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Opinionated, polemical, biased... with none of the cussing!

Posts tagged with "News"

No tears for a criminal

Sunday, 27. January 2008, 11:48:38

Good riddance, Indonesian ex-dictator Suharto. You will not be missed. I only regret that you were never brought to justice for your crimes against humanity. And sadly, there is no hell for your nonexistent soul to go to.

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RIP Benazir Bhutto

Thursday, 27. December 2007, 16:03:59

Shocking but somewhat expected:
Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a suicide attack.

Ms Bhutto had just addressed an election rally in Rawalpindi when she was shot in the neck by a gunman who then set off a bomb.

At least 15 other people died in the attack and several more were injured.

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Shameful surrender

Tuesday, 30. October 2007, 00:45:42

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(Sorry for the delayed posting, I seem to have lost my internet connection over the weekend.)

Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo stopped being our country's president on October 26 when she pardoned her predecessor, disgraced former Philippine president Joseph Estrada who was found guilty by the courts to have plundered millions of dollars from the nation's coffers. By doing so, she abdicated her sworn responsibility to uphold the constitution and protect the nation's interest. The only interests she seems to care for are her own.

It is no secret that her very own administration has been beset with charges of corruption and misconduct. I think that with this executive pardon, she's covering her bases by making a precedent, just in case she finds herself charged with corruption when she steps down (if at all), that the next president might also pardon her. She's practically saying that from now on, presidents need not fear getting caught stealing for they are guaranteed to be protected by this ugly precedent.

Here's another take on the presidential pardon:
What does this say to public officials? That it is now open season for graft and corruption. Or that at the very highest levels of officialdom, one can expect leniency for the most heinous crimes.

Ms Arroyo’s final reason for the grant of clemency only shows how quickly she had run out of rationalizations for her grave abuse of this presidential prerogative. Estrada’s promise not to seek public office does not diminish the gravity of his crime against the Filipino people or prove that he is a changed man. It is only reassuring to a regime that is insecure about its legitimacy and stability.

- Shameful Capitulation, Philippine Daily Inquirer

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California wildfires: disproportionate coverage?

Wednesday, 24. October 2007, 01:29:08

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One of the features in Opera that I like is the customizable sidebar/panel. It's easy to set-up new panel content providers, unlike in other browsers where you may need to install add-ons, and loads faster. With small screen rendering, you can basically add most sites to your panel. It is a nice complement to the built-in RSS reader for staying informed about the news.

My preferred news provider is BBC News, which is less sensationalist than my second news source, CNN. Today I noticed on my CNN panel on their coverage of the wildfires in California. On the Beeb it's a major story, but just one story, and they also tackle other major (and minor) stories from around the world. CNN, though, has pretty much become Wildfires News Network, with virtually all content in the panel center around it (click the image on the right). I know CNN is a US-based company, but I am using the International Edition, and I'd like to read more world events. It reminds me of the bridge that toppled in Minnesota a few months back. Too much coverage for a minor news story. I can see why people have tuned out of (cue scare quotes) "The Mainstream Media."

The events happening in California is a tragedy, but it's one among many in our troubled world. Let's keep things in perspective. While the fires rages on in Cali, killing two people and burning 1,200 homes and threatening more, more people are dying in global hotspots in the Middle East and Africa. We've had an explosion in a local shopping center here in Manila a few days back, killing about eleven people. I am reminded of the Katrina debacle, when after the devastation someone opined that Americans don't deserve to live in squalid conditions. I submit that no one, not just Americans, deserves it.

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The church should come out of the closet

Wednesday, 24. October 2007, 00:08:26

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Suspended Catholic cleric has Vatican gay list

ROME -- A high profile Vatican cleric suspended after he was shown on television making advances to a young man allegedly had a list of homosexual priests and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church's governing body, Italy's Panorama weekly reported Friday.

Father Tommaso Stenico, 60, had "a detailed dossier" of all the homosexual clerics at Vatican "with a list of names and circumstances implicating a certain number of priests and even bishops working at the Curia," Ignazio Ingrao, reporter for the conservative news weekly said.

Stenico also sent his superior Cardinal Claudio Hummes a report denouncing the moral degradation within the Curia, which could make the Vatican "tremble," Ingrao said.
This isn't really a surprise. Only the densest of papists would believe that the Vatican is homosexual-free. The church should come out and admit it, and embrace their gay brethren. It's not wrong to be a homosexual, it's the bible and two thousand years of sexual repression that are wrong.

1 Comment

Xubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Friday, 19. October 2007, 23:21:24

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Xubuntu Gutsy Gibbon is out, and it seems to be transforming into a virtual Gnome clone. The more I read the changes, the more disappointed I get. Ditching the simplicity and speed of Xfce components with its much heftier Gnome counterparts, Xubuntu will be destined to be a mere shadow of Ubuntu. And not being an LTS release, I don't have a real need to get this version.

Plus, they integrated Firefox extensions to the Add/Remove panel. Bleh!

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The catholic war on condoms continues

Thursday, 27. September 2007, 00:43:52

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There are no lies so evil as those being spouted within the hierarchy of the Roman church. They are so bent on their narrow doctrines that they are willing to sacrifice generation upon generation of Africans to AIDS. Christopher Hitchens recounts in his book god is not Great about a human trash that goes by the name of Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, Catholic Cardinal and president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, who declares that condoms are manufactured with holes in them to allow HIV to pass through. Not to be outdone, another liar-for-god comes up with an even more malicious lie:
Shock at archbishop condom claim

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

The Catholic Church formally opposes any use of condoms, advising fidelity within marriage or sexual abstinence.

Aids activists have been angered by the remarks, one calling them "nonsense".

"We've been using condoms for years now, and we still find them safe," prominent Mozambican Aids activist Marcella Mahanjane told the BBC.

No sir, it's not European condoms that are to blame. It's retards like you who are partly culpable for this avoidable epidemic. Your god doesn't exist and your church is getting in the way of proper sex education and widespread condom use in the continent.

5 Comments

Bible is indecent

Thursday, 17. May 2007, 16:46:45

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Bible drawn into Hong Kong sex publication row

HONG KONG (Reuters) - More than 800 Hong Kong residents have called on authorities to reclassify the Bible as "indecent" due to its sexual and violent content, following an uproar over a sex column in a university student journal.

A spokesperson for Hong Kong's Television and Entertainment Licensing authority (TELA) said it had received 838 complaints about the Bible by noon on Wednesday.

The complaints follow the launch of an anonymous Web site -- www.truthbible.net -- which said the holy book "made one tremble" given its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest.
Sex and violence in the good book? Say it ain't so! If the HK authorities do end up classifying the bible as "indecent", then might I suggest this warning sticker:


(Click to enlarge)

Now if we could only persuade the Gideon Society to print this little disclaimer in all of their bibles.

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