Pacman, Maricar & FB Tops

What do boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, actress Maricar Reyes and social network Facebook have in common? According to Google's annual Zeitgeist report, they are among the fastest rising Google searches in the Philippines for 2009 representing what was top of mind for Filipinos this year. More

Snubbed Again

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo failed to meet United States President Barack Obama when both leaders attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. on Thursday (late evening in Manila), her spokesperson said.

No More Docu Tax

In a bid to help the stock market regain its competitiveness and cope with the global financial crisis, the Senate adopted Tuesday a motion to abolish the documentary stamp tax.

Another One Bites The Dust

Another rural bank in Bohol declared a bank holiday on Wednesday after it experienced heavy withdrawals by its depositors following the closure of a rural bank in December 2008.

LPG Shortage Artifical

The supposed shortage in the supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is only "artificial" created by unscrupulous re-fillers and dealers, Vice President Noli de Castro said Wednesday.

Shell At It Again

Major oil player Pilipinas Shell will increase the price of its gasoline by P1 per liter effective 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, but reduce the price of diesel by P0.74 per liter and kerosene by P1 per liter, vice president for communications Bobby Kanapi said Tuesday.

Coffee, Anyone?

A 21-year study finds that moderate coffee drinkers are much less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

SINULOG BOYCOTT

BOYKOT SA SINULOG?

Unsay mahitabo kon magkasabot ang mga sakop sa media sa di pag-cover sa Cebu City Sports Center sa Sinulog Grand Parade sa sunod tuig? Unsay sangpotanan kon magkauyon ang mga sibyaanan sa radyo ug telebisyon nga sa ikatulong Dominggo sa Enero 2010 isibya ang naandan nilang mga tulomanon ug di na maghago paggasto og dakong kuwarta, ni pagpakatap sa tanan nilang kawani ug kahimanan?
Lisod ning mahitabo apan may mga sukaranan pagboykot sa sentro sa parada:
• Gipabayad ang mga Sugbuanon sa grandstand bisan ilang buhis ang gigasto sa kalihokan; ug
• Di angayng mamugos ang media pag-cover sa dapit nga mora silang sanglahon nga gipalayo sa kalihokan.
-o0o-
Karaan nang reklamo ang pagpalayo sa mga tigpasiugda sa Sinulog sa TV cameras gikan sa grand stage. Hagbay rang naglisod ang mga sibyaanan sa telebisyon pagpasabot sa ilang viewers nganong morang field demonstration ang ilang coverage. Apan morang ginudnoran og asin ang nagngutngot nang samad dihang kuwang na lag diyutay nga patungtungon sa mga tigpasiugda sa stage ang Sinulog photographers, nga ang kasagaran way klarong outlets.
Sa sinugdanan, nagduda kong may mga sakop sa Sinulog Foundation (SFI) nga tua kapusta sa photographers ug nagdumot sa TV stations. Apan nahadlok kong, sama sa naandan, kuwarta na say hinungdan. Kay ang matag magpa-rehistro nga maniniyot pabayron og P500.
-o0o-
Atubangan sa talagsaong kalamposan sa Sinulog 2009, way mangahas pagpamuyboy sa SFI. Apan sa kinauyokang bahin sa ilang kasingkasing nahibawo sila sa dakong tampo sa media sa kalamposan sa Sinulog. Gawas kon nituo nga igo nang pila ka libo nga nakabayad ug nakalingkod sa grandstand pagsangyaw sa kanindot sa parada.

Obama Makes History

Americans love a good speech and particularly a great inaugural address. As Barack Obama prepares for his inauguration, the stakes are particularly high. He is competing with ghosts of eloquent presidents past along with his own high rhetorical standards. He is taking office as the country’s first black president, healing centuries of racism and dehumanization, during a staggering economic crisis, with America bogged down in two difficult wars, with Islamist terrorists still threatening, and amid serious concerns about Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons

Facing such troubles, it would seem that mere words can do little. But the magic of American democracy – and part of the alchemy of leadership – is that the right words and even the right gesture can make history. The inaugural address debuts the president’s Bully Pulpit, with hundreds of millions not just listening, but yearning for direction, especially today.

Back in April 30, 1789, a visibly nervous George Washington delivered the country’s first inaugural address. The great man’s humility – his awkward gestures and trembling hands -- moved the crowd. Many rejoiced that they had witnessed virtue personified, with individual and national greatness reinforcing one another.

Twelve years later, Thomas Jefferson entered office during a highly divisive period. He made the moment with words not deeds. Jefferson’s patriotic pronouncement “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists” was healing, reassuring the losing Federalists that they remained Americans.

These two founders paved the way for a rich history of tone-setting inaugural moments. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln tried uniting the country by rhapsodizing about the “mystic chords of memory” binding Americans. Even though the effort failed and a bloody Civil War ensued, four years later, Lincoln welcomed back Southern rebels “with malice toward none and charity toward all.”

POEA Should Review Nurses' Contracts

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration should scrutinize the labor contracts that the Sentosa Recruitment Agency in Manila is asking selected Filipino nurses to sign before deployment to the United States.

According to data from British firm Netcraft, 30 million new Web sites made their debut in 2008, a 17 percent increase over the previous year, Le Figaro reported Monday.

There are now 186.7 million web sites around the globe. In 2007, there was a 40 percent growth of new Internet outlets since 2006, which brought about the millionth Web site.

Last year, online advertising investments reached US$49.8 billion, according to ZenithOptimedia, owned by Publicis Groupe.

This year, Internet advertising expenditure is predicted to escalate by 19 percent, Le Figaro reported. ZenithOptimedia noted that by 2011 online ad spend may represent 15.6 percent of the global marketing field.

That the world of traditional media is in crisis, nobody doubts. However the question raised by Michael Hirschorn of the Atlantic, is just how long the industry can continue in its current situation. He takes the example of the struggling New York Times and hypothesizes about the end coming sooner than anyone expects - May in fact. Whilst the NYT going out of business within months looks highly unlikely, its current financial status leaves this seemingly far-fetched theory every so slightly more plausible. The conundrum of the newspaper industry at large is that online readers massively outnumber print readers - but there is little benefit in having volumes of online readers when the profit that comes with them is minimal. The Internet is forcing newspapers to stop and evaluate how they communicate the news. Sites such as Google are offering everything to users, and are progressively edging traditional institutions out.

Interestingly, Google insists it does not want to overtake the printed press - in a recent interview Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO seemed keen to find a salvation for traditional newspapers and discover a way for the two to co-exist in harmony. He is however unsure of exactly what that solution is and is reluctant to buy a newspaper outright or simply provide them with a cash injection as 'it would help solidify the ownership structure, but it doesn't solve the underlying problem in the business'.

In his article, Hirschorn goes on to speculate about different methods of money saving for newspapers, and the NYT in particular. He mentions borrowing money against company buildings, selling assets or cutting dividends (a step the NYT has already taken), but somewhat pessimistically declares that these all precede the staff cuts that the New York Times has been so publicly keen to avoid.

@bl^Iraq Politics http://ping.fm/Rr8xS

Thoughts on Voting

Most of what you do is for expressive value anyway, so you shouldn't feel guilty about voting, if indeed you vote. The people who think they are being instrumentally rational by not voting are probably deceiving themselves more. They are actually engaged in an even less transparent form of expressive behavior (protest against the voting system) and yet cloaking that behavior under the guise of instrumental rationality. The best arguments against voting are simply if you either don't like voting or if you don't know which candidate is better. High-status people hardly ever offer the latter justification, even though the split of opinions among high-status people suggests that not all high-status people can in fact know which candidate is better.

In other words, both voting and not voting are motivated by the thought that you are better than other people. I am glad that we have an entire day devoted to this very important concept.

Bushisms

Victory Speech

I was listening to George W. Bush speak at a rally in New Hampshire, in January 2000, when he came up with what remains my favorite of his miscues: “I know how hard it is to put food on your family.” This could be an amusing few months, I remember thinking.

The only slow period for Bushisms was right after Sept. 11, when the president’s inadequacies no longer seemed very funny. Then Mr. Bush declared that normality was returning: “I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.”

The president’s critics see such flubs as proof of his idiocy. His defenders believe that calling attention to them is hostile. But the president’s verbal stumbles have only made me like him better. It’s hard to despise someone who just wants “to make the pie higher” or who says he won’t answer your question, “Neither in French nor in English. Nor in Mexican.”

Maybe the greatest expression of his befuddlement was something he said when asked to respond to an article by the writer Gail Sheehy claiming he was an undiagnosed dyslexic. “The woman who knew that I had dyslexia — I never interviewed her,” he sputtered.

Mr. Bush’s battle with English has enriched our political language. It is no longer possible to say a person or a factor has been underestimated. Thanks to him, that word is now misunderestimated. In trade negotiations, tariffs and barriers have become bariffs and terriers. Kosovo is the land of the Kosovians, Greece the ancient homeland of the Grecians, a Reagan-loving people with no gray hair. There is no strategy, only “strategery,” a term coined by the comedian Will Ferrell and adopted inside the administration.

Most politicians don’t care about language and abuse it through euphemism, vagueness and cliché. Mr. Bush is not so indifferent. When words won’t do what he wants, he tries to wrestle them into submission. His memorable coinages — Hispanically, arbo-treeist — express the frustration we all feel at those moments when language won’t go our way. In the face of defeat, Mr. Bush remains unbowed by grammar. You’ve got to admire that, kind of.

— JACOB WEISBERG, the editor in chief of the Slate Group and the author of “The Bush Tragedy”

US Poll Stats

A Seismic Election Day
A Few States Are Apt to Change Colors

By George F. Will
Washington Post

By midnight Tuesday, millions of conservatives probably will believe that the nation, foundering on the reefs of sin, is ruined. And millions of "progressives," emboldened to embrace truth in labeling by again calling themselves liberals, probably will have decided that Heaven is at hand, the nation revived like a flower in an April shower.

In any case, political numeracy can illuminate the hours before midnight. So as Tuesday's numbers accumulate, here are some benchmarks to bear in mind:

The House of Representatives currently has 235 Democrats and 199 Republicans; the Senate has 51 Democrats (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats) and 49 Republicans. Republican losses on Tuesday should be measured against the aftermath of two debacles a decade apart.

President Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide victory over Barry Goldwater produced a House with 295 Democrats and 140 Republicans, and a Senate with 68 Democrats and 32 Republicans. The 1974 post-Watergate congressional elections produced a House with 291 Democrats and 144 Republicans, and a Senate with 60 Democrats, 38 Republicans, one independent who caucused with the Democrats and one Conservative Party member who caucused with the Republicans.

Five Deep South states -- South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana -- voted for Goldwater in 1964, the first time they had gone Republican since Reconstruction, except for Louisiana's vote for Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. In 1968, they voted for a third-party candidate, George Wallace. In 1972, they voted for Richard Nixon over George McGovern. In 1976, they voted for Jimmy Carter, the Georgia Democrat, over President Gerald Ford. In 1980, Carter again carried Georgia and averaged a healthy 47.3 percent of the votes in the other four. Since then, only two of the five have voted Democratic -- Bill Clinton carried Georgia in 1992 and Louisiana in 1992 and 1996. Since 1980, Democratic presidential candidates have averaged only 42.5 percent of the vote in the five states. Measure Barack Obama's performance there -- built upon increased turnout of African Americans, who are 30 percent of the five states' combined populations -- against that 42.5 percent.

Mississippi has not elected a freshman Democratic senator in 61 years (John Stennis in a 1947 special election). This year, a Republican incumbent in Mississippi, Roger Wicker, is threatened by former Democratic governor Ronnie Musgrove. In Georgia, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss is threatened by Jim Martin. If either incumbent loses, the Republicans' Southern redoubt will have widening fissures.

Eleven states with 63 electoral votes have not voted Democratic in the 10 elections since 1964: Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana and Virginia. On election eve, Obama is competitive in Virginia and Indiana, which Bush carried in 2004 by margins of 8.2 and 20.7 percentage points, respectively. In Nebraska, which is one of two states (Maine is the other) that allocate an electoral vote to the candidate who carries each congressional district, Obama might win the 2nd District (Omaha). In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry there by 22 percentage points.

Seven states with 60 electoral votes have voted Democratic only once since 1964: North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Colorado and Arizona. It will not be startling if Obama carries two -- Colorado and North Carolina. In 2004, Bush carried them by 4.7 and 12.4 percentage points, respectively.

Coloradans and Nebraskans will vote Tuesday on measures to ban government-administered racial preferences in public employment, public education and public contracting. Voters have emphatically passed such measures in California (1996), Washington (1998) and Michigan (2006). If Colorado and Nebraska pass those measures, that will be evidence -- not counter to, but in addition to, the Obama candidacy -- that Americans are eager to put racial politics behind them.

The most radical measure at issue Tuesday is on the Massachusetts ballot. Question 1 would abolish the state income tax, which raises $12.5 billion a year -- more than 40 percent of the state's budget. In 2002, a similar measure, although not much debated or even noticed, won 45 percent of the vote. Abolishing the tax would save the average taxpayer $3,600 a year, a sum that looms larger as taxpayers' investment portfolios become smaller.

Tuesday night might be chaotic: Elections are government undertakings, so they are not expected to be well run, and judging by the multiplying warnings that voting arrangements might buckle under the weight of large turnouts, Election Day seems to have taken many state and local governments by surprise, yet again. Such dreary developments, anticipated with certainty, must be borne philosophically.

georgewill@washpost.com

The Grass

Nobody leads the cow
To the greenery cropped and dry
To the greenery without caresses,

The grass which receives it
Must be sweet as a silken thread,
A thread of silk sweet as a thread of milk.

Ignored mother
For the children it is not lunch,
But the milk on the grass
The grass before the cow,
The child before the grass

Mindanao Explosion

Sentries and other soldiers who were asleep were roused from their beds after the ammunition dump at the Army's 6th Infantry Division headquarters in Awang, Maguindanao, exploded shortly before dawn Friday. http://ping.fm/pv4Rr

Economist Endorses Obama

America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world

IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal government’s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.

For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.

http://ping.fm/QxCwv

Euro Generals

The National Police Commission (Napolcom) on Tuesday said its investigation into the Moscow mess will focus on how retired Philippine National Police (PNP) comptroller Eliseo dela Paz acquired 105,000 euros (P6.9 million) in "contingency funds" when the amount was way below the budget approved for the trip.