My Country’s Race to FIRST WORLD

ORTIGAS CENTER

(picture taken from the 4th floor of Megamall's parking)

If the building of infrastructure can be a measure of a nation’s growth, my country is racing to the stars. Everywhere I turn, I see skyscrapers inching to the skies, some of which are so tall that they seem to have reached the clouds. Notably, the mushrooming skyscrapers are sprouting everywhere, as if the ground, neglected for decades, is finally fertile for growth.

We complain incessantly about the traffic, but honestly, there are enough roads with elevated ones, which we appropriately call skyways, that are rising everywhere from the ground. I envision a future where the entire length of EDSA (equated with traffic) will be canopied by a skyway, while the subway mass transit system will be plying its underground routes. With bad, undisciplined drivers, though, no road will ever be enough for a booming can-afford-a-car middle class.

I wonder why, as we build more massive malls in the Metro, the number of people who congest them, patronize their signature shops, and fill their restaurants and movie houses increases. Where are these people coming from?

Condominium towers that used to be meant for the rich and famous are mushrooming everywhere, and the builders never run out of buyers.

Are Filipinos that wealthy, or are we just becoming newly rich with the young and the restless leading the race to a good life in the first century of the third millennium? I wonder…! Let no bad ‘next’ president spoil your dreams. Let’s keep racing to the stars…

BONI (Mandaluyong)

(picture taken from the 8th floor of Shangri-La's parking)

Pasay City Skyline

(Megaworld/Resort World)

picture taken at NAIA 1

Bonifacio Global City (BGC)

Pasay City Skyline viewed from SMDC office - MOA

Manila Roxas Boulevard (picture taken from MOA)

MAKATI CITY

https://www.amazon.com/Nosca-Khalid/e/B01NA7APYQ

AWESOME “gif”

The format that gives life to still picture…

If there is one place to find beautiful GIFs; it’s g+ because Google among many giant tech companies enables its websites including g-mail to see pictures in live GIF format. You can g-mail a GIF to a friend and receive it live. It is how I copy/download a gif to my disc by simply sharing it to my g-mail.

Escape from Mecca | Inquirer Opinion

Whoever wrote this article did not know what he was talking

about. He is probably not a Muslim, and if he is, he probably did not make the

Hajj and saw that the multibillion-dollar government has spent and continues to

spend to develop the places of the Hajj ritual to make the journey safe and

comfortable. The present expansion of the Holy Mosque is worth 22 billion

dollars, including the matrix of subway under the city, slated to be completed in

2020.

To even suggest that Islam should allow pilgrimage to other

holy sites in other countries to decongest Mecca during the annual pilgrimage is

blasphemy because there is one and only one first house of worship built by the Prophet

Abraham and his son Ishmael, and that is the ‘Kaaba.’

You cannot compare the time when pilgrims came by donkeys, camels

and steamships to today’s means of modern transport, and with the growing affluence

of Muslims around the planet, not to mention the mind-blowing rise of Islam in

numbers – the number of pilgrims will continue to grow immensely.

The only way you can stop the rising number of pilgrims is

to uproot the ‘Kaaba’ and bring it to the moon, because then, not many will be

able to make the pilgrimage, but given time, even the moon will be overwhelmed. It is better to

believe it!

Please read the whole article:

Escape from Mecca | Inquirer Opinion:

SNIP:

Even when faced with calamitous death tolls, the Saudi establishment is unlikely to change its approach. It is up to the rest of the Muslim world to provide alternatives to the modern idea, championed by Saudi Wahhabis and other arch-conservatives, that Mecca is the inexorable and inevitable center of the Muslim world. There is nothing stopping Muslim governments from taking a page out of the Saudi handbook and promoting the neglected shrines in their own territories.

Doing so would not only reduce the number of pilgrims traveling to Mecca, making the visits safer; it would also force Saudi Arabia to share the enormous profits of religious tourism. Even more important, moving beyond the modern hajj to a more plural pattern of pilgrimage could help stem the Wahhabi takeover of the faith.

'via Blog this'

CNN: the ISIS is an American Babe…huh! What else is new?

After you watch this 2 minute CNN report, I beg you to look back at the time when ISIS forces were cutting people's necks on television, nailing Muslims and Christians on the cross, and slaughtering people in the streets; you will realize that - your Muslim friends who keep telling you that these are mercenaries trained, armed and paid for by the USA are...right!

“The biggest risk that comes from the Russian operation is an accidental conflict or accidental skirmish with the US-led ISIS coalition.”

President Putin: "WHO CREATED ISIS…?"

PUTIN TELLS EVERYONE EXACTLY WHO CREATED "ISIS"

SNIP

One threat Obama mentioned is ISIS, but who armed them…?

Who armed the Syrians that were fighting with Assad…?

Do you really understand who is fighting in Syria? They are mercenaries. They fight for money. They fight for whoever pays more. Then they occupy the Oil Fields. They extract the oil, which is then purchased by someone. Do you think the USA is unaware of who is buying it?

We want to support civilized democratic opposition in Syria, so you help them, arm them, and tomorrow they join ISIS.

Look at Iraq – the situation is terrible. Look at Libya, and what you did there that got your ambassador murdered.

Was it us that did this?

You even had a No-Fly-Zone. What for? It was so that Gaddafi’s Air Force couldn’t fly over and bomb the rebels. It wasn’t the wisest decision, but okay. What did you proceed to do yourselves? You started bombing the territory. It is contradictory to the UN Security Council Resolution. It is even an outright aggression against a state. Was it us that did this? You did this with your bare hands, and it ended with the murder of your ambassador. Whose fault is it? It is your fault. Is it a good result that your ambassador was murdered? It is a catastrophe, but don’t blame others when you're the one making these mistakes. 

HILARIOUS ANIMAL "gif"

The Graphics Interchange Format (better known by its acronym GIF /ˈdʒɪf/ or /ˈɡɪf/) is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its broad support and portability.

If there is one place to find beautiful GIFs, it’s Google+, as the company, along with many other giant tech companies, enables its websites, including Gmail, to display pictures in live GIF format. You can email a GIF to a friend and receive it live. I copy/download a GIF to my disc by simply sharing it with my Gmail.

Nishreen – a 6th grader intellectual rebel…

Nishreen is utterly bored with school. In one of our “Kakaotalk” chats: “Why can’t people believe that I want to be an astronaut? I want to mix and tinker with things. I want to be a scientist. They teach you things at school that you already know. I am bored to death – I just want to stay in bed!”

She probably expected something new and exciting in 6th grade, so during the first long examination, she perfected 4 of her 8 subjects. However, she realized that 6th grade was no different. She lost interest again, which led to these hilarious incidents that kept me laughing at work long after our chat. 

The K to 12 (K12) is a big mistake. The world has changed in a way that truly boggles the mind – the money would have been better spent on overhauling our system of education. Technology has accelerated learning in a way that what took me 4 years of high school will probably take my daughter a year to learn. “Class, our subject today is Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. Open your tablets and cell phones and search on YouTube. An animation of Einstein himself will teach you his special relativity.” For 4 years of high school and 4 years of college, I didn’t understand Einstein’s special theory of relativity, but in minutes – my daughter can understand it on YouTube. In medical college, we spent months on the cadaver, but today, software anatomy in 3D allows you to walk around a hologram of the human body and study the tiniest part of the human body. You learn in days what took us months to learn, so what is the logic behind extending years of education? It's plain stupid.