No he pogut resistir-me a reproduir aquest article que avui surt al diari Avui. No cal dir res més, això es el que tenim i poc podem fer, per no dir res. Es la nostra creu, sol espero que algun dia puguem trobar la nostra cara.
Ministres ‘ni-nis'
Sebastià Alzamora
Que una persona com Leire Pajín hagi arribat a ministra és una visualització clara de la noció de meritocràcia que impera a la política espanyola. Alguns fins analistes afirmen que es tracta d'un ministeri de consolació: no els ho discutiré, perquè doctors té l'Església, però estarem d'acord que es tracta, com a mínim, d'una consolació d'alt estànding. Per altra banda, tenir la responsabilitat simbòlica màxima (és a dir, sense competències) sobre un dels pilars de l'estat del benestar, com és ara la sanitat, i en temps de convulsions que fan trontollar precisament aquest estat del benestar, no sembla tampoc una comesa qualsevol.
Abans que a algun adalil de la fe vertadera se li acudeixi la ximpleria, potser val la pena aclarir que quan escric “una persona com Leire Pajín” no faig referència al fet que sigui jove, ni tampoc al fet que sigui una dona. Podria dir el mateix de la seva coreligionària Bibiana Aído, el ministeri de la qual ha quedat precisament fusionat dins el de Leire Pajín, i tampoc m'estaria referint a l'edat ni al sexe de la ministra. Més aviat penso en un aspecte generacional: tant la senyora Pajín com la senyora Aído són representants de la primera generació ni-ni VIP o ni-ni DeLuxe. En diríem així d'aquelles persones que ni pensen ni raonen ni els fa cap falta fer-ho, perquè en tenen prou d'anar per la vida repetint fil per randa les consignes i els argumentaris del partit al qual pertanyen, i que a canvi s'obren un camí confortable dins el món de la política. Per altra banda, si dins la lògica socialista hi entra la idea de concedir un salari, encara que sigui el mínim, als ni-nis corrents i vulgars, resulta de plena coherència que als ni-nis VIP o DeLuxe se'ls concedeixin ministeris, encara que siguin de consolació.
Naturalment, el ni-ni VIP o DeLuxe no és cap figura privativa dels socialistes: en hi fixem més perquè ells són els que en aquest moment estan en condicions de nomenar ministres, però d'aquests ni-nis vinguts a més en trobaríem a tots els partits, en una proporció més o menys gran. Destaca entre tots el PP, que en aquests anys a l'oposició ha criat un extens planter de ni-nis ministeriables, i a més en dues versions: el ni-ni VIP moderat i el ni-ni constitucionalista DeLuxe, versions actualitzades del que abans coneixíem com a centristes i fatxes, respectivament. El ni-ni VIP es reconeix de seguida per la seva capacitat astoradora de negar la realitat i d'atribuir de forma automàtica qualsevol mèrit al propi partit mentre imputa a l'adversari tots els mals imaginables. Per a un ni-ni VIP no hi ha mai ni una petita esquerda per on se li pugui colar el dubte, i el món es divideix entre els seus (que tenen raó per naturalesa) i la resta (que s'equivoquen per definició). No em diguin que no és una manera envejablement descansada d'existir en aquest planeta.
divendres, 22 d’octubre del 2010
dijous, 21 d’octubre del 2010
El Gran hermano se acerca
Ya tenemos aquí el inicio de la pesadilla de Orwell, todo se acerca, lentamente, a paso pausado, las normas se van imponiendo, todo es por nuestro bien, todo será controlado, todo debe estar bajo el ojo del vigilante, de nuestro gobierno, pero, ¿quién vigila a los que nos vigilan? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Platón respondió que ellos mismos, que deben ser personas ajenas a todos los placeres terrenales o al poder, pero somos humanos, demasiado humanos.
Os dejo la noticia publicada hou en el Telegraph.
Every email and website to be stored
Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans.
It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet.
Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.
It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".
Any suggestion of a central "super database" has been ruled out but the plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time.
That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism.
The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages.
The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review, which revealed: "We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework.
"This programme is required to keep up with changing technology and to maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do to protect the public.
"Communications data provides evidence in court to secure convictions of those engaged in activities that cause serious harm. It has played a role in every major Security Service counterterrorism operation and in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime investigations.
"We will legislate to put in place the necessary regulations and safeguards to ensure that our response to this technology challenge is compatible with the Government’s approach to information storage and civil liberties."
But Isabella Sankey, director of policy at Liberty, said: "One of the early and welcome promises of the new Government was to ‘end the blanket storage of internet and email records’.
"Any move to amass more of our sensitive data and increase powers for processing would amount to a significant U-turn. The terrifying ambitions of a group of senior Whitehall technocrats must not trump the personal privacy of law abiding Britons.”
Guy Herbert, general secretary of the No2ID campaign group, said: "We should not be surprised that the interests of bureaucratic empires outrank liberty.
"It is disappointing that the new ministers seem to be continuing their predecessors' tradition of credulousness."
Os dejo la noticia publicada hou en el Telegraph.
Every email and website to be stored
Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans.
It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet.
Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.
It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".
Any suggestion of a central "super database" has been ruled out but the plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time.
That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism.
The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages.
The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review, which revealed: "We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework.
"This programme is required to keep up with changing technology and to maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do to protect the public.
"Communications data provides evidence in court to secure convictions of those engaged in activities that cause serious harm. It has played a role in every major Security Service counterterrorism operation and in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime investigations.
"We will legislate to put in place the necessary regulations and safeguards to ensure that our response to this technology challenge is compatible with the Government’s approach to information storage and civil liberties."
But Isabella Sankey, director of policy at Liberty, said: "One of the early and welcome promises of the new Government was to ‘end the blanket storage of internet and email records’.
"Any move to amass more of our sensitive data and increase powers for processing would amount to a significant U-turn. The terrifying ambitions of a group of senior Whitehall technocrats must not trump the personal privacy of law abiding Britons.”
Guy Herbert, general secretary of the No2ID campaign group, said: "We should not be surprised that the interests of bureaucratic empires outrank liberty.
"It is disappointing that the new ministers seem to be continuing their predecessors' tradition of credulousness."
dijous, 14 d’octubre del 2010
Clase Magistral de Economía
Copiado de un mail que circula por la red.
Hace tiempo que la crisis viene azotando esta ciudad de cualquier lugar, todos tienen deudas y viven a base de créditos.
Por fortuna, llega un ruso mafioso forrado de sextercios y entra en el único pequeño hotel del lugar.
Pide una habitación. Pone un billete de 100 dólares en la mesa de la recepcionista y se va a ver las habitaciones.
El jefe del hotel agarra el billete y sale corriendo a pagar sus deudas con el carnicero.
Éste toma el billete y corre a pagar su deuda con el criador de cerdos.
Este último corre para pagar lo que le debe al molino, que es el proveedor de alimentos para animales.
El dueño del molino toma el billete al vuelo y corre a liquidar su deuda con Magdalena, la prostituta a la que hace tiempo que paga. En tiempos de crisis, hasta ella ofrece servicios a crédito.
La prostituta con el billete en mano sale para el pequeño hotel donde había traído a sus clientes las últimas veces, y que todavía no había pagado. Le entrega el billete al dueño del hotel.
En este momento baja el ruso, que acaba de echar un vistazo a las habitaciones,
dice que no le convence ninguna, toma el billete y se va. Nadie ha ganado un centavo, pero ahora toda la ciudad vive sin deudas y mira el futuro con confianza!!!
MORALEJA: ¡¡¡SI EL DINERO CIRCULA SE ACABA LA CRISIS!!!
Hace tiempo que la crisis viene azotando esta ciudad de cualquier lugar, todos tienen deudas y viven a base de créditos.
Por fortuna, llega un ruso mafioso forrado de sextercios y entra en el único pequeño hotel del lugar.
Pide una habitación. Pone un billete de 100 dólares en la mesa de la recepcionista y se va a ver las habitaciones.
El jefe del hotel agarra el billete y sale corriendo a pagar sus deudas con el carnicero.
Éste toma el billete y corre a pagar su deuda con el criador de cerdos.
Este último corre para pagar lo que le debe al molino, que es el proveedor de alimentos para animales.
El dueño del molino toma el billete al vuelo y corre a liquidar su deuda con Magdalena, la prostituta a la que hace tiempo que paga. En tiempos de crisis, hasta ella ofrece servicios a crédito.
La prostituta con el billete en mano sale para el pequeño hotel donde había traído a sus clientes las últimas veces, y que todavía no había pagado. Le entrega el billete al dueño del hotel.
En este momento baja el ruso, que acaba de echar un vistazo a las habitaciones,
dice que no le convence ninguna, toma el billete y se va. Nadie ha ganado un centavo, pero ahora toda la ciudad vive sin deudas y mira el futuro con confianza!!!
MORALEJA: ¡¡¡SI EL DINERO CIRCULA SE ACABA LA CRISIS!!!
dimecres, 13 d’octubre del 2010
Los extremos se tocan
Un nuevo artículo de "The New Yorker", esta vez sobre la voz que más se escucha en los problemas, no la más inteligente, sino la que más ruido mete. Explicándonos dos polémicas diferentes pero calcadas, las caricaturas de Mahoma y el centro islámico de la zona Cero de Nueva York.
Siempre ha sido así y siempre lo será, la minoría silenciosa es demasiado muda.
Intolerance
by Lawrence Wright
When a dozen cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammed appeared in the conservative Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, in September, 2005, there was only a muted outcry from the small Danish Muslim community, and little reaction in the rest of the Muslim world. Six months later, however, riots broke out and Danish embassies were burned; more than a hundred people died. Assassination threats were made, and continue to this day.
Last year, when plans were announced for Cordoba House, an Islamic community center to be built two blocks north of Ground Zero, few opposed them. The project was designed to promote moderate Islam and provide a bridge to other faiths. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Sufi cleric leading the effort, told the Times, in December, “We want to push back against the extremists.” In August, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously against granting historic protection to the building at 45-47 Park Place, thereby clearing the way for the construction of Park51, as the center is now known. A month later, it is the focus of a bitter quarrel about the place of Islam in our society.
The lessons of the Danish cartoon controversy serve as an ominous template for the current debate. One reason for the initial lack of reaction to the cartoons was that they were, essentially, innocuous. There is a prohibition on depictions of the Prophet in Islam, but that taboo has ebbed and flowed over time, and only two of the twelve published cartoons could really be construed as offensive in themselves: one portrayed the Prophet as a barbarian with a drawn sword, which played into a racial stereotype; the other showed him wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb. Newspapers in several Muslim countries published the cartoons to demonstrate that they were tasteless, rather than vicious. The cartoons, in other words, did not cause the trouble.
So what happened? A group of radical imams in Denmark, led by Ahmed Abu Laban, an associate of Gama’a al-Islamiyya, an Egyptian terrorist organization, decided to use the cartoons to inflate their own importance. They showed the cartoons to various Muslim leaders in other countries, and included three illustrations that had not appeared in the Danish papers. One was a photograph of a man supposedly wearing a prayer cap and a pig mask, and imitating the Prophet. (He turned out to be a contestant in a French hog-calling competition). Another depicted a dog mounting a Muslim in prayer. The third was a drawing of the Prophet as a maddened pedophile gripping helpless children like dolls in either hand. The imams later claimed that these illustrations had been e-mailed to them as threats—although they never produced any proof that they hadn’t made the drawings themselves—and so were fair representations of European anti-Muslim sentiment. The leaders saw them and were inflamed. The Sunni scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi demanded a Day of Rage. So far, we have had five years of rage.
In the dispute over Park51, the role of the radical imams has been taken by bloggers and right-wing commentators. In this parable, Pamela Geller, who writes a blog called Atlas Shrugs and runs a group called Stop Islamization of America, plays the part of Ahmed Abu Laban. Geller has already contributed to the phony claim that President Obama is a Muslim (which twenty per cent of the American public now believe is true), by promoting a theory that he is the bastard son of Malcolm X. Because of Park51’s location, Geller compares the community center (or the “9/11 Monster Mosque,” as she terms it) to Al Aqsa, the ancient mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—a flash point for Jewish extremists in Israel.
Geller framed the argument for the New York Post, which added the false information that Park51 was going to open on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Deliberate misrepresentations of Imam Abdul Rauf as a supporter of terror further distorted the story, as it moved on to the Fox News commentariat and from there to political figures, such as Newt Gingrich, who compared Abdul Rauf and his supporters to Nazis desecrating the Holocaust Memorial Museum by their presence. These strident falsehoods have undoubtedly influenced the two-thirds of Americans who now oppose Park51. The cynicism of this rhetorical journey can be traced in the remarks of Laura Ingraham, who interviewed Daisy Khan, Abdul Rauf’s wife and partner in the project, in December. “I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it,” Ingraham told Khan then. “I like what you’re trying to do.” Ingraham has since been brought into line. “I say the terrorists have won with the way this has gone down,” she said last month, on “Good Morning America.” “Six hundred feet from where thousands of our fellow-Americans were incinerated in the name of political Islam, and we’re supposed to be considered intolerant if we’re not cheering this?”
Culture wars are currently being waged against Muslim Americans across the country. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Muslims have been worshipping for thirty years, a construction vehicle was burned at the site of a new Islamic center. Pat Robertson, the fundamentalist Christian leader, warned his followers on the “700 Club” that, if the center brings “thousands and thousands” of Muslims into the area, “the next thing you know, they’re going to be taking over the city council. They’re going to have an ordinance that calls for public prayer five times a day.” As in the Park51 controversy, fearmongering and slander serve as the basis of an argument that cannot rely on facts to make its case.
The most worrisome development in the evolution of Al Qaeda’s influence since 9/11 is the growth of pockets of Islamist radicalism in Western populations. Until recently, America had been largely immune to the extremism that has placed some European nations in peril. America’s Muslim community is more ethnically diverse than that of any other major religion in the country. Its members hold more college and graduate degrees than the national average. They also have a higher employment rate and more jobs in the professional sector. (Compare that with England and France, where education and employment rates among Muslims fall below the national averages.) These factors have allowed American Muslims and non-Muslims to live together with a degree of harmony that any other Western nation would envy.
The best ally in the struggle against violent Islamism is moderate Islam. The unfounded attacks on the backers of Park51 and others, along with such sideshows as a pastor calling for the burning of Korans, give substance to the Al Qaeda argument that the U.S. is waging a war against Islam, rather than against the terrorists’ misshapen effigy of that religion. Those stirring the pot in this debate are casting a spell that is far more dangerous than they may imagine. ♦
Siempre ha sido así y siempre lo será, la minoría silenciosa es demasiado muda.
Intolerance
by Lawrence Wright
When a dozen cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammed appeared in the conservative Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, in September, 2005, there was only a muted outcry from the small Danish Muslim community, and little reaction in the rest of the Muslim world. Six months later, however, riots broke out and Danish embassies were burned; more than a hundred people died. Assassination threats were made, and continue to this day.
Last year, when plans were announced for Cordoba House, an Islamic community center to be built two blocks north of Ground Zero, few opposed them. The project was designed to promote moderate Islam and provide a bridge to other faiths. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Sufi cleric leading the effort, told the Times, in December, “We want to push back against the extremists.” In August, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously against granting historic protection to the building at 45-47 Park Place, thereby clearing the way for the construction of Park51, as the center is now known. A month later, it is the focus of a bitter quarrel about the place of Islam in our society.
The lessons of the Danish cartoon controversy serve as an ominous template for the current debate. One reason for the initial lack of reaction to the cartoons was that they were, essentially, innocuous. There is a prohibition on depictions of the Prophet in Islam, but that taboo has ebbed and flowed over time, and only two of the twelve published cartoons could really be construed as offensive in themselves: one portrayed the Prophet as a barbarian with a drawn sword, which played into a racial stereotype; the other showed him wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb. Newspapers in several Muslim countries published the cartoons to demonstrate that they were tasteless, rather than vicious. The cartoons, in other words, did not cause the trouble.
So what happened? A group of radical imams in Denmark, led by Ahmed Abu Laban, an associate of Gama’a al-Islamiyya, an Egyptian terrorist organization, decided to use the cartoons to inflate their own importance. They showed the cartoons to various Muslim leaders in other countries, and included three illustrations that had not appeared in the Danish papers. One was a photograph of a man supposedly wearing a prayer cap and a pig mask, and imitating the Prophet. (He turned out to be a contestant in a French hog-calling competition). Another depicted a dog mounting a Muslim in prayer. The third was a drawing of the Prophet as a maddened pedophile gripping helpless children like dolls in either hand. The imams later claimed that these illustrations had been e-mailed to them as threats—although they never produced any proof that they hadn’t made the drawings themselves—and so were fair representations of European anti-Muslim sentiment. The leaders saw them and were inflamed. The Sunni scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi demanded a Day of Rage. So far, we have had five years of rage.
In the dispute over Park51, the role of the radical imams has been taken by bloggers and right-wing commentators. In this parable, Pamela Geller, who writes a blog called Atlas Shrugs and runs a group called Stop Islamization of America, plays the part of Ahmed Abu Laban. Geller has already contributed to the phony claim that President Obama is a Muslim (which twenty per cent of the American public now believe is true), by promoting a theory that he is the bastard son of Malcolm X. Because of Park51’s location, Geller compares the community center (or the “9/11 Monster Mosque,” as she terms it) to Al Aqsa, the ancient mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—a flash point for Jewish extremists in Israel.
Geller framed the argument for the New York Post, which added the false information that Park51 was going to open on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Deliberate misrepresentations of Imam Abdul Rauf as a supporter of terror further distorted the story, as it moved on to the Fox News commentariat and from there to political figures, such as Newt Gingrich, who compared Abdul Rauf and his supporters to Nazis desecrating the Holocaust Memorial Museum by their presence. These strident falsehoods have undoubtedly influenced the two-thirds of Americans who now oppose Park51. The cynicism of this rhetorical journey can be traced in the remarks of Laura Ingraham, who interviewed Daisy Khan, Abdul Rauf’s wife and partner in the project, in December. “I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it,” Ingraham told Khan then. “I like what you’re trying to do.” Ingraham has since been brought into line. “I say the terrorists have won with the way this has gone down,” she said last month, on “Good Morning America.” “Six hundred feet from where thousands of our fellow-Americans were incinerated in the name of political Islam, and we’re supposed to be considered intolerant if we’re not cheering this?”
Culture wars are currently being waged against Muslim Americans across the country. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Muslims have been worshipping for thirty years, a construction vehicle was burned at the site of a new Islamic center. Pat Robertson, the fundamentalist Christian leader, warned his followers on the “700 Club” that, if the center brings “thousands and thousands” of Muslims into the area, “the next thing you know, they’re going to be taking over the city council. They’re going to have an ordinance that calls for public prayer five times a day.” As in the Park51 controversy, fearmongering and slander serve as the basis of an argument that cannot rely on facts to make its case.
The most worrisome development in the evolution of Al Qaeda’s influence since 9/11 is the growth of pockets of Islamist radicalism in Western populations. Until recently, America had been largely immune to the extremism that has placed some European nations in peril. America’s Muslim community is more ethnically diverse than that of any other major religion in the country. Its members hold more college and graduate degrees than the national average. They also have a higher employment rate and more jobs in the professional sector. (Compare that with England and France, where education and employment rates among Muslims fall below the national averages.) These factors have allowed American Muslims and non-Muslims to live together with a degree of harmony that any other Western nation would envy.
The best ally in the struggle against violent Islamism is moderate Islam. The unfounded attacks on the backers of Park51 and others, along with such sideshows as a pastor calling for the burning of Korans, give substance to the Al Qaeda argument that the U.S. is waging a war against Islam, rather than against the terrorists’ misshapen effigy of that religion. Those stirring the pot in this debate are casting a spell that is far more dangerous than they may imagine. ♦
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