benign0's Comments

Filipino Voices : Child-soldiers

Tue, 5 May 2009 12:12:07 +0000

you agree? the country is not worth fighting for (in any sense)?

As I said nga GabbyD, and as also explained quite comprehensively by BongV, lumang tugtugin na yan. Your belief that there is a fight to be fought is just a legacy of what was ingrained in your head for years by these bozo politicians and the Media spindoctors who are under the payroll of these powerbrokers.

Try to think independently of these influences and try not to be a victim of clever marketing.

Filipino Voices : Crunching good news for now

Tue, 5 May 2009 02:12:20 +0000

You know what? The pictures you are uploading still show up as broken links on the right-hand panel.

How hard is it, dude? :D

Filipino Voices : Political commentary: high brow entertainment or pseudo-intellectual masturbation?

Fri, 1 May 2009 11:35:29 +0000

BongV, Agree. But the trouble is, as I wrote earlier:

[...] what are supposedly the most “intelligent” of consumers of the information brokered by those business entitites [the Media, and others that make a business of trading in information] clump around to feast upon their products like ravenous pigeons milling around a handful of breadcrumbs thrown out by a passerby

and then these "experts" go on to

[...] micro-analys[e] and micro-speculat[e] on the minutiae of the suspect motives, suspect sentiments, suspect decisions, and suspect actions of the who’s-who of Philippine political circuses.

... which I think is the whole tragedy behind this pack of demagogues -- supposedly our society's thought leaders. From them supposedly emanates the beacon from which "the segment which has the numerical advantage" could have taken their cue. Instead we merely have the same kind of thinking packaged in multi-syllabic but mono-dimensional "analysis". Right Primer? :-D

Filipino Voices : Political commentary: high brow entertainment or pseudo-intellectual masturbation?

Fri, 1 May 2009 09:32:00 +0000

Here here! The salvation of our dysfunctional society does not lie in government nor in politics. It lies at the very fabric of society itself. For our politicians -- and the manner by which we scrutinise and speculate on the minutiae of their comings and goings, the nature of our expectations of them, and the qualities by which we choose to evaluate them -- reflect the depth and substance of our society.

Filipino Voices : Who's lying?

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:37:34 +0000

Sayaw, Pinoy, sayaw... <img src="http://www.getrealphilippines.com/images/pac-laugh.gif" border=0 alt="Get Real Philippines!">

Filipino Voices : The Jun Lozada in You

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:01:51 +0000

Eqo worship By Anton Java Cebu Daily News First Posted 15:46:00 03/18/2008 Excerpt:

Speaking at the University of San Carlos, [Lozada] again said his cause is to “seek the truth,” but his trips obviously have a “down with Arroyo” flavor to it. If his intention really was to seek the truth, why do he and his followers ostracize those who would ask him questions contrary to their cause? “Ostracize” is even putting it mildly, because instead of answering those questions by simply clearly explaining the “truth” he claims to push for, his followers instead kick out and threaten to beat up the person asking the question, while Lozada does nothing to stop it. So what if a person asks questions that imply things contrary to Lozada’s “cause”? If Lozada and his ilk do intend to seek the truth, shouldn’t he and his followers listen to all sides – even highly critical questions – to find out what the truth is? But what Lozada and company are doing is not seeking the truth, it’s to press on people what they believe to be the truth. Whether or not it is actually the truth is a matter of debate, and it’s a debate they probably think they can’t win, otherwise they would have simply provided counter-arguments to critical questions. Instead, they kick out the person asking the question. That’s the kind of reaction one would get from people who know their arguments can’t hold water, much less the truth. The truth hurts. And Lozada and company were obviously hurt. That person who was kicked out was right. It WAS quite obvious what that (not-so-) open forum was all about, and it was not about seeking the truth. It was not even a good attempt at pushing what Lozada thinks is the truth.

Moron.

Filipino Voices : Jun Lozada, A Portrait of A Sacrificial Lamb

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:57:11 +0000

Who gives a shit about Jun Lozada? It was he himself that turned the whole thing into a circus. Check out this part of a thread in Peyups.com that almost serves as a commentary over most of the period when this circus most captured the public's minds. I saw it myself on Bandila and posted what I saw in that forum:

A student was physically removed from one of the assemblies being addressed by Lozada as part of his circus/tour. All this student was doing was asking why Lozada was doing what he was doing and why he wasn't instead directing all this energy through the proper legal channels where processes are in place to investigate, evaluate, and RESOLVE these things. I saw it all on ABS-CBN's Bandila news program last night. The irony there (yet another one lost in the vacuous minds of Pinoys) is that this student as a result of this, managed to express his views on global Pinoy television.

. Moron.

Filipino Voices : Paradox of party-list system

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:14:36 +0000

Ba't ganun? Even when you seem to do the right thing (like upload a photo for your article), sablay pa rin ang labas (there is still a broken link in the 'Recent Posts' section on the righ-had pane of the webpage). Is it really that hard? <img src="http://getrealphilippines.com/images/pac-laugh.gif" border=0 alt="nyek nyek">

Filipino Voices : Philippine 'civil society' defined

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:57:15 +0000

Actually Pinoys don't need a person like me to make them look like fools. Erap and Cory did that job for me already.

Filipino Voices : Simplifying the unknown

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:11:49 +0000

don't blame God for the failings of mankind. all the bad things you mentioned are the doings of man, and by man towards each other

But isn't God supposedly the ultimate cause of everything in the universe, Bencard? You say "all the bad things you mentioned are the doings of man". But then man was created by God (in His image, as a matter of fact, right?). Therefore God is the cause of these "bad" things. Command responsibility. Real leaders take ultimate accountability for the actions of their subordinates.

Filipino Voices : Simplifying the unknown

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:13:31 +0000

Yeah, it's probably there somewhere being "moderated". Maybe if we get a bit more transparency around the criteria by which a comment is blocked as "under moderation" or allowed to be posted, this thing wouldn't be as annoying as it is.

Filipino Voices : Party-list system (over)expands

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:16:13 +0000

Boss, i've already cited him in a previous blog post of his. Trouble with some people is that they'd rather busy themselves with ad hominems instead of acquiring a bit more substance for themselves. ;-)

Filipino Voices : Simplifying the unknown

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:38:44 +0000

who the "f" are you to question the Grand Design? if God meant to create a perfect universe,, what good would that be? how can it be determined that the likes of you don't deserve a perfect existence?

Now there's a concept, Bencard. You believe God "created" man, right? How can an imperfect thing be the outcome of a supposedly perfect thing? The minute a perfect thing produces an imperfect outcome, that perfect thing ceases to be perfect.

Filipino Voices : Party-list system (over)expands

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:19:53 +0000

Dude, bakit ka ganyan? Sinabi nang mag-upload at mag-embed ng image sa mga artikol para di magka broken link sa 'Recent Posts' line-up sa kanang panel ng pages ng FV e. Mukhang simpleng instruksyon lang di ka pa maka-sunod. Pinoy nga naman talaga. Kaya nga "Filipino Voices" e. Di lang voice, pati ugali may repleskyon dito.

Filipino Voices : Simplifying the unknown

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:48:36 +0000

Looks like it does in this forum, Bencard.

Filipino Voices : Simplifying the unknown

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:10:48 +0000

In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe. A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless. It is a bizarre idea which has been dismissed as fanciful by many experts. But the new research from Oxford shows that it offers a mathematical answer to quantum conundrums that cannot be dismissed lightly - and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.

BongV, yes quite intriguing. And even if the unvierse did not split into a parallel universe at the very instant a new physical possibility is hit, every possible alternative can still have their turn even if the entire sequence of events had to be played out from scratch each time. That's possible given infinite time or given an infinite sequence of finite universes.
i'm still waiting for your reply to my query: following the line of your hypothesis, do you assert that the laptop you are using to post your article has the "infinitesimal" possibility of having created and formed itself randomly?
Bencard, Yup. But it depends on how you define "random". For example, the emergence of life -- much more the complex brain our species posses (the one that would eventually go on to build this laptop I am using) -- is very unlikely. But it is an outcome of a sequence of events (note how I emphasized this term in my response to BongV above) that was ultimately set off by a random event. What that random trigger originally was is in itself arguable. Some may argue that the original trigger was the random coming together of atoms to form the complex molecules that were to ultimately form the complex compounds that were to become the building blocks of life. Some may argue that it was the random gravity-fuelled condensation of interstellar matter into clumps of matter that were eventually to coalesce into the planets in our solar system. Yet, some would argue the same for the process that formed our sun, or our galaxy, or our local cluster. See where I am getting at? Ultimately you will regress in this argument to the point of the creation of the universe itself, which itself could be a random event.

Filipino Voices : Put a caption for this photo, April 2009 edition

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:08:02 +0000

Too young to die.

Filipino Voices : When Form Ambushes Substance: Media Reporting On The Failon Case (Updated With ABS-CBN Statement)

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:42:26 +0000

So where is it? My comment is still not showing up and presumably still "under moderation"...

Filipino Voices : When Form Ambushes Substance: Media Reporting On The Failon Case (Updated With ABS-CBN Statement)

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:36:56 +0000

Thanks. But then I edited the comment because of a minor misspelling and now it is under moderation again. Life's little annoyances nga naman talaga. Don't you just love 'em. Zzzzzzz.....