The Breastfeeding Madonna
Those Medieval painters were a bit less puritanical than we moderns: A common motif in paintings was the Madonna Les Latte: the Virgin Mother breastfeeding the baby Jesus. Back in those days, if a...
View ArticleHow the Brown Win Could energize Blue Dog Democrats
The right wing blogosphere is in ecstasy about a Republican upset for the Senate seat in Massachusetts. But the real news is HOW Scott Brown won the Senate seat in “Blue state” Massachusetts. How?...
View Article“Blog Away!” to Expose Hypocrisy of Olympics Sponsors Advises Vancouver...
Shame the sponsors. That sums up the remedy advised by Vancouver Olympics Organizing Committee member and Vancouver City Manager Penny Ballem on Wednesday Jan. 13, after she was briefed at City Hall on...
View ArticleCopyright cops vs kids, while the professionals stay in business
When I came to the Philippines, I ripped my CD collection into MP3’s and brought most of my collection here on mp3 CD’s or on my hard drive. I had a fairly nice collection of “elevator music” (to use...
View ArticleThe Biggest Religious Story Ever Ignored
The story carries the headline: France: Catholic Church Rejects Ban on Full-Face Veils Except the “Catholic Church” did no such thing. The Bishop in charge of “interreligious dialogue” in France made a...
View ArticleGlobal Warming is Like the Plagues of Egypt?
The pseudo religious nonsense by popular clergy is enough to make an agnostic out of me. Doesn’t matter if it is the “we’re all gonna die if gays get rights” on the right or the “we’re all gonna die if...
View ArticleSingle Payer Healthcare? Pros and Cons
We are still waiting for the details of the Obama care bill that is going to save American health care, whether we want it or not. One is reminded of the saying: The devil is in the details; and...
View ArticleThe Curious Case of the Death Panels and the Lockerbie Bomber
If you follow the British news, you might have noticed an ongoing scandal about Scotland releasing the mastermind of the Lockerbie bombing (the bomb at Christmas time of 1988Â that destroyed Pan Am...
View ArticleThe Gift of C-SPAN: Now On the Internet
The political hot air and exaggerations that goes around the Internet makes one wonder if everyone is going to have not their “ten minutes of fame” but their “Ten minutes of being demonized by the...
View ArticleWho’s making money on the Health Care bill?
I have many ethical problems with the Obama Health Care bill. But the real story that is being ignored about Obama’s health care bill is that it kowtows to big insurance and big drug companies, who...
View ArticleAAFP Leadership’s links to Democratic Activist Groups
My fellow Family docs: Did you know that you are now officially part of the Obama organizing machine? In the AAFP news: Physicians need to be closely involved as the recently enacted health care reform...
View ArticlePress bias: Ridiculing Uppity women for political gain
If you want a controversial ex politician to give a talk to your group, do you expect that person to will fly unaccompanied in coach, find a taxi to your site, and stay at Motel 6? Or do you think that...
View ArticleThe Power of Yes: WaMu Raps, Fannie and Freddie Got Back
Just when I think I’m through dishing the United States of Real Estate, it pulls me back in. The show is old, but still too hot to ignore. In mid-April the Klown Execs From Washington Mutual (WaMu)...
View ArticleCFPA Bill Kills Jobs and Murders Payday Loan Stocks
The CFPA Bill, known as “financial reformâ€, is very likely to pass. Lenders of all varieties will have business models scrutinized once the CFPA gets up and running. You can bet that under the...
View ArticleGaza’s Bad Hair Day: It’s Israel’s fault
I was bemused when a minor lambast against “pacifists” trying to start a war against Israel led to this comment: “…the Israelis steadfastly refuse to publish a list of allowed goods and appear to...
View ArticleObama is not being anti-British over BP
The British media and commentariat is working itself into a frenzy over President Obama’s attack on BP. The Mayor of London, the patrician Boris Johnson, has said “I do think there’s something slightly...
View ArticleTerrorists in Africa: Bombing Football Fans and Now, Dirty Bombs
A couple weeks ago, I ran across a strange story about Zimbabwe: a couple of known terrorists were caught crossing the border from Zimbabwe into South Africa at Beitbridge. 33 year-old Imran...
View ArticleProud To Be A (Politicized?) Federal Bureaucrat
The large American Federal Bureaucracy was founded to replace the “spoils system” that allowed those elected to place all their friends/relatives/cronies/campaign contributors into offices where they...
View ArticleSenator Kerry and the Out-Of-State Sales Tax Dilemma
A bit of an uproar in Massachusetts, where the local papers have discovered that Senator Kerry bought a yacht, but has parked it in nearby Rhode Island to get out of paying the local sales tax. The...
View ArticleFor the Government, “Meaningful” Medical Practice Doesn’t mean helping Patients.
Up popped a comment on my Facebook page: American Medical News Do you think your practice is, or will be, ready for meaningful use? Uh, silly me. True, I’m now retired, but I though that seeing 20 plus...
View ArticleCasino Controversy in the Philippines
Unlike the US, where our priests would rarely preach about anything more serious than “Jesus loves you”, here in the Philippines, our clergy is politically active. And one of the latest campaigns in...
View ArticleWhy Cheap Generic Medicine can Kill
The naive guys at the NYTimes Freakonomics blog have a short article on the cost of health care, especially medicines, in third world countries: A new study analyzed the effects of buying four basic...
View ArticleTom Friedman and China’s Potemkin Village
I love how Tom Friedman in the NYTimes lectures his US readers on “how the Chinese see us” by relating a skit on China’s government owned TV station where children were taught to ridicule the US:...
View ArticleCould Outsourcing save money for State Governments
In a previous post, I joked that if the Governor of Wisconsin wanted to fire all his teachers, he could hire a lot of qualified Filipino teachers to replace them. Yet this is not quite a joke: The cut...
View ArticleStop the Mining in Palawan
The ecosystem in the Philippine island of Palawan is unique, and to make it worse, the island has only recently been cleared of terrorists and reopened for tourism, so there is worry that the terrible...
View ArticleEBooks, Used Books, and Libraries
When my kids were in high school, I lived in a small Pennsylvania coal town, we had an excellent library. Why? Because a lot of kids of the coalminers wanted to go to college, and so the beloved...
View ArticleShell embedded spies in host governments of Nigeria, Dubai and Iraq
 By John Donovan of RoyalDutchShellPlc.com Today we provide a unique insight into the shadowy world of Shell Corporate Security, formerly known as “CAS” – Shell Corporate Affairs Security. Shell has...
View ArticleWhere are the 99%?
I see the “Occupy Wall Street” folks are still there. But what is puzzling me: usually a movement starts with a few activists and then slowly grows, as more who believe the same things join. So exactly...
View ArticleCorporate Social Responsibility – what it really means
The calamity of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster continues to put corporate reputation as a subject very much in the spotlight and, hardly surprisingly, many commentators contrast BP’s past attempts to...
View ArticlePristine Nature? Bah Humbug
Most Americans know about the “Asian Tiger” economies (and if PNoy keeps hitting at corruption, the Filipinos may join that group). But did you know that other areas of the world are similarly...
View ArticleThe Presidential Fiat: A Disturbing Trend
I think those who live and work in the US for x number of years without papers should get an amnesty, as was done by Reagan, and I support the targeted amnesty by Clinton for refugees from countries...
View ArticleBig Brother Targets the Fatties
Those of us who supported some kind of government health care bill for the 38 million uninsured were duped. Our hope was that a government program could help some who lack health insurance (or the...
View ArticleWhere the Buck stops in a Multinational Corporation
The idea that in the world of Commerce Chief Executives might follow the lead of Harry S Truman and have a sign on their desks saying “The Buck stops here” has had something of a boost in recent...
View ArticleThe Portion Control Revolution Begins with LifeSize
Last week I wrote about a fascinating new product in America’s war on obesity, known as LifeSize. This nifty little product from a start-up company is starting to garner quite a bit of attention....
View ArticleNaitonal Geographic: Why Ridicule Filipinos? Because China Fights Back
There was a big story by National Geographic last week about illegal ivory being used by Philippino Catholics to make statues. They even named one of our more dubious priests as being involved in the...
View Article“Consider This!†Podcast, Episode 31: Raising the Minimum Wage Won’t...
The latest episode of the “Consider This!†podcast is out; let’s talk politics in 10 minutes or less. In this episode, I have a one-track mind. In the President’s State of the Union address,...
View ArticleKKR Steps in to Help Spain
By just about any metric you can use, Spain is not doing well right now. Nearly 27% of the country is unemployed, their GDP continued to shrink in the last quarter, they have a credit squeeze that...
View ArticleNSA ignores TOR blocking the bad guys
Back when the people of Iran were busy protesting their election being stolen, I found out about a program called “TOR”. Webpage here. The Tor software is a program you can run on your computer that...
View ArticleBanking License Aspirants Should Disclose Business Plans to Public
In India, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is gearing itself to grant fresh Banking licenses. 26 applications are now under the consideration of RBI. The applicants include a diverse set of groups which...
View ArticleThere Go Confucian values
Here in Asia, we have a society where the family is the basis for welfare: in disasters, you seek family to help you.. Many people are getting out of poverty because they have family members who...
View ArticleShort Payday Loan Stocks: The DOJ and CFPB Want These Companies Dead
The lowest-risk shorting opportunity in the market right now appears to be in the payday lending stocks: Cash America International (NYSE: CSH), DFC Global (NASDAQ: DLLR), EZCorp (NASDAQ: EZPW), First...
View ArticleLast Week In Technology News
If you go back in time to the beginning of the 2000’s and hand them an ipad they will be amazed. Tell them that they will have this item in a few short years? Mind blown! Technology is changing at a...
View ArticleEU Sanctions: Bloomberg warns of ‘DefCon 5′ reprisal by Russia on Royal Dutch...
By John Donovan This morning the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc announced its second quarter results. In subsequent news coverage, Bloomberg commentators said they were stunned by the lack of comment...
View ArticleWill World Acceptance Corporation Stock Go to Zero?
There is a harsh take-down of World Acceptance Corporation (NASDAQ:WRLD) at SeekingAlpha.com today. Here is the link:...
View ArticleFormer Blackjack Pro Sells Startup
You might not know Jeff Ma by name, but there’s a good chance that you’ve heard something of his exploits. As seemingly a jack-of-all-trades, Ma has been involved in many different enterprises, ranging...
View ArticleARCTIC ALARM BELLS: SHELL KICKS OUT 60 WORKERS IN HOLLAND FOR DRUG USE
By John Donovan Royal Dutch Shell has expelled 60 workers from a Dutch chemical plant after workers were caught using drugs. The Shell Moerdijk plant in the Netherlands makes chemical products from...
View ArticleFDA Approves “Female Viagra” Pill
The Food and Drug Administration today approved a drug designed to boost sexual desire in women. The drug, flibanserin (brand name: Addyi), is made by Sprout Pharmaceuticals and works by regulating...
View Article5 Things To Know About Direct Response Marketing
If you’ve heard of direct response marketing but you’re unsure exactly what it stands for, you’re just like a lot of other people with a budding interest in marketing. This is a known strategy, and in...
View ArticleRemodel Your Old Retail Space
If you’re a retailer currently occupying an older space, you need to do some investigation. Customers place such a high value on the organization, cleanliness, and modern look of a store. Displays that...
View ArticleSchwab Declares War on Republican Money Managers
The Charles Schwab Corporation allegedly defamed and unlawfully interfered with the investment advisory services of a Republican money manager, according to a $100 million lawsuit filed on April 23...
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