Pledge of Allegiance

2008-09-04T03:10:06Z

AKerensky:

The '''Pledge of Allegiance''' is a traditional oath of loyalty often recited in the United States of America. It was written in 1892 by [[Francis Bellamy]], a Baptist minister and socialist.

In the United States, the '''Pledge of Allegiance''' is recited on many formal occasions, including at the beginning of the [[school]] day, and the opening of certain kinds of meetings. When the Pledge is recited, civilians face the [[American flag|Flag]] and place their right hands over their hearts. Men remove any non-religious headdress and hold it in the right hand. Military personnel in uniform remain silent and salute the flag. Under many public circumstances, in a display of patriotism, the Pledge will be followed with the singing of "[[America the Beautiful]]" and the [[National Anthem]], "[[The Stars and Stripes Forever]]".

The phrase "under God" was added in 1954, by a bill signed into law by President Eisenhower on June 14, 1954 ([[Flag Day]]), largely driven by the lobbying of the [[Knights of Columbus]]. The phrase has been the source of some controversy, as self-professed atheist Michael Newdow has argued the matter in a case involving his daughter before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was dismissed because Newdow, a noncustodial parent, lacked standing in the matter.

==Text==
[[image:Kljghlkjkh.png|thumb|150 px|Ol' Glory]]

<blockquote>
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag 
Of the United States of America, 
And to the Republic for which it stands: 
One Nation under God, indivisible, 
with Liberty and Justice for all"
</blockquote>

==References==
*[http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/04C1.txt 4 USC Chapter 1 -- The Flag]

[[category:United States]]

Internet

2008-08-06T22:49:38Z

AKerensky: /* Controversy */

The '''Internet''' is a global network of interconnected smaller [[computer]] networks. Data is transmitted between computers and networks in small packets using the Internet Protocol (IP); they are reassembled at their destination. It originated in the work of DARPA, a research division of the [[United States Army]].

==Origin==
The conceptual foundation for the internet's creation was significantly developed by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about communication, business and the exchange of technology:

*Vannevar Bush wrote the first description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system.
*Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, encouraging future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities.
*The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conference defined the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences, the benefits and advantages or such a network.
*Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture. <ref>http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii.htm </ref>
*Ethan K. Heinz (cousin of Teresa Heinz), originally developed Internet as ARPANET in the US as a means for various institutes to communicate with each other even in an event such as war. <ref>[http://www.internetisseriousbusiness.com]</ref> The Internet has grown into a worldwide computer network where anyone can have a chat with anyone else almost anywhere in the world, and is a vast source of free information.

==Description==
The Internet is sometimes also known as "[[cyberspace]]." Sometimes it is inaccurately referred to as the Web or the [[World Wide Web]], because the Web is only one of numerous protocols that operate on the Internet.

The common protocol used to access websites (including this one) is the Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The creator of this is [[Sir Tim Berners-Lee]], who recently in an online magazine article claimed that given the opportunity, he wouldn't use the HTTP format for websites. Berners-Lee is currently the director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

[[Ted Stevens]] famously referred to the internet as "a series of tubes" during a panel on [[network neutrality]]. While the statement was technically inaccurate, it is a reasonable depiction of the internet as an interconnected system to a lay person. The internet is formed from two basic elements, routers and connections. A router is basically a small computer that acts like a switching station, similar to the pumping stations of public water utilities. The connections are the pipes themselves, acting as a means to move packets from one router to another, and eventually from server to client.

==Controversy==
Although the Internet has been shown to contain valuable information, it also contains pornographic or otherwise vulgar material. Therefore, some conservatives would like to see tighter controls on the Internet which would limit what can be hosted and what can be downloaded.

In 1999, [[Democratic]] presidential candidate [[Al Gore]] misspoke when intending to take partial credit for the development of the internet when he referenced his High Performance [[Computing]] and Communication Act of 1991, commonly known as the "Gore Bill":<ref>http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/09/president.2000/transcript.gore/</ref>

:CNN's WOLF BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.

:Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

:AL GORE: Well, I will be offering -- I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.

:But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

In response to [[Al Gore|Al Gore's]] comments, [[Robert Kahn]] and [[Vinton Cerf]], the two men responsible for the creation of the [[TCP/IP]] protocol which the internet uses for most of its communication and two men often credited as the creators of the internet along with [[Sir Tim Berners-Lee]], said the following:
<blockquote>
Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively “invented” the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore’s contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening.<ref>http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200009/msg00052.html</ref>
</blockquote>

Their letter continued to go on to enumerate Al Gore's involvement in the early periods of the internet.

==See Also==
*[[Digital Philosophy]]

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Information technology]]
[[Category:Internet]]

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Pledge of Allegiance

Internet