30 Novembro 2008
Até no sexo casual somos últimos :)
Britain on top in casual sex league: A new study has found the British are the most promiscuous western nation
PROMISCUITY RANKINGS OF MAJOR COUNTRIES*
1 United Kingdom
2 Germany
3 Netherlands
4 Czech Republic
5 Australia
6 USA
7 France
8 Turkey
9 Mexico
10 Canada
11 Italy
12 Poland
13 Spain
14 Greece
15 Portugal
*OECD countries with populations over 10m Source: David Schmitt, Bradley University
Quem considera normal a videovigilância urbana... (2)
...não estranhará concerteza a sua evolução: The CCTV that spots crimes BEFORE they happen: CCTV cameras which can 'predict' if a crime is about to take place are being introduced on Britain's streets.
The cameras can alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering and unusually slow walking. Anyone spotted could then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer.
[a propósito: Petição Contra a Colocação Obrigatória de Chips de Vigilância nas Matrículas dos Veículos Automóveis]
29 Novembro 2008
Jogos
Assembler is a new physics based wonder where you move some depository equipment to get your precious green crate in position. For what? No matter! Physics work perfect and the feel of grabbing and moving around things is just perfect. Don’t play too much or you’ll dream of dirty green crates flying around.
In Splitter, each level can be solved in a number of different ways. Will you be able to come up with a brand new solution?
28 Novembro 2008
Não dizer asneiras sem autorização do chefe!
BBC guidelines on offensive language: Any proposal to use the most offensive language (cunt, motherfucker and fuck) must be referred to and approved by a senior editorial figure or for Independents by the commissioning editor and the relevant output controller for television, radio, online and any other service.
[o documento também está online na BBC, aprovado nestas condições]
Jornalismo suburbano
Depois do Expresso sair de Lisboa e, aparentemente, o novo meio que se prepara para 2009 se instalar também em Oeiras, será que os jornais que ficam em Lisboa (ou dentro das cidades, em geral) têm mais "jornalismo de proximidade"?
[investigative journalist and author Phillip Knightley], the award-winning reporter who led the Sunday Times' legendary Insight team between 1965 and 1985, said it was a 'great mistake' for newspapers to move from city centre premises to cheaper out-of-town locations, making access more difficult for potential sources.
The migration had severed one of the fundamental links between investigative journalists and their informants, Knightley argued.
"A newspaper has got to be in the centre of things," he said. "Prospective whistleblowers used to be able to walk down the northern side of Fleet Street and go past three or four newspapers.
"If one knocked you back, you could go into the next one. Nowadays it would require a conscious decision and half a day to go down to Wapping, and when you got there they probably wouldn't let you in anyway." [...]
His proudest achievement, he said, was the Insight team's investigation into the tax evasions of the wealthy Vestey family. He described how a moment of luck sparked a two-year investigation, culminating in the exposure of the Vesteys' £88m scam and the amendment of British offshore tax law.
"The Vestey investigation walked into my life off the street," Knightley said. "The man who brought it in was an academic who was on holiday. He was walking past The Sunday Times and just thought, 'Maybe they'll be interested in all this research I've done'. That couldn't happen any more."
Knightley said handing over editorial budgets to accountants had also cut down reporters' opportunities to work on investigations, which were rarely deemed cost-effective. Australian newspapers, for example, were calculating stories' cost efficiency word by word, he said.
27 Novembro 2008
Piratas no século XXI
Live Piracy Map shows all the piracy and armed robbery incidents reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre
2008
2007
2006
2005
Como se faz humor?
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Onion Nation: If its absurdist twists and wicked parodies of conventional journalism are just a joke, the country's leading satirical newspaper is having the last laugh
If you were a prospective gag headline, you would probably feel about the writers' room at the Onion the way World War II soldiers felt about the view of Omaha Beach as the landing craft doors yawned open. By midafternoon on a Monday, at the paper's SoHo offices in Manhattan, the writers at America's most successful satirical newsweekly had mowed down somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 possible headlines in search of a dozen or so solid comic premises around which an issue of the paper would be built.
In an inversion of the traditional editorial process, the Onion chooses its headlines and then invents stories to fit them.
Sabia que...
...este vídeo já vai na versão 3.0?
Sabia que o vídeo original tem três anos? Scott McLeod explica:
In August 2006, Karl Fisch, Technology Director of Arapahoe (CO) High School, made a video called Did You Know?. In January 2007, I modified the video. You can see my version here:
* Did You Know? (McLeod modification)
In June 2007 Karl and I made a new version with the help of XPLANE:
* Did You Know? 2.0
To date Did You Know? has been viewed online over 10 million times and has been shown in countless workshops, conferences, keynote presentations, etc. Karl and I have received literally thousands of e-mails about Did You Know? from individuals, schools, corporations, non-profit organizations, and state and federal government agencies. More information about the presentation is available at http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com.
Sabia que "Did You Know? is intended to be a conversation starter."
E sabia que muitos daqueles números são discutíveis, para mais sem a autoria das fontes? Por exemplo, este: "A Internet atingiu uma audiencia de 50 milhões em quatro anos? Impossível."
Aparentemente, a fonte é esta:
[não encontrei o relatório original, pelo que não se sabe como chegaram a estes números...]
Finalmente, sabia que este é apenas o primeiro da trilogia "The Fischbowl Presentations", que prossegue com estes "What If" e "2020 Vision"?
26 Novembro 2008
Genes europeus
Geocoding Genes for Cartographic Comparisons: It shows a 2D plot of genetic similarity across Europe, colour-coded by country, alongside a political map of Europe using the same colours.
25 Novembro 2008
Coisas que é bom saber
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008: The financial meltdown and economic crisis illustrated that corporations will destroy even themselves in search of profit. [...]
Of course, the rest of the corporate sector was not on good behavior during 2008 either, and we do not want them to escape justified scrutiny. In keeping with our tradition of highlighting diverse forms of corporate wrongdoing, we include only one financial company on the 10 Worst list. Here, presented in alphabetical order, are the 10 Worst Corporations of 2008.
AIG: Money for Nothing
Cargill: Food Profiteers
Chevron: "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies"
Constellation Energy: Nuclear Operators
CNPC: Fueling Violence in Darfur
Dole: The Sour Taste of Pineapple
GE: Creative Accounting
Imperial Sugar: 13 Dead
Philip Morris International: Unshackled
Roche: Saving Lives is Not Our Business
Quem considera normal a videovigilância urbana...
...não estranhará concerteza a sua evolução.
Social services 'set up CCTV camera in couple's bedroom': Social workers set up a CCTV camera in the bedroom of a couple with learning difficulties in order to monitor their behaviour, a new report claims.
Council staff are said to have spied on the young parents at night as part of a plan to see if they were fit to look after their baby, who was sleeping in another room.
The mother and father were forced to cite the Human Rights Act, which protects the right to a private life, before the social services team backed down and agreed to switch off the surveillance camera while they were in bed together.
The case is highlighted in a new dossier of human rights abuses carried out against vulnerable and elderly adults in nursing homes and hospitals across Britain.
It comes just days after the Government admitted town halls have gone too far in using anti-terror laws to snoop on members of the public.
Museu de informática na Austrália
Where Old Computers Find Their Final Resting Place: Max Burnet has turned his home in the leafy suburbs of Sydney into arguably Australia’s largest private computer museum.
Palavras
Oxford Word of the Year 2008
Hypermiling or “to hypermile” is to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques.
Word of the Year Finalists:
frugalista – person who leads a frugal lifestyle, but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying second-hand, growing own produce, etc. [This could become the nom de guerre of the “recession warrior.”]
moofer – a mobile out of office worker – ie. someone who works away from a fixed workplace, via Blackberry/laptop/wi-fi etc. (also verbal noun, moofing)
topless meeting – a meeting in which the participants are barred from using their laptops, Blackberries, cellphones, etc.
toxic debt – mainly sub-prime debts that are now proving so disastrous to banks. They were parceled up and sent around the global financial system like toxic waste, hence the allusion.
24 Novembro 2008
Quase me esquecia disto...
An Infinite Loop in the Brain: Wouldn't it be great to be able to remember everything? To see all our most important moments, all the priceless encounters, adventures and triumphs? What if memory never faded, but instead could be retrieved at any time, as reliably as films in a video store? [...]
In neurobiological terms, a memory is a stored pattern of links between nerve cells in the brain. It is created when synapses in a network of neurons are activated for a short time. The more often the memory is recalled afterwards, the more likely it is that permanent links develop between the nerve cells -- and the pattern will be stored as a long-term memory. In theory there are so many possible links that an almost unlimited number of memories can be permanently stored.
So why don't all people have the same powers of recollection as Jill Price? "If we could remember everything equally well, the brain would be hopelessly overburdened and would operate more slowly," says McGaugh. He says forgetting is a necessary condition of having a viable memory -- except in the case of Price and the other three memory superstars.
For McGaugh, there is another reason why people with such phenomenal memory are so puzzling. They challenge a theory on which his research has been based for the last half a century. This theory, based on clinical observation, says memories are stored in greater detail and with more staying power when they are tied to emotion.
Blogues para jornalistas despedidos
For Laid-Off Journalists, Free Blog Accounts: It’s a long way from $700 billion, but the media start-up Six Apart is introducing its own economic bailout plan.
The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program offers recently terminated bloggers and journalists a free pro account (worth $150 annually) on the company’s popular blogging platform. In addition to the free yearly membership, the 20 to 30 journalists who are accepted will receive professional tech support, placement on the company’s blog aggregation site, Blogs.com, and automatic enrollment in the company’s advertising revenue-sharing program.
Informação útil (principalmente as quatro iniciais)
10 Tips for Digital Camera Owners:
This Camera Belongs To
Maps
Parking Lot
Mechanisms you are repairing
License Plates
Yellow Pages
Evidence for the Defense
Chinese Food Menus
Recipies
A Mirror
I'm a doer...
Typealyzer - What type is this blog?
The Doers: The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.
The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.
23 Novembro 2008
22 Novembro 2008
Cartoons britânicos
The British Cartoon Archive, previously known as the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, was established in 1973, as a research centre and picture library, based upon a unique archive of over 85,000 pieces of cartoon artwork supported by a reference library of newspaper cuttings, books, catalogues and magazines
21 Novembro 2008
Audiência online dos media nacionais
de Maio'07 a Novembro'08, via Google:
DIÁRIOS
24 Horas
Correio da Manhã
Diário Digital
Diário Económico
Diário de Notícias
Jornal de Negócios vs Negócios.pt
Jornal de Notícias
Público
SEMANÁRIOS
Expresso
Sol
TV's
RTP
SIC
TVI
BÓNUS
Diário da República
Nações (des)unidas por pigmentos
Artist Barcelo unveils $23 million ceiling at UN: A $23 million ceiling painting featuring hundreds of dangling icicle shapes that has been criticized for its hefty price tag was unveiled Tuesday at the U.N. offices in Geneva.
The 16,000-square-foot (1,500-square-meter) elliptical dome full of bright colors and torn aluminum took over a year to produce and it will grace the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room at the European headquarters of the United Nations.
Spanish abstract artist Miquel Barcelo used more than 100 tons of paint with pigments from all over the world, and worked with architects, engineers and even particle physics laboratories to develop the extra-strength aluminum for the dome.
Foreign Aid Money Spent on $23 Million Art Ceiling at U.N. Human Rights Council: The U.N. Human Rights Council, frequently accused of coddling some of the world's most repressive governments, threw itself a party in Geneva Tuesday that featured the unveiling of a $23 million mural paid for in part with foreign aid funds.
UN art provokes and divides
Controversial UN artwork unveiled: The Spanish Foreign Ministry said the government and private donors helped pay for the artwork.
Of the public money, 500,000 euros (£421,425) came from a budget for overseas development aid and international organizations like the United Nations.
The Popular Party said that meant money which should have been spent on alleviating poverty was instead used to pay Barcelo.
United Nations in Geneva Presents Miquel Barcelo's Dome at the Palace of Nations
King Juan Carlos of Spain Says Barcelo's Dome for the U.N. is "Doubtless Creative Beauty"
20 Novembro 2008
Nas últimas
10 Fascinating Last Pictures Taken: This list consists of 10 last time stamps in history taken of and by some fascinating individuals.
Portugal a emitir...
A climate of change: How countries' greenhouse-gas emissions have changed since 1990: eastern and central European have shown big reductions from 1990 to 2006, driven in part by the collapse of heavy industries. By contrast emissions in Spain, Portugal and Ireland grew enormously as their economies surged ahead.
19 Novembro 2008
Porque hoje é
World Toilet Day – a day to celebrate the humble, yet vitally important, toilet and to raise awareness of the global sanitation crisis.
Berlin marked the occasion by placing 50 toilets outside its Central Station. The United Nations declared 2008 the "International Year of Sanitation" in order to draw attention to public health issues around the world.
Local man invents vibrating toilet seat: “This invention is designed to stimulate,” he said. “It’s to make you feel good while you are there.”
BTW; Who invented the toilet?
Formação
One Minute Languages will introduce you to a new language from scratch. Each language features ten lessons and each lesson is only a couple of minutes long, so there's no excuse!
18 Novembro 2008
Nano
Peering into the micro world: A team of University of Michigan researchers has recently created a set of electron microscope images of carbon nanotube structures depicting images of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. John Hart, leader of the research team says it wasn't a political statement, but an attempt to draw attention to what is possible these days with nanotechnology, and imaging at the very small scale.
Images of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, each made with approximately 150 million tiny carbon nanotubes, are photographed using an electron microscope by University of Michigan Mechanical Engineering Department in this image released to Reuters November 10, 2008. The image, based on an original drawing by Shepard Fairey, is just wider than 500 microns and is made of approximately 150 million tiny carbon nanotubes, which is about the number of Americans who voted on November 4, according to John Hart at University of Michigan. (REUTERS/John Hart, Sameh Tawfick, Michael De Volder, and Will Walker/University of Michigan/Handout)
A Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gear train manufactured on silicon. The larger gear at center is about 80 microns wide. (Institute of Micromachine and Microfabrication Research at Simon Fraser University)
Experiência
So... What happens when you mail a letter to someone, but instead of putting a 39 cent stamp from the post office, you just tape on some loose change adding up to 39 cents?
17 Novembro 2008
Ainda o punk
The permanent revolution: More than 30 years after punk took the stage, its DIY influence is felt everywhere from indie rock to the blogosphere to Christie's auction house [...]
Ephemera from punk's first-wave heyday, which roughly spanned 1974-1979, is scarce. Given the low-budget nature and no-future ideology of the movement, it's no surprise that artifacts are relatively few and mostly made of paper.
But punk's reach extends far beyond that original fistful of fast, loud bands, and its influence goes much deeper than a rebellious musical moment. Punk's legacy is vast. From the do-it-yourself philosophy that informs indie rock to the anti-elitism that fuels the blogosphere, the spirit of authenticity and embrace of amateurism that were the pillars of punk now permeate modern art and culture.
Estranhos edifícios
50 Strange Buildings of the World
5. The Basket Building (Ohio, United States)
11. Chapel in the Rock (Arizona, United States)
18. Stone House (Guimarães, Portugal)
30. Erwin Wurm: House Attack (Viena, Austria)
31. Wooden Gagster House (Archangelsk, Russia)O negócio da pobreza
It's a bit rich, Sir Bob Geldof: Anti-poverty campaigner Sir Bob Geldof charged $100,000 to come to Melbourne and give a speech about world suffering.
Geldof, 54, spoke about the tragedy of Third World poverty and the failure of governments to combat the crisis, at a Crown casino function on Thursday night.
But the Herald Sun can reveal the outspoken human rights activist charged about $100,000 for his trouble -- a speaker's fee that included the cost of luxury hotel rooms and first-class airfares. Fellow activist the Rev Tim Costello, World Vision's CEO, spoke for free. An event insider said the Geldof payments included the costs of a minder.
"It was an inspiring speech. But when you think he got paid $100,000 to talk about poverty, it seems like a bit of a contradiction," the insider said.
World leaders dine in style as they discuss financial crisis: The global economy may be undergoing a significant downturn, but the White House's dinner budget still appears flush with cash.
After all, world leaders who are in town to discuss the economic crisis are set to dine in style Friday night while sipping wine listed at nearly $500 a bottle.
According to the White House, tonight's dinner to kick off the G-20 summit includes such dishes as "Fruitwood-smoked Quail," "Thyme-roasted Rack of Lamb," and "Tomato, Fennel and Eggplant Fondue Chanterelle Jus."
To wash it all down, world leaders will be served Shafer Cabernet “Hillside Select” 2003, a wine that sells at $499 on Wine.com.
The exceedingly pricey wine may seem a bit peculiar given leaders are in Washington to discuss a possible world financial meltdown, but Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for Laura Bush, said it "was the most appropriate wine that we had in the White House wine cellar for such a gathering.
16 Novembro 2008
Tarde de cinema europeu sem Portugal (1899-1999)
15 Novembro 2008
14 Novembro 2008
Vidas
Street With A View introduces fiction, both subtle and spectacular, into the doppelganger world of Google Street View.
On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more...
Artists stage street scenes to lurk in Google maps: Two 17th century swordsmen doing battle? An escape from a building using knotted sheets? A laser zapping a Steelers fan and a Cleveland Browns fan, rendering them love-struck and about to embrace?
That can't be real.
But it is. And it isn't.
[vídeo e making of aqui]
Selecção especial
13 Novembro 2008
Omnes viae Romam ducunt
Roman history comes to life in Google Earth: Rome wasn't built in a day! The Ancient Rome 3D layer will be available soon.
Descubra as semelhanças
Riff Offs: 10 Songs That Resemble Other Songs: They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Musicians are notorious for taking this old adage to heart, liberally “borrowing” (either intentionally or subconsciously) chords, melodies and/or lyrics from each other. Some say that it’s, in fact, the essence of all forms of music, especially modern popular music. This is certainly the case with folk and blues idioms. Bob Dylan, and he’d be the first to admit it, wouldn’t be the caliber artist he is without riffing on other songwriters. Sometimes this musical flattery is taken in stride, while other times it’s repaid with a big fat lawsuit. There are countless examples of songs that borrow from other songs.
12 Novembro 2008
Tendências
Google will launch a new tool that will help federal officials "track sickness". "Flu Trends" uses search terms that people put into the web giant to figure out where influenza is heating up, and will notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in real time!
11 Novembro 2008
Presidentes EUA, a 100 dias, com mordomo
A Butler Well Served by This Election: For 34 Years, Eugene Allen Carried White House Trays With Pride. Now There's Even More Reason to Carry Himself That Way.
10 Novembro 2008
Patente de A sobre invenções de B
Halliburton Tries To Patent Form Of Patent Trolling: The application covers, quite explicitly, having a company (we'll say Company A) that does not invent something, find a company (Company B) that did invent something, but chose to use trade secret protection, rather than patents. Then, the Company A files a patent covering Company B's technology, and then use the issued patent to get money out of Company B.
Now, one could hope that Halliburton's intention in patenting such a process was to use it to stop other companies from doing this, but it does make you wonder.
"The dirty little secret of the electronic age"
Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste: 60 Minutes Follows America's Toxic Electronic Waste As It Is Illegally Shipped To Become China's Dirty Secret
09 Novembro 2008
08 Novembro 2008
Pergunta com resposta e uma exclamação
Who killed the blogosphere? No one did. Its death was natural, and foretold.
Oh, grow up: Blogging is no longer what it was, because it has entered the mainstream
Ainda as eleições nos EUA
A Little Historical Perspective
A Little Historical Perspective Redux
Election results by county (in Maps of the 2008 US presidential election results)
07 Novembro 2008
LA Times de 1881 a 2003 (e na Web de 1996 a 2006)
the evolution of the front page: I selected a front page from every other decade, starting with the very first edition of the paper in 1881. Note the shifting hierarchy of images (yellow), advertising (orange) and editorial content (blue).
Pagos e gratuitos na Europa
European free & paid market shares: The 2008 market shares are calculated using World Press Trends data from 2007 and the most recent free circulation data, meaning 2007 and 2008 data are compared, which can cause some problems. As paid circulation is going down in most markets, free markets shares are probably somewhat higher than reported.
Six European countries were in the >50% group in 2007. Denmark now has 34% free circulation, so it dropped out of the >50% group. Portugal still has 55% free, Iceland 72% and Luxembourg 51%. Macedonia has 53% free although this is not audited circulation but claims by the publisher. (via)
06 Novembro 2008
Jornal personalizado impresso não interessa aos jornais?
Hewlett-Packard's Inkjet Web Press, which was developed in San Diego, lets publishers customize their content: This printer – a digital Inkjet Web Press designed for newspapers, book publishers and commercial print shops – is bigger than a city bus. Its price tag is $2.5 million. [...]
And for newspapers, it could make it possible to economically print different editions, with targeted advertising, for each ZIP code in a circulation area, or for each neighborhood, or even for each household. [...]
Well, maybe. No newspapers have ordered the press yet, though HP has said that one U.S. newspaper will test the machine in producing 14 zoned versions every day. HP also is testing Web Presses at three large commercial printing and book publishing companies.
Industry experts say it is unclear what business model will work best for large-scale printers in the future.
O primeiro a acertar... a 26 de Outubro
'Obama Wins!,' newspaper declares: For The New Mexico Sun News it is either a major scoop or “Dewey Beats Truman” déjà vu 60 years later.
“Obama Wins!” is the headline of the edition on newsstands now, complete with “special collector’s edition” in red bold typeface.
The Sun News is a bi-monthly newspaper and its Oct 26-Nov 8 issue had to hit the streets, and the newsstands, before the election. So the editors decided to make a leap of faith and declare Democrat Barack Obama the winner.
04 Novembro 2008
Eleições USA
Where to get Election Day results
Color-Your-Own Electoral College Map
Gum Election 2008
Barack Obama spent a total of $207,410,911 to broadcast 109 television ads & John McCain spent a total of $119,906,703 to broadcast 71 television ads, according to statistics compiled by Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising expenditures.
Dia de eleições nos Estados Unidos
Rock, Paper, Scissors: How we used to vote: Early paper voting was, to say the least, a hassle. You had to bring your own ballot, a scrap of paper. You had to (a) remember and (b) know how to spell the name of every candidate and office. […]
As suffrage expanded—by the time Andrew Jackson was elected President, in 1828, nearly all white men could vote—scrap voting had become a travesty, not least because the newest members of the electorate, poor men and immigrants, were the least likely to know how to write. […]
Political parties, whose rise to power was made possible by the rise of the paper ballot, stepped in. Party leaders began to print ballots, often in newspapers: either long strips, listing an entire slate, or pages meant to be cut in pieces, one for each candidate. At first, this looked to be illegal. […]
Undeniably, party tickets led to massive fraud and intimidation. A candidate had to pay party leaders a hefty sum to put his name on the ballot and to cover the costs of printing tickets, buying votes, and hiring thugs, called “shoulder-strikers,” to tussle with voters. […]
In 1830, the Scottish Benthamite James Mill argued for a secret ballot in order to curb the influence of landlords upon their tenants and factory owners upon their workers. […]
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, someone came up with a startling idea. What if governments were to provide the ballots?
The precise origins of this idea are somewhat murky. An electoral law, with ballot clauses written by a jurist named Henry Samuel Chapman, was passed in Victoria, Australia, in March of 1856. […]
Victoria’s Electoral Act of 1856 minutely detailed the conduct of elections, requiring that election officials print ballots and erect a booth or hire rooms, to be divided into compartments where voters could mark those ballots secretly, and barring anyone else from entering the polling place. […]
This, of course, is exactly how we vote in the United States today. […]
When the Australian ballot was propounded in Britain, James Mill’s son, John Stuart Mill, became its most articulate opponent. […] Voting, Mill insisted, is not a right but a trust: if it were a right, who could blame a voter for selling it? Every man’s vote must be public for the same reason that votes on the floor of the legislature are public. If a congressman or a Member of Parliament could conceal his vote, would we not expect him to vote badly, in his own interest and not in ours? A secret vote is, by definition, a selfish vote. Only if a man votes “under the eye and criticism of the public” will he put public interest above his own. […]
Mill’s argument was widely debated, but met with a practical-minded reply: even if voting is a public trust (which not all of Mill’s opponents granted), voters need to exercise it privately to exercise it well, because the electorate, unlike the legislature, consists of men of unequal rank. The powerless will always be prevailed upon by the powerful; only secrecy can protect them from bribery and bullying. […]
By 1896, Americans in thirty-nine out of forty-five states cast secret, government-printed ballots. The turnout, nationwide? Eighty per cent, which was about what it had been since the eighteen-thirties. It has been falling, more or less steadily, ever since. […]
(This year, an unusually high turnout is expected, but high, by our standards, would be more than sixty per cent. And if four out of ten of the nation’s eligible voters fail to turn up at the polls it won’t be for lack of ordinary courage.) It also contributed to the erosion of the notion of voting as a public trust.
03 Novembro 2008
Balanço
Daqui
[act.: What did Dubya do? George W. Bush's reign has been controversial from the start, but they say troubled times yield great art. As Americans prepare to pick his successor, we look at movies, books, music, theatre and visual arts and ask: what is his artistic legacy? [...]
That may be the Bush administration's most impressive pop cultural achievement: it made fiction irrelevant.]
02 Novembro 2008
01 Novembro 2008
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