Seita Dos Orégos

Louçã

2009-09-16T17:30:00.001+00:00

Numa conversa sobre as eleições, referindo-se explicitamente às questões levantadas pela análise ao programa eleitoral do B.E., uma amigo disse-me que «Louçã é como os melhores vilões…não resistiu a explicar detalhadamente o seu plano maléfico».

Eleições

2009-09-04T12:57:00.004+00:00

Mais umas eleições implica mais mentiras e mais conversa demagoga.
Todos falam mal uns dos outros. Porque será que não falam dos problemas reais do nosso País?

Portugal está num momento em que precisa de união e de soluções. Os partidos deveriam ser a alavanca para isso. É normal que tenham as suas divergências, mas o que mais interessa neste momento são as divergências ou encontrar um programa único e consensual para Portugal nos próximos 40 anos?

Os Portugueses vão eleger a pessoa que mais mentir porque afinal de contas estamos nesta situação também porque votamos mal. Se não gostamos de nenhum usamos o voto útil enquanto deviamos não votar em nenhum. Assim os politicos percebiam que não estão no caminho certo.

Fica o repto.

Computers to decipher ancient text

2009-09-04T12:54:00.003+00:00

Tecnologia a favor da ciência.

WILL THE CAT ABOVE THE PRECIPICE FALL DOWN?

2009-06-24T17:28:00.001+00:00

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

[The following is a guest post from Slavoj Žižek sent to us by Ali Alizadeh who writes, "Apparently the mainstream media has not shown interest in publishing it. Hope that the blogsphere can counteract their tendency." The piece is copy-right free and you should feel free to republish this on your own blog.]

When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, its dissolution as a rule follows two steps. Before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy, its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down…

In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman simply withdrew; in a couple of hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although there were street fights going on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game is over. Is something similar going on now?

There are many versions of the events in Tehran. Some see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western “reform movement” along the lines of the “orange” revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, etc. – a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution. They support the protests as the first step towards a new liberal-democratic secular Iran freed of Muslim fundamentalism. They are counteracted by skeptics who think that Ahmadinejad really won: he is the voice of the majority, while the support of Mousavi comes from the middle classes and their gilded youth. In short: let’s drop the illusions and face the fact that, in Ahmadinejad, Iran has a president it deserves. Then there are those who dismiss Mousavi as a member of the cleric establishment with merely cosmetic differences from Ahmadinejad: Mousavi also wants to continue the atomic energy program, he is against recognizing Israel, plus he enjoyed the full support of Khomeini as a prime minister in the years of the war with Iraq.

Finally, the saddest of them all are the Leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad: what is really at stake for them is Iranian independence. Ahmadinejad won because he stood up for the country’s independence, exposed elite corruption and used oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority – this is, so we are told, the true Ahmadinejad beneath the Western-media image of a holocaust-denying fanatic. According to this view, what is effectively going on now in Iran is a repetition of the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh – a West-financed coup against the legitimate president. This view not only ignores facts: the high electoral participation – up from the usual 55% to 85% – can only be explained as a protest vote. It also displays its blindness for a genuine demonstration of popular will, patronizingly assuming that, for the backward Iranians, Ahmadinejad is good enough – they are not yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular Left.

Opposed as they are, all these versions read the Iranian protests along the axis of Islamic hardliners versus pro-Western liberal reformists, which is why they find it so difficult to locate Mousavi: is he a Western-backed reformer who wants more personal freedom and market economy, or a member of the cleric establishment whose eventual victory would not affect in any serious way the nature of the regime? Such extreme oscillations demonstrate that they all miss the true nature of the protests.

The green color adopted by the Mousavi supporters, the cries of “Allah akbar!” that resonate from the roofs of Tehran in the evening darkness, clearly indicate that they see their activity as the repetition of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, as the return to its roots, the undoing of the revolution’s later corruption. This return to the roots is not only programmatic; it concerns even more the mode of activity of the crowds: the emphatic unity of the people, their all-encompassing solidarity, creative self-organization, improvising of the ways to articulate protest, the unique mixture of spontaneity and discipline, like the ominous march of thousands in complete silence. We are dealing with a genuine popular uprising of the deceived partisans of the Khomeini revolution.

There are a couple of crucial consequences to be drawn from this insight. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a genuine corrupted Islamo-Fascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power politics is causing unease even among the majority of ayatollahs. His demagogic distributing of crumbs to the poor should not deceive us: behind him are not only organs of police repression and a very Westernized PR apparatus, but also a strong new rich class, the result of the regime’s corruption (Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is not a working class militia, but a mega-corporation, the strongest center of wealth in the country).

Second, one should draw a clear difference between the two main candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi. Karroubi effectively is a reformist, basically proposing the Iranian version of identity politics, promising favors to all particular groups. Mousavi is something entirely different: his name stands for the genuine resuscitation of the popular dream which sustained the Khomeini revolution. Even if this dream was a utopia, one should recognize in it the genuine utopia of the revolution itself. What this means is that the 1979 Khomeini revolution cannot be reduced to a hard line Islamist takeover – it was much more. Now is the time to remember the incredible effervescence of the first year after the revolution, with the breath-taking explosion of political and social creativity, organizational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. The very fact that this explosion had to be stifled demonstrates that the Khomeini revolution was an authentic political event, a momentary opening that unleashed unheard-of forces of social transformation, a moment in which “everything seemed possible.” What followed was a gradual closing through the take-over of political control by the Islam establishment. To put it in Freudian terms, today’s protest movement is the “return of the repressed” of the Khomeini revolution.

And, last but not least, what this means is that there is a genuine liberating potential in Islam – to find a “good” Islam, one doesn’t have to go back to the 10th century, we have it right here, in front of our eyes.

The future is uncertain – in all probability, those in power will contain the popular explosion, and the cat will not fall into the precipice, but regain ground. However, it will no longer be the same regime, but just one corrupted authoritarian rule among others. Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line.

open letter of support to the demonstrators in Iran

2009-06-24T17:23:00.001+00:00

Friday 19 June 2009

This morning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded an end to the massive and forceful demonstrations protesting the controversial result of last week's election. He argued that to make concessions to popular demands and 'illegal' pressure would amount to a form of 'dictatorship', and he warned the protestors that they, rather than the police, would be held responsible for any further violence.

Khamenei's argument sounds familiar to anyone interested in the politics of collective action, since it appears to draw on the logic used by state authorities to oppose most of the great popular mobilisations of modern times, from 1789 in France to 1979 in Iran itself. These mobilisations took shape through a struggle to assert the principle that sovereignty rests with the people themselves, rather than with the state or its representatives. 'No government can justly claim authority', as South Africa's ANC militants put it in their Freedom Charter of 1955, 'unless it is based on the will of all the people.'

Needless to say it is up to the people of Iran to determine their own political course. Foreign observers inspired by the courage of those demonstrating in Iran this past week are nevertheless entitled to point out that a government which claims to represent the will of its people can only do so if it respects the most basic preconditions for the determination of such a will: the freedom of the people to assemble, unhindered, as an inclusive collective force; the capacity of the people, without restrictions on debate or access to information, to deliberate, decide and implement a shared course of action.

Years of foreign-sponsored 'democracy promotion' in various parts of the world have helped to spread a well-founded scepticism about civic movements which claim some sort of direct democratic legitimacy. But the principle itself remains as clear as ever: only the people themselves can determine the value of such claims. We the undersigned call on the government of Iran to take no action that might discourage such determination.

SIGNED BY:

ALAMDARI, Kazem, California State University, Los Angeles
ALLIEZ, Eric, Middlesex University, London
AMSLER, Sarah S., Language and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham
ANDERSON, Kevin B., Professor of Sociology and Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara
ASAD, Talal, Graduate Center, City University of New York
BADIOU, Alain, ENS, Paris
BALIBAR, Etienne, Paris X, Nanterre, and University of California, Irvine
BANUAZIZI, Ali, Professor of Political Science and Director, Program in Islamic Civilization and Societies, Boston College
BAYAT, Asef, Professor of Sociology and Middle East Studies, Leiden University
BEHROOZ, Maziar, Associate Professor of Middle East History, San Francisco State University
BENHABIB, Seyla, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven
BEYER, Vera, Kunsthistorisches Institut der Freien Universität Berlin
BIENIEK, Adam, Jagiellonian University, Chair of Arab Studies, Institute of Oriental Philology , Cracow, Poland
BOCHENSKA, Joanna, Dept. of Kurdish Studies, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
BOGDAN, Jolan, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK
BRUNO, Michael, Dept. of Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR
BRUSTAD, Kristen, Associate Chair, Dept. Of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin
BURGE, Tyler, University of California, Los Angeles
BURGERS, Jan-Willem, Australian National University
BUTLER, Judith, University of California, Berkeley
BUTT, Gavin, Senior Lecturer & Programme Leader in MPhil / PhD,
CHOMSKY, Noam, MIT, Cambridge MA USA
COHEN, Joshua, Stanford University
COLE, Juan R. I., Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan
DABASHI, Hamid, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York
DE CARO, Mario, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Rome
DI LUCIA COLLETI, Laura, Conseillor Province of Venice
DOGRAMACI, Sinan, University of Texas at Austin
DOLEZALEK, Isabelle, Freie Universität Berlin
DORFMAN, Vladimiro Ariel, Duke Universtiy, Durham, North Carolina
DÜTTMANN, Alexander Garcia, Goldsmiths College
EHSANI, Kaveh, Assistant Professor of International Studies, DePaul University
EISENSTEIN, Zillah, Professor of Politics, Ithaca College
ENGELMANN, Stephen, University of Illinois at Chicago
EPSTEIN, Barbara, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz
FALK, Richard, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
FARHI, Farideh, Dept. of Political Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
FARNOODY-ZAHIRI, Nelly, UCLA
FASY, Thomas M., Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City
FATIMA KHAN, Mahruq, Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
FIELD, Hartry, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
FORAN, John, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
GANDJBAKHSH, Amirhosseing, Research Director, National Health Institute, Washington DC
GANZ, David, Universität Konstanz, Germany
GARRETT, Don, Dept. of Philosophy, New York University
GASIOROWSKI, Mark, Political Science and International Studies, Louisiana State University
GLOGOWSKI, Aleksander, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
GODMILOW, Jill, University of Notre Dame
GOLE, Nilufer, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
HÁJEK, Alan, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
HALLWARD, Peter, Middlesex University, UK
HASHEMI, Nader, Assistant Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics
HEGASY, Sonja, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
HERRERA, Linda, Institute of Social Studies (The Hague)
HIBBARD, Scott, DePaul University, Chicago
HOEFERT, Almut, University of Basel
IVEKOVIC, Rada, Collège international de philosophie, Paris, Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Etienne
JIMENEZ, Maria, Université Paris Sorbonne, Paris IV
KESHAVARZIAN, Arang, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University
KHOSROVANI, Sahar, University of Maastricht
KORBEL, Josef, School of International Studies, University of Denver
KOWALIK, Tadeusz, professor of economics and humanities, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
KOWALSKA, Beata, Jagiellonian University, Poland
KOZLOWSKI, Pawel, Professor of economics, Polish Academy of Sciences
KUMAR, Victor, University of Arizona
LARRIVÉE, Pierre, Aston University, Birmingham
LEMISCH, Jesse, Professor Emeritus, History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, USA
MARTINON, Jean-Paul, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK
MASROUR, Farid, Dept. Of Philosophy, New York University
MCFARLAND, Andrew, Political Science Dept., University of Illinois,
Chicago
MCINTYRE, Michael, International Studies, DePaul University, Chicago
MEHDIZADEH, Hamidreza, Illinois Institute of Technology
MEMMI, Paul, Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense
MORUZZI, Norma Claire, University of Illinois at Chicago, Political Science, History, Gender and Women's Studies
MOSES, Claire G., Dept. of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland
MOSHTAGHI, Nazgol, University of South Florida
NAST, Heidi, DePaul University, Chicago
NATCHKEBIA, Irina, Tbilisi University
NOYAU, Colette, Dépt des Sciences du langage, CNRS, Université Paris-Ouest
PATTERSON, Ian, Director of Studies in English, Queens’ College Cambridge
PETTIT, Philip, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
PIRVELI, Marika, Szczecin University, Poland
PRÉVOST, Sophie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
PRINZ, Jesse, Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York
PROUST, Joëlle, Director of Research, Institut Jean-Nicod, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure
PSTRUSIŃSKA, Jadwiga, Head of Dept. of Interdisciplinary Eurasiatic Research, Institute of Oriental Philology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow
RANCIÈRE, Jacques, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris (St. Denis)
REZAEI ,Ali, Dept. of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada
ROMAN, Richard, University of Toronto
ROSENTHAL, David M., Professor of Philosophy, Cognitive Science Concentration Graduate Center, City University of New York
ROSS, Eric B., Visiting Professor of Anthropology and International Development Studies, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
SANBONMATSU, John, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dept. Of Humanities and Arts, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA
SCHAEFER, Karin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
SCHELLENBERG, Susanna, Professor of Philosophy, Research School of the Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra
SCHIBECI, Lynn, (retired) Dept. of History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
SCHIELKE, Samuli, Centre of Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin
SCHRECKER, Ellen, Professor of American History at Yeshiva University, New York
SCHWABSKY, Barry, Senior Critic in Sculpture (retired), Yale University
SEDGWICK, Sally, University of Illinois, Chicago
SHAHSAVARI, Anousha, Persian Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin
SHEIKHZADEGAN, Amir, University of Freiburg
SIEGEL, Susanna C., Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge
SIMPSON, Dick, Head of the Political Science Dept., University of Illinois, Chicago
SPERBER, Dan, Institut Jean Nicod, CRNS, Paris
STEINSEIFER, Martin, Universität Giessen
STUART, Jack, Minneapolis, MN
Tabb, William K., City University of New York
TAVAKOLI-BORAZJANI, Farifteh, Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Iranistik
TAVAKOLI-TARGHI, Mohamad, Professor of History and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto
TISSBERGER, Martina, Freie Universität Berlin, Dept. of Educational Sciences and Psychology
TOHIDI, Nayereh, Professor and Chair, Gender and Women’s Studies Dept., California State University, Northridge
TOSCANO, Alberto, Goldsmiths College, UK
UNGER, Peter, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
VAHDAT, Farzin, Vassar College, New York
VAN BLUEMEL, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, MA
VAN BRUINESSEN, Martin, Chair of Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies, Utrecht University
VICTORRI, Bernard, Directeur de recherché CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
WATZL, Sebastian, Dept. of Philosophy, Columbia University
WHITE, Stephen, Dept. of Philosophy, Tufts University
WINANT, Howard, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
ZIAI, Hossein, Director of Iranian Studies, UCLA Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Los Angeles, CA
ŽIŽEK, Slavoj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the European Graduate School
ZUK, Agnieszka, University of Nancy
ZUPANCIC, Alenka, Institute of Philosophy of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Pessoas+internet

2009-06-16T15:25:00.001+00:00

@mousavi1388:

«Twitter is currently our ONLY way to communicate overnight news in Iran, PLEASE do not take it down. #IranElection

We have no national press coverage in Iran, everyone should help spread Mousavi’s message. One Person = One Broadcaster. #IranElection»

Sobrevivência

2009-05-22T11:30:00.001+00:00

A tripulação da Estação Espacial Internacional (ISS, na sigla em inglês) bebeu ontem pela primeira vez água conseguida através da reciclagem do suor e urina dos astronautas.

Darwin terá mesmo razão?

2009-05-19T17:45:00.000+00:00

Sir David Attenborough afirmou que Darwin «teria ficado emocionado» ao ver este fossil, salientando que a descoberta diz «quem nós somos e de onde nós vimos».

2009-05-15T15:22:00.001+00:00

I know a man who curses his brother
I know a man who lives for no other
Always chasing after money
Thinks a poor man is funny
It's hard, it's hard to believe he's a child of God

I know a woman who steals from her mother
That same woman she gets drunk from one day to another
Kicks her kids out in the street
There's another man under their father's sheets
I find it hard, I find it hard, I find it hard
It's hard to believe she's a child of God

I know some people who go to church on sunday
These same people, they wear a sheet on monday
Talk about justice being free
They're watching lynchings so easily
I find it hard, I find it hard, I find it hard
It's hard to believe these are children of God

I find it hard to believe right now
These people call themselves children of God

Antony and The Johnsons

Pirate Bay

2009-04-21T11:46:00.001+00:00

«So the first verdict finally came, almost 3 years after the raid. You might have heard about it in the news...

You, our beloved users, know that this little speedbump on the information super highway is nothing more than just, a little bump. Todays verdict has already been appealed by us and will be taken to the next level of court (and that will take another 2 or 3 years!)

The site will live on! We are more determined than ever that what we do is right. Millions of users are a good proof of that.

We have seen that some people that we dont know have started collecting donations for us, so we can pay those silly fines. We firmly ask you NOT to do this. Do not gather or send any money. We do not want them since we will not pay any fines!

If you really want to help out, here is a list:
* Seed those torrents a little bit more than you usually do!
* Buy a t-shirt and show the world where your sympathy is.
* If you live in Europe, vote in the election for the EU parliament in June.
* Continue to build the internets! Start more bittorrent sites, blog more, start your own lobby group, create, remix, mash up and continue to grow more heads on this amazing hydra that we know as the internets!
* Do not be afraid of using the network. Invite your friends to this and other file sharing systems. Calm people down if they're upset. We need to stay united.

And say it loud say it proud! We are all The Pirate Bay!»

via Pirate Bay blog

E Gibson deu-nos a realidade

2009-03-17T21:10:00.001+00:00

1948: William Gibson is born in Conway, South Carolina. He later blossoms into legend with the prize-winning fiction that gives the world the term cyberspace.

Jornalismo

2009-03-15T14:06:00.001+00:00

«When we can't compete with a comic in terms of speaking truth to power, then it's more clear than ever that journalism in the US has lost its way. It comes as no surprise then when, as newspapers crumble around the country, a report like the one released by the Pew Research Center this week says that only 33% of people would miss their local newspaper "a lot." When you lead with a story about an interview that happened on a comedy show--and it's the very same story that almost everyone else is leading with as well--what's to miss?

What's to miss--the refrain is always repeated--is the investigative reporting that helps to keep our leaders honest, our water clean, our businesses pure. What's to miss is people asking fearless questions to those that need them asked. What's to miss is the deep pockets that can fund a reporter to dig and dig and dig until she's able to uncover some fragile truth. And yes, that stuff is vital to the functioning of a democracy. It also, let's speak the truth here, doesn't happen very often.

Traditional news organizations have nothing to lose right now. Why not take a gamble at the one thing they haven't tried: being fearless. Stewart would probably appreciate the company.»

dixit

2009-03-14T22:46:00.001+00:00

«Would a gnome risk being seen? Captured? Hurt? or even worse would a gnome try and harm a human? I personally do not think gnomes would do something like that and I personally do not think that a gnome could project his/her voice loud enough to be heard, even for a whisper. But then again, I have never seen one, so I cannot say this for certain.»

20 anos

2009-03-13T20:22:00.001+00:00

www

Adeus Afonso

2009-03-10T23:23:00.002+00:00

2009-03-06T15:54:00.000+00:00

A pior notícia...

2009-03-04T23:04:00.001+00:00

Desaparecimento de jovem português em Berlim é "um bruxedo"~

Espero que não o seja.

Casamento para todos?

2009-03-04T22:41:00.002+00:00

Uma das grandes discussões que existe neste momento em Portugal é o casamento homossexual.
Portugal além de ser um País com um nível de cultura muito baixo, a maioria dos portugueses ainda não uma mentalidade ainda tão aberta para aceitar este "tipo de comportamento". Viu-se isso quando este Carnaval, em Torres Vedras, as pessoas ficaram escandalizadas com um Magalhães que, no seu monitor tinha umas imagens pornográficas e no mesmo na Feira do Livro, não sei de que cidade, uma imagem de um sexo feminino era exposto na capa de um livro, imagem essa que era de um quadro de Coubert.

Como dizia o título da crónica de Miguel Sousa Tavares da sua coluna no expresso da semana passada 28-02-09: "Somos tão Modernos"

A homossexualidade para mim é um problema, mas não condeno ninguém por ser homossexual. Aceito plenamente o casamento homossexual e a adopção de uma criança por um casal homossexual.
As pessoas que são contra a adopção de uma criança por um casal homossexual, por acharem que o enquadramento não é ideal para a criança por não ter dois pais, ou duas mães deviam perceber que o casal de homossexuais que está a querer adoptar uma criança veio, na maioria das vezes, de um ambiente dito normal, com uma mãe e um pai.

Portugal como país II

2009-02-28T23:53:00.002+00:00

De televisão ligada no canal público a ver o Festival da Canção e a ler o Diário Económico, escrevo estas linhas que me ajudam a perceber que Portugal é um país maravilhoso, mas mal governado se não vejamos alguns pontos:

- Portugal entrou em bancarrota seis vezes, todas elas durante o século XIX. Depois do 25 de Abril fomos obrigados a recorrer ao FMI duas vezes, 1975 e 1983(Estranho estes anos, porquê afinal dizia-se que Salazar tinha muito dinheiro nos cofres...);

- Alemanha e França ficaram insolventes 8 vezes;

- Espanha ficou 13 vezes em bancarrota. Entre 1800 e 2006...

Porquê é que ficámos em bancarrota menos vezes que Espanha e eles são mais desenvolvidos que nós?
A Espanha esteve quase tantos anos de ditadura como nós e estão mais desenvolvidos que nós?

Todos nós deviamos parar e perguntar o porquê disto... Não acredito que a culpa seja só dos politicos que temos e tivemos...

Portugal como país

2009-02-28T23:39:00.002+00:00

Há poucos dias li o título da revista Visão em voz alta no trabalho. Dizia assim:
"Afinal somos felizes!! 73% dos Portugueses são felizes"

Um dos meus colegas perguntou-me, "Não és feliz?" ao que eu respondi que sim, "muito até". Ele justificou a pergunta com a seguinte afirmação:
"Tens que perceber que em crise, enquanto nós descemos 2% os outros países descem 20%e na mesma proporção aquando de uma economia plena.". Discordei desta afirmação porque prefiro subir e descer 20% do que 2%, apesar de matematicamente a divisão ser a mesma.
A conversa desenrolou-se por mais um pouco e ele comparava-se sempre àqueles que estão piores que nós, nos exemplos que dava, para se justificar do porquê nos devermos sentir felizes enquanto portugeses. Eu acabei por dizer-lhe que o mal era esse mesmo, usamos termos de comparação sempre com "coisas" piores e não com as "coisas" melhores.

Infelizmente somos felizes por causa disso.

Formas de morrer

2009-02-28T17:23:00.001+00:00

Serge Tuganov, 28, of Moscow, accepted a $4000+ bet from two women that he couldn't handle a 12-hour sex marathon with them. According to KTLA News, he won by downing a bottle of viagra. But right after the orgy, he died of a heart attack. No info on how many pills might in a "bottle."

Aí vem o Estado totalitário

2009-02-25T10:28:00.001+00:00

«Sir David Omand, the government's former security and intelligence co-ordinator, says our rights to privacy must be sacrificed for the sake of national security. Home affairs editor, Alan Travis, explains how our civil liberties would be affected by new data-mining technology.»

E já nem tentam disfarçar.

Tempos interessantes

2009-02-19T16:34:00.001+00:00

Ministério Público proíbe sátira ao Magalhães no Carnaval de Torres Vedras

É horrível de se dizer, mas...

2009-02-18T12:37:00.001+00:00

um amigo meu não consegue parar de rir disto: «Muzzammil Hassan: Muslim TV Exec Accused Of Beheading Wife In NY May Have Committed "Honor Killing" - The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.»

A vida de Gaiman

2009-02-18T12:19:00.001+00:00

«will eventually grow up and get a real job. Until then, will keep making things up and writing them down.»