For those of you who dont know who Michael Badnarik is get on youtube right now and search for his videos. This man is 110% pure american! His lectures are priceless and the truth/liberty/patriot movement…whatever you wanna call it, hell the world in general, cant afford to lose this man in the middle of the fight for justice and freedom!

Michael J. Badnarik, the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 elections and a former software engineer and radio talk show host has suffered a heart attack. Badnarik is also the president of the 2009 Continental Congress.

Badnarik was in Madison, Wisconsin, attending a hearing regarding a raw milk case when he collapsed, according to Gary Franchi, the National Director of Restore the Republic. After the hearing he got in a car to go to lunch with friends, He then slumped over. His friends attempted CPR and contacted the paramedics. They attempted to revive him 3 times with no success. Upon the 4th attempt his heart was revived yet with erratic behavior, writes Franchi in an email.

Michael was taken to a local hospital in Wisconsin and fitted with a temporary pacemaker and a balloon pump to ease stress on his heart. He remains in an unconscious state and his condition is listed as serious.

In November 2009, Badnarik was elected as one of three delegates from the State of Texas to attend the 2009 Continental Congress sponsored by the We The People Foundation, and subsequently elected parliamentary president of that body.

In October 2008, he began hosting a talk radio program, Lighting the Fires of Liberty, on the Genesis Communications Network.

Maybe it’s because those bastards at King Taco got my order wrong.  Maybe it’s because I’m feeling a tad sleepy.  I really don’t know.  Now that I think about it, it may have to do with the fact that I am absolutely broke this holiday season.  I’m not even halfway done with my Christmas shopping, and I already spent all my money.  It’s tough, it’s annoying, and it makes me realize why people hate the holidays so much.  I’m not saying I hate the holidays, but I now understand why certain people do.

*Sigh*

Enough of the negativity, though.  Aside from being broke and not having a good job, things have been decent.  I played through Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.  I had a ton of fun with that game, and it made me remember my appreciation for the GCN.  A tactical RPG in its purest, most enjoyable form, Path of Radiance was not only a joy to play, but a truly rewarding experience.  The story, the music, and the gameplay were all excellent.  Methinks I’ll be giving the game another go sometime next year.

I beat it in about a week or so, clocking in 33 hours.  A decent-sized game, and I finished it in time for The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which I’m currently playing and enjoying a whole lot.  It’s nice to see Zelda as a companion to Link as opposed to being the damsel in distress.  They gave her attitude, a personality, and a great sense of charm not seen before in the princess of Hyrule.

Other than that, I haven’t played much of anything else.  I have a backlog of indie games I’d like to get to, but alas my writing on GamerSyndrome has been my top priority.  Speaking of indie games, I was supposed to talk about RunMan and Aether in this post.  Oh, well…

When I first began talking with DIA CIO Mike Pflueger and Deputy CIO Mark Greer in the fall of 2003 about the work I’d be doing with them inside government, most of the ideas were big ones: let’s re-architect the DoDIIS enterprise, let’s find and deploy revolutionary new analytical software. One of our thoughts was a little one, but for me personally it turned out to be a most valuable project. They let me pull together a panel for the upcoming 2004 DoDIIS Conference called “Geeks and Geezers,” featuring some of the grand old names of intelligence technology. The panel was a success, and in organizing it, I spent quite a bit of time talking to those giants, or should I say listening to them. I learned an enormous amount about “the early days.” This post describes the important work of one of those fellows. 

As the decade draws to a close, it’s helpful to cast a look back at where we’ve been. It is important for those designing and building better systems today for the intelligence community, to know the history of the platforms they build upon. It can also set some context for changes in the Intelligence Community taking place right now. 

It turns out that in 2009 a couple of ships have passed in the night, as it were – technology leaders crossing between the IC and the Department of Defense. Earlier this year John Hale, the Chief of Service Delivery, IC Enterprise Services, left his ODNI position in charge of providing a series of agency-independent web-based solutions to IC users, including services like Intellipedia and its constellation of collaborative and analytical applications running across the shared Intelink web platform for all IC agencies to use. 

John moved from the IC over to DoD, and is now Chief Engineer for Net Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) at the Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA, and folks have expected Hale to inject into DISA a new strain of innovative thinking from the IC. In one of history’s clever puns however, a mirror-image move has also just taken place: Dawn Meyerriecks, who served as DISA’s CTO earlier in the decade, has just joined the IC, as the new Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Acquisition and Technology. (See my companion piece on Meyerriecks, “Undercover Grrl Band Techno Rave,” pointing out that she joins a remarkable group of women at the pinnacle of the IC.) 

Meyerriecks’ DoD background is highly relevant to her IC assignment. As summed up in a 2004 Government Computing News profile on naming her Defense Executive of the Year, she created “a common operating environment for the military’s IT infrastructure, [led] the team moving the Defense Department from legacy systems and mainframes to IP networks, commercial software and PCs,… [and then] moved on to her next challenge: Dismantle it all and start over with her Net-Centric Enterprise Systems initiative.”  NCES still remains the cornerstone of new DoD mission systems and its platform for future web-based information technologies. 

The Strain of Purple DNA 

So if you see a synchronicity between the Intelink way of thinking in the IC, and the NCES mindset in DoD, you’re not dreaming. For the benefit of those who only have developed an acquaintance with intelligence systems since 9/11, I want to point out that the IC’s most salient technologies have a combined intelligence/DoD paternity –  one might say it’s a shared strain of Purple DNA, from the phrase in the military world: 

purple-suiter: An officer assigned to duty on a staff where no particular service predominates. This may be a joint staff, where all services cooperate, or a combined staff, where two or more allied nations participate. He is called purple because he loses the identity (and color) of his particular service, and the color purple is not used by any of the services. The official colors are green for Army, blue for Air Force, and white for Navy.   – DoD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, cited in “Jointness: A Selected Bibliography,” US Army War College Library, August 2007. 

A majority of IC employees have joined up since 9/11, and understandably don’t have the same understanding of history as veterans. It strikes me that some folks in and around the IC think that purpleness is a new development in the IC, sparked by the birth of Intellipedia just five years ago. Not so.  

Fully a decade before Intellipedia, in fact, Intelink itself was born in a remarkable outburst of purple thinking which would sound familiar to the Web 2.0 gurus of the IC today.  

As this decade opened, more than a year before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, an article in Government Executive magazine outlined the early-1990s development history of Intelink, “the Internet-like network that has changed the way the intelligence community does business.” 

The story of Intelink is not one of technology but rather the need for timely and accurate information. The network grew out of the problems the intelligence community and the armed forces faced during the Persian Gulf War. Warfighters complained that they had to access too many disparate intelligence systems and could not get a complete spectrum of intelligence. 

Former CIA Director James Woolsey and former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutsch got together and agreed something had to change. They knew intelligence systems had to become more interoperable. But they didn’t see how to get the multitude of intelligence producers and users together. In 1994, the Intelligence Systems Secretariat was created to tackle the problem.             – “Intelink,” Government Executive, April 2000 

A bureaucratic birth certificate of the ISS can be gleaned in an archived copy of a mid-1990s DoD Directive placing it under joint control and direction of the Defense Department and the Director of Central Intelligence – note, not the CIA, but the DCI wearing his “purple” community-wide hat. 

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Intelligence and Security) (DASD(I&S)), representing the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (ASD(C3I)) and the Executive Director for Intelligence Community Affairs representing the Director of Central Intelligence, shall Co-Chair the Board [ISB], which shall meet on the call of either Co-Chair. 

ISS (hereafter referred to as “the Secretariat”) shall operate under the guidance of the Co-Chairs of the Board… The Secretariat Director shall be appointed by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence.  The Deputy Director shall be appointed by the Director of Central Intelligence in consultation with the Secretary of Defense… As the staff element of the Board, the Secretariat shall be staffed jointly by the Department of Defense and non-DoD intelligence elements.  
 - DODD 5100.85 ”Intelligence Systems Board (ISB), ASD(C3I)” 

The ISS responsibilities on behalf of the entire Intelligence Community, both DoD and non-DoD intelligence, were laid out in the DoD pub. See if they ring true today: 

• Enhancing interoperability of existing and planned automatic intelligence systems designed or intended for intelligence support to the U.S. Armed Forces.
• Improving interoperability between intelligence and military command and control systems.
• Defining interorganizational intelligence information architectures.
• Establishing an automatic intelligence information systems management security policy.
• Defining and coordinating common information handling standards and procedures.
• Developing program and budget guidance affecting the development and operation of automatic intelligence information systems.
• Evaluating and adopting new and improved automatic intelligence information management technologies.
• Identifying priority automatic intelligence information systems that require funding support for acquisition and/or operations.
• Designating of an Executive Agent(s) to implement and operate automatic intelligence systems as a service of common concern.

Parts of the long 2000 retrospective in GovExec magazine are worth revisiting, for the mid-90s parallels to what would happen later with Intellipedia, and what is hoped will happen now with “Living Intelligence” and similar innovations. It’s absolutely required reading for anyone working on those kinds of projects today. The account also tells the story of a remarkable man, who much later joined my “Geeks and Geezers” panel and whom I grew to count as a good friend, the legendary Steve Schanzer: 

Led by Steve Schanzer and his deputy Fred Harrison, the ISS sought to figure out the solutions to interoperability. They started out with studies and interagency committees, and the going seemed slow. But in the spring of 1994, Schanzer got an idea: create a private Internet… 

The group experimented with the idea of a secure Internet and appropriated the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) network as the backbone for the operation. JWICS is a classified, private network with no links at all to the public Internet. “JWICS provided the top secret backbone, analogous to the Internet, that we needed,” Harrison says. 

The idea was that intelligence organizations would put up Web sites on this network so that users would be able to surf it using commercial search engines. “The novel thing about this approach,” Harrison says, “was providing access over JWICS to other organizations’ servers.” 

Schanzer calls the new approach a “demand model” for intelligence. “Our goal was to improve interoperability throughout the intelligence community,” Schanzer says. “The normal approach to this type of thing had been a technical one that involved developing standards that organizations would have to adopt”-in effect, forcing all the systems to speak the same language, even if it wasn’t their native language. 

“I tried to approach the problem from a different angle,” Schanzer says. He figured that once the network’s users got a taste of what it could do, they would find it irresistible. This thirst for information would get his team farther toward their goal of interoperability faster than ramming standards down the throats of already isolated and sometimes suspicious analysts and intelligence consumers. 

Schanzer believed high-quality intelligence would attract users, who would demand more content from more sources. This expansion, in turn, would lure more players from the disparate parts of the community. The model is the same that many e-businesses use, with customer demand as its their growth engine. 

During Intelink’s initial test, Schanzer and Harrison let anyone who wanted to be part of the action take part. Although the test linked fewer than a half-dozen Web servers, everyone with access to JWICS could log on with a Web browser and try it out. The experiment worked. “Intelink went from just two or so participating organizations to 10,” Harrison says. “Then there were 20, then 30 and 40. More and more organizations wanted to be on the network.” 

“Organizations began to feel they couldn’t be left out of Intelink,” he says proudly. 

“We found that as more and more information became available on Intelink the more people wanted on there. It just grew, similarly to the real World Wide Web,” says [Intelink Management Office director Jim] Peak. 

Schanzer calls Intelink’s philosophical foundation “an information-driven model rather than a technology-driven model. Even so, Intelink does have a high degree of technology underpinning it.” 

“In the end,” he says, “Intelink changed the way intelligence was published and disseminated. There was a sense that here was a mechanism for disseminating intelligence that had value and grew for the same reasons as the Web and that is because it was compelling.” 

“Plus,” adds Harrison, “the great thing about all this was that all the technology was already in place so there was no real investment required. What was required, though, was a paradigm shift in attitude.” Intelink has enabled data sharing across the intelligence community and converted once-isolated agencies into information sharers. 

“When word got around about Intelink, we used this wonderful idea as a lever for promoting other interoperability initiatives,” Harrison says. 

Relevance of Past to Future 

In many ways, you could simply substitute “Intellipedia” for “Intelink” in those quotes, a decade later.  Each wave of reform brought only incremental progress, to be sure.  Heads are still banged against desks at the inanity of the crushing bureaucracy that remains, the old-think practices, the data hoarding. 

But those network effects and viral growth rates continue to be sought by those in today’s innovation efforts. I’ll end with one admirable example: the reform IC movement to highlight “Purple Intelligence,” also dubbed “Living Intelligence” for its reliance on online collaborative technologies like wiki software.  Here’s the IC’s most prominent social-software evangelist, Chris Rasmussen, describing the concept in September 2009 at the O’Reilly Government 2.0 Expo Showcase. If you detect strains of the Purple DNA stretching back to Steve Schanzer, you’re not alone. 

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     In late 2006 the Gamecube and X-box were for the most part dead. The X-box 360 was already on the market and the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii were right around the corner. While the PlayStation 2’s life cycle still continues to this day, the Gamecube has been long gone. The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess was the Gamecube’s swan song and the final showing of what Nintendo’s little purple lunch box could do. While it was the last big Nintendo published title on the system, there was another title from Nintendo that launched not long before it. Baten Kaitos Origins is a prequel to the cult classic RPG Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and The Lost Ocean. Despite the low sales of the original title, Nintendo localized the sequel in North America. While not the best game in the Gamecube’s small library of RPGs, it definitely is a fun title that tries its best at making a unique and advanced combat system while keeping it as user friendly as possible.

     You play as a spirit inside a 15 year old boy named Sagi who recently was accepted into a elite military unit for the empire. A power struggle had been occurring inside the empire and eventually Sagi’s squad was ordered to assassinate the Emperor. Upon arriving they were shocked to find that the emperor was already dead. Soon they are betrayed by their own captain, who gave them orders to assassinate the emperor, who than accuses them as traitors and blames them for the murder of the emperor. While trying to escape from the army’s clutches, Sagi encounters a large monster. Upon defeating this monster Sagi faints and wakes up in a second world. Despite being unable to recognize anyone in this world, everyone knows who he is. Eventually Sagi faints in this new world and wakes up back in his old world at the exact place and time where he fainted. As this quest continues he encounters many of these monsters and repeatedly faints, going between the two worlds. Sagi must figure out how these worlds are connected, why he is being sent to this other world, and try to clear his name in his own world.

     Origins takes place twenty years before the original Baten Kaitos. Aside from meeting some of the cast of characters from the original, revisiting locations, and using some of the vocabulary from the original title, the plot is fairly stand alone, someone who has never played the original Baten Kaitos can easily get into the story without much confusion. For those who have played the original, you will get a little bit more insight on what is happening and some of the plot holes from the first title are filled. As with the first title, Origins’ story constantly goes between being predictable and unpredictable. While the plot twist is not as much of a jaw dropper as the original Baten Kaitos’ was, it definitely is still quite a surprise and will have you questioning everyone’s motives in Origins and the first title. Origins is essentially two stories sewed together, but neither of them really feel like they fully connect to each other most of the time. The story tends to drag on; it never really moves anywhere until the very end of the game. The story is a bit light hearted and takes a fairly humorous tone this time around, but there are still some over dramatic scenes that could have been excluded.

     The original Baten Kaitos had a incredibly deep card battle system which was satisfying and deadly when one knew how to use it. The system had a steep learning curve though that ended up  pushing away many players. The battle system in Origins has been drastically simplified from the original Baten Kaitos, so much so that the system is almost completely different. Origins switches the old turn based formula out in favor a system much like the Active Time Battle(ATB) system from Final Fantasy games. Due to the length of attacks though, its a bit more slow paced and the action tends to fall behind a bit from your commands. Giving these commands require a lot of concentration. Many times you will find that you aren’t even looking at the battle and have your eyes set only on what commands you are giving. The change in pacing and greater focus on commands give you a disconnected feeling during combat, as if your not even fighting at times and just playing a simple card game.

     Quite possibly the most noticeable change is in the spirit number system. In Origins you have general attacks with spirit numbers 1, 2 or 3 and along with those you have 4, 5, 6 and 7 for special attacks. Last but not least there is also cards with the spirit number of 0, these can equip weapons that significantly increases your damage and/or can changes the elements of your attacks. These also can increase your physical and magical defenses. Using these cards in the correct order no longer result in a damage bonus. Instead they determine what attacks you can chain together. Unlike the first game where there were multiple combinations of spirit numbers Origins only allows you to go from 0 to 7. For example if you use a card with a spirit number of 2 then you can no longer use a card with the spirit number of 1 or 0 . Instead you will have to choose a card with a spirit number of 3 through 7 or end your attack. After these attacks if one of your partners are also ready to attack you can chain the combo with them as long as you have a card with a spirit number of 1 ready for use. These combos can add up to some major damage, but the combo won’t change targets if enemies die mid combo. Instead you will just beat at their dead body till the combo is over, essentially wasting a turn and damage. Elements played a big part in your strategy in the first Baten Kaitos, essentially ruining entire combos if they weren’t managed correctly. But in Origins’ elements play a very minor role. Elements no longer conflict with each other so paying attention to what elements you combine in attacks is no longer a factor in your strategy. Instead it takes a more traditional RPG role with basic strategies of matching the right elements with certain enemies to deal slightly more damage.

     Equipping weapons and using general attacks can be done at all times, but the special attacks require MP which are built up by doing actions. Each Special attack has its own set level and require different amounts of MP. Early on it can be easy to build up MP since you are limited to a lower number of special attacks. Later on though when you go up to a level 7 special attack it will be very difficult to pull off a full chain of attacks due to the 5 MP limit to your MP pool. Bursting, which is probably the most satisfying feature of the combat system, allows you to to use a infinite amount of MP. This status effect carries over to other characters allowing you to chain large combos using infinite MP; meaning you can do a 7 hit combo attack on using three characters at once and deal a devastating blow to your foe, which usually ends in the foe’s death.

     While the combat is interesting, it’s not as in-depth as the first title. If you had trouble with the first games combat system, the difficulty curve has been severely reduced and it is much easier to learn. That being said it still is a fairly complicated system compared to the typical JRPG. There isn’t a  in-game tutorial either which is a bit frustrating, so if you miss this tutorial you will have to guess and figure things out as you go or read the manual. On the bright side the new combat system removes the need to manage a deck for each character. The new system allows you to make a single deck and keep that for all the characters, but if you are not careful the deck can quickly become cluttered.

     Origins uses prerendered backgrounds much like the first title, but some times it can be difficult to find entrances and exits in the backgrounds. In some cases just navigating the over world can be difficult because you are not sure where you are able to walk. Your movement speed is faster then a typical RPG. Sagi is able to use his wings to dash, but doing so uses up his stamina. Maintaining his stamina in dungeons is important because if an enemy attacks you when you are out of stamina they will have an advantage in battle. Sagi’s wings remove ladder climbing by allowing him to quickly jump up or down long distances safely. His wings also allow him to jump between large gaps, but these places are preset and can be difficult to find at times. Origins hits and misses with some of its dungeon designs. Some of the puzzles are unique and interesting like in the first title, but many are bland or have been over done ie: light reflecting, water level changing, etc.

     As mentioned before, Origins uses prerendered backgrounds. Because Origins takes place in the same world as the original, you will tread on a lot of familiar ground. The art style still holds up fairly well today, but a good amount of the back drops are a bit blurry. Some of the new areas look great including a town thats backgrounds consist entirely of clay models, but on the other hand a lot the new areas are typical RPG fare and are bland. Many of the more interesting areas from the first game don’t make an appearance either, which is a bit disappointing. Character models look decent, but many of the models don’t exactly match up with characters portraits. Most of the NPCs used are recycled character models from the original title. Overall there is not much of a improvement from the first game visually. On the other hand Origins’ voice acting is superior to the original, but you will still hear some voices, mainly that of the children, which will make you want to mute your T.V. Thankfully the opposite can be said for Origins’ sound track; it does come up a bit short compared to the originals, but it is far from terrible. Some familiar songs return and some are remixed. Quite a few new tracks appear as well and their presence is welcome, but they never hit the level of the originals sound track.

     As with most RPGs, Baten Kaitos Origins takes around fifty hours to complete if you take your time through the main quest and stop and dabble in some side quests. There’s a Colosseum with preset matches in which you can fight along with some quests where you can get some extra cards for battle. Optional boss battles are available and if you want the real ending you will need to defeat them all before finishing the game. Last and probably the least is New Game + which is simply restarting the game with certain aspects of your past file transferring over. Needless to say, Baten Kaitos Origins probably isn’t a title you will be popping into your Gamecube or Wii much after the credits have rolled.

     Origins definitely isn’t the best RPG on the Gamecube, but it is a good one and complements the system’s small RPG library fairly well. If you can get over the less then stellar voice acting and some typical JRPG drama then you should give Baten Kaitos: Origins a shot. Fans of the first Baten Kaitos may not like the new battle system, but those who did not like the original may find a new light in Origins’ battle system. The games graphics consist of a lot of recycled assets which make it feels like a budget title, and indeed you should probably pay a budget price for it. amazon.com is currently selling Baten Kaitos Origins for around $20.00 new so it is definitely worth the price for anyone looking for a JRPG with a twist on the combat system.

Score: 8.1

There’s nothing more confusing than press releasing on something, staying up REALLY late, then waking up to a million texts and emails from both friends and LGBT rights groups congratulating you on what you had said in the news, and to have NO idea what they’re talking about for like 20 mins till you wake up properly…anywho…

RTE News:

Ahern hails Bill as ’significant milestone’

 

The Union of Students in Ireland says the proposed Bill will offer a number of legal rights to lesbian and gay couples but falls short of offering many of the rights and protections covered by civil marriage.

The USI says the Bill ‘refuses to recognise the existence of same sex families, leaving children of same sex couples vulnerable and unprotected under Irish law’.

USI Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transgender Rights Officer Laura Finlay said: ‘The implementation of this Civil Partnership Bill will only serve to enshrine in law the second class citizenship of LGBT people in this country.

‘It is wholly unfair and sends out the message that gay people in Ireland are not equal to their heterosexual counterparts.’

Keep reading: http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1203/civilpartnership.html

From breakingnews.ie:

Civil Partnership Bill ‘does not go far enough’

The call was backed by the National Lesbian and Gay Federation (NLGF), which urged the immediate introduction of a civil marriage option which would give full rights to gay people.

To ensure that LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people are treated equally in Ireland, the Government must move to provide equality by legislating for civil marriage,” said NLGF chair Ailbhe Smyth.

“The Government must admit that provision of civil partnership as the only relationship recognition option for LGBT people is a serious mistake.”

The Union of Students in Ireland also said the Bill falls short of offering many of the rights and protections covered by civil marriage.

A demonstration will take place outside the Dáil later this evening to highlight the limitations of the Bill.

Read more: http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/eymhgbidkfmh/#ixzz0YiZTmgLk

From the Irish Times:

Mixed reaction to Civil Partnership Bill

The Equality Authority said the legislation was a significant and groundbreaking step, but that full equality for gay couples must remain the ultimate goal.

It said the children of same-sex couples would continue to face questions on issues such as inheritance, guardianship and access, and would remain disadvantaged.

MarriagEquaility said it had written to Taoiseach Brian Cowen to ask that the Bill be upgraded to give equal civil marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The Union of Students in Ireland said implementation of the Bill would serve to enshrine in law the second-class citizenship of lesbian, gay and transgendered people.

For more see: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1204/1224260043897.html

From GCN.ie:

Civil Partnership is Discrimination Say Rights Groups

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) are also calling on the Government to amend shortcomings in the Civil Partnership Bill.

“The implementation of this Civil Partnership Bill will only serve to enshrine in law the second class citizenship of LGBT people in this country,” says USI LGBT Rights Officer, Laura Finlay. “It is wholly unfair and sends out the message that gay people in Ireland are not equal to their heterosexual counterparts.”

LGBT Noise will be holding a protest outside the Dáil from 6pm this evening, Thursday, December 3.

“If this Civil Partnership Bill becomes law it will force gay couples to participate in their own discrimination and the children of same-sex couples will remain vulnerable,” says Noise Organiser, Liam Connolly.

“The gay community should not be punished for their sexual orientation by being offered this second-class bill, nor should their children be punished by the lack of protection offered within it.”

See the rest: http://www.gcn.ie/Civil_Partnership_is_Discrimination_Say_Rights_Groups

There was loads of other press coverage of the Bill where USI wasn’t mentioned too.

The Examiner:

Civil Partnership Bill introduced

Thursday, December 03, 2009 – 09:02 PM

Legislation to give legal recognition to gay couples for the first time has been introduced to the Dáil this evening.

The Civil Partnership Bill will convey inheritance and other rights on the registered partnerships of cohabiting gay and heterosexual couples.

Some Fianna Fail TDs had sought a ‘freedom of conscience’ clause which would allow civil registrars to opt out of recognising the partnerships on religious grounds.

But Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has told the Dáil that gay couples have been deprived of basic rights for too long.

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/ireland/civil-partnership-bill-introduced-436872.html#ixzz0YibysM9W

Greens welcome Civil Partnership Bill

Thursday, December 03, 2009 – 04:07 PM

The Green Party has welcomed the introduction of the Civil Partnership Bill to the Dáil this evening.

Speaking ahead of this evening’s debate on the Bill, Green Party justice spokesman Ciaran Cuffe said: “This bill marks substantial, purposeful progress on our equality agenda which I am very pleased to see introduced into the Dáil this evening.

“Civil partnerships will be of huge practical benefit to gay and lesbian couples across the country, creating rights, responsibilities and safeguards for same sex couples in loving relationships where there were none before.

“The bill amends over 130 pieces of legislation. Civil partnerships will enhance the law for same sex couples in areas such as taxation, pensions, social welfare, inheritance, property and employment law.

“Moreover, the bill sends a vitally important message to same sex couples that their unions are formally recognised by the State.”

Gay rights groups have however called for the bill to be bolstered to allow for civil marriage, placing same-sex couples on the same legal footing as married partners.

They say the legislation in its current form does not go far enough.

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/greens-welcome-civil-partnership-bill-436845.html#ixzz0Yic81P4S

From the Irish Independent:

Bill heralds a new era for same-sex couples — Ahern

JUSTICE Minister Dermot Ahern has vowed his new civil partnership bill will “change the legal landscape” for gay and lesbian couples.

It will provide same-sex couples with almost exactly the same rights as married couples — with the exception of adopting children.

This has led to protests from gay rights groups, who have claimed the Civil Partnership Bill still leaves them as “second-class citizens”.

But in his speech to the Dail last night, Mr Ahern said the new bill would provide protections for same-sex couples that would have been unheard of in any jurisdiction until a few short years ago.

“The absence of official recognition and affirmation for same-sex relationships only helps to reinforce prejudice and inequality in society,” he said.

The bill has been welcomed by the Green Party, which had been pushing Mr Ahern for two years to introduce it. Green Party TD Ciaran Cuffe said that while he would have preferred a bill providing for full gay marriage, he was a “realist”.

“The bill is a key legislative priority for the Greens in Government and one we have worked hard to see implemented,” he said

For more, see: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/bill-heralds-a-new-era-for-samesex-couples–ahern-1964059.html

Civil partnership bill : What the new legislation will mean in practice

It gives gay and lesbian couples the right to have their relationships legally recognised.

They will be entitled to seek maintenance (financial support) from each other.

If one partner dies or the relationship breaks up, the remaining partner will be entitled for the first time to make a claim on the estate or seek financial support.

But while one partner may be raising children from a previous relationship, there is no legal recognition of the child’s relationship with the other partner. Civil partners will not be able to jointly adopt children.

There will also new protections in the bill for co-habiting couples of the same or opposite sex. If they are living together for three years (two if they have children), they can seek maintenance or inheritance rights if their relationship ends or if one of them dies.

Same sex marriages abroad will be recognised in Ireland as civil partnerships. Civil partnerships can be ended with a legally enforceable separation agreement.

Read more: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/civil-partnership-bill–what-the-new–legislation-will-mean-in-practice-1964058.html

RTE 9pm News:

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1061674

Go about 12 minutes in.

SixOne News:

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1061634

About 15 mins in.

Just one question in regard to the news…has Kieran Rose of GLEN actually read the bill?!

블로그를 워드프레스(WordPress)로 옮기면서 과연 국내 검색 사이트에서 얼마나 검색될 것인가 궁금했습니다. 아니나 다를까 구글을 제외하고는 네이버, 다음, 네이트, 야후 모두 제 글이 검색되지 않더군요. 구글 역시 글 제목으로 검색했을 때는 첫 페이지에 나타나지 않았는데 검색문에 제 아이디(golbenge)를 넣으니 비로소 검색되었습니다. (물론 같이 제목에 같은 내용의 티스토리(Tistory) 내용이 먼저 나오기는 했지만) 그러다 우연히 알게 된 사실이 golbenge라는 키워드 검색에 제가 플리커(Flickr)에 올린 사진을 인용한 페이지가 몇 개 검색되었다는 사실입니다. 플리커에 사진을 올리는 것도 블로그에 글을 올리는 것도 관심을 두고 계신 분들이 자유롭게 정보를 공유하고 전파할 수 있기를 바라는 정말 순수한 의도에서 하는 것이지만 그래도 댓글 하나 없이 인용된 것을 보니까 약간 서운한 마음이 들었습니다.

지난여름 그란 콘시에르또 나씨오날(Gran Concierto National)이라고 아마도 콜럼비아 문화부 산하 연주단으로 보이는 곳에서 다음과 같은 메일이 하나가 왔습니다.

Hola.

Mi nombre es Vladimir y manejo toda la parte de contenido
del Gran Concierto Nacional. Estaba buscando una foto de
Icheon para incluir en el contenido del Gran Concierto

http://gcn.mincultura.gov.co

Me gusto mucho tu foto y decidí incluirla. La foto se
presenta con sus respectivos créditos y enlace a su flickr,
sin embargo, si ud desea que la foto sea removida por favor
hacermelo saber, de lo contrario agradezco su colaboración
y participación en esta fiesta de todos los colombianos.

Puede ver su foto aquí:

http://gcn.mincultura.gov.co/internacional/icheon-corea/

Muchas gracias

내용은 이천에서 연주회를 했는데 그 장소를 소개하기 위한 사진으로 제가 플리커에 올린 사진을 사용하고 싶고 만일 그걸 원하지 않는다는 회신을 달라는 이야기입니다. 그때 그 사진이 아래의 사진입니다.

그런데 이 사진은 사실 제 딸이 이천에 있는 유아체험시설에 갔을 때 집사람이 그 시설의 전경을 찍어온 것으로 전혀 이천을 대표하는 사진이 아니라서 제 사진을 사용하는 것 대단히 감사하지만, 도자기 비엔날레 등으로 검색하면 이천을 대표할 만한 좋은 사진을 구할 수 있으니 그것으로 하는 게 어떠시겠냐? 라는 식의 답장을 보냈습니다.

물론 제 사진을 사용하는 곳이 일반 개인이 아니라 정부 기구였기 때문에 보다 조심스럽게 공유 여부를 물어봤을 것으로 생각하지만 그래도 기분은 참 좋았습니다.

좋은 글은 못 되지만 그나마 몇몇 분이라도 같이 공감하기 위해서는 국내 유명한 사이트에서 블로깅을 해야 하지만 워드프레스의 깔끔한 인터페이스와 편집 기능에 빠져 그냥 옮기려고 합니다. 한국에서도 몇몇 분이 워드프레스를 사용하시고 구글을 통해서는 검색이 되는 만큼 그래도 많은 분과 좋은 정보를 공유할 수 있도록 노력을 해 보렵니다. (바쁘다는 핑계로 비주얼 스튜디오에서 변수 조사하기 연속물도 아직 마무리 짓지 못하는데 좀 더 노력해야겠습니다.)

이 저작물은 크리에이티브 커먼즈 저작자표시-비영리-동일조건변경허락 2.0 대한민국 라이선스에 따라 이용할 수 있습니다.

This week marks the second anniversary of the first live internal demo of the intelligence community’s A-Space project, groundbreaking for the IC in its goal of collaborative use of social media across agency lines. Somewhere in Maryland, a remarkable government employee and friend named Mike Wertheimer should pause and quietly celebrate the fruition of his early evangelism for it.

I was still a government employee then, but wrote about the effort at the time here on Shepherd’s Pi (“A-Space: Top-secret social networking“). It makes me chuckle to remember back to those days when it was still mostly unheard-of for IC employees to blog openly on the public web about current technology projects. Now you can’t shut ‘em up!

It made sense, I thought, to set down a few notes at the time for several reasons:

1. A-Space was intended by Mike’s Analytic Transformation team of the Office of the DIrector of National Intelligence (ODNI) to take advantage of social-media advances then occuring rapidly on the internet, more rapidly than behind our firewalls. I had joined Twitter for example in March 2007, but few of my IC colleagues had Twitter accounts or access from work machines. Same for Facebook and LinkedIn. I blogged about A-Space because I felt we needed to socialize externally the path we were following internally, in order to attract good ideas and assistance from Silicon Valley and technologists who had little knowledge of intelligence work.
2. The time would come when A-Space would be all grown up and accepted as a success, I hoped – and at that point “paternity” could become an issue. We had seen the same thing happen with Intellipedia, which has had several bouts of being claimed as a CIA creation rather than its more community-minded actual roots – and I thought it might be best to set the record straight early on. As Winston Churchill said about World War II, he intended history to treat him fairly “because I intend to write it.”
3. I had announced my “retirement” from government service and was ready to go back to the private sector, and was frankly intent on setting a mark with A-Space so that later leadership might be less inclined to reverse course, against the use of social and collaborative tools.

So here we are, two years on.  I am relieved that A-Space lives! At this point in their lives Twitter and Facebook were themselves  not quite into their hockey-stick growth cycle as social-media phenomena. Think back to Facebook of early 2006 (it was launched in February 2004), or Twitter of March 2008 (it launched in its first alpha baby SMS steps in March 2007.  If you’re interested, Flickr holds some interesting screenshots of the very early Twitter beta screens by their designer).

This week Joab Jackson, senior technology editor at Government Computer News has an update titled “A-Space Melds Social Media and Intelligence Gathering,” quoting Ahmad Ishaq, who manages the project at DIA for the ODNI. I like giving him praise – not just because I hired him, but because he is doing  a bang-up job in difficult circumstances. Let’s just say that he and his team have been dealing with my third bullet point above during the last couple of years.

One of Ahmad’s smart tactics has been to enlist supportive users from multiple agencies as vocal advocates. The GCN article provides an example illustrating the cross-agency collaboration that was mandated by the 9/11 Commission and WMD Commission reports, and which A-Space and its sister tools are helping to realize:

A Homeland Security Department analyst needed to identify a person whose face was found posted on several street and stop signs in a region of the United States. So he posted a scan of the poster on A-Space and received information and photos from seven other agencies. With that information, he could run an image search of the face, which ultimately provided identification.” -Government Computer News

There’s been a lot of change in A-Space since I left – in the requirements, in the emerging business practices, in the software baseline used, and – perhaps explaining some of that – in the contractor team used. That’s all fodder for another article, perhaps.

Whither Analytic Collaboration?

What I prefer to focus on is the future potential of this tool and others in enabling progress for intelligence analysis and collaboration. Ahmad gives one window in the GCN article, and it’s a topic he and I have talked about recently:

[A]llowing analysts to share all this information is only the first step of A-Space. Ishaq and his team are exploring ways of making all the information that is being generated machine-readable. Ishaq would like to incorporate elements of the Semantic Web tools, which would allow them to draw inferences from existing material.

“Right now, the communication is between person and machine,” he said. “We’re trying to take it a step further, to machine-to-machine. So the end-user logs in to the computer, and everything he could possibly want would be there, without doing searches or clicking around.” -Government Computer News

But I’m sure that Ahmad would be among the first to agree that technology is perhaps among the lesser factors which will contribute to the success or failure of analytic collaboration (and “transformation” – an overused term but a worthy goal). Much more important are the social and cultural aspects of the workforce, the workplace, and the changing nature of intelligence work itself  – in response to and support of a dramatically changing foreign policy approach, driven as much by political transition as by societal shifts.

For the moment, let’s keep the focus on the tools though. As A-Space continues taking its own baby steps, it is worthwhile to consider the experience of its older sister Intellipedia – and that sytem’s progenitor Wikipedia. 

Early this year, GCN carried another Joab Jackson article claiming: “Intellipedia Suffers Midlife Crisis.” Much chatter ensued. Some of the challenges dealt with in the article are being addressed internally by the likes of the IC’s Chris Rasmussen, with new and complementary efforts such as Intellipublia (see Federal Computer Week, “Intelligence community wrestles with Web 2.0 tools for information sharing“).

The looming question rises about the overall significance of Web 2.0 style tools.  Dr. Mark Drapeau argued early this year in a widely read piece that “Government 2.0 has reached its midlife crsis.”  Now, more concrete and noteworthy stats are emerging about the hallmark Web 2.0 tools which inspired many of the IC’s efforts.

Could Crowd-Sourcing Max Out?

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported on new research  (“Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages“) showing that “unprecedented numbers of the millions of online volunteers who write, edit and police it are quitting.” They’re leaving Wikipedia and not being replaced by as many new volunteers, undercutting the “many-eyes” approach that crowd-sourcing relies upon. The numbers are striking: “In the first three months of 2009, Wikipedia lost more than 49,000 editors, compared to 4,900 a year earlier,” reports ZDNet based on the new research (more details here: “Is Wikipedia Maxed Out?”). An influential Econsultancy.com blog now asks in response: “Is free user-generated content dying?”

It is worth keeping an eye on the pulse of Intellipedia and A-Space, as their activity levels wax or wane. Unlike Wikipedia, they are work systems, not free web tools. So the issues there are the differential adoption and longevity of enterprise tools, as explored in Andrew McAfee’s excellent new book Enterprise 2.0.  

For the new intelligence tools, much will depend on their inclusion within agency official processes and analytic-tradecraft training programs. As Chris Rasmussen has pointed out about A-Space, it may still be true that “not a single agency recognizes A-Space content as official.” But social collaboration is more and more an accepted and critical requirement of all information technologies – we’re certainly reflecting that at Microsoft, and have been busy building such capabilities into the new Office 2010 suite (info and free beta sign-up here).

The wave is not going away (well, Google Wave might go away… see here and here and here and oh never mind…)

Who best reflects the pulse of A-Space and Intellipedia? There are many intel-watchers in my blogroll over on the margin, who chart the progress of the IC’s collaborative ways. I can also recommend Chris Dorobek’s reporting on the topic for FedNewsRadio; see his piece from July 2009 ”Intel on the government 2.0 front lines – and a new report assessing A-Space” and more recently his article “November’s Signal column: The Intelligence Community Writes the Book on Collaboration” – both have insight and supportive links as well.

There will be other ODNI and constituent agency efforts to provide cutting-edge collaborative and analytic software and techniques. A-Space will be improved upon, no doubt.

The real test of A-Space – while we have it – and its intelligence utility will come in secret moments of crisis, but also in less-flashy use of consistent collaborative processes which over time contribute to the uncovering of truth for our decision-makers and national leaders. Of necessity, most successes will be unseen by the outside world… and likely, most failures as well.  For now, a happy beta anniversary to the A-Space team and its users.

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The Growth and Contribution Network

It’ here!  Come to the Growth & Contribution Network’s inaugural Networking meeting and transform your life.  Tuesday, December 1, at 1pm.

The GCN was created to fulfill a void left by the traditional networking groups.  We will meet at 8410 W Cleveland Avenue, 2^nd floor conference room – 12/1 at 1pm.  Our first training topic is on “Creating Direction That Drives You into 2010”.  For more details, go to http://www.gregkaroly.com/GCN.html.

Who is the best video game Turkey. It’s obvious. It’s Franklin from Animal crossing.

Franklin comes to your town on thanksgiving every year. And he’s the dinner. You must bring him silverware so he can’t be eaten, and he gives you stuff. He is a very, very Paranoid turkey, and is one of the best special characters in the game.

Out of all the Holiday’s in animal crossing, thanksgiving is the funnest. I still play it every year.

“I can even see where Dish was crossed out and replaced with Guest.”

OK, so he’s not Paranoid. But still. Be sure to play this game on thanksgiving.

On Saturday, November 14, 2009, financial analyst Al Martin effectively told gold shills to take a shill chill pill, on Erskine Overnight. In the fourth segment of the first hour, he stated that:

• The IMF gave India a 0% interest-free loan to purchase 200 tons of their 403 metric tons of gold they planned to sell, because they wanted to prevent it from going to market.
• The week before, India announced a huge sale of silver.
• China refused a deal to buy the remaining 203 tons of gold from the IMF.
• China said it’s not a huge buyer of gold.
• New mine production of gold continues to increase.

Today is the Gamecube’s 8th Birthday. And The Gamecube was one of nintendo’s best systems. Sure it didn’t have classics like the NES and SNES, the breakthrough graphics like the 64, and it did terrible against the PS2 and Xbox. So what did it have? Spirit.

The Gamecube was a great system. While it lacked a good games, it did have some. And they were great.

Let’s look at some of them.

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Pikmin 1 and 2
Melee
Tales of Symphonia
F-Zero GX
Resident Evil 0-4
Soulcalibur II

While only selling 21.74 million units, it’s still a great System.

Por Ana Catarina Prebill

O Comércio da Franca recebeu neste fim de semana uma homenagem em São Joaquim da Barra. Durante o evento, o jornal foi lembrado por ser um dos mais importantes e sérios do interior paulista e, assim, contribuir com o desenvolvimento da região.

O evento teve como patrono o presidente da Assembleia Legislativa do Estado, Barros Munhoz, e contou com a presença do prefeito de Franca, Sidnei Rocha (PSBD), e de cidades da região. Sessenta empresários dos mais diversos segmentos, vereadores e presidentes de Câmaras Municipais também receberam homenagens. O jornal foi re presentado pelo gestor de relações institucionais, o jornalista Luiz Neto.

New Exciting Business Networking Group Serving S/E Wisconsin.

“I have received your reply via Bill Crosier. You continue to refuse to address me directly. You are now demanding an apology. If you wanted an apology you could have asked for one directly from me before you placed a post on a Jones forum with the title “KPFT HATES ALEX JONES.” That is a clear attempt to inflame ill will in that community against the entire KPFT community and I will be sure to make listeners aware of it next week, as well as the managers whom you continue to ply for redress. In the meantime, I will review yesterday’s tape, which I have not yet done. If I feel you or anyone else is owed an apology, I will issue one – I have issued several apologies in the past and I don’t hesitate to do so when one is warranted. You might consider your own apology, which many at KPFT may feel you now owe.”  –Leo Gold

Let me be clear Leo — I’m not interested in your apology.  The community was inflamed when you decide to declare your caller a conspiracy theorist and and a “dangerous threat”.  The damage is done, and just because you’re sorry doesn’t erase what you’ve done.  As for me, all I have done is hold up a mirror, and apparently you don’t like what you see.  So as Michael Jackson says maybe you should start with the man in the mirror before you start pointing fingers at me.  I mean really…what did I do..?   I don’t have a radio show.  I’m not able to hang up on people and then hold them up to ridicule. However, you DO have a show even if it is only two hours a week.  You DO  hang up on people and then cowardly insult them behind in the safety of the KPFT control room.

When you referred to good people as “conspiracy theorist” and as “dangerous” in a weak attempt to discredit them, you marginalized an entire population of the country who have struggled to come to terms with what they know to be right.  They have bravely come forward to present their beliefs, and you marginalized and humiliated them in a very public manner, on the people’s air waves.  KPFT can air all the disclaimers they want, but they are the ones who provide the board, transmitter and tower so you might broadcast your little hate speech to the city of Houston and beyond.  Therefore, they can stand in league with you now.  Perhaps they should screen their air staff a bit more carefully.

On Thursday, you did not give the caller the benifit of addressing him privately. So Leo, I’m not going to extend that curtisy to you now.  This started in public, and it will now continue in public.  As KPFT continues to support you, this very public dialogue will include them as well.  One thing you should know.  The people of the Truth Movement are not some broken down marginalized slaves Mr. Gold.  We are people what have taken a stand against tyranny and people like yourself who are the mouth pieces of tyranny.  We won’t back down, because we can’t back down.  You’ll do well to remember that the next time you decide to engage in personal attacks on your radio show.

Please, from now on, don’t try to contact me directly with some back room apologies.  At the very least, show the same boldness you did when you slandered the character of your caller.  Make your statements in public, because we all want to hear what you have to say…

I’ve had the good fortune to work with talented folks in my (short) time in Washington, since moving back East in 2002, particularly in the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense.  And one such fellow at DoD has been Bob Lentz, the outgoing deputy assistant secretary of Defense for information and identity assurance – the Chief Information Assurance Officer and equivalent to a private-sector CISO.

I gave an interview this afternoon to Federal News Radio (AM 1500 in the DC area, worldwide at www.FederalNewsRadio.com), on Bob’s tenure, and what will come next for DoD in the wake of his departure. You can read the news story about the interview here, or listen to the entire 15-minute interview as an mp3:

Shepherd interview on Federal News Radio, 10/13/2009

Not everything has gone perfectly, or even well, for Pentagon infosec during his tenure; we have been fighting several wars, declared and undeclared, real and cyber, during the past few years. It’s an unbelievably daunting mission, to secure the nation’s ability to defend herself and our most critical systems amid unrelenting attack.

But Bob has worked closely with the private sector on information security technological advances – he and I joined several leading Silicon Valley startup CEOs, leading-firm CISOs, and venture-capital entrepreneurs in the Information Technology Security Entrepreneurs Forum, or ITSEF.  He’s worked closely with DHS and NSA, including in the establishment of the Pentagon’s Cyber Command. He has also taken a number of counter-intuitive approaches, ranging from getting involved with Black Hat and DEFCON, to establishing jointly with the IC the Unified Cross Domain Management Office, or UCDMO. If you have the right credentials, visit the UCDMO SharePoint Collaboration Site (requires Intelink-U Access), or see their open web site at http://www.ucdmo.gov/.

This week Bob himself published a great “farewell column” in Government Computer News, “5 Key Challenges to DoD’s Cybersecurity.” The article includes policy advice for his successor and the Defense Department as a whole – but it is thoughtful advice that should be read by any CISO.  I’ll include his bullet-point list from the article: he writes, “If I had to list five of the biggest challenges that remain, my list would include”:

• The need to continuously harden the network, in this era of Web 2.0, cloud services, and increased mobile workforce and growing global requirements.
• The whole area of Supply Chain Risk Management. As the threat changes, we need to adjust as well, which includes rolling out technologies that inspect and secure the supply chain.
• Raising awareness across DOD and greater national security community on cyber resilience, so that commanders are prepared to operate in a contested cyber domain when communications are degraded or, worse, untrusted. The increased complexity of our technologies, coupled with our even greater dependence on them for mission success, make this an imperative.
• The necessity of education, training and workforce manning for critical IT/IA skill sets.
• And, again, the need to move to multi-factor and attribute-based identity assurance access for people, devices, data and applications.

That third bullet could be read as a provocative statement (which in Washington terms means admitting the truth): Imperfection, in DoD!  Military commanders are going to have to put up with “untrusted” communications systems in “a contested cyber domain.”  That’s the harsh reality, and military commanders are on the front lines in facing it. Bob Lentz’s successor will find his boots challenging to fill.

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Imagem de arquivo mostra festa de 2008 no "Veredas"

O Grupo Corrêa Neves de Comunicação (GCN) promove nesta segunda-feira uma festa para comemorar o dia das crianças em grande estilo. A comemoração contará com cerca de 400 crianças entre alunos do Grupo Educacional Veredas, ouvintes da rádio e filhos de colaboradores do GCN.

Como entretenimento haverá piscina de bolinhas, oficina de escultura em bexigas, pintura fácil, sorteio de prêmios e muitas outras brincadeiras, alem é claro de deliciosas guloseimas.

A festa começa às 13 horas na sede do GCN…

In January 2009, I reported on the 80% devaluation of Iceland’s currency from July to November 2008.

On October 3, 2009, “World Crisis Radio” with Webster Tarpley, reported live from Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, and interviewed an Icelander on Iceland’s 2008 economic collapse.

The interview starts at 41:30 in the first hour and runs for most of the second hour.

- Três turmas de professores da rede municipal participaram de visitas diferenciadas

“Às vezes quando vocês se deparam com notícias “não muito boas” bate um medo ou uma vontade de mudar de emprego? ”Tal questão, da aluna Camila Floro e Silva, foi remetida aos repórteres do Comércio por meio de uma das 21 cartas que chegaram à redação do jornal na tarde da última terça-feira. A chegada das correspondências foi resultado de uma iniciativa dos estudantes do 6º ano “A” da Escola Estadual David Carneiro Ewbank,que visitaria a sede do GCN no dia seguinte e que sob a orientação da professora Maria Ângela Chiachiri,resolveram antecipar suas perguntas.

Alunos da escola Cede "entrevistam" a editora do caderno local, Priscilla Sales, no parque gráfico do GCN

No dia da visita, antes de conhecerem cada departamento do grupo, passaram cerca de uma hora e meia no auditório do Grupo Corrêa Neves, onde a coordenadora do Projeto Jornal Escola esclareceu-lhes inúmeras dúvidas. Ao final do passeio, Priscilla Sales, editora do caderno Local, respondeu a todas as perguntas expressas nas cartas enviadas à redação. Segundo a professora Maria Ângela, a visita foi muito proveitosa, pois proporcionou aos alunos a oportunidade de poderem descobrir um pouco sobre a rotina de uma empresa de comunicação.

Na quinta-feira o GCN recebeu visitas de três turmas de professores, coordenadores, diretores e pedagogos de diversas escolas municipais de Franca. As visitas foram parte do planejamento inserido no contexto do Projeto Jornal Escola.Além de propiciar visitas educativas de grupos escolares, o Comércio também fornece, por meio do Projeto Jornal Escola, assinaturas do jornal às escolas municipais selecionadas no começo ano mediante a um acordo com a Secretaria Municipal da educação. As escolas contempladas com as assinaturas trabalham com o material em sala de aula sob o acompanhamento do Comércio. As visitas dos professores que participam do PJE foram uma extensão do trabalho.

Durante o encontro, os educadores puderam compartilhar de suas experiências referentes ao desenvolvimento do programa com suas respectivas turmas, além de conhecerem como funciona cada departamento responsável pela produção do veículo que estes têm utilizado como recurso didático. “Agora, estando interagidas com o processo de edição do jornal poderemos aperfeiçoar nossos projetos pedagógicos de incentivo à leitura.”- Explicou a professora Ana Alice dos Santos de Paula.

Na sexta-feira o GCN recebeu a visita da última turma da semana: O 5º ano da EMEB Olívia Corrêa Costa. Os alunos da professora Dayana Ellen Mariano Faleiros mostraram-se surpresos diante da máquina que imprime os cadernos do Comércio. ”Gostamos muito de descobrir a forma com a qual o jornal é impresso.” – Disse o aluno Nelson Eduardo Mota Junior.

Na tarde de ontem, chegou à redação do Comércio da Franca e da Rádio Difusora um envelope inesperado. Ele continha 21 cartas de uma turma da 6º série da Escola Estadual “David Carneiro Ewbank”, o Cede. Nelas, os jovens leitores faziam desde perguntas aos repórteres até agradecimentos e sugestões de matérias e assuntos a serem abordados.

Os comentários não se res-tringiram ao conteúdo do Comércio. A Rádio Difusora de Franca também foi alvo de curiosidades e elogios. “Gosto de ouvir as piadas do Everton Lima todos os dias e a Cíntia Flávia é sempre engraçada com as suas fofocas”, disse a aluna Letícia Medeiros Araújo.

As correspondências evidenciavam o conhecimento que os alunos têm do que é noticiado diariamente. Segundo a professora de Língua Portuguesa, Maria Ângela Freitas Chiachiri, há algum tempo os alunos têm trabalhado com o jornal na sala de aula. “Muita gramática não ensina a criança a escrever. A leitura é uma ótima forma de aprendizado”, disse.

]]> http://jornalescola.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/visitas-ao-gcn-ampliam-projetos-de-incentivo-a-leitura/ Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:00:30 +0000 Lívia Inácio http://jornalescola.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/visitas-ao-gcn-ampliam-projetos-de-incentivo-a-leitura/

- Por volta de cem alunos visitaram o Grupo Corrêa Neves nesta semana e conheceram de perto o mundo da comunicação

Alunios da EMEB Irmãos Matos conhecem o acervo do Jornal Comércio da Franca

Incentivado pela esposa dona Teresa Rodrigues dos Santos, aluna de um grupo do EJA (Educação de jovens e adultos), o senhor Antônio Rodrigues de Souza começou a estudar há 6 meses.O aluno,que está em fase de alfabetização,diz estar adorando a escola e uma visita com a classe ao GCN,voltou sua atenção para um recurso que até então passava quase que despercebido pelo olhar do estudante:”O jornal”. Sua turma foi uma das cinco que conheceram as instalações do Grupo Corrêa Neves nesta semana. Acompanhados pelas Professoras Lucinéia Eurípedes Martins (EJA – Centro Comunitário da Vila São Sebastião),Daniela Cristina Silva(EJA – Domenico Pugliesi) e Milena Cintra (EJA – Jerônimo Costa),os alunos conheceram de perto como funciona uma empresa de comunicação,o que despertou neles um maior interesse pela leitura de conteúdos jornalísticos.

Além da turma do senhor Antônio, o CGN recebeu outro grupo do EJA, do Asilo para idosos “Lar de Ofélia”. Segundo a professora Daniela Adnan e a estagiária de Serviço Social Elisa Francisconi,a visita foi uma forma de mostrar coisas novas aos estudantes.

O GCN abriu também as portas nesta semana para duas turmas de Educação Infantil: Uma delas foi da Casa Maternal, do Jardim Miramontes com crianças de 4 a 5 anos.De acordo com a professora Valeska Vilani Rodrigues,a coordenadora Eunice Pimenta Alves e a pedagoga Glória Aparecida Dias Vidigal, há algum tempo tem se conseguido despertar o interesse da meninada pelos meios de comunicação através dos símbolos e imagens do jornal.A visita serviu como forma de ampliar o projeto já trabalhado em sala de aula.

A outra turminha foi da Escola Municipal Professora Maria Helena Teixeira. A professora Eliane Menezes disse ter achado o passeio muito importante: ”As crianças precisam ter noções de cidadania desde cedo e esta visita foi ótima neste sentido”, contou a educadora.

A última visita desta semana foi de uma turma do 5º ano da EMEB Irmãos Matos de Patrocínio Paulista. A professora Maria Neusa Rodrigues Figueiró,também formada em Jornalismo, disse já estar trabalhando com o jornal em suas aulas desde março deste ano.”O jornal não só abre a mente dos alunos,como também ajuda na escrita.O Jornalismo e a Educação estão intimamente ligados,já que o jornalista e o professor são dois comunicadores indispensáveis.”

Incentivado pela esposa dona Teresa Rodrigues dos Santos, aluna de um grupo do EJA (Educação de jovens e adultos), o senhor Antônio Rodrigues de Souza começou a estudar há 6 meses.O aluno,que está em fase de alfabetização,diz estar adorando a escola e uma visita com a classe ao GCN,voltou sua atenção para um recurso que até então passava quase que despercebido pelo olhar do estudante:”O jornal”. Sua turma foi uma das cinco que conheceram as instalações do Grupo Corrêa Neves nesta semana. Acompanhados pelas Professoras Lucinéia Eurípedes Martins (EJA – Centro Comunitário da Vila São Sebastião),Daniela Cristina Silva(EJA – Domenico Pugliesi) e Milena Cintra (EJA – Jerônimo Costa),os alunos conheceram de perto como funciona uma empresa de comunicação,o que despertou neles um maior interesse pela leitura de conteúdos jornalísticos.

Além da turma do senhor Antônio, o CGN recebeu outro grupo do EJA, do Asilo para idosos “Lar de Ofélia”. Segundo a professora Daniela Adnan e a estagiária de Serviço Social Elisa Francisconi,a visita foi uma forma de mostrar coisas novas aos estudantes.

O GCN abriu também as portas nesta semana para duas turmas de Educação Infantil: Uma delas foi da Casa Maternal, do Jardim Miramontes com crianças de 4 a 5 anos.De acordo com a professora Valeska Vilani Rodrigues,a coordenadora Eunice Pimenta Alves e a pedagoga Glória Aparecida Dias Vidigal, há algum tempo tem se conseguido despertar o interesse da meninada pelos meios de comunicação através dos símbolos e imagens do jornal.A visita serviu como forma de ampliar o projeto já trabalhado em sala de aula.

A outra turminha foi da Escola Municipal Professora Maria Helena Teixeira. A professora Eliane Menezes disse ter achado o passeio muito importante: ”As crianças precisam ter noções de cidadania desde cedo e esta visita foi ótima neste sentido”, contou a educadora.

A última visita desta semana foi de uma turma do 5º ano da EMEB Irmãos Matos de Patrocínio Paulista. A professora Maria Neusa Rodrigues Figueiró,também formada em Jornalismo, disse já estar trabalhando com o jornal em suas aulas desde março deste ano.”O jornal não só abre a mente dos alunos,como também ajuda na escrita.O Jornalismo e a Educação estão intimamente ligados,já que o jornalista e o professor são dois comunicadores indispensáveis.”

     Cada vez mais no mercado a prática de outsourcing TI vem aumentando entre as empresas. Esse conceito vem evoluindo ao longo dos anos, tornando-se um importante fator de competitividade para as empresas.

     O outsourcing vem sendo adotado com o pretesto de que as empresas e os gestores se dediquem integralmente ao foco das suas atividades, aumentando a sua vantagem competitiva no mercado com um excelente custo/benefício.

     Do ponto de vista estratégico, o outsourcing é uma estratégia de negócio muito eficaz, que lhe permite liderar em termos de concorrência, aumentando simultaneamente a sua produtividade e rentabilidade.

     Do ponto de vista da gestão, o outsourcing coloca à seu serviço empregados com uma “melhor preparação” e mais conhecimentos de funções de suporte de escritório, o que supõe um trabalho de maior qualidade e uma maior disponibilidade do seu pessoal para projetos mais produtivos. (muito cuidado ao escolher sua prestadora.

     Numa perspectiva operacional, o outsourcing oferece uma grande flexibilidade que lhe permite ajustar o seu pessoal e as suas operações de modo a conservar a sua posição de líder de mercado. Além disso, o outsourcing de serviços permite-lhe manter-se competitivo no que diz respeito a avanços tecnológicos em sistemas operacionais e equipamentos que fomentam a sua eficiência e capacidade de resposta.

     As principais vantagens do Outsourcing são:

• Liberação de Recursos: Com o uso de Outsourcing nas atividades de T.I., a empresa fica livre para se dedicar ao seu negócio (core business), deixando a utilização dos recursos (capital, pessoal, infra-estrutura e outros) focada em atender seu cliente.
• Por que se preocupar com programação, codificação, compilação, debug, documentação, etc, etc… Se o seu negócio é outro?
• Acesso à tecnologias e especialistas não existentes dentro da organização.
• Ganho de flexibilidade e agilidade para atender à demanda de seus clientes. Quando e empresa foca na sua atividade principal ela se otimiza, ganha performance, fica mais enxuta e por sua vez atende melhor seus clientes naqueles quesitos que mais valorizam.
• Forma de redução de custos operacionais e de garantir um maior controle e visibilidade sobre os custos
• Transparência no estabelecimento de prioridades.
• Controle claro e objetivo dos cronogramas
• Objetividade nas negociações: Como os atendimentos são sob demanda, as negociações são rápidas e objetivas, atendendo as necessidades do cliente.
• Transferência dos riscos de parte das atividades para terceiros

     A literatura especializada aponta algumas desvantagens e riscos na contratação de serviços de Outsourcing:

• Resultados nem sempre correspondentes ao esperado: Muitas empresas de Outsouricing são focadas em custos somente, enquanto o cliente geralmente sempre busca a solução completa e definitiva para seu problema. Este desencontro de objetivos estratégicos faz com que haja conflitos desagradáveis entre o contratado e o resultado.
• Custos por vezes ficam além do previsto: Outra prática também comum no mercado, orçamentos fora do combinado e insatisfação do cliente.
• Dependência de parceiros pouco compromissados: Quando uma empresa quer terceirizar algum desenvolvimento tecnológico é comum recorrer aos chamados free-lancers. Apesar do baixo custo, as empresas têm amargado prejuízos com este tipo de profissional. O baixo comprometimento com o cliente, o abandono do projeto em detrimento de oportunidades melhores, a concentração de conhecimento do processo nas mãos de um estranho à empresa, são alguns dos motivos que tornam este tipo de profissional indesejável para as empresas.

Boston – Relatório da consultoria Forrester indica as cinco melhores práticas de negociação para empresas na escolha de software.

     Bem essa matéria foi retirada da IDG Now! Sei que esse assunto sai um pouco do escopo de assuntos que abordo normalmente, no entanto se você for pensar na continuidade do seu negócio vale a pena prestar atenção nesses requisitos, pois confiabilidade, manutenção e evolução são situações que precisam ser pensadas para que não se perca dinheiro lá na frente.

     Afinal já falava minha avó cabeça que não pensa o corpo que paga (ou ainda o barato sai caro).

     Adquirir um sistema, seja ele ERP (de gestão corporativa), CRM (de gestão do relacionamento com os clientes) ou, BI (inteligência de negócios) é mais uma atividade no escopo das obrigações da área de Tecnologia da Informação. “Mas dentre todas as aquisições realizadas pelas companhias, a operação de compra de soluções tecnológicas representa a que traz mais dificuldades às empresas”, diz Ray Wang, vice-presidente e diretor de análise da Forrester Research.
…

     Estes são os cinco pré-requisitos que as companhias devem exigir antes de efetuar uma aquisição de software:

Seleção: suporte de operação e para novas versões do software;

Implementação: fornecedores devem provar que executivos confiáveis estão por trás do negócio;

Utilização: permissão para que os clientes compartilhem uns com os outros as modificações que realizaram na solução;

Manutenção: exigência de que fornecedores busquem melhores opções de suporte para a companhia;

Migração: possibilidade de evolução para outras versões do mesmo software sem custo ou estresse.

     Por que tudo isso é importante? De acordo com Wang, agora é a hora de as empresas buscarem a reestruturação de suas operações para resolver problemas gerados no passado e ganhar fôlego para crescer. “A maneira como elas se relacionam com os fornecedores é determinante para o sucesso dessa fase de mudanças nas companhias”.

     Veja matéria completa no site da IDG…

fonte: IDG Now!

Boston – Relatório da consultoria Forrester indica as cinco melhores práticas de negociação para empresas na escolha de software.

     Bem essa matéria foi retirada da IDG Now! Sei que esse assunto sai um pouco do escopo de assuntos que abordo normalmente, no entanto se você for pensar na continuidade do seu negócio vale a pena prestar atenção nesses requisitos, pois confiabilidade, manutenção e evolução são situações que precisam ser pensadas para que não se perca dinheiro lá na frente.

     Afinal já falava minha avó cabeça que não pensa o corpo que paga (ou ainda o barato sai caro).

     Adquirir um sistema, seja ele ERP (de gestão corporativa), CRM (de gestão do relacionamento com os clientes) ou, BI (inteligência de negócios) é mais uma atividade no escopo das obrigações da área de Tecnologia da Informação. “Mas dentre todas as aquisições realizadas pelas companhias, a operação de compra de soluções tecnológicas representa a que traz mais dificuldades às empresas”, diz Ray Wang, vice-presidente e diretor de análise da Forrester Research.
…

     Estes são os cinco pré-requisitos que as companhias devem exigir antes de efetuar uma aquisição de software:

Seleção: suporte de operação e para novas versões do software;

Implementação: fornecedores devem provar que executivos confiáveis estão por trás do negócio;

Utilização: permissão para que os clientes compartilhem uns com os outros as modificações que realizaram na solução;

Manutenção: exigência de que fornecedores busquem melhores opções de suporte para a companhia;

Migração: possibilidade de evolução para outras versões do mesmo software sem custo ou estresse.

     Por que tudo isso é importante? De acordo com Wang, agora é a hora de as empresas buscarem a reestruturação de suas operações para resolver problemas gerados no passado e ganhar fôlego para crescer. “A maneira como elas se relacionam com os fornecedores é determinante para o sucesso dessa fase de mudanças nas companhias”.

     Veja matéria completa no site da IDG…

fonte: IDG Now!

No acervo do GCN,alunos da Escola “Luzinete Cortez Balieiro” comparam exemplares antigos do "Comercio" com os atuais cadernos.

Thales Vinícius cursa o 5º ano do Ensino Fundamental na Escola Municipal Professora Luzinete Cortez Balieiro. Apesar de ser ainda tão jovem já decidiu que carreira pretende seguir no futuro: “Jornalista.”

Na ultima segunda-feira, Thales conheceu o Grupo Corrêa Neves de Comunicação com a turma de sua sala, por meio do Projeto Jornal Escola. Acompanhada pela professora Tânia Maria de Oliveira Pereira, a meninada tirou suas dúvidas enquanto conhecia cada departamento do grupo. A visita despertou ainda mais o gosto pelo jornalismo no garotinho. O futuro repórter foi uma das crianças que se surpreenderam com a redação. ”Pensei que fosse uma sala com várias pessoas escrevendo ao mesmo tempo. Não imaginava que houvesse divisões entre os profissionais como acontece com os repórteres e editores, por exemplo.”, conta.

O aluno Igor Batista da Silva, de 11 anos adorou conversar com o radialista Everton Lima, de quem declarou ser ouvinte assíduo. Já a aluna Jéssica Silva Rodrigues quis conhecer a locutora Cíntia Flávia, que saudou a mocinha com muita simpatia.

Na terça-feira, o GCN recebeu mais três turmas. Duas delas eram do 4º ano da Escola Estadual Professora Lina Pichioni Rocha, situada o Jardim Petráguia.Sempre atentos,os alunos das professoras Maria Irene Mendonça Rodrigues e Elaine Maria Morelli Barbosa Marangoni conheceram de perto desde a redação até a máquina responsável pela impressão do Comércio.As educadoras já trabalhavam há algum tempo com o jornal em sala de aula,o que despertou ainda mais a curiosidade das crianças em querer conhecer todo o processo de produção do informativo.

A aluna Ana Neli de Cássia da Silva disse ter aprendido bastante com a visita. Aninha, como é conhecida pelos colegas, é deficiente visual, o que não impediu que a jovem aproveitasse ao máximo o passeio. Curiosa, Ana, que gosta muito ler, fez inúmeras perguntas sobre o jornal. Sua professora, Maria Irene, costuma selecionar textos jornalísticos trabalhados nas aulas e adaptá-los ao braile para a estudante. Aninha também foi uma das alunas que participaram ao vivo do programa “Show da manhã” com Valdes Rodrigues, transmitido pela Rádio Difusora de Franca.

À noite, chegou a vez dos alunos das professoras Tânia Robuste (Núcleo de Educação de Jovens e Adultos – EJA da Associação dos Moradores do Bairro São José), Ivone Taveira (EJA – Escola Frei Lauro de Carvalho Borges) e Lara Feitosa (EJA – Escola Professor Antônio Shicherolli) conhecerem as dependências do grupo.Durante a visita,participaram do Programa “O fino do sertão”,com Élcio Fernandes e se admiraram com a estrutura da empresa.

Na quinta-feira, a o GCN recepcionou também uma turminha do 1º ano do Ensino Fundamental da Emeb Professora Odete do Nascimento. Eliana Lopes Silva, professora da classe, disse já usar o jornal como estímulo pedagógico. ”Um dos meios com os quais utilizamos o jornal é a roda de conversa, onde as crianças discutem temas da atualidade.” A pedagoga da Escola, Sara Porto Gonçalves, acredita que o jornal seja um recurso indispensável para a educação.

Fechando com “chave de ouro” a semana de visitas, o Grupo Corrêa Neves recebeu 36 alunos do 5º ano da Escola Estadual Professor Benedito Eufrásio Marcondes Vieira, do Jardim Seminário. O aluno Kauê Henrique da Silva disse ter gostado muito do vídeo institucional apresentado no início do passeio. Kauê não foi o único a gostar da visita. Acompanhada pelas professoras Rita Conceição de Souza e Sabrina Lopes de Paula Silva, toda a turminha, que permaneceu concentrada nas explicações apresentadas para que não perdessem nenhuma delas, fez inúmeras perguntas.

Foram 163 os alunos que visitaram o CGN esta semana. Ao final da visita, tomaram um lanche fornecido pela Padaria Estrela e pelos Laticínios Jussara, depois receberam Brindes do Projeto Jornal Escola.