o muro das ’Alterações Climáticas’ está a ruir

After Climategate, Pachaurigate and Glaciergate: Amazongate por James Delingpole:

AGW theory is toast. So’s Dr Rajendra Pachauri. So’s the Stern Review. So’s the credibility of the IPCC. But if you think I’m cheered by this you’re very much mistaken. I’m trying to write a Climategate book but the way things are going by the time I’m finished there won’t be anything left to say: the battle will already have been won and the only people left who still believe in Man Made Global Warming will be the eco-loon equivalents of those wartime Japanese soldiers left abandoned and forgotten on remote Pacific atolls.

James Delingpole on Alex Jones Tv 1/5: After Climategate, Pachaurigate, Glaciergate, Amazongate
parte 1 | parte 2 | parte 3 | parte 4 | parte 5

sistemas de governo

Segundo o novo Pravda Público,

O Instituto Português de Corporate Governance (IPCG) está em guerra. Um grupo de grandes empresas portuguesas, que integram o PSI 20, o Banco Espírito Santo, o Banco Comercial Português, a EDP, a Portugal Telecom (PT), a Mota Engil, a Brisa, a Zon e a Jerónimo Martins, recusaram-se a assinar a versão final do Código de Bom Governo das Sociedades e auto-excluíram-se do IPCG, não comparecendo à reunião magna que hoje se realizou para aprovar o documento.

No Facebook, o ex-director (ainda sem link na blogosfera) do jornal emitia a sua opinião:

Uma história absolutamente lamentável: Grandes empresas recusam assinar código de boa gestão

Notas rápidas:

1. "gestão" e "governo" são conceitos diferentes. uma empresa pode ter excelente gestãio com um sistema de governo abandalhado, e uma gestão ruinosa com um sistema de governo by-the-book;

2. Empresas em fases de vida diferentes, ou de naturezas diferentes (familiares, sociedade anónima, ...), ou de diferentes dimensões, ou a operar em mercados geográficos diferentes, ou em indústrias diferentes tenderão a ter sistemas de governo diferentes

3. Mais, todos os sistemas de governo têm vícios, porque são geridos por pessoas diferentes. E é por isso que os sistemas de governo também devem competir entre si. Aliás, é o que acontece num mercado competitivo - também competem modelos de negócio e de organização das empresas;

4. Não existe um único modelo de gestão "socialmente correcto" para todas as empresas. Seria muito duvidoso que um grupo de grandes empresas tivesse descoberto a cura para a má gestão ou o mau governo. E é infantil pensar que todos os outros são "maus".

5. É patético "reprovar" que empresas tenham boicotado o circo corporativo que se montava. Lá porque recusaram assinar um código não quer dizer que preferem conduzir os seus negócio de forma desonesta.

6. Antes pelo contrário: é motivo de regozijo que as maiores empresas do país tenham recusado participar numa cartelização deste género. Em pouco tempo, o cartel estaria a usar a sua influência política para que o Estado impusesse a "norma da indústria" (mais onerosa) aos concorrentes de menor dimensão. Dispensa-se toda e qualquer corporativização da economia.

Avatarded (2)

Buenafuente 712 - 5/6 (Berto)

religious lunacy of environmentalists (3)

Dark Green Doomsayers por George Will:

Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong.

Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones. Besides, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.

The "Science" Mantra by Thomas Sowell:

Today, politicized "science" has too big a stake in the global warming hysteria to let the facts speak for themselves and let the chips fall where they may. Too many people-- in politics and in the media, as well as among those climate scientists who are promoting global warming hysteria-- let the raw data on which their calculations have been based fall into the "wrong hands."

Smoking underground

The worst thing about the smoking ban por Jeremy Clarkson:

Smoking, then, has become like freemasonry or homosexuality. We have our secret signs. Our equivalent of funny handshakes and gaydar. We use tricks and nods and winks to establish a bond with other smokers. We coerce them into lighting up first, to gauge the reaction, and then we huddle around the lone ashtray, feeling lost in the room but somehow emboldened by one another’s company.

What Obama really meant

Cato Institute Scholars Analyze the 2010 State of the Union Address

not Avatarded

The right has 'Avatar' wrong (LA Times):

They fail to see what's really happening. People have traveled to Pandora to take something that belongs to the Na'vi: their land and the minerals under it. That's a stark violation of property rights, the foundation of the free market and indeed of civilization.

Avatarded

AVATARded - Inspired by James Cameron's recent epic, "Avatar," Avatarded is an adjective used to describe a situation, person, place or thing that has reached a level of such complete retardation that it can only be described as exquisite or the first of its kind. Can also be used to describe something so new (such as Avatar's groundbreaking technology), that the reality of it is stupefying and leaves you dumbfounded, retarded, or...Avatarded.

Cavaleiro Andante

Rui Veloso - Cavaleiro Andante

Hip-Hop Economics (2)

"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem

Stimulus II

Stimulus II Stimulus II: A Sequel America Can't Afford

name-calling

Rename Capitalism Socialism? por Alex Tabarrok:

It is true that capitalism was named by its enemies. Thus, it's interesting to note that a socialist is someone who believes in socialism, a communist someone who believes in communism but a capitalist is someone with capital.

It's also true that capitalism is a truly social system, a system that unites the world in cooperation, peace and trade. Thus, if all were tabula rasa socialism might be a good name for capitalism. But that boat has sailed.

So if we name crony capitalism, capitalism, and if we can't name capitalism, socialism, then what should capitalism be named?

Como enganar o mundo em três passos (3)

Na continuação de Como enganar o mundo em três passos (3), pergunta-se quantos "cientistas" com complexo de Bono andam por aí — Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified:

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

Hip-Hop Economics

Keynes vs. Hayek: Late Economists' Hip-Hop Legacy

swine flu - went out like a piglet (4)

No seguimento de swine flu - went out like a piglet (3),

Swine Flu epidemic ends with a whimper por Michael Fumento:

The media are finally beginning to admit that the World Health Organization's "pandemic" - made possible, as I've argued before, only by completely redefining the definition for political reasons - is the mildest ever. Several European countries have cut back their vaccine orders, and the chairman of the influential health committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who is an epidemiologist, has asked the body to investigate what he calls the WHO's "false pandemic" and "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century."

Responsável do Conselho da Europa volta a pôr em causa gestão da pandemia feita pela OMS:

Wodarg encara a gripe A (H1N1) como um dos maiores escândalos médicos do século. Na sua opinião o alarme era escusado o e custou muito dinheiro aos governos - só na Europa, foram gastos 5 mil milhões de euros com as vacinas, nota, acrescentando que este investimento resultou da pressão da indústria farmacêutica. Wodarg critica o alarme desnecessário, lançado pela OMS, considerando que se ficar provado que houve manipulação é preciso tirar as devias lições.

Ron Paul : State of the Republic Address

parte 1 | parte 2 | parte 3

monstruoso uso da falácia da janela quebrada

Rising From the Ruins por Kevin Rozario:

Indeed, over time, and nowhere more so than in America, urban disasters came to be understood as engines of urban development and economic growth. Puritans had viewed calamities as useful "corrections," afflictions sent by God to call sinners back to the path of virtue. But the material benefits of destruction were soon apparent, too.

the enormous reconstruction projects demanded after catastrophes put capital into circulation, produced enormous profits for some and enabled economic innovations that increased productivity—a combination of circumstances that fueled investor confidence.

Earthquakes and Economic Development por William F. Shughart II:

Before the earthquake struck, the United States had the $100 million it has committed to spend and Port-au-Prince was habitable; afterwards, we will have a rebuilt nation but not $100 million.

It is absurd to say that the earthquake will be good for Haiti’s economy. If that were true, why did the world await natural disaster? If Haiti needed an economic boost, we should have carpet-bombed it years ago. The plain fact is that disasters make everyone permanently poorer by the values of the lives and property they destroy. Earthquakes have no silver linings.

Haiti and the Broken-Window Fallacy - Earthquakes are not creative destruction por Sandy Ikeda:

This is the same “logic” behind the notion that the bombing of great cities to rubble during World War II was good for economic development because it was an opportunity to construct modern infrastructure that would have otherwise required many years to put in place.

Heaven forbid that we should have to wait for economic depreciation and normal wear-and-tear! (It was, however, good for New York, which had the great fortune of being the only major western city left standing after the war, but that of course was because New York itself was not air-bombed.

One year in 120 seconds

One year in 120 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

religious lunacy of environmentalists (2)

Na continuação de religious lunacy of environmentalists (1),

Green Guilt:

Friedrich Nietzsche was the first to notice that religious emotions, like guilt and indignation, are still with us, even if we're not religious.

Now the secular world still has to make sense out of its own invisible, psychological drama—in particular, its feelings of guilt and indignation. Environmentalism, as a substitute for religion, has come to the rescue.

Nietzsche's argument about an ideal God and guilt can be replicated in a new form: We need a belief in a pristine environment because we need to be cruel to ourselves as inferior beings, and we need that because we have these aggressive instincts that cannot be let out.

Global Warming Is a Religion por Walter E. Williams:

Manmade global warming, for many, is an Earth-worshipping religion. The essential feature of any religion is that its pronouncements are to be accepted on the basis of faith as opposed to hard evidence. Questioning those pronouncements makes one a sinner.

Nonetheless, there is much at stake in getting people to subscribe to the global warming religion. There is so much at stake that some scientists, using government grants, are fraudulently manipulating climate data and engaging in criminal activity, as revealed in what has been called "Climate gate." One of the most dangerous features of the global warming religion is its level of intimidation of heretics or would-be heretics.

o Estado não tem de arbitrar assuntos privados

Divorce courts may be thing of the past under radical overhaul of family justice (Times Online):

Instead, many such disputes would be resolved on paper or through mediation, which could become compulsory for couples warring over contact with children. Court-room hearings may not be eliminated entirely but hundreds of disputes should be settled without the need for a full-blown hearing, with all the costs and acrimony involved, ministers believe.

Samoa e o Salário Mínimo (2)

Na continuação de Samoa e o Salário Mínimo - declarar guerra a um território impondo um salário mínimo a toda uma população, e todos os efeitos directos e indirectos de destruição de riqueza provocados por boas intenções:


American Samoa: The real story 60 Minutes missed

Citação do Dia

Via The Bastiat Society:

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Intro to Micro: Demand and Supply

by Murray N. Rothbard, sessão na New York Polytechnic University (1986)

mais um teste liberal

Are You an Austrian?

Second Lost Decade

Higgs on the Second Lost Decade

Ecofascismo

The greatest threat of the 21st century: not AGW but Eco-Fascism por James Delingpole:

In recent decades, thousands .... have gone out of business. What is not widely known is that this “marginality” has often been the result not of market forces but of government regulation.

It appears the Green movement is prepared to destroy the property rights of despised groups such as farmers and devastate their lives in order to achieve its ends.

That menace is not, of course, the illusory threat of AGW which our governments so cheerfully use to fleece us and impose control of over us. That menace is eco-fascism. It’s real, it’s terrifying and it’s time we fought back.

.... The only way to get our message across that we’re sick to the craw of Green lies, Green taxes, and Green tyranny is to punish all the mainstream parties – and that very much includes Cameron’s Green Conservatives – at the polls.

Democracy is Retarded

Excertos de Democracy is Self-Evidently retarded (The UK Libertarian), começando pela conclusão:

I’m getting absolutely sick and tired of reading people constantly referring to “freedom” and “democracy” as synonyms. Democracy is what’s led to the nanny-state we live in and the scum that rule us in parliament; but worse than that, the very concept is founded on a disgusting, depraved and immoral idea: that might makes right; but minorities have none. That the mob rules, and if your life get’s ruined in the process: tough luck buddy!

###

4. You live in a small village, it has a population of 100 people. One day two scary looking and aggressive armed men knock on your door and kidnap you and throw you in a locked cage. You later discover 55% of the people in the village voted that you weren’t allowed to drink coffee and that it should be punishable with 2-5 years in prison. You are unhappy with this outcome.

Here’s the moral: EVERYTHING THE GOVERNMENT DOES FALLS INTO SITUATION 4! The situation I posted might seem semi-ridiculous on its surface, but it’s really not. If you can use your imagination you can apply the reasons why it’s wrong, and why the guy in jail is a victim, to almost every single piece of regulation and law-making the bureaucrats enact. From minimum wage laws, to smoking bans, to the prohibition of drugs and even (counter-intuitively listed on purpose) to the child safety standards by which toy manufacturers have to abide. Seriously.

The Known Universe

The Known Universe

implicações da derrota de Obama no Massachusetts

Political incentives de Russ Roberts:

The real implication of Brown’s victory isn’t that the Republicans can now stop the Democrats. It’s the informational signal it sends to current Senators that they have over-reached. A lot. When a Republican wins an election to replace Ted Kennedy whose signature issue was health care in perhaps the most liberal state in the country, and he wins running against ObamaCare and as a real Republican not some Republican Lite for Massachusetts, it’s a wake-up call of enormous proportions.

Peak Obama (5)

No seguimento, Barack Obama's one-year presidency?:

It still seems unthinkable that the Democrats could lose a Senate seat in Massachusetts .... So if Scott Brown does beat Martha Coakley what will it mean? Here are 10 suggestions:

1. Health care reform is dead. Even if there was (and it’s doubtful) some procedural way the Democrats could push it through, such a move would be political suicide.

2. Obama will have failed to achieve his signature reform despite Democrats having had a healthy majority in the House and a 60:40 advantage in the Senate. That is a huge blow and could render him not just a one-term President but a one-year President in terms of his political authority.

3. Obama’s will have failed to achieve his signature reform in such a way as to destroy any chances of fulfilling a signature pledge: to bring a new bipartisanship to Washington. By pushing through a bill on a party-line vote in the Senate, he left himself vulnerable to an electoral surprise or a death – it was a win-or-bust strategy

Peak Obama (4)

"all-time low":

Peak Obama (3)

Everyone Hates Health Care Reform:

Like a giant wad of grape Bubble Yum, it seems the longer you chew over it, the less pleasant it gets. This, I think, helps explain how Scott Brown came from behind in Massachusetts. And it's presumably why the White House has recently taken to saying essentially that Democrats need to just go ahead and pass the bill so that they can then work on explaining what's in it and why it's so great. Usually it works the other way around, but hilariously incompetent candidates like Martha Coakley desperate times call for desperate measures.

Um comentário ao artigo:

I'm beginning to suspect Obama isn't the savvy and formidable political tactician he's been made out to be.

Peak Obama (2)

Massachusetts Senate vote may derail Obama agenda:

In a stunning upset that reshaped the U.S. political landscape, Republican Scott Brown won Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy.

Brown's victory strips Democrats of their 60-seat Senate super-majority, needed to overcome GOP filibusters against future Senate action on a broad range of White House priorities. Senate Democrats needed all 60 votes in their caucus to pass the health care bill, and the loss of one seat now imperils generating that support again for a compromise measure worked out with the House.

###
A dimensão da vitória:

Brown's victory made real the once unthinkable prospect of a Republican filling the seat held by Kennedy, known as the liberal lion, for almost 47 years until his death due to brain cancer last August. Before Kennedy won the seat for the first time in 1962, his older brother John held it for nearly eight years until his election as U.S. president in 1960.

No Republican had won a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts since 1972, and Democrats control the governorship, both houses of the state legislature, and the state's entire congressional delegation.

Obama crushed Sen. John McCain in Massachusetts in 2008, beating the GOP presidential nominee by 26 points.

O melão:

Obama and former President Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail in the final week in an attempt to save Coakley's campaign....

Obama had been "surprised and frustrated" by the race, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

Climate change bullshit

Penn & Teller : Bullshit! - Being Green

Are Markets to Blame?

Um grande post de Don Boudreaux - Are Markets to Blame?:

I’ve no idea how much faith Messrs. Greenspan and Bernanke had in markets. But I do know that, from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith, scholars who brought to light markets’ remarkable ability to self-regulate always insisted that a prerequisite for this self-regulation is sound money.

With prices and interest rates distorted by government’s monopoly control over the money supply, investors, producers, and consumers were fooled into making choices that seemed reasonable but were revealed only later to be misguided.

The emphasis that scholars through the ages have placed on the importance of sound money is being ignored in today’s headlong rush to convict the likes of F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman of a crime they never committed – namely, the crime of insisting that markets work flawlessly regardless of the institutional structures in which they are embedded.

Peak Obama

Obama One Year Later -- Small 'Change'

One year after Barack Obama won the presidency his campaign pledge of "Change You Can Believe In" has gone from an inspirational pledge to a laugh line for critics.

"What has the new president achieved to satisfy his defining promise to bring change to America?"

.... the biggest "change" he can point to is that he's our first black president and he's not President Bush!

Samoa e o Salário Mínimo

'60 Minutes': Jobs Killed in American Samoa
After US Congress 'Helps' By Imposing Minimum Wage Hikes

mais modelo sueco

Suecia admite el fracaso de la "discriminación positiva" (Libertad Digital):

En 2003 en Suecia tuvieron la genial idea de privilegiar a los hombres en el acceso a la universidad porque el 60 por ciento de las estudiantes eran mujeres. Los resultados han sido tan catastróficos que hasta en este país, paradigma de las políticas igualitaristas, han tenido que dar marcha atrás.

Y es que en 2003 ante el mayor porcentaje de mujeres universitarias, un 60 por ciento, algún burócrata entusiasta decidió atajar tamaño problema estableciendo una cuotas de acceso en las que se "discriminaba positivamente" a los hombres. El resultado: el 95 por ciento de las solicitudes de acceso rechazadas son de mujeres que, en su mayoría, tenían una mejor cualificación y expediente académico que los hombres, admitidos por el mero hecho de ser varones.

To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid

To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid:

"Haiti needs a new version of the Marshall Plan—now," writes Andres Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald, by way of complaining that the hundreds of millions currently being pledged are miserly. Economist Jeffrey Sachs proposes to spend between $10 and $15 billion dollars on a five-year development program

For actual Haitians, however, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity. It will benefit the well-connected at the expense of the truly needy, divert resources from where they are needed most, and crowd out local enterprise. And it will foster the very culture of dependence the country so desperately needs to break.

Copyright and Racism

Copyright and Racism (Mises Blog)


Copyright Criminals - Trailer from IndiePix on Vimeo.

Como enganar o mundo em três passos (2)

Na continuação de
- Como enganar o mundo em três passos,
- IPCC capturado por grupos económicos, e
- IPCC capturado por grupos económicos (2),

Vem: Pachauri: there's money in them glaciers:

Highlighted in The Sunday Times yesterday, Dr Hasnain was the scientist responsible for claiming that the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. This was picked up by the New Scientist and then by a 2005 WWF report, and subsequently published as a definitive claim in the IPCC's 2007 fourth assessment report, masterminded by Dr R K Pachauri.

.... Dr Hasnain .... has admitted that the New Scientist report was based on "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research ....

In November 2008, they were successful, being awarded a $500,000 grant for "research, analysis and training on water-related security and humanitarian challenges to South Asia posed by melting Himalaya glaciers."

Bónus: ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’ Research is Degenerating into ‘Aryan Science’ (No Pasarán!)

USA Too Big To Fail

China Says U.S. Too Big To Fail, Offers Obama Bailout (Red Cube):

During the recent meeting with President Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao minced no words when he stated that "immediate action is necessary to keep a once prosperous nation" from falling flat on its face.

"If the U.S.economy collapses, so will China because we are so heavily invested in your country,"

Mr. Obama was then given the following list of changes designed to fix America:

1. Replace all regulatory czars with one mandarin of deregulation.

###

6. Cancel all foreign aid. Retrain ACORN employees as small business instructors and ship them to third world countries with one-way tickets. Let them earn their keep by promoting the private sector and developing consumer markets for American products.

7. Sell off Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac to the highest bidder with a special "buy one, get one free" incentive. Eliminate subprime mortgage programs.

9. Disband EPA. Drop restrictions on energy and coal mining. If you want cleaner air, build nuclear plants.

12. Cut taxes and eliminate government programs including welfare and food stamps. Those willing to eat must wash dishes at Pei Wei Asian Diners and stuff fortune cookies with quotes by Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman.

13. Shut down public schools; that should double the national IQ within six months. Sell the buildings to private schools that teach strong work and study ethics. If you want your children to build self-esteem, convert the Department of Education into a Ping Pong Palace.

17. Repeal minimum wage, ban strikes, and dissolve labor unions. Reboot Detroit auto factories and Pittsburgh steel mills.

18. Stop subsidizing industrial and agricultural concerns, ethanol plants, and wind farms. If they can't stand on their own, let them fall and give way to those that can.

19. Mandate all public officials to use public transportation and public health care. Cap their salaries until the economy in their districts fully recovers.

21. Resettle those Americans who advocate green collective lifestyle to Cuban tobacco plantations with no electricity and polluting farm equipment, where they will toil the rest of their days in fields fertilized by own excrement.

John Stossel - Crony Capitalism

Stossel - Crony Capitalism
parte 1 | parte 2 | parte 3 | parte 4 | parte 5 | parte 6

Lições mal contadas da História

Agricultores heróicos e propriedade privada - como começou a revolução capitalista chinesa por Chris Clancy (Instituto Ludwig von Mises - Brasil):

As reformas rurais possibilitaram tudo isso, mas foi o surgimento de um livre mercado em conjunto com a garantia dos direitos de propriedade que fez com que tudo isso acontecesse.

Uma produção diversificada, uma economia baseada em mercadorias, e pequenos empreendimentos de todos os tipos que floresceram rapidamente na zona rural, como se um exército estranho tivesse repentinamente surgido do nada. Isso não foi uma realização do nosso governo central.

Deng Xiaoping, Diário do Povo, 13 de junho de 1987.

The Reluctant Anarchist

The Reluctant Anarchist por Joseph Sobran:

My arrival (very recently) at philosophical anarchism has disturbed some of my conservative and Christian friends. In fact, it surprises me, going as it does against my own inclinations.

Christians, and especially Americans, have long been misled about all this by their good fortune. Since the conversion of Rome, most Western rulers have been more or less inhibited by Christian morality (though, often enough, not so's you'd notice), and even warfare became somewhat civilized for centuries; and this has bred the assumption that the state isn't necessarily an evil at all. But as that morality loses its cultural grip, as it is rapidly doing, this confusion will dissipate. More and more we can expect the state to show its nature nakedly.

For me this is anything but a happy conclusion. I miss the serenity of believing I lived under a good government, wisely designed and benevolent in its operation. But, as St. Paul says, there comes a time to put away childish things.

Crowdsourcing the Internet for Porn

The Internet is for Porn [House MD Style] - do episódio Epic Fail
( versão WOW | versão original )

[ na verdade estava à procura disto - Four Crowdsourcing Lessons from House MD ]

Como enganar o mundo em três passos

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown (Times):

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research.

...and that's "peer-review" for you.

Consequências: agora já não envergonha noticiar que Glaciares do Alasca estão a derreter mais devagar do que o previsto

religious lunacy of environmentalists (1)

John Stossel on the religious lunacy of environmentalists

The State hates the Internet

No seguimento do artigo The State Hates the Internet de Lew Rockwell,

Had the regime underststood what the internet would mean– the destruction of official media and the proliferation of unofficial thinking, booming web commerce instead of brick and mortar stores, etc.–it never would have allowed it to come into existence.

o podcast The State Hates the Internet (parte relevante a partir dos 3 minutos)

Right-Wing Liberal

Na continuação de As lições de Rothbard de André Azevedo Alves n'O Insurgente, onde se cita:

This month marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Murray Rothbard, arguably the most important libertarian theorist of the twentieth century. Although I only met him once in person, his work was influential in developing my “calling” in a number of ways, and the way he approached his scholarly and activist work for libertarianism over his life provides a number of lessons for advancing our own callings and the freedom movement more broadly.

Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal por Murray Rothbard:

Twenty year ago I was an extreme right-wing Republican, a young and lone "Neanderthal" (as the liberals used to call us) who believed, as one friend pungently put it, that "Senator Taft had sold out to the socialists."

Today, I am most likely to be called an extreme leftist, since I favor immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, denounce U.S. imperialism, advocate Black Power and have just joined the new Peace and Freedom Party.

And yet my basic political views have not changed by a single iota in these two decades!

Copying Is Not Theft

Copying Is Not Theft -- remixed (jazz)

O Poeta Alegre junta-se à coligação negativa

Manuel Alegre anuncia candidatura à Presidência da República (Público):

No encontro que reuniu cerca de duas centenas de pessoas, Manuel Alegre traçou o perfil do que deve ser um Presidente da República e no final afirmou: "Venho aqui dizer-lhes que estou disponível para esse combate [candidatura à Presidência da República]".

Compreende-se que vá fazer maravilhas ao ego de Alegre poder ser o Presidente-sombra durante mais de um ano. Contudo, durante este período não se espera que a actividade do actual Presidente da República possa servir para ancorar uma campanha presidencial. E a menos que Alegre se resigne a ser só convidado de honra de almoço atrás de almoço das "forças vivas da sociedade", o homem do milhão de votos mais cedo ou mais tarde será chamado a pronunciar-se sobre a política do Governo. Em termos que serão críticos para a governação de Sócrates.

Progressistas finalmente aceitam promiscuidade entre Igreja e Estado

Câmara de Lisboa vai permitir casais gays nos casamentos de Santo António:

“Santo António já é património mundial”, refuta o coordenador nacional do movimento de católicos homossexuais Rumos Novos, José Leote, defendendo que a Igreja não detém a exclusividade do santo casamenteiro.

Marionetas keynesianas

Na continuação de Pontes Keynes-Hayek (numa perspectiva Austríaca), e considerando que o mainstream económico insiste em modelos que não passam de projecções de uma realidade bem mais complexa:


Plato's Cave (animated version)
(aqui uma interpretação complementar)

Emo

Emo - do Urban Dictionary:

A group of white, mostly middle-class well-off kids who find imperfections in there life and create a ridiculous, depressing melodrama around each one. They often take anti-depressants, even though the majority don't need them. They need to wake up and deal with life like everyone else instead of wallowing in their imaginary quagmire of torment.

Infantilidades

Tenho que a torrente de baboseiras que passa pelo Facebook e Twitter e afins - incluindo blogues - não se deve (só) à falta de inteligência emocional das pessoas. É principalmente uma questão de imaturidade comunicacional. Tal como as crianças que não sabem senão falar aos berros. É triste é ver tanto adulto a sucumbir à emologia mais primária.

Pontes Keynes-Hayek (numa perspectiva Austríaca)

Roger W. Garrison: Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle

swine flu - went out like a piglet (3)

No seguimento de swine flu - went out like a piglet (2),

WHO'a conveniente "pandemic" por Michael Fumento:

How bizarre! The World Health Organization has declared swine flu a "pandemic," signaling governments worldwide to launch emergency response plans.

The mildest pandemics of the 20th century killed at least a million people worldwide, according to the WHO, while old-fashioned seasonal flu strikes every nation yearly and kills an estimated 250,000 to 500,000. As of Thursday [isto foi em Junho de 2009], when the pandemic was declared, H1N1 swine flu had killed only 144 people total — fewer than succumb daily to ordinary flu. And in Mexico, where the outbreak began and where it has been the most severe, cases peaked quickly, in just four weeks.

This "pandemic" is one of the greatest medical scandals of the century por Wolfgang Wodarg:

”We have had a mild flu - and a false pandemic,” says Wolfgang Wodarg, the chair of the Health Committee in The European Council. The German parliamentarian is also an epidemiologist and former health director in Flensburg. For that reason he has followed the H1N1-pandemic closely since June 11 and up to the present. He calls the pandemic "one of the greatest medical scandals of the century”, and for that reason he has decided to take the case to the European Council:

"In January, we will arrange an emergency debate about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the WHO, and 47 parliaments all over Europe are going to be informed. Following this, we will initiate an investigation and hearings involving those responsible for the pandemic emergency,” says Wolfgang Wodarg.

John Stossel - Atlas Shrugged Special

Why Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged matters today por John Stossel:

The novel's chief villain is Wesley Mouch, a bureaucrat who cripples the economy with endless regulations. This sounds familiar. Reason magazine reports that "as he looks around Washington these days," Rep. Paul Ryan "can't help but think he's seeing a lot of Wesley Mouch."

John Stossel Fox Business - Atlas Shrugged Special
parte 1 | parte 2 | parte 3 | parte 4 | parte 5 | parte 6

Sismo no Haiti

As catástrofes parecem menos distantes quando conhecemos alguém no local. Com a Internet ficou tudo mais próximo. Nos últimos tempos, acompanhei dessa forma os esforços de socorro às vítimas dos temporais nas Filipinas.

E, agora, a aflição de quem tem os seus no Haiti. Familiares que não dão notícias, vizinhos mortos, edifícios destruídos, muitas vidas transtornadas.

O meu amigo RC veio passear a Lisboa em Dezembro, estava farto de alemães, precisava de uma recarga de espírito latino. Deliciou-se com as minhas crónicas de Angola. Identificava-se com a exuberância africana, mas não tanto com o desenvolvimento económico ("Haiti will always be poor").

Ainda há pouco dizia-me que só agora percebia a calamidade de 1755.

Parasitismo (3)

Via Libertad Digital — El sector público es el gran beneficiado por la crisis económica:

La situación boyante del sector público no es de extrañar: conforme aumenta el intervencionismo estatal, comienza a ser más rentable tratar de presionar al Gobierno (lobbying) para obtener contratos, favores y privilegios que iniciar nuevas actividades en el sector privado, con la incertidumbre, riesgo, y dificultades que las caracteriza. Ganarse a los políticos y burócratas parece ser más fácil que ganar la confianza de los consumidores.

Em Pity the Poor Private-Sector Workers por Robert Higgs, comentário de Tom DiLorenzo:

Government employment is even worse than you wrote about in your recent article, reprinted on LRC. The feds have employed thousands, probably hundred of thousands or more, of additional “contract employees” in recent years. They’re listed by the Commerce Dept. as private sector employees even though all their pay and benefits come from government contracts. The D.C. suburbs are booming like they’ve never boomed before in terms of population growth. This boom started with Bush and Fatherland Security and his wars, and has been greatly expanded by Obama from everyting I’ve read. Unfortunately, good statistics are really hard to come by on these contract employees.

Consensos

Joe Bastardi : The Real Problems With Climate Change

Bónus: Bastardi: Today’s frigid weather similar to 1970s when Ice Age was alarm
Grande bónus: Meteorologists Still Skeptical on Global Warming

Estímulo à pobreza

Uncertainty and the Slow Recovery por Gary S. Becker, Steven J. Davis e Kevin M. Murphy:

These facts suggest that it was a serious economic mistake to press for a hasty, major transformation of the U.S. economy on the heels of the worst financial crisis in decades. A more effective approach would have been to concentrate first on fighting the recession and laying solid foundations for growth. They should have put plans to re-engineer the economy on the backburner, and kept them there until the economy emerged fully from the recession and returned to robust growth. By failing to adopt a measured approach to economic policy, Congress and the president may be slowing the economic recovery, and thereby prolonging the distress from the recession.

Via 200 Economists Oppose the Stimulus Plan (OpenMarket.com): With all due respect Mr.President,that is not true.:

Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance.

More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

Ludwig von Mises Institute no iTunes U

The Fed: predatory lending

Is Ben Bernanke descended from the Bourbons? por John Cassidy:

.... from the mid-1990s, the Fed adopted a stance that encouraged irresponsible risk-taking. In periods of growth, it raised interest rates slowly, if at all, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the course of asset prices. But when a recession or financial blow-up beckoned, it slashed rates and acted as a lender of last resort.

For all the damage that the financial industry has inflicted on itself, when disaster arrived the Greenspan/Bernanke put did pay off. By slashing the funds rate and providing emergency credit facilities to stricken financial firms, the Fed further entrenched the perception that its ultimate role is to provide a safety net for Wall Street.

It's Not Our Fault por Peter Schiff:

Bernanke explicitly denied any Fed culpability for inflating the housing bubble and for the financial crisis that began when it burst. Despite his best efforts, no one seemed particularly convinced. By taking such an absurd stand, he has destroyed any credibility he may have had left.

.... is it really possible that Bernanke is so clueless that he does not see the relationship between the proliferation of ARMs and interest-only mortgages and the low short-term interest rates that made them so popular? ....

The only reason so many people were able to overpay for houses was because of the temporarily low "introductory" rates.

Glorioso Keynesianismo

China's empty city - 10 Nov 09

Outros excessos chineses:
- Chinese Suburbs Go European
- Utopia, Part 3: The World's Largest Shopping Mall

Comentário ao video original:

You guys are missing the point. When they hire workers to destroy these cities, they create jobs and add to GDP. In fact, they shouldn't even give them capital by which to perform such a feat. That way, they can create lots of jobs!

Orson Welles on Personal Rights

Orson Welles on Privacy, the Passport and Personal Rights:

I’m willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job, but it’s the essence of our society that the policeman’s job should be hard. He’s there to protect, protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals, that’s an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman that the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal …

Flight of The Golden Geese

Flight of The Golden Geese

Big Government, Big Business

Big Government, Big Business — Conjoined Twins:

For many decades, Americans have held negative attitudes toward the titans of industry. … But Americans also don’t fancy the counterbalance to corporate power: government.

Government is not and never has been a “counterbalance” to corporate power. In fact, it’s historically been the primary enabler, the symbiotic partner, and a significant beneficiary of that power. The idea that an institution whose employees keep a revolving door spinning between Capitol Hill and the K Street offices of the corporate lobbies, an institution afloat in a sea of corporate campaign donations, an institution groomed to the express task of transferring money from the taxpayer’s pocket to the corporate bottom line, can act as a “counterbalance” to corporate power is absurd on its face.

Estímulos económicos

Congo Approves Economic Stimulus Package Of AK-47 For Every Citizen

free trade - um direito humano

Via Cafe Hayek, daqui:

Free trade isn’t a battle that countries (or states) win or lose. It is a human right – the liberty to engage in voluntary transactions that leave both participants better off. If John wants to sell something that Mary wants to buy, it should make no difference to the lawfulness of their exchange whether they are residents of different neighborhoods, different states, or different nations.

Parasitismo (2)

Via Daily Reckoning (Parasites, Bureaucracy and Soviet Boots)


###

Government employment includes thousands of honest people doing honest work. Some of it is useful. The trouble is, since it is not subject to market pricing, you never know how useful it is.

But government highways, wars, and bureaucracies aren’t priced by markets. So you never know what they are worth .... No one knows. And no one really cares.

Out of 10 government employees, probably 2 do useful things…things that we would willingly pay for if they weren’t done for us by the government, though we would almost certainly pay less for them than they cost us now. Five others do things that are not worth doing at all – things that are purely wastes of money. And the other three do things that destroy wealth…things that actually make the situation worse. Those three are economists. Or lawyers. Or who-knows-what.

Transparência

On C-SPAN: What’s a Little Promise Among Friends? (Cato@Liberty):

But transparency is not simply a means to better bills. It’s a means to better politicians — when people see one leader being smart and fair, while others are not. It’s a means to a better organized society — if people decide that politicians aren’t as qualified to apportion society’s resources as they thought. It’s a means to better-run programs — when people compare the dollars going in with the results coming out.

Against Transparency por Lawrence Lessig:

How could anyone be against transparency? Its virtues and its utilities seem so crushingly obvious. But I have increasingly come to worry that there is an error at the core of this unquestioned goodness .... The "naked transparency movement," as I will call it here, is not going to inspire change. It will simply push any faith in our political system over the cliff.

The Goal Is Freedom: Opaque By Design por Sheldon Richman:

The phrase “transparent government” is just this side of a logical contradiction. A really transparent government would barely qualify as a government at all. Imagine if you could witness all the backroom dealing, logrolling, outright bribery, and the rest of the shenanigans that go on under the laughable rubric “governing.” It wouldn’t last a week.

Transparência - the real world

Real World DC (Health Care Remix)

Cambio climático: innegable, pero antiguo

Cambio climático: innegable, pero antiguo:

Hace aproximadamente 14.500 millones de años se produjo en el universo un espectacular cambio climático: el denominado big bang ....

Las manchas solares (que ya se podían observar gracias a la invención del telescopio) desaparecieron oportunamente, pero tardaron tiempo en volver a aparecer. Las temperaturas bajaron tanto que el grano no podía crecer en ciertas zonas y, según la Enciclopedia Británica, Toledo se despobló por esta razón. En el invierno de 1709 el Ródano se heló, y murieron viñas y olivares.

Parasitismo (1)

Crazy World

The Role of the Property and Freedom Society in a Crazy World (PDF) por Hans-Hermann Hoppe, explicando a relação entre socialismo, internacionalismo, e eco-totalitarianismo:

According to the official, U.S. approved belief-system .... Once the current economic crisis has been solved, governments can and must again turn to the truly pressing among the remaining problems confronting mankind: the elimination of all unfair discrimination as the ultimate desideratum of democratic egalitarianism, and the control of the global environment and in particular the world climate.

Hand in hand with the efforts to eradicate the evil of discrimination, democratic governments must tackle the fundamental task of overcoming the excessive human particularism—the individualism, the localism, provincialism, regionalism and nationalism—ingrained still in the minds of most people and promote instead the ideal of universalism and of the Universal Man and the interests of humanity as such. The necessity of this policy is demonstrated most dramatically by the dangers of global climate change.

Gemeinwohl (public welfare) geht vor (comes before) Eigenwohl (private welfare)—this, above all, is what the problem of climate change demonstrates, and it is up to government to finally put this principle into action.

Carbon Foot Print Fallacy

John Coleman Explains Carbon Foot Print Fallacy

Também: Climategate: John Coleman reports on TV in San Diego

dismantling the myth of intellectual property

The patent system: End it, don't mend it:

Is intellectual property needed as a shield for the weak against the strong? Those of us who have yet to make our name in the media markets should fear obscurity rather than piracy. Nor is intellectual property protection against merciless corporations. Rather, it is a tool these corporations use against the small.

Burj Dubai - aberto (2)

Na continuação de Burj Dubai - aberto, As skyscrapers rise, markets fall (CNN):

When the Burj Khalifa officially opened in Dubai on Monday, much of the world press noted the irony of the world's tallest building unveiled just weeks after the emirate's debt crash.

But a look at the history of record-breaking skyscrapers and business cycles suggests otherwise -- the opening of every single "world's tallest" building in the past century has coincided with an economic downturn.

The components that give rise to the skyscrapers give rise to the boom: loose monetary policy and easy credit drive up land prices, "and people want to build higher to offset that," he said. "You have easy credit and low interest rates fueling stock prices, and this creates an overly speculative market place.

Previsões do tempo, em vez de previsões do clima (2)

Via O Insurgente:

Womenomics

Womenomics (Economist):

Judging people as individuals rather than as representatives of groups is both morally right and good for business.

Women would be well advised to ignore the siren voices of the new feminism .... Despite their frustration, the future looks bright. Women are now outperforming men markedly in school and university. It would be a grave mistake to abandon old-fashioned meritocracy just at the time when it is turning to women’s advantage.

Keynesianism e Socialismo

Keynesianism and Socialism (Mises Institute)

Since Keynesians advocate so many forms of government intervention in the name of "full employment," it is not surprising to find them favoring it for other purposes. If government should take a man's earnings because he wants to save too much, why should it not take them on the ground merely that someone else needs or wants them? If government should build power plants to give employment, why not also railways and steel mills? Economists of the new order can only echo, "Why not?"

Um mau dia para o ecoterrorismo caviar

Whale Wars: The aggressive tactics of Sea Shepherd Paul Watson:

A collision Tuesday with a Japanese whalers destroyed a $2 million high-tech speedboat operated by Paul Watson and his anti-whaling outfit, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. It was probably the costliest collision yet for the group.

Good riddance, Ady Gil

Resumo do RIEAM - Regulamento Internacional para Evitar Abalroamentos no Mar: "a fibra-de-vidro dá prioridade à madeira, que dá prioridade ao aço".

Christians and Capitalism

Podcast do Cato Institue, recomendado: December 23, 2009: "Christians and Capitalism" featuring Jay Richards (MP3)

Global, o novo Social

There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government (Telegraph):

2009 was the year in which "global" swept the rest of the political lexicon into obscurity. There were "global crises" and "global challenges", the only possible resolution to which lay in "global solutions" necessitating "global agreements".

The word "global" has taken on sacred connotations. Any action taken in its name must be inherently virtuous, whereas the decisions of individual countries are necessarily "narrow" and self-serving.

"Globalism" is another form of the internationalism that has been a core belief of the Left: a commitment to class rather than country seemed an admirable antidote to the "blood and soil" nationalism that gave rise to fascism.

Leitura adicional: Weasel Word: Social.

Leadership and Values

No seguimento de Give BB&T Liberty, but Not a Bailout:

“To say man is bad because he is selfish is to say it’s bad because he’s alive.”

If Mr. Allison’s speech sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who celebrated the virtues of reason, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism while maintaining that altruism is a destructive force. In Ms. Rand’s world, nothing is more heroic — and sexy — than a hard-working businessman free to pursue his wealth. And nothing is worse than a pesky bureaucrat trying to restrict business and redistribute wealth.

John A. Allison, "Leadership and Values"

Previsões do tempo, em vez de previsões do clima

Breaking the Global Warming Gridlock (The Atlantic) por Daniel Sarewitz and Roger Pielke Jr.:

The implicit moral imperative is not to prevent human disruption of the environment but to ameliorate the social and political conditions that lead people to behave in environmentally disruptive ways. This is a critical distinction -- and one that environmentalists and scientists embroiled in the global-warming debate have so far failed to make.

Via Henrique Pereira dos Santos, World view: Tomorrow never knows (Nature.com) por Daniel Sarewitz:

Science could help untangle this politically impossible dilemma by moving away from its obsession with predicting the long-term future of the climate to focus instead on the many opportunities for reducing present vulnerabilities to a broad range of today's — and tomorrow's — climate impacts. Such a change in focus would promise benefits to society in the short term and thus help transform climate politics.

Angola - FT

Angola welcomes return of old colonial power (Financial Times):

After rising by 35 per cent in 2008, Portuguese exports to Angola have continued to grow, strengthening the country’s position in second place behind China.

These inflows have been accompanied by growing numbers of Portuguese emigrants. With Portugal’s economy hard hit by the international finance crisis recession and unemployment rising, thousands of Portuguese have flocked to the oil and diamond-rich country.

Re: Blue é uma festa!

No seguimento de Blue é uma festa! (MBA em Angola), Angola dances to the Blue tune, artigo que descreve que o modelo de negócio da Coca-Cola não funciona em Angola, embora não descreva porquê:

In Africa, there are few countries in which the ubiquitous red and white colours of Coca-Cola haven't been plastered across billboards, buildings and banners to epitomise "Cocacolonisation" by the world's biggest soft drink brand.

However, Atlanta's mega marketing soft drink machine has failed to wrestle the number one position in Angola's rapidly growing soft drinks market. This can be viewed as a failure of note in a country with a young, fast growing population, and the fastest growing economy in the world thanks to the pouring in of Petro Dollars in return for the other globally popular liquid, Oil.

Broken Window Fallacy

Via Coordination Problem:

The Onion style:

BREAKING: Terror Attack Failure Costs Detroit 10,000 Construction Jobs

Workers of the World Unite

The Goal Is Freedom: Workers of the World Unite for a Free Market (The Freeman):

Where the progressives and state socialists go wrong is in thinking that weak worker bargaining power is inherent in the market itself. It is not. It is the result of State privilege. Therefore the solution is not further government intervention, as the progressives want, but repeal of privileges, subsidies, licenses and the rest of the sources of political advantage that protect the well-connected at the expense of the rest of us.

Is That What Everybody Wants

solaris - Is That What Everybody Wants (Cliff Martinez) [HD]

um novo e glorioso plano económico para a União das Repúblicas Socialistas Europeias

Os nacional-socialistas tinham planos para quatro anos; os internacional-socialistas tinham planos para cinco anos; os euro-socialistas estão muito à frente:

EU to plan 10 years of growth (Financial Times):

European Union leaders are to hold a special summit to prepare a 10-year programme aimed at boosting Europe’s competitiveness and economic growth,

agora a parte trágico-cómica:

after the failure of a similarly ambitious strategy for the decade that ended last month.

The 2020 strategy will succeed the ill-starred Lisbon agenda, adopted 10 years ago with the aim of transforming the EU by 2010 into “the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy”.

Patético.

Citação do Dia

Via OpenMarket.org,

If we knew how freedom would be used, the case for it would largely disappear… It is therefore no argument against individual freedom that it is frequently abused.

F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty

A década perdida

Via The Big Picture:

Climategate - Michal Mann aquecerá globalmente em 2010

Attention Penn State: Top fraud attorney seeks climategate whistleblowers por John O’Sullivan:

Mann’s co-workers at Penn State’s Earth System Science Center (ESSC) ... will read Kent’s offer Monday morning when they switch on their computers to check their email.

If any .... are prepared to give evidence, even if it doesn’t lead to any convictions, they could benefit from a share of tens of millions of dollars in recovered public funds.

Estimates of the total sums invested in government climate research already exceed $50 billion. The offer put on the table to Mann’s colleagues could be the most lucrative whistleblower deal ever made.

Também: Climategate: Michael Mann's very unhappy New Year

swine flu - went out like a piglet (2)

No seguimento de swine flu - went out like a piglet,

Sarkozy under fire on flu vaccine ‘fiasco’ (Financial Times):

The French opposition Socialist party called for a parliamentary inquiry into what it described as the “fiasco” of the country’s 94m shots of H1N1 vaccine, saying the €869m ($1.25bn, £777m) cost had largely benefited the pharmaceutical companies .... Only 5m people have been vaccinated in France, which has a population of 65m.

“The cost is more than the deficit of all France’s hospitals and is three times [the amount spent] on cancer care,” he said.

E a máquina de propaganda ainda consegue denegrir quem questionou (muito bem) a validade terapêutica desta política pública:

Take-up of the swine flu vaccine has been lower than expected, partly because of contradictory messages on the value of vaccination, a refusal to use GPs which slowed campaigns, suspicion about side effects and the limited severity of the epidemic.

Bad corporate governance oaths

Why MBAs should not sign the Harvard Business School oath por Theo Vermaelen, Professor de Finanças do INSEAD:

I don’t believe that this is a good idea, for three reasons. First, some parts of the pledge are inconsistent with fiduciary duties and ethical standards. Second the oath is a misplaced response to the financial crisis. Third, I don’t believe in pledges as an instrument to guide people’s behaviour.

The HBS school oath .... pushes the stakeholder value maximisation idea to its extreme by including the whole world as a stakeholder. If this oath indeed would be implemented, then the resulting erosion of shareholder property rights would prevent the development of capital markets .... and undermine economic growth. The oath is a commitment to bad corporate governance.

Claro que há visões alternativas - segundo as quais todos os que não assinarem a jura serão future Madoffs.

Bean no Moncloa

Moncloa abre una investigación interna tras el «hackeo» a la web de la Presidencia española:

El pirata informático ha cambiado la imagen de Zapatero y ha colado la cara del actor Mister Bean. La página que costará al erario público casi 12 millones de euros está caída durante toda la tarde.

a festa está a chegar ao fim, vem aí a conta (2)

Excerto de The States and the Stimulus (Wall Street Journal):

Remember how $200 billion in federal stimulus cash was supposed to save the states from fiscal calamity? Well, hold on to your paychecks, because a big story of 2010 will be how all that free money has set the states up for an even bigger mess this year and into the future.

in most state capitals the stimulus enticed state lawmakers to spend on new programs rather than adjusting to lean times. They added health and welfare benefits and child care programs. Now they have to pay for those additions with their own state's money.

This is the opposite of what the White House and Congress claimed when they said the stimulus funds would prevent economically harmful state tax increases. In 2009, 10 states raised income or sales taxes, and another 15 introduced new fees on everything from beer to cellphone ringers to hunting and fishing. The states pocketed the federal money and raised taxes anyway.

a festa está a chegar ao fim, vem aí a conta

"US public pensions face $2,000bn shortfall" (Financial Times):

A shortfall of that size could force state governments to take unpalatable decisions such as pouring more public money into their funds or reducing pension benefits. State and local governments have already cut spending to close budget deficits.

Pension funds’ requirements are expected to compound the pressure on local finances. Thirty-six of the 50 US states, including California and New York, have plunged into budget deficits since fiscal year 2010 began, which for most states was July 1 2009, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Burj Dubai - aberto

Burj Dubai: World’s tallest structure opens in Dubai


Dubai inaugura la torre más alta del mundo, con 800 metros de altura

Burj Dubai: Big Burj


World's Tallest Building - Burj Dubai

Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians

Via O Insurgente, resumo de Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2009:

In alphabetical order

• Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
• Senator John Ensign (R-NV)
• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner
• Attorney General Eric Holder
• Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL)
• President Barack Obama
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
• Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven
• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)

Alguém se abalança fazer uma lista semelhante, versão Portugal?

vistos/revistos durante o Natal

Vão dos "tão maus que são bons" aos "excelentes"

swine flu - went out like a piglet

Via Competitive Enterprise Institute no Facebook, "Flu Watch Dec. 30 - What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing":

It’s a holiday so we’ll make this quick. Infections have somehow managed to drop again as have deaths and hospitalizations. Just 15 deaths reported this past week, versus 257 a week for seasonal flu during the season. Only four states reported widespread flu activity. Early January is when seasonal flu normally really gets going so we might see something of a bounce up in the next couple of weeks, especially since at 15 deaths there’s nowhere to go but up. But it shouldn’t be by much. Swine flu came in 2009 like a piglet and went out like a piglet.

Sobre a Fé e a Economia

Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy Revisited: A Reply to Thomas Storck por Thomas E. Woods, Jr.:

The phenomena that economics touches upon, which include money, banking, exchange, prices, wages, monopoly theory, and many other topics, are themselves replete with moral significance. But the positive, scientific statements about these phenomena that constitute the discipline of economics are necessarily value neutral.

Likewise, economic policy may possess a moral dimension, but not a single proposition of economic theory involves a moral claim.

Nothing in the Deposit of Faith even comes close to deciding this and countless other important economic questions one way or the other. Not even the most uncomprehending or exaggerated rendering of papal infallibility would have the pope adjudicating such disputes as these. Yet misunderstandings or ignorance regarding such seemingly abstruse points are so often at the heart of the policy recommendations that bishops’ conferences propose and papal encyclicals can seem to imply.