It’s hard to follow American politics from ten thousand miles away (I live in the rural Philippines, and we get the news a day late), but as a Democrat, I was bemused to read in today’s papers that Rick Santorum just won in the Republican primaries of Minnesota and Missouri.
Santorum? I wasn’t aware he […]

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World War I is getting some attention in the entertainment industry lately, with the high class hit “Downton Abbey” and now the Stephen Spielburg film “War Horse”.
The plot is simple: think of Lassie comes home (the 1943 version) of a beloved animal separated from his master and trying to survive. Except in this one it […]

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Here in the Philippines, thanks to Wikileaks, we know that not only American money is behind our “Reproductive Health Bill”, but that the American State Department is pressuring our president to pass the bill.
Heaven knows that the Philippines does need access to cheaper Birth control, but it’s not as if it’s not available: they sell […]

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I hate air pollution.
When I travel in Manila, I have to use an asthma inhaler to stop an attack. Here in the provinces, I only have to use an inhaler in spring, when they burn off the weeds in the fields.
However, science reporting on “green” issues often is so inaccurate that a lot of […]

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It rained last night, and more coming. In some ways, this is good news, because it means we don’t have to pay so much to irrigate our “dry season” crop. But it is bad news for the south, which is still recovering from the devestating storm that killed over a thousand people..
Superficially, the storm makes […]

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The NYTimes has an article about problems with the Global fund to fight AIDS.
It seems that they checked the books and found some of the money was stolen or diverted, and as a result, a lot of European donors are not giving any more money until the problem is cleared up.
You want honesty at […]

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For many years people have flocked to Las Vegas for the opportunity to ‘get rich quick’ on the gaming tables, and get ‘hitched’ in one of the many Wedding Chapels that adorn the city.For those in a rush, there are even ‘Drive Thru’ options. In less time than it takes to order a couple of […]

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I read a name from the past in today’s news: Medgar Evers.
The name takes me back to the days of when as a child we visited our aunt who lived in the deep south, and I was astonished that there “colored only” restaurants and water fountains.
Evers was one of the heroes who fought for the […]

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I am bemused to see that there is a moderate earthquake in Oklahoma making the news.
Such things are not unknown, of course, but the “Green” oriented blogs are all blaming the earthquake on “fracking”.
This is a “hot” item, since the oil shales of North Dakota and Pennsylvania are potential “black gold” that will rewrite the […]

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This just in from Hollywood– Jon Corzine, who until about a week ago was Top Dog in the tanking Wall Street unreality series My Own Private MF Global has been cast as supervillain Two-Face in the next Batman opus. Buzz sez Bat producer Michael Uslan saw the Reuters piece The Two Faces of Jon Corzine […]

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The LATimes has a story that India has now produced a thirty five dollar tablet computer for it’s students, or sort of…
The plan is to distribute thousands of the computers in coming months to students at a government-subsidized rate of $35.
It has taken several years to develop, faced a lot of skepticism and received […]

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I see the “Occupy Wall Street” folks are still there.
But what is puzzling me: usually a movement starts with a few activists and then slowly grows, as more who believe the same things join.
So exactly how many are in these rallies?
We know who is in the rallies: From Fastcompany.com via the Democratic underground.
Among the […]

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A high stakes game is playing out mostly behind the scenes in Washington D.C.
The outcome of which will have lasting implications for how many businesses in America can operate.
One of the more controversial portions of the financial reform bill, passed in 2009, established a powerful new agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
From […]

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While CNN International is the “Michael Jackson trial” 24/7, and Google News’ major story is about someone called Amanda Knox, the story here in SE Asia is the floods from the typhoons.
Here in the Philippines, large areas remain flooded, partly due to the fact that the irrigation dams are still open to drain the run […]

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In my previous post, I wondered if the protesters on Wall Street had proposals of how to fix things, or if they were theoreticians from Nephelokokkygia.
So exactly what do those Wall Street protesters want?
A proposed list of demands can be found at their website. They don’t want much.
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This […]

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Some of the progressive blogs are lauding the protests against Wall Street as if these protests were an uprising of the “PEOPLE” against the rich, and a copy of the heroism of the Arab Spring.
Now, I am aghast at the Wall Street shenanigans as much as the next person, but when the president and his […]

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Here in the rice lands of Luzon, the latest news is bad. You probably read in the news that we were hit by Typhoon Pedring, but this time Manila was not devestated as in Typhoon Ondoy two years ago.
Manila Bay’s affluent waterfront properties were damaged when the storm wall failed, but Manila was not as […]

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Paranoia kills. And the internet, which allows anyone to post any conspiracy theory without having to include minor things like facts, is a growing problem for doctors, because our patients who google sometimes end up at conspiracy theory sites for their medical information.
And this ignorance is one reason why Bachman is now no longer […]

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How do respond to the bravery of men who catch a man eating crocodile, to protect their children from harm?
You tell them they should be ashamed of themselves, and that they should let the dangerous animal go free.
Yes, the foreigners who pay all that nice money to PETA to get foreign women to dance half […]

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The latest “Western” movie from Hollywood, about aliens and starring a petulant British actor, was a bomb, and that led many “experts” to again predict the demise of the Western as a film genre. Of course, the real reason for the problem is the nihilism of Hollywood, not the lack of stories.
So could I suggest […]

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Joe Biden’s visit to China has gotten little respect in the US press, who seem to despise his “everyday man” approach to things and who trumpet his verbal gaffes without noticing his common touch is something desperately needed by the elitist Obama administration.
During his trip to China, he visited an ordinary Chinese restaurant and ate […]

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The president is taking a much needed vacation, this time to Martha’s Vineyard.
So what does the Washington Post have for a headline this morning?
As rebels close in on Tripoli, Obama getting updates on Martha’s Vineyard
Why yes.
Martha’s Vineyard isn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere, and they do have internet connections, an airfield and a […]

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I had written two skeptical articles on the issue of “isolated tribes” in the Amazon region.
In the first article, I pointed out that the idea that these people can and should remain isolated (by keeping out the governments and do gooders and developers) is wrongheaded, because that won’t stop the bad guys from moving in […]

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This year, for the first time, our accountant told us we don’t have to pay any US taxes.
So what do I hear in the news? Lots of right wing criticism of those stupid people who don’t pay taxes while the rest of “us” work hard and have to pay.
Time out, fellahs.
For years, my husband and […]

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From Freakonomics:Killer Cars:
An Extra 1,000 Pounds Increases Crash Fatalities by 47%

The Actual report name is “Pounds that kill: The external cost of vehicle weight.
Well, anyway, the study shows the obvious: If you have a big car that collides with a smaller car, the small car folks are toast.
Well, duh. Yes, all of that’s obvious […]

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In case you are only aware of the “hits”, the movie Soul Surfer is a “sleeper”: a small movie that becomes widely seen by word of mouth recommendations.
I usually dislike surfer movies (e.g. Blue Crush) but I do like the photography of the ocean in them, so I watched this one.
The good news: some good […]

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I am bemused when the sins that we recognized in the past are now being redefined by the modern world.
Greed, of course, is behind our “addiction” to oil, the war in the Middle East (no blood for oil”)  and the manipulation  of the stock market.
Lust however is still being touted by the NYTimes as good […]

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A lot of Americans seem puzzled about why NATO is so eager to get rid of Khadafi in Libya. Yes, he was behind the TWA bombing, but why get rid of him now?
But what the US press also misses is why Libyans are angry. To paraphrase James Carville: It’s the corruption, stupid. Khadafi has billions […]

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 The man was well until his wife baked him a “healthy recipe” from the NYTimes “Healthy recipe section: Fava bean and artichoke stew.
He soon became pale and jaundiced, and it took awhile for the ER doc to figure out why the man was sick. He had an acute hemolytic crisis, where his red blood cells […]

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Well, this year’s Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally got some publicity today when Sarah Palin and family accompanied them as private citizens. As the mother of an Iraqi veteran, she is entitled to this.
Most of the half million attending the rally seemed pleased.
So of course most of the press coverage was about Andrea Mitchell finding the […]

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