Burger King Philippines

I love BK not only because of their products and the corteous staff but also because of the value added services like the free charging station, awesome wifi hotspot and now, a masseuse on the house. Keep it up, BK! Have it our way!

The Digital Ripple: 4th Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2010

The biggest and the most comprehensive digital marketing summit in the Philippines is at hand!

The Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) is organizing The Digital Ripple 4th Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2010 at SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia, Pasay City this August 19 and 20, 2010.

Gathering 12 international digital marketing experts, the 2-day summit promises to give fearless forecasts and trends shaping the web and mobile marketing and provide global perspectives from among the most successful and acknowledged experts.

Network with digital marketers from across the region and experience cutting edge solutions from providers.

I'm glad my vacation coincided with the event as I will have the chance to keep tab with the trends as presented by experts in case studies and leading campaigns.

For a digital marketer based in the Middle East, this will also give me the chance to stay grounded with the Philippine digital marketing topography allowing me not only to stay abreast but, more importantly, expand my range as well. After all, the principles apply to all regardless of one's physical location. Finally, as usual, whatever I learn from this event will surely be shared with my fellow practitioners and friends in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Another compelling reason to attend the summit is the encompassing topics covered. They have technical key industry issues presentations as well as generic and general concerns presentations.

The summit is designed to benefit anyone involved in digital marketing from CEO's to CRM Managers to Marketing Managers to Media Managers to Bloggers to SEO Strategists to Businessmen, Academe and Students.

To register or for more information on the speakers, visit The Digital Ripple 4th Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2010 at http://www.immapsummit.com/speakers.php

You may also want to follow IMMAP on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/immapPH

You can also monitor #immap summit discussions via Twitter at http://twitter.com/immapPH

Finally, A New President

We, Filipinos can once again have our heads high with the ascent to the presidency of Noynoy Aquino.

surely, he was not the most qualified among the candidates but being the accidental candidate that he was, Noynoy rallied a frustrated country crying for someone who can speak if their behalf.

The credentials were of no import to a people who were marginalized by leaders with purportedly impressive credentials.

Nonynoy, on the other hand, offers a firm resolve to address the woes that have afflicted our nation. Alright, he has ridden the crest of his illustrious surname. Alright, he has just perpetuated a dynasty. But these are not the issues that matter to a people longing for a president they can trust and they can trust to listen to them.

And so be it told, finally, we have a new President.

P-Noy. President Noynoy.

An Orphan

Nothing can sooth a broken heart of an orphan. That, I understand now that I am an orphan. my mother passed away after suffering from stroke. We really thought that she is on her way to recovery after her doctor allowed her to be discharged.

She wasn't.

She should have.

But she did not.

Now, I'm an orphan.

I lost my father two years ago. I am just about to accept he's gone and now, my mother.

It hurts. The pain is nothing physical. It is something that comes from the recesses of my soul. It is compounded by the fact that I will have to assume being head of the family.

Reality bites. I'm an orphan... and it is tough.

NASA Takes Google on Journey into Space

NASA Ames Research Center, located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, and Mountain View-based Google Inc. today announced plans to collaborate on a number of technology-focused research-and-development activities that will couple some of Earth’s most powerful technology resources.

NASA and Google have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that outlines plans for cooperation on a variety of areas, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry. The MOU also highlights plans for Google to develop up to 1 million square feet within the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field.

“Our planned partnership presents an enormous range of potential benefits to the space program,” said NASA Ames Center Director G. Scott Hubbard. “Just a few examples are new sensors and materials from collaborations on bio-info-nano convergence, improved analysis of engineering problems, as well as Earth, life and space science discoveries from supercomputing and data mining, and bringing entrepreneurs into the space program. While our joint efforts will benefit both organizations, the real winner will be the American public,” he added.

“Google and NASA share a common desire-to bring a universe of information to people around the world,” said Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive officer. “Imagine having a wide selection of images from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it. That's just one small example of how this collaboration could help broaden technology's role in making the world a better place.”

"I'm thrilled that NASA Ames Research Center and Google, two of our region's and our nation's most valuable and innovative organizations, have formed a partnership,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (CA -14th District).

“As Silicon Valley continues to lead in developing technologies that will guide our nation's economy in the 21st century, partnerships combining the best in public sector innovation with the cutting edge of private industry will serve as the gold standard in public-private partnerships for years to come. The technologies created by the partnership of Google and NASA Ames not only will enable and enhance further exploration of space, they will positively impact the daily lives of all Americans for generations to come," Eshoo said.

"The City of Mountain View is excited that two of our community's most innovative and dynamic organizations, Google and NASA Ames Research Center, are forming a new research-and-development partnership at Ames. This new collaboration will undoubtedly result in new research projects and endeavors with tremendous potential for innovation and far-reaching benefit," said Mountain View Mayor Matt Neely.

Located on property at Ames Research Center, NASA Research Park is being developed into a world-class, shared-use educational and R&D campus. As part of a comprehensive plan for this area, new laboratories, offices, classrooms, housing, auditoriums, museums, a training and conference center, open space, parking and limited retail facilities are envisioned. The plan calls for NASA to partner with local communities, academia, private industry, non-profit organizations and other government agencies in support of NASA's mission to conduct research and develop new technologies.

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford doctoral students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top Web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall Web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

Magic!

The Holocaust, the truth and the free mind

Charles Fried
The Boston Globe

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the egregious president of Iran, is hosting a conference this week on whether the Holocaust really happened. There are serious questions that someone with Ahmadinejad's hostile attitude toward the state of Israel might ask about the Holocaust — did it justify the settlement of its survivors in Palestine in the first place and has Israel misused the Holocaust to justify the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories? — but whether the Holocaust ever happened is not one of them. To even somewhat sensible, mildly educated people, Ahmadinejad's conference is like having a conference about whether the world might be flat after all.

Although Iran surely intends this as an affront to Israel and Jewish people everywhere — my family and I fled Czechoslovakia in 1939, leaving my grandparents and many relatives behind to die in Theresienstad and Auschwitz — the real victims of this minor latter-day outrage are the Iranian people and rational discourse everywhere.

What Ahmadinejad's conference proclaims is that truth has no place in the world of politics; that if your ends are just, you can say anything, no matter how far-fetched. Ahmadinejad tells us that his pursuit of advanced nuclear capabilities is for peaceful purposes only: power generation, medical applications and not as part of a weapons program. Why would a rational person put faith in any assurance from a man so contemptuous of truth or even think there is any point in negotiating with him?

But Ahmadinejad's tortured logic seems almost broad-minded compared with Turkey's stringent criminal prohibition on any suggestion that such a thing as its genocide of the Armenian people ever happened. Many brave Turkish writers and journalists have suffered persecution in recent times for proclaiming what no reasonable person would deny. Yet the Armenian genocide is as certain a historic fact as Hitler's European Holocaust, for which Ataturk's may well have served as a model and feasability study. (A recent brief, horrifying and thoroughly documented account can be found in Niall Ferguson's "War of the World.") Turkey and Iran turn truth into either a crime or charade.

And then there is the converse: What about countries like Canada and many in Europe that make it an offense to offer propositions derogatory of races or religions, or to deny the Holocaust, or proposed legislation in France that would make it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide. Here, too, the truth and how we come to know it suffers. States that forbid such palpable lies degrade the currency of truth as much as those who proclaim a lie as their national policy.

For in the end, the only way to bite the nickel to make sure it's genuine is in debate, assertion and counterassertion. That is the process in which extremists in Iran and Turkey are shown to be what they are — charlatans and liars. But states that shut down that process, even to inane propositions like Holocaust or Armenian genocide denial, debase the currency of truth every bit as much as their opposites. For in their zeal, they assign to themselves, to politics, and to official power (with its prosecutors, judges and jailors) an authority that can reside only in the forum of individual judgment and conviction.

There is such a thing as truth; that is why Holocaust deniers are fools or liars. But that is exactly why there can be no such thing as official truth — truth endorsed, policed and enforced by the power of the state. Truth is above politics, and judges politics, which is why politics has no authority to proclaim it. Official truth is a contradiction in terms.

In one respect the Turks seem worse than the Iranians: They make it a crime to tell the truth, while Ahmadinejad claims to doubt what only a fool or scoundrel would deny. Because there is a truth about the Holocaust and Armenian genocide, this doubt is foolish, but that judgment is not a judgment of politics but of the free mind that judges politics.

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Copyright © 2006 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

LCPL Daniel Smith stays in jail

Judge Banjamin Pozon refuses transfer to US Embassy

By: Alvin Murcia with Hector Lawas Tess Bedico, Cristina Lee-Pisco

NO GO — Senior Supt. Delvic Oreiro, Makati City jail warden in charge of the detention of US Marine Lance Corp. Daniel Smith, shows a copy of judge Benjamin Pozon’s decision denying a petition to transfer the convicted US Marine to the custody of the US Embassy. AFP US MARINE Lance Corporal Daniel Smith will remain at the Makati City Jail. Judge Benjamin Pozon yesterday denied for lack of merit Smith’s petition that he be transferred to the US Embassy while his conviction is being appealed. Pozon said Smith will stay in jail until the Philippine and US governments “shall have come to a binding agreement as to the proper facilities where the accused shall carry out his confinement or detention during his appeal.” With his ruling, the court junked the two “agreements” signed by US Ambassador Kristie Kenny, Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuno and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez. Gonzalez said Pozon “was wrong” and that the US Embassy should have custody of Smith as provided under the Visiting Forces Agreement. The Justice chief said the judge’s decision had “ruffled” RP-US relations. Smith was recently sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a Filipino woman. His three other co-accused were acquitted. Pozon, however, insisted that Article V, Paragraph 6, of the VFA no longer applies since the court has rendered its judgment. “The custody of accused Smith by the US military authorities was terminated after the completion of the trial and rendition of judgment of conviction,” he noted. “The reason for this is that the US military authorities has no more obligation to make the accused available to the Philippine authorities or to this court for judicial proceedings after the trial had been completed,” he added. The judge said his decision to temporarily detain Smith at the Makati City Jail is in compliance with the provisions of the VFA, particularly Article V, Paragraph 10. “This court, in pursuance of the country’s obligation under the said treaty, did not commit Smith to the national penitentiary. Instead, this court temporarily committed him to the Makati City Jail pending agreement by appropriate Philippine Authorities and Unites States authorities on the facilities where the confinement or detention of the said accused shall be carried out,” he said. The court also ruled that the “agreement” to transfer custody to the US Embassy signed by the US Ambassador and DoJ officials is not binding. Pozon said only the President, or the Foreign Affairs Secretary, can enter into such an agreement. Gov’t to intervene Gonzalez, however, said the government will intervene to have Smith transferred to the US Embassy. Malacañang earlier concurred with the position of the VFA Commission that Article 5. Paragraph 10 of the treaty that the US Embassy should take custody of US servicemen who violate Philippine laws until the end of the judicial proceedings. Gonzalez said it is an “international obligation” of the Philippine government to intervene in the case in keeping with the VFA. But he said any government action would depend on the next step to be taken by the counsels of Smith. “The intervention there is once there is let’s say a petition for certiorari on the ground that the judge abused his discretion in refusing to surrender custody to the Americans when the judicial proceedings are ongoing…The lawyer of Smith could go to the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court,” he said. “When that is filed, the Department of Foreign Affairs can file a petition in intervention in favor of the position taken by Smith,” he added. The DFA said it is coordinating with the DoJ in coming out with a solution with which the Philippines can comply to the VFA provision. “The DFA will continue to explore remedies available in order for the Philippines to be in compliance with its treaty obligations,” DFA spokesman Eduardo Malaya said.