Pala-isip

They're getting them younger and younger!

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer . ======================= MANILA, Philippines—The next president will no longer enjoy the power of the pork that his predecessor did by virtue of a key provision inserted into the General Appropriations Act of 2010, a development that could help determine the leadership and alignments in the incoming 15th Congress. The hands of presumptive president-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III will be tied by Section 67 of the law, which calls for a “prohibition against impoundment of appropriations,” Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman of Lakas-Kampi-CMD said Thursday. The provision prevents the president from withholding the release of a budget allocation without the approval of both the Senate and the House of Representatives by a simple majority of the quorum. Lagman, vice chair of the powerful House appropriations committee, said he introduced the provision during the 2009 budget deliberations to “protect the appropriations” approved by Congress. The pork barrel, forma...

Google introduces Google TV. It's an Android based device that's either integrated to a new TV or a separate box you can connect to you TV. He's a video explaining it. Whether this competes directly with Apple TV or Tivo, I don't know. But it would be interesting to see how these companies plan to revolutionize how we watch TV. More details at Appleinsider.com and TechCrunch .

I love this version of You Make Me Feel Brand New by Simply Red. I'm amazed on how Mick Hucknall can sing this song solo when the original required two people to sing it because of the high notes. Here's the original song by The Stylistics.

Reposted from Portia Carlos' notes on Facebook. ========================== For years now, each time a political situation arises, you can be sure that you'll find ABS-CBN at our house to interview my mom. Sometimes she would even be asked to go to the studio to appear in ANC shows. For these, she would be given a box of doughnuts every now and then as a token. Even so, she would always make an effort to accommodate their requests for interviews. This she does not so she could be seen or heard on TV (she doesn't even fix herself when interviewed! minsan nga naka slippers lang sha), but to give light on political matters. Recently, my mom was asked by the network to analyze the elections from 4:30am to 12noon. When she asked for a TOR (for being asked to render 7.5 hours of work analyzing the elections), a source said that a network staff exclaimed "Sino ba sha? Kung artista nga di nagpapabayad?". Then go ahead and ask an artista to analyze the elections! No offense...

Video animation adapted from the book called "Drive:The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Daniel Pink.

Remember the kids show Batibot? I used to hate that show. I grew up with Sesame Street and at the time, most shows were in English. Even the news programs were in English like those news programs with Tina Monson-Palma (I'm aging myself). For background, Batibot was first called "Sesame!". Batibot was made by the same company that made Sesame Street but for the Philippine market. It started out as Sesame! in 1984 and later renamed as Batibot. When it came out, It was in Tagalog. I was shocked! Shocked that a show with muppets and a kids show at that was in Tagalog. I was even more shocked when they stopped showing Sesame Street and hated the fact that they changed it to a Tagalog version of Sesame Street. I used to hate watching Tagalog shows and never watched any of them. That's why I hated Sesame! But as it went on and later renamed to Batibot, it started to grow on me. It was a high quality show and there was no argument on that. It was very child friendly and the ...