Stuff around the net

I've been busy posting elsewhere: On sicklecell anemia and Thalassemia on my Xanga blog, and a medical discussion of Doctor Watson's limp on BNN.

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StrategyPage discuses the minor war by the Moros agaist Malaysia. 

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 Professor Podles worries that a third world bishop as Pope will result in an emphasis on helping the poor, allowing the sociopaths in the Vatican and in the bishop's bureaucracies to continue to cover up abuse while eyes are looking elsewhere.

An infamous example of this was Los Angeles' Cardinal Mahoney, whose cover ups were widely known in the Catholic laity but ignored by the press who loved him for his support of immigrants and other liberal causes.

On the other hand, the main reason for sexual abuse of children in the third world is poverty, which pushes women and children into the sex trade (see this 1996 CNN article on sex tourism in the Philippines).


In other words, why worry if Father has a girlfriend when the present administration, which touts itself as being anti corruption, touts a new casino complex as progress?

Presumably those gamblers won't need nighttime companions from the local girls or street kids, or recreational medications during their stay: it's about gambling with nickle slot machines while making jobs for locals, right? And the casino was built without any gifts or kickbacks to the local politicians, so why worry about it?

and a 2012 article on corruption in the gambling casino businesses here.
This PhilStar article on the new casino complex.


And, unlike Las Vegas, where the mob tended to spread around the wealth, here all the money is kept by the elite families, who also run the government: From StrategyPage:

The government anti-corruption campaign has made the concentration of wealth in the Philippines an issue. Forty families control 76 percent of the economy (by GDP) and tend to discourage newcomers. This involves a lot of corruption and promises by members of the 40 families (who dominate politics and usually the presidency) to end the corruption (and put cousins in jail to do so). This concentration of wealth is common in the region but is most extreme in the Philippines. For example, the top 40 families control 33.7 percent of wealth in Thailand, 5.6 percent in Malaysia, and 2.8 percent in Japan. The 40 families of the Philippines don’t like all this attention because they have been responsible for perpetuating the culture of corruption as well and are used to being in charge and largely immune from punishment.

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Instapundit asks:

WHERE IS ADMIRAL GAOUETTE? Here’s a Navy Times story from November 4.
Also: Navy Denies Admiral Removed Over Libya. I don’t know what happened here, but it seems to be another of those things in which the press isn’t interested in doing any digging.

this may have been the first terrorist attack where the Gamers knew a terrorist attack was coming three hours before it happened, but the president didn't realize it was terrorism for several weeks.