120th anniversary of the birth of Fernando Pessoa

our small homage with one of his poems:



  "Autopsychography"The poet is an inventor.
He invents so completely
That he succeeds in inventing
That the pain he really feels is pain.
And those who read what he writes
Really feel in the pain they have read,
Not the two which he felt,
But only the one they do not have.
And thus in the wheel ruts
There goes round and round, diverting Reason
That clockwork toy train
Which is called heart.

Translated by F.E.G. Quintanilha

More on Pessoa at MDaedalus.com

portrait of Fernando Pessoa by Almada Negreiros (Orpheu #2 on the desk)

Brazil: World's Third-Largest Oil Field

Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, announced the discovery of the potential Carioca deepwater oil field, stating that it may hold 33 billion barrels of oil, making it the third-largest oil field ever discovered. Assuming Petrobras meant oil-in-place reserves, recoverable reserves should be about a third of this.


The Carioca area lies in the Atlantic, west of Tupi filed in the fertile Santos basin, off the coast of Sao Paulo state.


“It could be the world’s biggest discovery in the past 30 years, and the world’s third-biggest currently active field,” Haroldo Lima, head of the government’s oil and fuel market regulator, told reporters at an industry event in Rio de Janeiro.


Petrobras also has said previously it sees good prospects for major oil finds in the subsalt areas in the Campos and Espirito Santo basins north of Santos, but it is focusing mainly on Santos at the moment.

Gold reaches $1000 an ounce

gold ingots - Credit Suisse

Concerns about a possible US recession are seeing investors buy up refuge commodities such as gold as an alternative to equities or the greenback.

Since the January the value of gold has increased by 20%, following a rise of 32% last year.

This price behaviour cannot be explained by either scarcity or increased demand of gold as a metal, but only due to increase demand a means of storage of value. Gold is increasingly used as a hedge against global inflation and unreliable equities. Its trade grown immensely since the introduction of exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Is the increasing uncertainty about the economy in the US and in a number of European nations leading to a para-gold-standard age through the back door?

If the fears regarding these economies are not placated through good governance, then there is a lot more space for the price of the yellow metal to go up.

Oil at $100

Happy 2008!

Nice new year news: crude oil reaches $100.

Serves us well in the West for engaging in or supporting stupid wars, and moreover for leaving natural resources in the hands of greedy regimes in states that for the most part should never have become independent in the first place!

oil rig fireworks

Bravo Western world!

Benazir Bhutto is gone - Pakistan on the way to be a failed state

Benazir Bhutto

The violent death of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi is one more sign of a country tribalized and out of control.

So much worries about Iran, when the real danger is next door in Pakistan: a "country" that has nuclear weapons, controls only half its territory, persecutes its minorities and has vast stretches of the population embracing radical Islam and on the path of Jihad and terrorism.

Any other ingredients required for a failed state?

Lets always keep in perspective that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, called the flag of his party, the Muslim League, the Flag of Islam, and had stated that it cannot be separated from Islam.

The US provided about $600 million in military aid to Pakistan in fiscal year 2006-2007. It would be interesting to see how much of this ended up in the hand of Jihadists. After all the Pakistanis are only continuing the American designed routines previously used to finance the Taliban against the USSR.

The A380 enters commercial service

Champagne is in the air!

The Airbus A380 has entered service with Singapore Airlines!

Where is your 787 Dreamliner, Boeing?

Airbus A380 - Front View - on the runway

Airbus A380 - cockpit - intruments

Airbus A380 - Singapore Airlines

Toy for the boys

Jose Socrates on a Lego box - "porque nem todos podemos ser Engenheiros"

After all we can't all be engineers... or can we?
(pun on the strangely obtained civil engineering degree of Portuguese prime-minister Jose Socrates)