blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The news services and blurbs report that the single toilet in the International Space Station broke down and the astronauts and cosmonauts have to use the one in the emergency Soyuz capsule. Pioneers and explorers have had that problem before. Now that really wasn't a problem when Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue or when Magellan sailed around the world. They can just do what nature requires at the rear of the ship! We have building codes on Planet Earth that legally requires architects and engineers to calculate the number of toilets in a building depending on the number of occupants. Now why didn't NASA and the Russian Space Agency ever thought of adding a spare toilet? The closest analogue to the astronauts problem on Earth is when you go camping and you can't do your thing in the bush. (There are some camp grounds that prohibit doing it in the bush!) You find that the humus toilet is kaputt! So you have to do it in your car! The Vatican has just reiterated its ban on orda...

I just came from the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Fulbright Program in the Philippines. My mom and sister were also there being Fulbrighters like myself. The creme of the creme of Pinoy academia, arts, sciences and intellectuals were there.Ex National librarian Dr Serafin Quiason was as bubbly as ever on a zillion topics most of them dealing with Queen Gloriana. Ateneo VP Tonnette Palma Angeles were there too. National artists Napoleon Abueva (sculpture) and F. Sionil Jose were moving through the cocktail crowd. My mom knew both men since she was a librarian. Abueva was dean of Fine Arts at UP and that college was then on the 3rd floor of the Main Library building. Abueva designed the Fulbright award trophies. Sionil Jose was and is still at 85 promoting reading. My mom introduced me to Sionil Jose by simply stating the truth. "My son has read all of your books! In fact he has all copies of your books." Sionil Jose repliedand smiled "My condolences. ...

Fulbright alumni have to be congratulated for hosting the successful "People and the Planet" conference in Washington DC from Nov 1- 4, 2007. The gabfest attracted 300 academics, policymakers and government officials from the sciences, social sciences and to the humanities. All of the participants were Fulbright grantees. Rob Bradley of the World Resources Institute reviewed the science behind climate change science and discussed possible scenarios if mitigation is done or not done. What seems to be clear is that human induced climate change is real. The questions that we have to determine is how severe are the effects and at what time scale this will happen. Answers to such questions are needed for a climate intervention strategy. The USA and China are the number 1 CO2 emitters. Three fourths of all emissions come from industrialized countries with the Philippines now considered as a "moderate emitter".This is some support to Queen Gloriana's assertion that...