Diplomatic Immunity

Yes, I have moved to a new blog host.

Reasons for doing so... in my new blog host. Ha ha.

http://thearmand.wordpress.com

See you there. ^_^

I have just learned the hard way that my (very) busy lifestyle makes it (very) difficult to maintain a blog.

Still, I'm not shutting this down. One never knows; maybe I'll suddenly develop a renewed love for blogging tomorrow. Or maybe the moon will fall off space first. Who knows?

Ha ha. ^_^

After what seems like an eternity, I finally got to post a new entry. Incidentally, my last post was over a month ago. Blame it on school, school and more school. I'm glad this term is finally over.

Anyway, moving on to more noteworthy matters. I read a news report a couple of days ago that the Philippines is the most corrupt country in Asia. How about that? Let no one say that we are an unknown country. Indeed.

Naturally, any politician with half a brain couldn't wait to say something on this. If there was one thought running through their minds, it was "Another chance why you should elect me to the Senate..." Here are some highlights from a news article on the topic. ('Govt must admit it has problem with corruption' - as taken from ABS-CBN News)

All of the debate participants had different suggestions on getting rid of corruption.

But Cayetano said: “Sa alcoholic o sa anumang addict, ang unang hakbang ay aminin na may problema.  If you admit that there’s a problem, then you can find a solution  (With alcoholics and other addicts, the first step is to admit that you have a problem).”

Great. Let's ask Secretary Bunye to go round up the Malacañang Press Corps, throw a press con, and announce to the world "yes, we're corrupt!" (I read a report just now that Malacañang does acknowledge corruption in "several areas of Philippine society and politics.")

Singson, meanwhile, proposed that the government should exercise transparency and increase the salaries of state workers.

“We should add more [judges].  At bigyan pa ng mas malaking pondo ang Ombudsman at [huwag] patagalin ang mga kaso sa korte because justice delayed is justice denied (The Ombudsman should be given a bigger budget and cases involving corruption should not be kept pending)."

Yes, salaries of state workers should definitely be increased. Economy's on a roll anyway. The transparency part though. That would surely help bring down our corruption index (which stands at 4.9 by the way) but is it even possible? Alright, I'm an optimist: it's possible.

Pangilinan, for his part, said that corruption will be lessened if the courts "punish and punish quickly" corrupt government officials.

No kidding. Let's legislate and make all corruption offenses as punishable by life imprisonment. And there should be a cap on time spent in trial -- if you have a corrupt official on trial for the better part of a decade, what's the purpose?

When all is said and done, the Philippines would be a much greater country if we could only weed out the elements holding us back. Corruption constitutes one of those elements. Poverty is one too. Solve corruption, and you solve poverty. The rest will fall into place. Realistic? Maybe not. Idealistic? Very much so. So what?

Every aspect of reality began from an idea.

I couldn't help reposting here part of an entry in Ninong's blog (Ninong is the nickname of TNB's Sports Editor, Feddie Marc Perez). His commentary on me was quite a riot. LOL.

si sir armand… ang chickboy ng TNB. Ang taong palagay ko magiging politiko pagdating ng araw, o kaya social worker. Model rin sya. Hehe, Lumabas na sya sa isang commercial na nakita sa MTV Pilipinas. Ang kinahuhumalingan ng mga babaeng COED of the Month pati na rin ng mga kandidata sa mga pageant. Miyembro ng student council, member sa isang Unicef group, maraming koneksyon sa loob at labas ng skul, news editor, miyembro ng debate team, magaling sa badminton, mayaman, habulin ng mga babae at feeling babae, wafu, may latest weighted average na 1.10 last term, ang kaisaisang Armando “Brando” Ricardo J. Aguado, a.k.a the armand…lahat lahat na.

ayun naimpluwensyahan na rin syang gumawa ng blog. Sa vox naman nya nilagay, at yung mga link nya dun syempre mga babae pa rin…mga high level na tao…hanep talaga ang aura ng tao na ito. Kaya lang di open access ang blog nya. Ganun talaga pag high profile na tao… maingat sa internet… mahirap na raw… hehe…

Ang blog ni armand ay syempre pangpolitiko, tungkol sa mga world affairs. Iba talagang antas. Sir armand, sa ofis mo na lang ako bayaran ng public relations at blog promotion fee mo. Don’t worry, may discount ka. Hehe.

Yes, I'll pay you in the office for the advertising. And if I do decide to run for politics one day, I'll be sure to get you as my campaign manager. Ha ha ha. ^_^

US Democratic Senator Barack Obama has just decided to make a run for the presidency in the 2008 elections. (Obama Launches Presidential Bid - as taken from BBC News)

"That is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States," Mr Obama said.

I wonder if he can make the Democratic party nomination though; Hillary Clinton, another Democrat, is also aiming for the White House after all, and she's got some pretty serious funds to complement her reputation and experience.

For the Republicans, it certainly looks like Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani are the strongest bets. Still, the presidential primaries are a long way off, anything can change.

Oh, and election day will be on the 4th of November, my birthday. Cool.

Got this off CNN, and I remain baffled how people can actually pay that much for food. 25,000 dollars per head, excluding tax and gratuities...roughly 1,225,000 pesos here, that would have been enough to feed more than 8000 hungry children for one whole day.

Organizers respond to criticisms of excess by saying that "most" of the profits will go to two charities -- Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Chaipattana Foundation -- a rural development charity set up by the king of Thailand.

They would have been better off giving the money straight away to the charities instead.

An excerpt of the article below. You can read the whole article at CNN International: Millionaires hit Bangkok for culinary indulgence.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Beluga caviar, truffles and Dom Perignon sorbet were on the menu for a night of gourmet dining in Bangkok that chefs, wine experts and organizers dubbed the meal of a lifetime.

High-rolling food lovers flew in from Europe, the United States and around Asia for the dinner Saturday, which carried a price tag of US$25,000 (euro19,000) a head, excluding tax and gratuities.

Six three-star Michelin chefs from France, Italy and Germany prepared the meal's 10 courses, each paired with a rare fine wine.

Few expenses have been spared in putting together the event, titled "Epicurean Masters of the World."

Chefs submitted their grocery lists to organizers and the ingredients were flown in fresh: black truffles, foie gras, oysters and live Brittany lobsters from France; caviar from Switzerland; Jerusalem artichokes and white truffles from Rome.

Diners were sipping their way through legendary vintages, like a 1985 Romanee Conti and a 1959 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. The wine alone cost more than 100,000 British pounds ($200,000; euro150,000), Griffiths said.

I just read a report on BBC News about the discovery of a video that gives proof of friendly fire between US and UK forces.

Here is an excerpt of the article (as taken from BBC News):

At the start of the attack, one pilot notices orange panels on the vehicles and asks whether there could be any friendly units in the area.

His command gives assurances there are no coalition forces in the area.

Pilots open fire but soon the error is realized and they are informed that friendly units were in the area.

They are told: "Abort your mission. You got a, looks we might have a blue on blue situation [a friendly fire incident]."

An air controller on the ground says: "We are getting an initial brief that there was one killed and one wounded, over."

So much for cooperation on the "War on Terror."

- Read the entire article 'Friendly fire' video unearthed on the BBC News website.

I was reading my copy of the latest Wall Street Journal when I came across front page news about the amusing signs in China. What am I talking about here? Here are some pictures to give you an idea.

Even as I type this, the Chinese are doing something about it: with thousands of tourists expected in 2008 for the Summer Olympics, there's no way they're going to allow themselves to be laughed at because of poor English translations. Teams of linguistic monitors have been deployed all over the city to search for faulty translations to correct. So maybe it took the Olympics before they decided to do something about it; better late than never.

For more signs similarly mistranslated, check out the Chinglish Files (Chinese + English) website.

- Photos courtesy of Chinglish

This is the title of my first column in our school publication (The New Builder), and I thought "why not use it here as well?"

So after much thought and deliberation, here it is. Lo and behold. My first post on my first blog. (I was actually choosing between Wordpress.com and Vox; obviously, Vox won.)

I've never really been a fan of blogging. Anyone who knows me well would know that. God knows I have a lot of stories to tell (when you're a student journalist you see and hear all kinds of things). Up till now, I didn't see the concept of blogging appealing at all.

What changed? I got promoted to News Editor, got my own column, and was really bored one Monday night. So I thought, what the heck, and decided to enter the wacky world of blogs. You could say that I wanted to put up an online version of my column; no vanity here, just keeping up with the times. LOL.

How things change indeed.

P.S. Oh yeah, about that first column of mine. I'll post it after the release of our paper. Best to not get ahead of myself. ^_^