New Statistical Reports: Business in Europe & Global Employment Trends for Women
Here are two recently released reports loaded with statistics: + From the International Labour Organization Global Employment Trends for Women 2007
...the Global Employment Trends for Women Brief 2007 focuses on whether the tendency toward increased participation has continued more recently and whether women have found enough decent and productive jobs to really enable them to use their potential in the labour market and achieve economic independence.+ From Eurostat European businesses seen through statistics Summary ||| Full Text (418 pages; PDF) ||| Download Individual Chapters
[From the] Statistical Office of the European Communities, gives a comprehensive picture of the structure, development and characteristics of European business and its different activities: from energy and the extractive industries to communications, information services and media. It presents the latest available statistics from a wide selection of statistical sources describing, for each activity, production and employment, country specialisation and regional distribution, cost structures, productivity and profitability, the importance of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), external trade etc.Continue reading
Is E-Government Ready for Prime Time?
Stephen Ruth and Soogwan Doh, Is E-Government Ready for Prime Time?, IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 11, no. 2, 2007, pp. 80-82. (IEEE Distributed Systems Online)
This is an interesting take on e-government with an international and technical perspective. It includes a sidebar, "Touring E-Government Web Sites" that cites "Possibly the world’s best known e-government site, the US government’s official Web Portal" (USA.gov), as well as sites from the World Bank, The European Union, and North Korea. The article notes problems with e-government intitiatives quoting one study that says that only about "15 percent of e-government projects meet their goals and more than a third are complete failures." The authors do express optimism though. They say that "Some day, perhaps all citizens will be treated like customers" -- a statement that caries a lot of unstated political and information-access assumptions that should be examined closely.
Continue readingSocial Bookmarking in a half hour
Still don't get our del.icio.us page? Don't have a clue about social bookmarking, de.lico.us, etc? Have a clue but think it's a waste of time? Try listening to Rachel Bridgewater's explanation at a half-hour Sirsi/Dynix Institute event A Little Help from your Friends: Social Bookmarking. I listened to this presentation on my MP3 player, which I do with all SIRSI/DYNIX Institute podcasts. Even without her slides and other materials, I found it to be a both a solid introduction for beginners and a refresher for people like myself who have de.licio.us accounts but haven't done much with them. Something Ms. Bridgewater said gave me a flash of inspiration involving de.licio.us, rss feeds and feed2js. If anything real becomes of it, I'll let you know. The social bookmarking session is available in the Institute's archive. If you have a broadband connection, you owe to yourself to subscribe to these events and maybe even participate live. There's just no excuse for missing out on great continuing education these days. I realize this isn't about government information at all, but it is a tool we can use to promote it. Continue reading
Tell Congress to restore access to presidential records
ALERT -- Tell Congress to restore access to presidential records, Lee White, Humanities & Social Sciences Online, H-NCH Discussion, 9 Mar 2007.
Urge the House of Representatives to pass H.R.1255, the "Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007." The bill would overturn Bush Executive Order 13233 and more.
Recent posts on FGI about hearings on access to presidential records here, here, and here.
Continue readingWebsite for National War Powers Commission Now Online
New from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia is the official web site for the National War Powers Commission.
In keeping with its tradition of assembling national commissions of major stature, the Miller Center has convened the National War Powers Commission, a private bipartisan panel led by former Secretaries of State James A. Baker, III and Warren Christopher. The Commission will examine how the Constitution allocates the powers of beginning, conducting, and ending war.Here's the official press release announcing the commission. PDF; 2 pages. Continue reading