Sunday, June 29, 2008

Pacquiao Finishes the Fight in 9th Round

It’s Manny Pacquiao in the 9th round. The referee did not bother to count and raised the hand of Pacquiao signalling the end of the fight. David Diaz was dumbfounded. He didn’t know where the power-packed fists of his opponent were coming from. It’s as lightning speed. He only knew it hit him left and right!

 

Manny Pacquiao is the new champion of the World Boxing Council lightweight division and he is the first Pinoy and Asian boxer to win the four weight divisions –112, 122, 130, and 135 pounds. He also sideswiped the 126-pound level of Marco Antonio Barrera in 2003 and overshadowed the big boxing names in these divisions. He now hold the lightweight division where Gabriel “Flash” Elorde –another Filipino boxer who ruled the WBC Super Featherweight division for seven years -failed to take from the hands of Carlos Ortiz, a Puerto Rican boxing champion. If the “Flash” is still around he will be vindicated in some of his inadequacies by Manny’s fit.

 

When the “Pacman” –as Pacquiao is locally tagged- comes home, a hero’s welcome will be awaiting him. Before the fight he mentioned to offer his quest for boxing fame to the victims of typhoon Fengshen and he confirmed later after winning the fight in an interview with local TV channel GMA 7. Not only typhoon victims will be benefiting from his generosity, many will be seeing him to congratulate him and to partake with the bacon he will be bringing.

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Blame Media for Philippines Ferry Disaster

“There is a typhoon locally named Frank, in the direction of ...,” the Philippines weather bureau, “PAGASA” announced. “And that as of Thursday, June l9, Frank was leading northeast of central Visayas province. All seafaring vessels were advised to safety and to cancel scheduled trip.” These were the faint announcement and warning that emanated from the weather tracking agency.

 

Philippine media spent only a number of lines in print and a few seconds in airtime dealing with the weather disturbances. Media was occupied with politics as President Gloria Arroyo designated VP Noli de Castro to assume the function of the president during the 10-day trip of the president to United State –the president duties are seldom delegated to a veep since Marcos’ martial law. More lines and airtimes were allotted to Ces Drilon and the kidnappers’ ransom payments. Meanwhile, MV Princess of the Stars of Sulpicio Shipping Lines was already in her route when typhoon Frank gathered strength upon its landfall in Eastern Samar. It changed direction and veered toward Central Luzon by Friday afternoon according to PAGASA Director Dr. Prisco Nilo. The typhoon made another landfall on Saturday afternoon over Romblon province, almost in Luzon Region. All the areas along the typhoon path were devastated and countless residents were rendered homeless. More fatalities were reported when it should have been avoided if preparation was made or forewarned through the typhoon media coverage.

 

Here came the ferry Princess of the Stars meeting the typhoon right on her route off the waters of Sibuyan Island. To borrow the words of the inquiry board investigating the worst maritime disaster the country had: “She’s like a piece of cork being tossed up and down by giant waves in the vast ocean.” Only very few, 57 as of the last count, managed to get out alive out of 750 estimated passengers. Many were either trapped to death, perished in the commotion, or drowned in the ensuing upheaval.

 

With the resultant negative impact, devastations, and casualties; media were scrambling, rushing for headline stories, some were in front of relief operations instead of rescue missions. They are often caught out of coverage area and too far where the action is.

 

These are often the cases. They are always in a doubtful situations and tending us to believe that they keep going through negative media mileage.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Joining Technorati

I have just joined and entered the required information in the Technorati Profile It will contribute to a greater exposure of my blog and increase the traffic I so desired. Read more on this article...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Hansen Not CEO's for Crimes Against Nature

Dr. James Hansen, Director of Goddard Institute for Space Studies associated with NASA, is threatening the Chief Executive Officers of companies producing fossil-fuel based energy. He is censoring these CEO’s who are talking against anthropogenic global warming and insinuating that they be “tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

 

Why is Hansen too eager and far more harsher than anyone in the campaign for man-made global warming? He is not only good in sowing fears but employing harassment tactics to the extent of bringing those who are criticizing his warming concoction in court. Anyone is entitled to bring out an opinion and the freedom of expression is guaranteed by the democratic institutions. He is being offended and easily irritated when others are telling him that what he avers or advocates are false. He considered himself as the authority and dismisses others’ as unfounded presumptions. This man is a sci-fi prophet who thinks his words are the future.

 

It is suggested that these CEO’s should file a petition urging that Hansen be reprimanded, or in a sterner way, be discharged from NASA. He should be the one to be tried for crimes against nature and the people of the earth for the flawed and distorted data he is releasing from NASA. He has caused too much anxieties and scientific deprivation by preventing others in presenting the facts and realities of nature. He has sinned against humanities for harassing carbon dioxide! He has prevented the flow of nature’s given graces! He has caused the mitigation of carbon dioxide, the life giving source of plants and other living species. He caused the disruptions of the function of greenhouse gases to warm the chilling inhabitants of the earth! And he disobeyed the will of nature!

 

In view of the foregoing crimes against humanities and nature –Hansen edict it himself- together with his cohorts, they should be brought to the court of planet earth to extract from them the climate truth, to unveil their true colors, and to prevent them from using NASA facilities for personal gains.

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Monday, June 23, 2008

Global Warming Color Shows Off

Top business executives now lead the global warming campaign. The script writer cannot stay long behind the scene. The plot should be untied and the denouement has to be revealed. The proponent of the greatest science fiction, as magnified by Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” to instil fear and frightening effect, are now showing its true intentions.

 

The Chief Executive Officers of the world’s leading business conglomerates are now calling the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized countries to ensure that market oriented frameworks are in place. G8 member nations will be meeting in Japan this July in preparation of the 2009 Copenhagen conference to discuss the framework of a new global warming accord sponsored by the UN Environment Programme. UN Inter-government Panel on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol is nearing expiration in 2012 and a new global climate change treaty is being worked out to effectively put in an outline the economic programs of participating governments.

 

World Economic Forum Executives such as those from the businesses of Alcoa, Applied Materials, AIG, Basic Elements, British Airways, Deutsche Bank, Duke Energy, EDF, Eskom, Petrobras, RusHydro, Shell, Telstra, Tepco, TNT and Vattenfall; as appearing in Reuters June 2l issue stated that: “The new framework must be comprehensive, long-term and market-oriented for it to be environmentally effective and economically efficient.” They wanted to make sure that their targets for international emission trading markets must be included in the campaign cover of halving carbon dioxide emission by 2050. As I have mentioned in my previous post, “The Man-made Global Warming Commerce of IPCC,” the Paris-based International Energy Agency reported that the world needs $45 trillion to build nuclear power plants, wind power, solar power , other sources of renewable energy and commercialization of energy technologies. All these are purposely planned in the guise of global warming scare.

 

With the move of the Group of Eight being prodded by the world’s top company executives, the gaps existing between the rich and poor nations will be enhanced further. Poor countries which have limited access to a high energy technologies will be left behind as the developed nations will be scrambling in the harvest of what they planted in the global warming stratagem.

 

These poor generations will never know the truth behind this anthropogenic global warming concoction. They will not be here century from now. But the giant establishments which are actually behind this programmed scheme will remain in the arena knocking-out all its adversaries and triumphantly waltzing.

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Friday, June 20, 2008

Sipping My Brand Cup of Coffee

Working in the farm is hard but enjoying. Waking up every morning, you will feel the embrace and freshness of nature. And you walk down the pathways through the flowering shrubs with a refreshing hot cup of coffee, oh! My day. It’s far better than holding a bottle of beer on one hand and a lighted cigar on the other and zigzagging through the dark and faulty smelling alley of the city after night life.

 

When I was in our barrio countryside during my school days, one of my frequent activities were to till the land, plant rice and other past crops to augment the meager income the family is earning. And during the period of rest, my mother used to serve us hot “barako” coffee. This is the variety we had in the backyard of my grandparent. I remember everytime the coffee berry got ripen, my “Lola” will call her grandchildren as well as her neighbors’ to pick the fruit berries. The ripe berry is crimson-colored, oval-shaped, the size of a regular grape and with a sticky thin-coated meat which tastes sweet and delicious to eat. After eating the fruit, all the seeds –usually two turtle-shaped or shell bead beans in one berry- were gathered and dried under the heat of the sun for three days. It is then brewed, roasted in a frying pan until it turned to a dark-brown color, then pulverized into grits like sand and stored in a tight-fitted container. One spoonful of coffee grits boiled in two liters of water in a cooking pot is enough to get the aromatic flavour desired by an avid coffee drinker. I always look for this “barako” brand or “Batangas Cape” whenever possible to suit my taste. I still remember we only add a spoonful coffee grits in the cooking pot where the previous boiled coffee grits are not removed. Sometimes we only add water in the pot and it was we called “recycled coffee.” When the aroma is dissipated it’s the only time we throw away the complex blend.

 

Today, many imported brand are in the local market. Displayed in the supermarket’s grocery are the popular Nescafe brand (caffeine or decaffeinated), Blend 45, Folgers, etc. We can buy the “barako” brand but it appears it’s now the most expensive. This brand is the popular brewed coffee being served in five star hotel, classy bars and restaurants. It is believed that the “barako” is the natural brand and have maintained its superior quality. It’s the largest beans of all coffee variety, the best among Liberica species, and superior to Robusta and Arabica varieties. Others considered it endangered to extinction as there is current campaign to save cape barako. It is still traditionally produced and planted in a shaded method and considered environmentally friendly serving as habitat of birds and other native species. Others believe that coffee has a medicinal value. It is considered as a great help to cancer patients. There are reports that coffee reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, diabetes mellitus, cirrhosis of the liver, and other associated diseases due to its caffeine content. I cannot remember my source but based on my data gathered somewhere, an American scientist Yaser Dorri has said that even “the smell of coffee can restore appetite and refresh olfactory receptors.” Other studies show that it may affect an individual’s short-term memory and the hardship of recalling the information related to the discussions or the current chain of thoughts.

 

Only recently, from the Google News of June l7, 2008, “Drinking up the latest on coffee” a research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine findings state that: • “Women who consumed two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day had a 25% lower risk of death from heart disease. • Women who consumed two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day had an 18% lower risk of death caused by something other than heart disease or cancer. • Men who consumed two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day had no change in risk of death. • There was no association between coffee and cancer deaths. Interestingly, researchers did not find a relationship between caffeine and the risk of death. That is, people who drank decaffeinated coffee had death rates similar to those who drank caffeinated coffee. This suggests that there may be some other factor at work — something unrelated to coffee that coffee drinkers share.”

 

Anyway caffeinated or decaf, I can assure myself coffee works well with me. Two or three cups of coffee serve me an inspirational feeling, particularly on a writing mode. If it’s okay with me, it might be also good for you, so come with the nature’s trend and enjoy coffee. Coffee with me ...as I am now sipping my coffee as of these writings ...hhooopp...so hot-t-t-t-t!

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Global Warming Scare and the Rising Prices of Commodities

Man-made global warming scare sponsored by UN-IPCC will exacerbate further the development of poor countries. Non-governmental organization, their partner disguised as environmentalist, are blocking the construction of power plants which do not conform to their planned agenda.

 

An instance is the Philippines which had just recovered from the pestering brown-out and power shortage a few years ago. With the improvements of its economy, power shortages are again being perceived as a threat in the coming years. Its mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, a Westinghouse light water reactor and considered as the latest in Asia, is being considered for rehabilitation at a cost of $800 million according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was completed in l984 at a cost of $2.3 billion and should have been supplying 621 MW of clean source of energy but was never commissioned and failed to deliver any. The so-called international environmentalist succeeded in stopping its operation by agitating the local groups in its campaign of environmental degradation. President Corazon Aquino banned the nuclear plant after the EDSA Revolution through the revised constitution. We should have been reaping the benefits of the nuclear plant, but instead, we lost millions of dollar thereby compounding the hardships and wasted the people’s taxes.

 

The Arroyo government is bent on establishing additional power supply to sustain its economic growth. More provinces are facing the energy problems. Western Visayas alone requires 116 megawatt this year and more are needed in the succeeding years.

 

A coal power plant has been scheduled to be built in Iloilo City. It is one power source being questioned and hated today because of the pollution it will be dumping in the atmosphere. But the skyrocketing price of oil is driving poor nation to embrace this source. There is no other option that can be tapped immediately. Our nuclear power plant requires eight years more or less to be restored. The only alternative favouring the Philippines is coal-fired plant where the source of fuel supply is locally abundant. Geothermal and hydroelectric plants, also available in the locality, are time consuming undertakings and may not fit as a prompt solution with the situation the country is in now. Solar energy and liquefied petroleum gas power plants are next in line in the priority action plan of the local government. Wind power, although a clean source of renewable energy and can be harnessed anywhere in the island, will take 5 to 6 years to complete as the availability of turbines are not enough –orders have lined-up as many nations have switched to these renewable sources. Marine power technology is another source to be considered but it is still in its infant stage in the country although this renewable and sustainable supply can be easily exploited within the archipelagic baselines of the island. A UK-based pioneering marine power company and had invested in the marine current turbines in Ireland, as per June 7 Reuters report, may be employed and be benefited in its expertise in the technology. These are all options the country can adopt in the near future.

 

However, as the expediency of the immediate energy supply is hounding the nation, the coal power plant is considered the best means to solve her woes. On the other hand, Greenpeace is blocking the government initiative to sustain the power supply in its “quit coal” policy.

 

The unabated increases in the prices of commodities were inspired by these global warming barking groups. If their campaign will not be controlled, these alarmists will continue to diffuse havocs and anxieties on poor nation’s economy. Their scare campaigns are leading the miseries the world is suffering today. Their actions are the consequences of the following crises: 1) Global oil price increases; 2) World rice shortage and food riots; 3) Skyrocketing food prices; 4) Air plane transport crisis; 5) Striking workers and lay-offs; and 6) Depleting food land converted to bio-fuel plantations. All these have a domino effect down to the cost of the last peanut in the cornerstore.

 

People should now think of the maladies being experienced today. Don’t blame the climate, environment, and nature as the causes of our hardships. Blame the people using nature in advancing their interest and greed.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

The Man-Made Global Warming Commerce of IPCC

Carbon industry remains to be the important agenda of UN Environment Programme. The hysteria created by its Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) through its concocted man-made global warming has been spreading throughout the whole world. The United Nations allowed itself to be used as an implementing body towards attaining the business interest of carbon trading groups in the guise of mitigating the insurmountable global warming cycle of the universe.

 

IPCC always make it a point of associating global warming with the scare of increasing temperature up to 2 degrees Celcius –enough to send a frightening effect on humans- loss of species, diminishing coral reefs, rising sea level, intense hurricanes, famines and droughts, and other forms of catastrophic impact on living things. All these alarming holocausts to scare the populace have been given prominence in Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” which the UN gave so much accolade and recognition by presenting the author with a novel peace prize. These alarms have been dispersed to all member-nations so that they will adhere to the required binding caps and restrictions of carbon emission in the pretext of lessening the greenhouse effect that contribute to warming. They portray the exaggerated scientific evidences to present an authoritative assessment for the member-nations to follow. They claimed that the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increased since the year 1750, the start of industrial revolution. But they did not realize that the increase was the result of gradual warming over the past 400 years after the Little Ice Age. It is the increasing temperature, such as burning, that carbon dioxide is extracted and tends to mix with the atmosphere. It is the warming –that comes first- that increases the amount of Co2. It is not carbon dioxide that causes warming. This is a straightforward reasoning and it seems IPCC refused to understand. Granting that warming is the effect of greenhouse gases, it should be water vapour as the greater factor. Water vapour made up the 65% of greenhouse gases while carbon dioxide is associated with methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and other groups of fluorinated gases that comprised the 35%. How will Co2 contribute to global warming? Furthermore, greenhouse gases are the tiny 1% of earth’s atmosphere and the 99% are composed of nitrogen and oxygen. (I recommend further reading of my previous article: “Carbon Myth: Truth Thru Repetition.”)

 

IPCC disregarded the powerful solar energy emitted by the sun which dictates the activities of the earth. Why can they not accept the practicality that the sun is our life; the source of the warm period of daylight and the coolness of night life; or as virtually as the reason why the early morning flower blooms and the closing of its petals in the dark. Why bark on carbon dioxide when it is one of what we needed most?

 

Take the findings of Stephen Wilde of Co2Sceptic in his article, “The Death Blow to Anthropogenic Global Warming” where he observed that IPCC systematically excluded the solar irradiance contributed by the sun. It tends to show that IPCC only considered the period of inactive solar cycle where the total solar irradiance (TSI) was in its minimum prior to the year of 1961. In this year up to 2001, the TSI was constant –no increase or decrease of earth warming. However, as Mr. Wilde further revealed, that the positive (warming) Pacific Decadal Oscillation driven by the sun through “oceanic cycles” contributes to rising temperature variations as well as the concentration of Co2 in the atmosphere. IPCC quickly concluded that the intensity of Co2 drives the global warming.

 

These climate scenarios of IPCC are all deceptions. The claim of peer reviews and consensus were made by scientists with questionable motives and afraid that if they will not support the IPCC legerdemain, they will all lost their incentives and grants as what James Hansen is doing in distorting and manipulating the NASA records.

 

The United States, knowing the facts behind climate change, do not support the IPCC conspiracy of global warming. Only recently, in the US Senate, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Bill suffered a devastating defeat in the hands of informed senators led by James Inhofe. Only the world’s uncertain economies support the IPCC concoction while US, China, and India -considered as the richest and well-developed economies- were not amenable to IPCC weak and stammering ploy.

 

Consider the report of Paris-based International Energy Agency, calling for an investment of $45 trillion to halve the greenhouse gases by the year 2050. This will need the establishment of more nuclear power plants, more wind or solar power plants, and any other alternative source of energy. All for the illusory challenge of cutting a tiny carbon dioxide, they considered culprit, when water vapour comprises the bulk of greenhouse gases –they must cut water vapour instead of Co2 to effectively halve the greenhouse gases and exterminate all forms of life. Imagine the gargantuan business motives of IPCC if it succeeds in sowing anthropogenic global warming fear. And these again are accompanied by threats of famine, drought, and annihilation of living things if we failed to heed their horrendous and stupid proposition.

 

IPCC corporation, disguised as environmental protector, is keeping it up with its global warming schemes. I wonder why a fraud of great multitude and associated with a threat/scare of catastrophic events still persist today.

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Monday, June 2, 2008

I Hate That Tree

We live in a community in the outskirt of Metro Manila. It is a sub-divided spaces with a housing unit in each plot. The occupants, teeming with pride and joy upon owning a lot, planted trees, some were in gardening, and others were in vegetable planting in their yard. Since everybody are planting, the community becomes a greenery. Trees of different varieties adorned the village. There were fruit-bearing trees: avocado, jackfruits, santol, guava, papaya, banana, star-apple, macopa, etc.; trees for shadings: ilang-ilang, banaba, talisay, nim tree –a source of pesticides, fertilizers, and mosquito repellant; and even coconut trees –considered a miracle tree because all its components from inner roots to outer leaves are useful and being a source of cure-for-all virgin coconut oil. However, coconut trees are considered dangerous in a community with clustered houses as its fruits, when matured weighing 1000 to 2000 grams from a height of l5 to 20 meters, that may fall either on the head of a by-standers or playing children will be fatal. In spite of the disadvantages, trees abound in our village. Plantings, sometimes, overlap in land ownership and others outside the plot boundaries. And these causes inert jealousy.

 

Later, more improvements were done in the areas. Perimeter fences were built defining each boundaries and highlighting the exclusivity of each property. No more picking of flowers, fruits, or vegetables from neighbor’s yard. Some fence were installed to a height that you can’t see anymore the house inside. And the neighbors, who once were living hand in hand, sharing each other with harvests, greeting each other every now and then, . . . now seldom talk to each other. Others were trimming their trees so as not to affect others’ lot and to defuse envious atmosphere.

 

But my neighbor, situated at the back, refused to cut the tree whose branches stretched to our backyard. Our house has been extended and covered the whole backyard and dried leaves falling on our roof often caused the clogging of roof-gutter. When the rain comes, water overflow, drift in our ceiling and it also rains inside the room giving us so much irritations and inconveniences. We often cleaned the roof-gutter and the down-spout to avoid such flooding. We suggested to our neighbor once more to trim or cut the branches protruding on our yard but they were inattentive, ignoring our plea.

 

Lately, the tree bore fruits. Some were on the branches over our roof. So, it was not only the leaves but also the rotten fruits that kept bothering us. This is outrageous! Sometimes in the middle of the night, fruit will fall, or during wee hour when you’re napping. . . should I chop those branches! . . . . g-r-r-r-r-r. It always fell when less expected. Imagine a 500-gram fruit falling on the roof! It will banged your ear. Will it not raise your adrenaline and blood pressure and blast you with anger?

 

One time there was a typhoon. It was strong, packing a maximum center-winds of 200 kilometers per hour. Its path was threading in the direction of our place. The would-be-affected areas were advised to make the necessary preparations to avert any disastrous events. Squatters living on the railways side and low- lying areas were evacuated to nearby school buildings. Typhoons are always associated with heavy rains and flooding; those leaving near the river banks were also advised relocations. Villagers started to fix their walls and roofs. Others trimmed the trees, my neighbor did not. On the first blow of raging wind, my neighbor’s tree swung on our side, rubbing the roof with the sound of chains being pulled on cemented road, back and forth. Leaves filled the surroundings and scattered up and down. Other open trees were uprooted and branches were broken. Galvanized-iron –sheet roofs flew and hurled meters away. Transmission lines whistled through the tune of dancing trees strumming the corrugated sheet roofings of houses in the neighborhood. As the wind changed direction, my neighbor’s tree swayed on their side ripping off the rear part of their roof.

 

But it’s a wonder how pliant and sturdy was this tree. Some of the branches turned into a reindeer’s horn and it withstood the wrath of the storm while others laid flat on the ground –it should have suffered the same fate to unleash our agonies.

 

Then, again it’s summer. The tree flourished with vigor, more leaves and branches for the unfinished business. Flowers bloomed and soon, its leaves and fruits will fall again . . . on our roof.

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