From: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn)
Subject: VNS, Wed 30-Sep-1992
Organization: Digital Equipment Co. Ltd., Reading, England
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 16:08:49 GMT


 ------- Forwarded mail received on 30-Sep-1992 at 10:02:57 -------

From:	FORTY2::LEROUF::CASEE::VNS "The VOGON News Service  30-Sep-1992 0908"
To:	VNS-Distribution
Subj:	VNS #2673  Wed 30-Sep-1992

<><><><><><><><>  T h e   V O G O N   N e w s   S e r v i c e  <><><><><><><><>

 Edition : 2673            Wednesday 30-Sep-1992            Circulation :  7726 

        VNS MAIN NEWS .....................................   55 Lines
        VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH ..............................  144   "


VNS MAIN NEWS:                                     [Tom Povey, VNS UK News Desk]
==============                                     [Reading, England           ]

     Here is the News at 07:00 BST on Wednesday 30-September-1992
     ------------------------------------------------------------

     UK News
     -------
     FT-SE = 2565.5
     Exchange Rate 1 UK pound = $ 1.7705 = Dm 2.5250

     The PM goes to Paris today as part of an initiative to pursuade other EC
     partners to accept changes to the Maastricht treaty so that it can be
     accepted in Britain. Commentators say that other EC countries are more
     likely to accept chages to Mastricht than changes to the ERM.

     News figures show that more and more businesses are going bankrupt
     according to a survey by Dun and Bradstreet.

     John Smith made his maiden speech as party leader at the Labour
     conference yesterday. He received a warm reception. The left-wing
     campaign group criticised the speech while the tribune group praised it.

     A former TV reseracher has been charged with purgery following his
     participation in a TV documentary in which the Northern Ireland security
     forces were accused of collusion with loyalist terrorists.

     The playwrite William Douglas Hume has died aged 80. He produced a string
     of light commedies for over 40 years.

     A report from Cambridge University says that modern farming methods are
     causing a decline in the bee population.

     International News
     ------------------

     Brazilian MP's have voted to impeach the President on charges of
     corruption. He will be stripped of power for 6 months while the upper
     house decide upon his guilt.

     The judge investigating township violence in South Africa has just
     published his report on the Ciskai massacre. The report is described as
     the most damaging indictment of the security forces while also
     criticising the ANC for leading defenceless people into danger.

     IBM have announced another 30,000 job cuts this year, twice that
     expected.

     US basketball star, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, has announced his comeback to
     the game after retiring earlier in the year following being tested as HIV
     positive. He will again play for the Los Angeles Lakers.

     {News courtesy of the BBC}

     Local Weather
     -------------

     A damp start, sunny spells and scattered showers later. High 19C/66F.

(included incase anyone wishes to write to their MP and suggest a similar
 service starts here - there is a plan to hook up the House of Commons to
 email - Craig)

VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH:                           [Mike Taylor, VNS Correspondent]
=====================                           [Littleton, MA, USA            ]

                              Clinton Does Email
                              {clari.nb.telecom,clari.nb.top}

    The Presidential campaign of Democratic candidate Bill Clinton has
    taken a page from the Ross Perot playbook and become a major user of
    e-mail technology, building a major system based on UUNet, a network
    which is part of the Internet. 

    Newsbytes talked to Jonathan P. Gill of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who
    directs the e-mail campaign for Clinton and vice presidential candidate 
    Al Gore. Gill said that, in addition to a UUNet account, the campaign
    also has accounts on CompuServe and America Online, where it posts
    position papers and answers comments from users. Lines from notes
    posted on those networks have, in fact, found their way into campaign
    speeches and press releases. 

    Gill said the campaign has a number of UUNet addresses, all ending with
    clinton-gore.org, and an automatic response system written by MIT
    scientists in the Lisp language. Gill said he began corresponding with
    field communications director Jeff Eller in the spring, then met with
    him at the party's convention in New York to formalize his participation 
    in the electronic campaign. 

    By late September, Gill said, he was responding to 100 mail messages
    each weekday, and about 50 each day during the weekend. Gill told
    Newsbytes he plans to travel to Little Rock soon to speed-up the process 
    of moving press releases, position papers, and other documents online. 

    "I see myself more as an electronic team-builder," Gill adds. "I'm
    trying to build a learning organization -- an electronic organization
    that's smarter than the sum of its parts, that's flat and as close as
    possible to the voters as possible. Governor Clinton talks about empowering 
    people, and people taking responsibility for their lives. That's 
    sympathetic to what I'm trying to do." He said that as the system expands, 
    he expects he will need a staff to help him, "but right now it's just me." 

    Gill was a founder of Computer Access Corp., a software company which
    developed a text information management program called Bluefish. Lotus
    Development Corporation bought the technology in 1987. "It's principally 
    used by them on CD-ROM, and Ziff Davis uses it in its Computer Library 
    CD-ROM." Since 1987, he has been an independent consultant working as 
    Penfield Gill Inc.

    Gill also talked about the purpose of the system. "The goal of the
    campaign is to get the vote out, and one way is to inform the voters.
    We do it with electronic libraries. I want to spawn them far and wide,
    to make it easy for people to obtain the full text of any of our items
    and read them for themselves," without it being filtered through a
    third party. "We have a library in Los Angeles which prints these
    files, puts them in binders and puts them on tables. We have people
    printing indexes of the file lists, which they take to local media and
    other places, asking if they'd like anything. There are people who are
    connected to news services who don't get the items when they're first
    sent -- and they don't often get them otherwise." 

    Because of the Internet, Gill adds, "We've gotten e-mail from Russia,
    Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, England, Switzerland, and Holland. We
    have people working for us overseas, who are interested in the problem
    of absentee ballots. They introduced material we posted to the Internet. 

    Gill says that the system does have links to the campaign staff and the
    candidates, using wireless systems when they're in a bus or on an airplane. 
    "It's as if I were on one floor, passing interoffice mail," he said. 

    I'm going to Little Rock because we want to increase the flow, quantity 
    and quality, from Little Rock to the networks. And no one in the
    headquarters has responsibility to reformat, check and upload the data.
    Jeff, who has too many distractions, uploads the key things to me and I
    post them, but if I were there we could provide a richer menu. It's
    also become clear to the campaign this is a valuable asset...all sorts
    of things come in. It's especially valuable to the speechwriters
    -- they get more stimulation." 

    Gill concluded that, while a campaign can give people the opportunity
    for direct interaction with the candidate, it's up to individuals to
    take advantage of it. "A lot of people want a fair amount of direction.
    The Berlin Wall would still be standing if the people there waited for
    campaign stickers, pins and position papers.

                     Automated Clinton/Gore Mail Service

 Bill Clinton and Al Gore are committed to bringing all Americans 
 into the American political process -- for the good of our country.  
 At this critical time in our country's history it is imperative that 
 we all do everything in our power to make our system work.  

 We are happy to announce a new step forward in 21st century 
 democracy: We now have a mail server that will allow you, the 
 internet citizen, to receive on-line campaign documents and send 
 your comments and ideas back to us.

 To learn more, send mail to the automated Clinton/Gore mail server 

    clinton-wins@mail.clinton-gore.org

 RECEIVE THE LATEST SPEECHES:

 If you send the Subject line "info speeches" to the mail server, 
 you will receive all the latest Clinton/Gore speeches as soon as 
 they come on-line.

 RECEIVE ALL AVAILABLE POSITION PAPERS:

 If you send the Subject line "info all" to the mail server at, 
 you will receive the full set of Clinton/Gore position papers.

 QUERY THE CANIDATES -- INTERNET POLL:

 If you have a question for Bill Clinton or Al Gore, then send your
 question to the mail server ("clinton-wins@mail.clinton-gore.org")
 with the Subject line "question propose".  

 Send the Subject line "question get" to get the current numbered 
 list of questions.  

 Send the Subject line "question vote <X Y>" to vote for questions 
 number <X> and <Y>.  For example, you would send the SUBJECT line 
 "question vote 3" to vote for question number 3.

 Each week the questions with the most votes will be forwarded to 
 Little Rock.

 SEND YOUR SUGGESTIONS & COMMENTS

 If you have a suggestion for Bill Clinton or Al Gore, then send your
 suggestion to the mail server ("clinton-wins@mail.clinton-gore.org")
 with the Subject line "suggest propose".  

 Send the Subject line "suggest get" to get the current numbered 
 list of suggestions.  

 Send the Subject line "suggest vote <a b c>" to vote for suggestions 
 number <a>, <b>, and <c>.  For example, you would send the Subject 
 line "suggest vote 18 4" to vote for suggestions 18 and 4.

 The questions, suggestions, and the campaign's responses will be 
 posted to the network.  You can help redistribute this and other 
 information by sending the Subject line "volunteer email distr" 
 to the mail server at

 clinton-wins@mail.clinton-gore.org

 Clinton/Gore '92
 Volunteer Email Effort

<><><><><><><><>   VNS Edition : 2673   Wednesday 30-Sep-1992   <><><><><><><><>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Craig Cockburn, Digital Equipment Co. Ltd, Reading, England.     Suas
  Internet: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com                           leis
  UUCP:..!decwrl!edieng.enet.dec.com!cockburn                      a'
                                                                   Gha\idhlig!
  Views here are my own, and are not necessarily those of Digital