O Insurgente

É verdade… e uma das razões que me levaram a escolher o IESE foi ser uma escola… privada.
(mais…)

Na continuação de “Isto é o que acontece quando Michael Moore não toma os comprimidos“,

Introdução (Moore exerce o seu direito à indignação):

(mais…)

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Este pelo menos acabou os estudos : “I Speak English well, I learn it from a book”

Via “Puro Arábica“, “Este blog foi processado!” no Inapto:

(ler mais)

Na continuação de “Socialismo e união política da Europa: tentativas anteriores“,

(também via No Pasarán: The New Anti-Capitalism…)

“All done with passive smoke and mirrors” de Christopher Booker no Telegraph:

In 1998 and 2003 came the results of by far the biggest studies of passive smoking ever carried out. One was conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organisation. The other, run by Prof James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat for the American Cancer Society, was a mammoth 40-year-long study of 35,000 non-smokers living with smokers. In each case, when the sponsors saw the results they were horrified. The evidence inescapably showed that passive smoking posed no significant risk. This confirmed Sir Richard Doll’s own comment in 2001: “The effects of other people’s smoking in my presence is so small it doesn’t worry me”.

In each case, the sponsors tried to suppress the results, which were only with difficulty made public (the fact that Enstrom and Kabat, both non-smokers, could only get their results published with help from the tobacco industry was inevitably used to discredit them, even though all their research had been financed by the anti-tobacco cancer charity).

“Passive smoking” da Forest:

Professor Doll’s comments may surprise some people but not those who have analysed the argument about passive smoking in detail …. This is because the risk of a non-smoker getting lung cancer has been estimated at 0.01%. According to WHO, non-smokers are subjecting themselves to an increased risk of 16-17% if they consistently breathe other people’s tobacco smoke. This may sound alarming, but an increase of 16-17% on 0.01 is so small that, in most people’s eyes, it is no risk at all.

“A Victory for Free Speech“, com John Samples, podcast (MP3) do Cato Institute, sobre uma pequena mas significativa derrota da lei Feingold-McCain.

Na continuação de “The Myth of the Rational Voter,

In The Myth of the Rational Voter, Bryan Caplan tries to answer the question: Why do public economic policies go against the public’s interest? For example, why is there so little support for true international free trade when economists have shown it to improve wealth? Why is there such support for farm subsidies when they are expensive and mostly go to wealthy corporate farms? Why are gasoline price controls a viable subject of debate when most living Americans lived through such a disaster in the 1970’s?

Bryan Caplan is a decided favorite of the many bloggers at the Distributed Republic, and this author is no exception. He does interesting and unique research, he has contributed to our annual May Day remembrance and has always been gracious in engaging in debate with us. It was my distinct pleasure to have an email chat with Caplan recently:

( recomenda-se a leitura do post, incluindo entrevista, no Distributed Republic. Desta fonte, também se recomenda a entrevista ao EconTalk )

“Bye then” do Chicken Yogurt:

As a souvenir, here is a cut out and keep guide to the Blair years.

1. Iraqi deaths survey ‘was robust’
2. The Ricin ring that never was
3. “Blair saw legal caveats a year before invasion“
4. “Tony Blair privately committed Britain to war with Iraq and then set out to lure Saddam Hussein into providing the legal justification“
5. “Children ’starving’ in new Iraq”
6. “Tube PPP ‘cost public purse £1bn’”
7. Cooking the books
8. Lobbygate
9. “Blair broke code to keep war advice from Cabinet”
10. “Almost a third of the government’s arms sales machine is dedicated to selling to a single regime, Saudi Arabia.”

(mais…)

Na continuação de Klaus: environmentalism is anti-freedom propaganda (aqui continuação), Vaclav Klaus responde a perguntas no Financial Times:

Global warming: truth or propaganda?

Q: All that environmentalists demand is responsibility ….

Vaclav Klaus: Environmentalists do not demand responsibility. Responsibility is not their idea, it is a basic, elementary aspect of human behaviour – on condition government policies do not give wrong incentives. The idea of responsibility for damage done to others is not the environmentalists’ copyright. It is a standard of human behaviour. Environmentalists – especially in the case of global warming – artificially created “a damage” (higher temperature) and made all of us responsible for it. I don’t believe in this “damage” and I am not ready to pay for it. The role of men in slightly higher global temperature (0.6°C in the last century) is only marginal, if any.

To say that “the supporters of capitalism demand that they are free to dump their waste on their neighbours lawns without consequence” has the beauty of communist propaganda I had a chance to “enjoy” during the first 48 years of my life.

Recuperando The Deniers,

“Climate Change: The Deniers” no Canada Post, uma colecção interessante de artigos sobre contestatários ao “consenso” sobre o Aquecimento Global antropogénico.

(em constante actualização)

No seguimento de “It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard“,

“The hitchhikers guide to the IPCC” de Bishop Hill:

The IPCC has finally released the reviewers comments on its recent 4th Assessment Report. If you want to study them they are available in hard copy only at the Littauer Library of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. You may think that this means that if you are a hard up climatology student from, say, India, you are completely stuffed. But no, the IPCC have thought of everything. The staff at Harvard will arrange to copy up to 100 pages for you at a cost of $34 plus $0.40 per page. If you can afford to employ a researcher they are happy for someone to come in to see which pages might be of interest. Otherwise you will have to make do with 100 pages at random…so maybe the Indians are stuffed after all.

Does this situation remind you of something?

Leitura adicional: “What’s wrong with the IPCC - a guide for the layman“

No seguimento de “O verdadeiro problema do Darfur são as alterações climáticas“, “Blaming SUV owners for genocide in Africa?” de Marlo Lewis no OpenMarkets.org:

This morality tale is not only morally challenged, it is unscientific. A team of four researchers led by Martin Hoerling of NASA compared actual precipitation data with the rainfall simulations of 18 climate models used by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report. The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change …. concludes, “there is absolutely no evidence that the 20th-century drying of much of Africa was in any way related to CO2-induced global warming, nor is there any model-based reason for supposing it will be so related over the next century.”

“Socialists in Bulgaria Pondering Flat Tax or Tax Rate Reductions ” (Cato@Liberty):

American politicians, even supposed conservatives, are timid about embracing tax reform, yet left-wing parties in Eastern Europe are slashing tax rates and adopting simple and fair flat taxes. The latest example comes from Bulgaria, where the Socialist Party is trying to decide between across-the-board tax cuts and a 10 percent flat tax.

“Skepticism on Global Warming” no Thoughts on Freedom:

The first ground is the positive question of fact whether the global atmosphere is heating up …. Most of the history of science, scientists have believed what is now known to be untrue or inaccurate. Skepticism is indeed the scientific attitude. So it is perfectly appropriate to approach scientists and their interested prognostications with skepticism.

The second ground for skepticism is whether global warming is being caused by man …. The idea that we should stop global warming because it’s caused by man is certainly ground for skepticism, because it shows that the problem is not global warming as such, it’s the environmental movement’s conception that so much human life, activity, satisfaction and happiness are fundamentally morally wrong.

…. the third ground of skepticism is:- so what?

(mais…)

Na continuação de “Klaus: environmentalism is anti-freedom propaganda“, “Putting Global Warming Outrage on ice” por Rok Spruk no Capitalism & Freedom:

The implications of environmental intervention stretch beyond the edge of our imagination. If such measures were introduced, our living standards would probably fell dramatically and so would GDP growth decline as well. Assume that you’re an entrepreneur with a certain kind of technology. You know that this particular technology is the most efficient in the market giving you high yields of return. And then imagine that government said that “you must use another kind of technology” by which you cannot sufficiently generate the returns you get back from the technological combinations you carefully chose. Understanding consumer behavior is essential for the entreprise to boost the supply with the best quality and the lowest possible price yielding competitive margin. So in the long run, you’d forced to adapt a new kind of technology which completely distorts the stock of your products which consumer deny to buy. Your income, value added and profits would fall and how would then your enterprise be competitive and socially responsible if it didn’t generate profit?

Hoover Institution fellow, Peter Robinson, speaks with Fred Thompson about his candidacy for President of the United States. Robinson … all » delves into the key issues facing America today, the politics of running for president, and the source of Thompson’s conservative views.

“Kilimanjaro not a victim of climate change, UW scientist says” (The Seattle Times):

Pictures of the African peak, which has lost 90 percent of its ice cover, were featured in Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Greenpeace activists once held a satellite news conference on the summit to sway participants in an international climate conference. “Kilimanjaro is a grossly overused mis-example of the effects of climate change,” said University of Washington climate scientist Philip Mote, co-author of an article in the July/August issue of American Scientist magazine. Kilimanjaro just happens to be the worst possible case study. Rising nearly four miles from the plains of eastern Tanzania, Kilimanjaro has seen its glaciers decline steadily for well over a century — since long before humans began pumping large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere ….

“More on the “Snows of Kilimanjaro”” (WendyMcElroy.com):

…. another factor that might well be contributing to the glaciers’ recession is that Kilimanjaro is merely dormant, not dead. Continuous geothermal activity is observed near the summit, such as a field of fumaroles within the crater atop Kibo peak (whose last eruption, BTW, might well have been as little as a few hundred years ago) — and the current best estimate is that Kilimanjaro’s magma chamber is a mere 400 meters below the crater! (For comparison, Kilimanjaro’s summit is about 4,600 meters above its base.)

“Freedom, not climate, is at risk” por Vaclav Klaus:

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

“Free Speech for People Who Think Like Me“.

The Assault on Reason reestablishes Gore as America’s premier besserwisser and moral scold: the politician who both warns that we are scaring people to death and argues that Manhattan will soon be submerged beneath the Atlantic. But contrary to Gore’s eschatological narrative, the American media landscape is robust, thanks, in part, to technological innovation. To suggest otherwise is just cheap fear-mongering.

“Thou Shalt Not Prosper” de Don Boudreaux:

…. too many environmentalists condemn people who don’t share their creed. For example, I don’t recycle my trash because my time is too precious for me to spend it sorting such items into different containers. I never criticize those who do recycle, but environmentalists point accusing fingers at us nonrecyclers. In environmentalists’ eyes, those who unquestioningly disregard the value of one resource (time) in order to spend it on the conservation of other resources (wood, plastic and glass) are righteous while those of us who value and conserve time are sinners.

“Global Warming as Religion and not Science” de John Brignell no Hayek Institut (excerto - leitura integral recomendada):

The corrective to sin in religion is absolution, and the power of most religions comes from their claim to have the monopoly on absolution. So it is with the new godless religion. Furthermore, it is in the nature of religion to create false markets. In the time of Chaucer the Pardoner sold papal indulgences, which freed the prosperous from the consequences of sin. Likewise, the new pardoners sell carbon offsets. As in so much of both ancient and modern society these activities divert effort from wealth creation and so act as a drag on the economy. They also grant to the rich a comfort that is not available to the poor - a sure road to success.

“Dissidents Against Dogma” de Alexander Cockburn na Counterpunch, descobrindo que o “Aquecimento Global Antropogénico” é o novo ópio do povo. Leitura integral recomendada, ficam excertos:

…. here’s the entire progressive sector swallowing, with religious fervor, a far more potent concoction of nonsense to buttress a program which will savagely penalize the poor, the third world and the environment.

(mais…)

“Visita de Bush gera confrontos em Roma” (Portugal Diário):

Depois d’O Insurgente ter descoberto que ainda há esperança para o nosso caro Daniel Oliveira, temos o prazer de descobrir que ainda há esperança para a Quarta Internacional:

Only one candidate chose to do so, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, the former Libertarian presidential candidate. Paul, a conservative politician who articulates the isolationist strain in American bourgeois politics, is a critic of the Iraq war. He finally addressed the issue of using nuclear weapons an hour after it was raised, in response to a question from a college professor in the audience, who asked what each candidate thought was the most important moral issue facing the country.

As for the Democrats, nearly all of the party’s presidential candidates, as well as the entire congressional leadership, are on record in support of escalating the US campaign of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions and military saber-rattling against Iran, aimed at preparing public opinion in the United States for a new and even more terrible slaughter in the Middle East.

Em termos de estilo, contudo, há muito tempo que perderam a luta para o Avante!…

“Is Fred Thompson a Small-Government Conservative?” do Cato@Liberty:

During his eight years in the Senate, Thompson had a solid record as a fiscal conservative. The National Taxpayers Union gives him the third highest marks of any candidate (trailing only Paul and Rep. Tom Tancredo). On foreign policy he has been a hawk, and supports continuing the war in Iraq. Alas, that seems standard for the GOP these days, but Thompson appears to also take the neoconservative line on Iran, North Korea, and China. It’s hard to be a small-government conservative while favoring widespread military intervention. War is a big-government program.

- “Fred Thompson Quits ‘Law & Order,’ Moves Closer to 2008 White House Bid” (Fox News)
- “Fred Thompson will run, advisers say” (The Politico)
- “Bright Red Fred (Reason)
- “What Kind of Loser Is Fred Thompson?” (Reason)

“The Authoritarian Giuliani” de David Boaz:

Throughout his career, Giuliani has displayed an authoritarian streak that would be all the more problematic in a man who would assume executive powers vastly expanded by President Bush.

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The Great Global Warming Swindle producer Martin Durkin appears on Glenn Beck to discuss global warming hysteria and defend charges that his documentary contains major misrepresentations.

[ The Great Global Warming Swindle ]

Na continuação de “A Fox News está preocupada com Ron Paul” — “Ron Paul on 9/11 and Eric Dondero” (Reason):

Reason: What did you mean when you told the Scholars that “the [9/11] investigation is an investigation in which there were government cover-ups”?

Paul: I do think there were cover-ups, and I think it was mainly to cover up who was blamed, who’s inept. See, they had the information. The FBI had an agent who was very much aware of the terrorists getting flight lessons but obviously not training to be pilots. He reported it 70 times or whatever and it was totally ignored. We were spending $40 billion a year on intelligence. It wasn’t a lack of money or a lack of intelligence, it was a lack of the ability to put the intelligence together. Even the administration had been forewarned that something was coming, the CIA had been forewarned. So it was a cover up of who to blame. I see it more that way.

Fox! Worry! Good Fox!

Um relato Kakfa-esco de Steve McIntyre: “Cunning IPCC Bureaucrats“.

“The Global Warming Debate” de Tom de Weese no Capitalism Magazine:

….. “The usual suspects will still insist that there is a ‘consensus’ of scientists who agree with Gore. And yes, many governing boards and spokesmen of science institutions must toe the politically correct line of Gore-inspired science, but rank and file scientists are now openly rebelling.

As real debate finally forces fact over headline-making one liners, the truth will become ever more inconvenient to Al Gore and his Global Warming zealots.

[ No frost, No frost (2) ]

“Tony Blair on Global Warming” no Cato@Liberty:

Tony the Lunatic: The world’s inability to execute a global agreement to seriously reduce greenhouse gas emissions is fueling Islamic terrorism.

Huh? I didn’t know that al Qaeda, Hezbollah, or Hamas has linked up with Greenpeace. Must have missed that in those periodic tirades coming out of Pakistani caves.

Antigos antigos: Moonbat alert!, Moonbat alert! (2).

“Giuliani Is Right To Be Outraged” de Lew Rockwell:

It is outrageous to suggest that when we bomb people, they would get mad at us. I mean, it’s not like foreigners have feelings.

(mais…)

“Opponents of the “Consensus” on Anthropogenic Global Warming” no Mises.org:

Contrary to what one often hears, opponents of the ‘scientific consensus’ promoted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are not self-published kooks & cranks.

“A climate skeptic’s guest post: Why David Evans bet against Brian Schmidt over global warming“

I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry (Google on “FullCAM”). When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

By the late 1990’s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn’t believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!

But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed.

“Pessoas magras podem ser gordas por dentro” (Portugal Diário)
“Pais desatentos têm filhos obesos” (Portugal Diário)

“Fat workers cost more in injury claims” (Business Week):

Overweight workers cost their bosses more in injury claims than their lean colleagues, suggests a study that found the heaviest employees had twice the rate of workers’ compensation claims as their fit co-workers.

Obesity experts said they hope the study will convince employers to invest in programs to help fight obesity. One employment attorney warned companies that treating fat workers differently could lead to discrimination complaints.

No seguimento de Assustadora ignorância histórica sobre os crimes do comunismo, “Liking Communism” por Nima Sanandaji no LewRockwell.com:

One of the main problems in Western Europe is that not only big government policies as a whole, but even the extreme forms of socialism are regarded by many simply as “good ideas”. Even now, almost two decades after the fall of the Berlin wall, many western intellectuals and journalists have kept their beliefs in socialism and are spreading a left-leaning message to the rest of the population. Communism they claim, might not have worked, but is certainly a goal to strive towards. And surprisingly many are buying into this message.

Graças ao lucro e à ganância, a China prepara-se para se tornar a nação mais poluidora do mundo: “China faces baby boom as parents flout rules“:

China faces a looming baby boom as newly-rich couples find they can afford to pay fines incurred from having more than one child.

Upward pressure on the birthrate also is coming from millions of Chinese in their 20s and 30s who are allowed two children under the policy because they themselves were single children, Xinhua news agency quoted China’s top family planning official as saying.

National Population and Family Planning Commission director Zhang Weiqing said the number of rich people having more than one child is rapidly rising, citing a recent survey by his organisation.

Contrariamente ao que aconteceu com o Protocolo de Quioto, Nós não podemos baldar-nos às Nossas Obrigações enquanto os chineses não as cumprirem eles também. Planeamento Familiar EcoSocial já!!!

“Having large families ‘is an eco-crime’” (Times):

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a 4×4 car and failing to reuse plastic bags, according to a report to be published tomorrow by a green think tank.

…. “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet.

“The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”

…. when couples are planning a family they should be encouraged to think about the environmental consequences. “The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account,” ….

…. as a general guideline, couples should produce no more than two offspring.

“Cuidado com o perigoso populista” de Cirilo Marinho no Small Brother:

Ocorreu hoje um facto bastante interessante nas eleições que decorreram na Venezuela (a TV5 transmitiu os resultados de todas as votações ocorridas no monde entier).

Setenta (70) por cento dos franceses a residir no paraíso supra, optaram por votam em Sarkozy, a maior diferença entre candidatos que se pode observar nos resultados emitidos.

Efeitos do neo-socialismo sentido na própria pele?

[youtube]l5_K3elnYMo[/youtube]

Porque anda por aí muita ignorância sobre o que foi o nacional-socialismo e as posições de Mises (e outros “austríacos”) sobre o mesmo, recomendo esta notável palestra de David Gordon, “The Austrians on Fascism: Hayek, Mises, and Roepke” (MP3).

[youtube]SdKh4Tr11nI[/youtube]

We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

“Ireland Prepares Defences Against European Tax Harmonisation” de Jason Gorringe na Tax-News.com:

According to reports in the Irish media, [European Union Taxation Commissioner] Kovacs told a gathering of the Irish Business and Employers Federation (IBEC), the Irish Bankers’ Federation and members of the European parliament that the Commission will present revised proposals on a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) next Wednesday. Kovacs said that he hoped the proposals would be in place by the end of next year.

…. many member states, including Ireland, are strongly opposed to the CCCTB plans, wary that it would be the first step towards the harmonisation of corporate tax rates across the EU, an idea favoured by France and Germany.

If this was the case, Ireland would certainly have a lot to lose, as its 12.5% corporate tax rate has been cited as a major ingredient in Ireland’s economic revival in recent years ….

“Tax competition is healthy for the economic development of the European Union. It provides a clear incentive to European Governments to manage their public finances carefully and to build a corporate tax regime that encourages enterprise,” he stated. “The bottom line here is that no one size fits all policy covering corporate taxation matters in Europe is going to succeed. It is neither sensible nor realistic to seek convergence of corporate tax rates across Europe. EU member states have different demographic and social priorities. EU member states need to use their corporate taxation policies in different ways so as to entice foreign direct investment into their countries and generate employment.”

“Swiss Tax System ‘Politically Unacceptable,’ Says EC“, por Ulrika Lomas no Tax-News.com:

The European Commission believes it has grounds for a legal challenge to the cantonal tax system, which permits Swiss cantons to compete with each to attract international holding companies and wealthy individuals with generous breaks. According to Brussels, this system distorts competition and impairs trade within the EU and is therefore a form of illegal state aid which breaches the 1972 free trade agreement between the EU and Switzerland.

“Nazisme, communisme :
l’éternel deux-poids, deux-mesures des élites européennes de Drieu Godefridi no Institut Hayek:

“Les communistes n’ont jamais tué personne” : voilà une assertion qui restera sans aucun conséquence légale dans l’Union européenne, selon un texte qui vient d’être approuvé par le Conseil des ministres de l’UE. Il faut s’en réjouir, pour trois raisons : (1) la liberté d’expression est notre bien le plus précieux, sans liberté d’expression il n’y a plus de liberté de pensée, (2) sur le marché libre des idées, les déformations grossières de la réalité finissent toujours par être débusquées et ridiculisées, ce qui est le sort le plus adéquat que l’on puisse leur réserver, et (3) à l’heure de l’Internet mondialisé, l’interdiction d’exprimer telle ou telle opinion n’a aucun sens à moins d’être appliquée simultanément dans les 200 pays de la planète.

Mais dans le même temps qu’elle témoigne d’une louable mansuétude à l’égard de la négation des crimes communistes, l’UE entend imposer aux Etats membres la criminalisation du fait de nier les crimes nazis.

Cette différence de traitement marque la consécration officielle et légale d’une antienne chère à la gauche : bien sûr, les communistes ont fait couler le sang, et plutôt abondamment, mais c’était au service d’un projet généreux pour l’humanité, alors que le nazisme n’a jamais été généreux que pour les Allemands.

(mais…)

“Global Warming Quiz” de Russel Roberts no Cafe Hayek:

It’s a one question quiz:

Suppose we discovered that the earth was cooling rather than warming due to a natural cycle. Would you encourage people to drive more and use more carbon-based energy as a way of warming the earth?

(mais…)

“Guilty Until Proven Innocent” (Fox News):

…. everything is a pollutant. And that is, in fact, precisely the view that has now been endorsed by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court. In Monday’s ruling in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court held that the EPA is obliged to treat every substance on earth as a pollutant to be regulated, unless it can demonstrate why that substance is not a pollutant.

This ominous decision overturns the basic rule of a free society. In a free society, that which is not explicitly forbidden is permitted. As philosopher Harry Binswanger once put it, in a free society we live in a sea of liberty, a vast realm of actions that cannot be impeded by government — with only a few small islands marked “off limits,” a strictly delimited set of evil actions like armed robbery and check-forging that are banned by government.

(mais…)

[Y]ou have raised so many straw men in that comment you are probably eligible for some sort of agricultural subsidy.

O que mais impressiona no caso do hockey stick não é o facto de um estudo conter erros, e ser passível de aperfeiçoamento. Menos candidamente, não é o facto de um estudo “científico” ter sido “ajustado” para se ajustar a uma “realidade” “desejável” ou “conveniente”, algo que está sempre a acontecer quando o mais importante não é a Ciência, mas a manutenção do status quo científico ou político.

O que choca é o facto de milhares de “cientistas” terem sidos levados pela música e caído na ratoeira. Este caso demonstra a falência absoluta do sistema de peer-review do IPCC, tão frequentemente aclamado como a mais perfeita criação técnica e moral. Demonstra igualmente a perversão dos sãos princípios da filosofia científica, em nome de “objectivos superiores”. Quase não havia, naquela augusta comunidade e assembleia, quem tivesse questionado a validade daqueles dados e gráficos, que omitiam tão flagrantemente factos históricos inegáveis.

Nada mais seria de esperar. Quando a comunidade científica se organizava dispersamente e admitia concorrência no seu meio, os cientistas eram valorizados por fazerem avançar as teorias dominantes (o hockey stick teria sido muito “corrigido” antes de ter ser divulgado), ou por as contestarem objectivamente (o hockey stick nem veria a luz do dia). A História da Ciência está recheada de indivíduos que enfrentaram o establishment; a eles devemos o que hoje sabemos, ou julgamos saber.

Quando o sistema foi centralizado e politizado, a determinação da verdade última e “consensual” sobrepôs-se a tudo o resto. A incessante e imperfeita procura do conhecimento, foi substituída pelo doublethink e groupthink, sempre em doses maciçamente “consensuais”. O individualismo é reprimido, a creatividade é disciplinada, o status quo é ouvido e preservado, que nada perturbe o dogma. O cepticismo deixou de ser científico, passou a ser herético.

“Quando for grande, quero ser como o meu pai!”

[ tirado daqui, por indicação da nossa leitora Rosa Maria Medeiros, a quem agradecemos ]

Companhia “low cost” Ryanair prepara-se para voar entre Europa e Estados Unidos (Público)

…por cá, graças ao socialismo aeronáutico ao qual temos de agradecer uma sempre maravilhosa defesa do “serviço público”, ainda não se voa em low costs regulares para os Açores ou para a Madeira.

No seguimento de “A Viagem de Pelosi” de Bruno Gonçalves:

Cox & Forkum

Uma questão… estratégica?

No artigo “Descida de impostos: uma questão estratégica”, publicado segunda-feira no Público, Miguel Frasquilho defende “a proposta de descida de impostos apresentada pelo PSD”, descrevendo-a como uma “nova filosofia, assente numa maior liberalização a política económica, que faz com que esta proposta tenha imediatamente um carácter virtuoso” — “só uma pressão virtuosa, de fora para dentro, obrigará o Estado a fazer o que lhe compete. E o que lhe compete, numa política económica de cariz liberalizador, não é asfixiar ou limitar a sociedade. É ser ele próprio, o Estado, o exemplo de disciplina e o factor de incentivo a uma maior liberdade de intervenção dos cidadãos ou das empresas”.

Ora, não são descidas de impostos que caracterizam uma política económica como “liberal” ou “liberalizante”. Se é verdade que parte da blogosfera liberal tem cultivado um fetiche folclórico com a descida de impostos — mea culpa! — o facto é que políticas “starve the beast” não devem ir muito para além do nonsense político.
(mais…)

No seguimento do artigo “A Europa na televisão iraniana”, de Rui Ramos, hoje no Público:

Na semana passada, a Europa passou na televisão iraniana: apareceu coberta com um véu, e pediu desculpa. A desempenhar o papel estava uma militar britânica ….”

(mais…)

“Sweden Repeals Wealth Tax” no Cato@Liberty:

Globalization has been an ally of taxpayers. Because it is increasingly easy for jobs and capital to cross borders, politicians are being forced to eliminate or reduce taxes that penalize productive behavior.

The latest example comes from Sweden, which is now eliminating its tax on wealth…

O modelo nórdico está moribundo. Viva o modelo nórdico!

Several European countries have dropped taxes on wealth in the last decade, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland.

A resposta às baboseiras a partir dos 3′54” (atenção: o resto também é muito bom), “Rosie O’Donnell 9/11 Conspiracy Comments: Popular Mechanics Responds” do Popular Mechanics
(mais…)

Na continuação de “Na fase final do caminho para a servidão” ( 1 e 2 ), “The right of French people to take photos” no Samizdata:

I was in Parliament Square not long ago and observed some hairy anti-war person being shoved into a Police van. The entire scene was surrounded by other demonstrators holding video cameras. They were subjecting to the Police themselves to surveillance, guarding the guardians you might say. I do not ever want that to be illegal in Britain, but in France, it would appear that it already is. De um testemunho: « i got all the photos and videos i took yesterday on my camphone deleted by a policeman who told me he would arrest if he ever saw me doing again. I don’t know if he had the right to erase the photos, i should see about that. »

“Encuentra las diferencias!” no Liberal Venezolano:

Führer, manda, te obedecemos

Lema entonado por la audiencia de Hitler, en su discurso del 26 de Septiembre de 1939, tres dias antes de la invasion a Polonia.

Comandante Chávez… ¡ Ordene!,
Ordene sobre este Frente
que luchará junto al pueblo
hasta la victoria siempre

Lema del Frente Francisco de Miranda

Ordene usted Mi Comandante. Patria, Socialismo o Muerte…a pesar de los traidores…Venceremos.

En Aporrea.org.

No vale decir que el color del partido es diferente.

“Global Warming Heresy de Walter Williams:

There’s a much more important issue that poses an even greater danger to mankind. That’s the effort by environmentalists to suppress disagreement with their view. …. “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labeled as industry stooges.” Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said, “Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system.”

Today’s version of yesteryear’s inquisitors include people like the Weather Channel’s Dr. Heidi Cullen, who advocates that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) strip their seal of approval from any TV weatherman expressing skepticism about the predictions of manmade global warming. Columnist Dave Roberts, in his Sept. 19, 2006, online publication, said, “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

There are literally billions of taxpayer dollars being handed out to global warming alarmists, not to mention their dream of controlling our lives. Their agenda is threatened by dissent. They have the politician’s ear; not we, who will suffer if they have their way.

“IPCC and Data Access” de Steve McIntyre:

One of the most important IPCC representations is the supposedly tremendous quality control of its review process. I’ve mentioned in passing on a number of occasions that, when I sought to obtain supporting data for then unpublished articles, IPCC threatened to expel me as a reviewer.

David Milliband, Ecokommissaar Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, com um pouco de doublethink globalmente aquecido (”The Great Climate Change Swindle?):

Secondly, it is true that temperature changes appear to have preceded CO2 changes through glacial-interglacial cycles in the distant past. However, this just suggests that CO2 was not the initial driver of the glacial cycles. The evidence suggests that CO2 levels rose as a result of warming, possibly as the surface of the ocean warmed. As CO2 has a warming effect on the climate, it would then act as a feedback – stimulating additional warming.

Now human emissions are causing the rise in CO2 levels, and therefore, the resulting warming of the climate.

Uma lógica imbatível que refuta que o aquecimento global se possa dar por motivos naturais. PHEPH.

[ PHEPH - Post hoc ergo propter hoc, ecologês para quod erat demonstrandum ]

“The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?” no Telegraph, de Martin Durkin, realizador do documentário The Great Global Warming Swindle:

The remarkable thing is not that I was attacked. But that the attacks have been so feeble. The ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again and again as evidence that carbon dioxide ‘drives’ the earth’s climate. In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.

The trailer for a new documentary being released by the Acton Institute that focuses on the stories of three entrepreneurs. A study of the call to create wealth and the benefit of business and free markets to society. The film will premier in Grand Rapids, Mich. at Celebration Cinema North on May 17, 2007

“Cameras watch you put bin out on wrong day” (Telegraph):

Householders who keep putting out their bins on the wrong day could be caught out by secret spy cameras hidden in tin cans and bricks and branded “envirocriminals”.

Ealing Council in west London is using the hidden cameras to catch people committing “major envirocrimes” such as graffiti and fly-tipping on main roads.

However council tax payers who put out their bins on the wrong day could also be caught up in the push.

(quase tão bom como o original)

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage — the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical forces beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of