Fr. Tito Caluag who is supposed to have signed the report has publicly denounced the hoax by stating to the effect that the document is forged and that he is not even competent to make the evaluation since he is neither a psychologist (nor a psychiatrist).

It was then a perfect opportunity for Villar to be a gentleman politician by condemning the ludicrous fabrication and thereby allowing to mitigate the tone of animosity in the campaign (that is, if the source of the report is not his party or a cabal of rabid partisans). Very unfortunately, Villar did just the exact opposite.

One may recall that during the last US presidential election, a woman from the audience in a town hall meeting stood up and took the microphone to confirm from John McCain if Barack Obama is an Arab (implying maliciously that being an Arab, Obama is either uncivil or a terrorist). McCain defended his rival without any hesitation. “No ma’am,” McCain said to the woman after retaking the microphone from her. “He is a decent family man . . . citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about,” he further stressed earnestly.

Unlike McCain who had had the basic decency to cut off the woman wanting to stoke bigotry, Villar reacted in the other extreme by issuing a statement challenging Aquino to submit to a psychiatric test to determine his rival’s fitness to be a president. In a pretense to appear fair, Villar said he is willing to take the same test or a “comprehensive physical and mental examination in order to ascertain [our] fitness to occupy the highest office of the land.”

via Manny does a Floyd (A missed opportunity) | Filipino Voices.

PRESS STATEMENT
28 March 2010
CONCERNED ARTISTS OF THE PHILIPPINES
Reference: Roselle Pineda, tel. 09296454102

Cause-oriented
artists’ group slams MTRCB for “X” rating

The Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP)
joins the local film, media and creative communities in lambasting the
so-called Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) for
reverting to open fascism when it slapped an “X” rating on two films
for AmBisyon 2010 of local cable channel ANC.

This MTRCB action bares once again the repressive
soul of this relic of an agency from the martial law regime of decades past.
Under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the MTRCB has been at its most ferocious since
1986, effectively censoring the most number of films with “X” ratings
for the narrow partisan purposes of the power-hungry few. These strikedowns
expose to all and sundry the basic deceit that the MTRCB is merely a review and
classification agency.

The MTRCB should have long been sent to the dustbin
of history along with the martial law dictatorship. Its existence wantonly
violates the bold mandate of the constitution to protect freedom of expression
as an inalienable right not to be suppressed by prior restraint that the MTRCB
signifies as an institution. That Congress has not come out with a law
abolishing it 23 years after our people ratified a fundamental law with a
superior Bill of Rights speaks of the actual insensitivity to democracy of
those who have ruled the legislature and government all these years.

CAP had worked with many of today’s generation of
rising filmmakers in lobbying the passage of House Bill 6425 outlawing the
MTRCB. But this has languished under a Congress obsessed with the Arroyo
clique’s ploys to prolong itself in power.

The Arroyo regime has shown by this single act
against Philippine culture that it does not deserve at all being hosts to our
country being made this and next year’s ASEAN’s cultural capital. It is an
insult to ASEAN and the peoples of this region’s countries that the chosen
epitome of their colorful cultures would exhibit such a deep lack of respect
for cultural and creative expression.

We laud world-class Filipino filmmakers Jeffrey
Jeturian and Brillante Mendoza for holding their ground in asserting their
filmic portrayal of a country sadly lost to the mad dogs of greed and
powerlust. This MTRCB action pointedly proves the urgency of why their films
and others of similar nature ought to be made and broadcast in conscience. It
also pointedly proves why this year’s elections is all about removing the
U.S.-Arroyo regime from power.

CAP is thus intent in being part of the protests
against this abominable act of “X” ratings against the two AmBisyon
films. We likewise urge fellow Filipinos to do so, and make this season a time
to reclaim our country from the detestable Arroyo regime. ##

-30-

This is why it is quite important for successfull Filipinos to reach out to their communities and become role models. I remember reading about how the lack of role models (non rap artist/sports star/actor/actress/singer) for african american males/females are one of the leading reasons why african americans under achieve. I think the same applies to most of the people who live in depressed communities through out the Philippines. In our country success is defined less by people like Manny Villar (pre campaign business man image that has been shattered by the campaign investigations.) and more by people like Manny Pacquiao. See when you are young and your dreams are still in flux you tend to orient your dreams to what can be achieved. Without proper role models showing you that success is possible, that hard work pays, you will probably not go that route.

Read the whole thing an excellent blog post.

All of which is a way of saying that our beliefs are shaped not just by class but by age. There’s firm research on this. This paper finds that individuals whose formative years (18-25) were spent in recession:
tend to believe that success in life depends more on luck than on effort, support more government redistribution, but are less confident in public institutions.

via Stumbling and Mumbling: Generational determinism.

I just wish there were any other plot. One vampire wants to be nice and only eat cows and every other vampire is harshing their squee. They want to be as much like a human as possible. Except vampires are humans now, except hot and immortal. Literally no other difference. But they’re acting out the same old plots like they’re Bela Lugosi. It’s way postmodern, if anyone noticed onscreen, which they don’t. Like 19 year olds acting out stories about their grandparents radical activities in the 60s when they in fact live in a world where all those issues are passe.

via I Demand Better Vampires – Vampires – io9.

Great news. Why? see we have Goldilocks,Max’s Fried Chicken and of course Jollibee with North American operations. This means we can just look at the menus in the US to find this very important info!!!

Menu labeling coming next year

The prevention proposals in the health-care bill haven't gotten enough attention, including from me. But Marion Nestle makes a good catch here: One of the bill's provisions is a menu labeling proposal for chain restaurants with more than 20 locations. The proposal requires chains to post the caloric content of each item (and the total calories of combo meals) next to its listing on the menu, the menu board, and even the drive-through menu kiosk. This goes into effect next year, and will be one of the most visible effects of the health-care bill. You can read the provision here (pdf).

via Ezra Klein – Menu labeling coming next year.

In a discussion of insurance market reforms, President Obama asks Republican Senator John Kyl to move away from talking points and focus on finding common areas of agreement. The President responds to Kyl: “Any time the question is phrased as ‘Does Washington know better?’ I think we’re kind of tipping the scales a little bit there, since we all know that everybody is angry at Washington right now it’s a good talking point, but it doesn’t actually answer the underlying question, which is do we want to make sure that people have a baseline of protection?’”

angol here: I believe that what’s mostly said in Presidential forums can be classified as ”

“It’s a good talking point, but it doesn’t actually answer the underlying question”

“

Read the whole thing by clicking through the overcoming bias blog!!!

Would something like this work for the Philippines? No as long as the Education System is in shambles we cannot do anything as radical as this.

National Juries

By Robin Hanson · February 25, 2010 12:00 pm · Discuss · « Prev ·

The reason so many bad policies are good politics is that so many people vote. … Ignorant voters … are biased towards particular errors. …

The best way to improve modern politics? … The number of voters should be drastically reduced so that each voter realizes that his vote will matter. Something like 12 voters per district … selected at random from the electorate. With 535 districts in Congress … there would be 6,420 voters nationally. A random selection would deliver a proportional representation of sexes, ages, races and income groups. This would improve on the current system, in which the voting population is skewed … the old vote more than the young, the rich vote more than the poor, and so on.

To safeguard against the possibility of abuse, these 6,420 voters would not know that they had been selected at random until the moment when the polling officers arrived at their house. They would then be spirited away to a place where they will spend a week locked away with the candidates, attending a series of speeches, debates and question-and-answer sessions before voting on the final day.  All of these events should be filmed and broadcast, so that everyone could make sure that nothing dodgy was going on.

More here.  This logic is simple and strong enough for most folks to both understand and accept.  Yet most would still prefer our current system – why?

via Overcoming Bias : National Juries.

People who follow the politics in the USA knows host stupid the people in the system can be.

I’m watching Citizen Tube here http://www.youtube.com/citizentube?feature=ticker on the Healthcare summit. I’m seriously envious of them right now. When we have senators who are hitting each other with personal snide remarks. When most of the questions that are being asked in Presidential forums are not up to snuff, Simply put I have no Idea who has the policy-fu down pat. Who knows basic economics, basic public policy etc. Damn. and you have self styled pundit who really know nothing.

Excellent read. This was a letter written by Yunus defending his bank on accusations of below board practices. Loved reading this.

A Counter-Culture

Grameen had to create a banking counter-culture of its own. Grameen's central focus is to help poor borrower move out of poverty, not making money. Making profit is always recognised as a necessary condition of success to show that we are covering costs. Volume of profit is not important in Grameen in money-making sense, but important as an indicator of efficiency. We would like to make more profit so that we can reduce interest rate — and pass on the benefits to the borrowers. In Grameen system when a borrower cannot pay back we try to activate our system to help her overcome her problems, rather than go in a punishing mode.

We consider credit as a human right. We built our system on the faith that the poor always pay back. Some times they take longer than the originally scheduled time period, sometimes natural disasters like flood, drought, cyclone, etc and political unrest, rules and procedures of the bank, make it difficult or impossible to pay back; but given the opportunity they pay back. Non-repayment is not a problem created by the borrowers, it is created by factors external to them.

We have always carefully avoided the practices of the conventional banks to make sure we do not fall into the same logical loop which kept the poor out from financial institutions. Grameen had to create new systems to balance financial and human considerations. For example, it presents loan information separately for women and men, lists meticulously every single business of the borrowers in its annual report, and recognizes that a house is not just a house, but a workplace for the poor women, something that is categorised as a 'consumption' loan by the conventional banks is actually a 'production' loan for the poor. Grameen is a system based on human-relationships, not on threats of penalty imposed by legal system or any other agency. Grameen required new style of business, new banking culture of its own.

Sometimes people who are used to conventional banking become suspicious of Grameen because it is different. It is a conflict of two different banking cultures. Just because they do not understand us, they think we are wrong. When they spend some time with us with patience they start enjoying the exciting world of Grameen banking.

via Grameen Bank – Response to Wall Street Journal article.

Reading this I was hit by a desire to do something. We are in the midst of what probably is the few times we can do great and original work. It is as if FB and other distractions are the ways we are being controlled to not do useful stuff. sorry for the minor rant.  It’s just that we must able to look at each day in the context of a lifetime and the context of birth to that day is the lifetime.

But it’s been a long time—years now—since he did any serious research. Could he, still? “I’d like to get back to it,” he says. “I’m craving the chance to do some deep thinking, and I haven’t been doing a lot of that. I guess doing the really creative academic work does require a state of mind that’s hard to maintain throughout your whole life. Even Paul Samuelson—the bulk of the stuff you read from him is before he was fifty. There was an intensity of focus that I had when I was twenty-six that I won’t be able to recapture at fifty-six. You develop your habits of mind, and to a point that’s a good thing, because you learn ways to work, but it does mean that you’re less likely to come up with something really innovative. Even if I weren’t doing all this other stuff, I don’t think I’d be producing a lot of breakthrough papers. There’s crude stuff: if I do have some brilliant academic insight, what are they going to do, give me a Nobel Prize? . . . When I was younger, when I figured something out there was this sense of the heavens parting and the choirs singing that I don’t get now. And that’s life.”

For someone else, this loss might be a devastation, but even though for thirty years thinking deeply about economics was all Krugman really cared about, he has let it pass out of his life without regret. “I think he’s happy,” his friend Craig Murphy says. “A much happier person now than when we first met him. He feels like he’s done good things, and they’re greater than what he expected when he was young. If there is sadness in him at all, I think it is a tiny core of profound sadness of the kind that the Buddha understood—that we probably can’t use human rationality to make the world all better, and it would be really nice if we were able to.” ♦

via How Paul Krugman found politics : The New Yorker.