Pedro Innecco

I was quite happy to see in the news today that Brazil tops the world rank of countries asking Google to remove content (Reuters) (Google Blog).

Right now one might be wondering if I am a fascist or a communist, or some sort of enemy of the free world. No, not at all. In fact on the contrary.
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I’ve been watching the development of Office Live since it became available as a beta (and I able to join in), and I always had hopes that the product would get better in time. However, I am sad to think that I am probably wrong and this product is at a dead end, offering no differential/competitive advantage over other products out there.

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I have always been puzzled about one aspect of society and politics. How is that people can get away with the defilement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by vindicating the same declaration themselves?

It seems that for those acting in their own disposition forget that the UDHR has 30 articles, and not 29. The 30th Article of the UDHR is perfectly clear:

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein

So how is it that sovereign states that adopt and recognise the UDHR accept the engagement of organisations, parties and other sort of entities that disregard the 30th Article?

Don’t get me wrong. I agree that instead of having extremist political groups or militants operating in the underground, is better to have them out in the open as it is easier to monitor their activities, and to expose their views. Concerning the recent decision of BBC to invite a far-right activist to a television debate, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he believes it is a duty to expose racist and sectarian politics – which I agree – and that “anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.” Well is this last bit that I am not so sure about. Mr Brown is parting from the principle that everyone has the same opinion. And unfortunately, this is not the case. If that was the case, there wouldn’t be any racism. Particularly, the political party in question wouldn’t have its supporters – which it does, no matter how minimum they are. This is a false consensus bias.

My concern is the use of democracy and the UDHR to destroy these same principles, or to deny these principles to others. An example that is often cited as the use of democracy for the destruction of democracy is the rise of the NAZI party in Germany.

After being elected through democratic means, the NAZI party started to impose authoritarianism and ideologies that destroyed democracy and oppressed minorities, to say the least. Following the defeat of the NAZI regime and the revelation of their atrocities to the whole world, it was the overall consensus that something had to be done to prevent the same to happen in the future. With this in mind, the UDHR was adopted in 1948.

Yet we don’t need to go that far in history to see events of democracy being used to destroy democracy or to thwart the UDHR. You can see clear examples in recent events where state leaders, once elected through democratic means, are violating constitutions to impose their authority, perpetuate their rule and oppress any sort of opposition.
So I think about what Mr Brown said:

“Anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.”

And I wonder: Is there anybody listening? If so, who is listening?

There is some frenzy going on in the international media about whether the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will be able to protect the public in the 2016 Olympic Games.
According to several international publications, there are new levels of violence in the city, which has been demonstrated in the recent clashes between the police and drug lords where 14 people died, and a police helicopter was shot-down.

Let me just make one brief point here: The reason we are seeing this escalation of violence is because the police is acting to tackle crime and pacify areas controlled by crime – and the criminals are fighting back. Rio is facing a now-or-never situation, where the government is aware that a change must be made, particularly for the 2014 World Cup and for the 2016 Olympic Games, which are serving as a major catalyst for such changes.

Let’s not forget that one day after being elected the city to host the 2012 Olympic Games, London was hit by a coordinated terrorist attack on its public transport. Since the UK government is under constant threat of international terrorism, one could argue that the public in general would be more vulnerable to violence in the 2012 games rather than in 2016 games. Drug-lords want to sell drugs; international terrorists want to kill people in the name of their ideology.

A few weeks ago, a dear person asked me a question: “when was the last time that you felt happy with yourself, by your own doings – regardless of others?”
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Sorry, this entry is only available in Português.

As of 25/April 2009, I will be moving back to Brazil after nine years of living in London, UK. In Brazil I will be working on a couple of projects where I will be making use not only of my IT skills, but also the knowledge I obtained during my MBA.

Plus there will be a lot of surfing, scuba diving, kayaking… You know, all those little perks you get from living in a sunny place like Rio de Janeiro.

If like me you are tired of paying premium rates calling customer services, then visit saynoto0870.com. This website will provide you will alternative phone numbers that you can call specific companies, thust avoiding paying premium rates.

Don’t know about you, but I find ludicrous that while “developing countries” like Brazil have strict regulations against such shenanigans, the UK is decades away on customer rights.

In recent news, the band Coldplay has been sued by guitar-legend Joe Satriani for plagiarism. Satriani claims that Coldplay’s Viva La Vida “incorporates substantial original portions of his 2004 instrumental If I Could Fly” (Reuters).

An uncanny coincidence or a total rip-off? Well just watch this Youtube video and decide for yourself.

Unfortunately this is not the first case of plagiarism in the music industry, and many cases which are in fact of a much higher profile tend to go unoticed. For instance, check out this Led Zeppelin video.

Sigh… And they used to be my biggest idols! Don’t get me wrong they still rock and I didn’t throw away my Led Zeppelin CDs. But I simply can’t respect them like I used to.

I must say that I am a big fan of Google products. Not only Google is my search engine of choice, but I love their line of online services. I am a heavy user of Google Applications which I use for two of custom domains including Google mail, docs, sites and calendar. Plus I am also looking forward to create my own custom applications for content aggregation and interoperability with social networking sites. However as much as I love their applications and services, I despite Google’s position on matters of social responsibility.

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