I don't like anedoctes to understand the reality - Statistics are always better. So, let's see:
The personal aproval rating of the president is 71% - yes, it was 79% one year ago, but is still a very high aproval rating.
In the government aproval rating, ONLY 13% thinks it's 'bad' or 'terrible' (in pt-br: ruim ou péssimo). It was 7% at the beggining of the year, but is still a aproval.
If you want to look by yourself: http://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2013/06/aprovacao-do-governo-dilma-vai-55-aponta-pesquisa-ibope.html

I think the main problem of the north and northeast is exactly the budget help they receive from the south and southeast.
The owners of the northeast (oligarchies) steal money exactly because this money came from elsewere. If it come from the pockets of their own people, probably this people will be very pissed off.

Don't think everyone in USA thinks the same. Lots of people there support universal healthcare (including co-ops of New York Times, for instance).
The american right-wing-bat-shit-crazy thinks universal healthcare is socialism. And, yes, they have lots of voice there - but still, it's not the 'country'.

I don't think the south-Brazil will become independent. Maybe is even more possible that other countries will merge Brazil (not now, of course, but in the long term).
As I see, in 50 years, all the Mercosul will be one country. And maybe that's when this country will be trully federal. (Actually, I think the main hope for south-Brazil it's not the independence, but the real federalization of the country).

Just guessing.

You should know that Alckmin have a program to create vouchers insted of public healthcare.
This is EXACTLY what Friedman suggests (a right-wing intellectual, even for USA standards).

Otherwise, Alckmin several times said He is against welfare - the 'bolsa-família' - (that even the right-wing governments in USA keep as 'food-stamps').

So, as you see, he IS right-wing for brazilian standards and he is right-wing even by american standards.

What is outside always look worst, isn't? ;)
But back to reality: Alckmin is a religious political figure from the right-wing sector of a right-wing party. Maybe he don't act like the tea party - and of course, he isn't so dumb as Sarah Palin - but at the end, it's not so different.

brazilian here:

The main problem, as far as I see, it's not the federal government: are the states and municipal ones.
The main riots begun against the price of the bus in the main cities (first in Porto Alegre in April, and took a big shape after Sao Paulo tried to raise the price of the bus ticket in may-june). People are beat by the local polices without clear reason (plus rubber bullets and moral gas) and lots of arrests are being made without a reason (in Sao Paulo the local police arrested hundreds of people with possession of VINEGAR*).

But look how crazy this sounds: the mayor of Sao Paulo (the city) is a left-wing (or center-left) workers party. The governor of Sao Paulo (the state) is a right-wing almost tea-party-look-a-like. The riots were against the mayor, but the state used its force (police). In porto alegre, the mayor is a center-right-wing and the state government is a left-wing workers party. The same: the riots were against the mayor, and the police (controled by the governor) was used in a brutal way (not so hard as sao paulo, but brutal) against the rioters.

Now that the main cities agreed to lower the price of the bus ticket (porto alegre in May and several other cities in the last few days), the riots looks more like french 68 riots than anything else. It's not about the price of the bus ticket anymore, but about the political and social culture in Brazil (corruption, a lack of social control, etc).

*Vinegar is used to decrease the effects of tear gas.
** One last thing: be careful with brazilian newspapers. Most of them will stand for its own agenda and they are part of the problem, not the solution.

Actually, Symbian phone from Nokia do this pretty well.
And yes, symbians ARE smartphones (I really like my E72. It have a battery life that no android phone could ever offer me)

This.
I don't know about other countries, but here in Brazil prisioners have a terrible treatment - and we're not a totalitarian state, we're just nuts who think criminals don't deserve anything.
The difference is that in N. Korea the officers torture, kill and do other terrible things. Here (and in many other countries), the officers don't do anything. The prisioners itself do all the atrocities between themselves. We just dump them in dozens in places where should be only 2 or 3.

To me, the whole problem is that Elop had 3 different OSes (fighting internally for resources) and then he though to put all 3 OSes in the garbage and take another one. Nokia could improve Symbian (big costs to improve the system itself, small costs in changing mindsharing) OR improve Meego (not so big costs improving the system, bigger costs creating another software ecosystem and gaining mindshre). But no! Let's try another complete new thing. something that don't have mindshare, don't have software ecosystem and it's not even ready yet! Looks like a fantastic idea! Nokia, in the bottom line, though they could stop de time for 3 years and, after this time, enter the market again.

Tnk1, your post was the best about this whole copyright-war I've ever seen. Thanks for the enlightenment

When EU citizens vote wrong, they're forced to vote again and again until they give the right answer.

Greece knows well.

The question is: when Arm will become real Intel competitor? There is already a lot of android laptops, but still lame ones. Sooner or later Arm will become Intel's big problem...

Already did it in a city called Canoas, in Brazil. Original source (portuguese): http://www.diariodecanoas.com.br/policia/301981/canoas-sistema-deteccao-de-tiros-passara-por-calibragem.html

Accountability is a main issue itself. It's not to achieve efficiency, but to achieve fairness.