malaise

© Placide

"THE leader of the French Socialist party and father of Ségolène Royal’s children has expressed ambivalence towards her presidential quest by saying that he would have had “greater legitimacy” as a candidate, even if she had more chance of winning.
(...) Hollande, 52, suggested he had sacrificed his own presidential ambitions to help his more popular lover. But in an interview with The Sunday Times he sounded far from comfortable with the role of second fiddle.
“I considered she had more chances [of winning], even if I had greater legitimacy as party secretary-general,” he said.
(...) Royal might have seemed the party’s best hope for achieving that but it was not the first time that Hollande had sounded less than supportive. When one of Royal’s aides declared, after she was crowned party candidate, that she was now “the general” leading the campaign, Hollande snapped: “I’m the general.”
And in January he was heard to comment: “Kings always take back power. Queens last only a certain time.” (...)"

In Times Online.

Purity?

"(...) In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed "Purity Balls."
The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship.
The highlight is when the fathers and daughters exchange vows, with dad signing a covenant to protect his daughter's chastity by living an unblemished life and the daughter promising not to have sex until marriage.
Many fathers at the ceremonies also slip "purity rings" around the finger of their misty-eyed daughters or offer them "chastity bracelets" and other jewelry that the girls can entrust to their husbands on their wedding night.
"The father makes a pledge that he is going to keep his mind pure and be faithful to her mother and there is also a time when there is a conversation about putting the right kinds of things in your mind, such as the father not using pornography," Leslee Unruh, founder of Abstinence Clearinghouse, a leader in the so-called purity movement, told AFP in describing the balls.
She said some 1,400 Purity Balls were held across the United States in 2006, mainly in the south and midwest, and double that number were expected to take place this year.
(...) The popularity of the balls in the United States, especially among evangelical Christians, mirrors the Bush administration's support of abstinence education in US schools. The government's funding for such initiatives has more than doubled in recent years to 206 million dollars (150 million euros).
(...) One study conducted by researchers at the universities of Columbia and Yale found that 88 percent of pledgers wind up having sex before marriage.
"Unfortunately these young people tend, once they start to have sex, to have more partners in a shorter period of time and to use contraception much less than their non-pledging peers," said Debra Hauser, executive vice president at Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based non-profit organization.
"Teens may pledge with the best of intention... and then as they break their pledges they are so shamed and embarrassed that it's unlikely they will go for help.""

In Yahoo! News
Discovered here.

Weather forecasters & global warming

"(...) A bigger problem, though, is that TV meteorologists are discouraged - by convention and regulatory guidelines - from editorialising about the weather. If a February heatwave is followed by an arctic March, with days in between on which Noah would feel at home, these can only be presented as "bit of a surprise for the time of year" or "seasonal extremes". The forecasters are not allowed to talk about the most important part of their story, which is why the weather might be happening. (...)"

In The Guardian.

Menu do dia

"Já todos provámos porco doce, pato à Pequim, shaumin de gambas ou galinha com amêndoas, pensando que comíamos comida chinesa. Nada mais errado. Os chineses nem sabem o que isso é. É melhor falarmos-lhe de espetadas de baratas, de coração ou estômago de galinha, de bichos da seda ou de gordura frita com açúcar. Isto, sobretudo, se comermos na rua ao lado de toda a gente. (...)"

No Expresso.

O maior português de sempre já foi...

E agora se tivessemos de eleger o maior alemão de sempre?

Peculiaridades

"Fui eu que perdi, ou nenhum dos telejornais de hoje deu uma linha que fosse sobre o estranho caso da licenciatura de José Sócrates, notícia de hoje no "Público"? Ai se isto se passasse no famigerado "centro-direita"..."

Por Paulo Pinto Mascarenhas, no site da Atlântico.
Via O Insurgente.

"Não haja dúvidas que o assunto é por natureza estranho. Mais estranho ainda são os não desenvolvimentos do dito cujo nos meios de comunicação tradicionais. Um artigo como o de ontem publicado por um jornal de referência e cuja temática acabou glosada por tanta gente (veja-se a quantidade de comentários que despoletou no Público on-line) não tem qualquer eco no dayafter nos outros media. No mínimo estranho. E é estranho também que os opinadores de serviço a esses media também não se pronunciem. Esquisito. Mas mesmo muito esquisito. Qualquer coisa me diz que isto não está bem. As coisas não batem certo..."

Por Franciso Messias, no Briteiros.

No comments

"(...) Uma mulher de origem marroquina mas com passaporte alemão, de 26 anos e mãe de dois filhos, pediu ao tribunal de família de Frankfurt autorização para se divorciar rapidamente do marido, que lhe batia e ameaçava matá-la. Mas a juíza que apreciou o caso considerou que não havia pressa. Por quê? Porque o casal é originário de uma cultura muçulmana, e o Corão autoriza os maridos a castigar as suas mulheres. (...)"

No Público de hoje.

World's strangest country

World’s safest city

Bem pensado...

Aceitam-se apostas

Para a percentagem do aumento do n° de incêndios de origem criminosa.

"O Governo alterou a lei que impunha a proibição de construir, num prazo de dez anos, em áreas florestais atingidas por incêndios. A partir de agora vai ser possível construir alegando interesse público ou empreendimentos com relevante interesse geral. (...)"

Artigo publicado no Correio da Manhã.

House is an island

"(...) 'The villa owner refuses to move, so the real-estate developer has had to dig out all around it to force him to', says a saleswoman at Weilian Real Estate Sales Company. (...)"

In Ananova, discovered in Small Brother.

Substituição

"(...) Compram-nas via internet, ou catálogo impresso, e quando a encomenda chega, montam-nas. Ou seja, encaixam-lhes as cabeças, que vêm embrulhadas separadamente, penteiam-nas, vestem-nas, calçam-nas; depois, e inversamente, despenteiam-nas, despem-nas, descalçam-nas, e montam-nas. (...)"

Por Isabela, n'O Mundo Perfeito.

Education Vs Jobs

Ansiedade

Hoje voltei a sonhar contigo; a sentir o teu calor, o teu sorriso, o teu abraco forte... Por momentos tentei manipular o sonho de modo a observar o teu rosto e nesse momento ele esvoacou, ficando novamente sem saber quem es tu.
Escapas-me na ansiedade de te conhecer, na ansiedade de ser feliz.
Ja pensei no passado que te tinha encontrado, mas nao, contudo continuo a sonhar contigo e a procurar-te pelo tal sorriso, por aquele abraco ... porque sei que nesse dia, em que te encontrar, toda a minha realidade se alterara e a chuva dara lugar ao sol que me tem a solado a minha esperanca. A ti meu amor sem rosto sei que te farei a pessoa mais feliz deste mundo, pois ao meu lado teras me por inteiro e consumiras somente a verdade e amor.

It really works, hm?

"Last summer's mix of sun, beer and excitement during the football World Cup appears to have produced a massive hormone rush in German bedrooms, gardens and back alleys. Nine months on, birth clinics across the country that hosted the tournament are reporting a much-needed baby boom. (...)"

Full article here.
Discovered here.

"Angela Merkel defende referência a Deus na Constituição europeia. (...)"

No Público de hoje.