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(long overdue blog entry but found time to post it here now. This now appears as an article at PATAS.CO, Why We Need a National Space Agency? | Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society (PATAS). The entire text is actually too long to post here as a blog entry, so I will only post an excerpt. You can read the entire article via the link)
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The mid-1990’s arrived and ...

If there is one truth we all know and can agree with, no matter what our ideologies and beliefs are, is that everything seems to be in a state of impermanence. Thus, one's life is in a constant state of flux. That being said, I want you to appreciate and enjoy whatever 'good' I show or bring to you, at this moment in time. I want you to appreciate and enjoy whatever kindness other people may give you, whether it be genuine or even if wrapped in the sly cloak of vested interest. Treasure that which ...

Today, during one of my dome lecture sessions at a high school in Mandug, Davao City, I overheard kids laughing and pointing at some of their classmates and ridiculing them that they are "ignorant" while I was playing around with some features of the planetarium.

So when my lecture began, instead of starting off with my usual talk on the position of the sun in the sky, I had to pause for a bit and started to tell the kids about ignorance.

I told them, you ...

Going around schools in General Santos City, Koronadal City, Tacurong City, and Esperanza (which was just a few kilometers down the road where the Maguindanao Massacre occurred) these past few weeks, while on our "astronomy tour", I noticed differences between public and private schools, and perhaps the one glaring observation that floated to the top was on cleanliness.

Yesterday we were at a public school, and the "gym" (actually a covered court with covered bleachers) ...

As the last of the animated and wild-eyed kids made their way out through the cave-like entrance of our inflatable mobile planetarium (which incidentally, looks like a giant vulva--yes, THAT vulva--when you look at it from the outside), I let out a sigh, partly of relief, but also one of fulfillment and satisfaction.



The day before, over five hundred elementary kids entered our planetarium ...

This event will be on Monday, May 21, 2012 early morning, here in the Philippines.

a) This will be an ANNULAR eclipse, meaning at the moment the moon crosses the front of the sun, it won't cover it completely and thus a ring will form in the sky. Now, you might think "Well, there's ALWAYS a ring formed around the sun in solar eclipses that are not annular or total...yes but that ring is formed by the corona, and NOT the actual surface of the sun. The reason why the ring this ...

I was on my way home after grabbing a bite when my head poked a hole through a thick puff of smoke exhaled by a smoker on the sidewalk. I coughed briefly for a few seconds and shot an angry glance at the man who nonchalantly kept on puffing off his stick. I shrugged and went on. I never really have that much of a grudge against smokers, perhaps due to the fact that I was once a smoker myself, and smoked for over 9 years before deciding to quit in 1997. I never smoked again. But sometimes I do get ...