Spanish "jornada"

There is the schedule of the most successful business in my neighborhood, the cobbler: 35 hours a week. If this business in good times goes well, in times of crisis it fares even better.

The "Spanish" schedule of my shoemaker is one of the most irrational in the world and is known as "split-day". It prevents the worker to do anything after a day's work, keeps the work - family balance untenable and prevents civilized dinner hours. It, however, permits the nap, the greater Spanish invention of all times. Note that the shoemaker takes 2 hours of rest at midday (enough time to go home, eat, take a nap and come back). By the time our cobbler opens at 16:30, European workers are beginning to pick up and store their tools to go back home.

The irrationality of the Spanish work schedule has led to the creation of the Association for the Rationalization of Spanish Hours (ARHO), which is not to be taken as a joke, as it has already made its first Congress , with  the honorary presidency of, no less, than the King of Spain.

But there are worse things. If the split - time work schedule is irrational, the continuous work schedule of the public officials is a real scam. These, theoretically work from 8 to 15h, with half an hour break in-between (the famous breakfast of public workers). In practice, they arrive at 9 o'clock and live at 14 hours. If we discount the smoke breaks, we have about 4 hours of actual work. That is, 20 hours a week, which throws productivity to unfathomable depths. But officials do not hold conferences to streamline schedules. It looks they are fine with what they have.

How we get through this?

This gentleman, looking like a funeral employee, is Nouriel Roubini, known for having predicted the financial crisis we find ourselves on long before anyone. Known is that economists are able to explain the past, but unable to predict the future. Roubini is an exception, therefore he is famous. Capitalizing on its predictive success, he has written the book "How we get through this", which I just read.

The economy is known as "the dismal science" because it deals basically with how to satisfy unlimited wants with limited means. There is never enough, there are always shortages. You must be aware of this when you read books on economics, but when you finish reading the book of Roubini, you have a deep depression: everything goes wrong, there are bubbles to explode in India, public debt is squeezing the Club Med countries, the dollar will soon cease to be the reserve currency and the Euro system will explode ...

Despite its title "How we get through this", if you want answers, if you want to know the way of redemption, you're not going to find it in this book. Only at the end, has a shy tips like these:

• Employees of financial institutions should be paid so that their interests are aligned with those of shareholders.
• Securitization must be transparent, standardized and strictly regulated.
• The "over-the-counter" products must come to light and be traded on organized markets.
• We must review the business model of rating agencies to eliminate the enormous conflict of interest for their income is produced by the companies they themselves qualify.
• Some of the institutions considered too big to fail will have to be split.

Finally, in his pessimistic line, Roubini says, all these reforms are reasonable, but remember that, the best-designed regulations may not work.

That's what I said, the dismal science.

A devil's chaplain

I have read another book from my teacher Richard Dawkins. Funny, where I like him most is not on the subject of evolutionary biology, which is his supposed specialty, but on religions, at which he lashes out mercilessly.

According to him, the human mind can become infected with something akin to computer viruses. If the virus were a religion What signs or symptoms characteristic possess the victim? According to Richard, they would be:

1. The patient feels compelled by a deep inner conviction to believe in something, that has nothing to do with evidence or reason. Doctors refer to such beliefs with the name of "faith".
2. The idea that the lack of evidence is a virtue, reinforces the belief.
3. The "mystery" itself is a good thing: the mystery of transubstantiation, the Trinity, the virginal conception, and so on.
4. The victim attacks believers of rival faiths, reaching, in extreme cases, to death. It can also be violent against the apostates and heretics. It is particularly hostile to scientific reasoning. Especially harmful is the virus of "suicide mission."
5. The most important variable in determining the professed religion is the accident of birth. The virus can be transmitted horizontally as measles, but is unlikely.
6. The patient's inner feelings can remember at an alarming rate to those ordinarily associated with sexual love.

But the virus does not always win. Many children have come out unscathed from the worst that nuns and mullahs had to throw. It is the optimistic message.

A new nose for Aisha

(Dedicated to my son Cesar, who does not like the Yankee Empire)

This case definitely calls my attention.
This is Aisha, a girl from Afghanistan to whom her family, allegedly allied to the Taliban, crippled by cutting her nose off, for alleged honor offenses. The case has been taken as its own by the massive U.S. propaganda machine. TIME magazine (which I have been reading the last 40 years without a hiccup) put her out in the cover with the misleading title: What happens if we leave Afghanistan?. 
The machine to detect fallacies that - probably because of professional bias - I have in mind, switches on to alert mode: here is a lie. 
The U.S. is trying to justify their presence in Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons, to save the poo girl from tribal barbarism. Nothing is more false, the U.S. is causing massive death and destruction in Afghanistan for purely military reasons (to show their power, to oil the machinery of war) and vengeance (still the Twin Towers), not because it is threatened by Afghasitán nor, much less, on compassionate grounds. Communism defeated , we must seek new external enemies. Fear of the American population to these imaginary enemies keeps it subdued.
We can reformulate the question: What would happen if we leave Afghanistan? and then put the face of a child burned by napalm from a missile shot by a pilotless plane driven by a guy who has a 9 to 5 workday in California (yes, the war is conducted like this today.) What would happen if they leave Afghanistan is that it would prevent many deaths of innocent people. No mutilation, death.
As the issue has captured the popular imagination, an American foundation, the Grossman Burn, has taken over and has operated the nose. Very compassionate, yes sir, and well suited to the official propaganda. All this has been echoed by the CNN,  Vancouver Sun and Daily Beast.
In short, do not believe the official propaganda, they want to fool you.
And now, what do you think?