GRAND BAILOUT FAILS TO PASS

The bailout plan was defeated in US Congress by a slim margin.

Apparently, more of the them see it as above.

Image via Boingboing.

THE SOUND OF BIG BANG

The sound of the Big Bang is not a bang; it’s a scream.

… a descending scream, building  into a deep rasping roar, and ending in a deafening hiss. As if this were not impressive enough, the entire acoustic show is itself the prelude to a wonderful transformation: the highest pitch sounds ultimately spawn the first generation of stars, while the deep bass notes slowly dissolve to become the tapestry of galaxies which now fills all of space.

Sound of the first million years of the universe, crammed into five seconds, click here.

Direct link to the reference.

THE PERILS OF “FILIPINO FIRST” POLICY

“Filipino first”, a policy approach first popularized by President Carlos Garcia, sounds patriotic and beautiful.  In reality, it sucks.  It really means, the Filipino should be first in line to screw his fellows.

CHINA: LOOK HERE, WE’RE IN THE RACE!

China has just completed its latest mission of orbiting the planet capped by a symbolic space-walk, as spaceship returns to earth.

The exercise was seen as key to China’s ambition to build an orbiting station in the next few years.

Mr Zhai wore a Chinese-made spacesuit thought to have cost between £5m and £20m ($10m-$40m) for the space walk.

The “yuhangyuan” (astronaut) was tethered to the capsule with an umbilical cable.

The Shenzhou VII capsule soared into orbit on a Long March II-F rocket from Jiuquan spaceport in north-west China on 25 September.

China became only the third nation after the United States and Russia to independently put a man in space when Yang Liwei, another fighter pilot, went into orbit on the Shenzhou V mission in October 2003.

Two years later, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng completed a five-day flight on Shenzhou VI.

Chinese media report that this latest mission is the “most critical step” in the country’s “three-step” space programme.

These stages are: sending a human into orbit, docking spacecraft together to form a small laboratory and, ultimately, building a large space station.

Ultimately, the race is about who gets first to build a colony on the moon

LED ZEPPELIN REUNION

The legendary group Led Zep is getting ready for a reunion tour.  It seemed the lead vocals Robert Plant was uninterested  in the idea but finally changed his mind after determining his band mates were intent on pushing through without him.  Could not imagine a Led Zep without that trademark soaring voice ( huh, unless they could snatch Arnel Pineda of Journey for a few months).  Jason Bonham is taking the place of his father, John Bonham, who has passed away many years ago.

HOW THIS CRISIS BEGAN

It began with the subprime crisis, then everything started toppling down.

I have found a way to understand the whole mess better, from Boingboing: The Subprime Primer, all in a 45-page comics featuring stick figures.

Thank you Boingboing!

JOKER, VILLAR, & ERAP

Lito Banayo has interesting behind-the-scenes accounts that I think tend to prove the following propositions:

• that Joker Arroyo is a high-class hypocrite and a phony s.o.b.;
• that Manny Villar’s politics is driven by his business interests, a fake too like Joker; and,
• that Erap remains a bumbling naif who can’t see through the charade.

AN UPSIDE-DOWN RAINBOW

Am not sure if I should believe this or should suspect a Photoshop trickery: an upside-down rainbow seen in UK “for the briefest of moments” and captured on camera by a renowned astronomer.

Meteorologists say the clouds must be convex to the sun with the ice particles lined up together in the right direction to refract the light.

I can suspend disbelief. For now, at least.

HOW THE MARKET WORKS

via Wired

OPEN A WINE BOTTLE WITHOUT A CORKSCREW

I find this useful.  On several occasions, we resorted to pushing the cork down but aside from it blocking the way when you pour the wine, the whole thing looks a little graceless.

How to Open a Wine Bottle Without a Corkscrew.

HOW BUBBLES FORM ACCORDING TO SCIENCE

Timely revisit into economic dogmas and how financial bubbles form leading to eventual destructive crashes: hidden causes of bubbles and crashes according to science.

“In standard economic theory, the way that prices in all markets are meant to be set depends on people being rational and having access to all available information,” says David Tuckett of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London.

“This way of looking at things is almost completely wrong,” he said. “Markets are operated by human beings.”

Investigators into the theories of behavioural or emotional finance say conscious decisions are only the surface of a river with deep and powerful undercurrents.

Read more.

LOL: OMBUDSMAN CALLS FOR BOLANTE’S RETURN

Some people like Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierez could be damn funny hilarious without meaning to.

Above, the magic of Photoshop and what you can do to people making fun of people.

“NO END IN SIGHT!”

Wall Street Journal:

Worst Crisis Since ’30s, With No End Yet in Sight

The U.S. financial system resembles a patient in intensive care. The body is trying to fight off a disease that is spreading, and as it does so, the body convulses, settles for a time and then convulses again. The illness seems to be overwhelming the self-healing tendencies of markets. The doctors in charge are resorting to ever-more invasive treatment, and are now experimenting with remedies that have never before been applied. Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, walking into a hastily arranged meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday night to brief them on the government’s unprecedented rescue of AIG, looked like exhausted surgeons delivering grim news to the family.

MAKING SENSE OF VILLAR’S DOUBLE DOUBLE

Lito Banayo of Malaya has an interesting question for Senate President Manny Villar:  why did it take you all of eight days before you made an explanation?

A man whose integrity is being questioned, and who railed and ranted six days about “political motives” a week before, this time meekly reiterated that he has been clean all his life, that every centavo of his fortune was derived from the sweat of his honest labor. That is rather uncharacteristic for one who feels his reputation was maligned, and frontally at that, in front of peers among whom he is primus inter pares.

He should have gone down from the dais, and defended himself, with righteous indignation.

Why indeed? Your integrity is being assailed unjustly, rail to the heavens high, not meekly.

But, now I think I understand why.   MLQ3, in his Inquirer column, offers a former budget secretary’s analysis:

Diokno believes it’s less about actually paying twice as much for the same thing, and more about the President accommodating a budgetary insertion, which actually gives her an additional P200 million to spend as she pleases. That’s because the President has authority over the release of funds, and so, if there are two allocations for the same project, she can authorize the spending of P200 million for the C-5 project (including purchasing the right of way if necessary) and then declare the second allocation as “savings.” (At the same, whoever proposed the redundant budgetary provisions was accommodated, putting the legislator in the President’s debt.)

The “savings” thus freed up can then be spent on whatever the President sees fit, and not just for the lifetime of the present General Appropriations Act (the national budget), but up to a year after that. Capital expenses, says Diokno, have a lifetime of two years, because of the time it takes to get them done, so that what was appropriated for 2008 remains available for spending up to 2010. Very convenient!

There, it makes more sense now.

Read also GMA’s bugeting genius.

THE WALL STREET MELTDOWN ACCORDING TO JOSEPH STIGLITZ

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner for economics in 2001,  says the fall of Wall Street is to market fundamentalism what the fall of Berlin Wall was to communism.

GMAs BUDGETING GENIUS AT WORK FOR 2010

GMA realigned P106B without approval of Congress

Departments are squeezed of savings, transferred to “Over-all Savings” then realigned by the Office of the President to other projects and departments without consent of Congress as realignment is a prerogative of the President.

Neat.  Genius.

VILLAR VS. LACSON

I have watched part of Senator Ping Lacson’s privilege speech yesterday on tv.  (Full text of Lacson’s privilege speech).The bandaged cut near his right brow as he sat there uneasily on his perch is metaphoric of the damage Senate President Manny Villar was dealt with through the pummeling of his fellow presumed candidate for the Philippine presidency.

But  the Senate president has only himself to blame.  He should have immediately ordered an investigation into the funding controversy and refrained from insinuating malice on the inquirers.  Or, he could have gone on tv explaining how the error, if error indeed it is, happened.  Problem was he became too defensive and acted like a criminal who went rushing back to the scene of the crime to wipe out any evidence left.  Wrong accusations always elevate the accused and mock the accuser– if indeed the accusations are wrong.  Had Villar kept himself composed with the unaffected bearing of a cool old dude, he would have come out of this an innocent man unjustly being pilloried for malicious reasons— to Senator Ping Lacson’s utter disgrace.  All he needed to show was that the accusations were wrong and unfounded and he would have exposed his accusers as being too rash and vicious.   Should have scored a knock down on Lacson instead, not the other way around.

Wonder how Villar could rise up from this terrible blow.

Still, which is which: an additional fund it was or a double entry or insertion?  How come to this hour I am still wondering about the conflicting statements?  You leave us people wondering this long, huh, you make us suspect the worst.

LEHMAN BROTHERS GOES BANKRUPT

The fourth biggest investment bank in the world, Lehman Brothers, has filed for bankruptcy.

The bank collapsed after Barclays and the Bank of America both turned their backs on a rescue bid.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND TO CHARLES DARWIN: SORRY

After 150 years, the Church of England is asking for apology for rejecting Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

What do they do to you then when they declare you a heretic?

JOCJOC BOLANTE IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER?

Rumor has it that the alleged architect of the fertilizer scam is already in town.

There are rumors that former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocjoc Bolante is already in town. He must have been whisked away immediately upon arrival, thus avoiding media personnel. A possible entry point would be the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Pampanga. Many Filipino deportees from the United States are flown to the Philippines by charter flights which land at the DMIA for less media exposure. What has fueled the rumors is the recent announcement by the US Court of Appeals denying Bolante his application for political asylum. Usually, deportation orders are carried out immediately, with the deportee being sent back to his country of origin. Only an appeal to the US Supreme Court can stop such an order, but this is a long shot and I don’t think Jocjoc would like to spend more time at the Kenosha Detention Facility in Wisconsin.  Read more.

Interesting.

OLD MAN HYPOCRITE DOES IT AGAIN

Poster boy of hypocrisy cries Lacson is making a mountain out of a molehill over a congressional insertion.

Okay then Senator Joker, aka Mr. Graftbuster, how come Malacañang say it’s a congressional insertion they have nothing to do with and later a double entry which they have belatedly discovered and have since withheld never to be released while your ally Senate President Manny Villar insists it really is an additional fund?  Which is which, eh?

Your name suits you so well!

BILLY ESPOSO SEES THE HANDS OF THE U.S. IN MINDANAO

Billy Esposo is exasperated that the rest does not see as he does that the US is angling to control Mindanao for its oil.

One of the sectors that are infected with idiocy is Philippine media. Despite all the indicators of a US hand in the promotion of the BJE (Bangsamoro Juridical Entity), Philippine media has generally failed to bring the issue to the level of discussion and debate that it deserves. It’s as if media are saying “What, me worry.”

Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has gone from all-out war to all-out concession with the MILF with the only explanation for that extreme swing being that of US intervention…

Media…  hardly ferreted out the superpower central player who made that deal possible. Media were hot on phantom sightings of US troops fighting with the AFP against the MILF when all logic pointed to the US supporting the MILF…

Here is why the US is interested in Mindanao:

Based on known reserves and current production, the Oil and Gas Journal stated that the US will run out of US oil in 11 years while China will run out of Chinese oil in 14 years. Both the US and China will have to rely on imported oil.

That is why the US is in Iraq (you’re really an idiot to believe that they are in Iraq to introduce democracy there) and are angling to be in Iran. After Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq have the largest reserves of oil. That is why — despite the fact that the US has been trying to depose and kill him — Condi Rice was recently in Libya courting Muammar Khadafi for Libyan oil. That is why China is using its economic clout in Africa — to secure African oil to fuel China’s economy.

Now if the US is willing to eat humble pie, swallow its pride and send its Secretary of State with a begging bowl to Libya’s Khadafi — even if Libya is not even a major source of oil like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran — it does not take a genius to figure out what the US will be willing to do to be able to corner the oil and gas in the South China Sea which is estimated to be more than what Iraq and Iran have.

Yet, what are we doing?

The most I’ve heard from is not even in government now — former Senate President Frank Drilon — who warned that the US may be planning to do a Kosovo in Mindanao to serve its geopolitical agenda.

Under the guise of entering as “peacekeepers” — the US and its allies took control of the lignite mines of Kosovo. After oil, lignite coal is said to be the future of energy and Kosovo has enough lignite coal to last for centuries.

What about Senator Panfilo Lacson who is ever so quick on the draw… What about Senator Juan Ponce-Enrile who was ranting months ago against American Chamber of Commerce businessmen…,

SEX

The content of this post is deleted.

MARCOS DAY IN BATAC

It’s the birthday of the late President Ferdinand Marcos.  Out here, the late dictator is well-loved.  Hundreds in red shirts emblazoned with the face of Imelda Marcos with the acronym FIRM (to stand for Friends of Imelda R. Marcos) came in droves.  Thousands others came.

THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

Will this thing swallow earth?  If so, then this is goodbye.

If not, this link will be useful:  the LHC and how it will probe into the deepest mysteries of the universe.

There was a song playing in my mind while on the bus.  It starts with the line “There’s a little black hole in the house today…” to the tune of Sting’s King of Pain.

I am thinking, while it might not generate black holes big enough to swallow earth, what about miniature ones able to suck in a ball, or a person, or maybe a house.

Next adventure sports could well be black hole chasing and black hole diving.

WE ARE ALL LIARS BY NATURE?

We are natural-born liars,  studies seem to claim:

Deception runs like a red thread throughout all of human history. It sustains literature, from Homer’s wily Odysseus to the biggest pop novels of today. Go to a movie, and odds are that the plot will revolve around deceit in some shape or form. Perhaps we find such stories so enthralling because lying pervades human life. Lying is a skill that wells up from deep within us, and we use it with abandon. As the great American observer Mark Twain wrote more than a century ago: “Everybody lies … every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude will convey deception.” Deceit is fundamental to the human condition.

I like this part about two small kids being observed as the game is played:

Mel dug furiously with her bare hands to extract the large succulent corm from the rock-hard Ethiopian ground. It was the dry season and food was scarce. Corms are edible bulbs somewhat like onions and are a staple during these long, hard months. Little Paul sat nearby and surreptitiously observed Mel’s labors. Paul’s mother was out of sight; she had left him to play in the grass, but he knew she would remain within earshot in case he needed her. Just as Mel managed, with a final pull, to yank her prize out of the earth, Paul let out an ear-splitting cry that shattered the peace of the savannah. His mother rushed to him. Heart pounding and adrenaline pumping, she burst upon the scene and quickly sized up the situation: Mel had obviously harassed her darling child. Shrieking, she stormed after the bewildered Mel, who dropped the corm and fled. Paul’s scheme was complete. After a furtive glance to make sure nobody was looking, he scurried over to the corm, picked up his prize and began to eat. The trick worked so well that he used it several more times before anyone wised up.

It’s not just in humans.  In other animals too, insects, plants.  It’s a proven passport to success, so it claims.  Now, I see.

From now on, I am changing my tack.

But wait, here’s the controversial part:

…despite appearances, it is not the conscious mind that decides to perform an action: the decision is made unconsciously. Although our consciousness likes to take the credit (so to speak), it is merely informed of unconscious decisions after the fact. This study and others like it suggest that we are systematically deluded about the role consciousness plays in our lives. Strange as it may seem, consciousness may not do any-thing except display the results of unconscious cognition.

Read more

Image from thadguy.com. Thanks.

STUNNING BLACK AND WHITE IMAGES

Smashing Magazine features beautiful black and white photography.

I have experiments like those in my own blog.

It helps to see pictures this good to set the tone for next attempts.

UNDERSTANDING ROMULO NERI

INTERVIEW WITH THREE EHEADS

Separate interviews with Raymund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala, and Marcus Adoro plus Itchyworm’s Jazz Nicolas who played the session man, after the abbreviated E-heads reunion concert.

The next big interview should be with Ely Buendia.

Fearless forecast: there will be a repeat.  Or more properly, a continuation.

image from i10.photobucket.com

NEW TECHNOLOGIES BEING SUPPRESSED?

New technologies are being suppressed, this article suspects:

The last few decades have seen rapid progress in electronics, including computers and industrial robots, but, while we all enjoy improved televisions and internet access (it has made this article possible), you can’t eat a computer or heat your home with the internet, and the robots have cost many people their jobs. What we all really need are improved energy technologies to improve our economy and environment, and improved medical technologies for better health and longevity. Yet it is in these two areas, despite Richard Nixon’s still ongoing “war on cancer” and government promises of a better energy policy, that progress has lagged. And it is in these two areas that we see the most evidence of suppressed or, at least, ignored technologies.