Mag Isip naman kayo

Nadiyaryo na naman si Senator Lacson dahil sa pagbunyag niya ng katibayan na magkakilala nga si Judge Macarambon at si dating Comelec Commissioner Garcilliano. Ang kanyang katibayan? Magkasama sa isang Fraternity yung dalawa.

Ha? Sumakit tuloy ang ulo ko. Ibig bang sabihin ni Senador Lacson lahat ng kasapi at naging kasapi ng isang fraternity ay magkakakilala? Anong klaseng logic yan? Nag-iisip ba itong mga Senador natin? Simpleng logic naman, it does not follow, sa latin, non sequitur.

Kahapon lang sumakit din ang ulo ko kay Senador Trillanes, at sa kanyang witness, minanmanan niya ang Glorietta samakatwid ang Gobyerno ang nagpasabog dito. Diba, logical.

Diyos ko. At bakit pinapabayaan ng mga diyaryo na magbigay ng mga ganitong klaseng pahayag ang mga senador na ito. Dapat pinagtatawanan lang itong mga ganitong klaseng pahayag para matuto sila at sa susunod ay magdala ng mas matibay na katibayan.

For those who love books

Nighttime Stories from xkcd

Jinggoy to block judges who convicted Erap from SC

Senator Estrada showing the statesmanship that propelled Senator Maceda and others of the Genuine Opposition to nominate him for the Presidency.

"Senate President Pro Tempore Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada on Monday vowed to block the appointment to the Supreme Court of the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court justices who convicted his father, former president Joseph Estrada, of plunder."

If anybody is wondering, yes I am being sarcastic.

Witness

The witness of Senator Trillanes has come forward.

"The witness told ABS-CBN News correspondent Jay Ruiz that he surrendered to the government and worked for a special operations group of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales along with members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines-National Capital Region Command (AFP-NCRCom) from 2004-2006.

He claimed that his job was to monitor a number of malls in Metro Manila, including the Glorietta shopping complex.

"Tinitignan ko ang security sa Glorietta, sabi ko sa report pinaka-mahina ang security sa Glorietta (I monitored the security of Glorietta and reported that it had the weakest)," Ramos said.

While admitting he has no solid-proof evidence, Ramos is convinced the surveillance job is linked to the Glorietta blast."

And Senator Trillanes believed this story? This guy, by his own admission only monitored the security of different Malls, and reported his findings to his superiors. And from there, he comes to the conclusion that his superiors ordered the bombing of the Mall with the least security. Yes, that would be my conclusion too, if I were a nut.

Maybe we should be more generous with Ronald Ramos alias Abdul Rackham, after all, he was a member of the Raja Solaiman Movement. The previous times he monitored buildings was probably with the intention of bombing them. He probably does not understand the concept of monitoring various buildings with the idea of protecting them.

But in his statement, Senator Trillanes says that he has

"information obtained from my own network of informants in the AFP and the intelligence community.”

Is this person his network? If not, is he the best proof his network of informants in the AFP intelligence community can produce? After weeks of posturing? This is his proof?

I will make a deal with Senator Trillanes however, I will believe him if he can produce the bomb materials that the PNP, the Australians et al. were unable to find. With his retinue of AFP informants, that should be easy.

Packrat

I passed by Booksale in SM North Edsa and saw this book



I've been a fan of Asimov for over a decade now and the book was priced at only 30 pesos so even though I know I already own a copy, I still bought it. I always reason out that I can always present duplicate books as presents to friends. Now when I got home I saw that not only did I one copy, I already have two, with different covers.

 

Now I don't know what version I will give out. In the end I will probably just keep them all.

My Desktop

desktop110407
Originally uploaded by roychoco

After installing Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon yesterday, I made a few tweaks to the system.

1. Installed Kubuntu Restricted extras to get MP3 playback and decoding, Java runtime environment, Flash plugin, DVD playback, and LAME (to create compressed audio files).

2. Installed Microsoft core fonts.

3. Installed rar and 7zip support

4. Installed showFoto, the best simple photo editing software I've used

5. Installed Comix viewer for reading Manga

6. Installed wine so I can run some windows applications

7. Installed 7zip, the only windows app I migrated to linux.

Reflecting on the upgrade, there were no radical increase in usability from Feisty to Gutsy. I was carried away with the launch of a new version and should have waited for the next version after Gutsy before upgrading.

Not that there are any problems with Gutsy, it installed easily and recognized all my hardware. But Feisty did that too, and I've already personalized Feisty's settings to my liking. Now I'm starting over with Gutsy, of course if the online upgrade worked, all my settings should have been imported.

Bottom line, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Previous posts here and here

Update: November 5, 2007, 12:19 am

When I did the next post, I used my camera phone to take a picture of the covers of the book and used Bluetooth to transfer the images to my PC. I must say that the Bluetooth application in Gutsy is way better and more user friendly than the one in Fiesty. And it was installed by default. I had to install Bluetooth support in Feisty before I could use it.

Hypocrisy

The National Press club edited a painting they commissioned to remove perceived leftist images. The funny thing is they commissioned the work to promote press freedom. The sad thing is they removed the alibata letter K tattooed to the left arm of Katipunan Supremo Andres Bonifacio.

K, the symbol of the Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, the organization that initiated the struggle for Philippine independence from colonial rule is now considered by the National Press Club as a leftist symbol.

Maybe the NPC should commission MLQ3 to teach their members history.

Update 10-05-2007

ABS-CBN Interactive has a picture of the mural and the before and after pictures of the alterations.

I have to say, their Andres Bonifacio does not look like Ka Boni to me so it is understandable that the NPC mistake the alibata tattooed on him to be the symbol of Kabataang Makabayan, an underground organization allied with the National Democratic Front (NDF) and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Upgrading to Gutsy 2

7:15 pm: I finished backing up my files, and booted up the Kubuntu Gutsy DVD. I am now stuck in step 3 of 6, installing the keyboard layout. Canceled my first attempt after several minutes, will wait longer this time, if it doesn't work, will reboot and try again

10:16 pm: Finished installation about an hour after I started, I tried to update this post but Konqueror kept crashing when I go to blogger to update. So I installed Firefox through the add-remove utility. But my back-up of Firefox's configuration file was in my windows partition, and I did not want to start browsing without my bookmarks and add-ons. Tried to mount the windows hard drive but I forgot that you had to install the "NTFS configuration tool" to be able to mount NTFS partitions. So I installed it, but I also forgot that it's default configuration is for gnome, Seven Capital sins explains the problem and the solution

"The command used in the menu to launch ntfs-config was “gksu ntfs-config”. I replaced that with “kdesu ntfs-config”

After I replaced the command, I was able to mount the drive, copy the Firefox config and update this post.

While copying the Firefox config file, I found out that Dolphin, the new default file manager for does not allow you to show hidden files (update: found out that it actually does allow you to show hidden files), so I reverted to Konqueror as my default file manager Sathya Says explains how to make dolphin your default file manager, you just reverse the process to make Konqueror your default file manager.

I will probably be making other tweaks to Gutsy for the next several days .

First part is here continuation here

Randy David on the Estrada Pardon

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=98525

Long quotes

"What is important in the long term is the conscientiousness with which our society applies the distinction between law and politics. On it rests our ability to handle more complex and troublesome situations in the future. Parallel developments are taking place in other spheres of our national life. Our economy is demonstrating a remarkable autonomy that accounts for its steadiness in the face of political crises. Our justice system is trying painfully to become self-directing in its own sphere, despite the overt politicization of its prosecutorial agencies. It is our political system that has seemed unable to insulate itself from the effects of inherited inequalities, and to keep its operations from spilling into other institutions."

"Realizing its marginal role in Philippine elections, the middle class, the harbinger of modernity, has favored non-electoral modes for effecting transitions -- people power, impeachment, coups, calls for resignation, etc. It is this class that gave the country its two women presidents: Cory Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, both of them the beneficiaries of people power."

"But people power is caught in a paradox, which limits its potency. Its spontaneous and unorganized character, driven by a strong moralism, is the source of its vitality. It is also its fundamental weakness. Middle class activism seldom leads to anything sustainable, like the formation of mainstream political parties. Even when, to its own surprise, it scores electoral victories, as in the case of Fr. Ed Panlilio’s successful run for governor ofPampanga province, the engagement tends to stop at the polls. Without a party on which to anchor itself, the middle class espousal of modern governance is quickly drowned out by the pragmatics of political patronage. No wonder, in the end, “trapo” [traditional politicos] like Ms Arroyo and Estrada will always find it easier to deal with one another."

Tsismis (Gossip)

There are legitimate issues to the appointment of Judge Macarambon in the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). Why was he appointed when his name was not included in the short list of candidates? If your going to appoint somebody outside of your short list, then maybe you should not have submitted the short list of candidates in the first place and just appointed Judge Macarambon directly. The short list serves a purpose, it notifies people of the possible nominees so they can check their background and qualifications throughly, even before they appear before the Commission on Appointments.

Then there are the tsismis issues. Almost immediately after the appointment of Judge Macarambon, Senator Lacson issued a statement that he will block his appointment in the Commission on Appointments. His reason? Because he was informed by reliable sources that the Judge was the protege of former COMELEC Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

He may or may not have proof of their relationship, Judge Macarambon has denied the allegation, I just wished he would have gathered more evidence before mouthing off. Now he was forced to issue a statement that he will apologize if he is proven wrong. The problem of course is that he did not specify what evidence will convince him that he is wrong, so he can weasel out of apologizing just by saying he is not convinced by the evidence.

But this is not an isolated incidence in the Philippines. Senator Trillanes used the same tactics when he accused National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales and AFP Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon of bombing the Glorietta Mall. He has been proven wrong, but we see no move on his part to retract his accusations.

Senator Cayetano, when he was a Congressman famously accused First Gentleman Mike arroyo of having millions of dollars in deposit in secret bank accounts abroad. When challenged to prove his allegation, all he produced was his own fart.

But headlining (the act of trying to make the headline with unfounded accusations) will not go away, after all, it did land Cayetano a Senate seat, and Senator Lacson is aiming for the Presidency.