radical transparency

While I’m opposed to the death penalty on both moral and practical grounds, I can’t feel sorry about Saddam’s execution. And this might be a good story to tell those who think his death will only worsen the insurgency in Iraq.

In fact, the overall effect of his death is the only thing about this whole affair that seems remotely interesting to me. At this point, one positively good effect can already be seen: knowing it could do nothing to prevent footage and pictures of the execution from quickly hitting the web, and thus having to deal with the ethical challenge of how to properly report it, a good deal of the mainstream media decided to use blogs and such to present their decisions to its audience.

On the one hand, they make themselves all the more open to criticism and finger-pointing by bloggers and such. And because of that, on the other, they can claim they’re being more transparent and open about the way they report things. Chris Anderson must be quite pleased with it.

making fools of themselves

I realize how distasteful it is to dignify the Holocaust denier arguments in a public forum. But the opportunity to show how science and reason can triumph over ignorance and propaganda is too good to ignore. This qualifies as one of those “once in a thousand years” opportunities.

Scott Adams gives a perfect example of why free speech is such a powerful idea. Great reading for those who think that “apology to crime” is a useful preventive measure.

foreign looks on Brazil

With the holidays, come the tourists. And some of them, like Tyler Cowen, have blogs, which gives us a rare opportunity to get a glimpse of how other people see our country. His post on the billboard ban in São Paulo is a great example of why I think more Brazilians should blog in English.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the post, of course. But take a look at the comments and we can see the disconnect between people who clearly haven’t even read the news piece he links to, and the local interests behind the actual project. Take, for example, commenter Bisaal, who says “I suspect an activist judiciary and local ‘activists’”. Had he actually read the Times piece, and he’d know that the judiciary had absolutely nothing to do with the bill, and actually had ruled part of it unconstitutional.

TDL asks “why aren’t all these regulations at least honest about what they are attempting to do (regulate and restrict forms of speech the politicians in power do not approve of)?”, perhaps thinking that the administration that suggested the bill was a left-leaning, free-market hating one. In fact, mayor Kassab belongs to the most prototypical conservative party in Brazil, one that is the direct heir to the military dictatorship that ruled the country for over 20 years.

This is a bill that passed with a 45 to 1 vote, and didn’t really raise much controversy. It was welcomed by both tree-huggers in general as well as conservative pundits such as Roberto Pompeu de Toledo, quoted in the Times piece. There is no reason to imply that this was in any way a political move to stifle speech or anything of the sort, rather than a legitimate idea to make an ugly city a little less so. And it is not a novel idea, either, as some other commenters have noted.

If we had at least one newspaper and a reasonable number of bloggers writing in English, it would be more difficult for people to jump to conclusions like that, based only on personal prejudices and misconceptions.

what goes around

It is no secret that this Workers’ Party administration has no sympathies for Varig’s problems. In fact, one might say that were it not for the Judiciary and the company’s judicial reorganization would never have gone through. Even after the auction, Anac (National Agency of Civil Aviation) stalled its homologation process and tried to strip it of its old routes.

But after two months of neverending air traffic chaos, with the Air Force being called in to help transport stranded passengers, it seems safe to say that Varig is the one carrier that’ll come out of it with reason to celebrate.

With a better aircraft to routes ratio, it is less prone to the sort of chain reaction delays that both Gol and Tam have been experiencing. Covering fewer destinations, it can easily handle the flow of passengers in airports, even in vastly undersized ones such as São Paulo’s Congonhas. In fact, Varig has been able to lend a hand (.br) and schedule extra flights to help transport Tam passengers.

And all this while having significantly lower rates than their closest competitors. Thus it seems quite safe to say that the same administration that’s been so eager to drive the company to bankruptcy has actually given it the chance it needed to regain the public’s trust and reestablish its place as a major player among Brazilian air carriers. Competition is a many splendored thing.

iPhoneyGate

So this is what all the fuss was about? For crying out loud, someone should ask Steve Jobs to do something about Apple fanboys, for things are starting to get out of control. It seems Apple Stores are running low on sense of humour these days.

helping freedom

This is the sort of thing why I love Reason:

But if the filthy commies are hypocrites for only seeming to object to tyranny when it comes from non-commies, as the right is so quick to point out, what does that make the right-wingers who only seem to object to tyranny when it comes from commies (or Muslims)? Uh, well….hey, look over there! Castro! Don’t let him get away!

But as someone who’s not really familiar with Chile’s economy, I would’ve liked if Doherty tackled the criticism that the country’s recent prosperity has more to do with a thriving foreign market for copper than with radical transformations introduced during Pinochet’s regime. And also, even though it seems somewhat safe to infer his opinion from the text, there’s a point that seems to be too easily forgotten by those who defend Friedman’s help to the general.

That is that when Google and Microsoft were said to have “capitulated” to the “Butchers of Beijing”, conservative pundits were up in arms because this sort of thing would help maintain the regime’s grasp on people’s freedom. These companies, they said, should do as Wikipedia, and refuse to do business with China until they were ready to allow freedom of speech in the country, and maybe have democratic elections. So, isn’t it possible that in helping Chilean economy Friedman was also helping maintain a bloody dictator in power for a little while longer?

In the end, I think Doherty’s opinion is somewhere along the lines of what Friedman himself said, that “the drive for political freedom that was generated by economic freedom and the resulting economic success ultimately resulted in a referendum that introduced political democracy”. Which is to say that any help in increasing people’s freedom can only make people want more freedom, and not the other way around, with which I’d wholeheartedly agree.

baby steps

Scott Adams recently said he doesn’t really worry about “any problem that we can see coming”. For similar reasons, I’ve never really worried about Brazilians’ apathy toward politics, and their seemingly incapacity to hold elected officials accountable for their deeds. It always seemed like a question of time for people to realize that if, as the saying goes, “all politicians are crooks”, it’s because we let them.

Perhaps that time has come. The recent decision by senators and representatives to double up their own monthly salaries, as their last action before handing Congress to the next legislature, seems to have awakened voters to the power of the internet. Never before had I seen so many virtual petitions (.br), online forms (.br) or e-mail scripts (.br) designed to flood congressmen’s inboxes. Some friends of mine designed a virtual protest site, Não Sou Palhaço (.br) – or “I’m not a Clown”.

And, not surprisingly, the uproar seems to be working. Today comes word that Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled the agreement invalid, saying the proposal should be voted by both Houses for it to go into effect. The ruling Workers Party (PT), even at the cost of isolating Arilndo Chinaglia, government leader in the lower house and only representative from the party to openly defend the raise, has gone from “no comments” to saying its leaders should stand position against the proposal (.br). And congressmen seem to be answering their voters, stating their position on the matter and promising to fight for it.

This being Brazil, it is not impossible for the subject to be dropped for now, only to be brought up by the next constituency. In which case it wouldn’t be surprising, either, if by then people didn’t mind it so much anymore and the raise was voted into effect without much of a fuss. In fact, PT’s leader in the lower house, rep. Henrique Fontana, is already proposing a smaller raise (.br), in accordance to inflation. But even if we still can’t say the age of accountability has arrived in Brazil, it is nice to see such moments of lucidity and activism, which just might be another step toward a more mature society.

some federation

Here’s a great lesson for legislators and left-leaning pundits in general:

When the US government ended “welfare as we know it” in 1996, it handed responsibility for reform to the states. In so doing, it also created a real-world test of two competing economic strategies used to fight poverty. The results are in and the lessons are clear: Low tax rates lift up the lives of America’s poor.

In fact, there are two lessons here for Brazilian legislators to learn. First, that competition between states in a federation is a good way to foster development. And second, the most obvious one that lowering taxes equals economic growth and less poverty.

Take ICMS (Tax on Merchandise Circulation and Services), for example. As it is now, states set the tax rate and frequently use it to attract business. This practice is usually referred to by politicians and local media as a “fiscal war” between the states, which allegedly stifles proper competition. To prevent this awful thing from happening, a tributary reform project that’s been making the rounds in Congress for a while proposes to unify legislation on ICMS, thus making the federal government responsible for setting its rate.

first post

(In which one makes the proverbial presentation.)

If you were to sign up for Orkut, chances are you’d end up only finding communities where people speak in Portuguese. Even if its name is in English, it will most likely have been taken over by Brazilians who make no effort to try and communicate in some other language. In services where some sort of English-only policy is enforced, like Newsvine, you’d be hard-pressed to find Brazilian authors.

This has bothered me for quite some time. Even more so because people are always willing to vilify foreign journalists who dare criticize anything about the country – such as the current air traffic control crisis. Even a preposterous movie like “Turistas” is enough for all sorts of conspiracy theories about the gringos wanting to prevent our growth to pop up in the media.

With that in mind, in 2005, I started a blog to post translations to English of articles and news from Brazilian media. I abandoned it a few months later, unable to keep a decent flow of posts and/or find enough contributors to share the load with. A couple of weeks ago, though, someone brought the subject up in Barcamp Brasil’s discussion group, and I couldn’t help but side with those who said that it’s kind of nonsensical to talk about digital inclusion (.br) in Brazil without also talking about teaching them English.

Which, in turn, led me to think I should put my brain where my mouth was. I already keep a Newsvine account where I post articles regarding technology in Brazil, that I think might be of interest to a larger audience. But I thought that this might be a good moment to start a more general, personal blog, in English, where I’d post whatever fancied me. This is it.