Evil RSS is good

EvilRSS is a service that turns Google search results into an RSS feed. Just enter your search query, click submit, and it generates a feed you can subscribe to using your RSS reader or browser(although I don't know why people use rss readers, now that they are built into Firefox, Opera and the latest version of IE) Note that Google News has this service built in to it (just click on "RSS"on the left side of the page after you've performed the search to create your rss feed), but this is the first service I've seen that generates an RSS feed out of a general Google search.

Guerilla Mail

"Guerrilla Mail provides you with disposable e-mail addresses which expire after 15 minutes. You can read and reply to e-mails that are sent to the temporary e-mail address within the given time frame."

Find sounds

...if for some unimaginable reason you need to embellish your website with sounds, this is a good site for searching for soundfiles. You can also browse categories (animals, birds, holidays, household, mayhem, etc.) for the sounds you need.

Heritage Foundation on PD

This executive memo from the Heritage Foundation makes some recommendations for moving U.S. public diplomacy forward. Among them, "look beyond short-term needs, assign clear authorities and responsibilities, and establish sensible processes to aid PD research, planning, clearing, and assessment."

Useamap

This is the neatest map utility I've seen yet. Choose a name (e.g. myshack)for your map, find your location, annotate the map, and save it to useamap.com/myshack, and hey prest you've got a map at an easy to remember url that you can refer people to. And its free! (sponsoring an event at an offsite location? Take 2 minutes to create a map for invitees!)

2 prong

Many services/tools on the internet require email confirmation to sign up, and leaving one's email all over the net can of course generate a lot of annoying spam. One solution is to have a separate email account for sign-ups, but another nifty solution comes from 2 prong When you visit the 2prong page, a disposable email address is automatically copied to your clipboard. Paste(ctrl V)that email address into any email confirmation form, and a few minutes later the email will pop up in a box in the "2prong" window. Then just click on the confirmation url you've been sent, and you're all signed up.

Page Bull

Sometimes its useful to preview thumbnails or images of pages before you click through to them. Page Bull
provides your search results in a grid of pages (3x4,2x6,or 4x3), so that you can see where you're headed. This is particularly useful if you're making stylistic comparisons or window-shopping for a new look. Try searching for "u.s. embassy", and you'll be overwhelmed, to put it gracefully, by a very familiar look and feel. Awesome!

American dialects

This overview of U.S. dialects was generated by a survey of pronunciation patterns in some 30,000 participants across the U.S. The results are broken down by survey word and state...if you click on the word "aunt," you'll be presented with a map of the U.S. showing the pronunciation distribution of "aunt," covering a range of sounds from "ah" to "ant" to "caught." Regrettably, small enclaves in Arizona and Tennessee also pronounce it as "ain't." If on the other hand you'd like to click to see how things are said in a certain state, you click on survey results/breakdown by state/Oklahoma, for example, and you'll see how all the survey words are pronounced in the Sooner state. Fascinating!

Poverty in the United States

(from BeSpacific) Two GAO reports on poverty:

Poverty In America: Consequences for Individuals and the Economy, Full text GAO-07-343T, and Highlights, January 24, 2007: "In 2005, 37 million people, approximately 13 percent of the total population, lived below the poverty line, as defined by the Census Bureau."

Poverty in America: Economic Research Shows Adverse Impacts on Health Status and Other Social Conditions as well as the Economic Growth Rate, Full text GAO-07-344, and Highlights, January 24, 2007: "Economic research suggests that individuals living in poverty face an increased risk of adverse outcomes, such as poor health and criminal activity, both of which may lead to reduced participation in the labor market."

Cultural diplomacy for armed forces

Through the Lens of Cultural Awareness: A Primer for US Armed Forces Deploying to Arab and Middle Eastern CountriesThe statement "Cultural understanding is necessary both to defeat adversaries and to work successfully with allies" sounds a bit peculiar to a librarian, but I guess cultural awareness is always a good thing. This 150-page primer addresses the critical task of providing U.S. armed forces with a better cultural understanding of adversaries as well as allies.

Report on the American Dream

"The American Dream" a perennial favorite among topics for student papers, is the subject of this report by the MetLife insurance corporation. The report reveals that the American dream is still alive, despite the erosion of corporate benefit programs and social safety nets, and is being propped up by American optimism; while a majority (66%) of Americans feel they have yet to achieve the dream, they remain optimistic about the future and feel it’s still possible to achieve the American dream in their lifetime (67%).

World View of US Role Goes From Bad to Worse

Time to put some more Public Affairs Officers in the dog house, they just can't seem to get it right...or perhaps we IRCs are to blame? According to this BBC World Service poll, released January 23, the view of the U.S. role in the world has deteriorated both internationally and domestically. What's a librarian to do?

State of the Union policy agenda

This White House 2007 SOTU policy overview is a handy 26 page pdf that gives a brief summary of the president's agenda on just about all the issues. For more SOTU materials, see beSpacific

Military commissions

Sabrina Pacifici has compiled some useful links regarding the hot issue of implementation of military commissions.

Wikiseek

Wikiseekis a custom search engine that searches articles in the wikipedia as well as sites that are referenced within Wikipedia articles. And, as described in previous post, if you have Google toobar ver3, you can add Wikiseek search to your browser toolbar and have it at hand wherever you browse!

Search any site from anywhere

A nice feature of Google Toolbar ver.3 for Firefox is that it allows you to focus your toolbar search window to specific websites. For example, I often have occasion to search just usinfo.state.gov, or ircworld.blogspot.com, or our own embassy website. Rather than going to each of those sites and entering my search in their respective search windows, I just enter the search word in the search window in my Google toolbar, then select the appropriate icon from my toolbar (I've got one for each of those sites) - or from the Google searchbar dropdown menu - to focus my search to one site. The built-in search window that comes with Firefox has had a comparable feature for quite some time, but there one is dependent on help from resourceful programmers to develop and share the plugin you need for the specific search (many are available - even local ones such as the Norwegian white pages - but they of course comprise only a tiny fraction of all the local searches that exist on the web). With the Google toolbar you can create the local search yourself simply by right-clicking in the search window of the site you want to search, and hey presto, you've created an icon and menu item that allows you to search that site from your browser toolbar, no matter where on the web you might be! Nifty!

National Archives and Footnote digitize historic documents

NARA and Footnote have embarked on a project to digitize historic documents. Many are already accessible at www.footnote.com/nara. The project will digitize:

** Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 — Including Journals of the Congress, correspondence, drafts of treaties, and papers related to Indian Treaties.

** Mathew B Brady Collection of Civil War Photographs — 6,000 glass plate negatives acquired by the War Department from Brady in 1874-1876. This includes work from other photographers, and includes images of famous people as well as shots of battlefields, landscapes, camps, hospitals, etc.

** Name Index to Civil War and Later Pension Files — Pension applications for service in the US Army between 1861 and 1900. There are over 3 million index entries that cover applications for soldiers and sailors as well as their widows.

As Researchbuzz points out in its review, there's some good news and bad news...

"...the good news is that these materials will be digitized fairly soon. By February 6, the announcement said, the digitized materials will be available at no charge in National Archives research rooms in Washington DC and regional facilities around the country. The bad news is that the digitized documents will not be available at no charge through the National Archives Web site until five years have elapsed."

Merger of State and DOD

This piece, by former FSO, former colleague and mensch David Arnett, is a fable about something that could happen - but I suspect it's also a tale of something that has already happened...

(Incidentally, here's an example of how useful "Deepquote" - which I described in an earlier post - can be. David's fable is located at the very bottom of this page, at the USC Public Diplomacy site. It's kind of hard to find, despite the well-intentioned notice at the top of the page (ie. For “The Merger of State and DOD: A Fable” by David L. Arnett, please scroll down to Section E.) This is when Deepquote, now renamed CiteBite, comes in handy. When you provide CiteBite with a chunk of text and the url of the page, it generates a new url that goes straight to the selected text. Neat!)

Peggy Garvin tests Thomas BETA

Here's a brief walk-through of the new BETA version of revamped Thomas, for gov. info enthusiasts.

Circling the Oval Office

Nice overview of the candidates, courtesy of Wall Street Journal

State seeks private sector help on PD

PR Week reported that the "US State Department and the Public Relations Coalition on January 9 to 10 are co-hosting a summit at the State Department that will look at how businesses and other private sector organizations can support and improve US public diplomacy. " According to a Fox News article, much of the advice from private sector PR experts focused on toning down confrontational policy messages and accentuating everyday good news stories, and doing less preaching and more listening. At the summit, 150 top public relations professionals and State Department leaders identified 11 action steps for greater private sector involvement and support for U.S. public diplomacy.

Thurgood Marshall Law Library - United States Commission on Civil Rights Collection

For Martin Luther King day...
Thurgood Marshall Law Library - United States Commission on Civil Rights Collection
"In conjunction with the Thurgood Marshall Law Library's strategic plan to enhance its civil rights collection in support of the School of Law's teaching and research mission, the Library has worked since 2001 to create a complete electronic record of United States Commission on Civil Rights publications held in the Library's collection and available on the USCCR Web site. The publications are made available over the Internet as page image presentations in PDF format. Each item is linked to the appropriate bibliographic record in the Catalog. Publications are also searchable by keyword and accessible by date and title."

Google Patents

Search seven million patents at Google Patents! When someone calls to share/sell an idea for an ingenious invention, its a good idea to have them check this database first. Even if you're not looking for something specific, searching/browsing this collection of human creativity and ingenuity provides endless hours of fascination. See for example the hydroelectric generator assembly for use in footwear. Includes a pair of fluid filled sacs contained in the sole of the footwear. The sacs are connected by conduits whereby, when the footwear is used for walking, fluid is transferred between the sacs via the conduits, generating hydroelectric power! Best of all, lots of great drawings!

Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign

This report to members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations by its chairman, Richard Lugar, discusses the relationship between DOD and State at post, and the role that embassies and ambassadors play in furthering counterterrorism strategy, policy and activities.

2008 White House Derby

Here's a useful overview of the field taking shape for the 2008 elections, and CQ promises
the lists will be updated promptly as developments warrant.

Thomas revamp

Here's something I lifted from beSpacific, who lifted it from SLA

THOMAS Releases New Features in Beta

Peggy Garvin posted this information on the SLA Government Information Division blog about the new features as follows: "The THOMAS legislative information system from the Library of Congress has posted beta versions of several new features. The direct link to the new features being tested is thomas.loc.gov/beta/ -- or you can click on the Explore new features link on the main page to check it out.

New capabilities being tested include:

Search all THOMAS databases for all congresses with one search.

Sort search results by document type (bills, committee reports, etc), relevance, or date.

Navigate and refine searches with new options on the search results and document display screens.

THOMAS includes a link to offer comments on the new features. Before doing so, be sure to read the helpful section About the New THOMAS (Beta) and--in particular--the helpful FAQs."

Links from Wikipedia

If you want to see which Wikipedia articles link where - to your website, for example - use the "Search web links" page. You can also use wildcards...by entering "*.usembassy.gov", you'll get a list of articles that link to embassy websites, ordered alphabetically by embassy. Neat!

more PD resources...

See also the Public Diplomacy Council & Public Diplomacy Institute's list of key PD resources, and PDI Director Bruce Gregory's periodically updated (but unfortunately not cumulated) review of PD books, articles and websites. The Public Diplomacy Council is also the publisher of a new (December 2006) book edited by former PD officer William P. Kiehl: "America's Dialogue with the World" includes contributions by Dan Sreebny and Joe Johnson, among others (see TOC below). Some of the contributions are available in article form at the the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Introduction
--William P. Kiehl
The Message is “Liberty”
--John Hughes
The Indispensable and Unappreciated
Global Role of the United States
-- Michael Mandelbaum
Refocusing America’s Message
--Anthony C.E. Quainton
You Talkin’ To Me?
--Ralph J. Begleiter
The Role of Competitive Fellowships
--Alice Stone Ilchman
Professional Exchanges, Citizen
Diplomacy and Credibility
--Sherry Lee Mueller
Arts Diplomacy: The Neglected
Aspect of Cultural Diplomacy
--John Brown
Public Diplomacy: The Field Perspective
--Dan Sreebny
The Technology Dimension
--Joe B. Johnson
Many Voices: Is Anyone Listening?
--Adam Clayton Powell III
Opportunities for Public Diplomacy
Programs in USAID and the Peace Corps
--Jerrold Keilson
Conclusions & Suggestions
--William P. Kiehl

Interesting PD site

The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy website has much information about cultural and public diplomacy, including a very impressive list of recent books, articles, reports and other resources on cultural diplomacy.

FirstGov Visitor's Portal

FirstGov has added a "for visitors to the U.S." section to the portal, providing information presumed to be of interest to anyone planning a visit. Includes border wait times, college/unversity locator service, information about travel, study, doing business and working in the U.S., visa and immigration information, history, culture, U.S. government, laws, etc.

New laws 07

Stateline.org has compiled a list of new state laws taking effect 1/1/07. Maybe of interest to journalists?

Thumbnail previews

If you'd like to provide thumbnail mouseover previews of urls on your site, snap.com provides the service free of charge. All you need to do is paste a little snippet of code into your html page.

Foreign Policy In Focus

Foreign Policy in Focus is a joint project of the International Relations Center and the Institute for Policy Studies FPIF's political agenda, in its own words: "FPIF aims to amplify the voice of progressives and to build links with social movements in the U.S. and around the world. Through these connections, we advance and influence debate and discussion among academics, activists, policymakers, and decisionmakers." Among much interesting material, see the recent exchange by Nancy Snow and others on public diplomacy and anti-Americanism.

History News Network

George Mason University's History News Network
argues that the history in the media is too often abridged to serve the purposes of journalists, economists, politicians, pollsters and others seeking to shape public opinion. HNN's mission statement:"To expose politicians who misrepresent history. To point out bogus analogies. To deflate beguiling myths. To remind Americans of the irony of history. To put events in context. To remind us all of the complexity of history." The sections on Breaking News and Hot Topics will be of particular PD interest.

LC RSS feeds

The Library of Congress is now offering a number of RSS feeds....

General

• News
  A bulletin service of the latest news from the world's preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing resources to Congress and the American people
• Upcoming Events
  Listing of the dozens of free concerts, lectures, exhibitions, symposia, films and other special programs offered at the Library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
• New on the Web
  Updates on new collections, features, reference materials and other services available on the Library's award-winning Web site
• New Webcasts
  The latest webcasts and podcasts of lectures and events sponsored by the Library
• What's New in Science Reference
  New products and services on the subject of science and technology from the Library's Science, Technology & Business Division

Copyright (from the U.S. Copyright Office)

• Current Legislation
  Notices of Current copyright-related legislation
• Federal Register Notices
  Announcements, rules, proposed rules and other notices published in the Federal Register
• NewsNet
  Alerts on hearings, deadlines for comments, new and proposed regulations, new publications and more
• What's New on the U.S. Copyright Office Web site
  What's New on the Copyright Office Web site

International Calendar of Events

The State Department's Office of International Information Programs has put together a nice International Events Calendar for events that are of interest to the international relations community. Includes links to State Department information on events and issues.

2006 best 2.0 applications

The 2006 award-winning web2.0 applications are worth a browse..

Future of bibliographic control

From LOC, a Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control "Advances in search-engine technology, the popularity of the Internet and the influx of electronic information resources have greatly changed the way libraries do their work. To address those changes, the Library of Congress has convened a Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control to examine the future of bibliographic description in the 21st century."

DOJ capital punishment report

DOJ's Bureau of Justice Statistics has released its annual report on capital punishment Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2005 and of persons executed in 2005. Preliminary data on executions by States during 2006 are included. The report also summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during 2005.

Creating dynamic research guides with OPML

Wilcox, Kimberley, "Gear Up Your Research Guides with the Emerging OPML Codes" (Computers in Libraries, Nov-Dec 2006, pp. 7-8; 46; 48).
http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/nov06/Wilcox.shtml
Outline Processor Mark­up Language (OPML) is not widely-adopted yet, but its ability to create dynamic research guides, with feeds of new titles from the library catalog and databases, latest headlines from selected blogs, etc. should attract the interest of reference librarians. Wilcox discusses how to start taking advantage of OPML even before the most popular RSS aggregators fully support it.

U.S. entry process rated worst by travelers

The Discover America Partnership is an " effort led by some of America's foremost business leaders to strengthen America's image around the globe. These leaders recognize that public diplomacy is not the sole responsibility of government, but also of business and the American people." The group recently issued a report demonstrating that the U.S. entry process is considered the "world’s worst" by international travelers. The organization suggests that minor improvements in welcoming travelers could yield substantial diplomatic and economic gains. Read the 11/20 press release and summary of findings.

p.s. - the commercial sector appears to be very committed to the PD cause! In the past week alone, 3 such organizations have come to my attention...in addition to the Discover America Partnership, there's Business for Diplomatic Action (discussed in post below) and Compete America.

Understanding the Federal Courts

This latest version of Understanding the Federal Courts is from 2003. Available as an attractive pdf or easy to navigate website.

Transforming NATO (again)

CSIS recently released "Transforming NATO (again): a Primer for the NATO Summit in Riga 2006". The report, a joint effort by CSIS, the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, and the Clingendael Centre for Strategic Studies, provides an overview of inititatives slated to emerge from the Summit, and offers suggestions on ways for the Alliance to prepare for its next summit in either 2008 or 2009.

Free Government Info

Free Government Info (FGI) has many interesting nooks and crannies (see f.ex. its blogroll of "recommended government information blogs" ) , and is surely worth checking in on from time to time. It also provides an RSS feed...you can read it when you drop by here under "more RSS feeds" on your left, or subscribe to it directly.

World's best blog?

Deutsche Welle's Best of the Blogs has named the Sunlight Foundation blog as winner of the 2006 International Weblog Awards. The mission of the Sunlight Foundation is (in its own words) "to use the power of the Internet and technology to help citizens learn more about what Congress and its representatives are doing, and help reduce corruption and produce greater transparency and accountability in government. The blog has been the epicenter for the Foundation, where the group writes about its projects, exhorts readers to join into investigations and updates people on these "distributed journalism" efforts."

Converting search to RSS

Saving your search as an rss feed is a good way to continually update your search results, without having to go back to reenter the search periodically. Both Google News and Yahoo News allow you to do this by clicking on the RSS icon once you've conducted your search. There are however a number of other services that enable the same kind of alert service via RSS, including Technorati (for the blogosphere) and Findarticles (for magazines and journals). Sharon Hously of FeedForAll has put together a very useful overview of such "RSS Ego Search" services at the RSS-Specifications site.

Foreign Media Relations Guide

Here's an article by Alvin Snyder that compares the public diplomacy approaches of the State Department with the way it's done in the commercial sector. The article discusses the organization Business for Diplomatic Action(BDA) (very slick website!) The mission of BDA is "to enlist the U.S. business community in actions to improve the standing of America in the world with the goal of once again, seeing America admired as a global leader and respected as a courier of progress and prosperity for all people." This it aims to achieve through its 5 point strategy plan, STARS:
Sensitize key U.S. constituents to the rise in anti-Americanism and its implications.
Transform the bad American attitudes that exacerbate the problem.
Accentuate America’s positive qualities and contributions to the world community.
Reach out to business leaders in strategic world markets to build new bridges of mutual respect and understanding.
Serve as the private sector connection for public diplomacy efforts by the U.S. government.

The organization recently issued a Foreign Media Relations Guide, which Snyder compares and contrasts interestingly with Karen Hughes's "Karen's Rules," the IIP media guidelines recently issued to the field. (see article by Elizabeth Williams in the WP Nov.8 and Karen Hughes's letter to the editor/rebuttal in today's (11/16)Post.

Civil rights database

From Researchbuzz: Washington University in St. Louis has created a new database of materials related to civil rights courts cases, including settlements, court orders, opinions, and case study research. The “Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse” contains documents related to over 1,000 cases and is available at http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/ .

Immigration statistics

DHS has published some recent immigration statistics including profiles of legal and unauthorized residents by country of birth. Another resource that might be useful for IRCs is the 112 page Welcome to the United States Guide for New Immigrants, available in 11 languages.

Death and taxes

"Death and Taxes" provides a representational graph of the federal discretionary budget, ie the amount of money that is spent at the discretion of your elected representatives in Congress. Not sure if this is a very useful way to study the budget on a computer screen, but it looks nice, and might make a nice slide in a powerpoint presentation (also available in hardcopy as a poster!)

Ask.com's election day page

Ask.com's election page should just about cover it. Analysis, resources, and a dropdown that takes you directly to "voter info by state."

Presidential speeches tag clouds

Chirag Mehta's "US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud" site is really neat! By comparing tag clouds from presidential speeches 1776-2006, you get a vivid picture of how the agenda has changed over the years. The tag clouds show the popularity, frequency, and trends in the usages of words within speeches, official documents, declarations, and letters written by the Presidents of the US between 1776 - 2006 AD. Cycle through the administrations by using the slide rule at the top. Awesome!

Thinkature

Thinkature is a collaborative brainstorming web2.0 application. Collaboration is enabled through a shared workspace and chat. Looks very impressive...will report back once I've tried it out with some collaborateurs...

Yahoo election site

Yahoo's midterm election site appears to be a very complete service, drawing on a wide range of wire, print, broadcast and web sources. Bookmark for tomorrow!

Constitution Finder

Constitution Finder is a handy collection of constitutions in English...for a more thorough annotation, see Virtual Library Cat

CFR election guide

CFR's election guide is "A cross section of recent Backgrounders, op-eds, meeting transcripts, and interviews from CFR.org, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Foreign Affairs."

Adding translation flags

Just below the ircworld banner you'll see that an assortment of translation flags have been added to the blog. Essentially, all this does is save the curious non-English speaking visitor the bothersome extra-step of having to cut and paste text into a translator like Babelfish. Machine-translated text is of sub-human quality, but occasionally good enough to provide some notion of what the text is about. And although the translations may generate more mirth than enlightenment, it is always a nice gesture to acknowledge that not everyone speaks English. For instructions on how to do this (some simple cutting and pasting of code) see the Digital Inspiration blog.

Combined Arms Research Library (CARL)

CARL is an essential resource for reseaching military and military history topics. Lots and lots of free information! In its own words...."The Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) electronic collections are largely composed of digital versions of paper documents from the CARL collections. Our intent is to improve the visibility and use of the intellectual resources at CARL by expanding the potential audience beyond the walls of the Library. The CARL will continue to select and digitize appropriate documents to meet the original goals of preservation and dissemination. We will also be adding documents received originally in electronic form."

Congressional staff salaries

Legistorm reports, "At long last, US congressional staff salaries are available for free on the web - and only here at LegiStorm." Disappointingly, it's only informaton about the salaries that is available, but even that might be useful. Legistorm says it has no partisan agenda and simply wants to make Congress as transparent as possible...and promises more resources to come, so it might be a site worth checking occasionally. A companion site, Storming Media is "an independent reseller of Pentagon and other US federal government reports on many subjects." Although documents are resold for a fee, the site is information rich and well organized and abstracts are free. In many cases, having the citation will enable the resourceful librarian to locate the document elsewhere, free of charge.

2 interesting election sites

Here are a couple of election sites snipped from the latest issue of Neat New Stuff . Electionline focuses on the timely issue of election reform, and includes a 75 page pdf. report "Election Preview 2006" - the report is "a comprehensive report on the state of election administration around the country" and "finds cause for concern in a number of states." A nice handout for journalists covering the election! The RealClear site is a feast for political junkies/gluttons.

annotations from Neat New Stuff...

• Electionline.org [Election Reform Information Project] http://www.electionline.org/ "the nation's only non-partisan, non-advocacy website providing up-to-the- minute news and analysis on election reform" provides info on the new procedures, new machines, and new rules that may affect the ability of citizens to have their votes registered and counted. Check here for your own states' laws on voting systems, paper trail laws, voter ID laws, provisional voting rules, voter registration databases, and early/absentee voting rules.

• RealClear Politics http://www1.realclearpolitics.com All the latest political news and polls for individual races for governor, Senate, and House of Representatives