Steve: This whole NGI thing is one big April Fools day joke. Thanks for pointing me to the thread started here because the posting that starts the thread, where the 'press release' is quoted, screams out, "APRIL FOOLS!!"," to me:
[quote begin]
WebNode.com today
announced it has have been granted an exclusive contract by the US Department of Energy
(DOE) Office of Science (formerly Office of Energy Research) to raise $4 billion
[quote end]
Office of Science!?!?! Formerly Office of Energy Research?!?! No, no, no. This office does not deal with anything related to the internet and would not have jurisdiction to grant such an offer even if it did. He probably did not want to mention the National Science Foundation (NSF) because a number of their divisions actually do deal with the internet and its development [one division actually has a 5 year program with MCI].
[quote begin]
Webnode.com is a new division of BZE International... Projects include satellite navigation, currency arbitrage systems development, and armaments deployment. BZE has contracts worldwide, with clients in Canada, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Israel, and Japan.
[quote end]
The fellow who started the thread, the same person named at the bottom of the 'news release' as the contact person, must have laughed while writing this joke. I think I'll ask him what he had in mind when he came up with "BZE" for a name. The project and client countries alone should have alerted people unfamiliar with U.S. and international organizations and groups that deal with internet development that this 'news announcement' is an April Fools joke.
Lynn
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