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.
rePost :: Generational determinism :: Stumbling and Mumbling
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.
rePost :: The Blog: Culture rePost :: Matters to Entrepreneurship :: Ben Casnocha
As long as the next meal is the primary concern of a lot of Filipinos the startup dreams would be of the pipe variety.
Culture Matters to Entrepreneurship
Culture Matters
All through childhood and adolescence you are a sponge absorbing cultural stimuli. From local billboard advertisements, to school curriculum stylized to your country; from conversations with your parents about the ways of the world to the thousands of local customs that dictate proper behavior in restaurants, queues, airports, homes, and driving on the road.
Culture matters. That's the title of a compelling set of essays on whether some cultures are better at creating freedom, prosperity, and justice. It is politically incorrect to chalk up massive societal failures in places like Africa to culture — besides, the situation is always more complex than a single factor — but it seems safe to assert that the culture you come up in affects how you think.
via Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Culture Matters to Entrepreneurship.
rePost :: Neurosurgical patients get closer to God
If the various churches don’t get their act together we are going to have a century that is defined with tension between religous groups and between theist and non-theist. I ‘ve said this before but I feel that the line is about even that religions of any kind would one day be treated as simple organizations such as corporations and non-profits, and religiosity of any kind would be viewed more as a mental disability like alcoholism , or any form of substance abuse.
Neurosurgical patients get closer to God
Category: Neuroscience • Religion
Posted on: February 27, 2010 3:58 PM, by Mo
REMOVAL of specific parts of the brain can induce increases in a personality trait which predisposes people to spirituality, according to a new clinical study by Italian researchers. The new research, published earlier this month in the journal Neuron, provides evidence that some brain structures are associated with spiritual thinking and feelings, and hints at individual differences that might make some people more prone than others to spirituality.
via ScienceBlogs.com here
rePost::Conceptual Trends and Current Topics
I found this an excellent read. I seem to periodically ask myself this question. How do you live your life and say at the end I wouldn’t have changed a thing. In a way this is the goal I’ve been crawling towards.
When I was about 29 years old I got a spiritual “assignment” on an Easter morning in the old city of Jerusalem. According to this assignment my job was to live as if I had only 6 months left to live. I was in perfect health and in the middle of a ten-year round the world trip, so this interruption was unexpected and strange. I’ve told the full story of that curious mission on the very first episode of This American Life, the public radio storytelling hit, 10 years ago, so I won’t go into further detail because you can hear my account on this streaming audio file from the NPR site.
The short version is that what I decided to do in my last 6 months surprised me, and that living with only 180 days in front of me turned out to be harder than I thought. But I did live with a very conscious countdown toward the final day; I remember that last day very well.
via Conceptual Trends and Current Topics.
rePost::Learning “Just in Case” versus “Just in Time” – Preparation – Lifehacker
This is a nice post. Read the whole thing.
The competing vs running was an excellent dichotomy. If you do not learn something before hand you will be hardpressed to say where you are going to use it. You use it because you know it. You can think of where you can make use of it because you already understand it. I can still remember a lot of the ugly code I’ve written because I didn’t know of some technique or some abstraction. I can still remember how it feels to code around a problem because your current toolset doesn’t have the necessary tools to help you solve the problem. In academe there is this saying “Publish or Perish”, in the world we call corporate at least for programmers there is nothing equal so I propose “Learn or Burn”. The basic structure of how my profession is organized allows the companies to have the upper hand. They don’t give you enough time to study, this allows them to devalue your skills as time goes by. Don’t let the companies have the upper hand. “Learn or Burn”
What do you learn just in case you’ll need it in the future, and what do you learn just in time when you do need it?
In general, you learn things in school just in case you’ll need them later. Then once you get a job, you learn more things just in time when you need them.
When you learn just in time, you’re highly motivated. There’s no need to imagine whether you might apply what you’re learning since the application came first. But you can’t learn everything just in time. You have to learn some things before you can imagine using them. You need to have certain patterns in your head before you can recognize them in the wild.
Years ago someone told me that he never learned algebra and has never had a need for it. But I’ve learned algebra and use it constantly. It’s a lucky thing I was the one who learned algebra since I ended up needing it. But of course it’s not lucky. I would not have had any use for it either if I’d not learned it.
via Learning “Just in Case” versus “Just in Time” – Preparation – Lifehacker.
rePost::If Free Works on the Internet, Can It Work for Health Insurance ? « blog maverick
Nice counterpoint to the free economy view espoused by many of the social media stars/darling. I have no horse in this race. I just simply want good service at a reasonable price. I buy stuff. I have a good mental model of what I consider the fair price!!
Here is the bottom line. Would consumers and businesses commit to do business with companies that offer incentives and subsidies built around health insurance coverage ? And what if health insurance became a value add rather than a primary product ? Would a service from companies that are big enough to self insure and add their customers to their corporate health care programs change the dynamics and economics of health care ? Would it create enough competition to force traditional insurance companies to change their ways ?
via If Free Works on the Internet, Can It Work for Health Insurance ? « blog maverick.
rePost :: Law Degree for Sale | Mendelson's Musings
If you are going to be something don’t do it because it’g going to be a stepping stone to somewhere.
See few people really know what the real stepping stone to where they want to be.
Based on my obviously worthless observations during the long trudge towards our dreams, we get more information. This information helps us to have a clearer view two ways. It shows us if where we are dreaming of being is really where we want to be. It also shows us if where we are currently walking/traveling would bring us any closer to our dreams.
This makes me realize that stepping stones are not really that bad. It’s just that stepping stones limit your choices because we have to choose , excluding other paths. It is this that really irks me. It is this blind-sidedness some people have towards what they do with their lives.
We only have one and we have no idea how long our stay here would be, barring any 4-5 sigma medical advance we are not going to live forever.
You should at least try to live. No I have to repeat. You have to LIVE in all caps.
Law Degree for Sale
Some enterprising lawyer in San Francisco has decided to sell his law degree on Craigslist.
Awesome stuff.
From the sale description:
“After several years of practicing law I have come to the conclusion that my law degree is useless and I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore. Though I spent over $100,000 on it I am willing to sell it for the bargain basement price of $59,250, which is the current value of my remaining student loan balance.
This priceless collectible will permit you to be surrounded by hobby-less assholes whose entire life is dictated by billing by the hour and being anal dickheads. Additionally, this piece of paper has the amazing ability to keep you from doing what you really want to do in life, all in the name of purported prestige and financial success. Finally, girls in the Marina will swoon with retarded thoughts of sugar daddy when they hear you went to XXX prestigious law school and are a lawyer.”
I love bitter lawyers. Nicely done.
via Law Degree for Sale | Mendelson’s Musings.
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.
rePost :: It’s really bad and frightening | Filipino Voices
Whilst the whole media is happily covering the election fever, the suffering that our countrymen in the north is experiencing is heart wrenching. This is why countries like the US and Japan have extensive agricultural insurance. The practice of agriculture is especially dependent on many factors that are beyon the control of the farmers. This is a humanitarian problem in the making. This may not end well. I pray my fear are just that fears.
READ THE WHOLE THING.
The current ENSO and its agricultural effects has environmental scientists worried. On the human health side, many Filipinos have no experience of prolonged hot and dry weather. This is revealed that for many of us, the experience of extremely hot weather is limited to “Holy Week” and that really only lasts for 4 days! Extended periods of having 38 C or more temps in Metro Manila may result in a higher death rate among the elderly and those with cardiovascular health problems similar to what was experienced in the European summer heat wave of 2005, when an estimated 10,000 people or more died. The Europeans were not used to having prolonged spells of temperatures above 33 C. While PAGASA may forecast Manila to have 34-35 C temps, our heat island research points out that the real temps due to the effects of a built -up environment can be 3-4 C more than the forecast temperature. So we can have extended periods of having 39-40 C temperature. People living in desert climates are used to this and have behavioral adaptations to cope with this, but I doubt if we Filipinos have these adaptations.
But as a wag told me, we Filipinos are particularly adapted to talking about politics. (FV posts are a supreme example!)
But seriously, the food security situation is beginning to look dire and it is just the end of February. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may turn over the presidential palace to her successor on June 30 with a famine on her train. Ask any of your grandparents who lived through World War II. They would tell you that the Filipino people experienced famine within the last century only during the Japanese occupation and that was not due to climate change but to colonial master change!
The next President of the Philippines should now be aware that even as a candidate poverty or corruption are not the immediate problems but food security. Surely these are problems but their solutions will take more than one presidential term. Food security can be immediately addressed at the start of the term.
via It’s really bad and frightening | Filipino Voices.