Where Do I Find Regulations?

After Congress passes a bill into law, the next step is for federal agencies to write regulations which essentially put the new law into action and make it real. Since the United States federal government consists of many agencies, it was once impossible to keep track of all the regulations being written.

But now citizens can keep track of all the regulations from nearly 300 federal agencies! They are now posted on one website, regulations.gov.

In the spirit of the internet, this site allows visitors to make comments; and, in the spirit of participatory government, many regulations are re-written based on your feedback.

Having trouble understanding a regulation? Regulations.gov has a glossary.

The next time I need information about a federal regulation, I'm going to Regulations.gov!

CIA World Factbook: We're Not Number 1

Statistics that were compiled by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in their World Factbook, were put on a chart that ran in the New York Times a few days ago.

Since the chart is nearly impossible for you to read here, please check it out on the NYT site.

According to the statistics, we are a less democratic nation than we used to be.

Furthermore, of the thirty-three countries on the chart, we have the most food insecurity, which is defined as the percentage of people surveyed who didn't have the money to buy the food needed for their family at some point over the past 12 months.

Oh yeah, and we also have by far the largest prison population, but you knew that.

It is no wonder that the Times gave their chart the title "American Shame."

How and Why to go Retro-Techno

I'm not talking about music here, I'm talking about retreating to simpler (older), or more "primitive" forms of technology. I'll give you some resources that will provide a "how," but first, I'll briefly explain the "why."


If you can get past a few anachronistic elements (for example, language that we now consider sexist) a lot of practical information can be gleaned from retro-techno resources like this 1940's article from the Popular Science archives (right).






Let's take cars for one example. The autos being made today are so "high-tech" that specialized training and equipment is often needed to work on them. In the old days, pretty much any "handy" person could fix pretty much any vehicle. So flexibility and the potential to save a lot of money is part of the upside of going retro-techno.

Another thing to think about is the unrest going on in the Middle East right now. Our own media has only addressed this turbulence as a democracy vs. dictatorship kind of conflict, but more is going on. Larger numbers of people are being forced to live with less food available at higher and higher prices. Furthermore, countries - Egypt being one of them - that used to export oil now consume more than they produce. Although it may be difficult to accept, we Americans are also stressed by rising food prices and our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. We are living in uncertain times. Therefore, I think the best reason to go retro-techno is that it will help you to "do for yourself", that is, to be more self-reliant.


Okay here are some resources:


Archives of Popular Science magazine has sections dealing with gadgets, cars, science and technology. The site features videos and galleries and - best of all - you can search the contents of the magazine itself as far back as the 1940's.


Instructables.com is a site that features brief how-to's posted by ordinary people. Some are practical like the "How to Grow Oyster Mushrooms" post; others, like the post that shows you how to breathe underwater, might seem to be a little bit goofy.














Makezine also has a wide variety of things you can get to work on. It appears to be better illustrated and more "professional" than the instructables site.

The Failblog's "There I Fixed it" repairs section features creative ideas like how to make your Ford look like a Mercedes with only a piece of cardboard and a magic marker.


One last piece of advice for adjusting to harder times: Spend time with elderly people, they know what life was like in simpler times where people had to work hard to get by. Just get them started and they'll tell you all about it.

Where can I Find Statistics Related to Credit and the Mortgage Crisis?

So you're looking for an authoritive source that will provide statistics - and other information - related to the American credit/debt scene, including, or especially, the mortgage crisis.

Look no further than U.S. Credit Conditions, a resource of the Federal Rerserve Bank of New York.




This resource features lots of charts, graphs, and interactive maps. Choice, the American Library Association's magazine of academic reviews praised U.S. Credit Conditions as "essential for research on the US consumer credit scene generally and the morgage crisis particularly" (December 2010 issue, page 744).

What is Project Gutenberg?

Michael Hart (see photo on your left) began creating electronic versions of public domain documents way back in 1971. That was the beginning of Project Gutenberg, an archive of 32,000 books that can now be read online or from portable electronic readers.










Every one of the books availble through Project Gutenberg was previously published on paper by bona fide publishers and digitized by them with the help of thousands of volunteers.

And, like a good library, Project Gutenberg has made all of its books easily searchable.

GOSIC: The Gulf Oil Spill Information Center

Librarians from the University of South Florida have put together an excellent research guide for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. The Gulf Oil Spill Information Center or GOSIC is the place to go for impartial, up-to-date, high quality information about this unfortunate disaster. Resources are about the spill itself, as well as about clean-up efforts and the historical context of the spill and its historical context (including other oil spills).

Go Ask Alice: Consumer Health for the Younger Set

You're too young for the typical consumer health websites, right? Well, maybe you aren't actually too young for them, but you're a young hipster, not somebody who needs a hip replacement. As a young adult, many, but not all of your health questions are of a sensitive nature - drugs, alcohol, sexuality, mental health, that kind of stuff.

Columbia University's Go Ask Alice is the place to read anonymously-submitted questions about personal and intimate health-related subjects, including sexuality, emotional health, drugs and much more. All questions are answered reliably and non-judgmentally by Columbia University health educators and providers.

Go Ask Alice is a great place for information with plenty of comic relief.

The Niemeyer Search Tutorial

Library databases don’t work the same as Google and other non-library search engines. Chris Niemeyer, a librarian at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, has created an excellent online tutorial to help you become skilled at searching library databases.

The tutorial consists of five modules. The whole thing takes about 20 worthwhile minutes.

One good alternative to using the library database search tutorial is to ask a librarian for help!

Information on Countries other than the US

Need to find statistics or other information about any nation?

Try these links:


From the U.S. Department of State: Background Notes









From the Library of Congress: Country Profiles






From the United Nations Development Programme:
Human Development Reports

This is probably the easiest place to go for international economic development statistics.








A coopperative effort of the World Bank and other organizations (based in Paris, France) is the OECD or Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.







The World Bank's own Data Finder

Data finder's interactive world maps allow users to compare 17 key development indicators, such as life expectancy and CO2 emissions, country-by-country and year-by-year.






From the International Finance Corporation: Doing Business

Doing Business annual reports investigate the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 181 economies - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe - and over time.






Also from the private sector: Country Watch

Country Watch provides critical country-specific intelligence and data through its suite of products.







You can also access data on various countries with the following books:

The CIA World Factbook (in the Reference section at all three MPTC campuses, call number: G 122 .U56) or access it from their website









The Financial Times' World Desk Reference
A complete overview of the modern world: More than 600 maps, 5,000 charts and diagrams, and including over 25,000 facts and statistics on the world's 193 nations.




Nations of the World: A Political, Economic, and Business Handbook
(2010 Edition at FdL campus, 2006 at WB campus)
The political, economic and business climates of the world have dramatically changed since the last edition and this 2010 edition uniquely captures these changes-from current facts and figures to keen insight into economic, social and business conditions of over 200 nations. Call number: HF1010 .N37



The Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life
(Fond du Lac and West Bend campuses)
This 4-volume encyclopdia provides information on 500 cultures of the world, covering twenty different areas of daily life including clothing, food, language, and religion. Call number: GN333.W67 1998




You may also want to check out these blogposts on international business.

Links for Information from the Federal Government

Looking for statistics or other information about the United States and the people that live here?
In many cases, the best place to get it from is the federal government itself.

Try these links:


USA.gov: A comprehensive directory of official information and services.







Fedstats: Use this site to find statistics from all fifty states and over 100 agencies.



Data.gov: The federal government created this site to make non-classified information from the executive branch accessible to the public.










The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications: This is the search tool of choice for federal publications.






Statistical Abstract of the United States: A comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.









Bureau of Labor Statistics: This site provides data in the fields of labor and economics to illustrate the social and economic conditions of the nation.










Google Uncle Sam: Use this link to search all sites ending in "dot gov."









Best Places to Work in the Federal Government: This site features data from the most recent survey of federal employees, conducted in 2009.

Wall Stats' Death and Taxes Poster

Did you ever want to know how many taxpayers' dollars are being spent on various government programs? I'm not necessarily trying to stir up outrage, but then again, even those who don't grumble about paying taxes are likely to question some part of the United States budget, because the numbers reflect our country's priorities. If you don't think that NASA or the Department of Education has too big a budget, you're likely to think that the Department of Defense is costing us too much, or, looking at the big picture, a lot of people will look at our level of deficit spending and question if we'll ever be able to pay back our debts.

If you're going to be outraged anyway, you may as well do it over the correct data. That is where Wall Stats comes in. Their Death & Taxes 2010 poster can be viewed at MPTC's Fond du Lac campus library near the atlas stand. alternatively, you can see Death & Taxes 2010 on the web.



To give you an idea of the complexity of Death & Taxes 2010, here's what the whole thing looks like:

The World Bank's Data Finder

The World Bank's Data Finder allows you to compare 17 key statistics, such as life expectancy and CO2 emissions, country-by-country and year-by-year on an interactive world map. While a few countries have not provided data, and no statistics are available prior to 1960, it is nevertheless remarkable that so much data can be accessed so easily.




Statistics that you can look up in the Data Finder include:

• Energy use
• Population
• CO2 emissions
• Internet users
• GDP (in US$)
• GDP growth
• GNI (Gross National Income)
• Inflation
• Life expectancy at birth
• Fertility rate (births per woman)
• Military expenditure (as a % of GDP)
• Imports of goods and services, and
• Mortality rate (deaths under 5 per 1000)

Check out the World Bank's Data Finder now!



Google has recently teamed up with the World Bank to offer you the opportunity to make graphs of Data Finder statistics. See this post from Google's own blog to learn how it is done!

Attention Bibliophiles!

Are you a book lover looking for something to do as our weather keeps us indoors? You're in luck! There happen to be two book festivals taking place soon in our "neck of the woods".


Wisconsin Book Festival (Oct. 7-11, 2009 Madison, WI)
http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/

Wisconsin Book Festival History The first-ever Wisconsin Book Festival, a program of the Wisconsin Humanities Council, was held in the capital city in October, 2002. Since its debut, the Festival has established itself as a beloved fixture in Wisconsin's rich cultural landscape. Through a unique partnership between the public, private, and academic sectors, the Wisconsin Book Festival celebrates our state's rich literary heritage, brings some of America's finest writers to the people of Wisconsin, and encourages Wisconsinites of all ages to read widely and to read well.The Festival has attracted an eclectic mix of accomplished writers, including: Billy Collins, Grace Paley, Tim O'Brien, Edwidge Danticat, Edmund White, Richard Bausch, Charles Baxter, Audrey Niffenegger, Jeffrey Eugenides, Harvey Pekar, Nell Freudenberger, Colson Whitehead, Heidi Julavits, Stuart Dybek, Peter Straub, Jim Shepard, Anthony Doerr, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, Elizabeth Berg, Judith Claire Mitchell, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Jacquelyn Mitchard, and Tenaya Darlington.The Wisconsin Book Festival is the state's largest literary festival, with approximately 15,000 annual attendees, and one of the largest in the nation. This unique event inspires book lovers from across the region to spend a weekend in downtown Madison and transforms State Street into a vast, public literary salon. In short, the Wisconsin Book Festival is a high-energy, high-profile, public literary arts and humanities program that makes an impressive cultural and economic impact each year.

Milwaukee Book Festival (Oct. 9-18, 2009 Milwaukee, WI)

http://sites.google.com/site/milwaukeebookfestival/

The latest edition of the Milwaukee Book Festival premieres this October, starting October 9 and concluding October 18, and includes events at a variety of venues around the greater Milwaukee area. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry -- readings, talks, discussions -- there's truly something for everyone. Get out your calendar now and start planning!

MLA Citation Guide

The Minneapolis Community & Technical College has recently put together a relatively easy-to-use 7-page MLA Citation Guide. It is available in pdf format.

You can also check out other online citation guides here.

APA Style Guide to Electronic References

So you're writing a paper in APA format and (*gasp*) some of your sources are not traditional print items or audiovisuals. What will you do?

There's no need to panic. The APA Style Guide to Electronic References will show you how to cite the following:

• an e-book
• a chapter from an e-book
• an online encyclopedia
• a wiki
• software downloaded from a website
• an audio podcast
• an online magazine
• undated content from a website
• a blog post
• a message posted to a newsgroup, online forum, or discussion group
• and more!

This valuable guide is kept in the pamphlet file at the Fond du Lac campus library under the heading "Bibliographical Citations."

The Cost of Snail Mail: Postal Prices

Admit it, you still use the United States Postal Service (USPS) to mail certain things. For your convenience, the USPS has a website that makes it relatively easy to know how much it costs to send something - whether it's priority mail, first class, parcel post, etc....neither rain nor snow nor....you know the rest.

The Dream Encyclopedia

The Dream Encyclopedia (Second Edition, 2009) is a highly readable starting point both for research and for trying to understand your own dreams. Famous dreams from world history, mental health and other disciplines (including the dreams in the Bible) are covered. The usual meanings of various symbols are interpreted and the basics of the latest research and science of dreams is explained.

Authors: James R. Lewis and Evelyn Dorothy Oliver

Call Number (FdL Campus/F Books): BF 1091 .L53 2009

Web Site of the day

http://www.savethewords.org/

Looking for a way to remove the vacivity from your days? Ready to ejurate your usual word choices? Here’s an amusing presentation of obscure words from the very folks that bring us the Oxford English Dictionary. Just stop by for a browse, or to learn a few new killer words for your next game of Scrabble. Sign up to receive a-word-day e-mail and/or to adopt a word and to work to save it from neglect. Perhaps you'll order a custom t-shirt with your favorite obscure word.

100 Web Tools to Help You Organize

Website Today February 20, 2009

http://www.online-college-blog.com/index.php/uncategorized/100-powerful-web-tools-to-organize-your-thoughts-and-ideas/


Tools that can help you organize your thoughts and ideas such as mindmapping, bookmarks, note taking, personal wikis and more can be found by linking to the site above.

Website of the Day

The Reverse Dictionary
http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml
Enter a definition and this site will give you its definition - or at least a list of choices to look up in a regular dictionary.