Tropical Storm "Pablo" (Higos) Now in Bicol Region

Published herewith is the latest weather bulletin from PAGASA where the tropical storm “Pablo” is heading . It is worthwhile to note that it is passing the central Philippines and the necessary precautions are hereby advised:

 

http://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/ TROPICAL STORM "PABLO" Tropical Cyclone Archive | Tropical Cyclone Warning for Shipping

 

PAGASA Track as of 8 p.m., 30 September 2008 Satellite Picture at 10 p.m., 30 September 2008

 

Severe Weather Bulletin Number SIX Tropical Cyclone Warning: Tropical Storm "PABLO" (HIGOS) Issued at 11:00 p.m., Tuesday 30 September 2008 Tropical Storm "PABLO" has made landfall over Eastern Samar and is now crossing Bicol Region.

 

Location of Center: (as of 10:00 p.m.) in the vicinity of Legaspi City or 170 km Southeast of Daet, Camarines Norte Coordinates: 13.2°N, 123.9°E Strength: Maximum sustained winds of 65 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 80 kph Movement: Northwest at 19 kph Forecast Positions/Outlook: Wednesday evening: in the vicinity of Cabanatuan City Thursday evening: 310 kms Northwest of Dagupan City Friday evening: 620 kms West of Basco, Batanes or 200 kms Southeast of Hongkong

 

Areas Having Public Storm Warning Signal PSWS # Luzon Visayas Mindanao

 

Signal No. 2 (60-100 kph winds) Catanduanes Sorsogon Albay Masbate Ticao Island Burias Island Camarines Sur Camarines Norte Marinduque Southern Quezon Northern Samar None

 

Signal No. 1 (30-60 kph winds) Romblon Oriental Mindoro Occidental Mindoro Northern Quezon Polillo Island Aurora Batangas Laguna Cavite Rizal Bulacan Metro Manila Eastern Samar Western Samar Northern Leyte Northern Cebu Biliran Capiz Northern Iloilo Northern Antique Aklan None

 

Public Storm Warning Signal elsewhere is now lowered.

 

Residents in low-lying areas and near mountain slopes are advised to take all the necessary precautions against possible flashfloods and landslides. Likewise, those living in coastal areas under public storm warning signal number two are alerted against big waves and storm surges generated by this Tropical Cyclone.

 

The public and the disaster coordinating councils concerned are advised to take appropriate actions and watch for the next bulletin to be issued at 5 a.m. tomorrow.

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The Debate and Bailout Plan

The move of John McCain, suspending the presidential debate on Friday with Barack Obama is only a political maneuvering to avoid further erosion of support in his bungling campaign. He knew he cannot parry the issues that may be raised by Obama regarding the economic and more particularly the financial crisis being blamed with the republican administration. President George Bush is seeking a 700 Billion tax dollar bailout with congress and this is the reason McCain is using to evade political debate.

 

Bush further invited McCain and Obama for a joint meeting with congressional leaders to conform to McCain’s debate suspension move. With such arrangement, any suspicion that McCain is diverting the issues of campaign shortcomings will be covered by what they think a more pressing concerted actions which are needed to be implemented immediately. However, this costly bailout plan is not pleasing with the concerned American taxpayers. In the first place, why are they being made to suffer of the consequences of the mess created by these private financial giants after they have profited from the flawed operation favoring only the few? But Bush is duty-bound to act with dispatch which will cost the jobs of millions of the Americans if not treated with the right solutions. And this is the most applicable justification to save McCain’s candidacy from the harms that maybe inflicted by the republican’s faulty economic programs.

 

McCain and Obama, however, cannot do anything with the financial crisis congressional meeting. Any move or suggestions coming from them will be interpreted as political grandstanding. The financial crisis solution can be taken up in the debate involving both the presidential protagonists and whatever bright ideas that may be brought up can be included in the bailout plan that may be approved by congress. And the debate, if can be pushed through, will be both beneficial to the crisis solution and the candidates; and the voters, as well, will be provided an intelligent choice of the candidates’ economic and leadership perceptions.

 

Hence, McCain’s postponement of the debate will not be construed as evading or running out of the direct confrontation regarding their respective platform of governance. He can distance himself from Bush’s busted economic and performance images.

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Losing Spratly on May 13, 2009

House Bill 3216 otherwise known as “An Act Defining the Archipelagic Baselines of the Philippine Archipelago, Amending for the Purpose Republic Act 3046, as Amended by Republic Act 5446” is still pending in the house of congress. Time is of the essence as the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) requires every archipelagic nation to establish its archipelagic baseline by May, 2009, is fast approaching.

 

But the senate is not discussing the details of the baseline law. They are instead on the disagreement who will head the technical working group. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago which head the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as Chairman designated Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita as Head of the Senate Technical Working Group on the baseline bill. Detained opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes questioned the legality and impropriety of the participation of Secretary Ermita being an executive officer violating the doctrine of separation of powers with the legislative branch. Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. likewise deplored Senator Santiago’s move.

 

With the “undue and unusual interest” the administration senator and the executive branch are exhibiting in altering the lower house version of the baseline bill, there is no assurance that the Philippines can catch up with the ten year deadline. And it will be an international shame on our part considering that the Philippines is one of the important contributor in establishing UNCLOS. With barely eight months left before May l3, 2009, deadline we will become again the international laughing stock and will be subjected to mockery being the only State which has the strong basis of ownership of the backyard reefs but unrecognized due to its faltering policy as an archipelagic state.

 

We have been distracted by economic crisis, the Muslim secessionist movement, and the present political posturing relative to 2010 national election; and the executive branch seems to be not in a hurry passing the baseline bill. What will be the outcome if we fail to come up with the UNCLOS requirements? This is a quintillion dollars question of tomorrow. I hope our government officials will be ready to answer for the consequences of their late actions. And the future generation will be hurling the blame to their forebears’ incompetence, stupidity, and worthlessness.

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Living In the Climate Of Fear

Fear monger is still the best way to convince people. It is always associated with the man-made global warming alarmist to instil the scenario of doom to force their campaign for carbon trading and related industries. This is an ordinary sales strategy that creates human sense of duty before asking why.

 

And this is the trademark of professionals connected with James Hansen, Chief of Goddard Institute of Space Studies (NASA’s primary climate monitoring agency), specialising in the climate of fear and scare factor and responsible in predicting climate catastrophe. One of his Filipino disciple, NASA physicist Dr. Josefino Cosimo, is studying the effects of man-made global warming in the Philippines. He is working on a climate project that will be funded by the Philippine government. He has issued a warning in a conference of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical Astronomical Services Administration with Hansen’s standard that “sea levels could rise 23 feet and high ocean temperatures could deplete fish stocks and several species of plants and animals.” He further added that “the Philippines is among countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.” With this scenario of fear, He has caught the attention of Malacanang –the country’s main set of power- which, however, branded his warning as a “doomsday scenario” that will lead to the flooding of Manila City and destruction of aquatic resources.

 

Climate of fear was started by Hansen in 1970 and was given prominence in 1980 when he submitted a report “announcing that the planet was getting noticeably warmer and ‘for the first time the greenhouse effect made page one of the New York Times’.” This led further to the formation of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Villach, Austria, with the participation of then US vice president Al Gore, author of “The Inconvenient Truth.” With their partnership, they developed a well-planned man-made global warming by tuning climate temperature records, i.e. “hockey stick” suited to the conclusion that there indeed is man-made warming through carbon dioxide fossil fuel emission. The “hockey stick” graph was extensively used by IPCC in its sponsored global warming guidelines but was found erroneous by McIntyre-McKitrick in the examination of proxy data used in the temperature estimate from 1400 to 1980. They concluded that the said graph contains “four categories of error: collation errors, unjustified truncation and extrapolation, use of obsolete data, and calculation mistakes. Correcting for these error, they found that temperature for the early 15th century was actually higher than the 20th century.” And Hansen was dumb-muted with these findings.

 

Hansen even predicted that “signs of man-made climate change would not be detectable until around 2000.” But to date global cooling is instead being felt as manifested by the delayed solar cycle 24. The less activity of the sun, as no sunspot and solar flare are noticeable per NASA records, solar physicists are one in stating that everytime the sun is spotless, the colder the earth will experience.

 

With the same climate of fear warning the Filipino physicist is expounding , inspite of the fact that US, China, and India were neglecting, where will the third-world countries would be in their understanding of man-made global warming. Their failure to challenge the onslaught of a highly profitable carbon trading and the high price of switching to other renewable source of energy will dump them deeper into the quagmire of hunger and poverty.

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Global Warming Excuses Vandals

What if the court rules in favor of the wrong doers? What if the crime was done to stop the victim from preventing the sun to shine? And the criminal is freed after doing you harm. This is the verdict of the UK court that cleared the group of Greenpeace leftists of criminal damages they have inflicted to a power station. See more at Warming Sun Read more on this article...

Man-made Global Warming Concoction Being Refrigerated

The man-made global warming bridge leading to carbon trading is now going to nowhere. Sign of freezing and cooling are being exhibited and felt by this generation so glaringly that keen observer of climate change cannot deny but chilled with approbation. You do not have to show facts. It is actually what is being felt and undeniably being observed.

Global warming cycle, based from the observation of the World Meteorological Organization –which organized the first World Climate Conference in 1979 leading to the establishment of UN-IPCC- had already ended in the year 2000 and that “satellite data indicate that a period of global cooling may have begun in 2005” said Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. It was further revealed that the first half of 2008 was the coolest (http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/global_cooling/2008/09/08/128749.html) in the last five years which means since 2002. While geologist Don J. Easterbrook, a professor emeritus at Western Washington University, stated that the global warming that has taken place during the past 30 years is over. This only means that global warming is a natural cycle; that there is no crisis of natural calamity; and that humans need not have to fear of. (Pls. follow the complete post at Warming Sun, my new global warming site.) Read more on this article...

Sarah Failin' on Bristol Parenting

Proper growth and development are the fundamental requisites of family values. The upbringing of the child is defined by the method of childhood education learned from the family’s moral ethics. The acts exhibited in other place may be mirrored by the practices and behavioral activities at home. And the family aiming the Whitehouse seems to show they need more to be polished and be attuned to the standard to be looked upon as the American family model.

 

But such standard may not be met as Sarah herself, from the start, broke the tradition of marriage.

From her open book of life as a public servant, it appears she eloped with his boyfriend. The “caribou hunter” preferred to run away. She avoided the “reading of the banns” as the usual practice of marriage –the announcement made by the priest of the names of couple to be married in three Sundays’ Mass prior to the wedding ceremony- and instead marched through the clichéd ladder leading from her bedroom. They were married in a civil ceremony on August 29, 1988, and gave birth to a son named Track in April 1989. Did I say one month ahead from their civil marriage?

 

And here came their daughter Bristol, l7 year old, pregnant and unmarried. Sarah Barracuda announced on September 1, 2008, that her daughter Bristol was five months pregnant and intended to keep the baby and marry the father of her child. And here came to my mind the reader’s comment on blog Politico, something like …what if by chance one of Barack Obama’s daughters happened to be l7, unmarried and pregnant, displayed on the same stage with his boyfriend.. Would it be commendable of the kind of family values the Americans wanted it to be? But this is the family value the republicans are made to understand and they were all clapping their hands. No, it will be outrageous! But Sarah did this to preempt any rumor that may affect her VP campaign in the coming weeks.

 

There is another instant that made me focus on the republican convention at CNN channel. Did you notice what the young Piper, the 7 year-old daughter of “Hockey Mom”, did with her young brother Trig, the Down syndrome afflicted toddler? Right there in the stage of Republican National Convention while Sarah was delivering her acceptance speech, Piper tongued the whole length of her palm hand and pasted her juice to the hair of Trig! I fall on the bench laughing hysterically… and gasping for breath! (That video will earn the CNN camera men a precious fortune shot.)

 

With the upbringing of their children, would their practice of family values worth emulating?

 

But the admiration of Sarah Palin kept on pouring. The desperate McCain made her an instant political celebrity. She will continue to be the main attraction on the revitalized republican stage.

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I Too For Barack Obama

Barack Obama is the man to beat. With just a mention of his name, I cannot avoid to ask who he is and what make his name a music to my ears. The name itself suggests the change in the American political preferences. In the previous list of names for presidential nominees, a black sounding name is seldom included. And how Obama reach the level of prominence in the political arena only show that racial factor is no longer a hindrance to achieve top political stead.

 

An African-American being nominated in a major political party is an uncommon line in the political chapter of US history. Obama’s nomination displayed the political maturity of the American people. This is the place which was once an oasis of freedom and justice which only the whites enjoy the unrestricted mobility. The days of the fifties and sixties are over and the seeds sown by Martin Luther King, Georgia Powers, and Rosa Park are now bearing fruits and Obama is now harvesting. I believe Obama is destined to set foot in the Whitehouse to make the necessary “change” and fulfill the famous “I Have A Dream” obsession. Obama is the image of Martin Luther King who have come back “to cash his check” in a society where the blacks are issued a bouncing check before.

 

And dealing deeper to Obama’s political career, it seems he has the upperhand. The enthusiasm, not only the supporters and party aides are showing, are now reverberating throughout the world where US has influence. Many are inclined to listen in his speech not only to hear his views but to make observations and confirmations of what they heard about him. And as the campaign unwind the true quality and competency of the candidates; voters now have a clear view of whom to chose. People of America may have already learned and have allowed freedom to ring with the nomination of Obama. I too believe in the sincerity and the promise of democracy which America is proud of. Let me quote the words of Martin Luther King in his speech: “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.” And maybe now is the time America has to change, the new American facing the challenge of changing time.

 

Whatever John McCain of the Grand Old Party do –like the choice of his VP in the person of Sarah Palin, a neophyte Governor of Alaska- in his desperate attempt to sway American interest on his side and create a talking point in his vet processes including his hastiness that his followers admired, he cannot get media publicity that has been favorably accorded to Obama. Although McCain has his own brand of principles and philosophies consistent with what his supporters fashionably adhered to, Obama’s popularity kept on soaring on the bright days of national awakening. Obama is destined to be the change in the great hall. Whatever the outcome on November, he has already made his point. And I too will vote for Obama… but I’m a Filipino!

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