other existing lists" about the military death toll in
Iraq. It features statistics about fatalities and injuries for
Iraqi Coalition armed forces. Data may be retrieved by month,
name, location of occurrences, cause of death, state residence,
and more. Includes links to sources of information.

http://lunaville.org/