girlboracay

i will tell you, although if you are reading my blog you already know this, at least those awareness enabled stumblers... this fight poverty stuff makes a lot of non-profits a lot of money. did you really think they are going to tell you the truth and go out of business! my contacts in thailand paint a picture of all the do-gooders there just doing their pocket books good with large ngo grants to fight a number of diseases that they supply the data on. oy!

MICROLENDING DOESNT REALLY FIGHT POVERTY

Billions of dollars and a Nobel Prize later, it looks like microlending doesnâ€t really fight poverty:

[T]wo new research papers suggest that microcredit is not nearly the powerful tool it has been made out to be. The papers, by leading development economists affiliated with MITâ€s Jameel Poverty Action Lab, have not yet been published, but they are already being called the most thorough, careful studies yet done on the topic. What they find is that, by most measures, microcredit does not offer a way out of poverty. It helps a few of the more entrepreneurial poor to start up businesses, and at the margins it may boost the profits of existing microenterprises, but that doesnâ€t translate into gains for the borrowers, as measured by indicators like income, spending, health, or education. In fact, most microcredit clients actually spend their borrowed money not on a business, but on household expenses, on paying off other debts or on a relatively big-ticket item like a TV or a daughterâ€s wedding. And while microcredit champions point to microloans as a tool for empowering women, the studies see no impact on gender roles, and find evidence that if any one group benefits more, itâ€s male entrepreneurs with existing businesses."

From the page: "He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattanâs Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.

mmigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.

Paul Lee, a longtime resident of Chinatown, near his home on Mott Street. He said that Cantonese may be a dying language.

Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.

The change can be heard in the neighborhoods lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it could bring as Chinas influence grows in the world.

But the eclipse of Cantonese " in New York, China and around the world " has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa. "

Our friend Jeffroger of DiningCebu.com emailed me last week about a new restaurant which opened just recently in Asiatown IT Park. Jeff revealed that the restaurant, called Out of Africa, is actually owned by a friend. And me and Line's names came up when his friend asked him to taste some of the restaurant's dishes and maybe blog about the experience. So, I told Line about the invite and, as expected, she said yes. A good friend once told me about this particular restaurant and he said that I should definitely give it a try. I was quite intrigued, so I did a little research myself. I found out that the restaurant serves exotic dishes. And by exotic, I mean `crocodile, ostrich, wild boar, deer, and venison' exotic. It's quite big for me because I happen to have taste buds that reject anything that doesn't taste like it's cooked by my mother. Hahaha. Well, it was still a mighty good opportunity that I couldn't turn my back on. After all, I don't eat buaya every day. Haha.

Here at The Parkmall, Out Of Africa BBQ Steakhouse is one fun food rendezvous to consider if you're the daring type.
Later on in the story, we will be talking about their more exotic offerings. But just so we don't alienate some of you folks who are, say, more conservative when it comes to their food choices: we've got great news. They serve "regular" food here. Pork ribs maybe? Well, they've got that covered. In fact, their Roarin' Rack of Ribs is one of their bestsellers.

South African cuisine revolves around "both being spicy and fruity," says Ian Fort, their in-house chef. That description of what you would expect of South African food is best exemplified by this dish: the Venison Potjeikos (or simply, deer meat stew).

Perfect with lemon peanut rice, this bowlful brags of a rich flavor. Imagine: the Shitake mushrooms in this one complements with the pineapple bits and carrot chunks--an unusual combination. But in the end, after prepared and simmered with beer, red wine, and the venison chunks, everything meets up in a perfect marriage.

The ostrich steak tasted fine and was done medium well. This is a good alternative to try out besides beef or pork.

Finally, there's the Crocodile Trio up last: the Crocodile Sisig, Crocodile Salpicao and Crocodile Adobo.

For the record, the place has legally accomplished all requirements with regard to selling such exotic meats and even gets their products from the two only officially recognized suppliers in the country.

My favorite among the three would be the sisig. It's not that far-off from pork, but the fat content is far lesser in this one. (Be not alarmed, they do not use the head for the sisig, but instead, the tail part). The salpicao is a comfort treat--smothered in sweet sauce. And the adobo stays true to what you would expect of a normal adobo dish.

What binds together, not only these three crocodile dishes, but also everything on their menu as well is that, they add their special African herbs and spices. It is a special mixture of 10 different elements, which recipe and ratio is kept secret under lock and key.

This place also features a function room that can sit 45 persons. The interior is well thought of and adds nicely to the safari theme and feel of the whole place. The second floor has got even a 100-year-old antique bar from Africa or a life-size replica of the biggest rhino ever to walk this planet.

In the end, as you're about to dine out and try something new, allow me to quote a pop song we all might be familiar with: "Hakuna matata, it means no worries, for the rest of your days.

It's a problem free, philosophy... Hakuna matata." Enjoy your meal.

On String sensitivity: I understand that young people who currently work on string theory probably feel that they work under an undue burden, placed upon them by the original hype associated with the remarkable results in the mid 1980's, which has continued and sometimes escalated since. I also understand that they may be entranced with various aspects of the ideas that have been developed. That is fine. But it simply is not yet on a par-in almost any sense-with any of the other significant, successful, and well-defined theoretical and experimental developments in physics in the past century. That is neither a bad nor a good thing; it is a fact. And relating one's own excitement is fine, and good, but it should be tempered with a dose of realism, especially when discussing things to a popular audience, which cannot discern science from pseudoscience in general, much less the finer details of particle physics.

It is bad for science to give the impression that we know more than we do. Moreover, I hope this explains some of the sensitivity of others who do not work on string theory - namely, there are truly great and wonderful developments in theoretical and experimental physics that have simply been far more important and successful at describing nature and which have, in addition, led to technological advances. There have also been concrete discoveries, like dark energy, that are astounding and about which we currently have no clear understanding, so that other areas where we may have little understanding, such as the inconsistencies between GR and quantum mechanics, while important, are perhaps not the most overpowering immediate concerns.

On Extra Dimensions: I continue to remain neutral, if skeptical, here. While the notion of large undetectable extra dimensions is fascinating, and the fact that they can exist and have remained undetected is really fascinating, my own impressions, based on my understanding of particle physics data, is that they don't smell right as a solution of the hierarchy problem. The apparent unification of couplings, large top quark mass, etc, provide at least suggestive evidence to me that there really is a large scale involved in unification, and also that supersymmetry seems to be suggested at some level. The research I did for my new book also made me frankly more skeptical from a theoretical perspective as well; namely, if I think about what the ground state of M-theory might be, the likelihood of some single, relatively isolated, relatively flat brane on which we live existing embedded in a higher dimensional and large space, seems unlikely to me. But we shall see.

Bleaching:
ggirl21:
"urine itself has actually been used as a bleaching agent for centuries -- perhaps millenia. This fact may make more sense when you consider that both bleach and urine are strongly alkali and that both have the ability to dissolve or disintegrate biological material (seen Tanning, above. Nonetheless, most modern folks balk at adding fresh urine to the laundry machine ("But won't it make the clothes stinky?"), although they are quite confident about pouring nasty smelling, caustic bleach in with the wash.

But of course it is not the stink that makes urine a good bleach. It's the ammonia."

excellent intro to cosmology for the intelligent layperson.

"A Universe from nothing"

Krauss is the author of many bestselling books on Physics and Cosmology, including "The Physics of Star Trek."

If you've ever wanted to answer that annoying question, "how could the Universe have formed from nothing", then watch this video.

Lawrence Krauss is funny, informative, and if you watch the entire video (it's over an hour long, so you might need to pause it a few times), he will blow your mind. Lawrence seems like a pretty cool guy.

There was a time, not so long ago," when most researchers assumed "that any and all activity would be beneficial for bone health," says Dr. Daniel W. Barry, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, at Denver, and a researcher who has studied the bones of the elderly and of athletes. Then came a raft of unexpected findings, some showing that competitive swimmers had lower-than-anticipated bone density, others that, as an earlier Phys Ed column pointed out, competitive cyclists sometimes had fragile bones and, finally, some studies suggesting, to the surprise of many researchers, that weight lifting did not necessarily strengthen bones much. In one representative study from a few years ago, researchers found no significant differences in the spine or neck-bone densities of young women who did resistance-style exercise training (not heavy weight lifting) and a similar group who did not.

the current state-of-the-science message about exercise and bone building may be that, silly as it sounds, the best exercise is to simply jump up and down, for as long as the downstairs neighbor will tolerate. "Jumping is great, if your bones are strong enough to begin with," Dr. Barry says. "You probably don't need to do a lot either." (If you have any history of fractures or a family history of osteoporosis, check with a physician before jumping.) In studies in Japan, having mice jump up and land 40 times during a week increased their bone density significantly after 24 weeks, a gain they maintained by hopping up and down only about 20 or 30 times each week after that.

If hopping seems an undignified exercise regimen, bear in mind that it has one additional benefit: It tends to aid in balance, which may be as important as bone strength in keeping fractures at bay. Most of the time, Dr. Barry says, "fragile bones don't matter, from a clinical standpoint, if you don't fall down."

Then came a raft of unexpected findings, some showing that competitive swimmers had lower-than-anticipated bone density, others that, as an earlier Phys Ed column pointed out, competitive cyclists sometimes had fragile bones and, finally, some studies suggesting, to the surprise of many researchers, that weight lifting did not necessarily strengthen bones much.

An emerging scientific consensus seems to be, he says, that "large forces released in a relatively big burst" are probably crucial. The bone, he says, "needs a loud signal, coming fast." For most of us, weight lifting isn't explosive enough to stimulate such bone bending. Neither is swimming. Running can be, although for unknown reasons, it doesn't seem to stimulate bone building in some people.