'Offensive comments' tops reasons Facebook users delete friends

These days, having a relationship with someone on Facebook can mean as much as having one in "real life." So adding and subtracting people from your list is an emotional process that can often require some careful consideration, and possibly even some soul-searching. But why do Facebook users add some people, delete other people, and leave some off the list, in the first place?

The answer isn't actually quite shocking. According to a new study from NM Incite, a company owned by research firm Nielsen McKinsey, actually knowing someone in offline (real life) is the No. 1 reason users add someone to their friends list. Posting "offensive comments" is the primary factor in people hitting "delete." Surprised?

Here are a few more, perhaps more interesting, tidbits: The average Facebook user has 130 friends. Men use Facebook primarily for networking, and dating, while women use social media "for a creative outlet, for coupon/promos and to give positive feedback," all of which sound incredibly stereotypical — possibly even sexist. Connecting with family and friends is a big reason for using the social network, as is networking and other career-related activities, and entertainment. These are of course, very obvious.

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Symphony of Science ~ A Glorious Dawn

"A Glorious Dawn" was crafted from sampling of Carl Sagan's 1980 PBS Documentary Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's 1997 PBS cosmology documentary series Stephen Hawking's Universe.

The music video centers around Cosmology; bringing the thought that one day, humans will venture to the stars, providing we do not destroy ourselves.

Featuring: Carl Sagan (1934-1996) and Stephen Hawkings; two of the world's most brilliant scientists.

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Gloria Arroyo's House Arrest Request Denied!

Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

Manila, Philippines - The local court, Pasay Regional Trial Court, denied on Wednesday former president Gloria Arroyo's request for house arrest during the holiday season, in which she plans to celebrate Christmas at home.

Instead, Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) branch 112 allowed Mrs. Arroyo's "immediate family" to visit her at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) from December 24 to 12 noon on December 26, and on December 31 to 12 noon on January 2.

Mrs. Arroyo has been under hospital arrest since being arrested on charges of electoral sabotage in connection with alleged cheating in the 2007 elections.

The court also allowed her access to Television and Radio, but she's still not permitted to use Cellphones, Laptops, telephone, and other means of communication.

"For security reasons, hindi pumayag ang korte sa motion nila for a Christmas furlough. Naalala niyo naman nung linipat siya from St. Luke's to VMMC nagkagulo, so ayaw na nating maulit yon [the court did not allow their motion for a Christmas furlough. If you remember, when she was transferred from St. Luke's to VMMC, there was a commotion and we don't want that to happen again]," said court legal researcher Felda Domingo.

In the same decision, the court allowed Mrs. Arroyo one hour of sunlight everyday in the morning, to get some fresh air and to visit the VMMC chapel.

Her request for a television and radio in her hospital room was also granted by the court.

However, Judge Mupas denied Arroyo's motion for the use of a cellphone and laptop. Domingo said this is a "closed issue," and only the former president's counsel will be allowed to bring electronic communication gadgets inside Mrs. Arroyo's suite at the VMMC.

A Malacañang spokesperson, meanwhile, said the court's decision is fair.

"We have always maintained that there should be no special treatment accorded to CGMA and that arrangements should be made with due respect to her condition," Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

It is also worth noting that a few days ago, it was reported that Judge Mupas rejected a Christmas gift allegedly from the Topacio Law Office. Atty. Topacio is one of Gloria Arroyo's lawyers.

The small box was delivered by a lady to the guest room of Mupas on Monday afternoon.

Staff of the judge politely told the messenger to return the gift to its sender.

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NASA's point of view behind the Sendong disaster

Courtesy of NASA-JAXA TRMM

The tropical storm "Sendong" (storm Washi) is believed to have been caused by a combination of poor warnings, deforestation, and weak construction in southern Philippine areas hit by the storm.

This was the assessment made by a joint US-Japanese scientific project that also measured the amount of rainfall dumped by the tropical storm in the Visayas and Mindanao.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or simply TRMM, a joint project between the US National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), said Sendong dumped as much as more than 400 millimeters of rainwater over Mindanao's northwest coast.

"It was here in places like Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City that the most devastating mudslides occurred," the TRRM report said.

It added that most of the heavy rain was reported to have fallen over the mountains before flowing down in raging rivers.

In comparison to Sendong, storm Ondoy, the storm that also caused massive floods in the Philippines back in 2009, dumped around 459mm of rainfall in Metro Manila when it hit the metropolis, according to measurements taken by state weather bureau PAGASA (Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration).

PAGASA gets flak

PAGASA has received flak for its alleged failure to give proper warnings to communities in Sendong's track, including an allegation made by weather bloggers that the weather bureau announced to the public that a storm was headed in less than 24 hours before its forecast landfall.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council's (NDRRMC) first public advisory on Sendong, which was issued 11 a.m. on December 15, also showed a PAGASA tracking map stating that the storm won't hit Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro.

The next NDRRMC severe weather bulletin issued 5 p.m. of the same day showed a revised PAGASA tracking map, with the two cities on the storm's path.

PAGASA also raised storm warnings the same afternoon.

The storm made landfall mid-afternoon the following day, then struck Malaybalay before devastating Cagayan de Oro and Iligan in the middle of the night.

The resulting flashflood has killed 976 people, as of latest NDRRMC count on Wednesday morning. Dozens remain missing, while damage to properties is approaching P1 billion.

Storm Warnings

The Palace and the NDRRMC have cleared PAGASA of any fault, saying the agency gave warnings even days before the storm stuck.

Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Undersecretary Manuel L. Quezon III showed the media copies of SMS advisories on the storm that PAGASA sent to Malacañang.

"We have been getting updates since December 14 via text," he said.

One SMS sent to the Palace on 12:46 p.m. of December 14 by senior PAGASA official Robert Sawi said: "The tropical depression over the Pacific is estimated at 1,480 km E of Mindanao with maximum winds of 55 kph. It is moving west at 19 kph and is expected to enter PAR by tomorrow morning. It will start affecting Visayas and Mindanao on Friday. This may trigger floods and landslides. Please take all the necessary precautionary measures. FYI. TY."

The SMS advisories, however, did not contain information on the storm's rainfall amount.

PAGASA continued to relay to the Palace its updates on the storm.

Quezon said the same weather alerts were sent to the NDRRMC, the Philippine Information Agency, and the Radyo ng Bayan (National Radio).

"As I was told in Butuan, many PIA regional offices work with Radyo ng Bayan to send alerts and do SMS alerts too," he said.

Quezon said the Palace is preparing a comprehensive timeline on the disaster.

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Aquino orders new ARMM chief to 'Stop illegal logging'

President Benigno Aquino III and Mujiv Hataman,
Malacañang, Republic of the Philippines.

Iligan City, Philippines - President Aquino has ordered newly appointed Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) officer-in-charge Mujiv Hataman to stop illegal logging in the provinces under his jurisdiction.

Mr. Aquino revealed his order on Tuesday before more than a hundred Iligan City residents that gathered in a high school gym to meet him in the aftermath of the devastation brought by Tropical Storm Sendong.

President Aquino said stopping illegal logging would prevent flashfloods that killed hundreds in Mindanao over the past weekend.

In a command conference earlier on Tuesday morning in Cagayan de Oro, President Aquino said he has formed a fact-finding team that would look into ways how to improve the existing systems and prevent a repeat of the huge amount of deaths caused by Sendong.

Hataman imposes log ban in ARMM

The newly appointed Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, ordered a total ban on logging in the region, heeding the first instruction that he received from President Benigno Aquino III.

Hataman said in a phone interview that his administration would cancel and review all permits to log issued by previous administrations in the region.

Holders of logging permits in ARMM would have to reapply but Hataman said he doubted any permit to log would be issued during his 17-month term as officer in charge.

Hataman said his priority was to advance "greening" programs that would bring back to life denuded forests in ARMM.

Mr. Aquino gave the instruction to Hataman after seeing for himself the destruction in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan Cities brought by Tropical Storm 'Sendong' but which was believed to have been aggravated by the effects of logging.

Previous bans

The President announced the war on logging before, at least 100 residents of Iligan gathered in a school gym during his visit to the city.

A ban on logging, however, was not new in ARMM.

In March last year, ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo said Ansaruddin Adiong, then acting governor, had all logging permits canceled in Maguindanao, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Sulu and Lanao del Sur.

Adiong gave the order after environment officials noted a sharp decline in the region's forest cover to just more than 50,000 hectares.

Four years before Adiong, former Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan also banned logging in ARMM. Ampatuan is now in jail for the 2009 massacre of at least 58 people in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

In March 2006, Ampatuan declared a total logging ban and the announcement was made by Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, then ARMM solicitor general.

Ampatuan also stripped the regional environment office of authority to issue logging permits and timber licenses under Regional Memorandum Order No. 135.

"All shipments of logs from any part of the ARMM to any destination, whether in other parts of Mindanao, in the Visayas and Luzon are now prohibited. Violators will be dealt with accordingly," Guiani-Sayadi had said at that time.

The order has not been amended.

On a recent aerial survey conducted by the authorities, the logs that came along with the flashflood came from Lanao del Sur. The authorities found some lumber yards in the area, numerous logs scattered by the flood, and deforested portions of mountains, which is believed to have aggravated the disaster.

Carabao Logging

On the same day Mr. Aquino ordered him to stop illegal logging in the ARMM, Hataman said among the activities he would stop is carabao logging, so called because loggers use carabaos to transport their haul out of the forests.

"I was informed by Task Force Ranao commander Col. (Daniel) Lucero that the deluge (in Iligan City) came down from the mountains of Lanao because there are no more trees. The waters easily flowed toward rivers. Somebody must answer for this," said Hataman.

Survivors have reported seeing people smashed to death by logs during floods brought by Sendong in Iligan City, which lies below the mountains of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte.

The day after the floods, hundreds of timber lay along the beaches and river banks of Iligan and nearby areas.

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Syrian forces accused of machine-gunning hundreds of deserting soldiers

Protesters demonstrate against Bashar al-Assad in Homs.

According to a news from The Telegraph, Syrian forces have been accused of perpetrating one of the deadliest massacres of the country's nine-month uprising after scores of soldiers were gunned down by machine-gun fire as they attempted a mass desertion.

The dramatic breakout from an army base in northern Syria could have been a pivotal moment in the growing rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, the country's president. Instead it ended in disaster and bloodshed.

Throwing down an unprecedented challenge to his regime, hundreds of soldiers at an encampment in Idlib province made a desperate scramble for freedom on Monday. Their intention, according to opposition forces, was to make a dash for the Turkish border to join the Syrian Free Army, a rebel force made up of fellow defectors.

But the plan was either ill-judged or loyalist forces were too prepared.

As they ran, volley after volley of machinegun fire was aimed at their retreating backs. At least 60 were killed. Those who managed to escape were mercilessly hunted down yesterday.

Loyalist soldiers surrounded the deserters in the countryside between two villages, picking them off one by one in an intense firefight that raged for much of the day.

"After clashes that broke out this morning with the regular army, 100 deserters were besieged then killed or wounded between the villages of Kafruwed and al-Fatira," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The army also surrounded dozens of civilians and activists suspected of giving succour to the deserters. The Observatory appealed to the Arab League to intervene immediately to prevent a massacre.

An advance team of Arab League monitors arrived in Damascus on Tuesday on a mission to observe the Assad regime's implementation of a peace plan which calls for the withdrawal of the Syrian army to barracks and the launching of negotiations with the opposition.

But with up to 50 civilians reportedly killed by the security forces in the past two days, Mr. Assad's government has shown little inclination of ending the violence. It insists that the country is facing a rebellion by "terrorist" groups taking their orders from unspecified foreign powers.

State media reported on Tuesday that a law came into effect imposing the death penalty on anyone arming "terrorists."

More than 5,000 civilians have been killed since the uprising began in March, the vast majority of them unarmed protesters, according to human rights groups.

But in recent months, the government has also faced growing armed resistance from defectors within the armed forces who have recoiled at the bloodshed they have been asked to inflict on Mr. Assad's opponents.

The defectors have coalesced under the command of Col. Riad al-Asaad, a former air force officer, who leads the Free Syrian Army from a base along the Syrian-Turkish border.

The rebels claim to have more than 10,000 fighters within their ranks, a member many observers say is probably exaggerated.

Even so, the group has shown itself to be increasingly potent, launching a series of ambushes on Syrian army convoys, although this month it agreed to limit itself to protecting civilians at the urging of the country's main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council.

The Assad regime has taken draconian but effective measures to staunch the flow of defections. According to opposition sources, battalions have been split up in an effort to ensure that soldiers from the same villages or towns do not serve alongside each other.

Only strangers are allowed to share barracks, while conversations in groups are strictly prohibited. Soldiers have also had their mobile telephones confiscated.

The policy is designed to ensure loyalty among the rank and file of the army, which, like the bulk of the protest movement, is mainly drawn from Syria's Sunni Arab majority. The officer class is overwhelmingly drawn from President Assad's Alawite Shia minority and is considered unshakeably loyal.

Until this week, the strategy has proved largely successful in preventing the 200,000-strong armed forces from disintegrating. The regime will hope that the ferocity with which the attempted desertions were suppressed will, the regime hopes, serve as a chilling warning to other units contemplating doing the same.

Source: The Telegraph

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Syria signs law imposing dealth penalty on those arming 'terrorists'

Soldiers of the Free Syrian Army, formed by army deserters,
take up positions in an undisclosed location in Syria.
Credit: Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/AFP/Getty Images

The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has signed into effect a law imposing the death penalty on anyone arming "terrorists", according to state media amid mounting clashes with rebel troops.

"The law provides for the death penalty for anyone providing weapons or helping to provide weapons intended for the carrying out of terrorist acts," the official SANA news agency said.

The decree also imposes life imprisonment with hard labor for arms smuggling "for profit or to carry out acts of terrorism," and 15 years' hear labor for arms smuggling for other purposes.

The Syrian authorities contend that protests raging since March are the work of "armed terrorists" not civilian demonstrators as maintained by Western governments and human rights groups.

The UN General Assembly on Monday overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning human rights abuses during the authorities' crackdown on the protests, which the world body says has left more than 5,000 people dead.

It comes as Syria was accused of engaging in a time-buying ruse on Monday after it agreed to allow the Arab League to send observers into the country, temporarily averting a threat by regional powers to refer Damascus to the UN Security Council.

The body of Tamer Mutlaq is carried in a coffin through the
streets of Homs. Credit: AP

After weeks of equivocation, the Syrian government formally signed a protocol permitting the deployment of 500 Arab League monitors tasked with monitoring the implementation of a peace plan meant to end months of deadly violence in the country.

Walid al-Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, hailed the beginning of a new era of "cooperation" between his government and the Arab League but few observers held out much hope that the apparent breakthrough would end the bloodshed.

President Bashar al-Assad has on several occasions promised to abide by the terms of the Arab League's peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of all army troops from the streets of Syrian cities and the beginning of negotiations with the opposition.

But he has shown little appetite for implementing the terms of the deal, with Syria's security forces accused of carrying out atrocities on a daily basis. More than 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in the past month alone, bringing the overall civilian death toll since the beginning of the uprising in March to at least 5,000, according to the United Nations.

Mr. Assad's intransigence has angered the Arab League, which has responded by suspending Syria's membership and imposing economic sanctions.

A still taken from an amateur video of soldiers walking down
the street in Daraa, Syria.

The Assad regime had made several verbal promises to allow observers into Syria, only to erect numerous obstacles to their deployment that the bloc saw as unacceptable.

Its climb-down yesterday came two days before the expiry of another Arab League deadline to accept the monitors. Qatar, which leads the bloc's Syria monitoring group, had threatened to refer Damascus to the Security Council if it failed to comply, paving the way for possible UN sanctions against Mr. Assad and his ministers.

Russia and China have so far blocked Security Council resolutions on Syria, but any initiative backed by the Arab League would have been harder for them to resist, observers say.

Despite the regime's apparent change of heart, Syria's main opposition coalition warned that Mr. Assad had no intention of ending the violence.

"The Syrian regime is maneuvering to try to prevent the Syrian file being submitted to the UN Security Council," said Burhan Ghaliun, leader of the Syrian National Council. "This is just a ploy. They have no intention of implementing any initiative."

How much independent access the observers will be given to Syria's most restive cities remains far from clear.

While Mr. Moallem promised they would be "free" he also insisted that they would operate "under the protection of the Syrian government." He also predicted that the mission would vindicate the regime's insistence that it was fighting a "terrorist" insurgency.

"These are many countries in the world who don't wish to admit the presence of terrorist armed groups in Syria," he said. "They will come and see that they are present. We must not be afraid at all."

In an effort to shore up its authority, the government organized a large loyalist demonstration in central Damascus.

Opposition protesters who gathered elsewhere in the capital came under fire. At least two were killed, with more than 10 deaths reported yesterday across Syria.

Observers said there was little chance of Mr. Assad ordering his troops off the street, a move that could well trigger mass demonstrations, increasing pressure on the president to resign. At the same time, he is facing a growing armed rebellion, with army defectors clashing with the security forces and loyalist militiamen on an increasingly frequent basis.

A senior rebel officer claimed that the government was planning to execute 21 opposition fighters imminently, a move that would raise tensions significantly.

While the Arab League has won praise in the West for its robust response to Syria's crisis, the bloc's actions were dismissed as a "joke" yesterday by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

"Some regional countries, which have never held an election, have come together to pass resolutions against another country, saying: 'why don't you hold an election'?" he said.

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