title, what title?

Şampiyon olacağız Beşiktaşım bu sene (bu sene!) Koyacağız cimbomboma fenere (fenere!) Gel bu sene son verelim dertlere (dertlere!) lay lay lay lay lay laaaa!

Toplumlarin ahlak kurallarini karsilastirmak, 21 yuzyilin sonunda esen Pop Post-modernizm'i yuzunden nedense kültürel Emperyalizm ile es tutulur oldu. Tek bir ahlaki dogru olup olmadigini bilmesem de ahlaki normlarin en azindan birbirleriyle karsilastirilabilir ve "daha" dogru olarak nitelendirilebilir oldugunu dusunuyorum. Sam Harris'in dedigi gibi, ahlaki degerler yemek gibidir, "daha iyi yemek" kavrami olmasa da yiyecek ve zehir arasinda bir fark vardir. Toplumlar belli ahlaki normlari paylasan insanlarin kurdugu birliklerdir, ve toplumlarin basarisi, kanimca bu ahlaki normlarin görece basarilari ile olculmelidir. Ahlaki zehir/yiyecek ayraci olarak hangi kriterin kullanilacagi halen süregelen felsefi bir tartisma konusu, sadece kendi nacizane gorusumu belirtmekle yetinmem gerekli. Kanimca ahlaki bir kuralin ya da kurallar bütününün degeri, dogamiz ve toplumsal kosullar sonucu ortaya cikan güc dengesizliklerinde, bu dengesizliklerde guclu olanin gucsuz ol...

2008 Ekonomi Nobel'i sahibi Paul Krugman dünkü yazisinda hakkinda ilk bilimsel makaleyi yazdigi "Döviz Krizi"'nin gelismekte olan ekonomileri tehtid edebilecegini söylüyordu. Özellikle su kisim Türkiye'nin durumu ile paralellik gösteriyor takip edebildigim kadariyla: "In Russia, for example, banks and corporations rushed to borrow abroad, because dollar interest rates were lower than ruble rates. So while the Russian government was accumulating an impressive hoard of foreign exchange, Russian corporations and banks were running up equally impressive foreign debts. Now their credit lines have been cut off, and they’re in desperate straits." Kisaca doviz depolayan merkez bankasinin aksine ozel sektorun yurtdisindan borclandigini soyluyor. Ayni konuda Türk ekonomist Dani Rodrik blogunda IMF'in gelismekte olan ülkelere bu tehlikelere karsi kredi yardimi yapmasi gerektiginin altini ciziyor. Yine ayni günlerde Türk hükümeti IMF'e salvolar yaparken ...

If you have been to a large Western city, you probably have seen church advertisements like "Jesus loves you" or "Jesus saves" on public transport. They involve no public spending. In Turkey, I cannot imagine such advertisements, but a lot of public money is spent on religion. I wonder, what would be reactions to such an advertisement on a bus in Turkey: "There is probably no god. Now stop worrying. And enjoy your life." It is worth noting that the Anglican Church welcomed the advertisement. They argued this would motivate people to think about God, and draw the same conclusion as they did...

“The common good” (or “the public interest”) is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as “the tribe” or “the public”; the tribe (or the public or society) is only a number of individual men. Nothing can be good for the tribe as such; “good” and “value” pertain only to a living organism—to an individual living organism—not to a disembodied aggregate of relationships. When “the common good” of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. What makes the victims accept it, and permit a society to perpetrate a moral atrocity of that kind? The answer lies in philosophy. In philosophical theories on the nature of moral values. Ayn Rand

In my humble opinion in the core of the global credit crisis is the issue of lying and trust. It is not a question of liberalization vs. regulation, it is not a question of capitalism vs. centrally controlled economy. Here is what happened as I see it. Money searchers -entities representing groups of people such as insurance companies, retirement funds, public bodies- were willing to pay money to other people -bankers- who can get them some more money. So these money finders went out looking for people who were willing to give money for something they wanted to have too much -wanna be home owners-. To squeeze money from as many money givers as possible the money finders lied to the money givers, making them make commitments on payments that they could not fulfill in 2, 3 years time. The money finders did not care, since they made their money when they sold these payment commitments to money searchers. They did not even sell money to money seekers, they sold promises to give money. They...

Besiktasimi özlüyorum. Sevgilimi özlüyorum. Her ikisi icin de anlam tasiyan su siiri okuyup teselli oluyorum. MALMÖ İÇİN TESELLİ (Recep Çetin için) TAKMA RECEP MEVZU DEĞİL ANT OLSUN CANIN SAĞ OLSUN UNUT RECEP KALEDEN ÇIKARDIĞIN SAYISIZ TOPU UNUTMAYIZ BOŞ VER RECEP BEŞİKTAŞLIYIZ HALDEN ANLARIZ KENDİ KALESİNE GOL ATAN DA BİZDENDİR Besiktas'im icin Pazar gününü, sevgilim icin gelecek haftayi bekliyorum.

This is a real lifehack. I've been saving pretty much everything interesting in my del.icio.us account. Now with this hack I can search them with tags from the address bar of my Firefox. As a matter of fact, you can use this hack to search on any searchable field in any webpage. 1- Go to any searcahble field in a webpage. Say www.imdb.com 2- Right click on the field, and click Add a keyword for this search. 3- Add the keyword you want to use -imdb- and a name. Basically what it does is it saves a bookmark to the search URL, with a %s placeholder for the search term, which is replaced with the actual search term when you type keyword searchterm in the address bar. I love open source.

Long before this crisis Turkish economy was compared with Hungarian economy in terms of public and private debt, and to the Icelandic economy in terms of the interest rates. Both countries are in big trouble after the crisis . If Turkey escapes this without big troubles, I think it is thanks to the liberalization and consolidation of the banking sector after our own crisis. That would mean the cure acted like a vaccine. Or, it might simply mean that our banking sector were not involved with the kinds of financial devices that triggered this crisis. I'd be glad if someone could lead me to some sources about the Turkish banking sector, and their involvement with the newer products.

Sorry Chan. I'm not available anymore. Found someone better. Much better.

The Paulson plan which aimed to "save the US/Global economy" was a 3 page document. The number 700 billion was based on NO data points. The best brains of the best capitalist economy -Paulson was a long time CEO of Goldman Sachs- chose an arbitrary large number. An ARBITRARY number. With suggestions that the Lehman's toxic assets only can be as large as 400 billion , this number may not be enough. With such bright minds in the leading positions of the government, I cannot understand how people can be lured with the dream of regulated markets. By the way, here is a quotation from a real bright mind about this issue. There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. Richard Feynman PS: Have a look at this hilarious mock e-mail that explains Paulson plan as one of those mails you receive from t...

(*) Godspeed You! Black Emperor has a song named Static. It contains an eerie recording of an Evangelical priest talking on long wave radio. He talks about the fate of those who have seen the real face of "God". Some end up in mental institution, and some, like the preacher himself and his followers, reach salvation by becoming "Godmen, Godwomen, and Godchildren." I don't buy any of this, but the song helps me to put the three prophets of the religion Dylano-Coheno-Reedianism in context. It is as if the prophets have seen the reality -what the preacher refers as the face of God- from somewhere we have not been able to - perhaps from the Tower of Song- and reacted differently. Bob Dylan saw it in an early age, and shouted it out loud, never loosing his youthful anger, and self esteem. Lou Reed on the other hand, was probably high when he saw it, and chose not to tell what he saw, but make jokes about it, hoping we get it somehow. Leonard Cohen on the other hand, ...

Don't miss out this collection of heritage pictures from the Hubble telescope. If this is interesting, make sure you visit this site which features a stunning astronomy picture everyday, along with explanations: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Bu konuda da kafam karisik. Ertugrul Saglam'in Besiktas'i kaldiramadigini dusunuyorum. Esas degismesi gereken yönetim, ama 2010'a kadar bu zor güzüküyor. Besiktas'a geldim hedeflerimi büyütmeliyim demek yerine Besiktas'in hedeflerini kücülten Ertugrul'un istifa etmesini diliyorum. Istikrar diyenlere en iyi cevabi gecen sene vermistik: Seviyoruz seni, Yasiyoruz cok sükür der gibi, Nice yillara Süreyya abi!

Basbakan Orta Asya gezisini yarida kesmis. Cumhurbaskani Fransa gezisini. Iktidarlari süresince Dogu sorunu konusunda 1 adim atmayan bu iktidarin iki isminin erken gelmeleri neyi degistirir ki? Toplumsal enerjimizi ne kadar gayri etkin kullandigimizin tarifsiz üzüntülerle dolu bir kaniti. Gündüz gözüyle 15 Askerimiz sehit edildi. Cumartesi sabahimi zehir eden bir haber. Ne yazacagimi bilemiyorum. Kafamdan gecenleri toplayamiyorum. Ancak su bir gercek ki, Genel Kurmay Baskanligi yeni bir stratejik yaklasim gelistirip uygulamali. Bu konuda calismalar elbet de ki vardir. Ancak bu konudaki calismalar topluma anlatilmali. Bunun yaninda yeni Anayasa calismalalarina hiz verilmeli. Bu is yapilirken Genel Kurmay Baskanligi kanimca gözlemci ve danisman rolünden daha ileri gitmemeli. Gücünü ve enerjisini askeri alana yönlendirmeli. Anayasa genis hak ve özgürlükler veren bir anayasa olmali. Birileri cikip, isi insanlarin vatanseverliklerini suistimal etmeden, kisi haklarina saygiyi elden birakmada...

When Sonic Youth covers a pop song, the result is eerie yet briliant. Here is their tribute to Carpenters, Superstar. Their highly modified sounds mixing up with traditional rock'n'roll sounds... Simply briliannt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRiyN_Zn5L8

Besiktas's supporters group Carsi were not affected by the recent sanctions Russia imposed on Turkish imports: