Jenny Cos asked:




Are you planning to visit the Philippines? Do you want to have some ideas how your first travel will probably be?

If yes, you might want to consider some useful information I jotted down here, especially if it will be your first trip to the Philippines.

Basically, you will arrive in Manila Airport, also known as Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and go through a passport control. Make sure you have 750 pesos for terminal fee and fill out the departure form. Your bags will be inspected and you will be scanned so better take off your shoes, belt, mobile phones, or things that you have in your pockets. After the custom control, you will proceed to the departure terminal. Trained dogs will also be around to check if you have drugs in your luggage. The departure is quite easy and the terminal is not so big, so there is no chance of getting lost.

Make sure to have some cash if you want to ride in a taxi. It usually costs 400-500 Philippine pesos, but it really depends where your destination or hotel is. There are money changers inside the terminal, so it will not be a problem if you don’t have Philippine money.

Some hotels offer transportation services (from hotel to Manila Airport and vice versa) and it’s better to book for that if it will be your first visit to the country. Or else, be prepared to get ripped off by taxi drivers in airport (not only in Manila but anywhere in the world). But you can still insist to use meter in taxi.

If someone will pick you up in your arrival, you need to look through a lot of people waving behind a barrier or better read what is written on their sign boards that matched your name. If you will not ride in the taxi, you will need to walk to the parking area with your luggage, which is approximately 400 meters away.

The weather is also unpredictable, depending what season you plan to go there. If it is not raining, you will surely think that the temperature is really hot. Expect long traffic delays within Metro Manila especially during rush hours.

Foreigners or international tourists usually stay around Malate, Ortigas and Makati area. There are lots of hotels to choose from, but ofcourse, it is up to your budget. Foreigners can also buy a pre-paid sim so it will not be expensive of calling abroad.

During the days, you can go to malls, shopping centers, parks and museums and if you prefer vibrant night life, you can go to some bars, restaurants, disco places, pubs or night clubs. You can find them everywhere, but be careful for pickpockets.

For sure, you don’t want to consume all your days in Manila. You may also want to visit some top tourist destinations like Boracay, Puerto Galera, Cebu, Subic Bay, Palawan, Bohol, Baguio, Banaue, Corregidor, Pangasinan, Batangas, Iloilo and Davao. Be captivated by the beauty of nature, white beaches, small islands and be thrilled by amazing underwater adventures.

You can directly arrange a trip to those places in some travel agencies or just book your trip online. It is not hard to communicate with Filipinos as most of them understand and speak English.

Filipinos are friendly and hospitable. Filipinos also love and treasure small presents (pasalubong). So if you want to have more friends, the fastest way is to give some small things from your home country.

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Kylie Evans asked:


Happy Egg-Day!

Easter is a pretty flexible holiday for many.

If you are Christian, it is a day of celebration – for according to the gospel, today is the day that Jesus arose from the dead, after a nasty run in with the Romans, and was able to go about his business of healing and feeding the masses.

I have never read a story with such a happy and completely surreal ending; but then again, I also read this week that officials in Manila were issuing health-warnings to the general public about the hazards of not getting their tetanus shots and using clean nails for their own annual DIY crucifixions.

I believe the Filipino Surgeon General also went on to suggest the use of 30+ sunscreen. After all, if one is going to nail oneself to a couple of pieces of 2 X 4 and hang around for awhile, one can’t be too careful about melanomas and the like. (I can only wonder if there is a specific section in IKEA in Manila for such activities).

Easter Sunday is also the quintessential event on the calender for Chocolaphiles. Chocolate Eggs, Bunnies and Bilbies (for my non-Australian friends – An Easter Bilby is a short, squat little mammal that is currently endangered for many reasons, not the least of which is that people keep dipping them in cacao and eating them)

                    

With the amount of sugar consumed during this period, it is little wonder that Easter marks inordinate sales figures for the retailers of Play Station I – MMCCCXXIIV. What better a time to buy a mind-numbing, intellect-stunting piece of equipment that will keep the little sugar-crazed blighters from shaving the cat and filling the sink with sun-dried tomatoes and Pine-O-Kleen.

Given that I am not a religious person, and I am one of the few people in the street…the town…the globe (according to reliable sources) that has a distinct aversion to all things chocolate, it should come as no surprise that Easter is a little bit of a non-event for me (I keep hoping that an Easter Deli-man will arrive with eggs made of King Island Brie and mild Hungarian salami but this is inevitably met with annual disappointment)

So, normally I approach this public holiday (by the way, cheers for that Herod…) with a fairly relaxed attitude, but still adhering to some of the culinary tenets set out in the Good Book.

I drink plenty of wine and eat lots of disgustingly good fish. I may not go to such extremes as nailing myself to the kitchen cupboard, but I endeavor to at least assume a sedentary position six times a day, before and after meals.

What sets this year apart from the rest of my Easters to date, is that I read yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to add 7 new “deadly sins” to the list of what will apparently send you over into the Ninth Circle of Hell.

Included in these new list of dogma-related No-Nos are:

*Thou shalt not be a billionaire

* Thou shalt not help create poverty

*Thou shalt not contribute to the widening gap between the rich and the poor

*Thou shalt not use “Bioethical” violations such as birth control

Okay, let’s just dissect a few things here…..

If the Vatican wants to put a stop to excessive wealth, then it should look in it’s own backyard.

I would be more than happy to support such theological threats of eternal damnation if perhaps the Pope and his cardinals would maybe start selling off some of their own odds and sods.

                                                     

Bit of a “two birds with one stone” that one. They could tear down some of their gilded cathedrals and have a good, old-fashioned cent-auction say, in Darfur. In one hit we get rid of some of the obscenely excessive wealth, and by doing such, make positive steps towards relieving the poverty.

Just a side note too – if gross expenditure of wealth is the new and trendy sin du jour Number 1, the Catholic Church might want to perhaps engage the services of a public defender for any future cases against naughty priests. Any cash leftover could be used in addressing sin du jour Number 3 – Thou shalt not contribute to the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Which brings me to the new and improved sin-alert regarding the banishing of “Bioethical” violations such as birth control.

Forgive my hell-raising here Benedict, pal, but perhaps if some of those living in the more impoverished countries, such as Bangladesh, had a little more access to “Bioethical violations” ie: birth control, we could probably stem some of the poverty there as well. Reducing gross overpopulation, and thus poor living conditions, could be achieved by introducing a little *** education and a supply of condoms.

Note to the Billionaires: Therein lies your “Get Out Of The Underworld” Free card.

If the Vatican INSISTS on giving us more things to be afraid of and/or ashamed of by way of introducing new sins, can we not, at least swap a few of the new ones for the old ones?

If I have to curtail my working and spending habits, could I at least be able to indulge in  a little Gluttony and Sloth. It’s a slog trying to continually say “No” to that fourth glass of Merlot, and do not even get me started on how I have managed, only in the name of all that is pure and holy, to finally figure out how the vacuum works.

If I MUST pour all of my time and energies into closing the gap between the obscenely rich and the desolate poor- do you think it would be TOO much to ask if the Lord Almighty might look the other way whilst I occasionally lust after a shirtless Matthew McConnaghy?

                            

I will endeavor to observe these new rules and regulations, upon fear of dancing cheek-to-cheek with Beelzebub, but I have got to say, I am not happy Jan!

If I had my way (or looked good in a smock and a tall, silly hat) the new and improved sins would read something like this:

*Thou shalt not watch FOX news

*Thou shalt not wear large and inane yellow sunglasses and go around acting like a purile meat-head.

                         

*Thou shalt not ring people at 10pm…from Delhi…. to ask them if their Internet provider is serving all of their telecommunication needs.

*Thou shalt not invite people over for coffee only to ambush them with AMWAY

*Thou shalt NOT submit his/her (whoops….that would be just “his”) resume for Pope and white-out the bits regarding support for genocide during their time in the ****** Youth Programme.

So, on that note, I am off to drink some alcohol and watch a DVD with a decent cameo of Orlando Bloom’s buttocks, all the while being very careful not to spill any Pito chip crumbs on the doona.

Those chips are the BEST, and wasting any of them is tantamount to a deadly sin………. if ever I knew one.

Christine asked:


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Coddie Adwar asked:


In October of 2000, al-Qaeda managed to blow a 40 ft by 40 ft hole in the side of USS Cole while it was at port in Yemen. The terrorists were seeking a military confrontation with the United States, but the Cole bombing did not bring that result. Less than a year later, al-Qaeda operatives were positioning themselves inside the United States, preparing an attack of much larger scale. Al-Qaeda’s plans were partially intercepted by US intelligence through the chatter of electronic intercepts. An al-Qaeda operative, referring to the failure of the Yemeni attack to produce the desired reaction, was overheard saying: “Don’t worry; we’re planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond…”

At the time, Judith Miller, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter then employed by New York Times, was working on an in-depth article about the al-Qaeda network. She says that during the weekend immediately preceding July 4th 2001 (two months before the 9/11 attacks) officials within the White House’s Counter-terrorism Agency were trying to alert the president and other senior officials, but had decided to leak their concerns since they were being listened to.

CBS News reported, on July 26 2001, that the FBI had determined that the threat was serious enough to prompt enhanced security measures for certain officials. By August, the FBI knew that the pending attack would involve airplanes.

By early August 2001, the CIA had developed enough clarity about the threat to specifically warn the President. They titled their Presidential Daily Briefing for August 6, 2001 “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S” in the hope that the president would be concerned enough to energize the governmental agencies responsible for security and head off the attack. President Bush, who spent an estimated 42% of his first year vacationing in his ranch in Crawford, Texas, was not pleased by the in-person intrusion of the CIA agent who was sent to present the analysis. Bush glared at the CIA briefer and the snapped: “All right, you have covered your ass”. When the agent cleared out, the President went back to fishing and working on a speech about the stem-cell research, putting the CIA’s warning in the distant back of his mind. Source: Ron Suskind, “The One Percent Solution”.

As far back as 1995, Philippine police in Manila had uncovered an al Qaeda related plot to hijack commercial airliners and fly them into American buildings. The plan was named “Project Bojinka” and the World Trade Center was specifically mentioned as a target. This information was turned over to U.S. Intelligence, but no preventive measures were ever ordered, even though the CIA was informed the attack would involve airplanes…

The attacks of 9/11 have helped authoritarian countries increase their control over their people and countries they are fighting, under the pretext of defending themselves against terror. It also helped the Bush administration impose measures that greatly expanded the Federal government’s control over the American population. The attacks also provided an excuse to start the desired war on Iraq. But as the American people became aware that the Bush administration had misrepresented the facts used to take America into that Iraq war, they lost a significant degree of trust in their own government. That led to further questions about the 9/11 attacks and fueled the 9/11 conspiracy movement at the heart of which are the lies of the Bush Administration and the reasonably resulting distrust of the American people.

It was George W. Bush’s incompetence, not clever design, that allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place. The tragedy could likely have been prevented had his administration attended to the numerous danger signals preceding those attacks by mustering the surveillance already in place and increasing the airport security measures. There certainly remain a number of strange coincidences and unexplained phenomena relevant to the 9/11 attacks, but the assertion that they could have been an inside government job strains credibility. It would have been insane, even for an administration as misguided as that of George W. Bush’s, for the neocons to have orchestrated such an event, because the level of organization necessary for such acts would inevitably have leaked and led to the destruction of the Republican Party forever. Although George W. Bush did manage to implode Republican prospects in general, it is important for the country as a whole to focus its attention on the serious challenges left his wake. Toward that end, Congressional investigations of the Bush/Cheney years would be most appropriate.