oui, luv

Tory controlled borough of Barnet adopts budget airline model

in The Guardian
by Robert Booth
27/08/09

A leading Conservative council is using the business model of budget airlines, Ryanair and easyJet, to inspire a radical reform of public service provision which is being seen as a blueprint for Tory government.

The practices of the no-frills airlines, who charge customers extra for services which were once considered part of the standard fare, are being emulated by the London borough of Barnet as it embarks on "a relentless drive for efficiency". A spokesman for the council has unofficially dubbed the project "easyCouncil".

Barnet wants householders to pay extra to jump the queue for planning consents, in the way budget airlines charge extra for priority boarding. And as budget airline passengers choose to spend their budget on either flying at peaktime or having an in-flight meal, recipients of adult social care in Barnet will choose to spend a limited budget on whether to have a cleaner or a respite carer or even a holiday to Eastbourne. Other examples of proposed reforms include reducing the size of waste bins to minimise the cost of council rubbish collections...

A letter from a victim of jounal reviewers

Journal of Systems and Software, Volume 54, Issue 1, 30 September 2000, Page 1.

*Editor’s Note:* It seems appropriate, in this issue of JSS containing the findings of our annual Top Scholars/Institutions study, to pay tribute to the persistent authors who make a journal like this, and a study like that, possible. In their honor, we dedicate the following humorous, anonymously-authored, letter!

Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:

Enclosed is our latest version of Ms. #1996-02-22-RRRRR, that is the re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the g-d-running head! Hopefully, we have suffered enough now to satisfy even you and the bloodthirsty reviewers.

I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that your anonymous reviewers are less interested in the details of scientific procedure than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations by seeking some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of tyrannical power over hapless authors like ourselves who happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand that, in view of the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they were not reviewing manuscripts they would probably be out mugging little old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them, the review process could be unduly delayed.

Some of the reviewers’ comments we could not do anything about. For example, if (as C suggested) several of my recent ancestors were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has been improved and benefited. Plus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by five pages, and we were able to accomplish this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.

One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions 13–28 by reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before sending your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works that he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish–American war from a high school literary magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author, presumably someone whom reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the Introduction and added, after the review of the relevant literature, a subsection entitled “Review of Irrelevant Literature” that discusses these articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions from other reviewers.

We hope you will be pleased with this revision and will finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process, and to express our appreciation for your scholarly insights. To repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you; please send us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to this journal.

Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we liked the paper much better the way we originally submitted it, but you held the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop, reshuffle, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper into stir-fried vegetables. We could not – or would not – have done it without your input.

Shame IKEA

...In 2004, the last year that the INGKA Holding group filed accounts, the company reported profits of €1.4 billion on sales of €12.8 billion, a margin of nearly 11 percent. Because INGKA Holding is owned by the nonprofit INGKA Foundation, none of this profit is taxed. The foundation's nonprofit status also means that the Kamprad family cannot reap these profits directly, but the Kamprads do collect a portion of IKEA sales profits through the franchising relationship between INGKA Holding and Inter IKEA Systems.

Inter IKEA Systems collected €631 million of franchise fees in 2004, but reported pre-tax profits of only €225 million in 2004. One of the major pre-tax expenses that Inter IKEA systems reported was €590 million of “other operating charges.” IKEA has refused to explain these charges, but Inter IKEA Systems appears to make large payments to I.I. Holding, another Luxembourg-registered group that, according to The Economist, “is almost certain to be controlled by the Kamprad family.” I.I. Holding made a profit of €328 million in 2004.

In 2004, the Inter IKEA group of companies and I.I. Holding reported combined profits of €553m and paid €19m in taxes, or approximately 3.5 percent.[22]

The Berne Declaration, a non-profit organization in Switzerland that promotes corporate responsibility, has formally criticized IKEA for its tax avoidance strategies. In 2007, the Berne Declaration nominated IKEA for one of its Public Eye “awards,” which highlight corporate irresponsibility and are announced during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland...

in Wikipedia

Ubuntu

Conceito africano que significa:

Human generosity, interconnectedness, community, bringing people together to work together on issues of common interest, toward a higher good. People, objects and events are all connected.
Everything is in an ongoing state of relatedness. Dynamics of cooperation support system. The interconnected web holds and honors all equally. Everything affects everything else. If I shortchange you, I shortchange myself.

(citação de um post de email mas desenvolvido aqui)

Enfim, teoria dos sistemas...

muito bem dito

... Num país de gente normal, os avisos de "perigo" deveriam bastar para que qualquer pessoa se afastasse com segurança da sombra das falésias (sendo que é de facto muito difícil estimar o grau de iminência de perigo nestes casos). Pessoas responsáveis não diriam (como disse numa entrevista um veraneante encostado à sombra de uma falésia sinalizada como perigosa, já após o acidente da Praia Maria Luisa) que a culpa era do Estado, que não o impedia fisicamente de se sentar na sombra tentadora das falésias, no areal junto ao mar.

Mana Lisa

Uma das recentes aquisições do MOBA

community

Excerto de entrevista
com ajuda do Wordle

crise

Intervenção do Primeiro-Ministro no debate sobre o Estado da Nação em 2009-07-02
parte "Responder à crise"
a partir do Wordle

posse

Ainda o Bernardo Soares, mas desta vez com o Wordle

Cheat Neutral

What is Cheat Offsetting?

When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere.

Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience.
Can I offset all my cheating?

First you should look at ways of reducing your cheating. Once you've done this you can use Cheatneutral to offset the remaining, unavoidable cheating

o paradoxo do amor

Nós não podemos amar, filho. O amor é a mais carnal das ilusões. Amar é possuir, escuta. E o que possui quem ama? O corpo? Para o possuir seria preciso tornar nossa a sua matéria, comê-lo, incluí-lo em nós... E essa impossibilidade seria temporária, porque o nosso próprio corpo passa e se transforma, porque nós não possuímos o nosso corpo (possuímos apenas a nossa sensação dele), e porque, uma vez possuído esse corpo amado, tornar-se-ia nosso, dei­xaria de ser outro, e o amor, por isso, com o desaparecimento do outro ente, desapareceria...

Possuímos a alma? — ouve-me em silêncio — Nós não a possuímos. Nem a nossa alma é nossa sequer. Como, de resto, possuir uma alma? Entre alma e alma há o abismo de serem almas.

Que possuímos? Que possuímos? Que nos leva a amar? A beleza? E nós possuímo-la amando? A mais feroz e dominadora posse de um corpo o que possui dele? Nem o corpo, nem a alma, nem a beleza sequer. A posse de um corpo lindo não abraça a beleza, abraça a carne celulada e gordurosa; o beijo não toca na beleza da boca, mas na carne húmida dos lábios perecíveis em mucosas; a própria cópula é um contacto apenas, um contacto esfregado e próximo, mas não uma penetração real, sequer, de um corpo por outro corpo... que possuímos nós? Que possuímos?

As nossas sensações, ao menos? Ao menos o amor é um meio de nos possuirmos, a nós, nas nossas sensações? e, ao menos, um modo de sonharmos nitidamente, e mais gloriosamente portanto, o sonho de existirmos? e, ao menos, desaparecida a sensação, fica a memória dela connosco sempre, e assim, realmente possuímos...

Desenganemos até disto. Nós nem as nossas sensações possuímos. Não fales. A memória, afinal, é a sensação do passado... E toda a sensação é uma ilusão...

— Escuta-me, escuta-me sempre. Escuta-me e não olhes pela janela aberta a plana outra margem do rio, nem o crepúsculo (...), nem esse silvo de um comboio que corta o longe vago (...) — Escuta-me em silêncio...

Nós não possuímos as nossas sensações... Nós não nos possuímos nelas.

in Bernardo Soares, Livro do Desassossego

autopoiese

Nunca amamos alguém. Amamos, tão-somente, a ideia que fazemos de alguém. É a um conceito nosso - em suma, é a nós mesmos - que amamos.

Isto é verdade em toda a escala do amor. No amor sexual buscamos um prazer nosso por intermédio de um corpo estranho. No amor diferente do sexual, buscamos um prazer nosso dado por intermédio de uma ideia nossa. O onanista é objecto, mas, em exacta verdade, o onanista é a perfeita expressão lógica do amoroso. É o único que não disfarça nem se engana.

As relações entre uma alma e outra, através de coisas tão incertas e divergentes como as palavras comuns e os gestos que se empreendem, são matéria de estranha complexidade. No próprio ato em que nos conhecemos, nos desconhecemos. Dizem os dois «amo-te» ou pensam-no e sentem-no por troca, e cada um quer dizer uma ideia diferente, uma vida diferente, até, porventura, uma cor ou um aroma diferente, na soma abstracta de impressões que constitui a actividade da alma.

in Bernardo Soares, O Livro do Desassossego.

sem nada

Sempre geniais

Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care

WASHINGTON—After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.

"Both parties understand that the current system is broken," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. "But what we can't seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue."

"Ultimately, though, it's our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve," Pelosi added.

The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.

"We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. "If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there's no reason we can't work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population."

"That's what America is all about," he added...

OMG!!!

Esta é a campanha dos Conservadores, extrema direita e sabe-se lá mais quem contra a proposta do sistema de saúde nos EUA. Nem é preciso ir ao Dennys.

The Waves

What should I do with you, waves, you who can never decide
whether you’re the first or the last?
You think you can define the coast with your constant wish-wash,
grind it down with your coming and going.
And yet no one knows how long the coastline really is,
where land stops, where land begins, and you’re forever changing
the line, length, lay, with the moon and unpredictable.

Consistent alone is your inconsistency.

Ultimately victorious since, as so often evoked, this wears away
the stones, grinds the sand down as fine as needed for
hourglasses and egg-timers, as required for calibrating time,
for telling the difference between hard and soft.

Victorious also because, never tiring, you win the contest who of us
will be the first to fall asleep, or you, being the ocean still,
because you never sleep.

Although colourless yourself, you seem blue
when the sky is gently mirrored on your surface, the ideal course
for being strolled upon by the carpenter’s son, the most changeable element.

And inversely, when you are wild and loud and your breakers thunder,
I listen between the peaks of your rollers, and from the highest waves,
from breaking spume, a thousand voices break away, mine,
yesterday’s ones that I didn’t know, that otherwise just whisper,
and all the others too, and in their midst the Nazarene.
Over and over again those stupendous five final words:
Why have you left me?

I hold my own, shout at each single wave:
Are you staying?
Are you staying?
Are you staying, or what?

Die Wellen (The Waves) , Einsturzende Neubauten

Mankind is no Island

Alentejo

outro tempo e espaço

praia da Zambujeira

no monte é que eu estou bem


formação

fora do mapa

terra seca

vale de Odesseixe

praia do carvalhal

por mim pode ficar tudo como está

havia um pessegueiro na ilha

sair da paisagem

comida

a beleza industrial de S.Torpes

Beauty

You see half the moon, its crescent, and one of the planets, maybe Saturn, maybe Jupiter, in the early night sky over Berlin, through the windows of a taxicab, near Potsdamer Platz.
You think: Beauty

No, this is not beauty, maybe not, maybe, this is the rest of it, maybe not, maybe, the rest of beauty, maybe not, maybe, what remains of beauty, maybe not, maybe, what is visible, certainly, uncertain.
Your arms would not be able to strech as far as necessary to form an adequate gesture for beauty (You know that, don't you?)
So, beauty remains in the impossibilities of the body.


"Beauty", Einsturzende Neubauten

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