Giancarlo Angulo's Blog
Great Read from the ever reliable Malcolm Gladwell
It isn’t surprising that the tournament directors found Eurisko’s strategies beyond the pale. It’s wrong to sink your own ships, they believed. And they were right. But let’s remember who made that rule: Goliath. And let’s remember why Goliath made that rule: when the world has to play on Goliath’s terms, Goliath wins.
via Annals of Innovation: How David Beats Goliath: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker.
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loved this post ! read the whole thing!
Society has risen to the level of its own incompetence and at the same time the means to return to a more sensible world has been legislated out of existence. The above we all know. But only some of us really care. If you are one of us, you will already know the solution, but you are perhaps understandably afraid to carry it out. The solution is this…I ask please do your best to bring back freedom of speech and expression; Please be politically incorrect at every opportunity; Tell jokes that are in bad taste; Travel on trains without a ticket, and then for your court appearance hire Cherie Blair as your barrister. Laugh in the faces of health and safety personnel Edmund Burke, the political philosopher, is attributed with the saying “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” I’m not worried about evil, it’s stupidity that is soon going to be victorious. But the world can only continue its descent into madness if you let it.
via Paul Wilmott’s Blog: Society Has Finally Risen To The Level Of Its Own Incompetence.
I’m a big West Wing Fan, and in someways it has shaped how I view things. I still remember a scene where Sam Seaborn‘s declarations, I pay a lot of taxes and I love it! I may have an unhealthy regard for my abilities but I have no doubt that in the crucial ways I am me because i was fortunated enough to be born to my parents. I was lucky, this was no fault/act of mine. Taxation is a transfer, I love paying taxes, just hope there was more ways to ensure that the transfer is not a transfer to the swiss bank acounts of government officials! .read the whole thing!
But of course, these are only a part of the link between the state and inequality. Tawneyite socialists claim that spending on (say) health and education are forces for equality.
But are they? Julian Le Grand famously argued in a book in 1982 that the rich actually got more than the poor from these services – a claim supported more recently by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
In the case of healthcare, the claim is also supported by this paper (pdf). One reason for this is that the poor under-estimate their ill-health and so are less likely to make claims on the health system. Another reason is that the rich live longer (pdf) than the poor, and the bulk of health spending on most individuals comes late in life.
via Stumbling and Mumbling: The state and equality.
“People with stronger friendship networks feel like there is someone they can turn to,” said Karen A. Roberto, director of the center for gerontology at Virginia Tech. “Friendship is an undervalued resource. The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better.”
via Well – What Are Friends For? A Longer Life – NYTimes.com.
As stated by the article I’m paraphrasing this, The politicians from those poorest of the poor provinces need to get off their asses and aggressively initiate a botika ng bayan (drugstore) in thier baranggays. Think that the problem is two fold, It would be helpful to see the feasibility studies of the BNB, I’m particularly interested in how they arrived at the 15,000population. Maybe the private sector or individuals can come up with the 25000 peso seed money and directly pay the DOH for the medicine for the poorest baranggays that cannot even meet the minimum requirements or have very lazy local public officials.
Wow two public health policy posts in a day woot woot!
Botika ng Barangay not in poorest places
JAN MARCEL RAGAZA and ALLIAGE MORALES, VERA Files
04/14/2009 | 04:49 PM
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First of two parts
If a minimum wage earner were to be stricken with diarrhea, relief can come cheap from the Department of Health’s Botika ng Barangay BnB outlets, where a 2-milligram capsule of generic loperamide would cost only P1.05.
The BnB price is vastly lower than what loperamide costs in commercial drugstores—P4.10 for generic and P14 for branded.
Launched by President Gloria Arroyo in 2001, the BnB program is the answer to poor Filipinos’ need for cheap medicine. But here’s the catch: There is not a single BnB outlet in some of the country’s poorest provinces and towns where they are needed most.
As of January 2009, there were 12,341botikas, a long way from the 427 in 2003. But the program covers only half of the country’s 42,000 barangays and suffers from poor implementation and conflicting priorities from top to bottom. As a result, the BnB program has wasted scarce resources while denying health care services to the poorest areas it was meant to serve.
One example is the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao which, aside from having the least number of hospitals and barangay health centers, has the smallest number of BnB outlets, numbering 78 as of last January. All the BnB outlets in ARMM are in Maguindanao, leaving the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Lanao del Sur and Tawi-tawi without any BnB drugstore.
via GMANews.TV – Botika ng Barangay not in poorest places – Special Reports – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA.
This is the reason why politicians especially elected officials need to have websites so people can interact with them , they can get input and explain their sides etc etc. hope I can find a copy of this online. Over all without seeing the plan , mandatory health coverage for all is a win, the question is were do we get the money (magbawas muna ng mga mistress and mga politicians) , and is their a more efficient way to administer it than that envisioned in the bill/plan.
Roxas proposes mandatory health coverage for all Filipinos
04/14/2009 | 01:55 PM
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MANILA, Philippines – A bill seeking mandatory health coverage for all Filipinos on state expense has been filed in the Senate.
Senator Manuel Roxas II proposes in Senate Bill 3154 that the government must pay for mandatory entitlement of every Filipino to healthcare benefits under the state’s health insurance program.
He said the immediate and automatic inclusion to Philippine Health Insurance coverage and membership is mandated by Republic Act 7875 (National Health Insurance Act of 1995).
The mandatory universal healthcare coverage shall be funded by the national government through premium payments to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PHIC), which shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act, he added.
“The health of every Filipino is important. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that our citizens are healthy,” Roxas said.
He said that 48.4 percent of the total P181 billion expenditures for health in 2005 came from individual families’ pockets, and that only 28.7 percent came from government resources.
He said the social health insurance, on the other hand, account for only 11 percent and health expenditure from other sources, such as private health insurance or community-based financing represent only 11.9 percent.
He said that since 26.9 percent of Filipino families are below the poverty threshold, “it is unimaginable how Filipinos who are everyday grappling with the hardships of economic realities, will be able to afford a decent healthcare service for themselves and their families.”
Roxas is also the author of the Cheaper Medicines Act. – Amita O. Legaspi, GMANews.TV
via GMANews.TV – Roxas proposes mandatory health coverage for all Filipinos – Nation – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA.
I buy and read a lot of books, my friends read and buy a lot of books. I’ve mostly weaned myslef from needing to own the books, I only have a handful of books consider keepers and most are books that you read once or twice and pass on. This prompted us to think of creating a mini library where we could donate our books, and maybe solicit books from friends. This “dream” is still far from happening too many things have to fall right into place. The depressed me trying to cheer myself up found myslef googling public libraries in qc. found the site for the city’s public library volunteers and I think that this is good enough for now.
Hope I can really volunteer some time and mind power in trying to do my share in trying to improve whatever can be improved etc etc.
I usually treat people when I’m depressed, think this is more productive.
(Fuck I am wallowing in self pity damn!)
Ways to help the library
Posted by qcpl on July 21, 2008
The library, especially the branch libraries, are always in need of volunteers and supporters. Here are some ways you can help.
Adopt a branch library
a. Donate computers
The Main Library and Novaliches Branch are now fully computerized. The said libraries have an OPAC (online computer access catalog), 2 mbps internet connection, 7 computer units for academic research and free encoding for public elementary and high school students. We wish to replicate this to the remaining 19 branches.
You may donate working computers or support by donating any amount of money that will be used to purchase necessary equipment.
P 30,000 covers 1 computer unit
P 1, 000 covers 1 month subscription to the internet
P 7,000 covers 1 dot matrix printer
P 325 covers 1 ink for dot matrix printer
P 200 covers 1 ream of paper
Any amount, when pooled together will go a long way to help the library users in their research and academic needs.
We have prepared a feasibility study on the benefits of an interconnected library here.
b. Donate books
We want also our branch libraries to be complete in the best books, not just children books and textbooks.
To know what are the library’s present collection just go here.
To know what books we need, go here and here.
c. Subscribe to magazines
The main library through the Friends of the Library, subscribes to Time, Newsweek and Reader’s Digest. We hope that through the generosity of the supporters, this will be replicated at the branches.
Be a Volunteer Storyteller or Tutorials Teacher
Teach the students the love for reading. Be a volunteer storyteller for a day. Organize storytelling sessions near schools that will promote a branch library.
Be a teacher for tutorial classes. Subjects will be basic computer skills, information literacy and other school subjects. This program is in the planning stage and is suggested for those who have weekdays to spare. This can be done during Saturdays on the following branches: Main, Novaliches, Project 4 and Galas.
Be a Friend of the Library member
We welcome idealistic and energetic people who want to put their talents to good use whether as a writer, events organizer, fundraiser and friend-raiser to let more people know about what the library is doing.
Thank you very much for your interest and we hope to see you in the future. Please email us at quezoncitypubliclibrary(at)yahoo(dot)com or qcplvolunteers(at)gmail(dot)com
via QCPL Volunteers.
composed by George Harrison
performed by The Beatles
Something in the way She moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way She woos me
I don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
Somewhere in the smile she knows
That I don’t need no other lover
Something in her style that shows me
I don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
You’re asking me will my love grow
I don’t know, I don’t know
You stick around and it may show
I don’t know, I don’t know
Something in the way she knows
All I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
I don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn’t matter much to me.
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can’t you know tune in but it’s all right.
That is I think it’s not too bad.
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Always no sometimes think it’s me, but you know I know when it’s a dream.
I think, er No, I mean, er Yes but it’s all wrong.
That is I think I disagree.
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.
got this from Hacker News
It’s a talk a Stanford dropout gave, I really enjoyed it, I just didn’t relish the wierd looks I got from my officemates whenever I laughed out loud!
the talk is here: