Author: admin

2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.
Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.
But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.
So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.
Gordon Brown
via Treatment of Alan Turing was “appalling” – PM | Number10.gov.uk.

I hope I’m wrong buy is this another sign pointing to a real estate crisis Philippine style? I really hope I’m wrong.

RP banks increase lending to property developers
09/10/2009 | 11:00 AM
The Philippine banking system increased its exposure to the real estate sector by 23 percent year-on-year during the second quarter as more lending was extended to property developers, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
Data from the BSP showed thrift banks, universal and commercial banks’ exposure reached P377.81 billion from P306.32 billion. It went up 2.77 percent quarter-on-quarter from P 367.61 billion.
“Additional exposure for the quarter came solely from real estate loans, which rose by P11.1 billion to P368.9 billion. This more than offset the decline in investments in securities issued by real estate companies by P0.9 billion to P8.9 billion,” the central bank said.
via RP banks increase lending to property developers – Business – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News.

I meant to post this much earlier but my internet connection was having problems and I sadly left this as a draft.

“This is the cause of my life,” Ted Kennedy wrote. “For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society.”

Kennedy was talking about health care. But then, Kennedy was always talking about health care. He was talking about it when he helped pass Medicare and Medicaid in the ’60s. When he tried to reach a deal with Richard Nixon in the ’70s. When he made it the center of his challenge to Jimmy Carter in the ’80s. When he created the Children’s Health Insurance Program in the ’90s. When he directed his staff to begin educating senators and stakeholders for President Obama’s effort late last year.

There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn’t belong to all of us. He didn’t even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to help America’s needy. Rather, he belonged to the party of Medicare and Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Civil Rights Act and immigration reform. He belonged to the party that sought to advance the conditions and opportunities of the least among us. He was, as Harold Meyerson says, “the senior senator from Massachusetts and for all the excluded in American life.” <emphasis min @angol>

via Ezra Klein – The Cause of Ted Kennedy’s Life.

I meant to post this much earlier but my internet connection was having problems and I sadly left this as a draft.

“This is the cause of my life,” Ted Kennedy wrote. “For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society.”
Kennedy was talking about health care. But then, Kennedy was always talking about health care. He was talking about it when he helped pass Medicare and Medicaid in the ’60s. When he tried to reach a deal with Richard Nixon in the ’70s. When he made it the center of his challenge to Jimmy Carter in the ’80s. When he created the Children’s Health Insurance Program in the ’90s. When he directed his staff to begin educating senators and stakeholders for President Obama’s effort late last year.
There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn’t belong to all of us. He didn’t even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to help America’s needy. Rather, he belonged to the party of Medicare and Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Civil Rights Act and immigration reform. He belonged to the party that sought to advance the conditions and opportunities of the least among us. He was, as Harold Meyerson says, “the senior senator from Massachusetts and for all the excluded in American life.” <emphasis min @angol>

via Ezra Klein – The Cause of Ted Kennedy’s Life.

Noynoy Aquino announces bid for presidency in 2010
AMITA O. LEGASPI, GMANews.TV
09/09/2009 | 08:22 AM
It’s a go for Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
Early on Wednesday, he announced that he will run for president in 2010 as standard bearer of the Liberal Party (LP).
“Tatakbo ako sa pagkapangulo sa darating na halalan,” said Noynoy, who made the announcement on the 40th day after the death of his mother, former President Corazon C. Aquino.
He made the announcement at the historic Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan, where his famous mother took her oath as president on Feb. 25, 1986 during the final day of the EDSA People Power Revolution.
via Noynoy Aquino announces bid for presidency in 2010 – Nation – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News.

loved this from, chuck’s shared items

Keeping in touch with the things that help us feel alive – music, books, movies, even the theatre, if, mysteriously, you are that way inclined – becomes a battle, and one that many of us lose, as we get older; I don’t think enough of our cultural pundits, people who write about that stuff for a living, fully understand this. It’s one thing to have an opinion on Little Boots remixes if you earn your living hanging about in cyberspace; quite another if you’re a full-time teacher with three kids. My friend’s CD shop performed a valuable service to those whose shopping and browsing and listening time was rationed by circumstance, people who had the occasional five minutes on a Saturday morning to check out, and sometimes even buy, what everyone else was listening to.
via Nick Hornby on the liberating effect of MP3 blogs | Music | The Observer.

This is bad.

10M Filpinos unemployed—survey
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:14:00 09/08/2009
Filed Under: Economic Indicators, Employment
MANILA, Philippines – An estimated 10 million adult Filipinos who are looking for work (25.9 percent) are unemployed, according to the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations.
The current rate is lower than the record-high 34.2 percent (14 million) posted in February this year, SWS noted in its Second Quarter 2009 Social Weather Survey, which was released Tuesday.
The survey also found that the unemployment rate consisted of 10 percent who were retrenched, 9 percent who resigned or voluntarily left their old jobs, and 6 percent first-time job seekers.
via 10M Filpinos unemployed—survey – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

Hmm, guilty as charged!!

The research shows men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive.
Researchers who carried out the study, published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, think the reason may be that men use up so much of their brain function or ‘cognitive resources’ trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks.
The findings have implications for the performance of men who flirt with women in the workplace, or even exam results in mixed-sex schools.
Women, however, were not affected by chatting to a handsome man.
This may be simply because men are programmed by evolution to think more about mating opportunities.
via Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women – Telegraph.