Growth not felt by most in Republic of Philippines: The bank said despite two years of economic growth, surveys showed that 17 percent of the population reported hunger compared to 12 percent last year and over 49 percent considered themselves impoverished compared to 48 percent in 2005. ...The Philippines is expected to grow 5.3 percent in 2006 and 5.6 percent in 2007 compared to 5.1 percent last year due to rising consumption fuelled by strong remittances from Filipinos working overseas, the World Bank said. ...The Philippines is one of Asia’s biggest importers of rice... Biff- This is what makes the Third World the Third World. Fucked up traditional culture in which ideology and eschatology trumps pragmatism and empiricism.
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Collapsing the Maya: “Captives were tortured in unpleasant ways depicted clearly on the monuments and murals (such as yanking fingers out of sockets, pulling out teeth, cutting off the lower jaw, trimming of the lips and fingertips, pulling out the fingernails, and driving a pin through the lips), culminating, sometimes years later, in the sacrifice of the captive in other equally unpleasant ways such as tying the captive up into a ball by binding the arms and legs together, then rolling the balled-up captive down the steep stone staircase of a temple.”
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...but oh, right, THAT'S Beijing: Scruples about this kind of thing are hardly in abundance. (Remember, the Chinese are "pragmatic" - which is another way of saying intimidated into submission.) Last week a former Taipei Times colleague - yes, the deep green pro-independence newspaper - over dinner told me of having applied for a job with the ultimate CCP mouthpiece, The People's Daily. Biff- Holidarity is quite a good blog. Worth going back now and again.
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Philippines blast 'extortion bid': An extortion attempt may have been behind an explosion on the southern Philippine island of Jolo which killed nine people, police have said.
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The Economics of Polygamy Biff- some interesting links on this and polyginy in Southeast Asia.
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Collapsing the Maya: “Captives were tortured in unpleasant ways depicted clearly on the monuments and murals (such as yanking fingers out of sockets, pulling out teeth, cutting off the lower jaw, trimming of the lips and fingertips, pulling out the fingernails, and driving a pin through the lips), culminating, sometimes years later, in the sacrifice of the captive in other equally unpleasant ways such as tying the captive up into a ball by binding the arms and legs together, then rolling the balled-up captive down the steep stone staircase of a temple.”
--
...but oh, right, THAT'S Beijing: Scruples about this kind of thing are hardly in abundance. (Remember, the Chinese are "pragmatic" - which is another way of saying intimidated into submission.) Last week a former Taipei Times colleague - yes, the deep green pro-independence newspaper - over dinner told me of having applied for a job with the ultimate CCP mouthpiece, The People's Daily. Biff- Holidarity is quite a good blog. Worth going back now and again.
--
Philippines blast 'extortion bid': An extortion attempt may have been behind an explosion on the southern Philippine island of Jolo which killed nine people, police have said.
--
The Economics of Polygamy Biff- some interesting links on this and polyginy in Southeast Asia.
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