The European project that reconciled battered France with prostrate Germany was its work. Of the four figures who spearheaded the project - Jean Monnet, Alcide de Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman - the last three were Christian Dem­ocrats. Their achievement was one dimension of something much greater: a historic reconciliation between the Roman Catholic Church and the ideals of the French Revolution that made possible the collaborative capitalism of postwar Germany and Italy. Even today, it is the ideological bedrock of the European Union.
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/08/germany-europe-democracy-italy



Never again should a parliamentary assembly just cede power to a Hitler or a Pétain. Instead, the architects of post-war European democracy opted for as many checks and balances as possible – and, paradoxically, for empowering unelected institutions to strengthen liberal democracy as a whole.

Importantly, European institutions – especially the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights – also fit this understanding of democracy through prima facie undemocratic mechanisms.

Today, many Europeans are clearly dissatisfied with this conception of democracy. Many have the impression that the continent is entering what the political scientist Colin Crouch has called a “post-democratic” era. Citizens increasingly claim that political elites do not properly represent them, and that directly elected institutions – national parliaments in particular – are forced to bow to unelected bodies like central banks. Passionate grassroots protest and surging populist parties across the continent are the result.

Ordinary Europeans long trusted elites with the business of democracy – and often even seemed to prefer unelected elites. If they now want to modify the social contract (and assuming that direct democracy remains impossible), change ought to be based on a clear, historically grounded sense of which innovations European democracy might really need – and of whom Europeans really trust to hold power. That discussion has barely begun.
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mueller5/English

Asian Wake-Up Call

This is Asia’s second wake-up call in three years, and this time the region needs to take the warning seriously. With the US, and now Europe, facing long roads to recovery, Asia’s emerging economies can no longer afford to count on solid growth in external demand from the advanced countries to sustain economic development.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roach11/English

The Hour of the Technocrats

«Most economists understood the downside risks of European monetary union. It was the politicians who underestimated the technical difficulties when they opted for monetary integration.» Jeffrey Frankel.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/frankel7/English

Europe’s Last Best Chance: Cut, Cut, Cut

In Europe’s highly taxed economies, better tax compliance or selective revenue measures can produce only a small amount of additional tax revenue without undermining growth. Spending cuts are the only way to improve the budget position significantly. But that course will be difficult. In many European countries, the government pays benefits to a majority of the population.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/boskin18/English

Como fazer um chicken mcnugget

Mechanically separated meat (MSM) and mechanically separated poultry (MSP)

http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/msm.asp

Poluição do ar pelas indústrias custou a Portugal dois mil milhões em 2009

Em Portugal, os danos que a poluição atmosférica das indústrias causou em 2009 na saúde e no ambiente estão estimados em quase dois mil milhões de euros. Na União Europeia esse valor situa-se entre os 102 e 169 mil milhões de euros, revela a Agência Europeia do Ambiente.

http://ecosfera.publico.pt/noticia.aspx?id=1522396

America's Pacific Century

The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century

401 (K)

Ted Benna, who three decades ago seized on an IRS loophole to transform American retirement savings, says he’s proud to be “father of the 401(k).” He also thinks he created a monster.
SmartMoney

http://blogs.smartmoney.com/encore/2011/11/22/father-of-the-401ks-tough-love/

Obama Heckled by OWS

Swiss cannabis smokers will be allowed to grow four marijuana plants each

Cannabis smokers in Switzerland will soon be allowed to grow up to four marijuana plants each at home to stop them buying drugs on the black market.
Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062526/Swiss-cannabis-smokers-allowed-grow-marijuana-plants-stop-buying-drugs-illegally.html

Pat Buchanan on Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?

Democracy Versus Liberty

The word "democracy" appears nowhere in the two most fundamental documents of our nation -- the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Our Constitution's Article IV, Section 4, guarantees "to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."

What's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence when he said, "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." That means Congress does not grant us rights; their job is to protect our natural or God-given rights.

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2011/02/23/democracy_versus_liberty/page/full/

PJB

the great American Melting Pot has been rejected by our elites as cultural genocide, in favor of a multiculturalism that is failing in Europe. Second, what we are attempting has no precedent in human history.

We are attempting to convert a republic, European and Christian in its origins and character, into an egalitarian democracy of all the races, religions, cultures and tribes of planet Earth.

In 1920, Western people were nearly one-third of mankind. Today, Western man is down to one-sixth of the world’s population, shrinking to one-eighth by 2050, and not a tenth by century’s end.

http://buchanan.org/blog/it-cant-happen-here-4942

Niall Ferguson Excelletn Interview

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of The World by Niall Ferguson Epsd. 1-5 (Full

Guantánamo Bay

Guantánamo Bay

The most expensive prison on earth - cost $800,000 per prisoner PER YEAR
Inmates' food rations $38.45 per day - more than five times the average American
Cost is more than 30 times that of keeping captives on U.S. soil

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059686/Guant-namo-expensive-prison-earth--800-000-prisoner-year.html

China fund official slams 'indolence' in Europe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Kg1MOAITI9s

"Public Servants" or Parasites?

"The existence of a state leads to the development and promotion of parasitism. As tax-receivers, it is possible for the occupants of the state to live without working, i.e., without having to give the tax-payers something they consider worthwhile in return. Contrary to still wide-spread Marxist mythology, it is not the entrepreneurs who exploit their workers. Rather, it is the occupants of the state — the king and his court in the case of monarchy; the president, the parliament, and the so-called public service in the case of democracy, i.e., those who most vocally claim to work for the public good — who actually live exploitatively and parasitically at the expense of others. The higher the state revenue, the better off the parasites are and/or the more parasites there are.»

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=34445

Inviabilidade

Empresas de transportes já pagam mais de juros do que salários aos trabalhadores

http://www.jornaldenegocios.pt/home.php?template=SHOWNEWS_V2&id=517699

Leveraging hip hop in US foreign policy

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011103091018299924.html

Race Against the Machine

http://fora.tv/2011/10/24/Race_Against_the_Machine

Default: 3 formas (e de o evitar)

Icumprimento
Reestruturação
Reescalonamento

Mentiras

A mentira mais repetida na vida política portuguesa é a de que os portugueses vivem acima das suas possibilidades, trabalham pouco, ganham demasiado e deveriam poupar mais.

Muito pelo contrário, quem vive muito acima das suas possibilidades é o Estado, a classe política, os gestores públicos e todos os que comem da manjedoura que é o orçamento do estado.

http://www.cmjornal.xl.pt/detalhe/noticias/opiniao/ditos-e-mitos

Where do the Greek people expect the government to get the money to pay for those free welfare benefits? They don’t care.

The European Union’s bailout of Greece will only delay the inevitable because it doesn’t get to the root of the problem — Greece’s welfare state, along with the fierce refusal of the Greek citizenry to abandon the welfare-state way of life.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-10-31.asp

Organização Não-Governamental Governamental: a ONGG.

Quero apenas que eles atuem no Brasil como seus congêneres no resto do mundo: com dinheiro que conseguem arrecadar na sociedade, doado por aqueles que acreditam em seu trabalho e concordam com suas iniciativas. É por isso que uma “ONG” é “não-governamental”.

http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reinaldo/geral/a-unica-coisa-decente-a-fazer-e-proibir-repasse-de-dinheiro-publico-para-as-ongs/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ReinaldoAzevedo+%28Reinaldo+Azevedo%29&utm_content=FaceBook