Your first ppm repository, "Activestate Package Repository" appears to be corrupted.

You can delete and recreate it by

ppm>  rep del 1
.....

ppm>  rep add "ActiveState Package Repository"  http://ppm.ActiveState
+.com/PPM/ppmserver-5.8-windows.plex?urn:/PPM/Server/SQL

..

ppm> rep desc 1
Describing Active Repository 1:
    Name: ActiveState Package Repository
Location: http://ppm.ActiveState.com/PPM/ppmserver-5.8-windows.plex?ur
+n:/PPM/Server/SQL
    Type: PPMServer 3.0
ppm>
[download]

If you are running 5.8, the command "ppm" launches ppm3, so they are effectively identical, so you can type one character less for the command.