Earthquake hits near Philippines

WASHINGTON –

A strong earthquake struck south of the Philippines on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.7 and was located in the Celebes Sea, 175 miles southeast of Jolo, Sulu Archipelago, and 730 miles south of Manila. The quake hit at 5:41 p.m. EDT, or 5:41 a.m. Thursday local time.
USGS did not report any damages or injuries.

Is the end near? There is sure alot of Calamity going on around the world. What date? 2012 like the Movie?

We need to do the best we can on this planet now. We need to set examples for our children and make each day count - do the best we can.

The millennium and end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it prophecies

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip.

Typhoon Ondoy Relief

Tropical storm “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana), which killed at least 295 people last month, was followed by Typhoon “Pepeng” (Parma) a week later, causing another 16 deaths.
Many areas in Manila and the northern provinces remain flooded, and the government has warned of possible epidemics.

At least 1.9 million people have been affected by Typhoon Ketsana. Severe flooding has displaced over 450,000 and has accounted for the deaths of over 250 people.

Filipinos in RI raise funds for flood victims

Lilian Budianto , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta Thu, 10/08/2009 10:57 AM World
Members of the Filipino community living in Jakarta have collected more than US$10,000 to help around 1 million victims of two major storms in their home country, says the country’s ambassador.
Ambassador Vidal Erfe Querol said on Tuesday Filipinos had collected and sent $10,850 in cash to the Philippines Red Cross and social welfare services to help victims of typhoons in the Philippines, which have killed hundreds and left thousands homeless.
“We organize the fundraising through social networking websites and through short messages,” he said.
“We will also arrange a bingo event in November, whose proceeds will go to help typhoon victims.”
Rodolfo C. Balmater, who leads the Filipino community in the fundraising, said they were also looking for ways to help people in the Philippines rebuild their lives.
“The first phase is to collect money to buy emergency relief supplies, such as food and clothing. The next step over the coming months is the Filipino community here will move on to the project of rebuilding destroyed schools and libraries,” he said.
“We will gather the information of what kind of assistance they need and how we can help them,” Balmater said.
There are around 10,000 Filipinos living and working in Indonesia, mostly as managers, accountants, engineers and teachers in English-medium schools.
The Associated Press reported the United Nations appealed Tuesday for $74 million to help typhoon victims in the Philippines.
UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said the appeal was to seek money for food, water, sanitation facilities, emergency shelters and healthcare for those worst affected by Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma.
To jump-start the response, Holmes said he had authorized an immediate allocation of $7 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund.
The appeal has already received between $9 million and $10 million, Holmes said.
In addition to UN efforts, he said many governments in the region and elsewhere, including the United States, were helping in different ways.
Ketsana killed almost 300 people, with 40 still missing, and destroyed or badly damaged almost 40,000 houses, thereby affecting 4 million people, Holmes said. Some 300,000 are still in emergency evacuation centers, he added.
The storm lashed Manila and nearby provinces on Sept. 26, causing the worst flooding in the capital in more than four decades.
Eight days later, Parma blew across the country’s mountainous north, bringing more rain to the still-sodden region.
At least 16 people died when the typhoon hit the main island of Luzon on Oct. 3, though Manila.

Here are some pictures of good deeds in the Philippines. People helping people.




Enjoy.


Todd

Slideshow

http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=typhoon+ondoy+relief


http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=typhoon+ondoy+relief&m=text

Congratulations - Efren Peñaflorida Jr. - A CNN hero started with a pushcart full of hopes

Hey - my home now. This is where I live in the Philippines - Cavite. Yes I live in the slum area to. Congratulations Efren Penaflorida Jr. Thanks for putting Cavite on the map in a positive way. Things are moving on up. Way to go!! Slumdog Millionaires now to transpire in Cavite - Coming Soon........


GMANews.TV - Thursday, October 8

With an ocean of garbage as his playground as a child, Efren Peñaflorida Jr. was accustomed to living amid the ills of society. The slum area in Cavite province where he grew up abounded with solvent-sniffing kids and tough gangsters. People sifted through dumpsites during the day and slept in the cemetery’s empty crypts at night.
To vote for Peñaflorida as CNN Hero of the Year, click here. It was 1997. Peñaflorida, a gangling 16-year-old youngster back then, was occasionally bullied and beaten by street toughies. No one would have thought that, 12 years later, he would be short-listed by globally known Cable News Network (CNN) as a candidate for its CNN Heroes. “I grew up really poor. My father was a driver and my mother was a laundrywoman. When I went to school, I experienced being mocked, bullied, discriminated against," said Peñaflorida, the second of three children.
“I wanted to settle scores with the bullies. But I realized I could turn a bad experience into something positive." At the time, Peñaflorida was part of Club 8586, a youth group in Cavite. His mentor encouraged him to help curb the rampant gang wars and fraternity feuds in their communities, where kids as young as nine years were already involved in violent fights.
‘Pushcart classroom’ Despite having to cope with his own limited means, Peñaflorida formed the Dynamic Teen Company (DTC) with his two peers. The fledgling group ventured into work among destitute and out-of-school youth, teaching them basic literacy skills, values formation, and even personal hygiene. Armed only with plastic bags loaded with books and school supplies, Peñaflorida and his team roamed the shantytowns of Cavite, offering kids a unique chance to learn useful things in the “street classroom" setting.
Years later, the platform for their mobile classroom would evolve into pedicabs, and eventually into what it is today – a Kariton Klassrum (literally, “pushcart classroom"). The Kariton Klassrum now carries a mini-library, reading aids, blackboards, and even detachable tables and chairs. One of the mobile classrooms turns into a "relief cart" for Ondoy victims. DTC file photo Peñaflorida says that his commitment to teach basic literacy to kids is his way of “paying forward" – having been a scholar himself. His elementary and high school education was funded by World Vision Philippines, while his college education was shouldered by Club 8586. Not surprisingly, he took up a degree in Education.
Now 28, Peñaflorida earns a living as a public school teacher in Cavite. On Saturdays, he continues his pushcart classrooms –which have expanded into Manila – with other teen volunteers now reaching 2,000. Aside from teaching literacy, the group also conducts feeding programs for abandoned street kids who scavenge for food by sifting through heaps of garbage.
Who is a hero?
When the world-renowned Cable News Network (CNN) early this year called for submissions for its annual search for Heroes, Club 8586 nominated Peñaflorida.
The network’s Blue Ribbon Panel sifted through 9,000 nominees from over 100 countries, and soon narrowed down its choices to 28. On October 1 (October 2 in Manila), CNN announced its top 10 finalists for its Hero of the Year. Peñaflorida made the cut.
The word “hero" has been used so loosely, that these days even someone who performs a singular, momentary selfless act like jumping into a river to save a child is quickly declared a hero. But the same public recognition is not so easily earned by a person who performs the same heroic act, quietly and doggedly from day to day. Peñaflorida (in white) pushes for change. Hub Pacheco file photo Nonetheless, Rezcel Fajardo has no doubt in her mind that Peñaflorida is indeed a hero. One of the co-founders of DTC, Fajardo says she knew from the start that her colleague would be included in the CNN shortlist. “He is a modern-day hero. He would use his meager salary to buy food for the kids. In fact, he had already pledged the prize money to the children he is helping, should he win," Fajardo said. But like a real hero who embodies humility, Peñaflorida refuses to take the credit for the honor given by CNN, much less brag about it. He says that his inclusion in the roster of 10 finalists is already an honor in itself. “This is not about me," he says. “If the people vote for me, they are actually voting for the poor kids DTC is teaching and the dedicated volunteers behind this work." Peñaflorida, fondly called Kuya F, distributes biscuits to the kids at a slum area in Cavite. DTC File Photo ‘Rainbow after the rain’
Peñaflorida views his inclusion in CNN’s Top 10 as the proverbial “rainbow after the rain" to Filipinos.
On October 2, the country was still reeling from the weeklong floods wrought by storm “Ondoy" when it braced itself anew to face typhoon “Pepeng’s" wrath.
Like many other citizens who volunteered for Ondoy-related relief operations, Peñaflorida joined others in packing and distributing donations to flood-stricken communities in Cavite. True to his mission, his pushcarts turned into relief carts used to collect donated goods.
Peñaflorida says that Anderson Cooper’s announcement of the Blue Ribbon Panel’s decision “gave Filipinos a breath of fresh air, a brief moment to cheer and celebrate, to be inspired all the more" to pursue volunteer work and rebuild our nation. The many heroes emerging from the Ondoy tragedy inspires Peñaflorida to devote more of himself to the disaster victims in his home province. “There are many people who rose to the occasion, but their stories remain untold. It’s an honor to represent a nation of heroes," Peñaflorida says. “Indeed, the Filipino is worth dying for," he adds, quoting the famous words of his personal hero, Ninoy Aquino. With Filipinos abuzz with Peñaflorida’s nomination, the young man recently visited the World Vision office one busy afternoon and was promptly hounded by media. He now confesses he is still unaccustomed to being thrust into the spotlight. Peñaflorida recalls that he and other DTC volunteers had to endure taunts and rejection for many years, while carrying out their mission. “We’ve experienced being degraded and unwanted, so we just had to bow our heads low while they shouted, ‘Here are the basureros (trash collectors)!’" Despite the difficulties of bringing education closer to impoverished youth, Peñaflorida finds fulfillment not in awards and other forms of official recognition – not even in the flattery by politicians who have started courting him for their election plans – but in the smiles of the children who rush to meet him when they spot his humble pushcart. Peñaflorida’s success is not your ordinary rags-to-riches story. While he is no longer hounded by the pangs of hunger and destitution, he continues to offer himself to the underprivileged as an example of a kid who fell victim to violence driven by poverty and yet found a way to lift himself up.
With heroes, the need to catalyze change always leads to endless possibilities. Even if the only possibility at first is to simply start pushing a pushcart. - GMANews.TV To vote for Efren Peñaflorida Jr. and view CNN’s Top 10 Heroes of 2009, click here..

Father Kills, eats son's rival

Father kills, eats son's rival
ABS-CBN - Thursday, October 8

OK - I read this today and thought; What is the world coming to? I currently live and reside in the Philippines and was disgusted by this. I thought this was only in the movies. I guess sometimes those fictional movies turn out to be non-fictional. Maybe there is another sequel. Hannibal rising in the Philippines?

I wonder if this guy looks like him except the Filipino version.

Father kills, eats son's rival
ABS-CBN - Thursday, October 8

Father kills, eats son's rival
A vengeful father in Naawan town in Misamis Oriental killed his son's rival, carved out meat from his body and shared it with his drinking buddies.
Senior Inspector Carlos Oliveros, Naawan police station chief, said residents found the remains of 16-year-old Rey Dadoles in a grassy portion of Barangay Mat-i last Friday.
Oliveros said Dadoles died after suffering 22 hack wounds. He said flesh was carved out of the boy's ribs and some of the body parts were also missing.
He said Dadoles was brutally killed by Jovencio Tuyor and three other persons.
"They took some parts of the boy's body. Tuyor ate the victim's flesh," Oliveros told ABS-CBN Misamis Oriental.
Tuyor admitted in an interview that he killed the boy. He said he only retaliated for his son, who was hit by the victim before the killing.
He also confessed to taking some body parts of the victim and sharing it with his drinking buddies as "kinilaw," a local dish of raw meat slightly cooked with vinegar and ginger.
Police said the three other suspects in the killing are now under protective custody.
A case of murder has been filed against the suspect. Report from Rod Bolivar, ABS-CBN Misamis Oriental

"Hannibal Lecter" -

All about Hannibal Lecter - Facts and Fiction

By Anthony Bruno
Prologue

More diabolical than Sherlock Holmes's arch nemesis Dr. Moriarty and more lethal than Jaws, Hannibal Lecter, the serial murderer created by author Thomas Harris, has captured the public's fascination like no other fictional character in recent years. Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter first appeared as a minor but important character in Harris's novel Red Dragon. In the next book, The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter came into his own, and the movie version highlighted the killer's complex relationship with FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling. In these two novels, Lecter, in his indirect, Cheshire-Cat way, advises the FBI as they hunt for headline-making serial killers who are on the loose and very active. He himself is not the target of law enforcement's full-court press until Hannibal, the third book in this series. In Hannibal, Lecter is at large and up to his old tricks. His face altered by plastic surgery, he has taken a new identity and moved to Rome, an environment that better suits his cultivated tastes. Clarice Starling, now a full-fledged special agent, picks up his trail, hoping to recapture the wily psychoanalyst with a taste for human flesh.

Jodie Foster with Anthony Hopkins behind
But who is Hannibal Lecter? What real-life models did Harris use in creating him? How much of him is fiction and how much is based on fact? Is he purely a literary invention, or could someone like him actually be walking the streets right now?

Book cover: Silence of the Lambs
The portrait Harris paints of Dr. Lecter is vivid and terrifying. His eyes are maroon in color, and his voice has a hint of a metallic rasp. His teeth are small and white. A mature man well into middle age, Lecter is small and compact, and moves with unusual grace and silence. He has six fingers on one hand, the middle finger "perfectly replicated... the rarest form of polydactyly." His sense of smell is highly developed as exhibited by his ability to detect Clarice Starling's brand of perfume—L'Air du Temps—on their first meeting in The Silence of the Lambs, even though she hadn't worn any that day.

Hannibal in his cage
Before he was caught, he was a respected psychiatrist and patron of the arts in Baltimore, Maryland. He was born in eastern Europe to an aristocratic family but suffered unspeakable hardship as a boy during World War II. Fourteen homicides have been attributed to him, though authorities suspect that there were probably others.
These are the "facts" of Thomas Harris's master creation, but was there a real-life model that Harris used for Lecter? Harris rarely gives interviews and prefers to let his work speak for itself. It's known that he did research at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (now called the Investigative Support Unit) when writing these books and learned the specifics of serial murderers and their habits from real profilers. How much did he take from the case files he was allowed to review and how much came from his own imagination?
Since the author will not tell us (and frankly what author would?), perhaps we can sleuth this out the way a profiler would—start with what we know about Lecter and build a profile on him that we can compare to other real-life serial killers.
(For the purpose of this analysis, I will use only the literary Hannibal Lecter, the version of him that appears in the novels. As good as some of the cinematic portrayals have been—particularly Anthony Hopkins's bone-chilling interpretation—it will be more beneficial to work from the primary source material.)

"Hannibal Lecter, M.D. is a fictional character in a series of novels by author Thomas Harris. Lecter is introduced in the thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. This novel and its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, feature Lecter as one of two primary antagonists. In the third novel, Hannibal, Lecter becomes the main character. His role as protagonist occurs in the fourth novel, Hannibal Rising, which explores his childhood and development into a serial killer. Lecter's character also appears in all five film adaptations.
The first movie, Manhunter, was loosely based on Red Dragon, and features Brian Cox as Lecter, spelled as "Lecktor". In 2002, a second adaptation of Red Dragon was made under the original title, featuring Anthony Hopkins, who had previously played Lecter in the motion pictures The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Hopkins won an Academy Award for his performance of the character in The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 despite the fact that he only appeared on screen for 16 minutes in the entire film. In 2003, Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) was voted by The American Film Institute to be the most memorable villain in film history.[2]"

Market Crash

Just as I said in April this year - look for a spring summer rally then when most of us think things are looking up - boom. Here we go again. History repeats itself. Will no one ever learn. I know - we were all disillusioned to believe things were getting better. Lets get serious - can we recover from all this chaos in that short of a period of time.
I think I will head to the roller coaster park as I can pick my rides of the ups and downs and decide not to ride anymore.