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Kini diay?

Quote from: hubag bohol on October 05, 2015, 01:13:02 PM
With this apparent eco-incompetence, it’s easy to wonder why China continues to crank out eco-cities. The answer is simple: They make money.

By: Anselmo Roque, Yolanda Sotelo
@inquirerdotnet
Inquirer Central Luzon, Inquirer Northern Luzon
12:24 AM October 5th, 2015


POLITICS has a way of dividing families, friends and supposedly close political allies.

In La Union, the 2016 national and local elections will pit an Ortega against an Ortega, with brothers and uncles running against each other for key offices in the province.

The Ortega clan has dominated La Union politics for more than a century.

For a seat in the House of Representatives, incumbent San Fernando City Mayor Pablo Ortega will fight his brother, Senior Board Member Francisco “Kit” Ortega Jr., and nephew, Board Member Emmanuel Victor “Mannix” Ortega, son of La Union Gov. Manuel Ortega, who is retiring from politics after his last term.

But former San Fernando Mayor Mary Jane Ortega, wife of incumbent La Union Rep. Victor Ortega, said she had yet to talk to her brother-in-law, Francisco Jr., to clarify his plans for 2016.

“Pablo has the support of Victor Ortega (brother of Pablo, Manuel and Francisco Jr.) and almost all of the barangay captains in the province,” said a source, who asked not to be identified.

Victor is serving his last term in the House and is planning to run for mayor of San Fernando City.

In the gubernatorial race, another brother, Mario Ortega, will slug it out with nephew Francisco Emmanuel Ortega III, another son of Governor Ortega.

Ortega III is ending his last term in the House as Abono party-list nominee. Mario serves as the governor’s executive secretary and is a former president of the Provincial Federation of the Association of Barangay Councils.

In the mayoral race in San Fernando, Victor Ortega may clash with brother Jose Maria “Pepe” Ortega, who lost the 2013 vice mayoral race.

In Pangasinan province, a husband and his wife will be running against a son and father in the gubernatorial and congressional races.

In part, eco-cities allow China to put off the social and political pressures resulting from pollution while keeping the wheels of urbanization spinning. Urbanization in China has become a runaway train, with real estate is responsible for 16 to 25 percent of the country’s total GDP. What’s more municipalities in China must fund 80 percent of their expenses while only receiving 40 percent of the country’s tax revenue, according to the World Bank. That deficit is in largely made up for by selling land to developers. Building new districts and cities is essential to the solvency of China’s municipalities.

China building new cities in the name of environmentalism is like Coca-Cola creating the Beverage Institute for Health & Wellness: It’s a marketing exercise that tries to spin something bad in a positive light. If China’s sole intention was to mitigate the environmental impact of its cities then it would introduce policies to make existing buildings more efficient â€" not build useless and wasteful faux-green projects.

The economics of eco-cities

With this apparent eco-incompetence, it’s easy to wonder why China continues to crank out eco-cities. The answer is simple: They make money.

“If a place has eco elements the price [of real estate] is bumped up,” Marco Zhou from Colliers, a global real estate services company, said.

China is trying to drive environmental consciousness by making it profitable. This is encouraged from the top-down by China’s central government, which is currently pumping massive amounts of subsidies into developments, buildings and technologies that carry the “green” label.

“Being an eco-city makes it easier to get funds from the central government,” said Daan Roggeveen, the founder of the Shanghai based MORE Architecture, “which is important, since many cities do not have the funds to improve their livability.”

Today, supporting eco-labeled development initiatives is a part of the criteria for promotion within the Communist Party. The impetus to ”build green” is greater than ever.

“If you have a big piece of land you can fill it up with apartments 100 percent, but if you fill it up with apartments 50 percent and then have the rest be green space they call it an eco-city. That is what an ecocity is in China is right now,” Joost van den Hoek, the director of urban planning at Urban Data said.

”It’s difficult everywhere, all over the world, to develop something like cities in a sustainable way,” said Fanny Hoffman-Loss, an architect who has worked on the Nanhui eco-city. “In many cases [eco-cities] just end up being some marketing thing. On the other hand, that’s how things start… it’s a step in the right direction.”

To date, not a single eco-city in China has been fully built and populated.

Austin Williams, a Jiaotong-Liverpool University architecture professor and expert on China’s eco-cities, put SSTEC to the test by comparing its ecological attributes with London. He found that 90 percent of London’s commuters traveled by non-car means â€" roughly the same amount that Tianjin aspires for. In terms of carbon emissions, London’s are currently one-third less than those projected for SSTEC. Since October 2011, all new domestic developments in London have a maximum water consumption rate of 120 liters per person per day, which is the same that the eco-city aims for in 10 years’ time. Even in green space â€" which China’s eco-cities cling to as a defining attribute â€" London trounces SSTEC with almost nine times more per person. “It would seem that London is actually way ahead in environmental terms of a purpose-made Chinese eco-city,” Williams concluded.

“[China’s eco-cities] have won a lot of awards, they’ve drawn attention, but the actual execution just isn’t there yet,” said Richard Brubaker, a professor of sustainability at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

It is precisely the labeling that is part of the problem. There is no established standard as to what qualifies a place as an eco-city: no seal of approval, no certification process. While China does have its “Three Star” Green Building Design Label rating system for individual buildings, its eco-cities remain less regulated. Worse yet, we’re forced to take what government officials, developers and urban designers claim to be “eco-friendly” at face value.

Broad Group’s Sky City One, intended to be the world’s first city-in-a-building and the tallest building on the planet, sent a shockwave through global architecture circles when it was announced. An extremely energy efficient building, Sky City One was supposed to house over 30,000 people, cutting down on the amount of land per person 100-fold and eliminating the need to drive. But after ceremoniously breaking ground in 2013, nothing was ever actually built.

At this time, the Sino-Singapore Tiangin Eco-city (SSTEC) is probably the best example of a functional eco-city in China. Built on reclaimed industrial land in the middle of a heavily industrialized swath of Tianjin, next to the site a massive chemical explosion this summer that sent fireballs shooting into the sky and killed over 100 people, parts of it were actually built and partially populated. Even so, this project has stagnated.

Even more disappointing: SSTEC may not be any more ecologically friendly than some of the world’s traditional urban centers.

Huangbaiyu, an eco-village in the north of China designed by Hollywood hobnobbing, green-design “guru” William McDonough, doesn’t pollute, doesn’t have any cars and doesn’t consume any resources. In fact, it doesn’t even have any people. It’s almost a moot point that this eco-village drastically compromised the innovative ecological elements of its original design, using shoddy materials: Nobody ever wanted to live there in the first place. It was a project designed by foreigners out of touch with the needs of locals. They built houses with garages for people who didn’t have cars, failed to provide space for gardens and livestock for peasants who depended on such, built a biogas energy plant running off of corn cobs and stalks needed to feed the village’s economically vital Cashmere goats and expected people who have a tradition of building their own homes to suddenly want to pay many times their yearly salary for housing. Huangbaiyu is currently empty and rotting â€" which is perhaps the most ecological thing it can do.

Many other eco-cities were over before they even started. Beijing’s Mentougou eco-valley was never actually built; the Finnish visionaries who designed it claimed that the money they invested mysteriously vanished in the black box of Chinese bureaucracy.

Dongtan, China’s original eco-city, was heralded as the future of urban life when it was first proposed in 2005. Instead, it ended up being “a masterpiece of greenwashing,” according to Paul French of Ethical Corporation, a corporate responsibility magazine. The original plan called for a new, energy-efficient city for 50,000 people on Shanghai’s last wetlands â€" a tinge of irony that was not lost on environmentalists and academics who spoke out against it at the time. In the end, no wetlands were hurt as the place was never built. This city of the future became a small array of face-saving conventional high-rises masquerading as “green” and a wind farm.

The ecological benefits of Nanhui, an eco-city with a unique circular street pattern built on land reclaimed from the sea roughly 35 miles outside of Shanghai, are also not evident. For purposes of self-aggrandizement and marketing, local government officials wanted the artificial lake at the city’s center to be larger than Hangzhou’s famous West Lake. So the original design was amended and its scale was expanded to accommodate the larger-sized lake. This, combined with massive green spaces obsessively inserted between the city’s various sections, led to a gargantuan, sprawling creation that virtually demands residents drive cars anywhere they go â€" directly counteracting the city’s low-carbon ambitions.

Quote from: islander on October 05, 2015, 12:17:45 PM
astronomers and analysts believe that china intends to change the celestial terrain of the kuiper belt, which the earthbound country has marked with a nine-dash line.

He he, naa ba puy TBlander nga gihinganlan og Vermicelli Habhabi Butiriki?

Yet China is a country that is plagued by its own urban creations, hamstrung by the miracle of its own success. In its all-out race to modernize and urbanize, entire swaths of the country have devolved into environmental wastelands. The air in nearly all of China’s cities is harmful to breathe, half the drinking water is below international standards, and 20 to 40 percent of the arable soil is contaminated with toxins. And today’s Chinese population is no longer willing to sacrifice its health for breakneck economic progress.

To these ends, China has embarked upon what amounts to an eco-city extravaganza. Upward of 200 new eco-cities are being built across the country. Typically, these new eco-cities are built from scratch as self-contained, independent urban entities that sit adjacent to larger, conventional urban cores.

But are these eco-cities really environmentally beneficial urban alternatives or just an excuse for urban-enamored China to build yet another city?

China’s track record with building eco-cities is spotty at best. Some end as failed construction projects. Others don’t live up to their eco-labeling after construction is completed. It has been estimated that only one in five of China’s eco-cities “actually match low-carbon or ecological ideals,” according to Li Xun, secretary of the Chinese Society for Urban Studies. Bianca Bosker, the author of Original Copies, a book about China’s Western copycat towns, calls eco-cities “the same sprawling McMansions under a different name.”

http://blogs.reuters.com/
By Wade Shepard
September 22, 2015



A model of the Dongtan Eco City is displayed in the developing centre in Dongtan, on Chong Ming Island southeast to Shanghai in this January 21, 2008 file photo. REUTERS/ Nir Elias/Files


The words ‘eco’ and ‘city’ combined together seems like an unabashed oxymoron. The term “ecological“ is the polar opposite of what we know our cities to be. Urban areas are environmental hazard zones: their concrete suffocates the soil, their power plants turn the skies insidious shades of gray, their sewer systems pump pollutants into waterways, their factories turn fertile land into unlivable fields, their traffic fills our lungs with particulate matter â€" how can such a place ever be ecological?

Enter eco-cities: new urban developments meant to mitigate the ecologically pernicious, unsustainable elements of the typical city. They run off of renewable energy, recycle their water and waste, engage in urban agriculture, have resource-efficient buildings and have extensive public transportation networks.

“We are having an ecological crisis, and what we do with our cities is going to be the answer,” said Anna-Karin Grönroos, the director of Ecopolis, a documentary about China’s eco-cities.

Grönroos’s statement perhaps strikes China more poignantly than anywhere else. This is a country that has urbanized faster and more extensively than any other country in history. Six hundred new cities have been created since the Communist Party came to power in 1949. By 2030, China is expected to have over a billion urban dwellers.

Niay pakapin...

Quote from: islander on October 04, 2015, 01:31:01 PM
not really. he's actually a filipino with a unique name because he has creative parents, dear.

Filipino? You mean Bol-anon, I suspect...

Quote from: islander on October 04, 2015, 06:34:08 PM
i was in the midst of it in the old days...

basta cebuano speaking, chances are moingon ang mga ilonggo nga mga ignorante ug bukidnon.  ang ilonggo speaking, mga hambogero para sa mga cebuano speaking.

time to bury the hatchet?

Asa ilubong? Sang likod hang hambogirit haw?

Anatoli Brouchkov or Sean Connery? Well, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

More at: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/727269/pulse-asia-binay-ratings-dive

Health benefits: An American company has developed a prototype that is only 35 per cent sugar and fat, by sweetening the unpalatable pure cacao - the key ingredient in chocolate (file photo)[/i]


Speaking at the World Chocolate Forum in London this week, Mr Aharonian described sugar as 'the next nicotine' and argued that if the unhealthy ingredients were removed from chocolate, it could and should be eaten medicinally.

He said: 'In America, the $100billion-a-year chocolate industry could become a $200billion-a-year health food industry, if only much of the sugar and fat could be removed.

We look forward to working with the chocolate industry to make chocolate the most fun medicine.'

World's first 'medicinal' chocolate: Scientists have developed a bar so healthy it could be taken as medicine


The key ingredient in chocolate, cacao, contains antioxidants and minerals

Health benefits are negated by chocolate bars' high fat and sugar content

Company created prototype bar which has just 35 per cent sugar and fat

It 'unleashes the medical benefits of cacao,' said developers Kuka Xoco


By SIAN BOYLE FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 21:51 GMT, 2 October 2015 | UPDATED: 12:19 GMT, 3 October 2015
     

For those of us who love nibbling on chocolate but feel guilty afterwards, this could be the news we've been waiting for.

Scientists claim they have developed a type that is so healthy it could be taken as medicine.
The key ingredient in chocolate, cacao, contains antioxidants and minerals, and can even help lower blood pressure while increasing 'good' cholesterol.

But these health benefits are outweighed by the fact most chocolate bars are at least 70 per cent fat and sugar.

Quote from: islander on October 04, 2015, 03:16:26 AM
it was a long journey, to begin with.  then suddenly, he discovered that his real name is macaroni kaoni busogi.

Hmm, half-Italian, half-Japanese?

Quote from: islander on October 04, 2015, 03:10:22 AM
with the way he looks, if he's right, then he just might be the eternal old man.  unless he discovers the secret of benjamin button as well.

Hmm, the way he looks, maybe he prefers it that way. Check his pic again. I think he imagines that he is the spitting image of good old Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez.

 

Kevin Ashton, cofounder and executive director of the Auto-ID Center at MIT, first mentioned the Internet of Things in a presentation he made to Procter & Gamble in 1999. Here’s how Ashton explains the potential of the Internet of Things:

“Today computers -- and, therefore, the Internet -- are almost wholly dependent on human beings for information. Nearly all of the roughly 50 petabytes (a petabyte is 1,024 terabytes) of data available on the Internet were first captured and created by human beings by typing, pressing a record button, taking a digital picture or scanning a bar code.

The problem is, people have limited time, attention and accuracy -- all of which means they are not very good at capturing data about things in the real world. If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things -- using data they gathered without any help from us -- we would be able to track and count everything and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling and whether they were fresh or past their best.”

Although the concept wasn't named until 1999, the Internet of Things has been in development for decades. The first Internet appliance, for example, was a Coke machine at Carnegie Melon University in the early 1980s. The programmers could connect to the machine over the Internet, check the status of the machine and determine whether or not there would be a cold drink awaiting them, should they decide to make the trip down to the machine. -- http://whatis.techtarget.com/

A thing, in the Internet of Things, can be a person with a heart monitor implant, a farm animal with a biochip transponder, an automobile that has built-in sensors to alert the driver when tire pressure is low -- or any other natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address and provided with the ability to transfer data over a network. So far, the Internet of Things has been most closely associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in manufacturing and power, oil and gas utilities. Products built with M2M communication capabilities are often referred to as being smart. (See: smart label, smart meter, smart grid sensor)

IPv6’s huge increase in address space is an important factor in the development of the Internet of Things. According to Steve Leibson, who identifies himself as “occasional docent at the Computer History Museum,” the address space expansion means that we could “assign an IPV6 address to every atom on the surface of the earth, and still have enough addresses left to do another 100+ earths.” In other words, humans could easily assign an IP address to every "thing" on the planet. An increase in the number of smart nodes, as well as the amount of upstream data the nodes generate, is expected to raise new concerns about data privacy, data sovereignty and security.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and the Internet.

Quote from: islander on October 03, 2015, 01:33:00 AM
hinoon, taas-taas ning nognoga...

Aw, lahi ni sa atoa, kay unanognog man to...

For these people's predilections, sick is the word. Naa pus silay pritong isda nga deep fried ang lawas unya ang ulo di iapil og tuslob sa mantika, i-serve nga magkipat-kipat pa ang mata...

In the interview on Wednesday, Mr. Sirisena was unwilling to commit himself to any particular judicial mechanism, saying he would keep an open mind and make sure it was in keeping with Sri Lanka’s Constitution.

Sri Lanka does not allow foreign lawyers to practice in its courts, an aide to the president said later, and it was not possible for the country to set up a new international court without amending the Constitution, which would be extremely difficult politically.

“The mechanism must be domestic,” Mr. Sirisena said. In a measure of the lingering distrust, Kasippilai Manoharan, the father of one of five students killed by security forces on a beach near the port of Trincomalee in 2006, said he was skeptical of any judicial process that was not truly international. “I trust the international community and the Human Rights Council, but I’ll never trust Sri Lankan courts,” he said in an interview.

The report described extrajudicial killings and disappearances, and gave accounts of torture and sexual violence. (Sri Lanka is not a party to the International Criminal Court.)

“I took over a country isolated by the international community,” Mr. Sirisena said, after a marathon set of speeches and meetings. “The main challenge I faced was to win over the international community. I believe these efforts have borne fruit.”

Asked for evidence, his ambassador to the United States, Prasad Kariyawasam, jumped in to say that the president had been offered a seat at the head table at lunch with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, along with Mr. Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Sirisena said his offer of assistance in peacekeeping efforts had been welcomed.

Mr. Sirisena promised to help with more soldiers, including special forces units and experts on clearing unexploded ordnance. It put the onus on the United Nations system to carefully vet those soldiers, and roles they might have played in Sri Lanka’s own war.

Mr. Sirisena’s challenges are significant, both politically and legally. He was elected in January, defeating the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapakse, with a promise to heal the wounds from the civil war.

On Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that Sri Lanka co-sponsored, signaling its desire to create a credible judicial process to try accused war criminals and involve foreign lawyers and judges in that process.

The resolution, adopted by consensus in Geneva, crucially left open the question of exactly what kind of court would be established, but it was enough to win plaudits from the United States and Britain. The president would not say how foreigners would participate. “This is something new to our government and to our people,” he said through an interpreter. “It’s a new experience.”

Mr. Sirisena, over tea at his hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon, said the court would be established after what he called careful consultations with religious leaders, politicians and military officials.

Setting up a war crimes tribunal, involving foreigners no less, is a highly delicate matter. It follows a report by the United Nations, which concluded that both sides had likely committed war crimes and that an independent judicial process involving foreign judges was needed, with the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, saying bluntly that Sri Lanka is “not currently equipped to conduct an independent and credible investigation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
OCT. 1, 2015


UNITED NATIONS â€" Nine months after he was elected to bridge bitter ethnic divisions at home, Sri Lanka’s president, Maithripala Sirisena, spent the better part of this week in New York trying to reassert his country’s place in the world.

On Monday, he offered five infantry battalions for United Nations peacekeeping missions, a gesture that was welcomed at a summit meeting chaired by President Obama. That was in sharp contrast to Sri Lanka’s offer of helicopters when its previous government was under scrutiny for failing to address accusations of atrocities and other human rights abuses during the long, bloody conflict between the Tamil ethnic group and the majority Sinhalese.

On Wednesday, in a speech to the General Assembly, Mr. Sirisena promised “a plan of action in Sri Lanka to advance human rights.”

Here are four reasons why you should dress up on a flight:

You may get an upgrade

These days, most flights are overbooked, but in the rare instance that they aren't, being better dressed than all the other schlubs will give you an edge.

When AirFareWatchdog.com founder George Hobica asked a gate agent directly whether they'd be more likely to upgrade someone who was dressed well, the answer was, "Yes, the better dressed you are, the more likely you are to nab that seat. I am not going to put someone wearing flip-flops up front with our best customers."

You'll save space in your suitcase

If you're bringing sweats and schlubby clothes that you don't plan on wearing again on your trip, you're wasting precious suitcase space.

Wearing heavier items like boots and a sweater is not only a space saver, but practical: You can plan other outfits around those items, and thus have more ensembles while packing fewer clothes.

You'll feel better about yourself

Besides never knowing who you might meet on a plane, you'll feel better about yourself once you land â€" ever landed in Europe wearing Crocs? You're also taking a step toward making flying a special occasion again â€" and you can't tell me that travel isn't a cause for celebration.

You'll make work more pleasant for the flight attendant

Planes are their workplace. No one wants to wait on someone in basketball shorts and dirty flip-flops.

Business Insider
By Sophie-Claire Hoeller
16 hours ago


These days, dressing up for a flight doesn't automatically mean you'll get an upgrade â€" too many loyalty programs, the frequency of overbooking â€" but that's no excuse for dressing like a college kid late for their Monday-morning class.

I get it, flights are long, seats are uncomfortable. You want to wear something flexible and not sit on jeans buttons for eight hours.

But there's a difference between looking sloppy and rocking leisurewear.

You can look put-together in less than 10 minutes if you just have your outfit planned and ready before an early-morning flight.

“Everything has been done to reach out to the hierarchy, but the responses of the hierarchy are just expulsions and intimidation tactics, which are hypocritical and can be expected more from gangs, and not from an actual church whose message is for peace, love and joy for your fellow human being,” Hernando added.[/quote]

Hypocritical indeed...

Quote from: hubag bohol on October 02, 2015, 12:06:23 PM
Anatoli Brouchkov reckons he has found the key to eternal life - but selfishly he isn’t going to let the rest of us try it out for ourselves.

The 58-year-old has injected himself with bacteria - and not any old bacteria either, this stuff is 3.5 BILLION years old.

“I think that is the way this science should develop.

“What is keeping that mechanism alive? And how can we use it for our own benefits?”

Thanks a lot - we were starting to plan our 500th birthday party as well.

Pics: Siberian Times

Already Brouchkov, head of the Geocryology Department at Moscow State, claims to be feeling fitter, healthier and stronger

He told the Siberian Times: “I started to work longer, I’ve never had a flu for the last two years.”

However, Brouchkov says while he is enjoying the benefits, it’s far too early for mere mortals like us to get a taste of forever.

He added: “It still needs the experiments. We have to work out how this bacteria prevents ageing.

http://news.yahoo.com/
17 hours ago





Most of us might pray that the key to living forever will be found in our lifetime and, well, it has - according to one Russian scientist.

Anatoli Brouchkov reckons he has found the key to eternal life - but selfishly he isn’t going to let the rest of us try it out for ourselves.

The 58-year-old has injected himself with bacteria - and not any old bacteria either, this stuff is 3.5 BILLION years old.

The ancient bacteria, Bacillus F, was found in the Sakha Republic, Siberia, and has already been tested on mice, fruit flies, plants and human blood cells.

Lawsuits being readied

“That is why the proper forum is the court, and we are about ready to launch a series of lawsuits both in the Philippines and here in the United States to make sure that the truth comes out.” San Pedro reiterated.

He added: “We do everything by the book. Everything that we in the Church of Christ does, we follow the law of God we also follow the law of the land. We are law-abiding citizens. This church is a church based on biblical principle. That is why we believe that we are the only church of Christ.”

San Pedro further claimed that they had numerous dialogues with the expelled members in the past and that their doors remained open for a dialogue.

As for the harassment of Ka Angel and Ka Loti claimed by their lawyer, Santos-Anegeles, San Pedro refused to comment.

“We have no comment at this moment because this the U.S. branch of the Church of Christ, and I have no information regarding that at all. I am informed of what is happening here in the U.S.A. as I am the attorney for the U.S.A. that is the information I received and I respect the wishes and desires of my client that we work on the cases here in the U.S.A,” emphasized San Pedro.

“We don’t have anything more to say other than that we are a church that is filled with love that we care and we want so much the people of the world to know that this is the church that cares,” San Pedro concluded.

Not a response to EDSA

The protesters were quick to clarify that the vigil was not their response to the big church demonstrations that jammed EDSA in Metro Manila recently, as they had no opinion on what happened there, they said.

“The INC media are getting our photographs, our videos, our voices, whatever they want to get in order to track who we are, the local congregations we are from. But the fact is when it comes to proclaiming the truth we are not scared. None of us are scared in proclaiming and showing everyone what they are doing to the members of the Church of Christ,” Cayabyab declared.

Speaking for the other side, Atty. Rommel San Pedro, minister of the gospel and lawyer for the INC U.S.A.’s main office, issued this statement:

“The Church of Christ is a Bible-based church. We spread all over the world based on our principles of love and caring for others. The people outside were former members of the church but have been expelled based on due process procedures of the Church of Christ. The Church of Christ respects the freedom of religion, also the freedom of speech and freedom of worship. Their activities have been patterned and timed to conflict with our own activities. We have reason to believe that a group or certain groups are working closely with others to try to interfere with our right to worship in peace. All we want in the Church of Christ is to worship our God Almighty is peace. We want our God Almighty be glorified. We want as many people as possible to be saved on the Day of Judgment.”

San Pedro also maintained that they were allowing the rally participants to speak in front of the church premises as part of freedom of speech, although he claimed that the protesters were libeling the Church of Christ by making inflammatory statements that have no basis in fact.

Church reform wanted

“What we are seeking is reformation (not revolution). We want the church to be cleansed. Those who are evil and corrupt, we want them removed from the church. Those who have led us astray and have taught us anything that is not in the Bible, we want them removed from the church,” Cayabyab disclosed.

Another vigil participant, Jonas Hernando, echoed Cayabyab’s sentiments about alleged corruption in the INC among church leaders and some ministers.

“We are regular members. We have opinions; we have concerns. And we want to have these concerns respected and answered in a way that is respectful to us and everyone involved,” Hernando declared.

“Everything has been done to reach out to the hierarchy, but the responses of the hierarchy are just expulsions and intimidation tactics, which are hypocritical and can be expected more from gangs, and not from an actual church whose message is for peace, love and joy for your fellow human being,” Hernando added.

In a September 23, Facebook post lawyer Trixie Cruz-Angeles, counsel for Angel and Doti Manalo, wrote that two of the siblings were not being provided with anything, “not food, not toiletries, nor other necessary items for living they must rely on the kindness of friends and family.”

The Cruz-Angeles post claimed that a petition for Injunction for Temporary Restraining Order was filed by Radel Cortez, a member of the Sanggunian (the church’s council of elders) asking, among other things, that Ka Angel and Ka Loti no longer be allowed to receive visitors or have any items delivered to them as the boxes delivered to the siblings may contain guns.

The post further stated that the remaining Manalo family members in the compound were slowly being hidden from the world, with walls raised around them and surveillance cameras trained on them night and day.

Cayabyab added that with the rally, they also wanted to raise awareness of the “evil and wrongdoings” happening inside their church.

The placards expressed appeals and questions, such as: “Stop corruption,” “Airbus $229M was this purchased by our offering??,” “Don’t be afraid brethren,” “Stop oppressions to Ka Erdy’s family!!(sic),” “Protect Ka Erdy’s family,” ”Restore their basic human rights, do not cut their food supply,” “What is wrong with change?,” “IRS, thank you for the surprise investigation,” “Stop harassing defenders, we seek reformation not revolution,” “Keep offering amounts voluntary, among others.”

Harassment alleged

Vigil participant Arvin Cayabyab said they wanted to tell the world that what they heard was being done to the family of Ka Erdy in the Philippines should stop.

“We heard that the Iglesia ni Kristo leadership is giving the family of ‘Ka Erdy,’ particularly Ka Angel and Ka Loti (Felix Nathaniel, Angel Manalo and Lolita Manalo Hemedes) a hard time by denying them any access to food and preventing any visitors from giving them their primary needs. That is against human rights. And what they are doing there in the Philippines is not right,” Cayabyab stressed.

By: June Nucum
@inquirerdotnet
INQUIRER.net U.S. Bureau
12:46 AM October 1st, 2015



U.S.-based members of Iglesia Ni Cristo hold protest vigil in front of the church’s U.S. headquarters in Burlingame, California. PHOTOS BY JUN NUCUM


BURLINGAME, California â€" Scores of Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) members in the United States staged a peaceful vigil in front of their church’s main U.S. office in Burlingame, California, Monday, September 27.

The vigil was held to protest alleged harassment by the current church leadership of followers and family members of the late former INC Executive Minister Eraño “Ka Erdy” Manalo. The late INC leader is the father of current church Executive Minister Eduardo Manalo.

Participants in the vigil carried placards, and some wore masks to hide their real identities as a camera videotaped their movements and statements to the media present.

Obama: Sigi na, tot-po, lamano ba, migo na ta!
Putin: Shaddap! Bigyan ta ka ron, maoy imo. Nognog!

Chris Matyszczyk
October 1, 2015


Many of Stephen Hawking's recent pronouncements have been slightly dire.

He worries about artificial intelligence. We evolve so slowly that it could simply stomp us out, he said last year.

But there are other threats. In an interview with Spain's El Pais, the world-renowned physicist said he feared aliens might destroy us. He said it might be worse that when Columbus turned up in the Americas.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach," Hawking told El Pais. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."

It's funny how math can make you paranoid. Even if it's entirely reasonable paranoia. The discovery of water on Mars is, for the non-mathematical at least, the first indication that something out there might be alive or might once have been alive.

For math-based humans, though, it's a race to see which threat will destroy our way of life first. Hawking worries that we're messing up our own planet so much that we're going to have to get out.

"I think the survival of the human race will depend on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe, because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth," he said.

The disaster could be environmental. It could be nuclear. It could come from another planet. We're really setting ourselves up for quite some nightmare.

Sa grade 1 pa si Erap, nakigkomparar siya sa iyang mga classmates kung kinsay mas dako og pikoy.  Iyang naobserbahan nga mas dako ra kaayo ang iyaha kay sa uban.  Pag-abot niya sa ilang balay, iyang gipangutana iyang amahan.


Erap: Pa, akong gikomparar akong pikoy sa akong mga classmates.  Mas dako kaayo akoa.  Kaliwat ba na nato nga dagko?

Amahan: Dili, Dong.  Mas dako jud ang imoha, kay 21 anyos na man ka!


Bwahaha!

Ni GUAM P. LOGROÃ'O


GERMAN national nga nagpakamatay pinaagi sa paghikot og habol sa liog ug baho na nga napalgan kagahapon sa alas 11:00 sa buntag sa Friendly Homes Subdivision, Barangay Bulacao, dakbayan sa Talisay.

Si Martin Hermann Buerk, 50, diborsyado, baho na nga napalgan sa kapulisan human ang mga silingan mipahibalo kay wala kini mogawas sa apartment.

Si SPO1 Yvonne Ylustrisimo sa Talisay City Police nagkanayon nga ang mga silingan mibutyag nga katapusang nakit-an si Buerk niadtong Dominggo.

Si Wilda Wapuran, 32, silingan, mibutyag sa kapulisan nga makadaghan na nga nisuway sa pagpakamatay kini tungod sa problema nga pinansiyal.


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Cebu Oktubre 01, 2015.

Superhuman indeed. Would you know, though, how to classify creatures who throw away fruits with their peels intact and instead eat the monkeys...

Oops. Please limit your WMD to dinnerware...

Maypa Botoy...

B =  14
O =  80
T = 405
O =  80
Y = 210

    789

Arang-arang, he he...

H =  10
U =  11
B =  14
A = 100
G =   3

    138

Ngek! Way ayo...

Hmm, over 600 gihapon...

What does all this borrowing show? That anthems are exempt from the laws of plagiarism? That people care so little about these songs they don't notice they're unoriginal?

Perhaps, but what I actually think it shows is just how difficult it is to be original. If you write an anthem today, you need to come up with a melody so simple it can be whistled in the street and bellowed at football matches - but one that's also dignified and stirring. The chances of doing that while composing something that's not reminiscent of an existing composition are remarkably slim.

In Bosnia, the song many would like to be the country's anthem instead of Dusan's is Jedna si Jedina (You Are the One and Only) - some Bosniaks even sing it over Dusan's anthem at sports events. Dino Merlin, one of the country's most popular musicians, wrote the song during the siege of Sarajevo. Only the words, though. The music he took straight from a folk song.

Many anthems, meanwhile, use folk tunes for their anthems. Samuel Cohen, who composed Israel's wrenching Hatikvah (The Hope) in 1888 said he took its melody from a traditional Romanian tune - although some claim he actually stole it from a piece by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. (Either way, the melody was first heard in 17th Century Italy.)

Similarly, South Korea and the Maldives once used the tune of Auld Lang Syne for their anthems. South Korea inherited it from Scottish missionaries. The poet behind the Maldives' anthem, for his part, chose the music after hearing it chiming out of an uncle's novelty clock.

Even the Star-Spangled Banner isn't original, sung to the tune of an old British drinking society song, To Anacreon in Heaven. When politicians were debating whether to adopt it as the country's official anthem, many objected, arguing that a unique American melody was needed - and definitely not one people used to get drunk to.

Eventually most of those countries decided it was important to have a melody of their own. But there is still one country outside the Commonwealth that stubbornly refuses to budge: Liechtenstein. If you go there, you can hear people happily sing Oben am Jungen Rhein (Over the young Rhine) without a moment's thought for the fact that a British person present could join in, with different words.
All Liechtensteiners know, of course, that they share Britain's tune, but they actually seem rather proud of it. "It's been so popular here, there's never been an idea to change it," the country's ruling prince, Hans-Adam II, told me. "And we're in good company with the UK. Great company I would say."

In a similar vein, Estonia and Finland share the same melody for their anthem - which meant Estonians could still hear their anthem under Soviet rule by tuning into Finnish radio stations. The tune, written by German composer Fredrik Pacius, is said by some to be based on a German drinking song.

The rambunctious introduction to Argentina's anthem has also been accused of similarities to a piece by Clementi, while Enoch Sontonga, the man behind South Africa's graceful Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, is often said to have taken his melody from Aberystwyth, by the the Welsh composer Joseph Parry - although both of those examples seem rather far-fetched.

It could actually be said that there is a tradition of borrowing, when it comes to national anthems. The first anthem, as we'd recognise the concept today, was Britain's God Save the King. It was a traditional song revived in 1745 during Bonnie Prince Charlie's invasion to restore the Stuart throne. It didn't take long for the invasion to be defeated, but God Save the King kept being sung for decades afterwards to the point that other monarchs started thinking they needed an anthem like it. Soon its melody was in use in Denmark, most of the German states, Russia too. It even ended up as an anthem for the Kingdom of Hawaii. People simply took the music and put different words over on top.

Strangely enough, Dusan's is far from the only anthem tainted by accusations of plagiarism. Take Uruguay's - written in 1846 by Francisco Jose Debali. It's one of the most exciting anthems there is - more like a mini-opera than anything else - but its main theme is exactly the same as a fragment of Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia Borgia.

There is evidence Debali could have heard the opera a few years before putting ink to paper - parts of it were performed in Montevideo in 1841, and he may even have heard it in Italy before moving to the country.

The anthem and the opera share a run of nine exact notes. But Debali supporters point out it is only nine notes and they occur a quarter of the way through a two-hour opera. Perhaps it's just coincidence.

The issue wasn't raised in Debali's lifetime, so he never had to face the accusations Dusan has had to put up with.

Ten years later, he won a second competition for words to the anthem, but ethnically motivated politicians refused to approve them. He's still owed 15,000 euros (£11,000) for that effort.

Then in 2009, as if that wasn't enough, someone made a discovery. It turned out that Dusan's anthem was remarkably similar to the music that opens National Lampoon's Animal House - the 1978 film about a debauched university fraternity.

Immediately some called for Dusan's anthem to be dropped and he was accused of plagiarism. A newspaper even apparently tracked down the Animal House composer's family and tried to get them to sue. Dusan had to go on TV to defend himself.

"I was hurt by the headlines," he told me earlier this year in the largely Serb city of Banja Luka.
"I didn't know the name of the movie, but I listened to it and I was really, really surprised. I thought about it, and perhaps as a young man, I'd seen the movie or heard the song and it stuck in my brain somehow, this musical code. It's definitely possible - but I cannot say this is plagiarism."

He pointed out some differences between the two melodies. "Not everyone in this country is a thief or corrupt," he added. "If I was, I would be a politician and be doing far better in life."

26 August 2015


Dusan Sestic is arguably the world's unluckiest composer. Back in 1998, he found himself short of money so decided to enter the contest for a new Bosnian national anthem, one meant to help heal the country's bitter ethnic divides following its civil war. He didn't really want to win - he was more nostalgic for Yugoslavia than patriotic for the new country - so entered a gently stirring song that he felt good enough to come second or third, pocket some prize money and move on.

But he won, and his life changed dramatically overnight.

Fellow Serbs, some of whom opposed the very existence of Bosnia, started labelling him a traitor. Many Bosniaks and Croats were equally annoyed that an ethnic Serb had written the tune that would symbolise their country. He struggled to get work.

Quote from: islander on September 30, 2015, 05:11:53 PM
dako-ako gyod tingali ang damage kun bandehado pa.

Sadista. Aw, unsa kaha kon parehas pud kadak-a sa bandehado ang nawong...

Eating the peel is what separates us from monkeys...

Last year, the Internal Revenue Service added an incentive to consider longevity annuities: Money that goes into those contracts is not counted when the government calculates the minimum required distribution of your retirement savings.

Whatever you do, it's wise to start considering these questions sooner rather than later. Advice on saving for retirement is a lot more abundant than advice on how to draw down the money you salt away.

The good news, said Ward, is that that is starting to change. For financial experts, "I think its going to become much more the focus as the baby boomers start to retire in greater numbers," she said.

Even if you don't develop a full plan, thinking about the income you will have in retirement can encourage you to focus harder on saving.

"[People] begin not thinking about the nest egg, but they begin thinking about the income that can be produced from that nest egg," Keady said. "All of a sudden, people realize, 'Wait a second, I actually have to replace a paycheck.' "

Another approach is to consider annuitizing some retirement savings. Annuities have gotten a bad rap at times for high fees and opaque terms, but as Americans live longer, more experts are pointing to them as tools to help your money last.

"An annuity is really like an additional pension for some people," said Keady, adding that it "adds some stability to where you are getting your income."

In addition to providing more stable income, annuities help offset the risk that investors will outlive their assets. And having an annuity that throws off income reduces the chance that retirees will have to draw on invested savings at a time when the market is weak.

"Most people don't want to be paying for basic, necessary expenses out of something that gyrates up and down," Keady said.

One annuity option to consider is longevity annuities, which start paying out at some date in the future, like when an investor turns 80. The investor spends less for the annuity because of the delay, but receives protection against outliving savings.

Some investment pros say the 4 percent rule, first broadly proposed by William Bengen, a former financial advisor, in 1994, can still apply, but differently.

"We talk about the 4 percent guideline as a starting point," said Judith Ward, a senior financial planner with T. Rowe Price.

Take longevity, for example. At T. Rowe Price, financial planners recommend that people planning for retirement assume that their money will have to last for 30 years, said Ward. Clearly, if retirement assets remain flat, a 4 percent drawdown will not last that long.

That's why Ward and others recommend that retirees use a 4 percent withdrawal rate as a loose target, but then adjust their drawdowns depending on market conditions. When markets are in a downturn, "great, tighten the belt," Ward said. Conversely, a strong market can enable retirees to draw down a bit more, since they will still be leaving plenty of savings in the portfolio.

"People need to every year come back and look what's going on," Ward said.

Then there is the changing nature of retirement saving itself. Many people retiring now are able to count on pension and Social Security payments for the bulk of their retirement income, with investment income the icing on the cake. An AARP Public Policy Institute analysis of Census Bureau data found that in 2012, median income from Social Security for those receiving it was $13,972, and median income from pensions and retirement savings was $12,000. For these people, drawdown decisions matter, but represent just a portion of retirement income.

But as more and more people retire without defined benefit plans, their own savings, often in 401(k) accounts, will be increasingly important â€" and investors' choices about how to use them will be more complex.

"You need to have the safety in terms of predictable income, and you need to have part of your portfolio in risk assets. You could be looking at 30 years" of retirement, said Dan Keady, senior director of financial planning at TIAA-CREF.

Kelley Holland   | @KKelleyHolland
57 Mins Ago
CNBC.com


Saving for retirement is challenging, no doubt. But if you want to know what's really tricky, consider spending that money in retirement.

Retirees in the past often relied on a simple rule for retirement income: Draw down 4 percent of your savings every year and you will be all set. But the retirement landscape has changed.

For one thing, people are living longer, and their money has to last all that time. One in four people who are 65 years old today will live to age 90, and one in 10 will live to 95.

Low interest rates also complicate the picture for savers. A one-year certificate of deposit came with a yield of just 0.28 percent, on average, through most of September, according to Bankrate. That's hardly enough to generate much retirement income.

I = 200
S = 113
L = 100
A = 100
N = 450
D =  28
E = 145
R = 400

   1536

Cool...

Quote from: islander on April 16, 2015, 05:42:37 PM
hinaot wa ni sa visayas ug mindanao.  tua unta ni sa laing dapit, sama sa marshall islands o papua new guinea ba kaha.

Kini, asa kaha ni...

Trementina, New Mexico. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

Afghanistan. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

San Al Hajr Qabliyah, Egypt. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

Algeria. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

Los Olivos, California. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

Algeria. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

Paramonga, Peru. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

Quote from: hubag bohol on September 26, 2015, 09:32:22 AM
Apan sa iyang paggawas, giingnan siya ni alyas Albert, "Ay, Madam, mas guwapa pa akong iro sa imoha," butang nga gikahiubos sa reklamante.

Hmm, unsa kahay breed sa iro ni alyas Albert...

Tsk, tsk, tsk, maayo untag platito ra...

Palmyra, Syria. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)

Minaret of Jam, Afghanistan. (DigitalGlobe/Caters News)