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on you, Brazil! 
Reader Luiz Duczmal is a member of an amateur astronomy club, the Centro de Estudos Astronômicos de Minas Gerais, in Brazil. I can’t read their internet material, but I’m consumed with envy over their fine instrument, of which I offer a photo here. Luiz notifies us:
Telescope
Being a fan of your great website, I'm concerned with a piece of news seen last week in my country. Politicians here gave their latest contribution to our apparently inevitable race towards the Middle Ages, regulating the profession of astrologer, according to the official Parliament website (in Portuguese): http://www.camara.gov.br.
The law, authored by Deputy Luiz Sérgio – from the ruling Labor Party, now immersed in a huge national corruption scandal – reads:
After two centuries of ostracism, Astrology…has recovered its symbolic values due to successive large scale scientific research studies that have confirmed, in an irrefutable fashion, the reality of astrological fact…. It is important to instill the correct astrological thinking in Brazilian culture. And the regulation will allow a rigorous inspection of this activity.
The law regulates the jobs done in public agencies [!] and stimulates astrological studies in public schools. It is now being ratified by the Parliament. Brazil has seen steady declining budgets for education, science and technology, and a rampant flourishing of fundamentalism and misinformation.
Luiz doesn’t need to be told that there is ZERO basis for the “confirmation” of astrology claimed in this law. This is most likely only something pushed through the system by a zealous believer who wants to make some political noise, but I agree that on an international scale it makes Brazil look as if it will require goats to be slaughtered at the next opening of Parliament. How embarrassing for Brazilian scientists – particularly astronomers!
Telescope
Being a fan of your great website, I'm concerned with a piece of news seen last week in my country. Politicians here gave their latest contribution to our apparently inevitable race towards the Middle Ages, regulating the profession of astrologer, according to the official Parliament website (in Portuguese): http://www.camara.gov.br.
The law, authored by Deputy Luiz Sérgio – from the ruling Labor Party, now immersed in a huge national corruption scandal – reads:
After two centuries of ostracism, Astrology…has recovered its symbolic values due to successive large scale scientific research studies that have confirmed, in an irrefutable fashion, the reality of astrological fact…. It is important to instill the correct astrological thinking in Brazilian culture. And the regulation will allow a rigorous inspection of this activity.
The law regulates the jobs done in public agencies [!] and stimulates astrological studies in public schools. It is now being ratified by the Parliament. Brazil has seen steady declining budgets for education, science and technology, and a rampant flourishing of fundamentalism and misinformation.
Luiz doesn’t need to be told that there is ZERO basis for the “confirmation” of astrology claimed in this law. This is most likely only something pushed through the system by a zealous believer who wants to make some political noise, but I agree that on an international scale it makes Brazil look as if it will require goats to be slaughtered at the next opening of Parliament. How embarrassing for Brazilian scientists – particularly astronomers!
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