I also appreciate the types of bills he has filed: they are clearly reform-oriented in very overarching ways. It comes as no great surprise that Noynoy became a strict fiscalizer in his time, focusing more on accountability in government appropriations and spending than anything else. Among the measures he pushed for were greater restrictions on exemptions to the requirement of public bidding and strengthening legislative oversight over executive spending. He also sought to tighten congressional oversight on the executive’s use of public funds.
More importantly, if one studies the actual bills he filed and the quality of thinking that has gone into what are clearly pro-reform views, what is more striking is how many of them were not passed. How is it that none of these (arguably stellar) initiatives — on PNP reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointments to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointments and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates — had been passed? Had they been blocked, I had to ask? These were after all not the kind of trivial initiatives one might associate with certain legislators, for instance, and could certainly have benefited the country as a whole…
Noynoy agreed with my reading, noting that the job of an effective legislator goes beyond merely proposing laws. After all, legislators have the responsibility to ensure that the checks and balances system in our government is at work as well. But he had clearly pitted himself against the administration in a score of privileged speeches that questioned the government’s alleged human rights abuses (with respect to the desaparecidos, informal settlers, marginalized groups and extrajudicial killings). He has also continued to question the misuse of public funds (ZTE-NBN, “Euro Generals” and Fertilizer Fund, etc.). So it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if he had rubbed the administration the wrong way, which would certainly explain why so many of his initiatives never saw the light of day. Clearly, he would have been threatening to many in the establishment, which further sheds light on why he was stripped of his post as Deputy Speaker for Luzon after he called for GMA’s resignation at the height of the “Hello, Garci” scandal…
via Notes from an Insomniac: A conversation with Noynoy by Lila Shahani.
Elink Video :: Philip Pullman on Freedom of Speech and his new book "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ "
Quote ::The only way to remember who you are is to refuse to let anyone or anything dictate what you want. …. :: “a child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you” | gapingvoid
The only way to remember who you are is to refuse to let anyone or anything dictate what you want. I write to share my triumphs and defeats and to remind you that wanting something other than herd-like, soul-crushing monotony is not only natural, but necessary.
via “a child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you” | gapingvoid.
Best Read Today :: “a child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you” | gapingvoid
Read the whole thing.
A child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you.
Since that flight, whenever people asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I replied, “I want to be a child.”
So if you ever wonder why I share so much of myself with the world, from the sacred to the profane, the answer is that I think everyone could use this license to be who they are and enjoy what that means. We do live in a society with norms about what we can and cannot share, what we can and cannot do, but as Einstein once said: “if the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” That’s what I want to do – I want to change the facts.
Your wants are beautiful, your truths are powerful. Maybe you want to sleep on a pier or share a fairytale kiss under every triumphal arch in the world. Maybe you dream of diving the wreckage of a galleon or quitting your job and starting your own company.
They’ll say you’re crazy. They’ll say, “I wish I could be as impulsive as you are,” and that you should grow up. Life isn’t like that – there are norms, you know. There are ways to do things. You don’t talk to people at the security line at the airport. You get through it as fast as possible, go to your gate, wait for them to board you, sit down and be quiet. You go to your job, bust your ass, go home, change, go to some social thing, entertain the same questions, go home, watch bad television and do it all over again. Polite, proper, efficient. That’s life, right? Then you get old and maybe play some golf, then you die.
Fuck no.
via “a child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you” | gapingvoid.
Elink Video :: Google's Stand On Digital Due Process
I support this!
rePost :: wronging rights: In Which Pigs Fly, and I Defend Lindsay Lohan's New Trafficking Documentary
But I have to say, I don’t think it looks so bad. (Stop the presses: Wronging Rights is being less snarky than the rest of the internet about something!)
I only know what I’ve seen in the clip above, and read in Gentleman’s article, but as far as I can tell, Lohan behaved as any interested, kind, and previously-uninformed person would have in that situation. Reading between the lines of Gentleman’s eyebrow-wiggling and mascara-smearing prose, it sounds like Lohan, upon hearing the small child on her lap describe a life of exploitation and suffering, began to cry. And we’re supposed to think this is a sign of what, exactly? Weakness of character? Crying when faced with tragedy is hardly a reaction limited to hard-partying starlets.
Likewise, I’m not inclined to pounce on Lohan for stumbling over her words a bit in the confrontation with the trafficker that’s shown in the clip. Yes, it’s hardly the case that only “the attractive ones” need to worry about being sexually abused, or forced into prostitution. But Lindsey Lohan isn’t an expert in human trafficking, or women’s rights. If she’d parroted the talking points perfectly, then we’d know that she’d been well coached. But as it was, she had an awkward, slightly weird, somewhat inaccurate conversation with a woman who admitted to selling children. At worst, that’s an interesting thing to watch. And at best, it offers the similarly-uninformed viewer someone to identify with. (Hell, the informed viewer, too. There but for the grace of not being followed around by a video camera during my intern years go I.)
In other words, Lindsay Lohan is kind of a weirdo, and a layperson when it comes to trafficking in children, and acted accordingly. I fail to see the problem with that. It seems far, far preferable to the alternative mode of celebrity causemongering, in which stars opine on substantive policy matters, and are treated like the experts they are not.
Your thoughts?
via wronging rights: In Which Pigs Fly, and I Defend Lindsay Lohan’s New Trafficking Documentary.
Learned Today :: Estimating the chances of something that hasn’t happened yet — The Endeavour
Uber useful!!!
Estimating the chances of something that hasn’t happened yet
by John on March 30, 2010
Suppose you’re proofreading a book. If you’ve read 20 pages and found 7 typos, you might reasonably estimate that the chances of a page having a typo are 7/20. But what if you’ve read 20 pages and found no typos. Are you willing to conclude that the chances of a page having a typo are 0/20, i.e. the book has absolutely no typos?
To take another example, suppose you are testing children for perfect pitch. You’ve tested 100 children so far and haven’t found any with perfect pitch. Do you conclude that children don’t have perfect pitch? You know that some do because you’ve heard of instances before. But your data suggest perfect pitch in children is at least rare. But how rare?
The rule of three gives a quick and dirty way to estimate these kinds of probabilities. It says that if you’ve tested N cases and haven’t found what you’re looking for, a reasonable estimate is that the probability is less than 3/N. So in our proofreading example, if you haven’t found any typos in 20 pages, you could estimate that the probability of a page having a typo is less than 15%. In the perfect pitch example, you could conclude that fewer than 3% of children have perfect pitch.
via Estimating the chances of something that hasn’t happened yet — The Endeavour.
rePost :: How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords | One Man's Blog
How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords
Posted on Mar 26, 2007 – 2:17am by John P. in Computing, Security
User LoginIf you invited me to try and crack your password, you know the one that you use over and over for like every web page you visit, how many guesses would it take before I got it?
Let’s see… here is my top 10 list. I can obtain most of this information much easier than you think, then I might just be able to get into your e-mail, computer, or online banking. After all, if I get into one I’ll probably get into all of them.
via How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords | One Man’s Blog.
rePost :: China diabetes fact of the day :: Marginal Revolution
If this is true, I have a feeling diabetes will be cured within 10 years.
“For every person in the world with HIV there are three people in China with diabetes,” said David Whiting, an epidemiologist with the International Diabetes Federation, who was not involved in the research.
via Marginal Revolution: China diabetes fact of the day.
Quote :: But what else is life for…?
Great Pic HERE!
I envisioned this cartoon as something somebody would want to put up on their office wall, the same day that they leave their nine-to-five job, in order to start their own business.
The day you do this is one of the the greatest days you’ll ever have in your life. Of course it’s scary. Of course it’s risky.
But what else is life for…?
via .