Re-election day

This weekend the second round of brazilian elections is going to take place to decide who will be president for the next four years. In Brazil that decides candidates for executive branch in two rounds, unless a candidate achieves more than 50% of votes in the first round.
Lula failed by less than 1% to reach that tally.
Now electoral campaigns put him at over 20% margin over his opponent Alckmin.
I fail to see how can people sympathize with him. It's true, I did vote for him the last time. But that was before the sheer number of scandals that have taken place during his four year term. Practically all the members of his high echelon have resigned or stepped down (José Dirceu, Palocci, Genoíno, Gushiken, Berzoini, and the list goes on and on...)
And Lula's support only grows!
Imagine if he openly assaulted a bank, people would still applaud him!

That doesn't mean I'd be very happy voting for Alckmin either. Fernando Henrique 2 terms before Lula had me very unhappy.

Which is why I've decide the vote null.

Not because it will nullify the elections. I know that null votes are counted as if you made a mistake. But it's still the only way to show some discontent at the prospect of brazilian politics.

Money and winners

Nothing else to be said.

Trust them.

Diebold's election system computers are easily hackable in less than a minute. Makes you wonder if the brazillian version of it (the "urna eletrônica") is any better. In Brazil we have one sole device that is used in the entire nation. Results come up in a couple of hours as 3.5" disk are launched onto the grid. What if somehow these computers can be tampered in the same way? I'm also very surprised at the almost ravenous reaction of diebold, it's almost as if they're saying they're guilty.

Transparency

Great initiative: http://perfil.transparencia.org.br/

Null Votes

In Brazil, with the growing unhappiness derived from the various political scandals that always result in no punishment to the people involved, people more and more want to find a way to vent their frustration.
This has resulted in a campaign for the null vote. While I agree in part, it is not for the reason that is posted in an email circulation brazil defending the null vote. There they state that 50% plus one vote will lead to the voiding of the whole election process. The brazilian electoral code clearly states in article 219-224 that this is not the case, and it is very clear that null votes simply are not considered for the elections. The president is determined by the majority of the valid votes, and null and blank votes are not valid. So if you get an extreme case where 99% of the votes are null or blank, then the president will be elected on the majority of the 1% of votes left.
OBS:In Brazil we vote using an electronic device that is the same throughout the country. To vote null in it, one must type a number that does not belong to a candidate such as 99, and the confirm it.
To the law, a null vote is a misvote, meaning somebody made a mistake while voting, it is not considered a protest.
But the reason I do support the null vote is that even though it will not be considered, an election won with a high number of null votes, will somehow show the general insatisfaction

Positive de-action

Educafro is an organization in Brazil that is promoting the racial quotas to be established in public universities thinking that will solve racial minorities disparities. I cannot begin to believe how somebody can buy this argument! I mean, establishing the necessity that a racial minority such as indians or blacks need their own special quota to get into an university is saying that their are not as mentally able as the other students who don't need quotas! We could begin by asking what is a race, what is it to be black? Is there going to be someone who's going to look at my skin and say I'm black?! No, it seems you can define yourself however you want to. What if somebody wants to take advantage of this, somebody who is just a little tanned and marks himself as black, what then? Genetic studies of races reveal that there is no such think as a black or white race and that the polymorphisms are much greater than that. This quota politic is pure demagogy! It's just to divert attention to the real problem: the lack of a decent public elemantary and high schools that would naturally raise students who would be capable of going through university admission tests just like any other person. Goverments in the past decades have been seriously dismantling the whole public education: giving lousy wages for teachers, students are so badly prepared that sometimes they can get to eighth grade not knowing how to read!!!!!

Attack on the congress

I seriously condemn the attack made on the Brazilian congress by dissident MST (movement of the landless) dissident called MLST (movement for the freedom of the landless). Nevertheless, I think people should pay attention to this fact.
There is a global discontentment in this country in relation to the Congress. After all, how many politicians involved in serious corruption scandals have been forgiven by their own peers! >500 people participated in that revolt, and this global sentiment is present throughout. For example, how many people have jokingly said that: we should bomb everybody in Brasilia... even though of course, no one actually wants to do harm, the feeling is there. And the revolt is a symptom of it.
In the same manner that the attack on the world trade center in 2001 is that there is discontentment in the whole world, and maybe specially in islam in regards to america's foreign policy. The least we should do is open our eyes and try to see what is really going on.