luispedro

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

http://www.last.fm/music/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9popmusik

Os países nórdicos voltam a ficar no topo de um ranking de países mais amigos do capitalismo, desta vez do Economist Intelligence Unit

Business environment ranks and scores   2008-12 2008-12 2003-07 2003-07 Change in Change   Total score Rank Total score Rank total score in rank Denmark 8.76 1 8.74 2 0.01 1 Finland 8.74 2 8.71 3 0.03 1 Singapore 8.73 3 8.84 1 -0.11 -2 Canada 8.71 4 8.64 5 0.07 1 Switzerland 8.68 5 8.67 4 0.01 -1 Australia 8.65 6 8.20 14 0.45 8 Hong Kong 8.64 7 8.64 7 0.00 0 Netherlands 8.63 8 8.59 8 0.04 0 Sweden 8.63 9 8.34 11 0.29 2 USA 8.60 10 8.64 6 -0.04 -4 Ireland 8.57 11 8.53 9 0.04 -2 UK 8.56 12 8.52 10 0.04 -2 Germany 8.48 13 8.13 15 0.35 2 New Zealand 8.29 14 8.20 13 0.08 -1 Austria 8.26 15 8.00 16 0.26 1 Belgium 8.25 16 8.22 12 0.03 -4 Norway 8.14 17 7.97 17 0.16 0 Taiwan 8.11 18 7.57 22 0.54 4 France 8.03 19 7.89 18 0.14 -1 Chile 8.02 20 7.80 19 0.22 -1

via Will Wilkinson

Na série nada como o Departamento de Inglês para entreter a malta:

Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. “My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful,” she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. “They’d argue with your ideas.” This caused “subversiveness,” a principle English professors usually favor.

Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”

The agenda of Ms. Venkatesan’s seminar, then, was to “problematize” technology and the life sciences. Students told me that most of the “problems” owed to her impenetrable lectures and various eruptions when students indicated skepticism of literary theory. She counters that such skepticism was “intolerant of ideas” and “questioned my knowledge in very inappropriate ways.” Ms. Venkatesan, who is of South Asian descent, also alleges that critics were motivated by racism, though it is unclear why.

After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on “ecofeminism,” which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But “these weren’t thoughtful statements,” Ms. Venkatesan protests. “They were irrational.” The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student’s “diatribe,” several of his classmates applauded.
Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was “fascist demagoguery.” Then, after consulting a physician about “intellectual distress,” she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.

No Wall Street Journal via uma série de blogues da direita americana.

Na série já não há direita como antigamente:

Boris Johnson[, the newly-elected Conservative Mayor of London,] has appointed Richard Barnes, an openly gay man “as one of his deputy mayors.”

The New Mayor even plans to attend London’s Pride celebration later this year.

It looks like gay conservatives may have a new hero across the pond, a principled conservative who reaches out to and recognizes the accomplishments of men and women like us. Seems that we have more to celebrate than “Red Ken” being voted out.

No gay patriot, um site conservador gay, via Andrew Sullivan

Mais uma mostra de que os Tories precisam de ser eleitos rapidamente. A direita liberal-desempoeirada precisa de um exemplo no poder de um grande país ocidental.

Na série isto já parece um blogue de mau gosto:

via Andrew Sullivan

Social psychologist Michelle Hebl … had volunteers evaluate a mock job applicant. Some volunteers saw the applicant sitting in a waiting room next to an overweight person, while others saw the applicant in the waiting room sitting next to a person of average weight. … Hebl found that volunteers rated job applicants more negatively when they had been seen seated next to an overweight person than when they were seen seated next to an average weight person.

Washington Post via overcoming bias

All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I’d be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I’ve got three kids and three dogs in my family. We’d be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.

P.J. O’Rourke via Marginal Revolution

Escreve Pacheco Pereira num daqueles textos holier-than-thou que de vez em quando faz:

O desemprego pode suscitar mil e uma discussões teóricas, e ser inevitável como “destruição criadora”, como “reconversão” da nossa economia, como efeito de políticas erradas que assentam na ilusão de um “modelo social europeu” insustentável face à natalidade e à globalização, tudo isso.

Admito que exista esta visão, que podemos apelidar de religiosa, do desemprego enquanto inevitável sofrimento regenerador da nossa economia.

No entanto, há que distinguir entre defender o desemprego (algo de perfeitamente horrível) e defender políticas que tornem mais fácil a perda de emprego.

O desemprego não acontece no momento em que se perde o emprego, mas sim no momento em que não se consegue encontrar outro.

Paradoxalmente, as políticas que tornam mais dificil a perda de um determinado emprego são as mesmas que tornam dificil o encontrar do seguinte.

Não é por acaso que os países onde é mais fácil despedir são os que têm taxas de desemprego mais baixas.

Nos EUA, tal como em muitos países da Europa, muitos pais começaram a não vacinar os filhos (eu conheço pelo menos um nessa categoria). Infelizmente, os resultados começam também a aparecer:

From January 1 through April 25, 2008, CDC received a total of 64 reports of confirmed measles cases in nine states — the highest number for the same time period since 2001. In four of the states — Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin — outbreaks (3 or more cases linked in time or place) are ongoing. Outbreaks may occur when measles cases are imported into the U.S. Ten of the recent case-patients (5 US residents and 5 visitors to the U.S.) acquired measles abroad, and the remaining cases are considered linked to the imported cases.

Of the 64 people infected by the measles virus, only 1 had documentation of prior vaccination.

CDC

Google’s foreign revenues shot head of its U.S. revenues because of a weaker dollar. Google is an exporter. Who knew? And what does Google export? Patterns of electrons.

Alex Tabarrok, no Marginal Revolution

O PS admite mudar a lei que proíbe a abertura dos supermercados grandes todo o santo domingo.

O dia do trabalhador já não é o que era.