Your Scotland, Your Voice

Launch of a white paper setting out constitutional options

and paving way for a referendum bill on Scotland's future.

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Hopenhagen

LET'S TURN COPENHAGEN INTO HOPENHAGEN

Hopenhagen is a movement, a moment and a chance at a new beginning. The hope that in Copenhagen this December – during the United Nations Climate Change Conference – we can build a better future for our planet and a more sustainable way of life. It is the hope that we can create a global community that will lead our leaders into making the right decisions. The promise that by solving our environmental crisis, we can solve our economic crisis at the same time.

Hopenhagen is change – and that change will be powered by all of us.

Hopenhagen is a movement generated by the International Advertising Association (and authored by Ogilvy) representing the global advertising industry in support of the United Nations.

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arabic calligraphy

On this Al Jazeera report about Chinese Muslims as they prepare to undertake the Hajj pilgrimage, the iman Yahya Salih (Ma Yi Ping) wonderfully shines out as a master in arabic calligraphy.

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Bohemian Rhapsody and The Muppets

Queen, Freddie Mercury and The Muppets - three iconic characters that will always stay in my mind and heart.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" 18 years after Freddie left us.

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Esquire Augmented Reality issue

Behind the scenes of Augmented Esquire:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/augmented-reality-technology-110909

via The Hidden Persuader

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Quem? / Who?

Podem muito bem ser uns senhores com profissionalismo mas... São quase tão anónimos como o resto de nós!

Balkenende, Felipe González, David Miliband, Mary Robinson e Carl Bildt têm demasiado poder mediático que ofuscam Merkel, Sarkozy e Brown.

Enquanto estes dois novos cargos não forem de eleição directa, o "Directório" permanecerá como o verdadeiro poder da União Europeia. Isto foi uma oportunidade perdida para um bom começo.

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They might even be very good professionals and very polite but... They're almost as anonymous as the rest of us!

Balkenende, Felipe González, David Miliband, Mary Robinson and Carl Bildt have too much media power and shine more than Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown.

As long as these two new jobs aren't elected by the people, the "Directorate" will remain as the true real power in the EU. This was a lost chance for a good start.

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Why Sarah Palin is so hot

TIME by Brian Adams / Rapport

Sarah Palin has as much visual appeal as she does not have political substance. Having said that, however, it does not mean she hasn't political importance. Her impact in the 2008 presidential campaign endures, even though half of us hardly stand the thoughts she embraces.

I appreciate the fact that in the political world dominated by men, Sarah Palin has earned voice and stature by her own struggle, resilience and energy. But being good looking is in her case just a pretty wrap for a package that is politically akward, populist, past-thinking, incoherent, sometimes ignorant. If 2012 comes with Sarah Palin as a GOP presidential candidate, it will be more of the same disbelief and wrongthinking politicians that induce people in false ideas and bad strategies. Her views are, as she is, too hot to handle. She is in opposition to almost all of President Obama's social issues, environmental views, international positions, and that for me means plenty.

Sarah Palin is fresh, new, rogue - as she so frequently defines herself. But she's a bad issue such as she is an ever increasing desirable woman by the media and many conservatives.

This all may seem a sexist point of view, but in the end Sarah Palin is a political mistake.

Interesting TIME article here
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Thyroid Cancer check

Click on the images for a closer look

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The changing media landscape

Lula, o filho do Brasil

i - Best European Newspaper Design

i recebe 31 prémios para melhor design

i: Newspaper 2009 Design Award

European Newspaper Congress

Core77

They Might Be Giants, "I'm Impressed"

They Might Be Giants, "I'm Impressed" from Bent Image Lab on Vimeo.

Data visualization graphics

Click on the images for a closer look

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Sesame Street 40 years young

Popota

A queda

As divisões, quando sucedem, são-no por diversas razões. Os desentendimentos e as desconfianças também. Mas submeter durante quase três décadas uma cidade - e por conseguinte um povo em dois países - à sombra de um muro físico-ideológico é ir longe demais. A Guerra Fria produziu muitas situações dificeis, perigosas e bizarras. O Muro de Berlim era o símbolo máximo da divisão político-militar-ideológica do mundo. A opressão e a repressão, a intriga e o isolacionismo, os dogmas e as mentiras do lado de lá da Cortina de Ferro acabaram por levar à implosão de todo um sistema politico-social.

Faz hoje 20 anos que os leste-berlinenses sentiram o lindo e doce sabor da liberdade, o ar puro que um muro derrubado deixou passar, uma alegria imensa própria das revoluções justas e verdadeiras.
Eu lembro-me, quase como se estivesse lá. Em directo pela TV a revolução aconteceu em directo nessa jovem noite. Recordo os meses que a antecederam: a abertura das fronteiras Hungria-Áustria, a visita de Gorbatchov à moribunda RDA e o metafórico beijo de morte que o líder soviético deu a Erich Honecker, a manifestação pacífica e contundente de 2 milhões de pessoas em fila ao longo das três repúblicas soviéticas do Báltico. Lembro também as mirabolantes semanas que se seguiram: a queda do regimes Socialistas em mais de dez países, a Revolução de Veludo na Checoslováquia, os dias sangrentos da Roménia que culminaram no fuzilamento de Ceausescu. Tudo "floresceu" numa ânsia para tentar saber o máximo e sentir a contagiante e repentina onda de liberdade dos povos do "lado de lá".

Dia 9 de Novembro de 1989 foi um enorme símbolo transformador. Para a própria Alemanha foi um momento de catarse único que coincidiu com os cinquenta e um anos depois da Kristallnacht (Noite de Cristal) de 1938, o início do terror Nazi anti-semita. Neste horrífico aniversário os alemães libertaram-se de toda a opressão.

A queda do Muro da Vergonha foi o último dia da Guerra Fria. Simbolicamente diz-se que foi o ano em que acabou o século XX. No entanto persistem outras barreiras cujos efeitos esta noite não conseguiu atingir: Belfast, Chipre, e as Coreias. E assistimos diariamente à construção de outros muros na Palestina e na fronteira EUA-México.

Há vinte anos atrás foi o primeiro dia de um tempo novo, o desabrochar de novos desafios, novos objectivos, e novas incertezas, o recomeçar para uma Europa nova, um mundo diferente.

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Al Gore interview

'Civil disobedience has a role to play'

Al Gore was born to be the most powerful man on Earth, but fell just short of his political destiny. Can the former law-maker now win his place in history as the man who helped save the planet?

Oliver Burkeman interviews Al Gore for The Guardian

"Designing Obama" book

Designing Obama from mas / menos on Vimeo.

"Selling change isn’t easy in a world that tends to prefer the comfort of the familiar. We all know what a revolution looks like: handmade signs, scrawled graffiti, the voice of the people. But Obama’s campaign was the opposite. Reportedly, the candidate resisted at first. “He did not initially like the campaign’s blue and white logo — intended to appear like a horizon, symbolizing hope and opportunity — saying he found it too polished and corporate,” reported the New York Times. But David Axelrod and his team prevailed. They must have known that the revolution, when it finally came, would have to be wrapped up in the most comprehensive corporate identity program the 21st century has yet seen. And it worked, as Designing Obama, the new book from Scott Thomas, Design Director of New Media for Obama for America, reveals."

Michael Bierut in Design Observer

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Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature.

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

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