British novelist Martin Amis on literature as a “war against cliches:”

“Whenever you write, ‘The heat is stifling,’ or ‘She rummaged in her handbag,’ this is dead freight. People who use these moldering novelties like ‘Seen it, done it,’ ‘Got the T-shirt,’ ‘He went ballistic,’ ‘I don’t think so,’ ‘Hello!’–these are dead words. They’re heard words.”

Read complete post here.

Many history books state that martial law was declared by Ferdinand Marcos on 21 September 1972, the date that appears on Proclamation 1081. Those who lived through those times (not me!) will say, however, that the anniversary of martial law falls on September 22, if they were arrested on that day; or September 23, the day when Marcos appeared on TV to announce the imposition of martial law. More…

Some groups and individuals abroad are claiming that Romulo Kintanar was killed by an arresting team of the New People’s Army (NPA) of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for no reason other than leaving the CPP and dissenting against it. They completely obscure the fact that Kintanar had become an intelligence agent and combat asset of the Manila government and had resisted his arrest with force.

Read More 

A “rewards program” fiasco is brewing!  Globe gives free load, then revokes it.

Read more… 

I’m back to being a kid again!

A few weeks ago I bought the GAT-X252 on a whim. Nina and I were at the Podium. We were supposed to go to THE SPA. See, one of my bestest friends gave us two gift certificates for Executive massages for our wedding (nope, the wedding post is still being completed, so no article yet). Unfortunately, due to some complications, we weren’t able to avail of it, so we settled for a snack at Lord Stow’s instead. While, Nina was munching on her Chicken Supreme sandwich, I lazily browsed through the toys on display at the Toy Kingdom. Only one thing caught my eye: The GAT-X252 kit priced at only 400 pesos. Normally, I’d stray away from these types of hobbies. Not only are they expensive, but they also take up time, effort and patience. Seeing as I couldn’t resist the urge to spend on something that I can see everyday, I hastily purchased the kit. read more…

Please join the survey on Filipino Bloggers (this is the last one, promise!)

My daughter, Marielle and her groupmates are a group of Psychology undergraduate students from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. For their final study in Psychology 118 class (Field Methods in Psychology), they would like to explore the blogging phenomenon in the Philippines. To that end, they are asking your help to fill out this survey that will help them understand what motivates you to blog, how blogging has helped you and how much of yourself is present in your blogs.

They need 250 bloggers for this survey.

Qualifications:
1. Must be a Filipino by blood or citizenship
2. Must be residing in the Philippines
3. Must own and maintain a personal blog

They would like to assure you that they will respect your privacy, and will render all results anonymous. All blog URLs will be deleted after this study is completed. At the end of the survey, you have the option of receiving the survey results.

If you have any questions about this survey, please email them at: sikolohiya118@gmail.com

Once again, please join the survey on Filipino Bloggers.

Thanks for your help!

Just when things were beginning to get really exciting, Gloria Arroyo backtracks and suspends the national broadband network deal with ZTE.

Even the most extreme of morons can see through this diversionary tactic and last-ditch attempt at damage control. By suspending the deal at the last minute, Arroyo and her co-conspirators probably hope to let rising public furor subside, divert attention away from testimonies indicating her and her husband’s direct involvement in the deal, or even perhaps buy time to elbow those involved into a face-saving compromise.

Scrapping the ZTE contract is the best proof of sincerity in exercising “executive privilege”. Unless Arroyo cancels the NBN ZTE deal outright, spelled out in plain black-and-white, there should be not let-up in the public investigations and protests. The people, Senate, Supreme Court and media should not let their guard down, not at this point. Not when watching live Senate hearings has become this gripping! More here.

A hacker decides to bring some cheer to American troops the only way he can.

Read more…

The suspension of the national broadband network deal with ZTE proves that something is terribly wrong with it. Suspending it, however, will not actually solve the problem.

Congress and the Supreme Court should all the more probe the anomalous deal.

The bribe money for the transaction was quoted as high as $180 million. I suspect part of this went to the administration’s election kitty last May.

Hence, I propose that legislators pursue the investigation including this angle

Please continue here.

My name is Cyberpunk. And I’m a Google Readeraholic.

I am subscribed to 150 sites. And that is after unsubscribing from a lot of other sites. So usually I have 400+ unread items every day. Many of the sites I subscribe to don’t even update much (some rarely update at all) but a lot of the other sites spew out a lot of posts per day.

read the whole post

This is a guide I wrote explaining Skins 2.0, the new Skinning version of b2evolution v2.0, a multi-blog management system used by many top corporations and organizations like the World-Wide Web Consortium or W3C.

Click here to read…

Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Faster, Higher, Stronger).
-Olympic Motto

There is a growing online movement to support Marco Torres in his goal of being chosen as one of eight expatriates (aka OFW-Overseas Foreign Workers) in China who will carry the torch for the Olympic torch relay. I think that with the growing number of bloggers and internet users in the Philippines, we can all help make this happen. Click here to vote for him.

If you didn’t click the link above, you’re probably wondering why we should support Marco Torres. You’re probably asking, “I don’t know him so why should I support him?”

Good question!

For most of us, the simple answer, “Because our countryman needs our support so that he can best all the other hopeful expatriates in China,” would suffice. But there are those who need more explanations before they give their support. So read on and I hope that after reading this post, you would be more than willing to support Marco Torres. Click here to continue reading

In the Cashflow 101 workshop I attended a few months back, I learned that it is not enough that you save. You must know where to invest your savings, know how to make your money work for you. One of the things suggested was to invest them stocks apparently because stocks offer a higher return on investment. Read more at Pinoy Seminars.

Blogspot humorist Anton Deleon talks on the recent announcement to suspend the much controversial ZTE Deal.

Read on as to why he says that this comes as nor surprise to the chagrin of many.

More here…

The guilty verdict brought against Estrada has shown that the most powerful leader of a country can be punished for violating the law. But this is only possible if the leader is ousted from power.

Read more at Mongster’s Nest

This is a must read. I printed the following article from the New Left Review and read it while in bed (yes, I’m still sick but I think this viral infection is about to leave my body).

The paper explores the the diminishing stature of the written media and the transition to a more audio-visual oriented culture as a much ignored factor in the present crisis facing the Left. The writer - Regis Debray - is a French intellectual, book writer, professor and journalist.

On a related note, also check out MediaShift for an article on why we love (and hate) print publications. Debray’s paper can be read below in full:

Read the rest of this entry »

The more recent searches at the Pinoy Entrepreneurs relate to the guide on how to register a corporation with the SEC. These search hits are suprising, although certainly welcome, considering that there’s still no registration guide, except on the registration of business names, posted in this site. So, in order not to disappoint whoever made that search, here’s the guide on registering a corporation with the SEC. (Please continue reading here)

For the first six months of the year, Pinoy companies invested $1.8 billion abroad, compared with the whole year’s total direct foreign investment targets of $1.7 billion.

For the 2nd quarter alone, the total outflows amounted to $2.46 billion!

In the same quarter last year, there was net inflows of $594 million. In a sense, we lost a total of more than $3 billion in this three-month period alone, characterized as it was by the messy elections.

And yet, monetary authorities do not call this capital flight!

With the ZTE scandal, expect confidence in the country to plummet some more. Even the state insurance firm GSIS is now lining up to invest $1 billion abroad rather than in the super-regions of you-know-who.

What kind of Christian do we need today? Mabait. But is that enough? A perceptive bishop added, “Dapat magaling din.” Mabait at magaling? 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

New color theme and new lay out… inspired by Jhann’s Mickey Mouse slippers from Banana Peel. I love brown at the moment (which I hope will be the same color theme for my wedding. Asus! Kelan kaya yun? Wink. Wink.)

Comments or suggestions will be appreciated. I don’t know how it looks like with other browsers. I use Mozilla and Internet Explorer and they both look pretty decent to me. Email me: witnessstatementblog@yahoo.com

Come and see!