Aung San Suu Kyi and the oppressed people of Burma with our peace-loving monks, you are in my thoughts.
http://www.cfob.org/
http://www.altsean.org/
http://www.uscampaignforburma.org
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/
Don't travel to Burma,
don't buy anything made in Burma
unless Aung San Suu Kyi is free.
While most of us are in process of completely comprehending what's happening in Burma, I am sure most of you (like me) are asking what can I do to help? There are so much listed we can do from the sites above but for starters we can do this one immediately:
Ako ang nagtanim, ang nagbayo at nagsaing, saka nang maluto'y iba ang kumain.
We went to our first pahiyas, a festival to honor bountiful harvest by the people of Lucban, Quezon every May 15. Almost every house in this old spanish town was decorated with grain, palm leaves, coconut, rice wafer they call kiping, various agricultural products I can't name yet, and fruits & veggies mentioned from the bahay kubo folk song.
Alright, lets sing it: o/ Bahay-kubo kahit munti ang halaman doon ay sari-sari, singkamas at talong, sigarilyas at mani, sitaw, bataw, patani, kundol, patola, upo't kalabasa at saka mayroon pa labanos, mustasa, sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya, sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga. o/
What is a trip to Quezon without hand-made goods, broas, apas, pancit hab-hab & longganissa burps?
I also witnessed for the first time a Filipino game I used to read about in Pilipino books. Check out this boy's grip climbing the bamboo pole to retrieve a prize up top. Palacebo!. Palosebo! 
Lucban is situated by Mt. Banahaw, one can literally see the 8,380 feet above see level mountain from the town.The weather here is nice and cool and every once in a while you'll feel very light drizzle of rain. The old folks says this mountain has mystical powers. There are many stories of apparitions, heavenly voices, strange sounds, dwarves, fairies and even UFO’s! Cool.
People living in the foot of the mountain speaks of apparitions of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary and even Dr. Jose P. Rizal and other national heroes. Hence, a grotto of healing and a park to honor Dr. Jose Rizal. The picture on the far right below is the church of St. Louis Of Toluse. The church that was destroyed and built 3x back in the Spanish days.
The trip was topped off by the beautiful sunset over Laguna de bay.
The youth of this blood are not heard as much as we think unless they sing and dance for entertainment or play piano by parents' demands. From the beginning, we were taught to respect our elders and in the name of obedience the youth are obliged to follow. This is one aspect of the Filipino family value I have kept for as long as I can until learning the lessons from experiences I've had with various "elders" both Filipinos and of other nationalities alike that people must earn that respect by example.
Growing up, I noticed how elders themselves create conflicts. They teach one positive value but they themselves break it. They promise, and its not because they cannot keep it - they simply don't keep it. They lie to protect, so they say, but they take actions out of fear and find themselves defeated in the end. Don't they realize that you cannot fight fear? You can only overcome it. They throw their dirt and trash (literally and metaphorically) and fail to realize it until 'flood' and 'landslide' comes. Don't they realize that the decisions they make now, the actions they take to earn power by money, glory by ego and the lack of proper action and care affects their own wrinkly future? including the future of their very own children. Don't they realize that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons has its way of backfiring? It's a never-ending cycle and only a few has the energy, courage and small voice who still has the drive to break it.
Its such a relief to discover hints of hope. I stumbled across a non-profit website which serves as an online voter’s guide for the upcoming election on May 14. The site contains candidate profiles and platforms, political commentary, updated election-related news items, primers on national issues, and other relevant information, which aims to encourage healthier voting habits.
It's a site run and maintained by a group of 18 to 25 year olds to promote educated voting. “Most of the time, we rely on general impressions of our candidate, formed from sound bytes, catchy slogans and jingles in deciding who to vote for,” - Gino, 22, iVote.ph team “Since an election is a mechanism to ensure the continuance of our democracy, the youth has a responsibility to ensure its protection and maintenance,” - Jerwin, 21, iVote.ph team
What was initially a simple idea between concerned friends slowly germinated into a massive effort to promote educated voting among Filipinos. I find this amazing and their drive has definitely earned my respect. Kudos to the iVote.ph team!
I want to focus on nothing more than what this father wishes the world to remember:
Virginia Tech grieving parent, Peter Read said,
I want to issue a direct personal plea, to all the major media. For the love of God and our children, stop broadcasting those images and those words. Choose to focus on life and the love and the light that our children brought into the world and not on the darkness and the madness and the death
There is always another way to failure.
Bloodshed is not one of them.
'Mental health professionals complain their hands are tied in two ways when they try to help people like Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui — a lack of funding for mental health services in general, and laws that makes it tough to treat people against their will'.
'If you support any moderate gun control policy you're an enemy of freedom. That just dumbs down what really needs to be a serious and thoughtful debate' –Ladd Everitt, director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group. You hear Bush talk about school violence but you will not hear him mention 'guns'.
Tough scenarios asking for a noisy debate.
mary karen read, waleed mohammed shaalan, partahi mamora halomoan lumbantoruan, erin peterson, liviu librescu, leslie sherman, reema joseph samaha, ryan christopher 'stack' clark, caitlin millar hammaren, ross abdallah alameddine, christopher james bishop, brian roy bluhm, austin michelle cloyd, jocelyne couture-nowak, daniel alejandro perez cueva, kevin granata, matthew gregory gwaltney, jeremy michael herbstritt, rachael elizabeth hill, emily jane hilscher, jarrett lee lane, matthew joseph la porte, henry j. lee, g.v. loganathan, lauren ashley mccain, daniel patrick o'neil, juan ramon ortiz, minal hiralal panchal, michael steven pohle jr., julia kathleen pryde, leslie geraldine sherman, maxine shelly turner, nicole regina white
C.S. Lewis wrote that "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man….It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest." Lets follow that with Fulton John Sheen's "Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals."
There will be no such thing as contentment without the constant feeling of or demand for respect.
So why do we do it? Because we were told whether be as a child or a growing adult to "believe in yourself." Who would've thought that such positive remark may result to excessive arrogance. This thin line between righteousness and self-righteousness causes the ultimate harm to others. It also drowns us with fear and anger. It forces us to spit quick judgements and form thoughtless preconceptions. It is the mask of our own fault.
Shame follows the pride chicken.
Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice.
Baruch you rock.
Pictures speak louder than words.
45 mins beach walk, 4 hours hike up from jump off point, 1.5 hours descend down.
Nature trips has always been a humbling and self-challenging experience 
More photos from hiking trips this year so far –> Check out Brian's photos.
It isn't your position that makes you happy or unhappy, it is your disposition.
It's not just talent that gets you to the top, but commitment to a goal that produces results.
A failure isn't truly a failure until you quit trying.
The grass may be greener on the other side, but you still have to mow the grass
Zero crime rate in Metro Manila when Pacquiao fights
Manny's speed was unbelievable. Look at what dedication and controlled passion can do. The fight was a demolition job:
“I must win,” stated Pacquiao “Our fight is bigger than the two of us because we carry more into the ring than most other fighters. We carry the heart and soul of our people, and the pride and honor of our nations. The pressure on us is enormous which is why I will be on the attack the second I hear the bell for round one. But there can only be one winner and that winner must be me and it will be me.”
Photo courtesy of Chris Farina of braggingrightscorner.com
And boy, was trainer Roach right…his calculated statement 8 days prior to the Las Vegas fight:
“Velocity, Velocity. Velocity. That’s all I hear when Morales and his team talk,” said Roach. “All I know is this, Velocity cannot go in the ring with Morales when he faces Manny on November 18. Erik is an old school fighter. What could Velocity possibly teach him that he didn’t already know?” There are only two questions in this fight. ‘Does Morales have one more fight left in him? and What’s he got left?’ I know he has guts and I know he is going to go all out. I just don’t think that will be enough to keep Manny off of him. Manny is now a true 130-pounder. Manny is still developing…evolving…and improving. As dominant as he was in the second fight, he will be twice as dangerous this fight. Morales has no idea what’s in store for him next week. Manny Pacquiao is boxing’s new No.1 pound-for-pound fighter.”
What a way to unite a troubled nation!
Plugs and wires could soon become a thing of the past
Can you imagine? No more spaghetti wires! Question now is if this new promise has health effects to humans.
Physics promises wireless power.
US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players wirelessly.
The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
Although the team had not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it would work.
"There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years," said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.
"And because we're physicists we asked, 'what kind of physical phenomenon can we use to do this wireless energy transfer?'."
Energy trap
The answer the team came up with was "resonance", a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied.
"When you have two resonant objects of the same frequency they tend to couple very strongly," Professor Soljacic told the BBC News website.
Resonance can be seen in musical instruments for example.
"When you play a tune on one, then another instrument with the same acoustic resonance will pick up that tune, it will visibly vibrate," he said.
Instead of using acoustic vibrations, the team's system exploits the resonance of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic radiation includes radio waves, infrared and x-rays.
Typically, systems that use electromagnetic radiation, such as radio antennas, are not suitable for the efficient transfer of energy because they scatter energy in all directions, wasting large amounts of it into free space.
To overcome this problem, the team investigated a special class of "non-radiative" objects with so-called "long-lived resonances".
When energy is applied to these objects it remains bound to them, rather than escaping to space. "Tails" of energy, which can be many metres long, flicker over the surface.
"If you bring another resonant object with the same frequency close enough to these tails then it turns out that the energy can tunnel from one object to another," said Professor Soljacic.
Hence, a simple copper antenna designed to have long-lived resonance could transfer energy to a laptop with its own antenna resonating at the same frequency. The computer would be truly wireless.
Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed.
The systems that the team have described would be able to transfer energy over three to five metres.
"This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory," he said.
"You could also scale it down to the microscopic or nanoscopic world."
Old technology
The team from MIT is not the first group to suggest wireless energy transfer.
Nineteenth-century physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla experimented with long-range wireless energy transfer, but his most ambitious attempt - the 29m high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower, in New York - failed when he ran out of money.
Others have worked on highly directional mechanisms of energy transfer such as lasers.
However, these require an uninterrupted line of sight, and are therefore not good for powering objects around the home.
A UK company called Splashpower has also designed wireless recharging pads onto which gadget lovers can directly place their phones and MP3 players to recharge them.
The pads use electromagnetic induction to charge devices, the same process used to charge electric toothbrushes.
One of the co-founders of Splashpower, James Hay, said the MIT work was "clearly at an early stage" but "interesting for the future"
"Consumers desire a simple universal solution that frees them from the hassles of plug-in chargers and adaptors," he said.
"Wireless power technology has the potential to deliver on all of these needs."
However, Mr Hay said that transferring the power was only part of the solution.
"There are a number of other aspects that need to be addressed to ensure efficient conversion of power to a form useful to input to devices."
Professor Soljacic will present the work at the American Institute of Physics Industrial Physics Forum in San Francisco on 14 November.
The work was done in collaboration with his colleagues Aristeidis Karalis and John Joannopoulos.
Thanks to Jonathan Fildes, a Science and technology reporter of BBC News
Flickr spawns online Filipino communities
By Erwin Oliva
INQ7.net
Last updated 10:50pm (Mla time) 11/09/2006
MEET Stitch, Jolengs, Akumach, Dirth, Bingbing, and Dboy. No, they're not hackers. They're part of a growing online community of "Flickr addicts."
Flickr is now a popular online photo hosting service cum social networking service. It allows people from anywhere in the world to share photos and eventually connect with individuals who share their interests, not necessarily about photography.
Two years ago, some Filipino digital photography hobbyists decided to create the Flickr Philippines group, which has grown to 1,000 registered members, according to Jimmy Hilario, founding member who is known as "Stitch."
Hilario said that for two years, the group, composed mainly of hobbyists, has been meeting regularly to exchange photography notes, organizing road trips, and conducting photo exhibits for its members. Next year, it will hold its second month-long exhibit in a mall in Greenhills in San Juan, Metro Manila.
Their members are not only residents of the Philippines. They have Filipino members in Vietnam, Thailand, and Japan, he added.
The group was started by a Filipino called "Konsumisyon" who is based in the United States.
"When I set this group up some months ago I was envisioning photos of the Philippines and its culture as a subject. And as I look at the photo pool, I am happy with the variety of subjects ranging from the light-hearted, to the nostalgic, to the serious. They all tell of the Filipino experience," Konsumisyon added in a posting on the group's message board in February 2005.
Indeed, Hilario said Flickr helps them share and learn from others about photography.
"It is a photo sharing website, where you can also share techniques," he added.
In fact, one of their members, known as Farl, has consistently been rated as one of the top contributors in Flickr worldwide, journalist and Flickr Philippines member Bing Ramos intimated.
Another member, Stan, was commissioned for his photos on Philippine Catholic churches, Ramos added.
Flickr Philippines group is not the only Philippine-based group created in Flickr. There are more than 1,000 groups about the Philippines, according to a quick search on the online photo sharing website. The top-ranking are Flickr Philippines, Likas Pilipinas, "Only in the Philippines!," WoW Philippines, Philippines Pearl of the Orient, Philippines Images, Philippines Flickr Meet, among others.
Hilario added there are more sub-groups within these major Flickr groups. He is a member of a subgroup called LomoManila, which is composed of Filipino hobbyists going back to film photography and using an old camera produced by Austrian company Lomographische AG.
In the age of digital photography, some people are going back to the basics, using film as their medium. Still, they use Flickr to share products of their creativity and passion, he added.
"Flickr allows Filipinos abroad to keep their sanity," Third Gonzales or "Dirthman" said. Dirthman who works for an advertising agency declares he's an example of hobbyists who really do not know much about the technical aspects of photography. Yet, he loves to share his photographs online.
Flickr Philippines group has over 25,000 photo contributions from its members. These photos represent varying interests covering fashion photography, nature, landscapes, city life, women, food, people and animals, among others.
The group has an 11-year-old member, but the oldest members are in their forties, added Hilario. Members are usually in their 20s or 30s.
"This goes to show that the online community in the Philippines is strong. But since not everyone in the country knows the Web or Flickr, we're going to hold an exhibit to allow us to share our photographs to other people," he said.
Ludicorp, Canada-based company developed Flickr in 2002. It was launched in February 2004. The online photo sharing service was an offshoot of tools originally developed by Ludicorp's Game Neverending, a web-based massively multiplayer online game. Game Neverending was eventually shelved. In March 2005, Yahoo! acquired Flickr.
Big Belly fix according to military.com:
Workout #1:
Repeat 3-5 times
Walk, run or bike 5:00
Squats - 20
Pushups - 10-20
Situps or Crunches - 20Workout #2:
Swim 20-30 mins non-stop
Elliptical Glide 20-30 mins
WARNING: If parts of the equation involves a horny male and a female who ended up with a big belly, do not mistake it with the equation above and do not attempt to fix it with the belly-fix solution above! We don't fix that, we simply deal with it with some real lovin'
RACISM is to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA as
BRIBERY is to the REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
Slavery -> Racism's root = Hatred
Colonialism -> Bribery's root = Greed
Considering greed is the root of all evil and hatred the cause of destruction, which is worse than the other?
Ironically, it is being UNITED that can clean up and build after destruction
and it is the rePUBLIC that can overcome its own evils. Will it happen?
A dose of camaraderie in court.
Motion shots optimized 71.84k jpeg 26 sec @ 28kbps
Batch optimization would be great right about now.
More b-ball pictures for the year. Click here.
When the best and the brightest come together, the possibilities are endless.
Making the simple complicated is commonplace, making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
Did you know?
A survey of a global property adviser DTZ found that office space located in the Ortigas Center business district is the least expensive in the world. The survey puts Ortigas at about US$710 per workstation per year while the most expensive is London's West End which stands at US$18,740 per workstation per year.
Shout out to Claren for the template!
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Shooting star's secret keeper
Nice Blog. 
. sharing upcoming movie DAM 999.
Just Dropping By. Keep it up blogger. Just Sharing my Latest Movies Online Blog.
hello just dropping bye.. wanna link ex?
howdy mate!
Just dropping by. Cool images.
hi myleen, got ur msg…you can access first class here - mail.emc.com.ph/login =)
hi myleen, how are you? support got notified sa post mo today, just wanna say hi =)
Updated message board, cool.
they’re in spi.i.ph but can’t access ‘em 
ba’t walang laman?
hehe
wow ang daming laman ng blog.
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