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We're In Danger of Losing Our Memories
Hugh Pickens writes "The chief executive of the British Library, Lynne Brindley, says that our cultural heritage is at risk as the Internet evolves and technologies become obsolete, and that historians and citizens face a 'black hole' in the knowledge base of the 21st century unless urgent action is taken to preserve websites and other digital records. For example, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as US president last week, all traces of George W. Bush disappeared from the White House website. There were more than 150 websites relating to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney that vanished instantly at the end of the games and are now stored only by the National Library of Australia. 'If websites continue to disappear in the same way as those on President Bush and the Sydney Olympics... the memory of the nation disappears too,' says Brindley. The library plans to create a comprehensive archive of material from the 8M .uk domain websites, and also is organizing a collecting and archiving project for the London 2012 Olympics. 'The task of capturing our online intellectual heritage and preserving it for the long term falls, quite rightly, to the same libraries and archives that have over centuries systematically collected books, periodicals, newspapers, and recordings...'" Over the years we've discussed various aspects of this archiving problem.
Archive.org has been doing this forever. Why is it taking other folks so long to do the same?
The National Archives has versions up of all the Clinton White House pages. Here's one. I'm sure they'll get around to doing the same for Bush eventually. I seriously doubt the Obama team came in and pulled an 'rm -rf' on the old webpage.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The National Archives has preserved the whole final state of the Bush White House site here: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/
You find one Smith from Australia with no relationship to the Smith in Wales, who in turn has no relationship to the Smith in Zimbabwe.
That's because one was a blacksmith, another a silversmith, the third a pewtersmith.
It's not perfect by any means but the WayBack machine on Archive.Org can find some pretty old stuff. Scary stuff too. Like that time I was into...... er forget it...
Plus if the Whitehouse doesn't get your fancy... there is tons of Grateful Dead Music there as well.
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Also NBER President Martin Feldstein said in 2004:
"It is clear that the revised data have made our original March [2001] date for the start of the recession much too late. We are still waiting for additional monthly data before making a final judgment. Until we have the additional data, we cannot make a decision."
Interesting way of saying "we are clearly wrong, but we aren't going to commit to it".
And Finally, how could someone who hadn't by March even passed his economic policy until June of that year.
Interesting further quote from the article on his economic policy Bush inherited a faltering economy from Clinton, the economy having grown only at a 1.1% annualized rate over the previous three quarters from March 31 of the first year of Bush presidency [15](see Early 2000s recession). Bush had his tax cut plan approved by Congress in June, proposed early as a response to the economic decline and, despite the aftermath of the 2001 9/11 attacks, managed to keep the country out of recession[neutrality disputed] (defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in the size of the economy) during the time he and his economic policies were assuming more control over the economy.
I may not like the man as president, but I refuse to make him the magic bullet for all the problems with this country.
World War II: Rosevelt (D). (more dead americans than any war in history)
Actually, more Americans died in the Civil War.
In World War 2, about 418,500 Americans died. That's a lot, but we got off light compared to the other combatants, whose casualties numbered in the millions.
Meanwhile, about 620,000 Americans died in the U.S. Civil War -- 360,000 Union soldiers, 260,000 Confederates. The Confederates were Americans too, ya know, despite their best efforts to split off.
World War II: Rosevelt (D). (more dead americans than any war in history)
Only if you discount the bit of unpleasantness from 1861 - 1865.
[Insert pithy quote here]