THE RUB ON 'NATIONAL PROPERTY'

Conrado de Quiros is by far my favorite active columnist. Well, that's kind of a stretch. The fact is, I think his opinions are not very well formulated, and I don't like his writing either. Much of his appeal, it seems to me, is due to his rhetoric-over-substance approach to issues.

We could overlook that his brother was recently appointed by our great idol and Kris' only brother

NO SENSE OF SHAME

Been out of commission for a while.

No loss.

Out of all the emotions a Filipino ought to feel about last week's hostage crisis involving an ex-cop and several Hong Kong tourists, the one most inappropriate would be shame.

PROTECT US, O GOVERNMENT

It never fails that whenever a disaster or accident happens, much fingerpointing and proposals for future prevention are made, and then die off in a couple of weeks' time. While there is much ado at present about last week's Benguet bus crash that killed 42 people, the heartfelt rhetoric is soon going to give in to indifference and mere whining about how the government isn't doing enough.

HACIENDA LUISITA: FAILURE OF CAPITALISM

It's pretty much taken for granted that the Hacienda Luisita issue is an example of capitalists oppressing the poor. Because this is a given, most discussions focus instead on what would be an equitable deal.

However, if we do find out that Hacienda Luisita is the opposite of capitalism, this would have implications as to what would constitute 'social justice,' which incidentally is a favorite buzzword when it comes to poverty-related issues.

NOYNOY THREATENS PAL WITH A, *gasp*, FREE MARKET

You can tell that times are messed up when the idea of free association is used as a threat against an entity. Yet this is exactly what our idol, Noynoy! Noynoy! Noynoy! (NNN) is doing

USING PICTURES; Extra: Comments on 12-year-education, $10-B purchase of PAGCOR, Ninoy celebration date

It has been suggested for me to use pictures in my blog, to distract my readers from the dullness of the appearance of my blog, which really does look like a rag (albeit a colorful one).

'PUBLIC' FRANCHISES AS SLAVERY

In my previous post, I noted how government franchises were barriers to entry that made for lower quality of goods and services. In this entry, we get to see how franchises make for slavery, or at least make apparent the slavishness that government implies.