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BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Tuesday, July 16, 2013 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today joined eighteen other activist and advocacy organizations in challenging the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of telecommunications in the United States with a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The recently revealed surveillance program intercepts and catalogs the time, place, and participants of all calls on Verizon's phone network over a defined period. This includes calls made between advocacy organizations and their supporters.

In recent weeks, Brazil has been convulsed with protests. How are Christians responding?

Two different believers in Brazil take two different attitudes. Guilherme de Carvalho is a staff worker at LAbri, a Christian study center in Belo Horizonte, a city in the more developed southeast of Brazil. He is also the pastor of a local Evangelical congregation. He sees the protests as a catalyst for change in Brazil and thinks Christians should play an active role in shaping the outcome.

Kenneth Wieske is a Canadian Reformed missionary who has been working in the large northeastern city of Recife for thirteen years. He does not see a place for Christians in these protests. He believes true political reform will only happen when Brazilians start changing the way they live.

The protests began when a leftist group (Movimento Passe Livre)   denounced an increase in bus fares and demanded a greater level of government subsidy. This quickly grew into a broad expression of discontent with the national status quo as millions took to the streets. Much of the resentment focused on the billions of dollars spent on stadiums for next years soccer World Cup, even as the average Brazilian deals with poor infrastructure, education, and medical care. But the views being expressed in the protests were as diverse as the protestors themselves. Two people could be marching side by side and protesting two totally different things.

Both Belo Horizonte and Recife are slated to host World Cup matches, and both were the scenes of large demonstrations. Carvalho lives near the city center, so he and his family experienced the protests firsthand. He decided early on to get involved. There was a strong feeling among everyone that something major was going on," he says. I had a strong desire to go out in the streets and discovered that many people in my church had gone out too."

Wieske and his family live on the outskirts of Recife, so they didnt feel as much impact from the protests. Theyve been careful to avoid the hotspots. Two weeks ago, though, there was a general bus strike, which meant many people in their church could not get to work.

He says that in some ways the protests did not surprise him: There is great income disparity here and great injustice towards the poor. Especially when I first moved here 13 years ago, I wondered if the poor would ever rise up if someone agitated them enough."

Wieske would not participate in the protests himself because of the way they originated: over a rise in bus fares: The people who protested that are violating the Eighth Commandment," he explains. Those bus fares are subsidized, so other people are paying the fares and the protestors want more of their money. They want to live off the fruit of someone elses labor."

Carvalho also disagrees with the original protests, but he thinks they quickly morphed into something totally different: The initial protests were like a butterfly effect. They brought other people onto the streets to complain about other things. The movement very quickly stopped being left-wing and became national."

He sees lack of political representation as the greatest challenge facing Brazil, and that is the reason he was protesting. Politicians are elected but as soon as they take office they forget the people who elected them," he says.

He has been blogging about his views. His first post on the protests garnered two thousand Facebook likes. He also helped start Igreja na Rua (Church in the Street), a small networking group of believers who are joining in the protests. They have been adding the hashtag #igrejanarua to their banners. The group had its first meeting last week to discuss an agenda. Increasing political representation is its top priority.

Igreja na Rua is only one of many different Christian groups that arose spontaneously during the protests. Carvalho does not know where they will go in the next year, but he is pleased to see Christians becoming more politically engaged.

Carvalho does not believe any good will come from rushing reforms through in the current climate, but he is optimistic that carefully thought-out changes to the law could, in time, have a big impact. This is a historic moment and changes are coming, he thinks. Thus, its particularly important for Christians to remain engaged and vigilant. The recent rise of the extreme left is worrying. Theyve been organizing off the back of these protests. Christians should also organize," he says.

He hopes the protests will lead Brazilian Evangelical Christians-who he believes have been overly ideological-to become more pragmatic in forming political alliances, particularly with Roman Catholics.

Wieske has a very different perspective. He thinks the political system will only be transformed when ordinary Brazilians spark cultural change: We need to address the problems by living in a consistent manner. You wont change corruption in the government if youre tolerating it in your own life. If youre pulled over by a police officer who is looking to get a bribe, dont pay it. Most people find it much easier to pay the bribe and drive on. People have pirated CDs and DVDs in their houses and then they go out and protest corruption."

Wieske believes there are sufficient mechanisms in Brazils current laws and constitution to tackle most of the issues being protested. Brazilians rarely attempt that because it is difficult, expensive, and sometimes even dangerous. But that would change if large numbers began taking legal action. Right now, he thinks people prefer protesting because it is easier.

Last year, he and several other Brazilian Christians launched Projeto Reforma Hoje (Project Reformation Today), which seeks to promote Christian Reformed thinking, reflection, and action. The project has a Portuguese-language website with articles on how to apply Christian ethics to areas like education, family, and politics.

Wieske does see room for Christians to participate in a public demonstration, but only if it has a clearly defined purpose. I could see going with a crowd to a corrupt officials place of work or residence and surrounding it and saying, 'We wont leave till your corruption has been dealt with. That way the official is the one being inconvenienced and not the general public. And maybe then that person would start to think about their sins," he explains.

At this point, both Carvalho and Wieske believe the protests will largely fizzle out and see that as a good thing. Whether the protests will bring meaningful changes to Brazil remains to be seen.

Emma Elliott Freire is a freelance writer living in England. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

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An anonymous reader writes "Picking up the code from a failed Direct3D 10/11 implementation for Linux, a working Direct3D 9 state tracker has been implemented for Linux. The Direct3D 9 support works with open-source Linux GPU hardware drivers via Mesa's Gallium3D and can run games for the open-source Radeon and Nouveau drivers without simply converting the Direct3D commands into OpenGL. Unlike the experimental D3D10/11 code from the past, this D3D9 state tracker is already running games like Skyrim, Civilization 5, Anno 1404, and StarCraft 2. With Linux games not natively targeting D3D, Wine was modified for using this native Direct3D implementation."

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If you have a nice story you want to be posted on 43rumors send the full article at 43rumors@gmail.com.

Today 43rumors reader Roberto posts that extremely long and detailed Yasuhara Nanoha X5 MFT lens test. This lens costs $499 (at BHphoto) and isn’t certainly a lens for the mass. But you can do some great things with it! So click on the link below to read the full test.

I was lurking around this “special” lens for some time now, but except for a few bits of information and picture samples on the web there was hardly anything in-depth about the Yasuhara Nanoha, or so it would seem. Hence I had no other choice than to buy and test it for myself

The specs on paper were just all too tempting:
- 5:1 macro ratio (magnification) – even if you take the m4/3 crop factor into account, it ́s very impressive! – built-in light source (3 LED ́s)!
- very compact design
- native micro4/3 mount
- competitive price…

Then, a few weeks ago, Thierry of Yasuhara France-Benelux sent me a mail with good news about the Nanoha currently again being in stock, and due to the Yen exchange ratio at a very decent price. Of course I had to say yes… After a week I was able to welcome the new lens and do a little testing – my first victim being a flat ironed 5 Euros bill.

An anonymous reader writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation awarded Yahoo a gold star for its diligence in fighting for user privacy in courts. From the release: 'In 2007, Yahoo received an order to produce user data under the Protect America Act (the predecessor statute to the FISA Amendments Act, the law on which the NSA’s recently disclosed Prism program relies). Instead of blindly accepting the government’s constitutionally questionable order, Yahoo fought back. The company challenged the legality of the order in the FISC, the secret surveillance court that grants government applications for surveillance. And when the order was upheld by the FISC, Yahoo didn’t stop fighting: it appealed the decision to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, a three-judge appellate court established to review decisions of the FISC. ... Yahoo went to bat for its users – not because it had to, and not because of a possible PR benefit – but because it was the right move for its users and the company. It’s precisely this type of fight – a secret fight for user privacy – that should serve as the gold standard for companies, and such a fight must be commended. While Yahoo still has a way to go in the other Who Has Your Back categories (and they remain the last major email carrier not using HTTPS encryption by default), Yahoo leads the pack in fighting for its users under seal and in secret.'" Although they did end up losing, and were forbidden from even mentioning the existence of the case until recently.

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Much of the pro-life community is excited over the passage last week of a bill in the Texas House of Representatives restricting abortions after twenty weeks. On the surface, this sounds like a bill that everyone who is pro-life should support. After all, the legislation is based on findings that unborn babies experience pain beginning at the twentieth week of development. Indeed, some assert that they experience pain before then, but that beginning in the twentieth week they can experience excruciating pain. Why would anyone who considers himself pro-life be deeply disappointed in legislation that would restrict abortions that inflict excruciating pain? Why, indeed?

Yet I am deeply disappointed in this bill. I am not disappointed because of what it restricts, but because of what it explicitly and positively permits.

Specifically, the bill contains findings that "substantial medical evidence recognizes that an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain by not later than twenty weeks after fertilization" and that, as a result, "the state has a compelling state interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that these children are capable of feeling pain." In addition, the legislative findings state:

Restricting elective abortions at or later than 20 weeks post-fertilization, as provided by this Act, does not impose an undue burden or a substantial obstacle on a woman's ability to have an abortion because: (A) the woman has adequate time to decide whether to have an abortion in the first 20 weeks after fertilization; and (B) this Act does not apply to abortions that are necessary to avert the death or substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman or abortions that are performed on unborn children with severe fetal abnormalities.

The bill then prohibits all abortions after twenty weeks from fertilization except for the instances just listed. In the definition section, the bill refers to an existing statutory definition of "severe fetal abnormality," which provides that "a 'severe fetal abnormality means a life-threatening physical condition that, in reasonable medical judgment, regardless of the provision of life saving medical treatment, is incompatible with life outside the womb."

So what do I find problematic with this?

In the legislation, the state finds that an unborn child can feel pain not later than at twenty weeks after fertilization and that this gives the state a compelling interest in protecting the child. Yet the state refuses to protect such a child when he has a "severe fetal abnormality." In other words, if the poor little baby is going to die from his disabilities after birth anyway, the state of Texas will explicitly allow his being killed in the womb despite the pain it will cause him. Permitting the killing of someone who will die soon anyway is the position of those who favor euthanasia. In fact, it is also the argument made by those who favor infanticide of babies born with serious disabilities that will likely result in their death shortly after birth. The legislation permits euthanasia by abortion.

As is often pointed out, the law acts as a teacher. The lesson here is that unborn babies who have "severe fetal abnormalities" are not worthy of the same protections of other unborn children. I'm sure Princeton professor Peter Singer, who advocates permitting infanticide of disabled newborn infants, can make use of this lesson for his argument that the same applies after birth. And what would be the answer when he does? That killing before birth is different from killing after birth? Isn't that the argument of those who call themselves pro-choice?

When Ive raised this argument, the response is invariably, "Dont you care about the babies this bill will save?" Of course I want to save babies from abortion.  However, it is unlikely that this bill will save very many babies, if any. In the United States, 98.5 percent of all abortions occur before the twentieth week. That means that this bill only reaches 1.5 percent of all abortions that occur under existing law. In Texas, the percentage is even smaller. Of 85,000 abortions performed each year, only about one thousand occur after the twentieth week, or about 1.2 percent. Further, this bill has three exceptions to the twenty-week restriction. The first is the one which is the cause of my objection to the legislation. The second is to protect the mothers life. The third is to protect the mother from "substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function."

Without question, many abortions that occur after the twentieth week involve one of those three exceptions. Probably almost all late-term abortions would fall under one of these three exceptions. Most women who elect to have an abortion for other reasons are not going to wait until halfway through their pregnancy. Indeed, more than 94 percent of all abortions occur before the sixteenth week. And any woman who might be torn about whether to have an abortion this late in her pregnancy has the explicit legislative affirmation from the state of Texas that she may freely have the abortion so long as she doesnt wait past the twentieth week. In other words, dont delay trying to make up your mind or it will be too late.

But surely this bill may save some lives. Whose lives are those likely to be? Arguably, it will be babies who are diagnosed with fetal abnormalities that are not likely to result in their deaths shortly after birth. So how many babies might be diagnosed with such abnormalities after the twentieth week? Likely very few. The prenatal tests normally performed to detect such abnormalities are usually done between the fifteenth and twentieth week. That is, these tests are performed within the time frame in which the Texas legislation, by its own terms, "does not impose an undue burden or a substantial obstacle on a woman's ability to have an abortion." And while some of these tests now occur after the twentieth week, the bill just enacted creates an incentive to schedule such testing before the twentieth week if the mother wants to have the option of a legal abortion under the new law.

Yet it is possible that such non-fatal abnormalities might be detected after the twentieth week. Indeed, it is likely that such will continue to be the case in rare circumstances. This is where I must get personal. My third of four children and youngest daughter was born with an extremely rare chromosomal abnormality, Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome (RTS), an abnormality that occurs in about one out of 125,000 births. RTS is not detectible by any existing prenatal testing. Make no mistake about it, I love my daughter and I would do anything morally permissible to protect the life of any child, born or unborn, who has a disability. Those babies left unprotected under Texas new law are just as much made in the image of God as my disabled daughter and her siblings.

And sometimes doctors are wrong. Just last week, there was a story from Britain about a normal, healthy girl who is turning ten whose mother was told would have only a 1 percent chance of survival and was encouraged to get an abortion. Bella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a condition that results in the death of 90 percent of those who have the disorder within a year of birth, and yet Bella is now four. The Texas law will permit the killing of children who doctors may erroneously believe cannot survive long after birth.

Am I saying that it would be better to do nothing? Absolutely not. It would be better to enact legislation that protects all babies after the twentieth week (or even earlier, as have Arkansas and North Dakota), when they can feel pain, and not explicitly refuse to protect a subset of these babies. The legislation enacted in Texas is not the only option. Several states already ban abortion after the twentieth week. Georgia and Louisiana have exceptions similar to the ones enacted in Texas. None of the others make an exception for congenital anomalies. States with a twenty-week, or earlier, ban on abortion which protect all babies, including those with severe fetal abnormalities, include Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. The United States House of Representatives passed similar legislation last month. Those are better bills. It is a tragedy that the Texas legislature did not follow those examples.

North Dakota provides even more protection to unborn babies who are diagnosed with "a genetic or a potential for a genetic abnormality." This spring, that states legislature enacted, and the governor signed into law, a bill that expressly forbids abortions for purposes of sex selection or because "the unborn child has been diagnosed with either a genetic abnormality or a potential for a genetic abnormality." That law, the first of its kind in the nation, is currently being challenged in federal court. It may be struck down, in whole or in part. But for now, those restrictions are in force.

So, while I recognize the hard work and good intentions of those who have worked for the enactment of the Texas bill, I must voice my strong objection to this exception. I urge those who have supported this bill, many without even being aware of this explicit exception, to now turn their attention to repealing the provision making this exception and to enacting protections such as those enacted in North Dakota earlier this year. 

Gregory K. Laughlin is Associate Professor of Law and Law Library Director at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, AL.

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HonorPoncaCityDotCom writes "BBC reports that a North Korean-flagged ship carrying suspected 'sophisticated missile equipment' bound from Cuba to North Korea has been stopped near Manzanillo on the Atlantic side of the canal. President Ricardo Martinelli said the authorities were checking the ship for drugs when they found the suspected weapons in containers of brown sugar. Experts believe the communist state is working towards developing a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a long-range missile. Under UN sanctions, North Korea is banned from weapons exports and the import of all but small arms. The 35-member crew have been detained, including the captain who the Panamanian president said tried to kill himself during the search. Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino said the ship 'aroused suspicion by the violent reaction of the captain and the crew.' Martinelli also published a photograph that appeared to show two large green containers, adding that the arms shipment had been uncovered 'in containers underneath a cargo of sugar.'" Also at the New York Times.

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First time accepted submitter CherryLongman writes "If you feel as if every mosquito in a 50-mile radius has you locked in its sights, while your friends are rarely bitten, you could be right. Up to 20 percent of us are highly alluring to mosquitoes — and scientists have discovered some surprising reasons."

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darthcamaro writes "The Linux Kernel Development Mailing List can be a hostile place for anyone. Now Intel developer Sarah Sharp is taking a stand and she wants the LKML to become a more civil place. Quoting her first message: 'Seriously, guys? Is this what we need in order to get improve -stable? Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence. Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse. ... Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists.'" The entire thread is worth a read, but Linus isn't buying it: "Because if you want me to 'act professional', I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what 'acting professionally' results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.' He also offered cookies in exchange for joining the dark side. An earlier reply by Linus further explains why he thinks it is OK to be mean: most of the time, he's only yelling at people who should know better (cultivating a crew of lead developers bound to him by Stockholm Syndrome?).

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OpenSource.com talks with pump.io developer Evan Prodromou. "I've talked to developers over and over who are looking for a scalable open source server for their mobile social networking app. Developers who are good at iOS or Android development want to concentrate on making that front-end excellent—not on building yet another Like API. Although there are other open source social network programs, like StatusNet, most of them focus on the Web interface and leave the API as an afterthought. pump.io is first and foremost an API server. It has a default Web UI if you want to turn it on, but you can turn it off and just use the API server by itself." (LWN covered pump.io last March) (Thanks to Bryan Behrenshausen)

ilikenwf writes "Hackaday's owner, Jason Calacanis, has decided to sell the popular hacking/modding site for around $540,000. Multiple parties are interested; the most promising buyer at the moment appears to be the current editors, who are attempting to buy the site via crowdsourcing and incorporate it under a nonprofit to keep the hacks flowing. One way or another, the site should survive."

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  A cantiga ia assim: “Marcha soldado, cabeça de papel...” Tem crente, agora, cantando assim: “Marcha cristão, cabeça de papel; quem não for à parada também não vai pro céu”. Parece coisa de criança – e é! Em um contexto que parece diferente, mas que de fato tem tudo a ver com a política dos homens e a política Deus, Paulo disse: “Quando eu era menino, falava como menino, sentia como menino,

An anonymous reader writes "Here is an article by Dr.Joe Stiglitz on how intellectual property reinforces inequality by allowing patent owners to seek rent (aka license / sue) instead of delivering goods to the society. From the article: 'At first glance, the case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, might seem like scientific arcana: the court ruled, unanimously, that human genes cannot be patented, though synthetic DNA, created in the laboratory, can be. But the real stakes were much higher, and the issues much more fundamental, than is commonly understood. The case was a battle between those who would privatize good health, making it a privilege to be enjoyed in proportion to wealth, and those who see it as a right for all — and a central component of a fair society and well-functioning economy. Even more deeply, it was about the way inequality is shaping our politics, legal institutions and the health of our population.'"

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Micou de maneira retumbante o tal Dia Nacional de Lutas. A CUT, a Força Sindical, outras centrais e os partidos políticos de esquerda foram malsucedidos na tentativa de pegar carona da onda de protestos que sacudiu o país. Houve, sim, muita atrapalhação nas estradas, ocupação em porto, escaramuças, dificuldades aqui e ali, mas nada nem remotamente parecido com os protestos havidos no mês passado. ATENÇÃO, LEITOR! Se eu fosse um desses “cientistas sociais” que têm medo dos seus alunos e gostam de posar de moderninhos – aquela gente, sabe?, que agora deu para falar em “crise da democracia representativa” –, estaria achando lindo o que aconteceu. Mas eu não acho, não. Na verdade, o evento desta quinta jogou ainda mais luzes sobre os havidos no mês passado e só reforçou alguns temores que eu tinha. O que significa o micão desta quinta, em contraste com aquele milhão e meio de dias atrás? Significa que reivindicar o inexequível é bem mais gostoso, o que nos remete a um dos lemas de Maio de 1968, na França: “Seja realista, peça o impossível”. O evento também expõe uma das forças e, ao mesmo tempo, das maiores fragilidades da “onda de protestos” no Brasil: a composição social de quem vai ou foi às ruas. O primeiro passo para responder de forma eficiente à realidade e admiti-la: os pobres, com raras exceções, preferiram, até agora, ficar em casa.

Assim, entendam direito o meu ponto: não lamento o fato de o protesto desta quinta ter sido malsucedido porque gostaria de ver a CUT, a Força e até os petistas a liderar a massa… Eu não! Deus me livre! Lastimo é que a pobreza de liderança política no Brasil se reflita também nos sindicatos e que estejamos sem o fio que possa desatar o nó. Vamos lá. Milhões de trabalhadores poderiam ter ocupado as praças para cobrar redução na jornada de trabalho, certo? É uma reivindicação muito mais, como direi?, palpável do que os tais 20 centavos. Mas aí alguém se lembrou de gritar: “Não é pelos 20 centavos”. E estava dada a deixa para uma mobilização que tem, sim, âncoras no mundo real – corrupção dos políticos, ineficiência do serviço público, gastança de dinheiro –, mas que se expressa numa espécie de bolha de sensações e de emoções. Para voltar a Maio de 1968, o que conta é fazer as barricadas do desejo. A utopia é a da ausência de estado, assuma isso a forma violenta (os baderneiros) ou pacífica (uma coisa, assim, “faça amor, não faça a guerra”).

Cobrar redução da jornada e fim do fator previdenciário, olhem que coisa!, parece apequenar o movimento e a razão por que se vai às ruas; é, como diriam os adolescentes hoje em dia (de maneira irritante), “tipo assim” coisa de pobre, de um pragmatismo incompatível com o sonho e com as evocações românticas. Os “sonháticos” querem um outro mundo possível… Não! Na verdade, pretendem um outro mundo… impossível. Nele, não só os políticos não roubam como, a rigor, não há políticos nem política.

É claro que eu poderia lembrar àqueles valentes cientistas sociais que têm medo de contrariar os alunos que também as manifestações de junho levaram às ruas as… minorias!, ainda que tenham mobilizado, sei lá, 20 ou 30 vezes mais gente do que a desta quinta-feira. Huuummm… Então vamos ver: líderes que efetivamente representam grupos e com os quais se podem fazer acordos mobilizam meia dúzia de gatos-pingados; não líderes – e que, portanto, não lideram, mas alçados pela imprensa à condição de estrelas da não representação – conseguem criar eventos que reúnem alguns milhares. Muito bem! O que se vai negociar com eles? Chamem a Mayara Vivian e os coxinhas radicais do Passe Livre… 

Há quem se deixe cair de encantos por um paradoxo cuja graça, havendo alguma, é não mais do que literária – e literatura meio velha, da década de 60: a “juventude” (ah, os tarados pela juventude…) que está nas ruas tem força, mas não sabe o que quer, e os que sabem o que querem já não têm força. Mas onde está a virtude desse troço? Se isso produzir algo, tenho minhas dúvidas, será, no máximo, um impasse. Para o qual ninguém tem resposta.

Dilma está encalacrada? Está, sim, de dois modos distintos: há o impasse de fundo, que diz respeito ao esgotamento do modelo lulo-petista, do qual, vamos ser francos, até havia pouco, a esmagadora maioria da imprensa não havia se dado conta. Ou havia? Leiam os jornais de há dois ou três meses. Com ou sem “povo” na rua, o país ia mal das pernas. E agora ela enfrenta o descontentamento com “tudo isso que está aí”. Ocorre que esse “tudo isso” pode se voltar contra qualquer um; ele é dirigido, na verdade, contra o governante de turno. E não consegue se transformar numa agenda.

Essa conversa mole da “sociedade horizontal”, sem hierarquia de valores, sem eixo e sem centro, sinto muito, é conversa de bêbados. É divertido e coisa e tal, mas sempre chega a hora de pagar a conta e de voltar para casa – sem contar a ressaca… Não vai a lugar nenhum e ainda pode produzir alguns desastres. Boa parte do que o Congresso votou até agora, emparedado pelas ruas, se querem saber, não é coisa boa e tende a ter efeitos deletérios. Na esfera econômica, o país vive um congelamento branco de tarifas públicas que pode ter efeitos desastrosos. Ensaia-se facilitação de mecanismos de democracia direta que, se efetivados, tornarão a democracia brasileira refém de minorias organizadas e barulhentas.

Caminhando para a conclusão

Sim, as centrais sindicais e os partidos quebraram a cara ao tentar, de maneira oportunista, pegar carona no movimento das ruas. Tiveram uma lição e tanto. Mas isso só nos diz o tamanho do impasse e os riscos que estão por aí. Não há nada de belo ou de bom numa sociedade sem interlocutores considerados confiáveis para articular o futuro. Vivemos, nesses dias, sob uma espécie de ditadura do presente.

Pode dar em quê? No quadro atual, há, sim, o risco de eleger em 2014 alguém que fale em nome da “não política”, e aí saberemos o que é crise! Mas o mais provável é que se tenha mesmo uma saída “conservadora” – no caso, conservadora do statu quo; vale dizer: a continuidade do petismo. E isso seria igualmente desastroso.

Razgorov Prikazka writes "The Russian Federal Guard Service (FSO), who are in charge of protecting high level politicians like president Putin (amongst others), are 'upgrading' to electric typewriters for writing sensitive documents. They have found out that computers pose a security risk and this is their answer to it. On first sight this seems like a very pragmatic and cost-efficient thing to do. However, the FSO has its roots in the KGB and those were the ones who placed keystroke loggers on the popular IBM Selectric electric typewriter 40 years ago! So how much safer does this make them?"

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interval1066 writes "A story in Wired describes Orson Scott Card's quest for tolerance in response to a boycot for Gavin Hood's film adaption of Ender's Game, saying that 'The gay marriage issue is moot' in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. Card is a long time anti-gay and defense of marriage activist. 'His concern, ostensibly, is that someone might be petty enough not to see his movie simply because he spent years lobbying for laws that treated certain people as less than human. The fallacy he employs here — that calling out hate-speech is intolerance on par with curtailing the human rights of others — is a favorite fallback of cowards and bullies, and a way of evading responsibility for the impact of their words and actions.' I guess he didn't see this film and the box-office importance of wide appeal coming, did he?"

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ph4cr writes with news that a few researchers have discovered an alloy that allows them to print 3D structures from liquid metal at room temperature. From the article: "'It's difficult to create structures out of liquids, because liquids want to bead up. But we’ve found that a liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium reacts to the oxygen in the air at room temperature to form a "skin" that allows the liquid metal structures to retain their shapes,' says Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. ... One technique involves stacking droplets of liquid metal on top of each other, much like a stack of oranges at the supermarket. The droplets adhere to one another, but retain their shape – they do not merge into a single, larger droplet. ... Another technique injects liquid metal into a polymer template, so that the metal takes on a specific shape. The template is then dissolved, leaving the bare, liquid metal in the desired shape. The researchers also developed techniques for creating liquid metal wires, which retain their shape even when held perpendicular to the substrate." The paper is available online. There's also a video of the process in action, below the fold.

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Despite many publishers themselves settling with the DOJ over allegations of price fixing ebooks, Apple held firm and recently went to trial. And now the verdict is in: Apple conspired with major publishers to control ebook prices in violation of anti-trust laws. A trial for damages has been ordered. Quoting Reuters: "The decision by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan is a victory for the U.S. government and various states, which the judge said are entitled to injunctive relief. ... Cote said the conspiracy resulted in prices for some e-books rising to $12.99 or $14.99, when Amazon had sold for $9.99. 'The plaintiffs have shown that the publisher defendants conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices, and that Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy,' Cote said. 'Without Apple's orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the spring of 2010,' she added." Update: 07/10 16:36 GMT by U L : The ruling is now available (160 page PDF).

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Michi writes "According to Anatoly Zak, the crash of the Russion Proton rocket on 1 July was apparently caused by several angular velocity sensors having been installed upside down. From the source: 'Each of those sensors had an arrow that was supposed to point toward the top of the vehicle, however multiple sensors on the failed rocket were pointing downward instead.' It seems amazing that something as fundamental as this was not caught during quality control. Even more amazing is that the design of the sensors permits them to be installed in the wrong orientation in the first place. Even the simplest of mechanical interlocks (such as a notch at one end that must be matched with a corresponding projection) could have prevented the accident." A review of the quality control procedures used by the contractors responsible is underway.

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Doofus writes "Masao Yoshida, director of the Daichii Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, has passed away. Colleagues and politicos in Japan praised his disobedience during the post-tsunami meltdown and credited him with preventing much more widespread and intense damage. From the article: 'On March 12, a day after the tsunami, Mr. Yoshida ignored an order from Tepco headquarters to stop pumping seawater into a reactor to try and cool it because of concerns that ocean water would corrode the equipment. Tepco initially said it would penalize Mr. Yoshida even though Sakae Muto, then a vice president at the utility, said it was a technically appropriate decision. Mr. Yoshida received no more than a verbal reprimand after then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan defended the plant chief, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. "I bow in respect for his leadership and decision-making," Kan said Tuesday in a message posted on his Twitter account.'"

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Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge reports that a fansite providing subtitles for movies has been raided by Swedish police at the behest of the copyright industry. "The movie subtitle fansite undertexter.se, literally meaning subtitles.se, is a site where people contribute their own translations of movies. This lets people who aren't good at the original language of a movie or cartoon put those fan-made subtitles – fansubs – on top of the movie or cartoon. Fansubbing is a thriving culture which usually provides better-than-professional subtitles for new episodes with less than 24 hours of turnaround (whereas the providers of the original cartoon or movie can easily take six months or more). What’s remarkable about this raid is that the copyright industry has decided to do a full-out raid against something that is entirely fan-made. It underscores the general sentiment of the copyright monopoly not protecting the creator of artwork, but protecting the big distribution monopolies, no matter who actually created the art."

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Nerval's Lobster writes "In 2009, when Apple dropped the Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions from songs sold through the iTunes Store, it seemed like a huge victory for consumers, one that would usher in a more customer-friendly economy for digital media. But four years later, DRM is still alive and well — it just lives in the cloud now. Streaming media services are the ultimate form of copy protection — you never actually control the media files, which are encrypted before delivery, and your ability to access the content can be revoked if you disagree with updated terms of service; you're also subject to arbitrary changes in subscription prices. This should be a nightmare scenario to lovers of music, film, and television, but it's somehow being hailed by many as a technical revolution. Unfortunately, what's often being lost in the hype over the admittedly remarkable convenience of streaming media services is the simple fact that meaningfully relating to the creative arts as a fan or consumer depends on being able to access the material in the first place. In other words, where your media collection is stored (and can be remotely disabled at a whim) is not something to be taken lightly. In this essay, developer Vijith Assar talks about how the popularity of streaming content could result in a future that isn't all that great. 'Ultimately, regardless of the delivery mechanism, the question is not one of streaming versus downloads,' he writes. 'It's about whether you want to have your own media library or request access to somebody else's. Be careful.'"

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MrMetlHed writes "A portion of this Reuters article about the Pentagon's inability to manage paying soldiers properly mentions that their payroll program has 'seven million lines of Cobol code that hasn't been updated.' It goes on to mention that the documentation has been lost, and no one really knows how to update it well. In trying to replace the program, the Pentagon spent a billion dollars and wasn't successful."

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curtwoodward writes "Sure, developers might pull their hair out trying to keep track of all the versions of the Android operating system scattered across hundreds of millions of mobile devices worldwide. But a co-founder of Android says the OS's fragmentation problem is being blown out of proportion. At an event this week in Boston, Rich Miner — now a partner at Google Ventures — said some level of fragmentation is inevitable with Android's reach and the number of partners in the ecosystem. But things are getting better, he said, and in any case most consumers don't notice the difference: `This is a bit of an overblown issue, frankly.'"

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First time accepted submitter toshikodo writes "The BBC is reporting a claim that some sub-post office workers in the UK have been sent to jail because of a bug in the accounting software that they use. The Post Office admits Horizon computer defect. I've worked on safety critical system in the past, and I am well aware of the potential for software to ruin lives (thankfully AFAIK nobody has been harmed by my software), but how many of us consider the potential for bugs in ordinary software to adversely affect those that use it?"

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judgecorp writes "Privacy International is mounting a legal challenge against snooping by the UK government's intelligence agency GCHQ. But the case will be held in secret The group is challenging UK government access to Privacy, and the UK's own Tempora system, arguing that both allow 'indiscriminate' snooping because they operate in secrecy with a lack of legal oversight. All well and good — but the authorities have ruled that Privacy's challenge must be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which hears cases in secret and is under no obligation to explain or justify its verdicts."

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Eu cá das minhas férias muito peculiares, trabalhando um tantinho, lembro aos leitores que o fim do foro por prerrogativa de função — que chamam por aí de “foro privilegiado” — tem tudo para ser um notável tiro no pé que o moralismo dá na moralidade. É nisso que dá se dedicar mais ao grito do que ao pensamento. Talvez seja preciso escrever menos cartolinas e prestar um pouco mais de atenção à história.

Parte dos processos do mensalão foi para a primeira instância da Justiça. Deu em quê? Sem contar que é evidente que se aumenta enormemente a chance de recursos. Não por acaso, hoje em dia, os próprios políticos são os mais interessados nessa mudança.

Cadê a memória, gente boa? A primeira chicana do julgamento do mensalão foi justamente o pedido encabeçado por Márcio Thomaz Bastos para que os não políticos e os políticos sem mandato — como José Dirceu, por exemplo — fossem julgados na primeira instância. Vocês já se esqueceram daquele voto “de improviso” de Ricardo Lewandowski que tinha 70 páginas???

Os mensaleiros só estão hoje mais perto da efetiva punição — vamos ver que destino se dará aos embargos — porque o processo foi julgado no Supremo. Dadas todas as instâncias para recursos, o melhor caminho para a impunidade é mesmo a mudança da Constituição nesse particular. É uma tolice considerar que, assim, se estaria fazendo mais justiça. A chance enorme é que se faça menos.

De resto, como desconsiderar o risco da proximidade de lideranças políticas regionais com tribunais locais? Respondam depressa: vocês acham que, em regra, um prefeito e um governador preferem ser julgados na primeira instância ou no STJ? Vocês acham que Dirceu, João Paulo Cunha e José Genoino, se tivessem podido escolher, teriam optado pelo Supremo?

Com a devida vênia aos que acham que assim se estabelece a igualdade, sou obrigado a deixar registrado aqui que considero isso uma bobagem. Como tolo foi o voto da CCJ do Senado em favor do fim de qualquer voto secreto. É tudo o que pretende o Executivo. Se essa tontice avançar, nunca mais se derrubará um veto presidencial ou se votará contra uma indicação oficial para qualquer cargo.

Nessa leva de bobagens, a Câmara aprovou também por esmagadora maioria a chamada “independência” da Defensoria Pública na esfera federal. Daqui a pouco, cada órgão do estado terá a ambição de ser um Poder da República. Até parece que a autonomia administrativa — e orçamentária — tornará mais livre um defensor. Expliquem-me como. O deputado Mendonça Filho (DEM-PE) foi dos poucos — apenas 3 — que tiveram a coragem de votar contra; houve nada menos de 408 votos a favor e uma abstenção. E ainda foi hostilizado por isso. Sei que lá vem pauleira, mas não seria eu se não o dissesse: essas autonomias só servem para criar caixas-pretas e alimentar, ao longo do tempo, privilégios. Ocorre que agora se está fazendo tudo na base do frenesi. “É a voz das ruas”, dizem, “é a voz das ruas.”

Pois é… Se eu acho que as ruas querem coisas que não são boas, só me resta dizer. O fim do foro por prerrogativa de função — que não é privilegiado coisa nenhuma! — vai tornar a punição de corruptos ainda mais distante. E, sim, é preciso dizer: também acaba abrindo janelas para outras práticas nefastas, como a perseguição política e, lamento!, a venda de sentenças. “Por que, Reinaldo, juízes de primeira instância são mais corruptos?” Não! Ocorre que eles são muitos. E também deve haver os que não prestam, não é mesmo?, a exemplo do que ocorre entre jornalistas, caminhoneiros, padres, pastores, deuses da Grécia antiga…

Um dia um jornalista investigativo — não é o meu caso; só investigo advérbios — vai se debruçar sobre o comércio paralelo que se criou no país depois da Lei da Ficha Limpa. Subiu enormemente o preço das absolvições…

É preciso tomar cuidado para não dar uma de Savonarola dos trópicos. O fim do que chamam “foro privilegiado” é hoje um privilégio há muito esperado por alguns espertos. Basta somar dois mais dois e se vai chegar imediatamente a quatro. A voz rouca das ruas não deveria ser surda à razão.

http://coturnonoturno.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/oposicao-reage-contra-dois-anos-de.html

Vale a pena ler o que o comentário do Coronel sobre esse programa estúpido criado pelo PT.


http://coturnonoturno.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/mais-medicos-tem-as-digitais-das-quatro.html

FuzzNugget writes "After the Economic Development Administration (EDA) was alerted by the DHS to a possible malware infection, they took extraordinary measures. Fearing a targeted attack by a nation-state, they shut down their entire IT operations, isolating their network from the outside world, disabling their email services and leaving their regional offices high and dry, unable to access the centrally-stored databases. A security contractor ultimately declared the systems largely clean, finding only six computers infected with untargeted, garden-variety malware and easily repaired by reimaging. But that wasn't enough for the EDA: taking gross incompetence to a whole new level, they proceeded to physically destroy $170,500 worth of equipment, including uninfected systems, printers, cameras, keyboards and mice. After the destruction was halted — only because they ran out of money to continue smashing up perfectly good hardware — they had racked up a total of $2.3 million in service costs, temporary infrastructure acquisitions and equipment destruction."

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