Osias Jota

“It seems to be one of the paradoxes of creativity that in order to think originally, we must familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others.”

- George Kneller via offscreen magazine (via viktorbezic)

via http://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel celebrated the Academy Awards in the only way he's become accustomed to: poking fun at the entertainment industry using its own stars. Riffing off the fact that many of the Oscar-nominated films were adapted from books, Kimmel turned to internet memes as a source for future films, resulting in a four clips that star A-list actors doing things you would never expect.

Key among them is a version of Amadeus — somewhat unfortunately — "Ameowdeus," that stars Kevin Spacey as Keyboard Cat. Spacey is joined by a slew of other famous actors, including Gary Oldman, Ben Kingsley, Mandy Patinkin, Christoph Waltz, and Abbie Cornish. Kimmel throws in references to "Hamster on a Piano" and "Dramatic Chipmunk," in a clip that gets real dark, real fast.

Kimmel, who's hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! since 2003, has a history of producing post-Oscar Hollywood spoofs. Following the past two award shows, he put out "Movie: The Movie," and "Movie: The Movie: 2V," both highlighting frequent movie cliches. This latest volley of shorts ventures into the equally absurd, though splits it up into smaller chunks.

THE latest Free exchange column returns to the question of how emerging economies can insulate themselves from the Federal Reserve's decisions, liberating themselves from what Dani Rodrik and Arvind Subramanian have called "dollar imperialism".

The answer used to be a simple one: float your currency. The Fed, after all, only decides the availability of its dollar liabilities. The supply of rand, real, rupees and rupiah is determined elsewhere. Smaller central banks can control their own fate if they stop caring about how the availability of their own money compares with that of the Fed's. They would have little to fear from dollar imperialism if only they overcame their fear of floating.

This simple argument reflects a deeper belief in the "impossible trinity" or "macroeconomic policy trilemma", as Maurice Obstfeld and Alan Taylor called it. This staple of...Continue reading

[Reposted from xxepdudexx via soadysta]

New submitter wassomeyob writes "In Canada, the province of Quebec has their Official Language Act of 1974 (aka Bill 22) which makes French their sole official language. It has famously been used to force business owners to modify signage to give French pre-eminance over other languages. Now, the Quebec language police seem to be extending their reach to Facebook. Eva Cooper owns Delilah in the Parc — a shop in Chelsea, Quebec near the Quebec/Ontario border. She received a letter from the language office telling her to translate everything posted on her store's Facebook page into French."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Politics isn’t yet a serious business in Brazil. I say that as a reporter who has covered two presidential campaign trails, two City Hall elections, a few scandals, cabinet reshuffles and all branches of power in Brasilia. What I’ve seen since 2004 is politicians infantilizing their voters, demonizing the opposition and stimulating low levels of engagement for the vast majority of people. It isn’t a rare scenario in the world today, but it is grave for a country with so much to fix and to aim for in the next few years.

That is no different for activists who sympathize (too much) with these politicians. I call them political idiots because their goal isn’t to raise the level of the debate and bring more people to their cause. They just want to hold their position in the minority of the Brazilian people. Many feel as if they were leading a gigantic quest — as part of the protesters do since June. In fact, they are much less important than those who actually drive the debate, and those are the pragmatic social conservatives.

Of course this post is not talking about those who are willing to establish a dialogue with the other side. I am deliberately focusing on the idiots, because they have become too noisy despite their lack of support in Brazilian society. In many conversations with foreigners, I found some of those points of view being parroted, as if they were a given.

That’s how childish political idiots are.

Although the ruling Workers Party (PT) and their rivals in the Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) aren’t as different as their members like to believe, they play it as if they were worlds apart. But they aren’t. Here is what Richard Lapper, former editor of the Financial Times in Brazil, told me about these two: “If they were in Britain, they’d be two different wings of Labour.” PT and PSDB old time members are close friends. And in 1993 they actually thought of being in the same presidential ticket.

Foreigners that don’t know much about Brazilian politics are led to believe they have hated each other since ever. That is because their passionate followers like to say there is either a coup from the conservatives or one from the communists looming large. These Brazilian voices are the most engaged ones. And they are very often the voices of Brazilians who have lost touch with main street so they can keep their admiration for politicians. 

Surely enough recent protests have made political debates less unlikely in Brazil, but the vast majority of Brazilians (and that includes politicians) are just too self-absorbed to care. Most people were never on streets demonstrations — they were at home minding their own business. Politicians that know how to strike a balance know that for a fact. They allow the extremists to fight so they can later on appeal to the social conservatives who decide the elections. 

After all, both politicians and voters swing their support in Brazil.

It all depends on the occasion.

The dictatorship ended 30 years ago. But not to these guys.

That introduction is necessary to explain why Brazilian political idiots are one of a kind. In a country where most people just don’t care, they devote 100% of their energy not to making people understand their points of view and raising their profiles. They prefer to feed a system in which they don’t have to convince anyone. They’d much rather gather with friends of similar mindset and pass on a message that they know will be taken on board.

If Brazil were as educated as the US, where extremist politicians are popular, I’d accept the move. But the base for extremists here is very, very tiny. That is why the political idiots have a very debatable success. The buzz they get is basically for clinging to peripheral politicians and pundits that spread their opinions. This is a large chunk of Brazilian political social media today. To make it worse, political tweeps believe they will decide the fate of the elections.

When before a Brazilian political idiot you will hear a few buzz expressions spoken in a very harsh tone. It is part of the drama. It doesn’t matter whether they are right or left-wing. Some of them are “mensalão”, coup, privatization, media fabrication and too many ministries. If that happens to you, be sure that person wants you to go along and feel bad for them. Truth is Brazilian politics isn’t very amusing because the heads of the main parties are basically in different wings on the center-left. Being a right-winger is associated with the dictators.

The top myths spread by Brazilian political idiots in recent years are linked to the so-called “mensalão trials.” That was a bribes for political support scandal which was outed in 2005, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The issue involved key leaders of the ruling coalition and is the first one to hit such figures in the country’s Supreme Court — a former chief of staff and a PT chairman are in jail for what they did.

If you listen to a Brazilian saying that scandal is a media fabrication, be sure you are talking to a political idiot. There are loads of evidence and an admission of guilt by many of the involved. If you hear someone say that was the biggest corruption case in Brazil’s history, be also sure you are talking to a political idiot. We’ve had an impeached president declared innocent in the Supreme Court because the case against him was bizarrely stated by prosecutors.

Of course political idiots aren’t a Brazilian exclusive.

Another favorite for the political idiots is the debate on social programs. Most of it is centered on Bolsa Família — a benefit of about US$ 100 paid to poor families so they keep their children at school. Some will say it is the government buying votes of poor people, which is totally groundless. Others will say only PT administrations care about the underprivileged. Neither are true: ruling coalition members lose elections and PSDB leaders have also spent money on helping the most needed.

Whoever says the ruling party did a better job because Lula and Dilma Rousseff never privatized Brazilian assets is wrong. The reason they didn’t do it more is their predecessor’s goal in privatizing even more. Whoever says there wasn’t as much corruption when PSDB’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso was in the presidency is just as biased: Brazilian media reported the amends he made to the Constitution to run again were a result of a Congressional buyout.

Opposition followers will say the Workers Party has raised the burden on the taxpayers to pay for almost 40 ministries Brazil has, although many of them have basically no budget and are there for symbolic reasons. Ruling PT supporters will say they inherited a broken country in 2002, but part of the financial chaos was only there because Lula’s election made financial markets and investors hold their breath for months.

For Brazilian politics to be taken seriously, those party-goers should hold their leadership more accountable for their misdeeds. But for now they know no shame, in either side. Normally the best moment to do that would be during the presidential campaign trail, between August and October. The first signs, though, point to the direction of more idiots than bright lights on the way.

thespiritofyamato:

MOTHERFUCKERS COULDN’T GET ON WONDER WOMEN’S LEVEL