Murphy's Laws

The Way It Goes Sometimes...

Patrick's Theorem
If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.

Skinners's Constant
That quanity which, when multiplied times, divided by, added to, or subtracted from your answer,... gives you the answer you should have gotten.

Horners's Five Thumb Postulate
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.

Flagle's Law of the Perversity of Inanimate Objects
Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform,... at any time,... in a totally unexpected manor, for reasons that are obsure or else completely mysterious.

Allen's Axiom
When all else fails, read the directions.

The Spare Parts Principle
The accessibility, during recovery, of small parts which fall from the work bench, varies directly with the size of the part, and inversely with its importance to the completion of the work underway.

The Compensation Corollary
The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurments must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with theory.

Gumperson's Law
The probability of a given event occuring is inversely proportional to its desirability.

The Ordering Principle
Those supplies needed for yesterday's experiment must be ordered no later than tomorrow noon.

The Ultimate Principle
By definition, when you are investigating the unkown you do not know what you will find.

The Futility Factor
No experiment is ever a complete failure,... It can always serve as as a bad example.

Airplane Law
When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on time.

Allison's Precept
The best simple-minded test of expertise in a particular area is the ability to win money in a series of bets on future occurrences in that area.

Anderson's Law
Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.

Anthony's Law of Force
Don't force it, get a larger hammer.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop
Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop.
Corollary – On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first always strike your toes.

Army Axiom
Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.

Axiom of the Pipe. (Trischmann's Paradox)
A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

Baker's Law
Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.

Barber's Laws of Backpacking
1) The integral of the gravitational potential taken around any loop trail you choose to hike always comes out positive.
2) Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure.
3) The weight of your pack increases in direct proportion to the amount of food you consume from it. If you run out of food, the pack weight goes on increasing anyway.
4) The number of stones in your boot is directly proportional to the number of hours you have been on the trail.
5) The difficulty of finding any given trail marker is directly proportional to the importance of the consequences of failing to find it.
6) The size of each of the stones in your boot is directly proportional to the number of hours you have been on the trail.
7) The remaining distance to your chosen campsite remains constant as twilight approaches.
8) The net weight of your boots is proportional to the cube of the number of hours you have been on the trail.
9) When you arrive at your chosen campsite, it is full.
10) If you take your boots off, you'll never get them back on again.
11) The local density of mosquitos is inversely proportional to your remaining repellent.

Barth's Distinction
There are two types of people : those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.

Boren's First Law
When in doubt, mumble.

Brook's Law
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Barzun's Laws of Learning
1) The simple but difficult arts of paying attention, copying accurately, following an argument, detecting an ambiguity or a false inference, testing guesses by summoning up contrary instances, organizing one's time and one's thought for study – all these arts – cannot be taught in the air but only through the difficulties of a defined subject. They cannot be taught in one course or one year, but must be acquired gradually in dozens of connections.
2) The analogy to athletics must be pressed until all recognize that in the exercise of Intellect those who lack the muscles, coordination, and will power can claim no place at the training table, let alone on the playing field.

Forthoffer's Cynical Summary of Barzun's Laws
1) That which has not yet been taught directly can never be taught directly.
2) If at first you don't succeed, you will never succeed.

Decaprio's Rule
Everything takes more time and money.

Dijkstra's Law of Programming Inertia
If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it.

Etorre's Observation
The other line moves faster.

First Maxim of Computers
To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.

Gallois's Revelation
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes back out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled, and no one dares to criticize it.
Corollary – An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the Grand Fallacy.

Glib's Laws of Reliability
1. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
Corollary - At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.
2. Any system which relies on human reliability is unreliable.
3. The only difference between the fools and the criminal who attacks a system is that the fool attacks unpredictably and on a broader front.
4. A system tends to grow in terms of complexity rather than simplification, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable.
5. Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to the inherent unreliability of the system in which they are used.
6. The error detection and correction capabilities of a system will serve as the key to understanding the types of error which they cannot handle.
7. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
8. All real programs contain errors unless proven otherwise, which is impossible.
9. Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until somebody insists on getting some useful work done.

The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences
Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

Golub's Laws of Computerdom
1. Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
2. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; if carefully planned, it will take only twice as long.
3. The effort required to correct course increases geometrically with time.
4. Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.

Goodin's Law of Conversions
The new hardware will break down as soon as the old is disconnected and out.

Gordon's First Law
If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.

Gray's Law of Programming
N+1 trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as N trivial tasks.
Loggs Rebuttal - N+1 trivial tasks take twice as long as N trivial tasks for N sufficiently large.

Grosch's Law
Computer power increases as the square of the costs. If you want to do it twice as cheaply, you have to do it four times as fast.

Halpern's Observation
The tendancy to err that programmers have been noticed to share with other human beings has often been treated as if it were an awkwardness attendant upon programming's adolescence, which (like acne) would disappear with the craft's coming of age. It has proved otherwise.

Hoare's Law of Large Programs
Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.

Howe's Law
Every man has a scheme that will not work.

IBM Pollyanna Principle
Machines should work. People should think.

Laws of Computability as Applied to Social Science
1. Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.
2. If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set.

Laws of Computer Programming
1. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
2. Any given program costs more and takes longer.
3. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
4. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
5. Any given program will expand to fill all available memory.
6. The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.
7. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
8. Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will discover that programmers cannot write in English.
9. Software is hard. Hardware is soft. It is economically more feasible to build a computer than to program it.
10. An operating system is a feeble attempt to include what was overlooked in the design of a programming language.

Law of Selective Gravity
An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
Jenning's Corollary - The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology
There's always one more bug.

Paperboy's rule of Weather
No matter how clear the skies are, a thunderstorm will move in 5 minutes after the papers are delivered. (or after you just have washed your car).

Project scheduling "99" rule
The first 90 percent of the task takes 10 percent of the time. The last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.

Sattlinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.

Segal's Law
A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.

Shaw's Principle
Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.

Troutman's Programming Postilates
1. If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
2. Not until a program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error be discovered.
3. Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in proper order will be.
4. Interchangeable tapes won't.
5. If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method to get bad data past it.
6. Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.

The Unspeakable Law
As soon as you mention something,... if it's good, it goes away; if it's bad, it happens.

Weinberg's Law
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy society as we know it.
Corollary - An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the Grand Fallacy.

Politically Correctness – (Corectitudinea Politica)

Wikipedia definesste politically correctness – corectitudinea politica ca fiind o modalitate utilizata pentru a "elimina din limbaj si alte forme de expresie tendintele sociale si politice".
Wikipedia, cu siguranta se inseala.
Ce este asadar political correctness – corectitudinea politica ?
Political correctness – corectitudinea politica este, de fapt, o Ideologie, insusita fie de o mare parte a utilizatorilor Internet-ului, fie de unii studenti, cat si de numerosi memberi ai unor partide politice, politicians, ori de mine, Dvs, mama Dvs, tatal Dvs, bunicii si neamurile Dvs, profesori, analisti politici, politologi, politisti, militari, precum si de oricine altcineva dintre cei cu care, inevitabil, intrati in contact in relatiile Dvs de zi cu zi, indiferent de natura acestora.
In fond, political correctness – corectitudinea politica este convingerea personala ca tot ceea ce faci si/sau spui este bun sau adevarat. Fiind politically correct – corect politic, inseamna ca orice gandesti ori spui este si adevarat. Asta vrea sa insinueze ca, cine este politically correct – politic corect (de exemplu: oricine are o opinie) poate sa peroreze linistit ca oricine dintre ceilalti care gandesc ori fac altfel decat el greseste si ca, prin urmare, numai modul sau de gandire si actiune sunt cele care reprezinta adevarul.
Political correctedness – Corectitudine politica se banuieste ca ar fi fost inventata ca urmare a manifestarii unui sentiment de vinovatie resimtit de unii albi din Statele Unite care nu avusesera niciodata de-a face cu persoane de culoare. Ea a fost de fapt inventata de Eddie Murphy cu ocazia unei aparitii datand de prin anii ‘80. Astazi, political correctedness – corectitudinea politica, si in special la noi, a ajuns sa fie una dintre cele cateva particularitati care definesc inconfundabil extremisii de orice gen care pot fi regasiti de ambele parti ale spectrelor "politice"; atat in randul asa-zisilor liberali care nu vor sa-si dezvaluie adevarata lor orientare, cat si al conservatorilor rasisti care se tem sa nu devina obiect de comentarii al unor canale de televiziune.

by Mihai Gheorghiu
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Politically_Correct

Suicides nation

-- Over three thousand Romanians killed themselves last year
The number of suicides overcomes the one of the deaths in road accidents. In 2006, 3 187 people made away with themselves, while 2460 persons died in road accidents. The cases of suicide are being on the increase. Forensic statistics show that most of the self-murderers are men, aged between 41 and 50. They prefer kill themselves by hanging, and this happens especially during the months of April, May, June and July. According to specialized writings, the number of suicides increases dramatically by the end of political mandates, and also in pre-electoral and electoral years. In 2007, in our country it has been recorded an average of two suicides a week. There are signs that 2007 might register a record at this grim chapter. The latest case that has shocked the public opinion is the one of the twin sisters that hanged themselves together. (...)

by Ziua
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Sentenced by Ministry of Death

Romanians who suffer from cancer are in a truly dramatic situation because they don't get their medicine in time and they have to take ceaseless efforts for it. They are the beneficiaries of no medical tests for free and normal environment in hospitals. Their existence is endless nightmare. The bureaucracy prevailing in the Romanian health system is also the enemy of those suffering from incurable diseases. What such a diseased person has to do in order to get the medicine vital to him is really unbelievable. After the diagnosis has been decided, the doctor prescribes the medication scheme. Then the patient goes to his family doctor to register it and then he is to reach the National Health Insurance Office to be told if his medicine is for free or just on discount.
According to official statistics, in Romania there are over 370,000 people who suffer from cancer and about 600 of them are children. It is only 76,000 who are the beneficiaries of proper treatment. 60,000 new cases emerge every year. 40.000 Romanians die of cancer every year.
200 Euro from the state budget
Although Romania tops the list with the number of people who die of one type of cancer or the other, the funds set by the Ministry of Health for the national oncology programme are 6-7 times smaller than in other European states. This year's budget for those who suffer from cancer is 336 million ROL (about 100 million Euro), much less than such funds in EU states. Great Britain, for instance, spent 4,3 billion pounds on the treatment of such patients in 2005-2006.
Right now there are only 250 oncologists to see to the 370,000 cancer stricken Romanians. 1 patient gets about 200 Euro from the state budget for oncological treatment, whereas in the civilized state such a patient gets about 1, 300 Euro a month. These 200 Euro are real mock, since a Romanian suffering from cancer needs at least 100 million ROL a month, if we don't count the money needed for treatment to take away the pain. As there are few who can afford it, more than a third of patients get treated for cancer in Romania.
Oncology is extinct
The interest in such patients can bee seen in one of the measures taken by Eugen Nicolaescu, also called 'the minister of death'. Last September he signed an order to do away with oncology as a specialization. Given Order 1044/ 2006, several medical branches were engulfed by others, oncology one of them. They claimed there was need to meet European requirements, although they aren't applied in the civilized EU states. In other words, they claimed there were no oncologists in EU states, which is false. The above-mentioned order is the end of a system for professional specializing. The patients are going to be treated by general practitioners who take a 4-month course in oncology.

by Marian Ghiteanu
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Price of suspension

According to the statements the Executive made before the referendum for President Basescu's suspension, the scrutiny should have cost the State's budget about 60 million lei. Other funds were spent by the political parties and by the suspended president, in his quality of "independent candidate". The Romanian Court of Audit has established the amount was about 8 671 082 lei. With the only difference that Basescu had done significant savings from the donations received, as he spend about 40% of them. This is not because his staff wouldn't have known what to spend on the 1 289 906 lei received as a gift by natural and legal persons. It's because PD (the Democrat Party) has covered the weigh of the expenses, as their share represented about 56% of what all the political parties have spent together.

by Dan Coste
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Financial Times: Romania and Bulgaria likely to escape safeguard clause

"Bulgaria and Romania are expected to escape European Union sanctions this month in spite of their failure to crack down on corruption and organised crime since joining the club in January." This is the conclusion expressed in a report published yesterday by the Financial Times, commenting on the Barroso's Tuesday warning for the two newcomers. The president of the European Commission claimed that Romania and Bulgaria were to continue with the major reforms the EU requested and show respect for the rule of law.
According to the author, "Mr. Barroso is expected to announce on June 27 that although both countries have made progress, neither has done enough to stamp out endemic corruption". There is also emphasized that the two states' failure to do away with corruption from the judicial system and politics may harm the EU interest in enlarging borders further into the Balkans. The entire report is available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5d54b19a-194c-11dc-a961-000b5df10621.html (...)

by L.P.
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Before the storm

There is silence for the time being, but it is that silence before the storm. Democrats' bill against the government has ended up as ridiculously as it was born. Why am I claiming there will follow political storm that may turn into a real hurricane ?
The great game with Traian Basescu and Calin Popescu Tariceanu as competitors seems to have reached a break now. Although winning in the referendum after the humiliation he had suffered when suspended, the President has failed to make the government collapse with help from the PD (Democrat Party) and this group's bill against the government. He has also failed to bring a government to make him a president-player.
The PSD (Social-Democrat Party) is also unwilling to obey the standards set by the head of state. Mircea Geoana wouldn't be entrapped by supporting Democrats' bill, even if promised power. Still it doesn't mean that Tariceanu's minority government has got some honeymoon ahead. I have got all the reasons to assume that the Social-Democrats are sharpening their swards thoroughly. If they join the war, it may be the end of the Liberals. And in the meantime the President won't be in the standby in his deadly war against Tariceanu. He will be after making the government collapse, no matter in favor of whom. There are no more solutions Cotroceni Palace perceives as immoral. Any solution to eliminate the PNL (National Liberal Party) is moral. Therefore we should expect the top officials in the latter Palace and in the PSD to meet in an undeclared alliance, but with killing efficiency.
If these are right, we will get a minority government of the PSD, explicitly or just intuitively, within the scenarios plotted by both the PSD and Cotroceni Palace. This PSD government would replace the one in power, made up of members of the PNL and the UDMR (Democrat Union of Magyars in Romania), due to implicit or rather explicit support from Presidency and also due to support from the PD. When may the final battle start ?
After the 2nd Tariceanu Cabinet got power due to support from 70% of the MPs and with the substantial contribution of the PSD and after the Democrats' bill against the government has been dismissed, Mircea Geoana's party needs not only time to change attitude and take action against the government the party supported, but also strong arguments or at least credible pretexts. It makes me estimate that the PSD would be testing the ground for at least 10 days without making any spectacular move. But when may the PSD be taking action ? Most likely when the European Commission releases the report on Romania and there is clue for it. Tariceanu is to go to the Parliament shortly before June 27 to answer questions on the lack of support for some PSD legislative projects to reach the government. If the report on Romania is unfavorable or so and so, the psychological preparation for the opening of procedures to dismiss the government has been made. But until then ?
In the next 10 days we will see incredibily aggressive offensives against the government coordinated by the very President and strongly supported by the PD, not at all discouraged because the bill was dismissed. Public opinion will hear a full list of central administration's failures, many of them inspired by the press, ZIUA included. But there will also be an invented list of failures. President Basescu's visceral hatred will have something to say. I can bet on this scenario, for the action it describes will start right now.

by Sorin Rosca Stanescu
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

322 alliance works perfectly

- The failure of Romanian Democrats' bill against the government surprised no one. The document's fate was already sealed when it reached parliamentary debate.
As they were fully aware of the failure, the leaders of the PD (Democrat Party), Emil Boc one of them, preferred strolling along the Parliament lobbies pensively, while the opposite side was relaxed. Social-Democrat Viorel Hrebenciuc and Liberal Radu Stroe were in one corner, smilingly exchanging advice on how to decorate their houses. The Romanian PM was also smiling when reaching the Parliament and he said he didn't feel the slightest nervousness at the coming votes.
"Let's not resemble states like Venezuela and Cuba"
PM Tariceanu told the MPs that he was sad and ashamed of the reasons for such a bill against his Cabinet, within the background of a political crisis caused by "a character taking himself for God's envoy on earth", but embodying the beginning of dictatorship. He claimed it was President Basescu who destabilized state institutions and turned Presidency into a terminator, but not into a player. The PM opined the Parliament was to choose either responsibility or demagogy, either achievements or populism, either Romania's real problems or words.
He argued: "I have never wanted to be part of a fragile system, of one of the nations where political continuity depends on the mood of a character who takes himself for God's envoy on earth and forgets that Romanians voted for us to govern the country." He insisted he was taking pride in the government's accomplishments, although they were enjoying no great popularity and although the state of hospitals and of the health system wasn't satisfying. The PM scored: "I don't represent God, which would be blasphemy. I am just trying to find solutions and work to serve citizens. I have done my best to serve citizens and the country." And he had a message for the President and the initiators of the failing bill: "I will never agree to an institutional structure that will make Romania resemble states like Venezuela, Cuba or the ex Soviet republics. In democratic European states with Germany, France or Italy as political models, the distribution and use of power are balanced. Any other approach relying on demagogy and populism leads to dictatorship".
"We must stick together"
The Romanian PM reminded that the government forced to modify the components got a positive vote from the Parliament last spring in order to continue the activity. The PM asked the PM to leave petty interests aside and release a message of responsibility, maturity and solidarity in order to meet people's claims. Tariceanu mentioned his personal intention to leave politics aside for the time being and focus on his obligations as a PM. He confessed he had been wrong to focus on politics too much. He also claimed that the National Liberal Party he was a head of was going to promote a pattern of social European solidarity to help every citizen lead a decent life. He concluded: "The power is in citizens' hands, not in the pockets of some 2-3 chaps. We must stick together. Let's work and build a European Romania together".

by Raluca Papadopol, Adrian Ilie & Razvan Gheorghe
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Coposu solution to Basescu problem

The PD (Democrat Party) tried to do the impossible. The maximal objective of their bill against the present government consisted in early elections. The minimal objective was to reach different terms with the PSD (Social-Democrat Party), regarding an alliance of the latter party with the PNL (National Liberal Party), which will explode in the very faces of PD leaders.
Basescu and the PD forced the PSD into things three times. First they did it when negotiating with socialists of the same blood (derived from the National Front of Salvation) and when spreading rumor on and even denouncing a PNL-PSD alliance. The second time they did it was when the PD hurried with a bill against the government to be placed with the hands of the PSD, but against the interests of the PSD. And the third time was when the PD realized the PSD wouldn't make such a mistake and the Democrats came up with the bill, together with the PLD (Liberal-Democrat Party), the aborted foetus of the PNL-PSD project.
Ioan Rus, a vice president of the PSD, described the initiative as "frivolous initiative". He commented for ZIUA: "How can one come up with bill against a government who hasn't even got to work? The 2nd Tariceanu Cabinet has been with us for just a few months and they wouldn't let them do something. One doesn't elaborate bills because one is angry with some or the other, without solid arguments. If we talk about bill, then we elaborate one against the entire governing of the "Truth and Justice" Alliance".
There are several reasons why the Democrats' bill against the government was a boomerang. It is aberrant to come up with a bill against a government you quitted just two months before and in just two months the Cabinet led by the PNL had time only to prove that they do better without the PD. Another boomerang effect is that they forced hundreds of local governmental representatives of the PD to resign out of honor because the central leaders wanted so before the PD was expelled from Tariceanu's government. But then they forbade them to proceed to resignation. Unless they resign, the PD would use their own bill against them. This bill has even consolidated, until the future general elections, a majority of all parties, except for the PD, who aren't interested in early elections.
'PD naked' could have been a good name for this bill. By pushing things towards early elections the presidential party admitted being not so keen on the so demagogically demanded uninominal vote, which is actually a Liberal initiative the Democrats grabbed. The Democrats were aware that by the bill they could only get an effect of image, that of parliamentary support from the PSD to the PNL. But they didn't even get this. The demonization of possible support is politically stupid and morally hypocritical. It can be proved that the PSD support for the minority government of members of the PNL and the UDMR (Democrat Union of Magyars in Romania) is the solution to political stability and efficient governing. It is the mirror solution of the one Mr. Coposu proposed to President Ion Iliescu in 1994, in agreement with the US State Department: to change the parliamentary majority by a minority government of Social-Democrats, with parliamentary support from the PNL, the UDMR, the PD and the PNTCD (National Christian-Democrat Party), an initiative the PD appreciated at that time. Unfortunately, President Iliescu dismissed it, which is why Romania failed to join the NATO and the EU together with the first wave.
The PSD can't make the same mistake this time. Support for the Tariceanu Cabinet with view to the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest and the adaptation to Romania's European status is of national interest. But the PSD has not no choice, anyway. They will come up with no bill against thew government, for it would be suicide. Cristian Diaconescu has already admitted it. The Tariceanu Cabinet will arrange elections on time. The rest is just wish taken for reality. Wishful thinking, as the Americans call it.

by Roxana Iordache
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

PNL-PD Alliance officially broken

Both the Liberals and the Democrats are going to court next week to make their split official. Emil Boc, a president of the PD (Democrat Party), explained yesterday: "We have been waiting till the last minute to see whether it is possible to remake the "Truth and Justice" Alliance by a government of representatives of the PD, the PNL (National Liberal Party) and the PLD (Liberal-Democrat Party), but it is not. We are going to open the juridical procedures next week".
Apart from such a symbolical gesture, practical matters are more important because there are 6 vacant MP mandates for the dying Alliance which are now deadlocked. The leaders of the two parties are to meet the following days to decide on how to distribute the mandates. The Democrats and the Liberal-Democrats are going to have talks on means of parliamentary collaboration. The Democrats are for now reticent to common PD-PLD lists of candidates in the coming elections of MEPs in Romania and fusion is an issue not raised yet.

by A.I.
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Romania 2007 seen from abroad

The war the ex partners in the Liberal-Democrat Alliance are fighting could not show a positive 'image' of Romania abroad. The whole adventure, culminating in the attempt to revoke the head of state, was first perceived as very worrying. It was presented as such by two main information means. By the political means the representatives of the PD (Democrat Party) provided European officials and bureaucrats and first of all the European Christian-Democrats, their present partners, with their version of the conflict, claiming that President Traian Basescu and the ex Justice minister Monica Macovei had been depicted as victims in the battle against the corrupted, 'oligarchic' system. By the media means the international press reported on similar messages from civil society voices, the same ones highly critical of the 'neocommunism' of the Romanian governments in the early 90s. The diplomatic reports sent by embassies in Bucharest probably took such an interpretation into account.
Still the foreign perception seems to have reached a balance in the meantime. Continental leaders have used the international diplomacy language to say that domestic political battles are Romania's business, like in any democracy. The only thing to be emphasized is that stability is desirable. During PM Tariceanu's recent visit to Brussels, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, a president of the European Commission, insinuated that the report on Romania, now in progress, the first report after the accession to the EU, would be 'fair'. It seems to mean that it won't be negative, as some people have prophesized, speculating that the protection (which we call 'safeguard') clauses will be applied. The NATO Summit due next April in Bucharest has also been reconfirmed, which is proof that domestic disputes are not thought to be so severe to cast doubt on the state's progress as a representative institutional system.
Such visible balancing of the perception is the effect of Monica Macovei's positive image in Brussels and also of the positive image her successor, Tudor Chiuariu, is enjoying. Until a short while ago he was a chief of the Anti-Fraud Department, in excellent terms with the OLAF in the EU. The same goes for the foreign affairs, our interface in diplomacy. Adrian Cioroianu, the new foreign minister, is less experienced that his Liberal predecessor Mihai Razvan Ungureanu. But he too is a valuable historian, just like the latter, and he experienced a few months of being a MEP. As for the support the President has got from the respective group of intellectuals both in Romania and abroad, it can no longer be as credible as it was right after 1990, when Romanian society was split in the former system, clumsily disguised as a democratic state, and true reformists. The authors of pro-Basescu appeals are now offending one of the parties that have made Romania European and they are supporting a President who has got his merits, but who started his political career as member of the Front for National Salvation, a group derived straight from the Communist Party. And I am not developing upon his recent blunders (calling a journalist 'filthy gypsy', invoking 'God's will' and so on)
Briefly, no matter how disagreeable, the political scandal in Romania has been in keeping with Constitution procedures: state institutions are working as usually, even if the structure's stability is weak and - the supreme argument, surely - economy has been ceaselessly improving, with a recently reported spectacular budget increase. Hence a fully positive 'image', nevertheless...

by Ion Bogdan Lefter
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Iliescu: The truth about the miners' race in '90, replaced by lies

-- Ion Iliescu, former president of Romania, strongly disagrees with his being incriminated in the media products on the events from 13-15 June 1990 and he says the historic truth on the miners' race in the summer of 1990 is being replaced by "lies and media-based manipulation". He considers that the authors of the manipulations are exactly the ones who generated the violent actions at that time and who wish to impose their own version on the events. We give you some fragments below of the former president's standpoint.
"(...)
1. The manifestation in the University Square (Piata Universitatii) was a prolonged and illegal electoral meeting. (...) This meeting lost its reason for being after the 20 May 1990 elections.
2. The statement that on 13 June 1990 the manifestation in the University Square was savagely repressed is a lie. Right after the elections, the main organizers, including the Students' League, announced their withdrawal from the Square. About two hundred persons left there, the so-called "hunger strikers", installed in the tents on the esplanade of the National Theatre. They were supported by two organizations, "The 21 December Association" and "the People's League". Their refuse to leave the Square was unjustified.
3. During the electoral meeting in the University Square there was no confrontation with the forces for maintaining the order. Those who were ruling Romania at that time chose a non-conflict approach, in spite of the invitation to violence and of the provocation from the side of the participants in the meeting. That is why, on 11 June 1990, an agreement was signed between the hunger strikers in front of the National Theatre and Anton Vatasescu, vice-prime minister in the provisional Government led by Petre Roman. By this agreement the strikers obliged themselves to clear the area. On the grounds of this Agreement, the Government approved a plan for restoring the traffic in the area, which involved the evacuation of the tents, the sanitation and the redecoration of the area, the restoration of the street, of the road signs etc. The evacuation of the hunger strikers didn't imply major incidents and was deployed on 13 June 1990, at dawn.
(...)
6. Official buildings had been attacked and devastated, such as: the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) seat, that of the Police Department of the Capital, of the Ministry of Interior, the Cultural Center of the Ministry of Interior. Official documents, blank ID papers, guns and ammunition had been stolen. Other groups had attacked the public TV station, had destroyed tapes and cassettes from the archive, had threatened with death the technical and managing staff, and had destroyed equipment. All these led to an interruption in the broadcasting of the public TV station. The acts of vandalism presented live on TV, the heavy clouds of smoke going up over the Capital and the obvious incapacity of the police forces to re-establish order and to control the situation gave rise to fear, so much the more as people did not understand the springs of that outburst of violence. The people had pronounced freely in election, there was a legitimate power, a new Government was about to be made up and the Constituent Assembly to begin its activity. The fact that an extremely aggressive minority chose to violently contest the choice of the people gave birth to some rejection reactions.
8. This unusual and dangerous evolution for the country determined my appeal, as the chief of State, elected by the citizens with 85% of the suffrages, in which I was asking them to fulfil their civic duty and to defend democracy, to come and support the institutions of the rule of law.
9. It was not my appeal, to which the citizens of the Capital and those from the neighbouring counties answered, but the state of anarchy installed in Bucharest that brought here the miners of five mining basins, not only those from Jiu River Valley. Violence of the miners and of other citizens is blamable as well, condemnable and unforgivable as that of the anarchist groups from the afternoon, the evening and the night of 13 June 1990. If we want to find out who "called" the miners to Bucharest, we need to find out who ordered and organized the violent actions on the day of 13 June 1990. (...)”

Ion Iliescu
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Bush congratulates Constantinescu for contribution against communism

The US President George W. Bush in person congratulated Emil Constantinescu, an ex President of Romania, for his contribution to mark Romania's separation from communism, informs the ex President's press office.
Emil Constantinescu was congratulated while in Washington in June 12, attending the reunions dedicated to the Victims of Communism Memorial. Emil Constantinescu attended the event as member of the International Council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, established in 1997. He was accompanied by Marius Oprea, a president of the Institute for Research on Communist Crimes.
The monument unveiled in Washington last Monday was built due to the financial contribution of the Czech government and of the main political parties in the Czech Republic, according to the CTK Agency. It is first of all meant to honor the victims of communism and communist dissidents and also to inform future generations about the threat consisting in totalitarian regimes.

by Ovidiu Banches
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

Interior minister's militia

-- The Romanian interior minister intends to give traffic policemen the Ceausescu-like vigor back. Using the EU as pretext, minister David wants drivers to depend on police station heads' moods.
The Liberal interior minister has mentioned his support for the initiative of Romanian Police Chief Dan Fatuloiu, as the latter intends to declare radar detectors illegal. The devices started to be used in order to prevent traffic accidents once with the reform of traffic legislation, after years of public debates and legislative harmonization. Fatuloiu claims such detectors are forbidden everywhere in Europe and David believes it without checking on it.
It is to be mentioned that such devices are illegal in many EU states, as they are useless in states with advanced infrastructure where the number of highway kilometers is incomparably larger than the one in Romania and the average speed is infinitely higher than on Romania's European roads, full of chariots, cows and hens.
ZIUA tried to talk to minister David about the reasons for such an initiative to modify the Traffic Code, but he just asked the Police to explain their view at once. And David's militiamen have come up with one more idea, not at all aimed at caution: to use police agents on the watch dressed like civilians. This is how the entire philosophy of the Traffic Code is spoilt, but fines are ok. This initiative's financial side is not at all insignificant, as the budget emerging from sanctions has been drastically decreasing. (...)

by D.E.I.
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english

SRI suspected of political police activity

The report authored by the committee to check on the SRI (Romanian Secret Service) will stipulate that the institution is suspected of "political police" activity in the scandal on the notes written by the SRI deputy Florin Coldea on Constitutional Court judges. The information comes from sources in the committee who questioned the SRI chief. Sources say: "To ask on the phone for information about the Constitutional Court judges and to get it on the phone smells like political police. We can't prove that President Basescu was the beneficiary of the information, but the case in general casts suspicion on political police action".
SRI chief George Maior insisted that the internal inquiry on the above-mentioned scandal involving Florian Coldea denied accusations on SRI officers as participants to political police activities. The chief of Romanian counterintelligence claimed that there was no evidence to show that Coldea's notes had been deliberately sent by an officer of Mircea Geoana's and he argued that the only hypothesis at stake was information leak because of errors. He mentioned there would follow several administrative sanctions against several SRI members. Sources claim in some cases dismissal will be decided. The SRI chief insisted once more that by this scandal they had tried to attract the SRI in political disputes, such as the one on suspending the President of Romania Traian Basescu. (...)
Sources say the fate of deputy Coldea is sealed. The latter is reproached for having asked for information about Constitutional Court judges long after the National Council for Research on the Communist Secret Service Archive had got the data requested.
The initiative of the SRI deputy has got two possible reasons: either the SRI has still got records on Romanian state officials or they searched for data to compromise those who were to reach verdict on the suspension of the Romanian President.
Next Monday Maior is to announce the full outcome of the internal inquiry by the SRI, including the names of those guilty of leaks and sanctions against them. The committee is to complete report on the case next Tuesday.

by Razvan Gheorghe
Ziua http://www.ziua.net/english