Better Press Corp Please :: Gov’t dared to go after Arroyo allies – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Nakakadalawa na itong si Maila Ager. I think she needs to drink some coffee.
Arroyo ally dares Aquino Gov’t to go after allies.
 
 

Gov’t dared to go after Arroyo allies
By Maila Ager
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 13:54:00 04/07/2011
Filed Under: Politics, Graft & Corruption, Government
MANILA, Philippines – A senator dared the Aquino government on Thursday to also go after allies of then President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who have now joined the present administration.
via Gov’t dared to go after Arroyo allies – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

Better Press Corp Please :: Owners of Makati condo in fuel leak asked to pay residents – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

It seems the headline doesn’t make sense.
Think this should read as Owners of Pipe line with fuel leak asked to pay owners of makati condo and residents.

Owners of Makati condo in fuel leak asked to pay residents
By Maila Ager
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 13:44:00 04/07/2011
Filed Under: Congress, Health
MANILA, Philippines – After holding two hearings, the Senate committees on environment and natural resources, and health has found the First Pilipinas Industrial Corporation (FPIC) responsible for the fuel leak in West Tower Condominium in Makati City and ordered that appropriate actions be taken against the company.
In a 24-page report, the joint panel also recommended that a sufficient compensation package should be given in favor of the residents.
via Owners of Makati condo in fuel leak asked to pay residents – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

rePost :: Is your property near the fault line? | Newsbreak | Independent Journalism

I dispute this. Like a lot of things in life surviving an earthquake is either largely luck or a societal approach to disaster effects mitigation. Instincts my ass.  Why the hell is this quote here? what is the reporter driving at? does he/she even agree with the instincts quote? Better Press Corp please.

For Cassandra Endrino, an electrical engineer, it was enough that they were oriented about the emergency exit maps in their condominium in Makati. She added that surviving an earthquake is largely based on instincts. “Common sense na rin ‘yun, dapat alam mo na gagawin mo ‘pag may earthquake,” she said.
via Is your property near the fault line? | Newsbreak | Independent Journalism.

rePost :: Japanese Awesomeness::Reporter's journey to Sendai reveals Japanese virtues – Special Reports – GMA News Online – Latest Philippine News

Even inside the devastated Sendai International Airport where cars, planes and buildings had been strewn about like toys, there was no sign of looting. People using the terminal as a shelter did not even touch the food and water inside the many food shops that had been abandoned.
Since the supply of fuel was severely limited and difficult to purchase, I innocently asked our driver Tosho-san if there was a possibility of siphoning fuel from the wrecked vehicles strewn all over the coast.
Despite their desperation, Japanese residents of tsunami-devastated Sendai calmly line up for food and relief supplies.
His answer made me feel ashamed. Tosho-san told me if we did that he wanted no part of it since he did not want to join us in hell.
This same man would bid us an emotional farewell a day later after his vehicle ran out of fuel in the middle of the highway and we transferred to another.
via Reporter’s journey to Sendai reveals Japanese virtues – Special Reports – GMA News Online – Latest Philippine News.

 
I have to say that I take issue with how the writer wrote:
 

Despite their desperation, Japanese residents of tsunami-devastated Sendai calmly line up for food and relief supplies.

 
But I believe what he should have written was

Despite their desperate situation , Japanese residents of tsunami-devastated Sendai calmly line up for food and relief supplies.

People are desperate because they show this,  or act that way. A situation may be termed desperate. But when you say someone is desperate and he is acting and show himself acting calmly then you are stating this because of something else.
 
But this is besides the point.
 
Japan you are Awesome. Your social cohesiveness is second to none. Bravo! We will be rooting for your success.
 

Hillary Clinton on Family Planning.

I’m pro Family Planning and a rational reality based Reproductive Health program. I think the RH Bill is not being marketed well. It has become somewhat a war between people of great passion and even far greater pride.
Hillary Clinton’s words: “Good Family Planning and Good  Medical Care Brings DOWN the rate of Abortion” and
“Keeping women and men in IGNORANCE, and denied the services actually increases the rate of abortion”.
The unrealiable and increasingly stupid fourth estate must be circumvented to prevent the horse race reportage that it has fallen on.

rePost :: Business Insight Malaya | LITO BANAYO

Which is why we cannot understand why you had to fake the circumstances of Danny’s unfortunate illness and eventual demise and therein lie to the people.
Your father did obtain a loan from the GSIS, for 16,000 pesos to build the house, which was not a small amount in those days. He bought a 560-square meter lot in San Rafael which at the time, cost 30 pesos per square meter, or 16.800. Who were your neighbours? Well, the following big names in Philippine industry lived in that vicinity: the late Yao Eng Hue, once president of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, at the time owner of Manhattan Rubber, which produced rubber slippers; Robin Sy, also a former president of FFCCCI; Dante Go, who used to own Sugarland and sold it in 1999 to Ramon Ang for a cool billion; even the family of Wilson and William Tieng of Solar Films and Solar TV. Their father was one of the biggest glassware and kitchen equipment dealers in Echague, Quiapo, in league with the late Leonardo Ty of Hitachi and Ajinomoto. Even William Gatchalian had property in the vicinity. My own grand-uncle used to have a clothing factory nearby, called La Navotena at the foot of the bridge along North Balut. The area is beside what is now Westminster High School, a Chinese-Filipino school.
Just so the young will understand how big an amount 16,800 pesos was (30 x 560 sq. m.), the minimum wage at the time was 120 pesos per month, or 4 pesos per day.
Villar also said that the subdivision they lived in was beside Smoky Mountain, and the stench assailed their nostrils. Again that is a lie. Because there was no Smoky Mountain at the time (the 60’s). It was only in the 80’s when population pressures, inward migration and grinding poverty made foraging the city’s detritus become the anomaly that it was. San Rafael subdivision is close, but not adjacent to the area used as a mountain of dump, which Tita Cory and later FVR converted into tenement housing for real squatters, developed by Reghis Romero, now one of Villar’s and GMA’s most ardent supporters. Young Manny did not smell the stench of garbage, but the smell of soap produced by Procter and Gamble PMC at the back of San Rafael.
You want the Liberals and your main political opponent to “apologize” for what they did to your reputation. Firstly, it was neither the Liberals nor Noynoy who told the truth surrounding the death of your brother which you yourself brought to public attention through expensive advertisements. It was the collective work of columnists whose responsibility it is to tell the truth, and shared their information with each other, especially since it concerns someone who wants to be president.
via Business Insight Malaya | LITO BANAYO.

rePost :: Till victory :: BusinessWorld Online:

I’ve praised PGMA for the cash transfers to the poor because of the significant level or research done on the effects of CCT in improving lives in Africa, South America and Asia.  This is controversial for most, especially the libertarian leaning people but I am of the helping each other leaning type. Praise to Noy for knowing stuff like this. In a way Gordon, G1BO  and even Jamby have promising insightful projects lined up. So Praise to them too.

To strengthen Noynoy’s pro-poor position, his campaign must persistently explain the link between corruption and poverty. It must flesh out Noynoy’s statement that corruption “deprives the poor of the services they badly need.”
The campaign has to highlight the elements of Noynoy’s pro-poor platform that have not been widely publicized. An example is the program to sustain and expand the conditional cash transfer (CCT) to the poor. The program provides cash subsidy for the poor, conditional on sending their children to school and availing themselves of public health services. A CCT administered by a transparent and honest administration will do away with the patronage that characterizes traditional politics. The CCT has a double dividend — it provides immediate relief to the poor and paves the way for long-term poverty eradication.
Further, to solidify the support in rural areas, Noynoy can follow up his promise to subject Hacienda Luisita to land distribution.
The second task is to strengthen the mass movement component of the electoral campaign. Amplifying Noynoy’s pro-poor platform also serves the purpose of energizing the mass movement.
via BusinessWorld Online: Till victory.

Better Press Corp::Of Course Nature is Out of Control – Duh! : Casaubon's Book

Click through to read the new report being criticized.

Most news content that isn’t simply the reporting of fact is an attempt to find – or manufacture – deeper meaning in events. This isn’t trivial work, of course, because there often is deeper meaning. But the inability to recognize coincidence or understand how patterns are established means that the habit of drawing conclusions from like events can look, well, stupid.
What struck me about this as interesting, though, is that MSNBC’s headline is perfectly accurate, and conveys precisely the right amount of fear and worry-making, about precisely the wrong thing. That is, nature is out of control. In a fundamental way, that’s the definition of climate change – nature gone wildly out of control, destabilized and with all that implies. We know this is happening because it is already happening – we can document that natural disasters related to climate change are happening more often. The mainstream media is trying to whip up fear about something that is actually occurring – but when it comes to climate change, the mainstream media mostly publishes “he said, she said” articles that lend wait to the denialists, implying that there was an equally credible case on both sides. We know that there is every reason to be afraid that more and more people will endure floods, droughts, wildfires, famines, heatwaves, storms…. – and we’re trying to find meaning in coincidence.
via Of Course Nature is Out of Control – Duh! : Casaubon’s Book.

rePost::Bronte Capital: In which Paul Krugman proves he is an academic snob who argues from his prejudice rather than the data

People want news that confirms their world view. The few people who wants news to inform their worldviews is in the minority, or if not in the minority they are the silent (read not that media consuming) majority. And as Edmund Burke has said “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”

What sells the news?
Paul Krugman gives his view of what sells the news.  It is a view that fits the vision of the Gray Lady quite well: a clear distinction between news pages and editorial pages, facts supported by data etc.  That is also how I want my news presented.  However the evidence that that sells the news is quite thin.  Whatever Rupert did to the WSJ Journal (that which Felix Salmon and Brad Delong rail against) appears to be working.
More generally opinion dressed up as news, especially when it panders to the prejudice of your readers or viewers works seems to sell really well.  A while back I gave a quarterly series of operating profits (in millions) for Fox Cable Networks – a business dominated by Fox News.  Here they are again: 197, 262, 211,194, 249, 275, 282, 284, 289, 337, 330, 313, 379, 428, 429, 434, 495.
There are few businesses with growth in operating profits without substantial capital expenditure that look anything like that.  Well Fox News gets even better (at least from the perspective of a News Corp shareholder).  The latest number is was $604 million operating profit for the quarter ended 30 December 2009.
via Bronte Capital: In which Paul Krugman proves he is an academic snob who argues from his prejudice rather than the data.

Elink Video ::"It's a good talking point, but it doesn't actually answer the underlying question"


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”