The Mercury

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0><script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-47423994-1', 'fortunecity.ws'); ga('send', 'pageview'); </script> <center> <br> <div> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://ad.broadcaststation.net/ads/show_ad.php?width=728&height=90"></script> </div> </center> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="03fd4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>The Mercury</B></div> <div> The Newspaper That Brings The News To The Student Body Of EWG</div> <bR> <div> Brought to you by;</div> <div> <B>     </B><A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ron Rounds"><U><B>Ron Rounds </B></U></A><B>     </B></div> <div> <B>(advisor)</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Webmaster"><U><B>Jon Lamothe</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> (webmaster)</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Marissa Petraca"><U><B>Marissa Petraca</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>(chief)</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Eric Fallon    </B></div> <div> <B>Tom Duggan</B></div> <div> <B>Seth Larson</B></div> <div> <B>Joe Rodriguez</B></div> <div> <B>Bianca Mladenov</B></div> <div> <B>Betsy Rouleau</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Junior High Author    </B><A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Kevin Fallon"><U><B>Kevin Fallon</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>The Mercury</B></div> <div> The News of Our World Brought to you by the students of EWG.</div> <div> EWG's First and Best Newspaper</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Calendar"><U>Calendar</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Entertainment Editorials"><U>Entertainment & Editorials</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Local News Thats Important To You"><U>Local News Thats Important To You</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Member List"><U>Member List</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Junior High News "><U>Junior High News </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sports That Matter"><U>Sports That Matter</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U>Contact Us</U></A></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><U>Headlines</U></B></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>September 11th, The World Was Changed Forever</U></B></div> <div> By Eric Fallon</div> <div> <IMG SRC="058f1750.jpg" border=0 width="241" height="117" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> "Everything has changed."</div> <div>       These words, voiced by an EWG senior as he watched the horror of September 11 unfold on a TV studio monitor, echoed the sentiments of many of the school's students and faculty.</div> <div>       On this fateful morning, the United States went silent as it watched two massive monuments of its culture come crashing down. Terrorists had hijacked planes and flew two of them into the World Trades Center Towers in New York City. </div> <div>       The planes were civilian jet liners filled with innocent people. The first plane hit shortly after 9:00 AM. People were reassured that the second tower was safe. In fact, many thought it was just an accident.  That changed when onlookers and television cameras witnessed another plane slam into the second tower.  </div> <div>       Every television set in the country was soon tuned in for the images of destruction that was to come. Less then an hour after the first plane hit, the tower collapsed with thousands of civilians and rescue workers inside.</div> <div>       The second tower soon fell as well. </div> <div>       To the south of New York an unidentified aircraft was flying towards Washington D.C. with unknown intentions.  President Bush, in St. Louis, was rushed onto Air Force One. The Vice President was moved to a secure location in the White House.  </div> <div>       This third plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon. It was also filled with innocent people. Soon a fourth plane was being reported hijacked, and heading for D.C. - however the plane suddenly crashed in a rural area outside of Pittsburgh, PA. </div> <div>       The country watched wide-eyed as the destruction was flashed across their TV screens.  Schools were silent, business was put on a standstill, and many were brought to tears by what they saw.  Americans were now beginning to learn what exactly had taken place on the day that they were going to remember for the rest of their lives.   Terrorist suicide bombers boarded the planes armed with razor blades and box cutters. Mid-flight, the terrorists took over the planes, killing some of the civilians aboard.  All of the terrorists had learned to fly so they could steer the deadly payload of jet fuel and steel into their targets. </div> <div>       Passengers, who were aware of the WTC crashes, challenged the fourth plane's hijackers.  These passengers sacrificed their lives to save those on the ground. As a result of their brave heroic efforts, the plane did not make it to a city to cause more massive destruction. </div> <div>  For the rest of the day, rumors and false statements flooded the airwaves. Soon the name Osama Bin Laden was being repeated over and over again. It was clear that this was indeed a terrorist attack.   Bin Laden, who has been linked to the 1998 US Embassy bombings, as well as last year's attack on the USS Cole, was the first person many thought of when the strike occurred.   Bin Laden is a multi-millionaire Islamic fundamentalist who heads the loosely- connected terror organization known as al Qaeda. He currently resides in Afghanistan where he is protected by the Taliban regime.  His ultimate goal is to get the US out of the Middle East. He has declared Jihad, or holy war, on The United States claiming that we have desecrated ancient holy lands in Saudi Arabia.       </div> <div>       The attacks of September 11th were the first on American soil since Pearl Harbor. However, our response won't be as easy or straightforward in 2001. In 1941, the situation was simple because our enemy was a centralized country (Japan). </div> <div>  Instead of declaring war on another nation, President Bush has declared a covert war on terrorism in general.  </div> <div>       Al Qaeda is present in over sixty countries. Bush has issued an ultimatum for countries like Afghanistan who harbor terrorists and support them.     " Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists," Bush emphatically stated while addressing a joint session of Congress and the American people.  He went on to say that nations who protect terrorists would share the same fate.  This war on terrorism will evidently be done in secrecy; using US Special Forces units to weed out leaders like Bin Laden and destroy their facilities. It will not be a made-for-TV war like many of our recent military operations have been. In fact, the public may not know when there has been a battle won or lost in this new war.      Bush cautioned that this war will take patience from the American people as well as government officials. </div> <div>  As the days go on, so many questions are being asked, and many sad facts and statistics are being reported. More then six thousand people died in the attack overall. That is roughly the amount </div> <div> of people killed during one year of the Vietnam War. </div> <div>       The rubble, all that's left of the World Trade Center Towers, is difficult and dangerous to remove and could take months. In light of these horrific events unity has risen out of the ashes and into the hearts of the American people. The country now stands more then ever united against the very evils that threaten freedom.   Though we may stand together, we now stand on the ground of a very different country then the one we knew before. We now live in a very different world and very different global political climate. Everything has changed. </div> <div>       Everything.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="06418d20.jpg" border=0 width="280" height="210" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"><IMG SRC="066c2920.jpg" border=0 width="194" height="146" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"><IMG SRC="0681dd60.jpg" border=0 width="285" height="214" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><U>Napster, RIP</U></B></div> <div> By, Marissa Petrarca</div> <div> Nothing can last forever.  </div> <div>       An example of this is the mp3 file-sharing program, Napster.  Napster allows music fans to download songs through the computers of other music lovers for free.  </div> <div>       This allowed people to burn their own CD mixes with the songs they downloaded from Napster.   Many people, especially high school and college students, loved Napster because they could save a lot of money from not purchasing CDs for fifteen dollars a disk.  </div> <div> However, the music industry began to catch on, as Napster's symbol was seen everywhere; everyone soon knew about the file sharing company.   That <I>everyone </I>included bands such as Metallica, who felt that Napster was stealing from them.    Their main argument was that their songs were copyrighted and Napster did not have written consent to release them for free on the Internet.</div> <div> Yet, Napster argued that they were not physically putting the copyrighted songs into circulation, their users were.  All Napster was doing was providing an area where people could come together and swap music.    Although this is true, it did not stop bands such as Metallica from bringing Napster creator Shawn Fanning to court. </div> <div> The music industry sued Napster for copyright infringement.     This all started in the summer of 2000.  As months passed during the trial, it seemed as if Napster would never go away.  However, the music industry finally won their copyright battle, as Napster was forced to block its users from downloading copyrighted songs.  </div> <div> Napster users would not go down without a fight.  They found ways to get around the blocked songs by naming their files differently, using spelling changes and even pig Latin.  </div> <div> The block Napster had put on the copyrighted music was not working.  Yet, Napster finally caught on to what its users were doing and started blocking copyrighted songs that were not spelled correctly or songs that were written in pig Latin.</div> <div> After that was completed, it was apparent that the Napster phenomenon was no longer a phenomenon.   Today, it is extremely difficult to find a song you want to download on Napster.  This shows through in the drop in numbers of Napster's users and the number of song downloads they have.  In February, there were nearly two million people logged on as Napster users.  However, the number has now dropped substantially to only one million users.  The average of how many songs the users have in their files has dropped also.  In March, Napster users had an average of two hundred and twenty files shared.  By April, the average files shared was only thirty-seven per user, a drop of about eighty-percent.</div> <div> These numbers show that Napster has reached its demise or is at least inches away from doing so.  Although this is a sad fact for those Napster users out there, they will not pout for too long as more and more free Mp3 sharing programs are trying to make their way into people's homes.  </div> <div>       Most of these new programs are very different from Napster, as they do not have a common area where people go and swap files.  </div> <div>       The new programs mostly consist of having their users have to seek out the people who have the song they want, instant message them, and download the file.   This is not as convenient as Napster, but for those people who still do not want to pay an arm and a leg for a CD consisting of fifteen songs, they will most likely try anything.  </div> <div> <IMG SRC="0558aaf0.jpg" border=0 width="138" height="175" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Dr. Dre is a serious opposer to Napster and other music sharing communities. Also against is Metallica!</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0560db30.jpg" border=0 width="269" height="179" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>    <SCRIPT>  </SCRIPT>  <form method="POST" action="http://mindit.netmind.com/mindit.shtml" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="SOURCE" value="511"> <input type="hidden" name="URL" value="/TlxTransfer.txt"> <input type="hidden" name="DOC_TITLE" value="themercury_site"> <input type="hidden" name="REDIRECT" value="/"> <table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tr><td align="center"> <font face="arial,helvetica" size="-1"><b>Click to receive email <br>when this web site is updated</b></font></td> </tr><tr><td align="center"> <input type="image" src="http://mindit.netmind.com/images/mindit511.gif" border="0"></td> </tr><tr><td align="center"> <font face="arial,helvetica" size="-2">•<b> Powered by <a href="http://www.netmind.com/" target="_top">NetMind</a> </b>•</font> </td></tr></table></form>   </div> <bR> <div> All stories are copywrite and property of EWG's <U>The Mercury</U> and cannot be copied, transfered, or shared without the express written consent of <U>The Mercury</U> and the author of the piece and the editor.</div> <div> 2001-2002</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>