A Maçã

Nesta madrugada tive um tradicional debate com Carolina Maria sobre um dos nossos assuntos favoritos - quase tão açucarado quanto a polêmica "Fábio Jr. ou Luis Miguel?". Física Moderna.

A conversa toda começou com perspectivas de Mestrado, futuro acadêmico, pesquisas, etc. Mesmo cursando Radialismo, Carol é uma autodidata de marca maior, e profunda conhecedora de todas as nuances físicas, enquanto eu... bem, eu faço Direito. Não é grandes coisas, mas na pior das hipóteses isso me qualifica a processar quem descobrir que eu sou burro ou jogar falácias contraditórias até sufocar qualquer desafeto com um verdadeiro curto-circuito cognitivo.

Carolina não vê muito futuro em fazer física por ser muito restrita a parte que ela realmente se interessa, que é, justamente, física moderna. Segundo ela, do que adianta você cursar vários anos pra só aproveitar o equivalente a um semestre de aula? "Coisa de idiota", pensei comigo mesmo enquanto tentava contabilizar se cheguei a pagar um semestre de matérias que prestassem ao longo toda minha faculdade. Daí a conversa entrou no Mestrado, nosso last resort de estudar algo decente.

Discussão vai, discussão vem, Teoria das Super Cordas, Onze dimensões, beleza. Então ela menciona uma nova teoria, que propõe que no espaço (não no espaço sideral simplesmente, na matéria) existe matéria discreta, ou seja, no "tecido" do espaço existem coisas menores, que eu logo me apressei em qualificar como "ranhuras".

Se você não matou todas as suas aulas de Química e os nomes Rutheford e Bohr são mais pra você do que uma música do Skylab, então você deve lembrar dos modelos atômicos, e de sua genialidade. O grande insight deles foi justamente sacar que a matéria pode ser decomposta. Uma pedra na verdade é um conjunto de átomos- acho que Demócrito fez o primeiro modelo atômico, que foi posteriormente melhorado por uma carrada de gente, até chegar ao nosso people's choice award, o já citado Rutheford-Bohr. Já mais recentemente, descobriram menores frações da matéria: Quarks, Múons, etc. O ponto dela - e da teoria mencionada - é que o próprio espaço pode ter mini-partículas de espaço. Imagine que a existência é um desenho numa folha de papel, e de repente você descobre que o papel na verdade é matéria, mesmo que pra você, que more no papel, ele sequer exista, aparentemente. Ele é o Tudo, como diabos o Tudo pode ser descontruído em parcelas?

Eu comentei que mesmo considerando a teoria bonita e interessante, pra mim ela não acrescenta em muita coisa. Me parece ser só uma gradação vertical a mais do mesmo projeto de teoria. É como se descobrissem de repente uma partícula menor do que a menor partícula, e depois descobrissem outra, e outra, e outra. Esse tipo de conhecimento não me seduz. Especialmente por flertar com uma espécie de auto-indulgência e com o misticismo.

Calma, eu explico. Pra mim, você crer que existem onze dimensões, das quais três são materiais, uma é o tempo, e mais as outras sete são enroladas em cordas é divertido, e pode até trazer um indício de verdade, mas é só um capítulo médio de uma mesma gradação vertical. Suponha-se que daqui a 10 anos descubram mais 15 dimensões em cubinhos malhados, e agora? O que vai ser dessa idéia de hoje? Um passado antiquado, mesmo que as verdades por trás dela sejam as mesmas.

Einstein, quando escreveu sobre a teoria da relatividade, a fez em duas partes por uma razão óbvia. Primeiro ele escreveu a parte especial, restrita, que era fruto de análise de um fenômeno limitado, e passou daí pra formular a relatividade geral, através da qual buscava, segundo dizem, ler os pensamentos de Deus.

Para Einstein, Deus não joga dados. É tudo um grande plano, tudo tem um princípio, meio e fim. Eu acho que, ironicamente, essa visão não admite misticismos. Deus é o sujeito mais pragmático do universo.

Carol concorda com a visão de Stephen Hawking, que Deus JOGA dados, o universo governado pelo aleatório. Essa é uma visão especialmente difícil de ser absorvida por mim, pois eu creio que todo aleatório, quando visto de uma perspectiva superior, esconde um padrão. Mesmo o comportamento do princípio da incerteza de Heisenberg, deve significar que na verdade existem variáveis ocultas que fazem parte de um grande plano.

Ela comentou que do jeito que eu falo, parece que eu não vejo utilidade nessa pesquisa. Claro que eu vejo, claro que eu acho homens como Hawking gênios espetaculares. Mas tudo isso, todo o estudo, toda a erudição, toda a filosofia que envolve os conceitos, tudo trabalha para que, quando ela caia, Newton possa pegar e admirar a beleza da maçã. Possa constatar que além da força gravitacional, exista um pedaço de mundo de uma beleza ímpar.

No brilho dos olhos desse instante você vê toda a justificativa da paixão pelo conhecimento: subitamente toda a beleza do mundo faz um sentido todo especial. Tudo o que você luta pra entender existe pra construir o mundo sensorial.

E Einstein morreu achando que não conseguiu ler a mente de Deus. Tenho a impressão que Hawking, com todas as adversidades congênitas, pensa diferente. Os três teriam uma conversa e tanto.

Satan responsible for illegal immigration, says Utah delegate

Amid says: "Utah Republican Don Larsen believes that illegal immigration to the US is a Satanic plot and has submitted an anti-Satan resolution to be discussed at this weekend's Utah County Republican Convention." "In order for Satan to establish his 'New World Order' and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the Scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S.," his resolution states. "The mostly quiet and unspectacular invasion of illegal immigrants does not focus the attention of the nations the way open warfare does, but is all the more insidious for its stealth and innocuousness."

...

É como diz o ditado: o que é um Evangélico perto de um Mórmon?

direto do BoingBoing.net

I want my mp3s!

Fascist Cookbook: Index

In recent article for The Guardian, Naomi Wolf suggests what she calls a fascist “shopping list”, a handful of actions that every tyrant-wannabe must enforce in order to disrupt any constitutional status quo. She argues that if there is such a list - and history proves that some of the signs she indicates are indeed worrisome – probably Mr. George W. Bush is in a shopping spree. The contents of the list are the following:

1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2 Create a gulag

3 Develop a thug caste

4 Set up an internal surveillance system

5 Harass citizens' groups

6 Engage in arbitrary detention and release

7 Target key individuals

8 Control the press

9 Dissent equals treason

10 Suspend the rule of law

Even though some of Wolf’s accusations may seem a little too harsh, the question remains. Not that civil liberties in United States have been slowly forfeited, that’s a fact. The point is: how fast the civil society must be threatened so it considers a threat as a real one?

Love is in the air

dica de Mateus Cardoso!

Defenders of the Night

- "I've been looking into something. There's a series of robberies all over... a bunch of technology companies all over. At least seven or nine security guards have been killed already."

- "What?"

Super-sérvios!

Kryptonite found in Serbian mine

When mineralogist Dr. Chris Stanely of London's Natural History Museum did a Web search on the chemical formula of a recently-discovered unusual mineral, he was shocked to find out that the rock is Kryptonite. The mineral, found in a Serbian mine by the company Rio Tinto, consists of the same chemicals as fictional Kryptonite as described in the film Superman Returns. From the BBC News:

"Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns.

"The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite..."

The mineral cannot be called kryptonite under international nomenclature rules because it has nothing to do with krypton - a real element in the Periodic Table that takes the form of a gas.

Será o futuro?

April 23, 2007

Obama Outlines His Foreign Policy Views

By JEFF ZELENY

CHICAGO, April 23 — Senator Barack Obama said today that even though the global image of the United States has been sullied by the war in Iraq and a “foreign policy based on a flawed ideology,” America must repair its standing in the world and resist the temptation to turn inward.

“America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America,” Mr. Obama said. “We must neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission — we must lead the world, by deed and example.”

In a speech before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mr. Obama presented himself as a presidential candidate “who can speak directly to the world.” After a sharp critique of President Bush, Mr. Obama called for increasing foreign aid to developing countries, expanding and modernizing the military and rebuilding fractured alliances.

“This president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open,” Mr. Obama said. “And it’s time to fill that role once more.”

Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat elected to the United States Senate two years ago, delivered the first major foreign policy address of his Democratic presidential bid to hundreds of supporters in the ballroom of a downtown hotel here. It is the first of several policy speeches he is scheduled to deliver in the coming weeks as he works to define his candidacy with specific proposals an Obama administration would pursue.

“This election offers us the chance to turn the page and open a new chapter in American leadership,” Mr. Obama said. “The disappointment that so many around the world feel toward America right now is only a testament to the high expectations they hold for us. We must meet those expectations again, not because being respected is an end in itself, but because the security of America and the wider world demands it.”

He added: “This is going to require a new spirit, not of bluster and bombast, but of quiet confidence and sober intelligence, a spirit of care and renewed competence.”

In the opening three months of his presidential race, Mr. Obama has solidified his role as one of the leading contenders for the nomination, raising more money than any of his rivals for the primary campaign. But Mr. Obama is also striving to expand his appeal beyond that of a best-selling author and political celebrity as he tackles questions of substance and policy.

The United States must build a 21st century military, Mr. Obama said, in addition to “showing wisdom in how we deploy it.” He called for expanding American ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 to the Marines. But less than 1 percent of the military can speak Arabic, Mandarin or Korean — a shortcoming he said needs to be corrected through training and recruitment.

“We know what the war in Iraq has cost us in lives and treasure, in influence and respect,” Mr. Obama said. “We have seen the consequences of a foreign policy based on flawed ideology, and a belief that tough talk can replace real strength and vision.”

The Bush administration, Mr. Obama said, “squandered that opportunity” to unite the world after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The war in Iraq, he said, “was based on old ideologies and outdated strategies, a determination to fight a 21st century struggle with a 20th century mindset.”

“And after all the lives lost and the billions of dollars spent, many Americans may find it tempting to turn inward, and cede our claim of leadership in world affairs,” Mr. Obama said. “I insist, however, that such an abandonment of our leadership is a mistake we must not make.”

If elected, Mr. Obama said he would lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and materials across the world within four years. In addition to securing stockpiles of nuclear material, Mr. Obama said the United States should work to negotiate a ban on producing new nuclear weapons material.

To discourage countries from building weapons programs, Mr. Obama endorsed the concept of providing reactor fuel through an international nuclear fuel bank, proposed last year by former Senator Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat who now advises the Nuclear Threat Initiative. As president, Mr. Obama said he would provide $50 million to get the fuel bank started and urge Russia and other countries to join.

Mr. Obama also called for the United States to rebuild its alliances, reform the United NationsNATO. and strengthen

“We have heard much over the last six years about how America’s larger purpose in the world is to promote the spread of freedom — that it is the yearning of all who live in the shadow of tyranny and despair,” Mr. Obama said. “I agree, but this yearning is not satisfied by simply deposing a dictator and setting up a ballot box.”

Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, dismissed Mr. Obama’s criticism.

“Senator Obama started his career with a tone of hope, but has quickly turned to one of blame,” Ms. Miller said. “Obama has no foreign policy experience; therefore has no record of having done anything — wrong or otherwise. His comments today blamed others and failed to detail his own plan for success.”

Ratio et corde?

Jabá

Tinha esquecido de fazer o merchan:

Modelagem para Modeleiros: Representatives of the World! em http://modeleiro.blogspot.com

Co-editorado por mim, Napô, Pereira e Cedê.

Ciência e Prática da modelagem aplicada! (sem maior criatividade pra um reclame mais chamativo, sorry :P)

Monkey Majik no MADA 2008! Eu acredito!

Migalhas quentes

Lei Rouanet

A Comissão de Educação do Senado aprovou projeto de lei que inclui os templos religiosos entre os beneficiários da Lei Rouanet, de incentivo à cultura. Era só o que faltava...

(suspiro)

“Bang, Bang!” ou ”You got it all wrong, man!”

Tem dias que o noticiário me dá raiva, bastante raiva. Certas chamadas que você ouve te deixam empenhados em arranjar uma justificativa pra excluir a má-fé do jornalista, e classificar, simplesmente, como ignorância.

Como bom nerd proselitista, já me acostumei com acusações de “adorador do diabo” e “drogado vagabundo”, “psicopata em formação”. Afinal, não tenho culpa de ser praticante e defensor de práticas como RPG e videogames, que parece ser senso comum que são bem piores pra uma pessoa do que um câncer causado por fumo ou excesso de álcool.

Hoje vi na internet mais uma pérola desse tipo de jornalismo escada-rolante-assassina: “Filme sul-coreano teria inspirado massacre nos EUA”. O que vem a seguir é lógico, e já aconteceu trocentas vezes: vários periódicos distribuem o “furo”, mesas redondas com psicólogos e sociólogos discutem o impacto da violência na vida dos jovens, alertando os pais sobre a vida tenebrosa que aguarda seu filho, que será um maníaco-depressivo ou eternal underachiever, se entrar nesse mundo de destruição. Não que a violência não tenha um papel, mas não é, de forma alguma, the crux of the issue.

Ironicamente, a mensagem mais coerente que li sobre o assunto veio da newsletter The Fiver, do Guardian, que geralmente se ocupa em comentar fofocas dos clubes ingleses, maltratar Second-Choice Steve e elogiar The Special One, Mourinho.

TROUBLE IN AMERICA Comedian Chris Rock used to do a good stand-up routine about the Columbine massacre. "Everybody wants to know what the kids was listening to," he'd say, referring to the hysterical media handwringing that followed the 1999 shooting spree. "What kind of music was they listening to? Or what kind of movies was they watching? Who gives a f*** what they was watching? Whatever happened to crazy? What, you can't be crazy no more? Did we eliminate 'crazy' from the dictionary? F*** the records! F*** the movies! They was crazy!"

Eu me pergunto se é difícil assim notar que o garoto tinha problemas. Garotos igual a ele tem problemas todos os dias, e parece que a lição de Columbine não foi aprendida. Eu não ficaria tão surpreso se me deparasse com um atirador na UFRN em um futuro próximo. Não lembro a cifra exata, mas acho que era algo em torno de 20% dos alunos a Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte sofrem de depressão. Tenho impressão inclusive que o número é BEM maior que esse. Vi essa notícia na capa da Tribuna ou do DN, não lembro.

Dia desses na prática jurídica nosso grupo - eu não estava lá, mas me disseram - recebeu um cidadão, um jovem do interior, que mora na Residência Universitária. Como estudante de Direito, começou a aprender na faculdade sobre um troço de "direitos fundamentais", e foi lá na prática exigir seus direitos. Reclamou que as instalações são péssimas, sem segurança alguma, onde oito estudantes são amontoados onde só caberia cinco. Como boa parte dos casos, meu grupo deu um tapinha nas costas do rapaz, e disse um "nada feito".

Francamente. Você coloca um jovem num universo de pressão e exclusão social, exige que ele se desenvolva por abiogênese, se diverte em criticar aquele rapaz que anda desengonçado ou tem uma voz estranha, não tá nem aí pra se uma GRANDE PARCELA da Universidade FEDERAL - não é uma privada qualquer, em tese são os melhores que estão lá - vivem em depressão, e fica surpreso quando alguém explode?

O caso do jovem coreano é um caso singular, mas igual a muitos outros, tanto lá fora como aqui no Brasil. Não é uma questão de por a culpa nos mundos e nos fundos, a culpa é da sociedade que não sabe tolerar os diferentes, e eu me incluo nisso. Mas é um exercício que todos precisamos empreender.

A genial editora do blog IntLawGrrls fez um comentário extremamente contundente. Postando um quadrado preto, disse que não ia por mais imagens da violência. Por mais que imagens assim nos choquem e nos scudam pra os absurdos que acontecem no mundo, também nos mutilam um pouco, fazendo que percamos o susto do inesperado, e aos poucos, achemos tudo normal.

Se acostumem com os flashes, garotos, o Elefante no meio da sala que ninguém quer discutir está ficando cada vez mais arredio, e suas consequências já viraram assunto normal. Só nos resta uma coisa: Blame Canada!

In The Ten Commandments, I Performed All My Own Miracles

In The Ten Commandments, I Performed All My Own Miracles

By Chalrton Heston

April 4, 2007 | Issue 43•14

Whenever people talk about The Ten Commandments, a film I made 50 years ago with a fellow named Cecil B. DeMille, they go on and on about the impressive "special effects." So let me take this opportunity to set the record straight: I performed all my own miracles in that picture, so if you're going to praise someone, it should be me.

There was nothing in that movie that I didn't make happen with my own two hands. I realize some of these so-called actors today rely on camera tricks and computers to do their jobs for them, but I'm not one to allow some punk editor to cut and paste me into the middle of a Red Sea I didn't part myself. I rode a chariot in Ben-Hur for Pete's sake, and you can be darn sure I'll channel God's power to move a little water about when I need to.

There was no soundstage. No on-site tank. Just good old-fashioned elbow grease. That's the only way I know how to part a major body of water. I just stretched out my arm, delivered my line, and saved over a million Israelites from their certain death. Difficult? For some, maybe. But I got it in one take and took the crew out for lunch.

Of course, partial credit goes to the walking staff I was holding at the time, which I had the good sense to carve from a gypsy-cursed redwood and grant power over the earth and sea before the film began.

If you ask me, special effects are just Hollywood talk for cutting corners. If you really want to give the audience a show, you've got to do something risky like summon God's 10 plagues on Egypt yourself. It was originally God's idea, but the execution was all me, just like every other miracle in that film. That goes for the frogs, rivers of blood, locusts, pillars of fire, even the burning bush. Call me a traditionalist, but that's all part of the job of an actor.

For the second half of the film, I also played the part of Yul Brynner.

That kind of dedication is why they signed me in the first place. I'm always willing to go that extra mile and personally rain down pestilence from the heavens, and I think the director saw that during casting. I even spent 40 years wandering in the desert just to grow an authentic beard. Not to mention I was the only SAG actor who had personally spoken to God.

But I suppose I've never been one to take the easy route. Most actors would have let the studio create the Angel of Death with trick lighting, but not me. I walked right up to DeMille, looked him square in the eye and said, "Give me a chance, Cecil. Let me do it my way."

Naturally, I considered how much easier hovering over that village and single- handedly slaughtering all of Egypt's firstborns would have been if I didn't have to avoid all the households with lamb's blood on their doors—but if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right.

Even though I am constantly telling interviewers and strangers at the grocery store how I turned my staff into a snake, which then ate the snake of Pharaoh's court magician, they persist with this "special effects" nonsense. I'm starting to wonder why I bothered shrinking myself down and assuming the form of a small infant so that I could be placed in a basket and floated down the River Nile when they could have just substituted a stunt baby and no one would have batted an eye.

What has happened to artistic integrity? Am I the only actor left who cares about his craft?

When a director signs Chuck Heston, he knows he's getting a pro. For Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil, I labored for weeks altering my genetic code to turn myself into a Mexican.

And when I was cast in Planet Of The Apes, I constructed the world's first functioning time machine to travel to the future, where I spent six months living among an advanced society of apes in order to prepare for the role. Everyone warned me about the risks of fighting in the resulting revolution, but I went just the same. I even hunted down and brought back the futuristic primates to serve as extras, but that didn't stop those jokers at the Academy from nominating the movie for Best Costume Design.

Unfortunately, I'm getting too old to keep up the pace I've set for myself. I'm ashamed to say it, but because of my age and deteriorating health, my agent would not allow me to re-eat hundreds of human beings for the 30th-anniversary DVD release of Soylent Green. I guess it's time for me to hang up my hat and my magic cloak of invisibility, and retire to my lunar estate with my wife Cleopatra to live out my final days before the apocalypse on Aug. 2.

Extra, Extra!

Sai no jornal Folha de São Paulo: "Deputado não deve ter nada na cabeça"

(suspiro)

Piada pronta não vale : P

Y-ay!

Uma câmera na mão e uma idéia na cabeça

Serbian Paramilitaries Convicted of Killing Bosnian Muslims

by Kevin Jon Heller (opiniojuris.org)

Serbia's war-crimes court, established in 2003 to handle "lesser" crimes referred by the ICTY, has convicted four Serbian paramilitaries of murdering six young Bosnian Muslims during the infamous Srebrenica massacre. Although one soldier was acquitted, the case against the defendants was straightforward: they filmed themselves committing the murders:

The trophy video - which lasts about 20 minutes - shows several members of the "Scorpions" police unit with six Muslim prisoners dressed in civilian clothes.

Five of the captives have since been identified as Safet Fejzovic, Sadik Saltic, Smail Ibrahimovic, Fadil Salkic and the youngest, aged 16, Azimir Alispahic.

They were all Muslims from Srebrenica who were captured when the town fell to Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.

The prisoners - dirty, bruised and with their hands tied behind their backs - are ordered from the back of a lorry in which they had been transported from the Srebrenica area.

They are marched to a clearing in woodland near Sarajevo, where, one by one, four of them are shot in the back. Two more are forced to move the bodies of their fellow victims, before they too are shot.

At one point during the executions the cameraman, apparently drunk, is heard complaining that the battery on the camera is running down.

This was an extremely important trial — the first time a Serbian court heard a case directly related to Srebrenica. And, of course, the symbolic importance of a Serbian court convicting Serbians of killing Muslims cannot be emphasized enough.

Still, it is easy to sympathize with the victims' families, who believe that the court imposed sentences that were far too lenient given the severity of the crime:

The former commander of the Scorpions unit, Slobodan Medic, and his main accomplice, Branislav Medic, were each given 20 years in jail.

Pera Petrasevic, the only defendant to have confessed to the crime, was given 13 years. The fourth defendant, Aleksandar Medic, was given five years while a fifth man, Aleksandar Vukov, was acquitted.

But several relatives of the victims, who had been brought from Bosnia under police escort, expressed disappointment at the verdicts.

"Whatever the ruling, my child is not here," said Nura Alispahic, who saw her 16-year-old son being killed in the video. She said it was disgraceful that one of the former paramilitaries had been given only five years - and another acquitted altogether.

"These people will leave jail one day, but my child will never come out of the ground," she said.

Another one, Alispajic Azmira, said: "There is no other place where you can kill somebody without being punished for it."

Their views were echoed by well-known Serbian lawyer Natasa Kandic.

"Considering the seriousness of the crime committed, justice was not done with the verdict," Ms Kandic said.

"The verdict neither brings justice to the defendants for what they have done, nor for the victims killed only because they were Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica."

Kandic's point is well-taken. How could Slobodan Medic, for example, deserve less than the maximum 40-year sentence, given that — according to the judge — he "ordered the three defendants and two others to execute the prisoners, take them away from the site and make it seem as if they had been killed in conflict"? Indeed, it seems clear that the court was reluctant to impose even the overly lenient sentences. The following statement by the judge says it all: "By committing such acts against defenceless civilians, by showing off their power and not showing remorse, the defendants did not give the court the choice to pass lower sentences."

In the end, I can't help but wonder how the case would have turned out in the absence of the execution video. Would the defendants even have been convicted? Prior to the video's dissemination on Serbian television, most Serbs believed that Western accounts of the Srebrenica massacre were vastly overstated. That opinion has changed somewhat since the video was released, but how much is anyone's guess.

4 freedoms - http://intlawgrrls.blogspot.com

4 Freedoms

Today marks the 62d anniversary of the death in Warm Springs, Ga., of Franklin D. Roosevelt. As U.S. President for the prior 13 years, he had delivered the country a New Deal that led it out of the Great Depression, and then, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, led the country into war.
Roosevelt, like any leader, was not perfect; his orders to intern American citizens and residents on account of their Japanese ancestry cannot be forgotten. Yet his many contributions also must be remembered. Among them is the Jan. 6, 1941, State of the Union speech in which he declared:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.
...The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

With those words Roosevelt explained what was at stake in World War II, already raging in Europe. The ideas resonated; noted illustrator Norman Rockwell made a painting of each of the 4 freedoms. The speech, moreover, laid the groundwork for a new, postwar global order. Within Roosevelt's articulation of friendly cooperation may be found a vision of what months after his death would be established as the United Nations. With the aid of his widow, Eleanor Roosevelt, that organization would give birth to a Universal Declaration in which civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, interlinked in the 1948 as they had been in the 1941 speech, would receive protection and promotion.

The Five Stages of Rightist Iraq Commentary

Sadly, No! brings us a modified Kübler-Ross process, Iraq edition:

1. Denial: “The media doesn’t show the good news in Iraq.”

2. Anger: “The treasonous far-left-liberals and their media lapdogs are making us lose in Iraq.”

3. Bargaining: “If we send x-thousand more troops to Iraq, victory will be ours.”

4. Depression: “Did you catch 300 yet? [munch-munch-burp] God, it made me hate liberals even more. [channels flipping] They wouldn’t last a day in ancient Sparta.”

5. Advanced Literary Theory: “The hegemonic binary of ’success’ and ‘failure’ traumatizes the (re)interpretive possibilities of an ethos of jouissance regarding the War in Iraq.

Everybody hurts

Fools' paradise

Apr 1st 2007 | HELSINKI, MALABO AND PARIS

From Economist.com

Finland leads the world in weird sports and pranks

THE Finns like a laugh. Famous for an annual wife-carrying competition, for regular success at the world air-guitar championship and record-breaking hurling of rubber boots and mobile phones, Finland can now claim another accolade: its citizens are reportedly the world’s keenest pranksters. Celebrated for a full week at the beginning of April in the capital, Helsinki, and for weeks at a time in rural areas, the traditional “spring joke” in Finland has been raised to a national art form.

This long involved young men trying to catch the eye of women, typically by donning fancy dress (in the cold war a favourite was the garb of Soviet border guards) or through good-natured abduction—often in combination. More recently motorists have learned to watch for fake road-safety signs, which frequently cause springtime gridlock and collisions. Diplomats are increasingly wary of water-bomb attacks at functions—one thin-lipped European ambassador lodged a protest after being drenched in 2005. Even political leaders indulge. In 2003 the government apologised after stating that Finland wanted Sweden expelled from the European Union during a row about pickled herring.But Finland’s enthusiasm is not unique. Dr Is Poli-Savon, an anthropologist at the Paris-based Fairpooll Foundation, says that in many countries fooling is seen as a celebration of the end of winter. “In modern societies it serves as a rare chance for semi-subversive behaviour within safely defined parameters”, he says. Polls conducted by his team of researchers suggest that, despite suspicions to the contrary, many different cultures do share a common sense of humour.

A surprising number of German adults take part in April Fooling, along with many French (see chart) who mark “poisson d’avril” by sticking paper fish on each others’ backs. Most Iranian jokers choose April 3rd, the 13th day of the Persian calendar, for mild joking. But not absolutely everyone sees the funny side. Adults in Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich speck of a country in west Africa, are reportedly the least inclined to find anything to chuckle about. Fooling by anyone over the age of 13 years recently became a criminal offence, with exceptions only for the president and his extended family.