The Leviathan and The Republic

CAROLINA SALGADO

2006-12-12T21:46:00.000Z

ACT 1: Lady of the night.

ACT 2: FC Porto's First Lady

ACT 3: Heartbroken

ACT 4: Hell jath no fury like a woman scorned

The interesting thing is six months ago nobody took this lady seriously. Now suddenly she's a credible witness and pitiful victim...

Go figure...

THE FIRST EUROPEAN PYRAMID

2006-04-20T22:01:00.000+01:00

The Bosnian Pyramid, Visocica Hill, is the first European pyramid to be discovered and is located in the heart of Bosnia, in the town of Visoko. The pyramid has all the elements: four perfectly shaped slopes pointing toward the cardinal points, a flat top and an entrance complex. There are also the ruins of a Medieval walled town, once the base of a Bosnian king Tvrtko of Kotromanic (1338-1391). Because of its similarities to the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico, it has been named the “Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun” ('Bosanska Piramida Sunca'). There are also a three smaller pyramids on the site, the Bosnian Pyramid of the Moon ('Bosanska Piramida Mjeseca'), Bosnian Pyramid of Earth, ('Bosanska Piramida Zemlje') and Bosnian Pyramid of the Dragon ( 'Bosanska Piramida Zmaja').

'We have already dug out stone blocks which I believe are covering the pyramid', said Semir (Sam) Osmanagic, a Bosnian American archaeologist who has spent the last 15 years studying the pyramids of Latin America. 'We found a paved entrance plateau and discovered underground tunnels'.....

www.bosnianpyramid.com

Wait for it... wait for it.. wait..

Where is Erich von Daniken and his cronies?

Phony doctor gives free breast exams

2006-04-20T21:47:00.000+01:00

One way to get your kicks. Don't know why I didn't think of this. I would have saved a fortune at the local strip-joint...

MIAMI (Reuters) - A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer, police said on Thursday. One woman became suspicious after the man asked her to remove all her clothes and began conducting a purported genital exam without donning rubber gloves, investigators said. The woman then phoned the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the suspect fled. He was arrested at another woman's apartment in the same Lauderdale Lakes neighborhood on Wednesday, a sheriff's spokesman said. The white-haired suspect, Philip Winikoff, carried a black bag and claimed to be visiting on behalf of a local hospital. "He told the woman that he was in the neighborhood offering free breast exams," sheriff's spokesman Hugh Graf said in a statement. At least two women, both in their 30s, let him into their homes and he fondled and sexually assaulted them, the investigators said. Winikoff was not a doctor, Graf said. He worked as a shuttle driver for an auto dealership.

(reuters.com)

While Paris Burns...

2005-11-09T21:30:00.000Z

France to deport foreign rioters

Sarkozy said even foreigners with visas would be expelled if convicted Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered the expulsion of all foreigners convicted of taking part in the riots that have swept France for 13 nights. He told parliament 120 foreigners had been found guilty of involvement and would be deported without delay. Police said overnight violence had fallen significantly - although trouble still flared in more than 100 towns. The government has declared a state of emergency in Paris and more than 30 other areas to help quell the unrest.

The northern city of Amiens was the first to impose an overnight curfew under the new powers, which came into force at midnight. The western towns of Rouen, Le Havre and Evreux and the French Riviera region have also said they will implement the measures. However the Seine-Saint-Denis region north-east of Paris, where the trouble started almost two weeks ago, said it would not impose a curfew after violence diminished for a third night running.

Mr Sarkozy told MPs that non-French nationals - "not all of whom are here illegally" - had been convicted of taking part in the attacks. "I have asked the prefects to deport them from our national territory without delay, including those who have a residency visa," he said.

(news.bbc.co.uk)

Are the french riots a sign of things to come?

Only in Portugal

2005-10-13T13:48:00.000+01:00

She was to be arrested. Instead she fled the country for the sun of Brazil. Two years later she arrives in Portugal and is elected Mayor of Felgueiras.

Am I missing something in all of this?

Terrorism

2005-10-13T13:47:00.000+01:00

When do we declare war on the greatest terrorist of them all...

MOTHER NATURE

Something to think about...

2005-10-13T13:30:00.000+01:00

While they're employed, they demand better salaries, less hours, more perks...
When unemployed they beg for a job...

2005-09-26T23:00:00.000+01:00

Lawyers debate God vs. science
By Jon Hurdle

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The lawsuit over whether intelligent design should be taught in schools alongside evolution began in federal court on Monday with defendants' attorneys calling it a scientific theory and opponents saying it was an effort to put God in the classroom. In the first such legal battle, lawyers sparred during opening arguments at Federal District Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over whether the teaching of intelligent design -- an alternative to evolution that involves a God-like creator -- violates the U.S. Constitution. The battle over teaching about man's origins in U.S. schools pits Christian conservatives against educators and scientists in a trial viewed as the biggest test of the issue since the late 1980s. "Intelligent design isn't science. It's old theology," said Eric Rothschild, lawyer for 11 parents who sued the Dover school district of central Pennsylvania over including intelligent design in its ninth-grade biology curriculum.

"It's a clever tactical repackaging of creationism," he said, telling a packed courtroom that the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed teaching creationism in public schools in 1987.

Creationism is the belief that God created the world as told in Genesis. The parents are joined in their cause by the American Civil Liberties Union, America's largest civil liberties group. Pat Gillen, a lawyer for the Dover school district, said intelligent design is anchored in science and is not creationism in disguise. He also rejected the accusation that it was unconstitutional to teach the theory to students.

(reuters.co.uk)

What's next, Teaching Norse, Greek and Roman Mythology in school as Science? If this wasn't a serious court case I would be rolling around, laughing myself to death...

Al-Qaeda suspect jailed over 9/11

2005-09-26T22:53:00.000+01:00

Yarkas was convicted of being an al-Qaeda cell leader in Spain

A Syrian man accused of heading a Spanish al-Qaeda cell and helping to organise the 9/11 attacks has been jailed for 27 years in Madrid. Imad Yarkas was jailed along with 17 other men convicted on charges of aiding al-Qaeda. Two men accused over the 9/11 attacks were cleared of murder in Europe's biggest terror trial. A journalist for Arabic TV network al-Jazeera was also jailed for seven years for collaborating with al-Qaeda. The 17 men convicted were sentenced to between six and 11 years in jail for a range of terrorism offences. Among them was Driss Chebli, accused of helping Yarkas plot the 2001 attacks. He was cleared of murder charges but sentenced to six years for collaborating with a terror group.

(news.bbc.co.uk)

How many have gone to jail in the States because o 9/11, or are they all still locked up in Guantanemo?

Verdade, Verdade, VERDADE

2005-09-15T23:32:00.000+01:00

Sérgio Figueiredo
Tribunais e quartéis: close

Os senhores militares dominam o assunto, conhecem muito bem o tema dos "direitos adquiridos". Fizeram, aliás, uma revolução em Abril de 1974 por causa disso. Foram os militares que nos libertaram do regime antigo e acabaram com todos os direitos adquiridos que a sociedade de então mantinha. É mais do que legítimo, portanto, devolver-lhes a questão. E lançar o desafio: quem está disposto a liderar uma outra revolução para acabar com os direitos adquiridos deles? E com os dos senhores juizes, magistrados e funcionários judiciais? Não é Marques Mendes. Não é aquele senhor que substituiu Portas e não recordo o nome. E desengane-se quem espera resposta da esquerda. Os presidenciáveis Louçã e Jerónimo, sempre «anti» tratando-se de fardas, estão indignados, por não deixarem as Forças Armadas desfilar em paz. E, muito provavelmente, não será também José Sócrates. Que foi tão valente a enfiar as duas mãos em todas as colmeias habitadas por estas «comunidades», como incapaz de aproveitar a oportunidade para mobilizar a nação para algo que ela há muito perdeu: um rumo. Um simples rumo.

Assim, parece a Costa do Marfim. Podia também ser o Ruanda, quando a instituição militar desafia a autoridade de um Governo e convoca todas as armas, do activo e reservistas, para as ruas. Também afigura-se a uma qualquer República da América Central, onde os próprios órgãos de soberania se mobilizam para greves. Agora os tribunais, os juízes. Depois quem se segue? O Presidente da República pode fazer greve? O que irrita não é ver esta gente aos berros. Não é ver o Governo isolado. Nem é confirmar a falta de senso e responsabilidade dos Mendes e associados. Nem sequer assistir com estupefacção a esta decadência institucional, a absoluta falta de respeitinho pelas autoridades democráticas. As pessoas perderam o sentido da nação, mas isso não irrita. Preocupa, angustia, desilude. Mas não irrita. O que irrita são os motivos desta crise. Tudo o que está na origem deste ambiente, em que cheira a fim de regime. A Armada em passeata. Tribunais fechados. Sem lhes assistir a razão. Militares e agentes da justiça. Por mais que desfilem de braço-dado com Louçã, por mais comícios que Jerónimo dedique em defesa dos seus «direitos adquiridos», os senhores militares não têm causa alguma. E mentem descaradamente, quando dizem estar a defender a dignidade da instituição militar.

Treta! Estão a defender a vidinha que os contribuintes lhes garantem - uma vidinha, diga-se, que os contribuintes gostariam mas o país obviamente não permite. Há 31 anos lideraram um golpe para conquistar a liberdade. Agora ameaçam o regime para não pagar a conta da farmácia ou ir para casa, com salário completo, ainda antes dos 50. Também a anunciada greve geral na Justiça não é justa. Viu-se coisa igual em 1988. Ano em que Cavaco os sossegou, criando um impraticável regime especial. O mesmo que Sócrates está agora, quase vinte anos depois, a eliminar. E porque a maioria dos portugueses, os tais contribuintes, não percebe e não apoia o Governo? Porque em vez de lhe ter explicado que era justo, apresentaram-lhe isto no pacote das medidas contra o défice! O povo quer um rumo e deram-lhe um disco riscado.

(www.negocios.pt)

If only the politicians would read this one... (sigh)

U.N. 2005 Human Development Report

2005-09-08T19:06:00.000+01:00

(hdr.undp.org)

NEW ORLEANS related Blogs and Links

2005-09-05T22:10:00.000+01:00

Technorati Katrina-related links
Katrinacane's friends
New Orleans Metblogs
Humid City
Anne Rice editorial
Flickr
A certain slant of light
Blogs of War
Nola View
Ernie the attorney
WWLTV blog

The Survival of New Orleans blog

2005-09-04T22:26:00.000+01:00

Sig and I went down to the street to head over to Baronne to check out some tenant housing the company owns and make sure the building is still secure. The water down Poydras has receded about one and 1/2 block as you head toward the Dome. Baronne street the water has receded to about 2 blocks down from Poydras as you head to Canal. Still very significant flooding that way and the water is absolutely nasty. The surface is a rust-covered gunk that is difficult to describe; luckily, Sig took some pictures. We saw some signs of looting and there was a car there which had been completely crushed under a wall of bricks which fell down from the 3rd floor of a now-exposed condo. Law enforcement have absolutely lost their minds. Some guy wearing khaki fatigues and black vests which say Police on them have their faces covered in black ski masks and are touting M4-A1s with front hand grips -- like they're some kind of Delta Force operators waiting to hit the tire house. They're guarding the four corners around the Bell South building for crying out loud. And what, they need secret identities? Come on. You can just tell some of these guys have never gotten out before. Now's their big chance to play Army. The police presence is growing and it consists of non-stop driving around the CBD. Dozens and dozens of cars just driving up one street and down the other. We're safe from civil unrest now, that much is certain.

A blog from the City of New Orleans with first hand accounts of what is happening in that suffering city

the Survival of New Orleans blog

They're not giving us what we need to survive'

2005-09-04T22:25:00.000+01:00

'They're not giving us what we need to survive'
The Observer

Only now, a week after Hurricane Katrina roared across the Deep South, leaving a trail of devastation across America's psyche, is the true story of the Battle of New Orleans emerging. As convoys of commandeered school buses and Greyhound coaches transported tens of thousands of refugees out of the submerged city yesterday, in a belated and much-criticised relief operation, each vehicle brought with it new tales of horror.

Those trapped inside the two main shelters, the Superdome and the Convention Centre, paint a picture of a city that was subsumed beneath waves of violence, rape and death and accuse the police and National Guard of standing by, ignoring their pleas for help. The claims are rejected by the federal and state authorities, who instead suggest the looting and lawlessness which followed the extensive flooding of the city was the result of a series of isolated incidents perpetrated by a few. But it is clear from talking to survivors that what happened in New Orleans last week was far more extensive, bloody and terrifying than the authorities have admitted so far.

'We had to wrap dead people in white sheets and throw them outside while the police stood by and did nothing,' said Correll Williams, a 19-year-old meat cutter from the Crowder Road district in the east of the city, who waded two miles through waist-high water to make it to the Convention Centre after hearing on the radio it was being turned into a refuge.

'The police were in boats watching us. They were just laughing at us. Five of them to a boat, not trying to help nobody. Helicopters were riding by just looking at us. They weren't helping. We were pulling people on bits of wood, and the National Guard would come driving by in their empty military trucks.'

(observer.guardian.co.uk)

If this is the way that the World's superpower deals with a disaster, then God help us all.

What country is really prepared for a disaster of this size?

Campos e Cunha resigns

2005-07-20T22:33:00.000+01:00

Governo: Sócrates propõe a Sampaio exoneração do ministro das Finanças

Lisboa, 20 Jul (Lusa) - O primeiro-ministro solicitou hoje ao Presidente da República a exoneração do ministro de Estado e das Finanças, Campos e Cunha, a pedido deste, por motivos pessoais, familiares e cansaço, disse à Agência Lusa fonte oficial. De acordo com a mesma fonte, o primeiro-ministro, José Sócrates, "no mesmo momento", propôs ao Presidente da República, Jorge Sampaio, a nomeação de Fernando Teixeira dos Santos como ministro de Estado e das Finanças".

Fernando Teixeira dos Santos presida actualmente à Comissão de Mercados e Valores Mobiliários (CMVM), foi secretário de Estado dos governos socialistas de António Guterres e é professor universitário.

(Lusa)

(Translated Version)
Prime Minister Sócrates asks State President Sampaio accept the resignation of the minister of the Finances

The Prime Minister, today requested that the President of the Republic accept the resignation of the minister of the Finances, Campos e Cunha, for reasons of a personal nature, family and fatigue, according to an official source. This same source also added that the Prime Minister, Jose Sócrates, "at the same time" proposed the nomination of Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos as minister of Finances to the President of the Republic, Jorge Sampaio.

Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos currently presides over the bourse authority(CMVM). He was the secretary of State in the socialist governments of António Guterres and is also a university professor.

Fernando Teixeira dos Santos is the next Minister of Finances

2005-07-20T22:03:00.000+01:00

Is it time to open the wallet? Is the Socialist Goverment worried it's going to lose the next municipal elections?

Portugal to have a new Minister of Finances

2005-07-20T21:51:00.000+01:00

Seems like the strain of having to take unpopular measures and a growing divide between the Minister of Finances Campos e Cunha and the Prime Minister Socrates have led to the resignation of the Minister of Finances. Seems like the game of musical chairs hasn't ended yet. How long will we continue to be governed by inept politicians?

Terrorist's "Get out of Jail Free" card.

2005-07-18T21:56:00.000+01:00

Germany Frees Terror Suspect From Prison

An al-Qaida suspect was freed Monday after the country's high court blocked his extradition to Spain, ruling that a European Union-wide arrest warrant - heralded as a key step in the fight against terrorism - does not yet comply with German law. The ruling comes as European governments are scrambling to enact legislation following the deadly bombings in London. It also deals a blow to the EU's post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism plans and highlights the difficulties Europe faces in rushing through anti-terror laws frowned upon by the courts and at times angrily contested by civil libertarians. The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court released Mamoun Darkazanli, who has German and Syrian citizenship, after deciding that Germany's version of the European arrest warrant introduced last August violates the country's constitution and a suspect's basic rights.

Darkazanli is among 41 suspects, including Osama bin Laden, indicted by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been investigating the al-Qaida terror network. He faces up to 12 years in a Spanish prison if convicted of membership in a terrorist organization. Darkazanli, 46, appears in a 1999 wedding video with two of the three Sept. 11, 2001 suicide pilots - Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah - who lived and studied in Hamburg along with lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. The United States has labeled Darkazanli's Hamburg-based trading company a front for terrorism. He appeared on U.S. suspect lists after Sept. 11, but has denied any links to bin Laden or the attacks. Specifically, the German court said the country's legislature failed to provide a mechanism for appeal when making the EU legislation national law, and also had not gone far enough in considering suspects' fundamental rights.

(Guardian Unlimited)

This is how you win the war on terrorism...

Portugal and Iran explore trade ties.

2005-07-18T21:49:00.000+01:00

Iran, Portugal stress investments, Trade ties

Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce Industries and Mines (ICCIM) and Advisor to Portuguese Commerce Minister Skopiro explored expansion of industrial and trade ties in Lisbon, according to IRNA. Ali Naghi Khamoushi said that 75% of Iran's trade ties with European nations. "Portugal is absent in this, but today's signing of agreement for a joint Iran-Portugal Trade Council grounds are paved to boost trade exchange." He referred to the suitable geographical location of Iran which has access to the Middle East and Central Asian markets with a population of over 400 mln people. He also called for signing agreements on removing double taxatioan on trade and finance, promotion and support of joint investments and trade, and reducing customs tariffs, as well as cooperation in banking and shipping. The Portuguese official said that Lisbon is keen on exploring new markets for joint investments and trade and supports the proposed joint trade council. He added that Portuguese investors have welcomed closer relations with their Iranian counterparts and are interested in greater presence in Middle East and Central Asia region. The Iranian delegation also visited 'Porto' the second industrialized city in the country and met with several local official industrialists and traders.

(IranMania.com)

Portugal wins Rugby Sevens Final.

2005-07-18T21:38:00.000+01:00

Portugal retain Euro sevens crown

Portugal defeated Russia 28-26 in a pulsating climax to the Grand Final of the 2005 FIRA European Sevens in Moscow to retain the trophy they have won for the last three years. Spain won the Plate with a 25-14 win over Germany, whilst Lithuania claimed the Bowl. Portugal topped their group on day one, recording four victories and a 7-7 draw, against Italy. In Pool B, Russia delighted the home fans with five wins out of five, including a 33-7 victory over France. They followed that up on day two by defeating Italy 17-0 in the Cup semi finals, whilst Portugal beat France 22-7

(www.irbsevens.com)

Well done Lads. Pity that the local media aren't giving this the atention it deserves.

Gravity doughnut promises time machine

2005-07-17T12:39:00.000+01:00

Time present and time past

This is where Amos Ori from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, comes in. He says that according to Einstein's theories, space can be twisted enough to create a local gravity field that looks like a doughnut of some arbitrary size. The gravitational field lines circle around the outside of this doughnut, so that space and time are both tightly curved back on themselves. Crucially, this does away with the need for any hypothetical exotic matter.

Although it is difficult to describe what this would look or be like in real life, Ori says the mathematics reveal that every period of time between when the doughnut was created and the present moment would be somewhere in the vacuum inside the doughnut. All you need to do is work out how to get there.In theory, it should be possible to travel back to any point in time after the time machine was built, reports Ori in Physical Review Letters. One slight snag is that he has not worked out how to generate the gravitational doughnut, although he has some ideas. "It's wild speculation, but you may need to move large masses rapidly in a circular motion," Ori says.

(news@nature.com)

One step closer to opening Pandora's box.

Table-top Fusion?

2005-07-17T12:24:00.000+01:00

Is bubble fusion back?

Physicists at Purdue University in Indiana claim to have found new evidence for nuclear fusion in a tabletop device. Yiban Xu and Adam Butt say that firing sound waves into a beaker of deuterated acetone that has been "seeded" with neutrons produces tritium and further neutrons through the process of fusion. Known as "bubble fusion", the phenomenon met with widespread scepticism when it was first reported in 2002. The new results are likely to be just as controversial.

Yiban Xu and Adam ButtSonoluminescence describes the process whereby bubbles in a liquid emit tiny flashes of light when they are forced to expand and collapse by sound waves. Some physicists believe that the pressures and temperatures inside the collapsing bubbles could be high enough to initiate nuclear reactions. If achieved, such fusion could lead to a new clean energy source.

(PhysicsWeb)

I need one of these toys...

It´s all in the genes...

2005-07-17T12:14:00.000+01:00

Scientists Find 'Hangover Gene'
This mutation is no party, Japanese team say

Many hangover sufferers looking for someone or something to blame can now point the finger at their own genes, according to a new study. Mutations in a specific gene inactivate a key enzyme and slow the elimination of acetaldehyde -- the first product of alcohol metabolism -- from the body, say Japanese researchers reporting in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Their study of 326 Japanese female and male workers found that those with a mutated, inactive form of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) -- an enzyme that plays an important role in the elimination of alcohol-induced acetaldehyde -- are more susceptible to hangovers and facial flushing when they drink. This mutated form of ALDH is called ALDH2. People with the inactive form of ALDH2 needed to drink "significantly less" than those with active ALDH2 to trigger hangover, study corresponding author Masako Yokoyama, of the Mitsukoshi Health and Welfare Foundation, said in a prepared statement.

(HealthDay News)

When can we expect the anti-hangover pill?

As novas medidas do Governo

2005-05-25T12:37:00.000+01:00

Medidas de emergência para reduzir o défice Governo congela carreiras na função pública até 2006 25.05.2005 - 11h43 in Jornal Público
Cristina Ferreira, Eduardo Dâmaso

O Governo anuncia hoje, no Parlamento, as medidas aprovadas para controlar o défice das contas públicas. Os impostos vão aumentar e a função pública verá as carreiras congeladas até ao fim de 2006.
Estas são duas das medidas aprovadas ontem pelo Conselho de Ministros destinadas a evitar que o défice público de 2005 dispare para 6,83 por cento do produto interno bruto (PIB), como prevê o relatório da comissão Constâncio. Do lado da receita, as propostas que o ministro Luís Campos e Cunha levou para a reunião apontam para o aumento dos impostos. A criação de um imposto único extraordinário, o aumento da taxa de IVA normal de 19 por cento para 21 por cento, a passagem de alguns produtos da taxa intermédia de IVA (12 por cento) para a taxa normal e o agravamento dos impostos sobre os combustíveis, o tabaco e o álcool foram medidas analisadas.A criação do imposto único, extraordinário e de emergência, surgia ontem como uma hipótese forte, dados os seus efeitos imediatos. Todas as pessoas pagarão uma soma determinada em função do rendimento declarado e durante um determinado período. José Sócrates anunciou ontem à noite, na reunião da comissão política do PS com o grupo parlamentar, que iria aumentar os impostos. "Vamos cumprir o nosso programa eleitoral com uma excepção: o aumento dos impostos", declarou Sócrates na reunião.Para a função pública o Governo deverá avançar com o aumento da idade de reforma de 60 para 65 anos. O regime de segurança social da função pública deverá convergir gradualmente para o regime geral da Segurança Social, medida que será introduzida durante dez anos, a um ritmo de seis meses por ano. Actualmente, os trabalhadores do Estado reformam-se aos 60 anos, desde que tenham 36 anos de contribuições. A lei permite ainda que se aposentem antes dos 60 anos, desde que abdiquem de uma percentagem da pensão por cada ano de antecipação.Os salários e pensões dos empregados do sector público administrativo representam cerca de 15 por cento do PIB, contra 11 por cento de média comunitária. Uma fonte importante do aumento das despesas com pessoal tem sido a progressão de carreiras dos setecentos mil funcionarios públicos. Teoricamente, as progressões nas carreiras não são automáticas, mas na prática acabam por sê-lo. A explicação é simples. As progressões nas carreiras estão dependentes da avaliação. Como a regra na função pública é atribuir classificações máximas aos funcionários, estes acabam por ser sempre promovidos. O congelamento das carreiras exigirá a suspensão do decreto-lei que define a progressão da carreira do funcionalismo público, criado no tempo do ex-primeiro-ministro Cavaco Silva.Em 2002, e já com o objectivo de conter o défice orçamental, a ex-ministra das Finanças Manuela Ferreira Leite chegou a ponderar o congelamento das carreiras, mas isso acabou por não acontecer. Contudo, a não abertura de alguns concursos produziu efeitos semelhantes. A medida mais emblemática adoptada por Ferreira Leite para controlar o crescimento das despesas com pessoal foi o congelamento dos salários públicos acima dos mil euros. Dados que têm sido divulgados pelo ex-ministro das Finanças Henrique Medina Carreira, indicam que entre 2000 e 2004, contando já com os dois anos em que vigorou a medida introduzida por Ferreira Leite, a despesa da Função Pública aumentou em média anualmente cerca de 600 milhões de euros, quando antes o acréscimo era de 1200 milhões de euros."Concordo com a aproximação do regime da Caixa Geral de Aposentações ao regime geral da segurança social, até porque faz sentido aumentar a idade da reforma tendo em conta a evolução demográfica", afirmou ao PÚBLICO o economista do Grupo Mello, António Nogueira Leite. "Também estou de acordo com a supressão dos "automatismos" da função pública, pois não faz sentido as progressões nas carreiras sem estarem ligadas a coisa nenhuma. Se as medidas de José Sócrates forem estas então eu estou de acordo."Outra medida apresentada por Sócrates é o aumento da taxa do IVA de 19 por cento para 21 por cento. Alguns produtos taxados a 12 por cento poderão sofrer aumentos. Tudo indica que a maioria dos produtos com IVA a cinco por cento não sofrerão acréscimo. Também os impostos indirectos, como os que abrangem o tabaco, álcool e combustíveis poderão subir. "Percebo a necessidade de aumentar os impostos face à emergência do problema, mas do ponto de vista duradouro não é a melhor solução, pois vai permitir ao Estado ter mais dinheiro para gastar. E dentro de algum tempo haverá necessidade de voltar a subir os impostos", disse o economista Vitor Bento, presidente da SIBS. "A redução estrutural da despesa nunca se consegue se não se discutir quais as funções que o Estado deve ter e a sua extensão", adiantou. Vítor Bento disse ainda concordar com o congelamento das carreiras e o aumento da idade da reforma do funcionalismo público, Também deverá constar do programa de combate ao défice do Governo a introdução de portagens em certas Scut.O adiamento da construção do novo aeroporto de Lisboa, apesar de esta depender essencialmente de dinheiros privados (project finance) e de fundos europeus, deverá estar a ser estudada. E a linha de TGV que irá ligar Lisboa a Madrid (projecto construído com dinheiros públicos) poderá manter-se como uma prioridade de Sócrates.

Battle Royale

2005-05-24T20:44:00.000+01:00

V.A.T. (I.V.A.) is going from 19% to 21%.

So much for campaign promises...

My Poor Portugal

2005-05-23T20:04:00.000+01:00

Poor being the operative word, of course...

The latest Portuguese Deficit as presented by the Governor of the Reserve Bank this afternoon is 6.83%. Seems like we Portuguese are in for another rough ride. Pretty nostalgic stuff. When Durão Barroso came in to office we also found out that the deficit was a lot higher the the previous goverment had stated...

This is how you weasel out of complying with your election promises!

Prophecy of St Malachy

2005-04-19T22:51:00.000+01:00

I discovered this interesting article about a 11 century Irish Bishop's prophecy concerning future Popes.

The most famous and best known prophecies about the popes are those attributed to St. Malachy. In 1139 he went to Rome to give an account of the affairs of his diocese to the pope, Innocent II, who promised him two palliums for the metropolitan Sees of Armagh and Cashel. While at Rome, he received (according to the Abbé Cucherat) the strange vision of the future wherein was unfolded before his mind the long list of illustrious pontiffs who were to rule the Church until the end of time. The same author tells us that St. Malachy gave his manuscript to Innocent II to console him in the midst of his tribulations, and that the document remained unknown in the Roman Archives until its discovery in 1590 (Cucherat, "Proph. de la succession des papes", ch. xv). They were first published by Arnold de Wyon, and ever since there has been much discussion as to whether they are genuine predictions of St. Malachy or forgeries. The silence of 400 years on the part of so many learned authors who had written about the popes, and the silence of St. Bernard especially, who wrote the "Life of St. Malachy", is a strong argument against their authenticity, but it is not conclusive if we adopt Cucherat's theory that they were hidden in the Archives during those 400 years.

Pope 263 John XXIII (1958-1963)
107 Pastor et Nauta (pastor and marine)
Hist.: prior to his election he was patriarch of Venice, a marine city, home of the gondolas

Pope 264 Paul VI (1963-1978)
108 Flos florum (flower of flowers)
Hist.: his arms displayed three lilies.

Pope 265 John Paul I (1978)
109 De medietate Lunæ (of the half of the moon)
Hist.: Albino Luciani, born in Canale d'Agardo, diocese of Belluno, (beautiful moon) Elected pope on August 26, his reign lasted about a month, from half a moon to the next half...

Pope 266 John Paul II (1978-2005)
110 De labore Solis(of the eclipse of the sun, or from the labour of the sun)
Hist.: Karol Wojtyla was born on May 18, 1920 during a solar eclipse. He also comes from behind the former Iron Curtain (the East, where the Sun rises). He might also be seen to be the fruit of the intercession of the Woman Clothed with the Sun labouring in Revelation 12 (because of his devotion to the Virgin Mary). His Funeral occurred on 8 April, 2005 when there was a solar eclipse visible in the Americas.

Pope 267 ???
111 Gloria olivæ
The Benedictine order traditionally said this Pope would come from their order. (April 19th 2005: Pope Benedict XVI)

Pope 268 ???
In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis civitas septicollis diruetur, & Judex tremêdus judicabit populum suum. Finis.
(In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations, at the term of which the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the formidable Judge will judge his people.)

(Source: catholicpages.com)

Are we living in the final days, or is this coincidence...

Me, I prefer to think it's coincidence.

Also:
bibleprobe.com

Quotes:

2005-04-13T19:55:00.000+01:00

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
-- Rich Cook

Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software.
-- Unknown author

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso

Pope John Paul II - Goodbye Holy Father

2005-04-03T01:25:00.000+01:00

Goodbye John Paul II. May you enjoy you well deserved rest in Heaven.

ABORTION AGAIN...

2005-03-31T23:14:00.000+01:00

Once again the battle is waged to relax Portugal's Abortion Legislation. Once again the shouting hits the streets, the indignation, insult, accusations and general free-for-all. And once again I’m perplexed. I can't understand the importance given to the abortion debate. maybe I'm just an ignoramus...

With so many causes to fight, so many problems affecting hundreds of thousand and yet we continue to treat a "minor problem" ( 1- How many woman have stood trial for aborting? 2- How many have gone to jail for aborting?) as if it was the most urgent and decisive problem facing Portugal. We have a floundering economy (which affects us all), soaring unemployment (which affects hundreds of thousands), deficient health-care system (which serves millions) to name a few.

Or are many looking for their place in the spotlight?

Taking the fun out of Science...

2005-03-25T21:28:00.000Z

Taking the spark out of science
Health and safety fears are squeezing practical experiments out of the classroom.
by Josie Appleton

Health and safety concerns are putting a dampener on school science practicals. A survey of teachers and scientists finds that everything from keeping snails to swabbing for cheek cells, running model steam engines to burning peanuts, is now being avoided because it is seen as too risky. The result is that children are being turned off science - with experts fearing for the next generation of chemists and physicists. Julian Wigley, who has taught science at a Birmingham comprehensive for the past decade, says that he has noticed a 'move away from experiments considered too risky'. When practicals are carried out, they tend to involve kids observing the teacher rather than doing it for themselves. According to Tony Ashmore, head of education at the Royal Society of Chemistry, 'experiments are more often demonstrated than carried out - and teachers are more cautious about what they might demonstrate'. The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has noted a decline in science practicals, and an increasingly 'narrow and mechanistic' approach, with teachers doing the bare minimum to fulfil national curriculum requirements (1). Risk assessment procedures encourage teachers to stick to standardised experiments rather than try anything a bit different. Children's curiousity is curtailed, says Wigley. 'In the old days, when kids asked "what happens if...?", teachers could often say "try it out". Now they might say "I will tell you what happens", and draw a diagram on the board.'

(From www.spiked-online.com)

How does one teach Science without practical experiments which are one of it's basic tools?

O Novo Codigo da Estrada

2005-03-24T21:48:00.001Z

A revisão do Código da Estrada, ferramenta fundamental para concretização do Plano Nacional de Prevenção Rodoviária, tem como objectivo reduzir a sinistralidade rodoviária e incide nos comportamentos de risco mais adoptados pelos condutores, no transporte de crianças em segurança, na maior protecção jurídica dos peões e no agravamento das sanções aplicáveis às infracções que mais contribuem para a sinistralidade - nomeadamente a velocidade, o álcool e o desrespeito pelos peões.

Pretende, ainda, introduzir normas processuais especiais, visando maior celeridade na aplicação efectiva das sanções, de forma a reduzir significativamente o tempo que decorre entre a prática da infracção e a aplicação da sanção, garantindo-se o seu efeito dissuasor.

Considerando que, através da Lei n.º 53/2004, de 4 de Novembro, a Assembleia da República autorizou o Governo a proceder à revisão do Código da Estrada, cuja publicação está prevista para o início de Janeiro de 2005, importa divulgar as principais alterações previstas.

Assim, tendo por base o projecto que resultou da autorização legislativa da Assembleia da República:

1. Os condutores de velocípedes, de veículos de tracção animal e de animais que circulem numa rotunda, deixam de ser obrigados a ceder a passagem aos veículos a motor que nela pretendam entrar.

2. Para efeitos de mudança de direcção deixa de existir o conceito de placa de forma triangular.

3. A sanção pelo excesso de velocidade é agravada e distinta quando ocorra dentro ou fora da localidade:

2005-03-24T21:48:00.000Z

Automóveis ligeiros, motociclos		Automóveis pesados
Dentro das localidades		Dentro das localidades
Até 20 km/h	60 a 300 euros	Até 10 km/h	60 a 300 euros
20 a 40 km/h	120 a 600 euros	10 a 20 km/h	120 a 600 euros
40 a 60 km/h	300 a 1500 euros	20 a 40 km/h	300 a 1500 euros
Mais de 60 km/h	500 a 2500 euros	Mais de 40 km/h	500 a 2500 euros

Fora das localidades		Fora das localidades
Até 30 km/h	60 a 300 euros	Até 20 km/h	60 a 300 euros
30 a 60 km/h	120 a 600 euros	20 a 40 km/h	120 a 600 euros
60 a 80 km/h	300 a 1500 euros	40 a 60 km/h	300 a 1500 euros
Mais de 80 km/h	500 a 2500 euros	Mais de 60 km/h	500 a 2500 euros

2005-03-24T21:47:00.000Z

A velocidade mínima nas auto-estradas passa de 40 para 50 km/h.

4. A ultrapassagem de veículo pelo lado direito passa a ser sancionada com coima de 250 a 1250 euros.

5. A paragem e o estacionamento nas passagens assinaladas para a passagem de peões (passadeiras) passa a ser considerado contra-ordenação grave.

6. O desrespeito da obrigação de parar imposta pelos agentes fiscalizadores ou reguladores do trânsito, pelo sinal de STOP ou pela luz vermelha de regulação do trânsito passa a ser considerada contra-ordenação muito grave.

7. O desrespeito pela linha longitudinal contínua passa a ser considerada contra-ordenação muito grave.

8. A condução sob influencia do álcool, considerada em relatório médico, passa a ser classificada como contra-ordenação muito grave.

Taxa de álcool
Coima

0,5 a 0,8 g/l
250 a 1250 euros

0,8 a 1,2 g/l
500 a 2500 euros

9. Os condutores detectados a circular em contramão nas auto-estradas ou vias equiparadas serão submetidos a novos exames (médicos, psicológicos ou de condução)

10. Sempre que exista grande intensidade de tráfego o condutor deverá circular com velocidade moderada. Caso não o faça cometerá uma contra-ordenação grave.

11. Os agentes de polícia passam a poder desrespeitar sempre regras e sinais, independentemente da urgência da missão. Acresce que se alarga essa permissão aos condutores de veículos em missão urgente de interesse público. Não se encontra regulamentado o que se entende por missão urgente de interesse público.

12. O arremesso de qualquer objecto para o exterior do veículo é sancionado com coima de 60 a 300 €.

13. Nas situações em que é obrigatório o uso do sinal de pré-sinalização de perigo, quem proceder à sua colocação, à reparação do veículo ou à remoção da carga deve utilizar colete retrorreflector. Ainda não se encontram regulamentadas a cor nem as características do colete. A não utilização do colete é sancionada com coima de 120 a 600 euros.

14. A utilização de telemóvel durante a condução, só é permitida se for utilizado auricular ou sistema alta voz que não implique manuseamento continuado. A infracção a esta disposição passa a ser considerada contra-ordenação grave.

15. É proibido o transporte de crianças com menos de 12 anos e 150 cm de altura, no banco da frente, excepto se se tratar de bebés (menos de 3 anos) utilizando sistema de retenção virado para a retaguarda. Neste caso, não poderá existir airbag activado no lugar do passageiro.

16. Será apreendido o documento de identificação do veículo detectado a circular desrespeitando as regras relativas à poluição sonora, do solo e do ar.

17. É considerado estacionamento abusivo o de veículos ostentando qualquer informação com vista à sua transacção, em parque de estacionamento, pelo que fica sujeito a remoção pelas autoridades.

18. A circulação de veículo sem que tenha sido submetido a inspecção periódica obrigatória será sancionada com coima de 250 a 1250 euros.

19. A circulação de veículo sem seguro de responsabilidade civil será sancionada com coima de 500 a 2500 euros.

20. São criadas as subcategorias de veículos B1, C1, C1+E, D1 e D1+E.

21. Passa a ser considerado requisito para obter título de condução saber ler e escrever.

22. A condução de quadriciclos passa a ficar dependente da titularidade de carta de condução.

23. período do "regime probatório" é alargado de dois para três anos.

24. A carta de condução provisória caduca se o seu titular for condenado pela prática de um crime rodoviário, de uma contra-ordenação muito grave ou de duas contra-ordenações graves.

25. Reintrodução de um dístico ("ovo estrelado") a colocar na traseira dos veículos conduzidos por titulares de carta de condução com carácter provisório. Ainda não se encontram regulamentadas as características desse dístico.

26. Se em qualquer acto de fiscalização o condutor ou o proprietário do veículo tiver coimas em atraso, terá de proceder ao seu imediato pagamento. Caso contrário, será apreendido o título de condução ou os títulos de identificação do veículo e de registo de propriedade.

27. O pagamento voluntário da coima passa a ser efectuado no acto da verificação da contra-ordenação. Se o infractor não pretender efectuar o pagamento voluntário imediato da coima, deve prestar depósito, também imediatamente, de valor igual ao mínimo da coima prevista para a contra-ordenação praticada. Esse valor será devolvido se não houver lugar a condenação. Caso contrário, será apreendido o título de condução ou os títulos de identificação do veículo e de registo de propriedade.

O prazo para pagamento voluntário das coimas, bem como para apresentação de defesa é reduzido de 20 para 15 dias.

28. O prazo da sanção acessória para os condutores reincidentes é elevado dos actuais 3 para 5 anos.

29. Deixa de haver dispensa da inibição de conduzir, nas situações em que o condutor não tenha praticado qualquer contra-ordenação grave ou muito grave nos últimos cinco anos, passando a ser aplicável o regime da atenuação especial.

30. A competência exclusiva, para determinar a cassação do título de condução passa dos tribunais para o Director-Geral de Viação.

31. Nas situações em que haja lugar a apreensão do título de condução, o prazo para entrega às autoridades foi reduzido de 20 para 15 dias.

32. O prazo de prescrição do procedimento por contra-ordenações leves é elevado de 1 para 2 anos, contados da data da contra-ordenação.

33. As cartas e licenças de condução apreendidas ou cassadas por força de decisão judicial, passam a ser entregues obrigatoriamente na Direcção-Geral de Viação, para efeitos de controlo da execução da pena ou da medida de segurança aplicada;

34. Atribuição à Direcção-Geral de Viação das seguintes competências:

a) emissão de licenças de condução de ciclomotores, de motociclos de cilindrada não superior a 50 cm3 e de veículos agrícolas, bem como para a matrícula daqueles veículos e de triciclos de cilindrada não superior a 50 cm3, que actualmente é exercida pelas câmaras municipais;

b) organização dos registos nacionais de condutores, de infractores e de matrículas de veículos;

35. As autoridades de fiscalização do trânsito ou seus agentes, podem proceder à apreensão do veículo que circule sem os sistemas, componentes ou acessórios com que foi aprovado, que utilize sistemas, componentes ou acessórios não aprovados, que tenha sido objecto de transformação não aprovada, que falte a inspecção extraordinária ou a inspecção para confirmação da correcção de anomalias;

36. Os pais ou tutores de menores habilitados com licença especial de condução serão responsáveis pelas infracções por estes praticadas;

37. A determinação da medida e regime de execução das sanções terá em conta os antecedentes do infractor relativamente ao diploma legal infringido ou seus regulamentos;

38. Os limites mínimo e máximo da caução de boa conduta são alterados para, respectivamente, € 500 e € 5000;

39. Passa a ser possível a imposição de medidas cautelares quando tal se revele necessário para a instrução do processo ou para a segurança rodoviária e ainda quando o arguido exerça actividade profissional autorizada, titulada por alvará ou licenciada pela Direcção-Geral de Viação;

40. Previsão da possibilidade de pagamento da coima em prestações, pelo período de doze meses, desde que o seu valor seja superior a 2UC e cada prestação mensal não seja inferior a € 50;

41. A entidade administrativa passa a poder alterar, após a decisão, o modo de cumprimento da sanção acessória;

42. Passa a existir inadmissibilidade de recurso de decisões judiciais proferidas em sede de impugnação judicial de decisões administrativas,

43. Passará a haver a possibilidade de recurso da decisão do director-geral de Viação que determine a cassação do título de condução, com efeito meramente devolutivo e apenas até à relação;

(Fonte: www.anieca.pt)

To Shakespeare After Three Hundred Years

2005-03-18T23:00:00.000Z

Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes,
Thou, who display'dst a life of common-place,
Leaving no intimate word or personal trace
Of high design outside the artistry
Of thy penned dreams,
Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.

Through human orbits thy discourse to-day,
Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on
In harmonies that cow Oblivion,
And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect
Maintain a sway
Not fore-desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.

And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note
The borough clocks but samely tongued the hour,
The Avon just as always glassed the tower,
Thy age was published on thy passing-bell
But in due rote
With other dwellers' deaths accorded a like knell.

And at the strokes some townsman (met, maybe,
And thereon queried by some squire's good dame
Driving in shopward) may have given thy name,
With, "Yes, a worthy man and well-to-do;
Though, as for me,
I knew him but by just a neighbour's nod, 'tis true.

"I' faith, few knew him much here, save by word,
He having elsewhere led his busier life;
Though to be sure he left with us his wife."
--"Ah, one of the tradesmen's sons, I now recall . . .
Witty, I've heard . . .
We did not know him . . . Well, good-day. Death comes to all."

So, like a strange bright bird we sometimes find
To mingle with the barn-door brood awhile,
Then vanish from their homely domicile -
Into man's poesy, we wot not whence,
Flew thy strange mind,
Lodged there a radiant guest, and sped for ever thence.

----------by Thomas Hardy

THE DAWN

2005-03-14T22:29:00.000Z

Murky and venomous my words have been,
Echoing a ill and dwindling world.
Visions of demise and continual injury
Have been scrawled upon these vacant sheets.

Too long my heart has poured forth fury.
Ache and loss have intertwined.
My children born have lived incased
On lonely paper in impotent rage.

But now!...

Finally this bitter spell does break,
The past, its hold relinquishes.
No more my days lived years before.
The future now my soul does call.

O glorious day, marvelous night
That holds my passions and buries my pain.
My heart leaps forth wanting to live,
As once it was and once more shall be.

My body animated by an unworldly force
That raises my banner to challenge the world.
It was, shall be, as if never once broken,
Whole once more to face the dawn.
--------- by Arlindo Costa

HOPE:

2005-03-14T22:27:00.000Z

I know now,
That hope does rain
Upon the countenance
Of recognition.

The passing moments
Into years do race,
Between the trivial
That hides the ache.

Across barrens traveled,
To find the radiance of belief,
Slowly pouring it's life-giving stream
From source in you, to sea in me.

Upon a wave I leap,
Forward destiny awaits,
Behind me grays
Loves and hates uncounted.

Oh blessed hope, unforeseen joy,
From defunct life, is born anew.
Spreading it's wings
To liberate me.

You entered the frame
Changed the scene
From a moribund drama
To an enchanting reprieve.

And now to the future,
I begin to see
That circles and wheels
This life has been.
------- by Arlindo Costa

Lista oficial de secretários de Estado do XVII Governo Constitucional

2005-03-11T22:01:00.000Z

Gabinete do primeiro-ministro:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto do primeiro-ministro, Filipe Baptista.

Ministério da Administração Interna:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto e da Administração Local, Eduardo Cabrita.
Secretário de Estado Adjunto e da Administração Interna, José Magalhães.
Secretário da Administração Interna, Ascenso Simões.
Sub-Secretário de Estado da Administração Interna, Fernando Rocha Andrade.

Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros:
Secretário de Estado dos Negócios Estrangeiros e da Cooperação, João Gomes Cravinho.
Secretário de Estado dos Assuntos Europeus, Fernando de Oliveira Neves.
Secretário de Estado das Comunidades Portuguesas, António Braga.

Ministério das Finanças:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto e do Orçamento, Manuel Baganha.
Secretária de Estado do Tesouro e Finanças, Maria dos Anjos Capote.
Secretário de Estado dos Assuntos Fiscais, João Amaral Tomás.
Secretário de Estado da Administração Pública, João Figueiredo.

Ministério da Presidência:
Secretário de Estado da Juventude e do Desporto, Laurentino Dias.
Secretário de Estado da Presidência do Conselho de Ministros, Jorge Lacão.

Ministério da Defesa Nacional:
Secretário de Estado da Defesa Nacional e dos Assuntos do Mar, Manuel Lobo Antunes.

Ministério da Justiça:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto do Ministro da Justiça, José Conde Rodrigues.
Secretário de Estado da Justiça, João Tiago Silveira.

Ministério do Ambiente, do Ordenamento do Território e do Desenvolvimento Regional:
Secretário de Estado do Ambiente, Humberto Rosa.
Secretário de Estado do Ordenamento do Território e das Cidades, João Ferrão.
Secretário de Estado do Desenvolvimento Regional, Rui Baleiras.

Ministério da Economia e da Inovação:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto da Indústria e da Inovação, António Castro Guerra.
Secretário de Estado do Comércio, Serviços e Defesa do Consumidor, Fernando Serrasqueiro.
Secretário de Estado do Turismo, Bernardo Trindade.

Ministério da Agricultura, do Desenvolvimento Rural e das Pescas:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto da Agricultura e das Pescas, Luís Vieira.
Secretário de Estado do Desenvolvimento Regional e das Florestas, Rui Nobre Gonçalves.

Ministério das Obras Públicas, Transportes e Comunicações:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto das Obras Públicas e das Comunicações, Paulo Campos.
Secretária de Estado dos Transportes, Ana Paula Vitorino.

Ministério do Trabalho e da Solidariedade Social:
Secretário de Estado da Segurança Social, Pedro Marques.
Secretário de Estado do Emprego e da Formação Profissional, Fernando Medina.
Secretária de Estado Adjunta e da Reabilitação, Idália Moniz.

Ministério da Saúde:
Secretário de Estado da Saúde, Francisco Ventura Ramos.
Secretária de Estado Adjunta e da Saúde, Carmen Pignatelli.

Ministério da Educação:
Secretário de Estado Adjunto e da Educação, Jorge Pedreira.
Secretário de Estado da Educação, Valter Lemos.

Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior:
Secretário de Estado da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior, Manuel Heitor.

Ministério da Cultura:
Secretário de Estado da Cultura, Mário Vieira de Carvalho.

O Proximo Governo de Portugal

2005-03-04T21:12:00.000Z

Primeiro-ministro - José Sócrates.

Ministro de Estado e das Finanças - Luís Campos Cunha.

Ministro de Estado e da Administração Interna - António Costa.

Ministro de Estado e dos Negócios Estrangeiros - Diogo Freitas do Amaral.

Ministro da Defesa - Luís Amado.

Ministro da Economia - Manuel Pinho.

Ministro do Trabalho e da Segurança Social - Vieira da Silva.

Ministro da Justiça - Alberto Costa.

Ministro da Saúde - Correia de Campos.

Ministro da Agricultura - Desenvolvimento Rural e das Pescas, Jaime Silva.

Ministro das Obras Públicas - Mário Lino.

Ministro da Educação - Mária de Lurdes Rodrigues.

Ministro do Ensino Superior e Ciência - Mariano Gago.

Ministro da Presidência - Pedro Silva Pereira.

Ministro dos Assuntos Parlamentares - Augusto Santos Silva.

Ministra da Cultura - Isabel Pires de Lima.

Ministro do Ambiente - Francisco Nunes Correia.

2005-02-26T15:00:00.000Z

The word "politics" is derived from the word "poly", meaning "many", and the word "ticks", meaning "blood sucking parasites".
Larry Hardiman

What´s New?

2005-02-26T14:51:00.000Z

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule--and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H. L. Mencken

103 555 votos em branco

2005-02-21T23:14:00.000Z

1.81%

Socrates is the new Portuguese Prime Minister.

2005-02-21T22:49:00.000Z

Anxious Portuguese swing left
By Alison Roberts BBC News, Lisbon

Jose Socrates triumphs - but the honeymoon may soon be over.
Portugal's Socialist Party has swept back into power after three years in opposition, with its biggest ever election win. The Socialists, who will need to act decisively to reinvigorate the ailing economy, secured 45% of the vote. Outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes's centre-right Social Democratic Party secured just 28%, and its coalition partner for the past three years, the right-wing Popular Party, 7%. In his victory speech, Socialist leader Jose Socrates pledged to restore confidence in the country and its institutions, but said little about his policy priorities.

The single biggest factor in the Socialist win was the unpopularity of the incumbent administration

news.bbc.co.uk

Now with an absolute majority in the National Assembly, Socrates has no excuses if he is unable to accomplish what he has promised...

First projections for the Portuguese Elections.

2005-02-20T20:04:00.000Z

Seems like the next Portuguese Prime Minister will be Jóse Socrates with an Absolute Majority in The National Assembly.

Elections

2005-02-20T19:53:00.000Z

Vote for the man who promises least. He'll be the least disappointing.
Bernard Baruch

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
Alan Coren

2005-02-20T19:42:00.000Z

"Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody."
Franklin Pierce Adams

And the Winner is...

2005-02-20T19:39:00.000Z

A pity, because the more things change, the more they will stay the same.

North Korea rattles its Saber

2005-02-10T20:50:00.000Z

North Korea Says It Has Nuclear Weapons and Rejects Talks
By JAMES BROOKE
Published: February 10, 2005

OKYO, Feb. 10 - In a surprising admission, North Korea's hard-line Communist government declared publicly today for the first time that it has nuclear weapons. It also said that it will boycott United States-sponsored regional talks designed to end its nuclear program, according to a North Korean Foreign Ministry statement transmitted today by the nation's wire service. Pyongyang said it has "manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's undisguised policy to isolate and stifle" North Korea, and that it will "bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal." The statement, considered a definitive policy pronouncement, said that North Korea, led by the reclusive dictator Kim Jong Il, is pulling out of the talks after concluding that the second Bush administration would pursue the "brazen-faced, double-dealing tactics" of dialogue and "regime change."

(www.nytimes.com)

Well this is one problem that seems to have no end in sight. I would be suprised if they didn't have nuclear weapons and short of nuking them I doubt there is much that can be done about this particular problem.

Round one to Pyongyang

A Profound Quote

2005-02-10T20:43:00.000Z

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

- Niels Bohr

Sócrates and the Priest

2005-02-09T20:31:00.000Z

Eleições: Sócrates contra posições do pároco da Igreja de São João de Brito

Fátima, 07 Fev (Lusa) - José Sócrates considerou hoje "infeliz" o apelo do pároco da Igreja de São João de Brito de Lisboa, o padre Loreno, para que os portugueses não votem em partidos defensores do aborto, eutanásia e direitos dos homossexuais.
Na sua homilia de domingo, transmitida em directo pela Antena 1, o padre Loreno defendeu que a vida humana vai da concepção à morte e referiu que a ética cristã reprova que seja equiparada à família "uma união de um homem com outro homem" ou de "uma mulher com outra mulher".

Falando aos jornalistas em Fátima, após uma reunião com empresários da região, o secretário-geral do PS repudiou as posições do pároco da Igreja de São João de Brito. "Foram declarações muito infelizes, mas que o PS não valoriza, porque essas declarações não representam a posição da Igreja Católica", respondeu o líder socialista. Em declarações à agência Lusa, o porta-voz do PS, Pedro Silva Pereira, acrescentou que a posição do padre Loreno "não é representativa" e que "as relações entre o PS e a Igreja Católica são normalíssimas".

(LUSA)

"essas declarações não representam a posição da Igreja Católica"

And I suppose that means that the Catholic Church supports abortion, gay marriages and euthanasia?

What Work Is

2005-02-06T23:19:00.000Z

Philip Levine

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.

The Hollow Men

2005-02-06T23:08:00.000Z

by T.S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkling of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Unnamed Lands

2005-02-05T14:55:00.000Z

by Walt Whitman

NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times
ten thousand years before These States;
Garner'd clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and
travel'd their course, and pass'd on;
What vast-built cities--what orderly republics--what pastoral tribes
and nomads;
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort of marriage--what costumes--what physiology and phrenology;
What of liberty and slavery among them--what they thought of death
and the soul;
Who were witty and wise--who beautiful and poetic--who brutish and
undevelop'd;
Not a mark, not a record remains--And yet all remains.

O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more
than we are for nothing; 10
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much
as we now belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to it.

Afar they stand--yet near to me they stand,
Some with oval countenances, learn'd and calm,
Some naked and savage--Some like huge collections of insects,
Some in tents--herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods--Some living peaceably on farms,
laboring, reaping, filling barns,
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,
libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.

Are those billions of men really gone?
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us? 20
Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?

I believe of all those billions of men and women that fill'd the
unnamed lands, every one exists this hour, here or elsewhere,
invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or she grew
from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became,
loved, sinn'd, in life.

I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of
them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me;
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,
games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,
I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen
world--counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world.
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.

The Road Not Taken

2005-02-05T14:45:00.000Z

by Robert Lee Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

What road will Portugal take?

You must Pay!

2005-02-05T11:41:00.000Z

AU: Pay up for slavery

Addis Ababa - The African Union plans to relaunch attempts to gain reparations for the countless Africans who were abducted from the continent and sold into slavery over the centuries, the pan-continental body said. In a statement released late on Friday from its headquarters in Addis Ababa, the African Union said its executive Commission would push the issue, and would also call on African parliaments to do so. "In the coming months the Commission will relaunch a committee on repairing the damage caused by slavery," said spokesperson Adam Thiam. He added that the AU was calling on African countries to take measures to outlaw slavery like those adopted by France in May 2001. The new French law classifies both slavery and the slave trade as a crime against humanity.

www.news24.com

This is A Good Idea. Just imagine, the Ndebele asking the Zulus for reparations as thousands where killed, the Chinese seeking compensation from the Mongols, the Scottish seeking compensation from the English etc. There would be very few countries in the world that would escape without paying up to someone. Africa needs help, but there are other ways to ask for it...

Algumas Ideias sobre a Politica Portuguesa.

2005-02-04T23:02:00.000Z

1)Estou muito preocupado com a falta de medidas concretas apresentadas pelos partidos nesta campanha eleitoral. Como muitas vezes referido, não basta dizer o que vai mudar, é necessário dizer como vai mudar. Dizem que vão pôr a economia a crescer, vão diminuir em X números de desempregados, vão melhorar a saúde, vão corrigir as desigualdades entre litoral e interior, etc. mas poucas vezes explicam como vai ser feito. Infelizmente isto também é notado noutros países além do nosso.

2) O sistema de eleições precisa de mudar. Quero votar num deputado para a Assembleia da República. Não consigo entusiasmar-me com a ideia de votar numa lista! Quem é o meu representante? Círculos uninominais já! Isto também devia abrir a porta a mais independentes a concorrerem à Assembleia da República. Deve haver uma responsabilização directa do deputado pelos eleitores que o elegerem.

3) É necessário mudar o funcionamento da Assembleia da República. A substituição de deputados deve ser proibida. No caso de um deputado deixar a Assembleia da República deve haver eleições no seu círculo para eleger um novo deputado. Cada deputado também devia ter a liberdade de votar pela sua própria consciência, independentemente da cor política e do sentido de voto do partido.Quantas vezes num mandato, o deputado é visto no seu círculo a falar com os seus eleitores?

4) Um dos grandes males da nossa política é o número de promessas feitas pelos políticos, para serem eleitos, que acabam por nunca serem cumpridas. A falta de verdade na política está a destruir a crença do eleitorado nos seus políticos.

Bush bloopers

2005-01-22T14:17:00.000Z

'Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.'
'We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile.'

'Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness.'

'The benefits of helping somebody is beneficial.'

'[We will] use our technology to enhance uncertainty abroad.'

'...more and more of our imports are coming from overseas.'

'If the terriers and bariffs are torn down, this economy will grow.'

'There is no doubt in my mind that this country cannot achieve any objective we put our mind to.'

'It's hard to be successful if you don't make something somebody doesn't want to buy.'

'I had the opportunity to go out to Goree Island and talk about what slavery meant to America. It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America. America is what it is today because of what went on in the past.'

'I think war is a dangerous place.'

'Sometimes, Washington is one of these towns where the person - people who think they've got the sharp elbow is the most effective person.'

'I know the human being and fish can co-exist peacefully.'

'I have said that the sanction regime [against Iraq] is like Swiss cheese. That meant that they weren't very effective.'

'Will the highways on the Internet become more few?'

'Drug therapies are replacing a lot of medicines as we used to know it.'

'I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer questions. I can't answer your question.'

'We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.'

'It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.'

'We want our teachers to be trained so they can meet the obligations, their obligations as teachers. We want them to know how to teach the science of reading. In order to make sure there's not this kind of federal — federal cufflink.'

'I've been to war. I've raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war.'

'You're working hard to put food on your family.'

'I think it's interesting. I'm a follower of American politics.'

'I'm the master of low expectations.'

'I'm a patient man, which is hard for me to believe.'

'It's amazing with the software that has been developed these days that enable a camera to distinguish the difference between a squirrel and a bomb.'

'Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.'

D. Sebastião ainda não regressou?

2005-01-20T18:05:00.000Z

Refrescante artigo de opinião publicado ontem, no Jornal de Negócios.

Mais contras que prós
de Sérgio Figueiredo
sf@mediafin.pt

As lideranças. O país descobriu recentemente que parte dos seus problemas reside, não na raça lusitana do povo que tem, mas sobretudo na mediocridade de quem o lidera. Não conheço quem, seja político, seja empresário, seja gestor, seja até jornalista, que discorde desta ideia. Estranhamente. Porque muitos aceitam e repetem este argumento sem perceber que estão a falar de si próprios.

Artigo Completo

A Teoria da Conspiração do Presidente - Parte II

2005-01-19T11:15:00.000Z

"Neste momento começa a ser nítido o golpe político que alguns prepararam para fazer regressar o PS ao poder", acusou Santana Lopes, Presidente do PSD e Primeiro-Ministro demissionário.

"Deram-nos posse e depois disso, ao fim de quatro meses, o PS já tinha novo líder, já podia disputar eleições", prosseguiu, acrescentando que "eleições decididas na secretaria... não vale".

"Vou pedir um verdadeiro levantamento nacional contra este embuste político que tentaram criar em Portugal", afirmou Santana Lopes.

Se repararam na frase em negrito, tentem agora lembrar-se de como o Governo dele foi eleito... . Ah, é verdade, que cabeça a minha! Ele não foi eleito.

Quotes of the Week

2005-01-17T11:11:00.001Z

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. - Albert Einstein

PSD quer limitar poder presidencial de dissolução do Parlamento

2005-01-13T10:22:00.000Z

"O PSD vai propor a limitação dos poderes presidenciais para que não seja possível um Presidente da República dissolver o Parlamento de forma "discricionária"." in Jornal Público, de 13.01.2005

Seria surpreendente, se o Dr. Santana Lopes não viesse com esta proposta. Mas, será que ele já pensou numa situação diferente? Um presidente social-democrata e um governo e maioria parlamentar socialista? De certeza que, defenderia, então, mais poder presidencial, nomeadamente o poder de dissolução do Parlamento.
Parece-me que, ao defender-se uma revisão constitucional para proteger os interesses de um só partido, encontra-se minada a própria implementação da Democracia.

Ministro da Saúde reconhece que proibição do tabaco não abrange restaurantes, bares e discotecas

2005-01-12T18:44:00.000Z

"O ministro da Saúde reconheceu hoje que as novas medidas anti-tabágicas deixam de fora os restaurantes, bares e discotecas, ao contrário do que tinha anunciado em Novembro passado, mas negou um recuo do Governo nesta matéria.
Luís Filipe Pereira justificou a alteração na proposta legislativa com a intenção de conciliar o interesse dos fumadores com a vida empresarial."

Bem, nesta lei, os interesses comerciais não deviam ser os primeiros a considerar, mas sim os últimos. Afinal, a ser assim, para que é preciso uma lei anti-tabagista?

CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY

2004-12-11T23:06:00.000Z

Show me one honest politician and I'll show you a saint.

Santana Lopes Quits

2004-12-11T22:48:00.000Z

Portugal PM submits resignation
By Ian Simpson

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's prime minister says he and his cabinet have submitted their resignations, a move that came a day after a snap election was called.Centre-right Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes said he would head a caretaker administration until a new government was named following February 20 election. "Before this address I informed the president of my and the government's decision, taken in the cabinet meeting just held," Santana Lopes said in a televised address on Saturday. The announcement came after a cabinet meeting at Santana Lopes's official residence. He said he would meet Sampaio on Monday to formalise the resignations.

Santana Lopes's Social Democrats and the rightist Popular Party, the junior partner in the coalition government, are well behind the opposition Socialists in opinion polls. The constitution calls for a prime minister who resigns to remain in office until the president names a new one and he or she takes over. Guilherme da Fonseca, a former Constitutional Court judge, said caretaker status would hamper Santana Lopes's powers. "A caretaker government is a government that is limited, in accordance with the constitution, to practices strictly necessary for the oversight of public business," he told private TSF radio. Sampaio dissolved parliament on Friday and scheduled an election, saying instability in Santana Lopes's government threatened to damage Portugal and its institutions.

Santana Lopes's brief tenure was marked by a minister's resignation, slumping polls, a negative outlook from the Standard & Poor's credit rating agency, and charges of government interference with the media. Santana Lopes, then Lisbon mayor and number two in the Social Democrats, took over as prime minister when Jose Manuel Barroso left Portuguese politics in July to head the European Commission. The Socialists, under telegenic new leader Jose Socrates, are considered to have a good chance of taking power in the February election, which will usher in Portugal's fourth government since late 2001. Polls had been scheduled for 2006.

(www.reuters.co.uk)

Portugal to return to the ballots

2004-12-11T22:42:00.000Z

Portugal faces general election

Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio has called an early general election on 20 February, just four months after the centre-right government took office. Mr Sampaio said that dissolving parliament was the only way to solve a crisis of credibility and instability. Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes took office when Jose Manuel Barroso become president of the European Commission. Their Social Democratic Party is currently trailing in the opinion polls behind the opposition Socialists. "This government's negative succession of incidents and declarations, contradictions and discoordinations in whole led me to dissolve the parliament as the only solution for a grave crisis of credibility and instability," Mr Sampaio said in a televised address.

The announcement came 11 days after Mr Sampaio had said he intended to dissolve parliament and call an early vote. The brief tenure of Conservative Prime Minister Santa Lopes has been marked by the bitter resignation of a minister, slumping polls and allegations of government interference with the media. The Socialists, under the new leader Jose Socrates, are believed to have a good chance of winning the February election. The Social Democratic Party and Popular Party are to continue as a caretaker government until the election.

(news.bbc.co.uk)

Now the Prime Minister has announced that the goverment is quitting, leaving the ball in the President's court. Portugal at the moment seems to be run by a group of petulant kids.

I would of though with the problems facing this country that the politicians would spend less time worrying about themselves and more time worrying about the country. I guess I was wrong...

Portugal leader calls early poll

2004-11-30T23:15:00.000Z

Portugal leader calls early poll

Portugal's socialist President, Jorge Sampaio, is dissolving parliament and will call early elections, Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes has said. Mr Santana Lopes, who heads a centre-right coalition, made the announcement after meeting the president. His four-month-old administration has faced strong criticism over allegations of media interference and a lack of co-ordination between ministers. Former premier Jose Manuel Barroso left to head the European Commission. President Sampaio said in a statement he would meet leaders of parties in parliament and the advisory Council of State to discuss the situation, Reuters news agency reported. The meetings can be held over a few days and are part of the procedure to dissolve parliament and call an election. Elections had been scheduled for 2006. Mr Santana Lopes said he disagreed with the president's decision as his coalition holds a majority in parliament.

(news.bbc.co.uk)

Crisis hits portuguese politics again...

2004-11-30T23:07:00.000Z

Sampaio: dissolução da Assembleia resulta de "apreciação política global"
Lusa, PUBLICO.PT

A decisão do Presidente de dissolver a Assembleia da República resulta da "apreciação política global" da situação no país, explicou o seu assessor. "Esta decisão não teve a ver com a remodelação do ministro Henrique Chaves, mas com a apreciação política global que o Presidente da República fez da actual situação", explicou João Gabriel, em declarações à Lusa, pouco depois de o primeiro-ministro ter anunciado, no final de uma reunião em Belém, que Jorge Sampaio lhe comunicou que irá dissolver a Assembleia da República. Num lacónico comunicado, emitido ainda decorria a reunião, informa-se que "o Presidente da República, ponderada a situação política actual, comunicou ao primeiro-ministro a sua decisão de ouvir os partidos políticos com representação parlamentar e o Conselho de Estado, nos termos do art. 133º, alínea e) da Constituição da República". No entanto, uma fonte da Presidência da República, não identificada pela Lusa, explica que Jorge Sampaio tomou esta decisão por considerar que o Governo "não dispõe das condições políticas indispensáveis para continuar a mobilizar Portugal e os portugueses, de forma coerente, rigorosa e estável".

(ultimahora.publico.pt)

This afternoon the State President decided to dissolve Parliament after reaching the conclusion that the current goverment did not show capacity for stable and effective governance.

This after a succesion of problems and crises that have shaken this goverment over the last four months. I for one agree! I have grown tired of seing the current bunch of village idiots leading the country to ruin.

the sorry state of the Portuguese Goverment

2004-11-28T20:23:00.000Z

MINISTRO POR QUATRO DIAS

Henrique Chaves demitiu-se este domingo do cargo de ministro do Desporto, Juventude e Reabilitação, quatro dias após ter tomado posse na tutela do novo ministério criado por Pedro Santana Lopes no âmbito de uma remodelação governamental de surpresa.

Henrique Chaves era ministro do Desporto desde a passada quarta-feira. Em comunicado hoje divulgado, Henrique Chaves não alegou as habituais razões pessoais que costumam camuflar os incómodos internos nos governos. O agora ministro demissionário declarou que não concebe "a vida política e o exercício de cargos públicos sem uma relação de lealdade entre as pessoas". Referiu também que não concebe "o exercício de qualquer missão, privada ou pública, sem o mínimo de estabilidade e coordenação".

(www.correiomanha.pt)
Four days after being appointed as Minister of Sports, Henrique Chaves has resigned. Now the country waits with baited breathe for the Prime Minister to resign! This Goverment has totally lost its hold on reality.

Tiny Mimas is dwarfed by a huge white storm and dark waves on the edge of a cloud band in Saturn's atmosphere.

2004-11-23T22:05:00.000Z

The Cassini-Huygens Mission(saturn.jpl.nasa.gov)

NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this image of Saturn and one of its moons, Tethys.

2004-11-23T21:53:00.000Z

AIDS and the figures

2004-11-23T21:41:00.000Z

Record numbers of women with HIV

Nearly half of 37.2 million adults living with HIV are women, figures show. The steepest increases have been in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with rates in women outstripping those in men in some regions. As well as being biologically more vulnerable to infection than men, women are forced to have sex through violence or financial reasons, said UNAIDS. The number of people living with HIV globally has also reached its highest. There is an estimated 39.4 million people living with HIV globally, up from an estimated 36.6 million in 2002, fuelled mainly by unprotected sex and intravenous drug use. Over the past two years the number of women living with HIV has risen in every region of the world.

Global rise

Women now make up nearly half of the 37.2 million adults aged 15-49 living with HIV worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa about 60% of those with HIV are women. When you look at only young people aged 15-24, this rises to 75%. Over the past two years alone, the number of women infected in East Asia has increased by 56%. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia the number has increased by 48%.

(news.bbc.co.uk)

Still seems no end in sight to the rise in AIDS cases. Frightening thing is the lack of political will in many countries to tackle the problem instead of sticking to cosmetic surgery...

Why me, Why here, Why now?

2004-11-23T21:30:00.000Z

Cosmic Conundrum
The universe seems uncannily well suited to the existence of life. Could that really be an accident?
By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK; J. MADELEINE NASH

Dealing with cranks is an occupational hazard for most scientists, but it's especially bad for physicists and astronomers. Those who study the cosmos for a living tend to be bombarded with letters, calls and emails from would-be geniuses who insist they have refuted Einstein or devised a new theory of gravity or disproved the Big Bang. The telltale signs of crankdom are so consistent — a grandiose theory, minimal credentials, a messianic zeal — that scientists can usually spot them a mile off. That's why the case of James Gardner is so surprising. He seems to fit the profile perfectly: he's a Portland, Ore., attorney, not a scientist, who argues — are you ready for this?--that our universe might have been manufactured by a race of superintelligent extraterrestrial beings. That is exactly the sort of idea that would normally have experts rolling their eyes, blocking e-mails and hoping the author won't corner them at a lecture or a conference.

But when Gardner's book Biocosmcame out last year, it carried jacket endorsements from a surprisingly eminent group of scientists. "A novel perspective on humankind's role in the universe," wrote Martin Rees, the astronomer royal of Britain and a Cambridge colleague of Stephen Hawking's. "There is little doubt that his ideas will change yours," wrote Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California. "A magnificent one-stop account of the history of life," wrote complexity theorist John Casti, a co-founder of the Santa Fe Institute. Since then, Gardner has been welcomed at major planetariums and legitimate scientific conferences, explaining his ideas to a surprisingly interested public. It's not that anyone actually buys Gardner's theory. He admits it's "farfetched," and even those scientists who find it stimulating think it's wildly improbable. But it does have one thing in its favor. The biocosm theory is an attempt, albeit a highly speculative one, to solve what just might be science's most profound mystery: why the universe, against all odds, is so remarkably hospitable to life.

(www.time.com) Continue reading

Quite logical this one. Excellent Read.

... Last year a Stanford theorist named Shamit Kachru set out with some colleagues to calculate just how many different universes one particular version of string theory could produce. The number he came up with was a 1 followed by something like 100 zeros; roughly a hundred billion billion times the number of atoms in our universe...

Iraq's Election Date

2004-11-21T23:24:00.000Z

Iraqis push ahead with elections
Violence in hotspots like Falluja threatens to disrupt the poll

Iraq has set a date of 30 January 2005 for its first nationwide election since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. The announcement came from the independent Iraqi electoral commission in Baghdad. There had been mounting speculation as to whether elections would be feasible given the continuing violence. On Sunday insurgents ambushed a convoy of National Guards in the flashpoint city of Ramadi, west of Falluja, killing at least eight and wounding 18. Meanwhile, US military officials issued a statement on another incident in Ramadi, in which US soldiers fired on a civilian bus, killing at least seven people and wounding 11. A US Marines spokesman said the bus had failed to stop at a checkpoint, even after warning shots, and the Americans had then opened fire for their own protection. In the northern city of Mosul, US troops found at least two more bodies a day after discovering the corpses of nine men shot in the back of the head. All are believed to be Iraqi soldiers killed by insurgents.

Election plans

Iraqi electoral commission spokesman Farid Ayar said areas beset by violence - including insurgent strongholds such as Falluja and Ramadi - would still participate in the elections. "No Iraqi province will be excluded because the law considers Iraq as one constituency and therefore it is not legal to exclude any province," he said, quoted by the Associated Press. Under the Iraqi timetable for democracy, elections for a transitional parliament needed to be held by the end of January. Voters are still being registered, even though some registration centres closed because of attacks. More than 120 parties are said to have registered.

(news.bbc.co.uk)

How free and fair will these elections be?

An Interesting read...

2004-11-21T21:00:00.000Z

The Empire Has No Clothes: US Foreign Policy Exposed by Ivan Eland

Now that George W. Bush has been re-elected president of the United States, neo-conservatives and war hawks, both pundits and policymakers, will likely feel vindicated and even emboldened to continue on their course of enlarging the American empire, all under the rubric of fighting the global "war on terror." As one of the new political slogans puts it, "four more years, four more wars." But, as it turns out, wanting a US empire and benefiting from one are markedly different things. This is something not well appreciated in many of the recent books analyzing the American empire. Most of them assume, regardless of the overall morality of the undertaking, that the US has only to snap its militarized fingers and the deed is done, rather like the slogan "resistance is futile" of the Borg in the Star Trek television series, leaving the rest for historians to debate. Of course, in reality that never happens. All empires, from the Roman to the British, come to an end sooner or later. But the costs are considerable, both to the lands and people absorbed, as well as economically, socially and politically to the imperial country itself. But in a sound-bite age, few people have the time or inclination to ponder the sweep of history. What is needed then is a primer on the subject, a sort of "Empire for Dummies," laying out in detail the follies of America's current course of action, which is taking it steadily further away from its historical roots as a republic.

Fortunately, we have just such a work in The Empire Has No Clothes. It is a worthy tome written by Ivan Eland, who is senior fellow and director of the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California.

(www.worldpress.org)

2004-11-19T11:17:00.000Z

Foi aprovada ontem pelo PSD, CDS-PP e PS a pergunta a colocar aos portugueses no referendo sobre o Tratado de Constituição europeia, com votos contra do PCP, BE e “Os Verdes”, que acusaram maioria e socialistas de fazerem da consulta popular "uma farsa".

Então, aqui vai a pergunta:
"Concorda com a Carta de Direitos Fundamentais, a regra das votações por maioria qualificada e o novo quadro institucional da União Europeia, nos termos constantes da Constituição para a Europa?"

Apetece responder que não, mas sinceramente não sei, se estou a aprovar ou não, a Nova Constituição da Europa...

Ausência de regionalização é a causa dos atrasos portugueses

2004-11-18T11:21:00.000Z

Notícia in jornal Público

Miguel Cadilhe diz que ausência de regionalização é a causa dos atrasos portugueses
O presidente da Agência Portuguesa de Investimentos, Miguel Cadilhe, considerou ontem à noite que a inexistência da regionalização é responsável por parte dos atrasos da economia, finanças e administração pública nacionais.

Cadilhe, que falou nos Encontros do Porto, este ano dedicados ao tema Relações Portugal - Espanha, comparou o crescimento industrial de Espanha (oito por cento) e de Portugal (cerca de zero por cento) nos últimos quatro anos e considerou que este diferencial se deve em parte à inexistência da regionalização.

UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

2004-11-10T23:57:00.000Z

FACTS AND FIGURES ON POVERTY

A quarter of the world’s population, 1.3 billion people, live in severe poverty...

Nearly 800 million people do not get enough food, and about 500 million people are chronically malnourished. More than a third of children are malnourished.

In industrial countries more than 100 million people live below the poverty line, more than 5 million people are homeless and 37 million are jobless.

Of the world’s 23 million people living with HIV/AIDS more than 93% live in developing countries.

More than 840 million adults are illiterate - 538 million of them are women.

Around 2 million children died as a result of armed conflict in the last decade.

In developing countries 160 million pre-school children are underweight.

1.2 billion people live without access to safe drinking water.

110 million landmines lie undetonated in 68 countries.

Today’s society has the resources to eradicate poverty...

The net wealth of the 10 richest billionaires is $ 133 billion , more than 1.5 times the total national income of the least developed countries.
The cost of eradicating poverty is 1% of global income.

Effective debt relief to the 20 poorest countries would cost $ 5.5 billion - equivalent to the cost of building EuroDisney.

Providing universal access to basic social services and transfers to alleviate income poverty would cost $ 80 billion, less than the net worth of the seven richest men in the world.

Six countries can spend $ 700 million in nine days on dog and cat food.

Today’s world spend $ 92 billion on junkfood, $ 66 billion on cosmetics and nearly $ 800 billion in 1995 for defence expenditure.

Extreme poverty can be banished from the globe by early next century...

The proportion of human kind living in poverty has fallen faster in the past 50 years than in the previous 500 years.

Since 1960 child death rates in developing countries have more than halved, malnutrition rates have declined by almost a third, the proportion of children out of primary school has fallen from more than half to less than a quarter.

Over the past three decades the population in developing countries with access to safe water almost doubled - from 36% to nearly 70%.

The extension of basic immunisation over the past two decades has saved the lives of three million children.

In 1960-93 average life expectancy increased by more than a third in developing countries.

Poverty is no longer inevitable and should thus no longer be tolerated.
(UNDP)

Is this The World WE want to live in

2004-11-10T23:50:00.000Z

Poverty Statistics

International

About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five. (United Nations)

Some 800 million people around the globe suffer from hunger and malnutrition. (United Nations)

More than 10 percent of children in developing countries die before the age of five. (CARE)

2.8 billion people live on less that $2 a day, and 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day. (World Food Program)

In the next 25 years, an estimated 2 billion people will be added to the world's population--almost all of them in developing countries. (World Food Program)

United States

Nearly 35 million Americans live in hungry or food insecure households. (Tufts University)

A survey of 29 major cities found that emergency food requests are up 16 percent. One in five requests for food can not be filled.

About 40 percent of the households needing food assistance are working families. (Second Harvest)

An estimated 1.1 million senior adults skip meals because there is no food in the house. (Urban Institute)

About 8.6 million children belong to working poor families. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

Where are the huge protest marches anti-poverty, anti-hunger?

Interesting Quote

2004-11-10T23:12:00.000Z

"We have 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. . . In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will allow us to maintain this position of disparity. We should cease to talk about the raising of the living standards, human rights, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
-- George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning of the U.S. Dept. of State, 1948

Is the US in decline?

2004-11-10T23:05:00.000Z

U.S. Moving From First to Third World
Paul Craig Roberts

In the early 1980s, when I was assistant secretary of the treasury, the U.S. trade deficit was due to oil imports. Currently, the U.S. deficit in manufactured goods alone is 3.5 times our oil imports. Our trade deficit in vehicles is nearly equal to our deficit in oil, and our deficit in clothing, ADP equipment, office machines, TV and VCRs is 1.5 times our oil import bill. The United States is ceasing to be a manufacturing country. America has a trade deficit in almost every manufacturing product.

(newsmax.com)

Economy: Economic aid - donor (per capita)

2004-11-10T22:30:00.000Z

1. Luxembourg $352.30 per person
2. Norway $307.95 per person
3. Denmark $302.72 per person
4. Netherlands $216.71 per person
5. Sweden $191.48 per person
6. Switzerland $150.30 per person
7. France $104.68 per person
8. United Kingdom $74.88 per person
9. Belgium $74.25 per person
10. Finland $73.01 per person
11. Ireland $72.11 per person
12. Japan $71.53 per person
13. Germany $67.96 per person
14. Austria $50.07 per person
15. Australia $45.30 per person
16. Canada $40.36 per person
17. Spain $33.07 per person
18. Portugal $26.82 per person
19. New Zealand $25.23 per person
20. United States $23.76 per person
21. Italy $17.24 per person
(nationmaster.com)

Arafat and the hidden Millions

2004-11-09T23:52:00.000Z

Will $1 billion be buried with Arafat?
By Paul Martin

LONDON — Palestinian officials who gathered around Yasser Arafat in recent weeks have been anxious to extract from their ailing leader the secret codes and locations of bank accounts they believe contain more than $1 billion diverted from official Palestinian funds. "A huge scramble has been going on to get the codes he holds in his head for various bank accounts he holds in secret," says a senior Palestinian banker. "It's an uphill struggle, and we may never get the bulk of it," says the official, who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety. "It's been his key to holding on to power and influence, and some of it may go to the grave with him. If the numbers die with him, then the Swiss bankers and other bankers worldwide will be rubbing their hands in glee," the Palestinian banker says.

Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath were flying to Paris and hoped to see Mr. Arafat today. Mr. Arafat's wife lashed out at his top lieutenants, accusing them of traveling to Paris with plans to "bury" her husband "alive," the Associated Press reported today.

(THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
I'm confused : the problem is a) "the passing" of the revered palestinian leader
b) "the passing" of over a billion dollars.
That would explain Mrs Arafat's accusations. She worried about her nestegg?

"The money "is enough to feed 3 million Palestinians for one year, and also buy 1,000 mobile intensive care units, as well as to fund 10 hospitals for a decade," the center said."

Bush and his Treaties

2004-11-09T22:10:00.000Z

Like a confirmed bachelor about to get married, finding a million and one excuses not to commit.

(From Blogo Social Português)

Global warming is melting the Arctic ice faster than expected

2004-11-09T21:56:00.000Z

Sea to rise a metre by 2100 says expert
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Global warming is melting the Arctic ice faster than expected, and the world's oceans could rise by about a metre (3 feet) by 2100, swamping homes from Bangladesh to Florida, the head of a study says. Robert Corell, chairman of the eight-nation Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), also told a news conference there were some hints of greater willingness by the United States, the world's top polluter, to take firmer action to slow climate change. Speaking at the start of a four-day scientific conference in Reykjavik, Corell said global warming was melting the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic glaciers from Alaska to Norway quicker than previously thought. "Greenland will play a much bigger role in sea level rise than anticipated," said Corell, a scientist at the American Meteorological Society. He said a 2001 U.N. report forecast world ocean levels would rise by 20-90 cms by 2100. He said some U.N. forecasts assumed melting Greenland ice would cause just 4 mm of the rise. "We'll be at the top of the range, about a metre," he said. The ACIA report says that Greenland's melt alone could add 10 cms to global sea levels by 2100. Melting of other Arctic glaciers would also contribute.

About 17 million people in Bangladesh live less than one metre above sea level. Pacific islands like Tuvalu could be swamped and much of Florida south of Miami would be inundated by a one metre rise.

(reuters.co.uk)

How seriously do world goverments take this?

The Falluja Offensive Underway

2004-11-08T21:28:00.000Z

U.S. Marines Launch Offensive on Iraq's Falluja
By Michael Georgy

FALLUJA (Reuters) - Thousands of U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops backed by tanks stormed into Falluja as night fell on Monday, the start of a fierce ground assault to retake the rebel stronghold. Several tanks thrust into the city and guerrillas were putting up some resistance, Marine radio traffic showed. Intense U.S. air strikes, artillery and mortar fire rained down. This reporter heard the crackle of firefights as troops advanced at least four blocks into the militant stronghold, with helicopters flying overhead. Flares lit the night sky as the Marines earlier unleashed a barrage of tank and machinegun fire on a nearby railway station, clearing the way for the ground attack on the Sunni Muslim city.

"We are determined to clean Falluja from the terrorists," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told a news conference in Baghdad, saying the U.S.-led operation had his authority.

(reuters.com)
When will peace be returned to Falluja. The faces change but the story stays the same. The innocent pay the price for others.

50 Jornalists to be tried for revealing details of the Case "Casa Pia"

2004-11-08T21:08:00.000Z

IMPRENSA ESTÁ DEBAIXO DE FOGO
Casa Pia: mais de 50 jornalistas constituídos arguidos

Numa iniciativa sem precedentes em Portugal, o Ministério Público (MP) está a ouvir mais de meia centena de jornalistas de praticamente todos os grandes órgãos de Comunicação Social nacionais. Para já são 53 profissionais – distribuídos por 11 redacções – que estão para ser ou já foram ouvidos pelo procurador-geral adjunto Domingos de Sá, todos pelo mesmo motivo: alegada violação do segredo de Justiça devido às notícias que assinaram sobre o processo Casa Pia.

O CM soube ainda que MP alega que a investigação do caso de pedofilia foi prejudicada com a cobertura noticiosa e pondera pedir indemnizações aos órgãos de Comunicação Social, numa atitude também sem precedentes. Não começou agora o processo do MP para apurar o desrespeito pelo segredo de Justiça junto da Imprensa portuguesa, e tentar assim pressionar os jornalistas a revelarem as suas fontes quebrando o sigilo profissional. No início do ano o procurador-geral da República, Souto Moura, chamou Domingos de Sá do Tribunal de Trabalho da Maia para o Departamento de Investigação e Acção Penal (DIAP) de Lisboa, especificamente para o inspector encabeçar o processo

(www.correiomanha.pt)

The jornalists seem to have a huge bulls-eye pasted to their backs. Should Jornalists be forced to reveal their sources when a crime has been comitted, or when their sources have comitted crimes by revealing information?

UM PROCESSO SUMÁRIO

Durante muito tempo não se investigou e não se quis investigar dentro de casa, logo, torna-se mais fácil fazer uma investigação se o emissário final por punido”, o que leva à existência de um cenário novo “já que antes assobiava-se para o lado”. A explicação é de Carlos Pinto de Abreu, presidente da Comissão de Direitos Humanos da Ordem dos Advogados (CDHOA), questionado sobre a responsabilização dos jornalistas pela publicação de informações fornecidas por terceiros.

(www.correiomanha.pt)

Huh...

2004-11-07T13:59:00.000Z

2004 US Elections by IQ

Racism is alive and well in South Africa

2004-11-06T22:06:00.000Z

'White judges not good enough'

Cape Town - White members of South Africa's legal profession should forget about a career in the country's public service, and instead devote their energies to lucrative commercial practices. This is one of a number of disturbing implications stemming from the "recent pattern of decisions made by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC)", says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. In a speech delivered at the New York University Law School in the United States, he said there was a widespread impression no white judge in South Africa "could possibly be good enough for appointment, no matter how sterling his legal career and political credentials".

(news24.com)

South Africa's Timebomb

2004-11-06T22:01:00.000Z

Landless warn of growing anger

Johannesburg - South Africa's landless people would react "destructively" if the government failed to keep its land reform promises, the National Landless Movement (LPM) warned on Tuesday. LPM vice-chair Patrick Mojapelo said only 3% of the country's land has been redistributed over the past 10 years. "If the government makes promises which they cannot fulfil, the people's anger will break out," Mojapelo told reporters in Johannesburg. "We want the government to fulfil its promises because if they fail, our people will react destructively."

(news24.com)

How long before land turns into a major problem for South Africa? Just have a look at Zimbabwe to see what problems could be in store for S.A...

APARTHEID and Israel

2004-11-06T21:44:00.000Z

Miguel Portas critica muro israelita
É UMA SITUAÇÃO DE APARTHEID

Os eurodeputados Ana Gomes, PS, e Miguel Portas, Bloco de Esquerda, integram uma delegação não oficial de membros do Parlamento Europeu que ontem visitou Telavive, Israel. Hoje estarão na Faixa de Gaza. No balanço do primeiro dia, Miguel Portas criticou duramente o muro de segurança que Israel está a erguer para separar o seu território da Cisjordãnia palestiniana. Numa frase, o eurodeputado 'bloquista' resumiu o seu sentimento: "É uma situação de 'apartheid'".

(correiomanha.pt)

Mister Portas, what do you know about apartheid? Apartheid was the subjugation of +-95% of the population by the other 5%. Is this what is happening in Israel? Though I have to hand it to you, it's a good word to use when your out for headlines!

Portugal perdeu...

2004-11-06T21:35:00.000Z

Portugal perdeu soberania sobre recursos piscatórios para a UE

Portugal perdeu a soberania sobre a respectiva Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE), através da assinatura da Constituição Europeia, a qual atribui a competência exclusiva de exploração e aproveitamento, conservação e gestão dos recursos biológicos do mar à União Europeia, noticia este sábado o Expresso. "É incrível como o Governo português deixou passar esta medida sem qualquer contestação. Em Bruxelas ficaram muito surpreendidos por Portugal não se ter oposto", disse o presidente da associação cívica SEDS, João Salgueiro. Entretanto, Tiago Pitta e Cunha, que presidiu à Comissão dos Oceanos, esclareceu que o tratado envolve os recursos vivos marinhos mas não os minerais.

(diariodigital.sapo.pt)

I find it strange that almost nothing was said in the mass media about this story...

A changing Afghanistan

2004-11-06T20:24:00.000Z

Afghan tough guys swap guns for gym
Schwarzenegger becomes a role model in Kabul as young men strive to build the beautiful body - Declan Walsh in Kabul

Afghanistan's tough guys used to wear beards and wool caps, study the Qur'an and fight mountain battles. These days an increasing number have waxed chests, cheesy grins and bulging biceps. "People don't want to fight any more," says Temour Shah, a beefy 23-year-old, pumping weights under an Arnold Schwarzenegger poster at Gold's Gym in central Kabul. "They want to look healthy - like in the movies." Bodybuilding is the new craze of postwar Afghanistan, particularly among young urban men. The number of gyms in Kabul has doubled to 46 in the past two years, while a further 30 are scattered across the country. Every day from 5am men crowd into sweaty halls across the city, grappling with clanking weights machines before cracked mirrors. Conditions are spartan - water coolers, neat white towels and showers are unknown luxuries - but enthusiasm runs high. Barely able to afford the £4 monthly membership fee, some enthusiasts work out in their baggy shalwar kameez trousers; others use their work clothes.

(The Guardian)

A question that needs answering - how much of muslim culture is voluntary and how much is imposed?

Brain Power boosted by current

2004-11-06T20:18:00.000Z

Apply Current, Boost Brain Power
By Amit Asaravala

Sending a weak electrical impulse through the front of a person's head can boost verbal skills by as much as 20 percent, according to a new study by the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. In the study, researchers at the institute asked 103 volunteers to recall as many words that begin with a particular letter as possible. The researchers then passed a 2-milliamp current -- one-tenth of what is needed to power a small LED (light-emitting diode) light -- through electrodes attached to the surfaces of the volunteers' foreheads. When the volunteers were quizzed again while the current was still on, this time with a different letter, they were able to come up with 20 percent more words on average. The findings could lead to new, drugless treatments for the symptoms of brain injuries and diseases, the researchers said. "This could be a very helpful way of boosting brain function in people with brain disorders," said lead researcher Eric Wassermann, a neurobiologist with the National Institute's Brain Stimulation Unit in Bethesda, Maryland. "Drugs have more side effects and addictive potential. This doesn't seem to have those problems, at least at this point."

(wired.com)

Hey, I need some Duracell batteries, mine are running out...

Beheadings on the Rise

2004-11-06T20:10:00.000Z

Beheadings on the Rise Around the World
By LOUIS MEIXLER, Associated Press Writer

ANKARA, Turkey - It was called "Operation Baghdad" and, to be sure, the headless bodies of the three police officers recalled the violence in that city. But these attacks happened in Haiti, not in Iraq The brutal beheadings in Iraq appear to have inspired militants in other parts of the world who are drawn to the shock value of the horrifying attacks and the intense publicity they attract. Thailand and the Netherlands are two other countries where suspected extremists recently beheaded or slit the throats of their victims in what appear to be copycat attacks. Rime Allaf, associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said beheadings are spreading because the practice "has so horrified us in the West." "It achieves results and it makes the headlines," Allaf added. "People are talking about groups that we've never heard about before." The horrifying tactic has spread as far as the Caribbean island nation of Haiti, where loyalists of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide seized on the Iraqi beheadings as a symbol of strength and intimidation. The headless bodies of three police officers were found in Port-au-Prince early last month, and authorities said the militants had launched a terror campaign called "Operation Baghdad."

(news.yahoo.com)
The veneer of civilisation crumbles, the animal returns...

Educação

2004-11-06T00:21:00.000Z

"É fundamental que as pessoas dominem as linguagens ... Se alguém não compreender uma determinada linguagem dificilmente conseguirá responder a solicitações ou compreender o que lhe é pedido ...

E quais são as linguagens que é fundamental dominar no mundo moderno ?

- Língua Portuguesa – a nossa língua materna que permite a comunicação em Portugal e onde existe actualmente demasiafda iliteracia funcional
- Língua Inglesa – a língua internacional de trabalho e que é algo que as empresas multinacionais procuram, dado vivermos numa sociedade cada vez mais global
- Língua Matemática – a compreensão matemática é fundamental para resolver os problemas científicos, não só ao nível da álgebra, mas também da geometria, etc. Sem raciocínio matemático, dificilmente se poderá desenvolver uma sociedade onde as pessoas sejam capazes de resolver os problemas que se lhes deparam
- Língua Informática – derivada da matemática está a parte de programação, mas é fundamental promover a alfabetização informática, essencialmente ao nível da utilização, visto que as ferramentas informáticas são a base do aumento da produtividade, não sendo compreensível a manutenção de muitas tarefas realizadas manualmente"

(alternativa.weblog.com.pt)

Can't agree more...
A democracy is held aloft by 2 pillars, one of which is Education and the other is Law. In Portugal we are sadly lacking in both departments.

Education should serve two basic functions:
1) Prepare tomorrows citizen giving each the capacity to think for himself, the capacity to reason and the capacity to deal with a world, increasingly full of conflicting information.

2) Develop the skills a country needs to power its economy in all it's variations

Alternativa

2004-11-05T23:45:00.000Z

Queremos uma Alternativa Real ao Bloco Central. Acreditamos na liberdade. Na liberdade de expressão. Na liberdade de iniciativa. Mas também defendemos a responsabilidade. E defendemos que quem clama por direitos não se pode esquecer dos seus deveres. Não há por aí mais gente desiludida com os partidos de poder, que se posicione ideologicamente ao centro, interessada em criar um movimento político que condicione o actual "bloco central"? Alguém que se preocupe com o futuro do país e que queira fazer algo, levar avante as reformas necessárias, sem objectivos de carreirismo partidário? Como fazer? Vamos a ver. Se fosse fácil, já outros o teriam feito.

I agree, Portugal needs a change!

Canada's Oil Reserves

2004-11-05T21:04:00.000Z

Canada's Oil Reserves 2nd Only To Saudi Arabia
By Campion Walsh

The U.S. government said Thursday Canada holds the world's second-largest oil reserves, taking into account Alberta oil sands previously considered too expensive to develop.

The Energy Information Administration, the statistical wing of the U.S. Department of Energy, has included recent private sector estimates that an additional 175 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from resources known to exist in Western Canada since the 19th Century. At a briefing on this year's EIA International Energy Outlook, EIA Administrator Guy Caruso cited a December report in the Oil and Gas Journal that raised Canada's proven oil reserves to 180 billion bbls from 4.9 billion bbls, thanks to inclusion of the oil sands - also known as tar sands - now considered recoverable with existing technology and market conditions. "Canada will be producing a lot of oil from the development of these tar sands, but the quality of those reserves differs substantially from the Saudi reserves in terms of cost and ability to bring...the productive capacity on in a meaningful way," Caruso said. "There is a difference in the absolute amount versus the ability to turn that into productive capacity," he said.

The latest estimates put Canada ahead of war-torn Iraq, which the EIA estimates holds 112.5 billion bbls and is constrained from raising production for entirely different reasons. The U.S. agency estimates Saudi Arabia's recoverable oil reserves at 264 billion bbls.

(rense.com)

The main reason the U.S. went to war in Iraq was because of the Oil? So when does the U.S. invade Canada?

A new look at Time, Entropy and the End of The Universe

2004-11-05T20:36:00.000Z

Why Time Might Flow in One Direction

Summary - (Nov 1, 2004) Physicists have puzzled for more than a century about the nature of time. Why does it go in one direction? Time could go backwards, and physics formulas would still work properly. Researchers from the University of Chicago think they might have an answer: we live in a universe of ever increasing entropy. Instead of one Big Bang going off, and then the Universe expands and cools forever, small fluctuations in nearly empty space could set off new Big Bangs - the Universe would never reach equilibrium.

Full Story -

The big bang could be a normal event in the natural evolution of the universe that will happen repeatedly over incredibly vast time scales as the universe expands, empties out and cools off, according to two University of Chicago physicists. “We like to say that the big bang is nothing special in the history of our universe,” said Sean Carroll, an Assistant Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago. Carroll and University of Chicago graduate student Jennifer Chen will electronically publish a paper describing their ideas at http://arxiv.org/. Carroll and Chen’s research addresses two ambitious questions: why does time flow in only one direction, and could the big bang have arisen from an energy fluctuation in empty space that conforms to the known laws of physics?

The question about the arrow of time has vexed physicists for a century because “for the most part the fundamental laws of physics don’t distinguish between past and future. They’re time-symmetric,” Carroll said. And closely bound to the issue of time is the concept of entropy, a measure of disorder in the universe. As physicist Ludwig Boltzmann showed a century ago, entropy naturally increases with time. “You can turn an egg into an omelet, but not an omelet into an egg,” Carroll said. But the mystery remains as to why entropy was low in the universe to begin with. The difficulty of that question has long bothered scientists, who most often simply leave it as a puzzle to answer in the future.

Carroll and Chen have made an attempt to answer it now.

(universetoday.com)

NewLinks

2004-11-05T18:59:00.000Z

Thanks to NewLinks for the code for (On this Day).

Yasser Arafat - Palestine on the road to change...

2004-11-04T20:57:00.000Z

Palestinians prepare to grieve
Sophie Claudet | Ramallah, West Bank

As Yasser Arafat lay brain dead in a Paris hospital on Thursday, Palestinians in the town that he left less than a week ago for life-saving treatment were already preparing to mourn their veteran leader. Flags were flying half-mast over Arafat's headquarters compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah in tribute to the United Arab Emirates' founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, who died earlier this week. After their iftah meal, which marks the end of fasting during Ramadan, residents of Ramallah were glued to their television sets for the latest news from Paris on their 75-year-old leader. "I can't bear the thought he will die for good. He's our national leader, the one and only," said 33-year-old Mohammed Ribhi as his eyes filled with tears.

But Palestinian officials took to the airwaves to insist that talk of Arafat's death had been grossly exaggerated.

(worldpress.org)

Yasser Arafat is dead or dying. There are a number of confused reports but it seems like Arafat is not going to make it. Will this be the event that brings new hope for a solution in this ravaged part of the world?