2. Joguinho realmente viciante (indicado pelo Godoy no Twitter. Aliás, o Apostos já tem Twitter - aqui, ó. O meu tá aqui).

3. Discussão sobre o novo livro de Fareed Zakaria, "The Post-American World", com participação do próprio, do Michael Lind (New American Foundation), do Matt Yglesias (The Atlantic), da Ann-Marie Slaughter (Princeton, não conheço), e do David Rieff (que também não conheço). Aqui, o primeiro post da série.

4. Sam Harris aproveita a polêmica em torno do filme "Fitna", curta de 15 minutos que vincula, por meio de imagens, as palavras do Corão ao terrorismo islâmico (no YouTube, acessível aqui e aqui), para discutir o amolecimento do Ocidente diante das ameaças à liberdade de expressão que as reações extremadas a esse tipo de conteúdo representam. Trecho:

The point is not (and will never be) that some free person spoke, or wrote, or illustrated in such a manner as to inflame the Muslim community. The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way. The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for "racism" and "Islamophobia."

5. Cristopher Hitchens e Guy Sorman escrevem sobre 1968. Sugeri ao David, aproveitando o mote de seu blog semi-palindrômico, que escrevesse um texto sobre 1986, à moda daqueles antigos do Rino, que, manquilonento que só ele, resolveu sumir de novo do mapa (ao menos parece). Ok, fiz esse adendo apenas para pedir que o Rinoceronte voltasse a escrever. Vamos ver se funciona.

(...) a product does not exist, economically speaking, except within a market, bought by a customer for an end-use, and brought to him through a distribution channel. Markets as well as distributive channels do exist, however, independently of any one product. They are primary; the product is secondary.

Se o saber é como o amor, como disse o professor do Tiago, "valendo a pena apenas quando saboreado até a exaustão", o trabalho hoje em dia é justamente o oposto. Mais ou menos como disse o Drucker: a realidade econômica "primária", fundamental, é o mercado, que, no fim das contas, representa apenas a consolidação caótica, e sempre mutável, das preferências individuais dos consumidores. Não há tempo para saborear o que se produz - é preciso ajustar, corrigir, inovar, acompanhar as oscilações nos desejos de quem compra, de quem mantém a empresa de pé.

É por isso que esse tempo da "permanência", da "duração", da busca pela verdade das coisas, tem parecido cada vez mais distante. A instabilidade do mercado destrói qualquer certeza. Dá até pra brincar de conservadorismo quando se observa o açougue de fora. De dentro, no entanto, é ceticismo na veia. Não tem jeito.

"Ethnic humor has been studied in depth by the British sociologist Christie Davies, and his findings — in The Mirth of Nations — are a salutary reminder of the ease with which spontaneous social solutions can be confiscated by the po-faced censors who seek to govern us. The jokes and teases that Christie assembles are gestures of conciliation, in which difference is made harmless and set laughingly aside. Yet everywhere in the modern world a kind of puritanical vigilance is extinguishing the ethnic joke, condemning it as an offense against our common humanity. What was traditionally regarded as a way to prevent social conflict is now seen as a major cause of it: The ethnic joke is accused of "stereotyping," and so tainted with the indelible stain of racism."

Roger Scruton, sublime, em trecho de artigo publicado na The American Spectator (aqui, o texto na íntegra).

Abbas Raza, no post que comemora os "1000 posts" do 3 Quarks Daily (aqui).

"I am a citizen from a country that I consider corrupt and that needs to change a lot before any new debt could do it any good.

In this respect I urge you not to give debt relief to corrupt governments as that will only allow those addicted to debt to be able to hit the bars again, in the same shameful ways as before.

If the concept of odious debt is applicable in the sense that some debts should not have to be repaid if contracted in an illegitimate way, castigating the creditor, then the same concept should clearly also apply to the granting of any debt relief, punishing the debtor."