OK, interesting bits of internet history aside, now I don't know if I can trust truthorfiction.com. I use it to dispel the frequent panic emails from my friends warning me about computer virus woes, new drug problems, etc. Among the many alternatives to T or F.com which is the better choice? Frank
On 3/21/03 10:03 AM, "Lee Larson" <leelarson at mac.com> wrote: > On Thursday, March 20, 2003, at 07:57 PM, Frank Hammitt wrote: > >> Irrespective of anyone's political persuasion >> http://www.truthorfiction.com is usually a good source of information. >> Al?s ordeal is in there >> at http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/goreinternet.htm. > > > I find that site to be not untruthful, but committing sins of omission. > This bit of political propaganda has long irritated me because it is a > purposeful misinterpretation of his statement started by the Washington > Times and then spread by other partisans during the election campaign. > It was repeated endlessly by Rush Limbaugh and others of his persuasion > without any qualification. > > His actual statement was: > > "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative > in creating the Internet." > > When he arrived in Congress, the ARPANET existed. It was a relatively > small (by today's standards) high-speed network originally intended to > support military research. It mostly connected universities and > military research institutions. There was also BITNET, a > store-and-forward system that ran in the background of some corporate > networks, notably IBM and ATT. > > ARPANET was quite restricted and BITNET was pretty clunky. I used both > of them for years. Neither was anything like what arrived when the > Internet was formed, although the ARPANET used the protocols--mostly > defined by Vinton Cerf--that later came to be known as TCP/IP. > > Gore arranged the hearings, wrote and sponsored the legislation which > expanded the ARPANET into the Internet of today. It was much the same > way a politician takes credit for building a road without doing any of > the digging. There was strong opposition from some quarters to his > initiatives. > > Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, two of the generally acknowledged > inventors of the Internet, wrote: > > "The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting > the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is > timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman > Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine > for both economic growth and the improvement of our > educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the > potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just > improving the conduct of science and scholarship." > > On September 1, 2000, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich addressed the > American Political Science Association. Nobody can claim Gingrich is > not a partisan on the other side of most issues from Gore, yet he said: > > "In all fairness, it?s something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore > is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the > person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure > that we got to an Internet, and the truth is?-and I worked with him > starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a > "futures group"-?the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world > we had talked about in the eighties began to actually happen." > > > > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will > | be March 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be March 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
